Guilty Pleasures, Part 7 – I Heart Muzak

I spend an inordinate amount of time in Pret (sans laptop, as I’d only pour latte into it); one of things I love about the place is the incidental music that's piped into the store (or to use the correct parlance, Muzak). For the most part, it’s a pleasing mash-up of samba, laid back jazz, Vegas lounge and 70s porno movie soundtrack. Intrigued, I asked what it was. “Dunno – we get it from Head Office.” Further enquiries on the Pret website led me nowhere. So there we have it – one of life’s great mysteries: where exactly does the music in Pret come from?

The weird thing about muzak is that it isn’t really designed to be heard, or at the least properly noticed: aural wallpaper, I suppose you’d call it. It’s predominantly designed to create a pleasing ambience in whatever (mostly retail) space it’s used in. Of course, no discussion on ambient music would be complete without a mention of Brian Eno (and in particular David Toop’s book, Ocean of Sound, which contains this immortal line: Anal scents: what was their relation to a cultural shift?). Eno’s best known ambient recordings date from 1978: in the original liner notes, Ambient 1: Music for Airports contained references to Muzak Inc, and was even installed at the Marine Terminal at LaGuardia Airport for a while.

Even though the Ambient series is superb, Eno’s influence in the muzak sphere is vastly overstated. You’re more likely to walk into a department store and hear a recording of clapped out old session musicians murdering Oasis’s Wonderwall than some weighty Eno composition: and to me, that’s half the fun of muzak. It isn’t meant to be all po-faced seriousness, minimalism and heavyweight classical references (I couldn’t imagine going into Pret and sitting down to Gavin Bryars’s The Sinking of the Titanic - great music, but not something to sup your mocha to, unless you’ve got a couple of cyanide tablets to hand); it’s more likely to be Richard Clayderman-inspired piano foppery, or tacky instrumental arrangements of pop standards. And you know something? I love all of it: the more clapped out and cheesy the better.

The best muzak I’ve heard recently is the Beastie Boys album, The In Sound from Way Out, a collection of instrumental music culled from various albums released between 1992-96. Like the soundtrack to my Pret coffee, it’s a collision of influences – jazz, soul, laidback funk – all fed through a peculiarly seventies sensibility. And surprisingly for a bunch of instrumentals it’s funny, and delivered with exactly the right amount of cheese. Even the French sleeve notes are (unintentionally?) demented:

Un des premiers voyageurs de hip hop, il ont connu pour un mix de humeur et style. Avec leur beer swilling et glue sniffing (tactiques Brechtienne) ils ont ecrit leur signature definitive sur le face du rap.

Those crazy French, eh! As above, muzak is best served up without great dollops of silly pretension. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a coffee to finish.

Off on a Tangent, part 18 – Top 10 Basslines

In January/February’s edition of Bass Guitar Magazine (the mag of choice for supra bass nerds everywhere), there was a highly subjective countdown of the ‘40 Best Basslines Ever’. Just to give you a flavour, the most recent entry in the top 10 dated from 1980 (Queen: Another One Bites the Dust – not really my cup of sake, madam). So, to redress the balance, here’s my top 10 (which is also my attempt to win a Trace Elliot 715 combo - hmm, tasty. Send your top 10 to editor@bassguitarmagazine.com and you too could win, but first you got beat this lot – and to be honest, I don’t envy you that job):

Stars and Sons, Broken Social Scene (Charles Spearin) – the first rule of an addictive bassline: ensure that it’s an absolute joy to play. And this is.

Silentland, Material (Bill Laswell) – it’s amazing how little you can make a song out of. Silentland is all clattering, random percussion, a thin, reedy vocal and a busy, harmonic driven bassline that dominates over all else.

Dolores, Slab! (Bill Davies) – to slap or not to slap: that’s the question that has confronted bassists over the last three hundred years. Perhaps there’s something inherently naff about that bright, high in the mix, slappy sound that makes everything sound just too clean, too fresh (there’s no doubt that Mark King is an amazingly talented bassist, but you couldn’t pay me enough to stay in the same postcode as a Level 42 CD). Dolores by Slab! solves this problem with a twin stroke of genius – simply turn up the distortion and make it sound as dirty as you possibly can (coincidentally the criminally underrated Bill Davies is the son of Andrew Davies, the BBC’s adapter-in-chief, although trying to tie this fact into a big, dirty bass sound is probably doomed to failure; however, Slab! did star in an episode of Davis’s A Very Peculiar Practice – perhaps that counts?).

Debaser, Pixies (Kim Deal) – the thing I love about the Pixies is how uninflected their playing is – everything is played straight with no gruesome rock n’ roll flourishes and flashes of spandex so beloved of musicians who just love to show off. There’s no showing off here: four notes are all you need: fer chrissakes, this ain’t feckin’ jazz funk, y’know.

Buoy, Mick Karn (Mick Karn) – nothing screams the 1980s quite so much as the fretless bass, which probably hit its zenith with Mick Karn’s bass playing duties for Japan (when the band reformed as Rain Tree Crow in 1991, Karn’s bass was noticeable by its almost complete absence, allegedly mixed into near-silent oblivion by Sylvian himself). However, when treated with a modicum of restraint and looped backwards, it gives this song a warm, snug cadence. When Sylvian collected twenty years worth of recordings on the retrospective Everything and Nothing, this song shone out like a diamond – and it’s not even one of Dave’s.

Song 2, Blur (Alex James) – Blur’s finest two minutes, entirely driven by a big, dirty bass riff that elbows Graham Coxon’s ineffectual guitar out of its way and stomps all over this song with vicious abandon.

Pure, Siouxsie and the Banshees (Steve Severin) – Steve Severin has never been the most technically gifted of bassists, and most Top 10 lists would pass him by. But who cares? Listening to The Scream again recently, it’s scary to note just how contemporary it all sounds (incredibly, it’s 31 years old this year). Dark, stark and spiky, it’s an album of ideas, and that’s exactly where Severin sits in the scheme of things.

The Perfect Kiss, New Order (Peter Hook) – ignore Bernard Sumner’s amazingly daft lyrics (let’s face it, he’s no Ian Curtis) and concentrate on that bass: there are enough bass lines in this one song to keep a lesser band in business for at least three albums.

Tracy, Mogwai (Dominic Aitchison) – although the touchstone for this song appears to be Sonic Youth’s Providence, there’s no ear bleeding feedback and no 130dB of volume to contend with here. Tracy is essentially one long, lyrical bass line and nothing more.

Moon Over Marin, Dead Kennedys (Klaus Flouride) – you could be forgiven for thinking that most Dead Kennedy’s songs are 60 second 100 mph rants a la In God We Trust (which I love). However, they slow down and loosen up for this, the last track on Plastic Surgery Disasters – that bass sound is raw, loose and bottom heavy, and sounds great.

The Great Rupert

And the prize for the least festive picture/post goes to... Chip! Yay me!

Signing off for Christmas now, but not before I share the most disturbing Christmas movie (or any movie, come to that) ever made. Presenting The Great Rupert, (or A Christmas Wish), starring the late Jimmy Durante. Most of the commentary on this film would have you believe that it’s perfect Christmas fodder, a modest, inoffensive little movie that the whole family can enjoy.

Except that... it isn’t.

The film begins with washed-up vaudeville performer Joe Mahoney playing the accordion and singing a song about "Rupert", while Rupert the squirrel (dressed in a plaid kilt) dances on a table.

There’s no doubt that the blend of stop frame animation and puppetry was innovative for its time (1950), but there’s something just downright strange about this opening sequence. It’s akin to something from a Jan Svankmajer animation, but presented within the innocuous context of a family movie. Not that it’s meant to be disturbing, mind you – which, in a strange way, makes it even more disturbing. I lasted all of five minutes before I had to turn it off. Brrr (then again, I find Bagpuss vaguely disturbing as well). Perhaps it’s the jerky stop frame animation that does it. Add a touch of taxidermy to the mix however, and The Great Rupert will give you nightmares for months.

I couldn’t find any clips of the opening sequence, but there are a few stills here.

More old bullshit after Christmas – until then, have a good one.

Dude, You Won!

Stevyn Colgan directed me here to a Six Word Story Contest, which I duly entered with the following:

Second coming: Jesus descends from mothership.

And it won!

The prize? Free books! Huzzar!

As you were.

Swish Meeting Room

Day job wise, I’ve had meetings all over (Miami, Paris, Amsterdam, Swindon), usually in so-called “meeting rooms” where the overriding colour scheme is beige. So it made a pleasant change to go to a meeting here last Friday - the café at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Nice, innit? They do a mean sandwich as well, by the way...

Friday Night Muzak

Wire's new album Object 47 is out July 15th, so what the hell, it's Friday: here's Eardrum Buzz from 1987.

Off on a Tangent, Part 16 - I Am Being Stalked by Myleene Klass.

Much in the same way that I was stalked by Stanley Tucci over the Christmas period, I am now experiencing the same with Myleene Klass (which is why there is now a photo of her on my blog – I mean, Jesus, she’s everywhere else, so why not here as well?). Not exactly an unpleasant experience you might think, but every time I see her, she is trying to sell someone something (all quotes taken from Myleene’s website):

Released under a multi-album series 'Myleene's Music' is compiled from the EMI Classics catalogue, with the tracks on each album united by a particular lifestyle theme. Each 2-CD set carries the added bonus of at least two tracks performed by Myleene herself on the piano to complement the theme of the album.

I love the mention of the ‘at least’ in the second sentence (as well as the dubious phrase ‘added bonus’). Doesn’t make me want to buy the album though, although people on anti-psychotic medication would probably like it.

With Myleene’s new born baby Ava came the opportunity to create a collection of clothes and accessories for children aged 0-3 years named ‘Baby K’. Myleene takes a very active role in the project testing zippers, fabrics and ensuring the highest quality on all product. This range is Myleene’s second baby and has been made with love for all to enjoy.

I don’t have kids (thank the Lord), so this passes me by as well. However, the thought of Myleene testing zippers is highly suspect. But wait!

Each month in Classic FM magazine Myleene brings you the new faces to watch in classical music. Singers, instrumentalists, composers and conductors – no-one escapes Myleene’s critical gaze as she combs classical music for its freshest, brightest talents.

With Myleene’s work in quality control and zipper testing, I’m surprised she’s got the time.

My Bump & Me is about everything Myleene did ‘wrong’ during her pregnancy, how her hormones turned her into a woman she hardly recognised, and how incredible it feels to be expecting a baby.

Pregnancy as a business opportunity: you gotta admire the girl and her get up and go attitude to rampant capitalism.

Myleene's natural charm on television caught the eye of the directors of M&S who quickly signed her up to be the face of their 2007 and 2008 advertising campaigns. Myleene now adorns billboards and M&S windows across the country as well as appearing in their TV advertising campaign...

And this is why you can’t get away from the woman. It’s a perfect storm of personal appearances, incessant advertising and compilation albums. Open any newspaper and there she is, grinning inanely back at you whilst trying to flog you travel insurance. I’m sick to death of the woman.

Friday 20th June: Myleene hosts Miss Ireland 2008 competition.

Meh.

Off on a Tangent. Part 15 – Broken Social Scene, Shepherd’s Bush Empire, 23rd May 2008.

Some cracked genius has decreed that Shepherd’s Bush tube station is closed for renovation, so getting off at White City, my brother and I had to figure out which way the Empire was (they used to film Crackerjack there, don’cha know). Just then, a bloke in a sari walked past – hmmm: I bet he’s going to the Empire – assumption correct!

The last time I was at Shepherd’s Bush Empire was for Helmet (featuring a stage diving Paul King – how bizarre was that?), and one of the last times my brother was there was to see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, during whose set he dried his socks on a handy light in the balcony (as well as marvelling at the walking distillery that is Shane MacGowan, who was busy providing back up drunken roars, or ‘vocals’ as he probably calls them).

So, Broken Social Scene: I’m happy to report that BSS have regained a great deal of their ramshackle charm. Last time out, the touring band had been whittled down to an essential core, which meant that they came across more like a seasoned session band rather than a loose multi-headed pop thing, which is what they’re good at. This time round with Amy Millan and various members of the support band The Brunettes in attendance, BSS were back to their shuffling, tumbledown best.

At a guess, I’d say this tour was ostensibly to promote Brendan Canning’s album, Something for All of Us – not that you’d know it, as Kevin Drew leads from the front as he tends to. As Canning’s record isn’t out until July, you can only assume that these guys like touring to the detriment of everything else in their lives, the crazy eejits. That said, the couple of songs they play from Canning’s new record sound fantastic: instead of the usual BSS wall of bleeding sound, we get bass driven melodies with some much needed fuzzy space round the edges.

And then we get Charles Spearin’s Jazz Odyssey: the Do Make Say Think helmer unveiled a mini-collection of instrumentals that attempted to replicate speech patterns using just a gently strummed guitar and a wildly honking saxophone playing every conceivable scale known to man. I guess it gave the other members of the band some time off for a well deserved cup of tea.

Off on a Tangent, part 14: Leslie Feist, Albert Hall, 21st May 2008.

Leslie Feist wanders out onto the stage at the Royal Albert Hall and, faced with 5000 pairs of eyes staring back at her, says: “Oh my god.” And she’s right as well: this isn’t 93 Feet East or the Scala, and no doubt you could cram about a thousand Komedias into this cavernous bit of Victorian silliness. Last time I saw Feist, I was surrounded by about a hundred and fifty fellow hipsters and Alexis Petridis: you could reach out and shake Feist’s hand if you wanted to. Tonight, it’s totally different: 1234 has seen to that. Funny what can happen in a little over twelve months, that iPod advert notwithstanding.

The music veers from infectious indie joy to plaintive solo folk, although having to extend the set to a good 100 minutes does provide for the odd bit of banter that doesn’t really work: an audience hum-a-long falls flat, and some of Feist’s asides are just plain cryptic. In a smaller venue where everything is up close and personal, you can get away with this sort of unforced, eccentric charm. In a venue like the Albert Hall, it just sounds demented.

That said, Feist has obviously had to make some concessions in playing for a large audience, and the most noticeable is the completely berserk shadow show (I kid you not). Two ‘shadow assistants’ create an ever-changing panorama of volcanoes, ships at sea, birds and foliage that are projected behind the band as they do their thing. At one stage, someone climbs a stepladder behind Feist and throws torn up paper everywhere (it’s snowing, see?). Not exactly stadium rattling stuff, but we’re not talking Iron Maiden here: the visuals are great, and are done with a huge amount of lo-fi charm.

Only two things bring a slight downer on proceedings: 1) whoever they were, the support band were utterly dreadful. All I know about them is that they come from New Zealand, and that’s really all I want to know, and 2) a surprising lack of hipsters in the audience. I mean, good god, people were even dancing in the aisles! Whatever next? ;-)

Off on a Tangent, Part 13 - Vast Swathes of Generalisation

Apropos of absolutely nothing at all, here’s Alexis Petridis in a recent Guardian article talking about a Feist gig:

The audience was heavy on hipsters, presumably lured by Feist's long-standing associations with a succession of achingly trendy cult artists... There was an almost tangible air of come-on-impress-us about the audience, their cynicism perhaps compounded by the ads.

Er, are you quite sure about that, Alexis? I was at the very same gig and, whilst it’s nice to be described as a ‘hipster’ (I think), the audience was the usual Brighton melting pot mix of indie kids, scruffy students, people with silly haircuts/stupid hats and old geezers who had dragged their bored looking other halves along. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that the average audience age that night was well over 30.

At that point, The Reminder had not been released in the UK, so presumably everyone present had no doubt been drawn by the previous album Let It Die and Feist’s powerhouse performances with Broken Social Scene. The gig was also completely sold out. That curious breed ‘the hipster’ (how do you spot a hipster anyway? Do they stand under spotlights dressed in polonecks wearing berets?) was noticeable by its absence.

All of which says to me: if you can’t think of what to write, either a) make it up, or b) blandly generalise.

That said, if you want experience vast open plains of generalisation, pick up Made in Brighton, a series of essays on modern Brighton by Julie Burchill and Daniel Raven (who Julie just happens to be married to). Polemicists seem to thrive on generalisations, as the reality of any situation is just too knotty and complex to really get your knickers in a twist over I reckon.

Reading/Research/More Reading

When scouting around for a new project, the one part I enjoy above all else is the research, as it means I can indulge in a huge amount of reading just for the sheer fun of it. Here’s a selection of reading matter, all of which is directly related to writing projects (both for now and for the immediate future):

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind: Julian Jaynes (a relatively old book, but one that’s incredibly handy if you need a quick refresher on schizophrenia – and let’s face it, who doesn’t?)

My Bass and Other Animals - Guy Pratt

Strange Fascination – David Bowie, The Definitive Story – David Buckley

Bit of a Blur – Alex James

Blink – Malcolm Gladwell

The Corporation – Joel Bakan

In Praise of Slow – Carl Honoré

Celebrity and Power – P. David Marshall

Darker than the Deepest Sea: In Search of Nick Drake – Trevor Dann

Agent Zigzag – Ben Macintyre

Songs They Never Play on the Radio: Nico, The Last Bohemian – James Young

Gibraltar 1779-83: The Great Siege – René Chartrand

All of which suggests that I’m attempting to write a script about a schizophrenic bass playing celebrity, who brings down a major corporation utilising nothing but the power of a catchy bassline. I’m still trying to work a mention of Gibraltar in there somewhere, but it’s more difficult than you think...

Off on a Tangent, Part 12 - UK Subs, Freebutt, Brighton, May 5th 2008.

The last time I saw the Subs, there were a series of almighty bundles down the front, which meant that the band had to take turns to leap into the crowd to separate various tattooed hooligans from knocking nine bells out of anyone in their immediate vicinity. No-one was hurt, and in all honesty, it was more akin to a bit of playground pushing and shoving than anything even remotely violent. Twenty years later, and not a lot has changed – well, apart from the fact that everyone is much more polite. Watching people stage dive off a stage that is about a foot high is always entertaining, but the difference here is that no-one gets a Doc Marten in the face. “After you.” “No, please, I insist – after you.” Oh, that and the fact that the stage divers all seem to be about fifty years old.

That said, no-one is quite as old as Charlie Harper, who was just about to collect his bus pass when punk kicked off over thirty years ago. He spent much of the evening behind the merchandise stall, endlessly available to any old geezer who fancied a handshake and a chat. Well, rather that than having to stand through the bloody awful support bands. Kill Tim play a pointless amalgam of ska, punk, White Riot and anything else that comes to mind during their 30 minute set, 25 minutes of which is taken up by a panicked string change. The lead singer looked about 12. At one point, my brother (gig photographer par excellence) turned to me and said, “They should be locked in a rehearsal room for the next five years.” That was just after I had my bicep felt by the crazy dreadlocked guy who used to work in Dave’s book store making enquiries about the evening’s ‘muscle quotient’ – very low, my friend, very low indeed.

The Subs crashed through their set in a little under fifty minutes – these guys have been doing this for years, so there’s no hanging about. Actually, that said, only Charlie Harper and Alvin Gibbs survive from the ‘original’ line up, but I guess it hardly matters when your stock in trade are three chord thrashalongs (which sounded surprisingly sprightly for a band just about to enter their fourth decade of playing live). Good fun, though.

Slab! in the Sunday Times

Tim Elsenburg’s article on Slab! has finally appeared in the Sunday Times today – read it here. However, if you can’t be arsed to click on the link, click on the scanned article below (it looks far shinier in print that in dull old html). A potted history of the band can also be found by clicking here – 98 comments and counting, m’lud.

Off on a Tangent, Part 11 - Everything is Connected

Over the next few months, this blog could turn into a smorgasbord of musical mayhem with a frenzy of gig going, reviews and rampant Question & Answer sessions sprouting out all over like so much damp cress on a warm windowsill...

First off, I wrote this back in August last year about a band called Slab! – the thinking man’s industrial noiseniks. And stone me, the band’s two prime movers – Stephen Dray and Paul Jarvis – have both left comments on the post. I’m trying to arrange a Q&A session right here for them at some point (plus some unreleased music?), so stay tuned. Slab’s MySpace page has also attracted the attentions of their last drummer, Rob Allum, who now plays with Turin Brakes as well as being a founder member of The High Llamas. To say I am excited by all these developments would be the understatement of the century.

Strangely enough, the chap who set up the Slab! MySpace page is Tim Elsenburg, who fronts up the rather awesome band Sweet Billy Pilgrim. Tim has previously played with Martin Grech, whose song Open Heart Zoo was used a few years back for a Lexus advert. My wife loved the song, so I bought her the album not really expecting much of a big deal. Like – wow – how wrong was I? Open Heart Zoo is pleasant enough, but it doesn’t really prepare you for the full-on brainstorming onslaught of Dali. I’m still trying to get to grips with Grech’s second album, Unholy, which is austere and noisily mentalist in equal measures. His third – released last year – is apparently another about face, this time into the realms of introspective folk (I suspect that’s his Kerrang audience safely alienated then!). Tim has also remixed David Sylvian, and has collaborated and toured with David’s brother Steve Jansen (I never was a huge Japan fan, but have an unfortunately neurotic tendency to buy everything that David Sylvian ever releases). Tim’s blog is awash with tour stories and details of Steve Jansen’s inexplicable (and highly amusing) fear of lifts, and is well worth a visit.

Gig-wise, I have the following to look forward to:

UK Subs, Freebutt, Brighton, May 5th – the last time I saw the Subs there were two tattooed lunatics down the front fighting anybody who had the sheer audacity to go near them – so much so that the band had to stop playing several times to wade in and sort them out. Punk rock! The fact that my brother ended up being best of buddies with these two lunatics is neither here nor there.

Battles, Astoria, May 14th (support from Liars) – Battles continue their ambitions for world dominance by moving up a league from the Koko to packing out the Astoria – and rightly so.

Feist, Albert Hall, May 23rd – the last time I saw Feist was at the Komedia, a small(ish) venue in Brighton. The gig was fantastic. And here she is a year later selling out the Albert Hall – just shows what a fantastic album, an iPod advert and some Vanity Fair coverage can do for your career.

Broken Social Scene, Shepherds Bush Empire, May 25th – similarly, the Scene have moved up a notch from the Koko to the Empire (where Crackerjack used to be recorded). The last time I was at the Empire was for a Helmet gig, which featured – rather bizarrely – a stage diving Paul King! All together now: Love, and Pride! Time to grow a mullet and spray paint those Doc Martens...

The upshot of all this is that if you play in a band and hanker after fame, riches and endless critical praise, the place to be featured is – well, obviously – Unfit for Print! Battles, Feist and the Scene have all gone onto bigger and better things since being featured in these hallowed pages (the Subs have had their turn, I reckon!), and I like to think (in my entirely delusional and brain softened state) that it’s all down to UfP! Sheesh! I should start my own record label (coincidentally, my resemblance to Rick Rubin is really quite scary). Bearing in mind the good fortune this blog bestows on all and sundry, I’ll have a go at reviewing the Sweet Billy Pilgrim album as well – it hasn’t been off my virtual turntable (better known as a CD player) for at least a fortnight and I feel the overwhelming urge to write about it.

And no, I didn’t screw up last week’s meeting with the producer/director. Not a lot to report back on at the moment, but more as it develops...

The MP3 Files, Part 1 - Feist, La Sirena

I'm feeling very pleased with myself at the moment, as I've just figured out how to stream audio from this blog. Yeah, yeah, I know, everyone and his/her dog has been at it for years, but for the technologically retarded (i.e., me), this is a huge step forward. The next step: programming the DVD-R (I suspect this may be a step too far).

So, here's the first in an occasional series - this is from Leslie Feist's difficult to find first first album, Monarch. Click on the link below and the track should play in whatever Media Player you have on your system. Yowsa!

Feist - La Sirena

Ass and More Ass

I always enjoy a good keyword hoedown – having Statcounter on my site enables me to see what search terms bring people swinging by UFP (they’re probably expecting knitting patterns and/or pornography, but you can’t win ‘em all).

Here are a few of the most recent (and choicest) terms:

* Reader’s Digest prize draw – I have it on good authority that Mr Tom Champagne (“I assure you, Chipster, that that is my real name, it really is, it really is”) is a regular visitor to UFP. I may even try and get a Q&A with the old goon at some point on this very blog!

* www. big ass Lucy – well, really, what on earth do you think this place is? (*quickly goes to internet and looks up www.bigasslucy.com*)

* how much did good will hunting screenplay sell for? A little (and perhaps not very reliably informed) bird tells me that the answer to this question is fifty pounds precisely.

* big ass nature – Indeed, it could be said that mother nature is ‘big assed’, but I suspect this has something to do with being naked outdoors.

* World chip ass 2 – come on, quit it with the asses!

* I have an actor attached to my screenplay what now? Depends who the actor is, surely? I mean, wee Jimmy Krankie being attached to your existential Robbe-Grillet adaptation probably won’t do anyone any good (that said, I'd pay good money to see that).

* Prescient cough – I have no idea what this means.

* Chip Smith philistine – yeah, yeah, I think we get the idea with all this keyword nonsense now...

Off on a Tangent, Part 10 of many – Dif Juz.

What with our current culture of download-whatever-you-want-whenever-you-want-on-demand, it still comes as a huge surprise that, no matter where you look, certain commercial artefacts are just not available. Want a copy of Leslie Feist’s first album, Monarch? No can do. You can download it from a BitTorrent site, but don’t hold your breath in the expectation that a bonafide copy is going to find its way into your possession. Want a copy of Slab’s second album Sanity Allergy? No way bud, unless you trawl E-bay for rubbishy second hand copies. However, if you think these are rare, it’s nothing when compared to Dif Juz’s Who Says So? released on Red Flame Records in 1983.

Dif Juz were signed to 4AD Records, the home of the Cocteau Twins and a whole pile of homely, occasionally strange, gothic winsomeness. Every now and again, a band such as Pixies would emerge – all shouty and brilliant and raw and rock n’ roll – or Colourbox – berserk dance pioneers better known for their collaboration with AR Kane that resulted in the insanely successful Pump Up the Volume – but otherwise it was This Mortal Coil, Wolfgang Press, X-Mal Deutschland, and Red House Painters. Nothing wrong with that (I love all these bands), and you could almost make the argument that Dif Juz slotted right in alongside these more ‘generic’ 4AD bands.

Note the almost in that last sentence.

The aspects that set Dif Juz apart from their peers are all things you probably wouldn’t expect to see of a ‘generic’ 4AD band. Their sound – on the album Extractions especially – was pristine. Their musicianship was the work of real virtuosos. Listening to the records again, you start to realise how much of it must have been improvised through incessant jamming. The structures seem somehow jazz inflected as well. Add to this that almost everything they recorded was instrumental, and you start to get an idea of just how different they were – not only in comparison to their 4AD stablemates, but in comparison to just about everything else around at the time as well.

Here’s the video for No Motion from Lonely is an Eyesore, a 4AD compilation released in 1987 – probably the band’s last recorded output.



The thing I love about this video is the fact that they all look so delightfully stroppy – bear in mind that this was back when any appearance in front of a camera was considered selling out (where Top of the Pops was akin to supping with Satan himself). To give you an idea about Dif Juz’s ‘strop heritage’, bear in mind that Richard Thomas went on to drum for the arch-stropsters themselves, The Jesus and Mary Chain. It’s all change these days of course – any band signed to even a semi-serious label will no doubt receive some media training at some point (pah! Where’s the fun in that?).

Extractions may not seem hugely innovative to our modern ears, but the number of bands who have taken it as an influence are probably too many to mention. Godspeed!, Radiohead, Do Make Say Think especially, who seemed to have taken Dif Juz’s love of dub and instrumental repetition about as far as it’s possible to go.

And as for Who Says So? – the closest you’re going to get to the Dif Juz of Extractions is Roy’s Tray. Song with No Name Part 2 is all atonal saxophone bleatings and skittery beats, whereas Pass It On Charlie sounds like a Brazilian tropicalia band penning the theme tune for The Third Man – it really does sound that unique. Even the band’s obsession with dub as a genre in its own right throws up a brilliant experiment in the shape of Channel (bizarrely enough, Dif Juz recorded an album with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry that resides to this day in the 4AD vaults, unreleased). That said, The Dub Song, which ends the album, is not one of the band’s greatest moments.

Of course the natural end point for the mostly experimental music on this mini album is the brilliant Extractions, which is well worth checking out. That doesn't mean to say that Who Says So? doesn't stand up well on its own - it does; it's just a shame that hardly anyone has had the opportunity to make this judgement for themselves.

Off on a Tangent, Part 9 - More Slab!

I wrote about Slab! here some time ago, and I’m pleased to say that, for a band that’s been defunct for nearly twenty years, they appear to be gaining a good deal of attention, both on the net and beyond.

First off, there’s Slab’s My Space page, set up by Tim Elsenburg of the folktronica outfit Sweet Billy Pilgrim (check out the fantastic tracks Bruguda and the gorgeous Meantime here).

Tim is also writing a piece on ‘songs that changed my life’ for The Sunday Times – the song chosen? Dolores, by Slab!, which you can hear on the MySpace link above. Without a doubt it’s the best track on the album, and probably (for me at least) amongst some of the best – and heaviest – music ever recorded. And lurking underneath the massive beats, drum machines and scuzzed out bass, there’s an honest to goodness tune. It doesn’t get any better than this.

Oh, and if anyone can track down any pictures of this elusive band, let Kevin know on artpics@sunday-times.co.uk

Off on a Tangent, part 8 - Chester Babcock Calling...

This has got nothing to do with anything, apart from the fact that it made me laugh...

The following is an excerpt from an article on Chester Babcock in this February's Vanity Fair:

His favourite word, for more than one reason, was "cock". As Frank Sinatra's best friend, songwriter in chief, and sometime travelling partner in the hard-swinging 50s, Jimmy Van Heusen - born Edward Chester Babcock - had a habit, upon arriving in any American city, of leafing through the directory and phoning at random anyone whose last name, Hancock, Woodcock or Hitchcock, happened to end in the same pungent suffix as his own. It was always nice if a lady answered. "Mrs Glasscock?" he'd say, in his W.C. Fields-ian tones, "Chester Babcock calling. I just wanted to check what the other cocks were up to." Sinatra, it is reported, would roll on the floor every time.

When Frank and entourage stayed at Rome's Grand Hotel, Van Heusen would step onto his balcony each morning and, like some crazed American rooster, crow out the word at the top of his lungs. Back in the States, piloting his own plane cross-country, he would screech it into the radio until, inevitably, some poor, confused air-traffic controller would squawk back, "Please identify yourself!" At which point Van Heusen would declaim it louder still. Even after suffering a stroke in his late 60s, wheelchair-bound, language having largely deserted him, "just out of nowhere, he'd yell 'Cock!'", a witness remembers.

"Jimmy," Van Heusen's good friend and occasional lover Angie Dickinson recalls fondly, "could say 'cock' like nobody else."

There's got to be a short script in there somewhere.

Celebrity Screenplays

I may risk going off on a tangent here (no change there then), but it suddenly occurred to me the other day that the one area of creative endeavour seemingly uninfected by the virus of celebrity is the screenplay. Sure, there are celebrity screenwriters, but they tend to be people who are first and foremost writers, and not celebrities double or triple-hyphenating their way across from other branches of the media and/or creative arts.

The cult of celebrity in the publishing trade is well known, to the extent that the use of ghostwriters is now commonplace – Naomi Campbell is reported as stating that she has never read the novel that has her name on the cover (Black Swan), and it’s obvious that all of Jordan’s ‘novels’ have been ghosted (by Rebecca Farnworth just in case you were wondering). For the most part, the name on the cover acts as a marketing hook – the celebrity functions as a brand name that can be utilised to sell anything from perfume to fitness DVDs to underwear and, of course, novels.

So why doesn’t the same exist in the world of screenwriting? Or, perhaps more to the point: should it?

Of course the economic model of filmmaking is entirely different from that of the mass market publishing industry, where the mantra is ‘pile ‘em high and sell ‘em cheap’. However, it does seem a little odd (to me at least) how screenwriting hasn’t necessarily been ‘contaminated’ by celebrity in quite the same way that the publishing industry has.

That said, not so long ago it seemed that wherever you looked, some celebrity somewhere was penning a screenplay: Toby Anstis, David Emmanuel (well, maybe ‘celebrity’ is too strong a word, but you get the idea) – you name ‘em, they were all hitting the keyboard in the belief that it was the one surefire way to fame and riches. And you know what? Good luck to ‘em. Far be it for me to dictate how Toby Anstis spends his time, just so long as he’s not clogging up the airwaves with more bottom feeding reality shows.

However, Toby Anstis aside, perhaps the collision of screenplay and celebrity is a marketing tool worth exploring by aspiring and established screenwriters alike (I’m not entirely sure if I’m being sarcastic or not here, so bear with me).

A screenplay is a blueprint – of course it can function as a commodity, but unlike a novel, it isn’t a ‘reader friendly' format. However, if there are celebrities out there who are convinced that their screenwriting talents are going to bear fruit, perhaps it should fall to the screenwriting community to ‘assist’ them in their endeavours? After all, a screenplay with the name of a well-known celebrity on the front page would no doubt generate a certain degree of interest (depending on who the celebrity was, of course). So what if the words inside aren’t written by that celebrity? If the name on the front helps that screenplay gain attention, then surely that’s a good thing – right? Also, as and when that commodity is sold, the celebrity screenwriter could then be used as that all important ‘marketing hook’ to provide ongoing publicity for the production up until its release.

The most important thing from my own point of view is that this would almost certainly open up a new (if somewhat limited) market for spec screenplays. So, rather than Toby Anstis slaving away over a hot keyboard, his agent could simply shake hands with a ‘ghost screenwriter’ and have a product ready to hit the market that afternoon (maybe Toby Anstis is the wrong example: think Robbie Williams, Anthony Kiedis, Victoria Beckham, Katie Price).

Also, wouldn’t the whole concept of ‘packaging’ become a little more fun? Rather than trying to excite interest in a screenplay with the name of an actor attached, why not just attach the name of a celebrity as the writer? It could work. That said, knowing my luck, I’d probably end up with the Cheeky Girls or Michelle (‘How low can you go?’) Bass, thereby guaranteeing a slow, embarrassment laden death on cable TV.

That said, perhaps I am being sarcastic (but maybe just a little bit).