Sometime in the future

This is a band that if I'm not playing them constantly, or talking about them, mythologising how relevant and important they are in the pantheon of the greatest music and bands of all time, I'm waiting for them. Enjoyng them but always waiting.They have a new album out next year. Or 2012, or 2016, who knows. Not even Warp know. You could be forgiven that the delay is because their perfectionism is the reason they need to explore, experiment, mix, fix, tweak and wait. They might just as easily be great at procrastinating. But we wouldn't know. We'll never know. It's what the fans admire. Bloody mindedness, perfectionism and the waiting game, but beautiful music, myths, lies and legends often follow the great bands around.

In the meantime the fans are going stir crazy. The fans here at least. Since the Trans Canada Highway EP in 2006 contemporay and popular music has gone through a few but not earth shattering changes. Fans have been speculating what the new album might sound like, not in the sense of what other music it might ape because it won't sound like anything other than Boards of Canada. This is the dream of other artists, not to sound like Boards of Canada but to sound like themselves, to become a genre of their own. Although from the fan made videos and the BOC community they are more Boards of Canada than Boards of Canada.

There's something kind of anti-corperate, certainley in the tone and assembley of the library footage chosen but also ambivalent and ambigious. It's hard to place. I sometimes go past a place called 'Cemex Aggregates' on my way to Manchester, whenever I take the train. I've associated it, and its logo so much to Boards of Canada that it almost feels significant and iconic.


So what is it about Boards of Canada that the fans love about them? It's partly the stuff already metnioned above, along with they washed out colours of distant, childhood summers. It's in part the sinister undertones of their mixes, the music somehow encapsulates what it is we can't express about those lazy school holidays in the early 80s when there was nothing to do and most of our better off friends were away somewhere. It's also in some of the themes which Ghost Box Records have exploited with the likes of Advisory Circle and Belbury Poly, that British public information mentality. The music is comforting but with an undercurrent that you might die soon. Or something incredibly evil is happening in the world and you can't exactly put your finger on what it is. Listen to 'The Devil is in The Details' or 'Alpha and Omega'.

The appeal for some fans is either the hidden secret messages in the music and the nods to cult/religious iconography. Now there's a few websites dedicated to unravelling these ideas which range from bonkers to intriguing but I think BOC just like to fuck with us sometimes.

Seems like a fitting place to leave this feature.


Also checkout this mix too.

http://soundcloud.com/strictly/sometime-in-the-future

Who are you?

We are in a limo, travelling along the promenade in Nice. From someone's point of view we can see a hand picking up something that looks like Southern Comfort before returning to a cigar. Along the prom there are high class prostitutes touting for business. The lights and palm trees filter through the windows, many colours.  Sounds of traffic through the open window, of the sea, of disco music. We feel that it's the late 70s and this is soon revealed when a newspaper (New York Times) is picked up, revealing some major news event. As the pages are turned, and there's small story that reveals the accidental death of an advertising executive. We don't find out who it is. We hear the horn being honked. The car crashes. The horn resonates. Don Draper wakes up, in 1965, in a cold sweat.

That was a dream I had. It could easily be the opening of a new season of Mad Men. 'Who is Don Draper?' is the tagline of Season 4, and while that will be banged on about as the series progresses, it's clear that we already know what Don Draper does, and if you've been following it, we know where he suppoesedly got his identity from. That's of course if we trust his memories. We don't have to. There is reason to believe that we shouldn't trust his memories due to his complex personality and his infidelity.

If you haven't seen Mad Men at all then you should. You're in for a treat. It's not just a sleek satire, a triumph of style over substance. In fact it's the substance of the show that makes the drama. That so many TV critics don't really get it, so keen they are to rant on and on about the fashions, the smoking, the sexism, misses the point. From the opening credits of a man throwing himself off a building, it kind of remined me of Joseph Heller's 'Something Happened.' The narrator of that novel could easily be Don Draper. The show, in terms of status and the main character's infidelity could also exist in the same world of Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman.' It's certainly directed as if it were a piece of theatre by Miller, Ibsen or Chekhov in that it's about people, about insecurity, status, and whether it's culture and backdrop is middle America in the 60s, the show's backdrop and psyche easily slots into todays 24/7/social  networking/shopping/aspirational culture.

But it's heart, if it has one, which it does, is Donald Draper. When you ask the question 'who is this person?' you're also asking 'Who are you?' It doesn't become a trite phrase then.You can be daft and answer 'well I work at Hobby Craft and I enjoy strangling cats...' but that doesn't go to the heart of the truth. Obviously the show as a whole is an ensemble piece with every character having just as much mystery and social anxiety as Draper. The women are stronger than the men in the show, even if that strength means knowing when to hold your tongue or wear a tighter skirt. You feel that any one of the characters could go crazy in the office with a shotgun or throw themselves out the window. Pete Campbell especially.

In earlier seasons Don Draper has it all, the respect of his colleagues, money, status a perceived successful marriage and access to any women he desires. You know it will fall apart. You know he'll lose everything and in some respects go back to being the kid in the depression who had nothing. But do we trust his memories? What strikes me about Mad Men is that it's a show that can more or less go in any direction, once it starts to slowly collapse. When reality collapses around you, you're either left with the brutal truth or sheer fantasy. Mad Men, a ficitonal show which in many sense feels like a  dream world, could be a figment of Don's imagination. Mad Men could be Don Draper's heaven/purgatory/hell much in the same way as Gene Hunt was the master of his purgatory in Ashes to Ashes. Although with Mad Men, if this route were explored, I feel it would have more plausibility than a purgatory for coppers blag.

So my opening intro could make sense in Mad Men, if Don Draper becomes someone who even didn't think he was, or if in fact Mad Men were somehow his disjointed autobography. It's intriguing. I doubt that the show will go down the fantasy route but you feel it could do it with seamless ease, that it would already add to the rewarded repeated viewings. It's to the credit of the writing, direction and performance of John Hamm that we care who Don Draper is.

So there you go. Mad Men is great.

The White Room

I'm having my downstairs loo converted to a cloakroom. It'll all be done in white, although I'm not sure if we're having a white carpet. Probably not. Anyway, I want to call it The White Room. The fact that The White Room is incidental but it's a cool name for a cloakroom isn't it? Because I'm living in a democracy in this house, I doubt it'll be called The White Room but The Cloak Room. Which untidily brings me to The KLF.

Whether or not they were in the music business for a laugh or not doesn't matter. They loved pop music, understood it and made fantastic pop/stadium house/rave records. They pissed a few people off as well, which is always good when it's the type of people you want to piss off, i.e. Brit art upstarts (Rachel Whitbread was awarded K Foundation's prize for the worst art work), the music industry (firing blanks into the audience and dumping a dead sheep at the aftershow party at the 1992 Brit Awards) and the general public when they did or didn't burn a million quid. In a sense they were similar to Bansky, with their defacement of billboards and self promotion. But none of that matters to me, only the music, even if they are bored to death of making popular music.


Listening back to The White Room, you could be forgiven for thinking that the tracks The White Room and No More Tears could easily fit into today's pop climate, and the hands in the air, housey piano vibes of Last Train To Trancentral or out and out rave of What Time Is Love?, knock spots of Dutch trance. To describe their music to those poor souls who haven't heard it just imagine that you've died and come back to life in a damp field, somewhere in the north of England after a thunderstorm and the rays of sun are appearing. You get to your feet and hear this euphoric music and realise that there are millions of people in the field dancing, loved up, their worries far away in the previous world. That is the Church of The KLF.

So yes, The KLF are ace. Googling them will bring up all kinds of myths, rareities and stories.  And you'll find The Manual: How to Have a Number One The Easy Way

http://piratecinema.org/the_klf/the_manual.txt

I'm sure Simon Cowell has read it.

Summer Moved On

This is following an article I wrote last year, when it was revealed that A-ha were going to call it quits after the tour this year. This is still the case. They have just released their last video for their final single, 'Butterfly, Butterfly'. I'm not always sentimental, but it's a moving promo, directed by Steve Barron, who directed the classic clips for Take on Me and The Sun Always Shines on TV. Here it is:


A-ha Butterfly, Butterfly (The Last Hurrah)

A-ha

Let's be clear here. A-ha are the business. It's no secret that journalists are lazy. They like to cut corners. Less serious ones will happily quote and paraphrase from the public domain. Therefore you may have read articles which can't resist mentioning Morten Harket's chiseled cheek bones, or how are they have been championed by Keane and Coldplay, which depending on your point of view may be not too flattering.


Maybe one truism, is that they have been misunderstood, by a music industry and a public that in the 1980s went along with the hype and the teeny-bopper label. To an extent they went along with it for a few months, curious, amused, but when it was the cover of Rolling Stone magazine or Q they wanted to make, the likes of Smash Hits and Just Seventeen beckoned. It's hard to understand, looking back, what their popular fans of screaming adolescent girls saw in their music with songs about alienation, existential angst, identity and loneliness. What the more discerning fan heard was something deeper than the simplified europop tag. This wasn't a band who were manufactured. Most of the songs in the early days were written and produced by Pal Waakaatar (now known as Paul Waakatar-Savoy) From the 1980s albums 'Hunting High and Low', 'Scoundrel Days' and 'Stay on these Roads' there was only actually a handful of songs that was close to the unashamed teen pop format.




I wrote a short review of 'Scoundrel Days' recently, in appraisal of their recent album remasters. This is what it says;

'Scoundrel Days' was the album I got for Christmas which I unwrapped about a month early to listen to it. This, their sophmore album, continues and develops the sound and themes about escape and alienation from 'Hunting High and Low'. The album begins with a murder (Scoundrel Days) and ends with a prison sentence (Soft Rains of April). Not the subject you'd normally associate with so called teeny boppers. But A-ha aren't and never were teeny boppers. You'd be hard pressed to find songs about death, alienation, betrayal and adjustment disorder in the back catalogue of Duran Duran or Wham! With A-ha you're dealing with a different beast altogether, one that draws its influence from the work of Greig, Munch and Ibsen as much as The Beatles. For me, 'I've Been Losing you' (yet another song about murder perhaps, of madness?) is one of many highlights, signalling a rawer edge to A-ha's soud, a glimpse into A-ha's future, whilst still provoking an emotional response from a heartbreaking and beautiful refrain.


Further still 'Manhattan Skyline's' 'I don't want to fall again/I don't want to know this pain' is not the kind of platitude you get in most pop songs. It comes from the heart, from Waakatar-Savoy's youth, the pain of a broken down relationship. 'I'm trying to keep my newspaper dry' has to be one of the most heartbreaking lyrics of all time. My personal highlights include 'October' and 'the Weight of the wind', songs about loss, escape, dislocation and paralysis in a strange envioronment surrounded by strangers, together but yet alone. These seems to be recurring themes in A-ha's world, from 'The Blue Sky' to 'Minor Earth, Major Sky'...living inside an existence which is often unsettling, aggressive, dangerous but essentially lonely. Sometimes it isn't the world outside but the one in your head. The final track of the album, which owes some sonic debt to The Moody Blues is devastating and haunting. 'Time passing so slow...' A-ha make the world go round that little bit faster. Pain and pop music are not stances but ways of life, which A-ha have embraced and their fans have adored them for. It was always about the music and words, the sentiment, the sound. A-ha made sense to me as a 12 year old, and now as a man in his 30s because they went above and beyond what was necessary in pop/rock music with intelligent songs not just about falling in love but the human condition and our existence. Nordic, deep and beguiling.

As the years passed, and the band gained more control over their presentation and their production the serious songs about murder, dead bodies, betrayal continued only with less of that 80s sheen and with a 90s rock sensibility. It was probably after 'Crying in The Rain' that their glory supporting fans desserted them leaving the real supporters to worship them all for themselves. Ironically around this time they recorded 'Rock in Rio 2's' biggest attendence of 195,000 spectators. After a brief spell apart to pursue solo directions, they returned back to the fray with the albums 'Minor Earth, Major Sky', 'Lifelines,'  'Analogue' and the top five album 'Foot of the Mountain' (which Magne wanted to call 'Digital') It's just a shame that successive record companies and the media haven't quite got out of bed when its come to supporting the band, and maybe unfairly they'll always be remembered as that band 'with that cool animation video' mocked in Family Guy, or 'The band whose singer has chisled cheekbones'.




They still continued to be very successful in certain territories, such as native Norway (where they recently held a concert for 125,000 spectators) and Germany, the biggest market in Europe for popular music, and are still in many music fans hearts acknowledged with some kind of affection, nostalgia perhaps. But for me, their success and relevance comes down to a few basic factors:


1. They write and produce their own work which happens to be of a very high standard, musically and soundwise. Magne and Paul can really play their instruments, and each others (settle down now), and other people's. They don't pose and mime with them.


2.They are from Norway. These roots undoubtedly are relevant as they take a different, maybe darker approach to the world around them, which makes a change from the UK and US perspective, which in the main doesn't offer anything particulary unique. Their songs capture the Autumnal, fading summer mood, very much like an Ibsen for the 21st century set to music and lyrics.

3. Morten can sing. And singers are ten a penny. In a world where everyone wants to be a singer, where everyone can sing, where everyone, however, doesn't actually have their own voice but mimics old rnb singers or sounds like Green Day, Morten is best. And technically he's pretty fab. His voice is distinctive too, not in the Mark E Smith/Shaun Ryder, 'we really are fucking tone deaf' sense of the word but in the 'I am Morten. I can sing. This is me. And I'm good. I don't have to be shambolic.' Of course he is quite a prickly character, it has been said.


4.Even some of their songs have cryptic and intriguing song titles, 'The Blood that Moves the body,' 'Sycamore Leaves,', Forever Not Yours,', 'Analogue,', 'Celice', '(Seemingly) Non Stop July,' 'October', 'The Weight of the wind', 'There's never a forever thing', 'Angel in the snow', 'Locust'.



Their 2 disc compilation '25' is out soon, taking in album tracks and singles. You can also buy 'Hunting High and Low' and 'Scoundrel Days' remasters, which includes bonus discs of demos and remixes and they will come to the UK in November 2010 for their final live dates. Not many bands have the opportunity to have a clean end to their career.

FIAT 500

I don't own a Fiat 500, neither can I afford one, which makes appreciating one rather fake and stupid. But ooh! Just look at it! Isn't it cute?!?

The Hurricane

I'm sure at some point there will be a TV film called 'Hurricane' staring that guy who played Charles Bronson. I'll probably watch it, just to relive the 1982 World Snooker Championships, witness this twitching figure, creeping around the table, ready to sink another ball, before the ref has had a chance to place a colour on the spot, his concentrated facial expression barely  concealing theinner rage. Even watching Higgins relax, if relax is the right word was just as entertaining. There at the small table, he'd be sucking cigs, surrounded as he often was with good luck cards, birthday cards or get well soon cards. I remember one championshp one when he had a cold he took a little pot of honey, spooning it into his concoction. 

I admired Higgins. He was my first hero, before Zico. My nan disliked him. He wasn't a nice boy like Steve Davis, he also wasn't as boring. Over the past thirty odd years you'll have comne across many terms to describe him; words Hellraiser, Pisshead, Irish, Wildman, Genius, Hurricance. But I don't think such terms suitably descibe his complexity or indeed his talent. Like George Best at the top of of his game he  was the greatest in his field. Any clearence or a visit to the table by Higgins was far more entertaining, shambolic and inspirational than that any of other snooker player before or since. And at the boorish who want to question his talent or dedication, as far as I'm aware,  he was forever working on his game and putting in the hours. I doubt you could fluke TWO world snooker championships, and in such style. That he didn't capitalise on this, wasted it, pissed hs life away, however you wish, and Im sure the tabliods will, wish to term it, was obviously the tragic. part. Although his reputation off the ball preceeded him, as a child I identified with the spirit of the kind of underdog (which he was far from), the gentle voice and in some cases his non compliance to the establishment were, I felt admirable, when placed alongside swotty Steve Davis and all that lot. 

I'm against shambolic rebels when they have no talent or skill, when they are overated, overhyped. Alex Higgins wasn't overated. And certainly never hyped. He was creative, imaginative, talented and his 1982 campaign, encapsulated all that was characteristically Higgins, how his style and inventiveness outshone his contempories and brought a new lease of loife to the sport. He's a kind of fairytale anti-hero who you'd tell your grand kids about. I'd even say that although snooker was generally popular in the 80s, it was the likes of Higgins contributed enormously to its widespread popularity. The 1982 semi-final between with Jimmy White needs to come out on the cinema. For non snooker fans like myself, it is the best game you may ever see in your life. 'Hurricane VS Whirlwind 1982'. 

Perfection. 1991.

There's not many albums I know of where from start to finish, every track, every sound, every riff, every chord progression, every lyric, every song title are suitably  written, produced, arranged, mixed and sequenced to form something that not only works as a piece of art but as a perfect pop album.

Electronic's debut album is that album.

This original edition doesn't even have 'Getting Away With It...' on. I would even risk upsetting fans of The Smiths, New Order and even Pet Shop Boys to say that this album actually sits above the likes of Please and Technique (and most other classic albums by other artists as well).  It carries similar lyrical sentiments about relationship breakdowns, communication breakdowns, solitude, alienation and existence and still remains life affirming. But the chill of the icy synths are warmed by the soul of the beats, bass, strings and guitars as well as Bernard's fragile and heartfelt vocals. Beautiful.

Milk

Milk is good. Drink milk. If there isn't any milk, find a cow and milk it. I've been a milk drinker for pretty much all my life. The best milk I ever tasted was probably whole milk from the Unigate milkman, which came in those sexy, curvy bottles like this:

As far as I'm aware I only occasionally see pure orange juice in these bottles. But this isn't a blog entry about bottles. Maybe it's my memory but I swear that milk tastes better from the bottle. Anyway it became cheaper, cooler or better for the earth's crust or something to sell milk in plastic bottles and bags, in supermarkets. Milkmen became rare, supermarkets became bigger and farmers and independent diaries found it difficult to compete. Thus the milk, I think went downhill. It became homogenised, so in whole milk you didn't get that creamy texture among other properties. All of a sudden things went through some kind of filter process that I don't understand which was used as some kind of selling point. Take Cravendale for instance.  I try and only buy the organic, Jersey milk now if I can help it. I saw a programme about the history of milk production on BBC 4 featuring the Gosling's. It impressd me to such a degree that I will pledge to buy their products from the Able and Cole online shop when I have more money. What impressed me about it wasn't just their enthusiasm and passion for good milk quality but how much love and respect they gave to their cows.

So there you have it. Milk.

Dino Zoff

Roger Milla

Fantastic! You know he was, he really was.

 

Mick McCarthy

Chocolate Kylies

 My friend and I (we're both male and straight) were disucssing Kylie as we often do. There were cliches in our conversation at first about how amazing Kylie had gone from geeky girl next door to the amazing pop star she is but it soon disgressed into how great it would be if she baked a cake for us and how wonderful it would be for Kylie to be a state, (which she is the head of) with its own currency, airport, shopping centre, post office, ice cream parlour and tea rooms. My friend had been to an exhibition of her stage outfits which made me slightly envious and queeny with er...more envy.Above all it's her pop records we love.
Her new single is everything that her last album largely wasn't. It's classic bittersweet Kylie, wrapped up in a shiny red sweet wrapper and dipped in Belgian chocolate, dusted with Italian chocolate, placed into shortbread and carefully had that wrapper extracted so you don't choke too much on how pretty and nostalgic it is to have her back. When the video comes out and her new tour begins it will inspire wide eyed fans of all persuasions, unthreatened by her sensual appeal (in a good way. Sensual but unattainable. How perfect relationships between fans and performers should be).

It's a shame that she hangs around with that William Baker who made that documentary about her. He's quite awful. He has no idea about making documentaries and doesn't do Kylie any favours, presenting her as a teenage queen of the desert, a kind of camp Aussie Abba fan who never grew up. Her fragility of course always comes through, as it does naturally, but Baker fucks it up for her but I don't want to use this 'light' blog to dwell on that. Look at this. Kylie as Agent Smith in a pleasant version of The Matrix Reloaded.

But what is it that I love about her? It's not just the fact that 'On a Night Like This' is one of the best pop records of all time or that she's made half a dozen iconic videos, but I respond to stuff like the flop of Deconstruction's albums. Which contain some interesting ideas among the missed opportunities. For me Confide in Me was the turning point, a mature, lush pop single that could have been released in the 50s by Marylin Monroe or Edith Piaf or even Doris Day. Actually I don't even know why I described Edith Piaf or Doris Day as lush. Sorry. I never bought the whole hype of Spinning Around and her short shorts...not untill On a Night Like This, with a video featuring Rutger Hauer came out.


So yes, Kylie is ace. I've made a compilation of some of her material, album tracks, singles and remixes and even designed my own CD cover. Of course I do this for many of my favourite artists when I have too much time on my hands. She's the one...love her, love her, love her...

Ja Dankety!

I was hoping that I might be able to use a font appropriate for a feature about Chris Morris but blogspot don't do rentagobfont. I've looked. They don't.

So it's 2010 in the year of our Morris, Lord of gibber, high preistly of piss archery and cocking Christ's modern dictionary of media quackery.

There's a book that's out now all about him called 'Disgusting Bliss: The Brass Eye of Chris Morris' by Lucian Randall. It's quite good. Sort of a decent overview of the man who was there and in some cases concieved On The Hour/The Day Today/Brass Eye/Blue Jam and his new film Four Lions.

What is in no doubt is that this brainy bastard is at the centre of it all and made these things what they were and what they continue to be.

I don't want to really mention Nathan Barley. The book doesn't go into much depth about it either. I don't feel it really shame faced it's targets as it might. On the contrary. The Nathan Barely's out there seemed to bloody multiply. 'That's well Garnett, yeah!'

Morris has been called many things, a spotty geek, a media terrorist, the news rapist, a matrix trained gash manned upgraded Victor Lewis -Smith and a HTV ferret. In an alternate world that I've just made up, he is the actual Aphex Twin, doing time for shanking Jas Mann's 12"s. He's the fifth member of Kraftwerk. Most of his fans love him because he pisses off the tabloids, he pisses on minor self-important celebrities, not all hard targets, granted. He fucks with the minds of members of the public and politicians who will condem anything without having seen it. We've all done that, I suppose. I haven't read or watched the Twilight series, safe in the knoweldge that I already hate them and think that they are sick affronts to the genres of teen and horror and vampire fiction. Chris Morris pretty much makes us all feel like plebs. Not just builders and black people.

Importantly he really screws with the small minds of the Daily Mail and it's loyal damaged readership. I find this the most amusing and hypocritical of of all because it's the journalists who write for these rags that are clearly in denial about the language and techniques Morris exploits to display how it manipulates its consumers. I suspect the Mail, Express, the Sun and the Mirror are fully aware and in awe of Morris but despise him for using the tools of the trade to expose how ridiculoussness, mock seriousness and frothy mouthed, sensationalist panic mongering is the order of the day...today.

Chris Morris as Wayne Carr Interviews Two Unlimited

After listening to On The Hour and/or watching Brass Eye/The Day Today it is unfailingly impossible to take any tabloid news/print media seriously ever again, much less the breasted, puffed up Nicky Campbell and Jeremy Kyle going through their quest to unite middle england and council estates with their so called hard hitting crusades. Indeed you could be forgiven if any type of manfactured controversy, sensitive news stories can ever pass you by without the temptation to stifile a giggle. In many ways it's always been this way.

What you're left with when the smoke clears and the mirrors have been smashed is a fragile, insecure society of fuck up's. Fear prevails. Pissed up on booze, medicated to the groggy eyeballs with pointlessness and hopelessness, in a permenant state of autumnal bogginess. You really have to laugh. The alternative is far too horrific to contemplate.  How could you not find not just the idea but the reality of, say, John McCririck, angrily denouncing the 'idea' of Suitcliffe! the musical about the imprisoned Yorkshire ripper? Or this?

Clive Anderson has been murdered by Noel Edmonds

The real controversial crimes out there isn't Morris exposing, observing or criticising the hypocrisy and pomp of the media but the fact that media/social monstrosities are allowed to go by unchecked, you know: Live at Studio Five, ego pieces in newspapers, Cheryl Cole and Wayne Rooney leading the news at the expense of bum rape in Burnley, X-Factor results, Balls of Steel, Danny Dyer, who killed archie? Susan Boyle...Laugh but quietly despise it all. It's the only power you have.