I don't know where the SHIT these huge fucking empty spaces are coming from, but I've tried getting rid of them to no avail, so let's live with it, ok?

Grr..

ADVENTURES ON THE WHEELS OF STEEL

Well the inaugural and possibly final No One Cares About Your DJ Night went off last night in an explosion of John Peel-esque amateur charm and attracted a grand crowd of about 20 people, including ourselves.

Before we properly started, a played a little set for the teenage punk kids who were waiting to go to the gig upstairs, including the Sonics, the Ramones, the Donnas, the Groovie Ghoulies, the Modern Lovers and Vyvyan doing ‘Hey Mickey’.. dunno if they appreciated my efforts, but it sure beats Oasis on the PA.

Then Steve and Angela both played storming sets of fuzzy, bouncy indie and Pete wussed out, leaving me at the controls.. I’d actually gone as far as writing a set-list the week before but, er, sadly forgot it, so I was left to do the bits and pieces I remembered from it and otherwise play it by ear. And it went a little something like this;

The Jesus & Mary Chain – my little underground

((this was a REQUEST believe it or not – probably the first time in my life anyone’s actually ASKED me to play the Jesus & Mary Chain really loudly, so I’d be a fool not to oblige!))

Jonathan Richman – action packed
Bikini Kill – carnival
Dweeb – scooby-doo
The Vaselines – you think you’re a man
The Bush Tetras – can’t be funky
Gramme – like you

((can you believe this awesome girly post-punk combo completely cleared the dance floor? What are people like!))

The Saints – know your product
Riff Randells – lethal lipgloss
Cheap Trick – surrender

((still no dancefloor action, and no recognition of Cheap Trick – shameful!))

Help She Can’t Swim – fermez le bouche

((well we are named after it...))

Thee Headcoatees – have love will travel

((fuck yes! People are dancing!))

Milky Wimpshake – lemonade

((still dancing – let’s try and keep it up))

The Human Beins – nobody but me
Chocolate Watch Band – sweet young thing
The Kinks – I need you
The Swingin’ Medallions – double-shot of my baby’s love
The Detroit Cobras – shout bamalama

((here things go a bit hazy as my memory of what I’d intended to play vanished, and so did my dancefloor, but I think it went something like..))

The Buff Medways – troubled mind
The Slits – I heard in on the grapevine
LCD Soundsystem – beat connection
Sam Cooke – everybody loves to cha cha cha
The Magnetic Fields – fido your leash is too long
Helen Love – MC5

((I don’t remember what happened next, but I have a feeling that in the absence of anyone sober / available enough to relieve me of my duties I played a bunch more records with no logic whatsoever – I tried to finish with Joey Ramone doing “What a Wonderful World”, but the CD player fucked up… it also fucked up later when I tried to do a big exit on Shonen Knife’s version of ‘Daydream Believer’… oh well))

So a pretty crazed and ramshackle performance all round. I enjoyed it though, and some of the lucky few people present said they enjoyed it too and sounded genuine, which was nice. I think I like this DJing lark – making people dance is cool, even if it’s not very many people. And I even forgot to play most of my favourites one way or another.

It would be fun to do it again if the venue owner ever lets us to darken his door again (and frankly there’s no reason why he should given our shambolic and under-attended performance).

There's a thread on Barbelith at the moment about under-rated books.

Whilst composing my response to it I got rather carried away, and I think what I came up with is probably worth posting here too. After all, it's about time I discussed some literary matters on this weblog!

Some underrated books;

'A Confederate General from Big Sur' by Richard Brautigan

Brautigan may be established as a fully-fledged hero in some quarters, but you’d still have trouble convincing anyone in Waterstones of his existence, and this slim '70s paperback set me back £6 second-hand from a shelf marked ‘cult / collectable’, so yeah, underrated.

This is a staggering, amazing, joyful book in which no particular point is made about anything, nothing much happens and in which the narrative potters about aimlessly for a bit and arbitrarily stops and declares The End at about page 130.

It’s about two irresponsible, drunken losers who go and live in a make-shift cabin on the cliffs at Big Sur and… do some stuff I guess. In this respect it reminds me of ‘Withnail & I’, and like ‘Withnail & I’ it’s very, very funny indeed and some moderately fucked up shit happens. But rather than bleak and melancholy, the tone here is sunny and exultant.

I don’t know how to really convey the charm and wit of Brautigan’s writing without directing you to read huge chunks of it, but needless to say; think of the beautiful, free and easy way of life initially dreamt of by the beats and the hippies before malaise and disappointment and reality set in – THAT’S the spirit this book represents, and that’s the glorious, goofy garden Brautigan builds for his characters, and you dear reader, to fleetingly run free in. While you’re reading this book, you will feel good. Recommended in the highest possible terms in which I can recommend anything.


'Random Acts of Senseless Violence' by Jack Womack

I bought a remaindered copy of this with a hideous faux-cyberpunk cover for £1. It’s about 110 pages long. It’s fucking brilliant. It’s basically an imminent-future update of the Diary of Anne Frank, following the plight of a well-to-do Manhattan Jewish family whose financial stability is wiped out, along with many others, in a huge economic collapse. They move to a rough neighbourhood, try and fail to get by, and slowly crack up. Their daughter, the narrator, joins a street gang. There are bread riots and soldiers marching everywhere and nobody giving them orders. The acts of the book’s title start to come into play.

Womack’s books may usually be packaged as pulp sci-fi, but at his best he’s working on the same wavelength as Chandler, Lovecraft and Dick before him – a genre writer who unashamedly subverts and expands his remit to take in challenging themes, solid emotion and blinding prose. Here he tackles the uglier sides of class, race, sexuality, politics, poverty and puberty head on in a way that’s neither contrived nor creepy – he’s got all the compassion and frustrated idealism of Vonnegut tied to a brutally minimalist and effective noir style and a relentlessly fast-paced, catastrophic narrative with that kind of grabs-you-by-the-throat-and-won’t-let-go feeling that speaks of a fine, fine writer who’s honed his art to it’s sharpest point through years of jobbing in the realms of ‘popular’ fiction.

His other books are intermittently great and on the whole recommended, but this one is a masterpiece – a low-key, unpretentious triumph that to me is worth more, and says more, than any number of “the smell of almonds reminds me of unrequited love..” bullshit literary bestsellers.


'Fugue for a Darkening Island' by Christopher Priest

Although it was pretty well regarded when it was published in the ‘70s, this book is rarely sold, read or mentioned these days. This is possibly because from the evidence of the rather misguided title and a brief summary of the plot, it could easily be mistaken for some kind of reactionary anti-immigration scare story. But I know Priest is a good egg, so I read it anyway, and I’m glad I did.

In brief, it goes a bit like this; After a series of ominously ill-defined catastrophes in Africa, an endless succession of rickety ships and barges begin docking all over England’s south coast baring hundreds of thousands of refugees. The right-wing government in power at the time deals with the crisis in the worst way imaginable, establishing virtual concentration camps with no real plan as to what to do, and encouraging the wave of racist attacks that sweep through middle England. Liberal opposition to this policy precipitates a parliamentary crisis, but still neither side know what to do. The Africans, tired of such shoddy and inept treatment, muster their strength as their numbers increase and are soon roaming the Home Counties attacking and occupying villages. Then comes confusion, displacement, civil war, greed and cruelty – stuff we’ve seen on the news a hundred times before, but bringing it back home to England is a chillingly effective device in upturning the reader’s perceptions of it. Like ‘Random Acts..’, ‘Fugue..’ is a short, sharp shock and Priest pulls no punches in exploring the nightmare he’s created through the eyes of the cynical, Ballard-esque protagonist as he tries rather haphazardly to protect his family and figure out which way to turn as they find themselves as helplessly stranded as any African refugee.

Obviously Priest doesn’t court xenophobia, but neither does he jump for any of the liberal open goals the plotline might suggest – like ‘Heart of Darkness’ (which I guess this is kind of an update of in a lot of ways), the book remains non-partisan and offers no heavy-handed political message and no easy answers – the narrative remains cold, simplistic, amoral and brutal as the characters try to stay alive – the violence and betrayals are shocking and harrowing. The basic message - “this is everyone’s fault – we’re all fucked”. This is the good old Wyndham-esque English disaster novel turned very, very dark indeed.

This is old news, and I don't quite know why I feel the urge to write about it today, but here we go with;

Bands you wouldn’t expect me to like that I do like, part one in an occasional series: JAWBREAKER.

Left to my own devices, I’m sure I’d never have bothered listening to Jawbreaker. For let us examine what we know about them; Three glum looking blokes. Lame, thuggish ‘hardcore’ name. Much venerated in emo-punk circles, and held to be an important influence on a million boring bands in that vein. Notable victims of the old sign to major label / get screwed over / split up syndrome.

Doesn’t look promising, does it?

But enter my friend Pete, whose unceasing enthusiasm for this band and accompanying campaign of mix tape evangelism caused me to eventually get round to borrowing one of their albums – namely ’24 Hour Revenge Therapy’ (another uninspired name), which is apparently their best one.

And... fucking hell, they’re great! Why are they great? Let us count the ways;

1. Jawbreaker do their rocking in the manner of a classic straight-up power trio, and as such instantly remind me of Husker Du, which is deeply good, and also immediately separates them from the generic banality of what we around here like to term Shitty Non-Metal Weiner Music. They rely pretty heavily on big, Nirvana-esque three chord trick riffs and stomp-box hitting choruses, but if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, and damn, they do it well. So that’s the first hurdle over with – they Rock!

2. Jawbreaker sing great, memorable songs you can instantly get the point of, with funny, confident, self-referential and slightly ludicrous verses that seem custom made to be scrawled on the front of discerning outsider school kids’ notebooks. Like; “you’re not punk and I’m telling everyone / save your breath I never was one / you don’t know what I’m all about / killing cops and reading Kerouac”.

3. Jawbreaker really fucking mean it, man. Not in the sense of the tired out, over-earnest “look at me, this means sooo much to me, I’m being iinteennssee!” gestures favored by of practitioners of Shitty Non-Metal Weiner Music, but in the sense that on any given song, they know exactly what they’re gonna say, they lay it down with guts and energy and honesty, and when it’s said they call it a day. It’s a great no bullshit approach that’s brilliantly refreshing in these days of dreadful, overwrought, empty whining, and one which hits it’s target every time.

4. Jawbreaker do ‘serious’ songs dealing with depression and other such emotional/personal hoo-hah, such as ‘Ashtray Monument’ and ‘Condition: Oakland’, and they’re actually talented enough to avoid cliché and bombast and make me care. In the context of contemporary genre punk, this is little short of a miracle. Those track titles are probably setting off your emo-alarms, and I don’t blame you, but seriously, they’re solid stuff – well worth checking out. They also sample the aforementioned Mr. Kerouac to great effect on the latter track.

So there you go – a damn fine band. Open up indie snobs, and let their love in.

Well, it's official. I'm gonna be a DJ as part of..

"No One Cares About Your DJ Night!"

"A lo-fi bubblegum punk rock indie pop lady bop teenage summer love rock explosion fest!"

Thursday June 23rd, The Attik, Free Lane, Leicester. Free Entry.

I'll probably be playing my patented high-energy power hour towards the end of the night, so if yr. in the local area, c'mon motherfuckers, there's a dancefloor just waiting to be reclaimed!

I went to see The Diskettes play a gig in Leicester last week. At least, I think it was a gig. They just set up in the corner of this trendy bar and played for 40 minutes to an attentive audience of about half a dozen. Which strikes me as a really awesome way of doing things – no money changing hands, no standing around for hours in a loud, dark room or any of the other things that can so often turn live music into such a chore. And more to the point, they were really great! They’re kinda like, I dunno, The Beat Happening covering Stereolab? God, don’t you just hate all this X meets Y crap people like me with too many records are always coming out with? Let’s try again; They’re kinda like really sweet lo-fi pop of the best possible kind with groovy flemenco-ish guitar flourishes and terrific foot-tapping rhythms courtesy of a horizontal bass drum and some maracas, and wonderfully worked out Beach Boys style vocal harmonies. Not Beach Boys like all that overwrought soft rock crap the Guardian says sounds like the Beach Boys, but more like if a teenage Brian Wilson had had two cool sisters and they’d kicked out the jams on a summer evening, sitting in the back garden and making up songs.
Yeah, that good.

No updates for two weeks? It just won’t do will it! In my defence, I’ve been on holiday, and here are some thoughts on some of the new things I listened to whilst on holiday;

Given the breathless excitement, crazed excess and general mind-boggling derangement we’ve routinely come to expect from Japanese bands over the years, I was pleasantly surprised to stick on Nagisa Ni Te’s ‘Dream Sounds’ (Jagjaguwar) and hear what sounds to these ears like a bunch of mild-mannered Japanese guys kicking back with some gentle variations on Neil Young’s ‘Down by the River’, only with Crazy Horse’s fuzzy analogue haze kicked out in favour of a shimmering, crystalline guitar sound and some beautifully articulated male/female vocals. Subsequent songs manage to recall in turn; A more laidback Shop Assistants? Maybe Galaxie 500 without the solos or the Joy Division influence? Or early Fairport Convention relocated to urban Tokyo? Perhaps a touch of Mazzy Star, only better? Conventionality can definitely exert it’s own kind of beauty sometimes, and at the moment Nagisa Ni Te’s dreamy, epic indie rock makes me feel nice inside in a way that, say, eight hours of Kawabata Makoto duelling with a giant psychedelic walrus at the centre of the galaxy probably wouldn’t.

Last week did bring forth one historic event, in that I received my first unsolicited promo CD that’s actually worth listening to! Oh wondrous world in which we live! It’s by the excellently named The Gays, and it’s a single called ‘Fire to Feed’ on Pinprick Records. The A-side is a fine stab at home-made cock-rock minimalism, featuring a shrieked vocal that’s Eighties Matchbox.. nutty rather than Darkness shitty and percussion that sounds like it’s being played on a leather jacket by one of those robots that builds cars. The B-side is the real treat though – a joyously mentalist remix by somebody called Waster that daringly mixes irresistible floor-filling techno with distinctly floor-emptying mutations of the aforementioned vocal. If I had a disco, I’d be sure to play this frequently, just to keep ‘em on their toes. The whole thing has a certain wild-eyed hedonistic kind of vibe to it too, which I like.

Speaking of which, Simply Saucer’s ‘Cyborgs Revisited’ (Sonic Unyon) is a thing of utter magnificence – the sound of a gang of freewheelin’ Velvet Underground / Stooges worshipping science fiction freaks getting seriously out-there back in mid-‘70s Canada. Choppy guitar riffs, howling feedback and utterly bugged out synthesiser noises lead the assault, and slurred lyrics about robots, nazis, aliens, drugs and weird sex seal the deal. “Here’s some heavy metaloid music,” the singer announces at the start of live track ‘Illegal Bodies’, “It’s a song of the future… unless you have a metal body they’re not gonna allow you to walk the streets… no kidding.” The band then proceeds to launch into the most dementedly reductive noise jam attempted on American soil since ‘Sister Ray’. “We’ll be back with you in just a few minutes!” they threaten after things grind to a halt around the ten minute mark. There is no discernible applause. Basically, in geek rock terms these guys couldn’t have been any cooler if they’d built their own girlfriends out of ectoplasm. Which is exactly the kind of thing I can imagine them doing in their spare time. Terminally obscure during their lifetime, this reissue will hopefully help to gain Simply Saucer the reputation they richly deserve as part of the heroic lineage of outsider psychedelic punk bands that runs from the 13th Floor Elevators, the Fugs and the Monks through to the Electric Eels, the Butthole Surfers and early Flaming Lips.

I’m afraid The Mae Shi’s ‘Terrorbird’ (5 Rue Christine) is way too excitable is make an impression on my current lethargic state of mind. Featuring 33 tracks in half an hour, many of them with names like ‘Heironymous Bosch is a Dead Man’ and ‘Takoma the Dolphin is Awol’, and multiple re-hackings of the same twisted hunks of noise by different band members, I fear full appreciation of this disc will require a level of energy that would make Melt Banana look like the Grateful Dead. Why do so many American young people seem to want to communicate with the world entirely through the medium of super-accelerated prog-rock doodles and desperate high-pitched shrieking? It’s like listening to an album made by over-educated punk rock smurfs. As usual, I blame video games, prescription drugs and the 1980s.