Friday, March 14, 2003

 
enon and on and on and on...

yes, but last nite i took a jaunt out to the empire to see the first actual "gig" (you know, with actual "bands") i've partaken of in far, far too long a while. bands were bloodthirsty lovers and enon - both american, both with members in about a squillion other obscure-core outfits past and present and both complete and utter unknown-quantities to my good self.

fortunately it was money well-spent. bloodthirsty lovers impressed with their raw analogue college-rock angst; enon licked my ya-ya's off with their saucy electro-punk stylings, and deafened me with an excruciating tidal wave of feedback at the end. in other words, they rocked like they shouldn't be allowed; which is hard.

mad as feck they are, too (and some bloke took some pictures to prove it...)

posted by Peter 11:47 AM

Tuesday, March 11, 2003

 
tits (and an ass)

christina ricci. remember her? “life rage”; a therapist on each coast; queen of the teen screen bitches, though last enjoyed by me as the pale and interesting love interest in tim burton’s sleepy hollow fully three-years-and-more ago? (bless the child doesn’t count; ‘twas a cameo appearance and the film was a duffer). oh yes, and always talking about her cleavage?

the cleavage-obsession (hers and mine) is important, as the current goss on the lately-dormant ricci grapevine is that the celebrated mammaries are due to be unveiled in a forthcoming drool-fest entitled monster, in which la belle ricci plays the role of charlize theron’s lesbian lover.

do you ever feel as though time can’t possibly pass quickly enough?

*

anyway, enough of this wet banter and onwards to a bald wanker. i refer, since you ask, to nick “lists, arsenal, high fidelity, lists” hornby. i’ve never held any grudges against the guy - a couple of decent films have been made of his books, for a start - but his tastes in music have long struck me as stultifyingly conservative and dull, and in his new “opus” 31 songs he attempts to defend his flaccid faves (springsteen, teenage fanclub, nelly frikkin’ furtado) in shamelessly specious fashion.

in a nutshell, hornby writes of how he never listens to suicide’s “frankie teardrop” anymore because as a married homeowner in his forties he no longer wishes to be the recipient of a musical “shot in the head”. violence and danger in music, he says, are attractive to people because of many years of peace and prosperity in society; edgy experimentalism is liked only by young music journalists simply because they’ll always take to something just that little bit different in amongst the vast amount of samey stuff to which they’re obliged to listen; and, frankly, give him a simple three-minute pop song any day of the week.

fact is, his relentless emphasis on the more banal aspects of the music he loves is worrying (one suspects he loves it in much the same way that he loves to kick back with a nice cuppa and watch the golf on telly). fact is, experimentalism does not necessarily equate with metal machine music and you’ll find it in all the best pop (beach boys, bowie - hornby would fain acknowledge this fact, or indeed the aforementioned artists!)

also, violent and dangerous aspects to art - in peacetime or otherwise - feed an ever-present need in human nature. when i listen to suicide yes i get the shivers, yes i get the adrenaline, yes the uncompromising imagery is a bit of a turn-on...hornby wishes not to be “patronised” for no longer caring for such elements in music. well fair enough, but please don’t patronise the rest of us, nick, by coming on like you’ve been in the wars and seen all the horrors in life, you sheltered-ass muppet. admittedly you’ve lived longer and had a lot more thrown at you by life than i have, but you’re a fool if you think the reason hardboiled hip-hop is so popular in inner-city american killing fields isn’t precisely because it reflects the badness of what people see around them, putting their life experience into song.

and hey, if the apocalypse comes to town anytime soon, i’m far more likely to be listening to godspeed you! black emperor than ian dury’s “reasons to be cheerful” while i await the atomisation of my earthly shell.

i’ll stop ranting now. i could compose my arguments in more structured form and send them in a letter to hornby himself, but he’d almost certainly dismiss me as a rabidly hot-headed youngblood and calmly return to his “appreciation” of the aural approximation of a coma that was bruce springsteen’s last effort. scum.

(ps. needless to say, i didn’t actually buy hornby’s book, but listened to him reading extracts from it on radio 4. incidentally, if you listen to john peel’s home truths programme on radio 4 it makes you curl your lip at john peel. that ain’t right!)









posted by Peter 10:14 AM

Monday, March 10, 2003

 
links are in order.

if the lying oracle approves she can't be bad, like.

and...

i just wish he would get his shit together on this one!
posted by Peter 11:14 AM