MILES HUNT / ERICA NOCKALLS 11 Feb 2012 Tunbridge Wells Forum


Britains finest songwriting duo back on their never ending tour.

Six years in, Miles Hunt and Erica Nockalls – the songwriting duo that has powered The Wonder Stuff – are back on the road after the longest break they've had yet : five whole weeks. For the past several years, the two have made their lives that of the most honourable of professions, driving across the world armed with guitars and ideas, taking their songs anywhere that will have them. On a cold and snowy Saturday, it's the small town of Tunbridge Wells, and a capacity crowd of 200 or so for the first acoustic show in this venue in half a decade.

Whilst the past few years have been a combination of a flurry of new solo records, curating two multi-artist albums, revisiting Wonder Stuff material on record, and presenting first half of the Wonder Stuff discography on the road, they have also seen Miles & Erica playing upwards of 80 to 100 shows a year across the world, with the kind of prolific workrate that shames some of their (larger) contemporaries. Maybe only Bob Dylan tours so much. And a night with Miles and Erica is far more than any evening with Bob Dylan.




Even if you are deeply familiar with all the songs (and you won't be, for at least three - “The Right Side Of The Turf”, “The Day The World Turned Day Glo”, and “Immaculate Fools” - have yet to see a release on one of their records), the evening is a splendid two hours of music and stories from the most under-rated talent in the country. Opening with “The Truth At Last”, the pair match Miles' frenetic chords and literate, intelligent wordplay with Erica's rhythmic, but expansive fiddleplaying : it's not that you miss the drums, the bass, the bite of electric guitar, as much as these songs still stand strong without them, and the sparse backing presents these songs in a more naked form, showing other, perhaps hidden sides.

But it's not just the songs. Tonight is about so much more than just presenting the songs : it is, as all the acoustic evenings are, intimate and broad ; tales from the life of Miles and Erica over the past thirty years : taken from all periods of the life and work. I would hesitate to call it a career as such, for this implies some kind of plan, and life, as we all know, might be made of plans – but it is also made of making it up as you go along, because none of us can see the future. And having seen Miles' play – solo, and with bands – in 14 different lineups, – over the past twenty years, tonight is, as much as any night, the work of a passionate pair who love music as much as life itself. As one should.



Given that this is the twentieth anniversary of the most popular Wonder Stuff record - “Never Loved Elvis” - tonight sees half of that record performed live, including, for only the fifth or so time, “False Start”. And “Caught In My Shadow”, which is a song that means more to anyone who has ever left their home town, than most other people will know. (I am also probably the only person in this room, apart from Miles', who appears in the video).

Time may pass. New songs may arrive. But these songs, new and old, are moments, fractions of our lives. They are snapshots into our feelings, our emotions, and how we see the world. When Miles sings “These streets used to look big, this town used to look like a city, these people used to talk to me”, he captured the moment when – without even knowing – you went to being an adult, and when the world we often live in starts to look extremely small.

And yes, if you don't love music, I don't always trust you.



The main body of the set comes to a close with “Here Comes Everyone.” This song, as much as any written by anyone, anywhere, ever, opens for me a world. I cannot explain it in any rational way. We may change, we may grow up, we may grow old, but we are all people, and I am the same person I was then, albeit more refined, more detailed, perhaps, but like these songs, the things I believed, the morals I held, the world I made in my own mind, defined my reality, these things remembered remain unchanged. What was strong, and compelling then, is also strong and compelling now.

Which is a long way of saying that Miles & Erica are still vibrant, firey, still burning, as they always will. It may only be word, songs, lyrics, music. I don't care what you think of it. I know that when life disappointed me, when the light was gone, that these songs, and many others like it, saved me.



The Truth At Last
D.W.I.
Mission Drive
Play
Fill Her Up & Foot Down
The Cake
Welcome To The Cheap Seats
New Song (George)
These Things Remembered
Circle Square
Golden Green
Immaculate Fools
Plans In The Sky
Caught In My Shadow
Maybe
The Day The World Turned Day-Glo
Here Comes Everyone
Piece Of Sky
Don’t Let Me Down, Gently
Unbearable
- posted by Mark @ 8:07 PM 0 comments links to this post

 
You'll never learn anything if you never make a mistake.


Whether you ever declare or not, somewhere inside all of us, we know certain things.

The average British Man has had 13 sexual partners : The average British woman 7. Apparently. I'm no mathematician, but I'm not sure what exactly that means – that there are some women that sleep with a lot of men and some women that don't, and some men who sleep with a lot of women and a lot of men who don't.

One person – I think his name is Jeff Leach, and allegedly some kind of comedian, albeit one I have never heard of – has slept with 300 people. Well, someone get this man a medal! “Good enough to fuck, not good enough to love”. That should do it. What a fucking hero, shagging all those women.

It's easy to fuck 300 women if you want to. It takes effort, certainly, and probably money or charm and commitment, no standards, and a willingness to let your penis invade anyone who will let you, but it's not some heroic act. Me, I'd rather fuck an amazing woman 300 times than 300 women once each.

And no doubt, when he was finished, he catalogued each one, spreadsheeted them, put the number in the book, googled them and saved a photograph to his hard drive : and for what? For why?

Is sex some kind of collection? If that's the case there are, quite literally, billions of women yet to receive the Holy Cock Of Promisciuity. I am fairly sure that they must be weeping themselves to sleep having not felt the flesh of the transient attention, or perhaps, the loneliness of the long walk of shame home. And thousands of girls reach the age of consent every day : you gotta fuck 'em all. A naked Pokemon, or Poke-a-woman if you are a connisuer of appalling linguistics.

What is it that drives a man to stick his penis everywhere he can, like some kind of human USB stick? A loneliness? Stupidity? Insecurity? An impossible ideal of the perfect woman?

There is no perfect woman. The best anyone can ever find is someone who is smart and honest and warm and will put up with your boring shit about football, movies, and cars.

Oh, I know. I've hardly been chaste in my life. At my least faithful, I was conducting three relationships at once : seven in one year : four people in one week : two in one day. I'm not sure exactly why. Looking at it in the cold light of over a decade later, I confess to not missing it at all. I never wanted a thrill of the chase, but the knowing security of a plot in my life, a narrative, a companion in these lonely adventures, someone who was going with me in the same direction, headed the same way, two starcrossed lost souls adrift in the same direction of the long sea called life.

Three. Hundred. Women. What the hell? Certainly, that moment, that thrill when you lean in, and someone else leans up, or towards, when lips meet for the first time and when - there's little thrill like it : but then, I don't want to be thrilled with life : I want to be happy, I want to be content. I don't want to be a drug addict, chasing the next illusory goal. People get addicted to things they love, but whatever they get addicted to, is just a delivery mechanism for the adrenalin thrill inside – the momentary lapse of reason, the line of white, the moment where you lose yourself in someone, something, anything else.

There is no orgasm as powerful as the love a sane person has for their child. No hit better than love. I was looking to fill that God-shaped hole, the sense of inner peace : the sense that life itself has been made the best it can in the circumstances we are given. I don't hit the town anymore. It's boring being drunk. The greatest moment is when we transcend ; where we leave the world that humanity made and exist somewhere else for a period, even if it is only a fraction of a second, it is the greatest thing there is.

Or you can chase 300 women and try to have sex with them. Which is boring, being yet another notch added to the fucktree. There's more to life than this, isn't there?
- posted by Mark @ 11:23 PM 0 comments links to this post

 
The Best Of Times. The Worst Of Times.


27th January 2009. Three years ago, I had what I can only describe as a nervous breakdown. The moments, the hours when it happened, the exact minute, the sounds and the feelings remains seared into me : and though on the outside I look and act the same as I did, and nobody would I suspect know unless I discussed it with them, inside I know. We know. We rebuilt our lives after a horrific event, and we – us – are one. I look on us now, my partner and I, and my boys, and am astounded with where we are now and how far we have travelled from then.

In terms of spirit, I went through a hell and back. I walked away from things I should not have done, but could not remain within. I was holding onto injustices, trying to resolve them. I was holding onto things that were killing me.

But, when I think of how far we have come since then, it is a different world. At the time, I was uncertain if I would work again, and if so, how, and to what level. Would I step back from my ambitions, limited by my capacity? Or would I be limited only by my abilities, as such? And, until recently, I was doing some of my best ever work, at the top of my game. I've never worked harder, or better, than the past twelve months.

This traumatic event is, like the Kurt Cobain legendary divorce, such a bore. What matters is not what happened, but where I am now. At the time, I did not know my place in the world. One day I stayed watching films in the cinema all day because I did not want to come back home. Most days, the highlights of my day was getting up to see my partner off to work, before spending the rest of the day in the house. Convalesing. For the two years previous, I had lived in a steadily uglier world : a vile working environment, a forced 'voluntary' redundancy, which had been enacted by a unjustified procedure – one I was compensated for after union and legal involvement. A divorce. Fraud. Multiple assaults. The theft of my life savings of several thousand pounds by my ex-wife. The death of an unborn child. 14 hour working days. At some point, one must break.

To think where I am now from then, I am staggered by how far we have come. My life is not perfect, but this life has improved immeasurably since then. We have long and hard moments in our life :almost all are linked to the fog of exhaustion and constant demands of a two year old and the then-crushing demands of an employer. A lack of money and time. For me though, it was the realisation of everything I have been working for in my life so far.

And then it fell apart. A decision outside of my life, outside of my efforts, outside of everything I had done and beyond my control was made, and now everything I have worked for all of my life, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every year, for the past seventeen years, is at risk by a decision that is beyond my control.

I will be officially unemployed for the first time in fifteen years in less than a month.

My family is at risk. My home is at risk. If I lose my home now I will never be able to own another home unless I inherit one. I will be renting forever. My children may not have anywhere to live. The ambitions I have sought, and the prize I have wanted almost all of my professional life that I briefly achieved, have been discarded. But how I land, and what happens after that, to some extent is up to me.

It could be worse. And, unless I know what's happening in my future, it will be. Very quickly.

Everything I have worked for will have been destroyed. But I'm not giving up without a fight. My job is now to find another job. It is a battle to the death. I will not give up, I will not give in.
- posted by Mark @ 9:49 PM 2 comments links to this post

 
The Hunter Gets Caught By The Game.


The Sun newspaper totally, and completely, loses the plot and blames everyone else for its own failures. In the link above, they compare the police investigation of their activites with a baseless need for blame - a witch hunt is the exact words they use. Jack Of Kent has a very useful article about witch hunts which I suggest you all read.

Being lawfully investigated with the aim of establishing the facts behind potentially very serious allegations is not a witch hunt. In the meantime, the editor suggests that there are those that will stop at nothing to destroy the paper, and that this investigation is actively jeopardising national security and increasing the risk of a terrorist attack.

By that logic, those who are to blame for any terrorist attacks are... The Sun newspaper and its employees. After all, if The Daily Mail can blame dead school kids on striking teachers, it makes sense to lay the blame for any terrorist activity in the future solely at the feet of those whose activities caused the diversion of police resources.

What he neglects to say, is those who would stop at nothing are, and were, mostly the people who engaged in illegal activity. Which, if proven so in court, this activity includes :

- Sustained, long term, and prolific identity theft and fraud of over 5,000 individuals : including the dead.
- Interception of email and telephone communications of thousands of individuals.
- Perverting the course of justice through destroying voicemail messages left for murdered people by distraught relatives and lying to the police when questioned.
- Lying to the public and claiming that they were working with the full co-operation of the police into a murder investigation.
- Payments to police employees, prison staff, members of the Ministry Of Defence, and officials of the state in return for information.

If this is not the work of an organised, criminal gang, I don't know what is.

Read the letters in Parliment regarding the phone hacking. They are dynamite.

Let us not forget, in the words of the odious editorial : "Nobody has been charged with any offence, still less tried or convicted." - much in the same way as Christopher Jefferies was not charged, tried, or convicted, but was still front page news for a week and, to all intents and purposes, convicted by the media of being a murderer.

The Sun's response to this is who polices the police? .... to which, the answer must be, that such a hands-off approach served The Sun just fine when it was busy bribing the police, but not when it learns such bribes don't always work. The Hunter got caught by The Game.

The paper complains that "They are treated like threats to national security". I wouldn't want to presume anything, but were I judging if someone was a threat to national security, then if activities such as hacking 5,000 voice mail and email accounts, bribing policemen, prison officers, members of the Ministry of Defence, destroying evidence in a murder investigation, and impersonating the Prime Minister to get his bank details doesn't constitute a threat to National Security, then nothing does.

To say this investigation threatens the free press is a lie. This investigation threatens nothing but the livelihood of an organised, criminal gang engaged in mass, co-ordinated criminal activity and therefore, is not a witch hunt but a legitimate investigation into potentially mass criminal activity of an enormous scale.

And if you think the response by the Police is overblown, consider this. If your son or daughter goes missing or is murdered, if you are a relative of someone who is revealed to be a murderer or having an affair with a footballer, or if you become in any way 'newsworthy', then you are a target for having your entire life published for the titillation of millions, using information stolen from you by people pretending to be you, in order for them to make profit. If that doesn't sound like a witch-hunt of the innocent to you, nothing will.

Let them all eat justice.


- posted by Mark @ 12:22 AM 0 comments links to this post

 
The Hit Parade


As anyone who has paid any attention to the world recently, Whitney Houston was pronounced dead about 20 hours ago. The details of her death, the where, the when, the how, are unknown. When "I Will Always Love You" was number#1 for something approximating a millenia in 1992, the question was asked how it felt to have been denied a number#1 in the British Pop Charts. "Whitney Houston doesn't count, so we're Number 1."

Irrespective of the facts of the death, and the undoubted personal tragedies within this, Whitney Houston was not the greatest singer the world has ever seen. Her performances may have been technically correct, her range wide, her voice strong. But when she sang those songs, I never believed her. I never thought she meant it. The words she sang were just phrases, and to my ears, she played at these songs. The stories these songs told were lies to my ears. "I Will Always Love You" became a parody, a hollow imitation of what it meant : a song of regret and rememberance became a tribute to the strength of a love that would endure anything. The fact that the song was a self-deluded stalkers anthem, and the meaning of the song, was obscured in a pause and a deep hit of a snare drum and a voice belting out with the power of a jet engine.

AND! I! WILL! ALWAYS! LOVE YOU!

Good god girl. Give those histronics a break. These little in the way of genuine emotion in her work, just gymnastics and overwrought imitations of emotion. No restraint, all for effect. It's bad acting, not sincerity. It's not right. It's not OK. It was a trick, not a treat. If technical skill was all you needed, then the best writers in the world are the vebose, veaxtious, vindictive vignettes of versimilitude : and not those that communicate ideas and emotions.

Houston was a brilliant singer ; but she was a technician. And art is not a technical skill, but an emotional one, that communicates emotions and ideas between people. Whitney Houston may have been a great singer, but she was no artist. And she never gave the impression she wanted to be one. She have the impression that all she ever wanted was to be a great singer : and mistook saying something with having something worth saying.

Perhaps she summed it best in an interview : "First of all, let's get one thing straight. Crack is cheap. I make too much money to ever smoke crack. Let's get that straight. Okay? We don't do crack. We don't do that. Crack is wack.""

What a fucking waste of talent. The tragedy is that she has a daughter who will grow up without a mother. And that is something that should never happen.
- posted by Mark @ 8:32 PM 0 comments links to this post

 
Half A Wife.


The battle in modern working life is that of reconciliation. How do you be all things to all people? On one hand, Britains problems are the cause of the feckless poor who don't want to work. And also, at the same time, it's the fault of the absent parents who, after a hard day at work in the most challenging working environment of the past 80 years, and working all hours to keep their jobs and roofs over their heads whilst their colleagues are being cut, cut, cut, in the name of austerity. Leave work on time to put your kids to bath, and you're the first for the chop because you don't show any commitment to the corporate cause. Stay late and you're the absent parent that is the cause of Broken Britain.

And let us not even mention the benefits trap : with a lack of regulated child care costs, a working parent is seeing half their money go direct to someone else to raise their children.

These are the battles the modern family quietly, desperately fights : every second at work is one taken from the children, and the equasion to be all things to all people all the time also excludes perhaps the most important element of the whole thing. Parents often feel that they exist to serve in modern slavery, with all space for their own personality pushed to the side of their lives, existing solely as parent units. It is this world that this book so elegantly captures, with examples both drawn from memory and fact, but also from the millions across the country, this quiet, exhausted war of duty.

But also, not only Half A Wife, but Half A Husband, where the partnership becomes two people toiling in the tyranny of housework - mother, brother, sister, lover - all things at work. Written clearly, concisely, and in a way that follows the natural order of issues logically, this book illuminates. To be frank, it is practically essential reading for any manager or HR department in the UK (and further beyond) : the telling point is that for every late-night supermarket, every garage and convienience store, every restaurant and helpdesk, there is a quiet and apposite effect - a child somewhere, without their mother or father, and a harried parent, or stepfather, or a grandparent, staying up late at night, putting someone else's child to bed.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is the rub of the book, and eloquently, exhaustively explained again, and again, and again, in this work : every employer should read it, and every Prime Minister should have every word imprinted into his mind - that being Half A Wife or Half A Husband is sometimes too much for even the most dedicated of parents in the modern world.
- posted by Mark @ 9:15 PM 0 comments links to this post

 
The History of the NME: High Times and Low Lives at the World's Most Famous Music Magazine


By its very nature, this is an incomplete document : written by Pat Long, who joined the paper in the dying embers of the glory days, this tome - and probably the last of it's kind - takes the story of the NME from its inception as a 4 page sheet sixty years ago to the cusp of the year 2000. It is a fascinating story, and one that captures quite accurately an age that will never return. At the peak of the papers notirety (in my mind, at least) were the glory years of 1992-1996, when Nirvana and Oasis briefly ruled the music universe, and where Blurasis held the front pages of every paper ever published, and the madness, and the directionless attempt to create column inches from trivial and empty gossip were even then making the papers - the NME, arch rival Melody Maker, and the defunct Sounds, fall victim to their own hyperbole. Long picks up the mantle with interviews and discussion from many of the former alumni, offering their perspective through the prism of time and the need to self-justify : the same need all paper have. However, Long makes a stirling effort to shape and form the narrative of sixty years into a cohesive whole. It's not always easy. The role of the paper in the key controversies of the time - the Bowie salute at Victoria, the Morrissey Madstock event of 1992, and many others - are explained with no small fact that the paper needed to sell units and advertising to keep itself alive.

The papers often strange financing arrangements - a loan from a mother-in-law in the early days, for example - and the outlandish expenses, the slack and lacksadasical principles for filing copy - all recall a time of feckless unaccountability. Trips abroad on artist royalties were defined by the location of relatives, or a desire to see the Statue Of Liberty, and dealers who wandered the the floors with a smorgasboard of pharmaceuticals were regular fixtures. These are crazy days, but they make us shine.

With the dimming of the years, memories become fuzzy. Recollections change. The true path of events becomes distorted, and thus, there is always hagiography here. The papers pitch battle for supremacy - and the way it defined every Wednesday and thus, sneaky phone calls on Friday morning to buy tickets for THAT tour, is captured in the space between every line of text.

Where this does fall down, and enormously so, is the finale. As the internet takes a rise, and the paper formats fall to the ground as brittle leaves blown by the storm of technology, then the paper faces its biggest challenge, and also the one that the text utterly fails to acknowledge in any meaningful way. Whilst it is argued in the preface that this is a book in itself, the history of the paper comes to an abrupt end just as it enters the most crucial phase of its existence, when the very word 'paper' carries with it an ancient legacy of the one-dimensional, word-from-God decree and the failure of the title - as so many before it have learnt to their peril - to adapt to the times. This is the NME's great challenge, and one that this title studiously avoids ; instead the paper is left at this book's incomplete conclusion to forage at the future that is the internet and with the tale that is the most recent decade of it's history untold. Incomplete.
- posted by Mark @ 9:12 PM 0 comments links to this post

 
I'm With Stupid


They are wonderful, aren't they?

Last week, I was carrying my son down the stairs in a shop. Well, I say carrying, but he is two years old. And he was in a buggy. So imagine, if you will, a thirty something man, carrying a child, in a buggy, down twenty or so stairs in a shop. (For a picture, it's one of these).

How long does it take to go down these steps? 10 seconds? Surely, you can wait that long. Unless..

As I had started on my way down, at the foot of the stairs, a male of advanced years - enough to be old enough to know fucking better, and probably a parent as well - walked into the shop, and looked up the stairs. Seeing me, and my son being carried in a buggy down the stairs, his first thought was, well - let's have a test, shall we?

a) run up the stairs and squeeze past the man, and the buggy with the baby in it.
b) wait until they come downstairs.
c) offer to help.

If you offered C) well done, you are a fully rounded, normal, considerate human being. B) not particularly helpful, but also, you're not a windowlicking mouthbreathing cretin. And A) then you're the kind of embarassment to mankind I encountered last week.

And thus, halfway down the stairs, Captain Stupid tried to push past me, with a buggy containing a human being. He raced up, and only stopped when he touched the buggy. I stood still for a second - after all, I wouldn't want the death-by-stairs of a stupid fucker on my conscience. He pushed again trying to get past.

"Could you go to the bottom of the stairs?" I said.
He pushed again.
"Get THE HINT". I hissed.
"I thought you said something else." he said. But the way I translated those words was not what he said, but what he meant. Which was "I'M A FUCKING IDIOT."

After a miniscule battle of wits - aided by the fact I have brains and he didn't - he went down the stairs, not, by the way offering to help a man carrying a buggy with a human being in it - so that when I got to the bottom of the stairs, my son (aged 2, and 1 month) said something.

"He's impatient isn't he?" Captain Stupid said and chuckled.

I thought for a second, and utilised the power of "FUCK IT."

"I wouldn't lecture anyone about impatience, if I were you." I said.

He laughed and walked up the stairs. I resisted the temptation to say anymore. After all, it's difficult to talk down to stupid people in a way they understand. Sometimes, not being an asshole is a curse.



Today, mind you, we were walking past the coach park after a meal.

I was distracted by the front coach, in which a shiny red can suddenly dropped to the floor. The coach driver, smoking a fag, had casually chucked his can of Coke out of the window onto the floor.

I walked up, picked up the can, and dropped it through the window into his lap.

"You dropped this."

To which, I charmingly was informed that I was a ...

"TWAT!"

.... but I'm not a littering twat.

"It's not my can!" Captain Stupid#2 pleaded.

"I don't care. Your coach, your can, your fudging problem."

Coaches do have bins on them, don't they?

Sheesh. People. I know they are stupid, but do they have to demonstrate this so obviously and completely unprompted with such stunning regularity?
- posted by Mark @ 6:37 PM 0 comments links to this post

 
The Midlands Will Rise Again.


Due to an enormous change in my life circumstances, both somewhat unexpected, and beyond my control, I may - or may not - be changing the contents of this site, and may or may not cease blogging. Certainly, some subjects I will not be able to mention in any detailed way. Bit twas ever thus, anyway.

You will be pleased to know :

No one has died.
No relationships have ended.
Everyone is physically healthy and in good spirits.
We are still getting married.

Love,

M
- posted by Mark @ 11:26 PM 1 comments links to this post

 
The Way Life Is

Boys cuddle over Christmas.


X has a camera!


Strike a pose, vogue.


X gives Luke a kiss before setting off.


The wind took a great big bite out of my roof when the speeds went up to 70mph last month.


We got accosted by cocks.


We pose on the train


Boy in the box.


Tube philosophy
- posted by Mark @ 10:40 PM 0 comments links to this post

 
JESUS JONES / JIMBOB - London Islington Academy - 28 January 2012


“Welcome to the museum of modern music”, Mike Edwards announces, before Jesus Jones kick into another of their multitude of lesser known international bright young nineties pop hits, in this strange venue – a converted shop inside a shopping centre, opposite a clothes shop. Haberdashery, needles, spoons, and knives. Ground floor, shopper's paradise.

But first, the support act : JimBob, the acoustic version of Carter USM, has returned from a solo musical hibernation with new material and a bag of great songs that haven't been heard for a long time. Armed with just an acoustic guitar and a suit, JimBob plays songs new and old. There's no qualitative gap between the big songs of 1990-1995 and the smaller, more intimate ones : more that, without the muscle of a huge record company chartering jets and aiming for Number 1 albums, these records sell in the hundreds and not the hundreds of thousands. If anything, his songs – their deft use of language grounded in the minutae of British life – are a more specific brand of social commentary that shames Morrissey's finest moments, and shorn of the universal air of human self-pity. Or, another way, JimBob's closest peer would be a modern day Philip Larkin with a guitar. Songs well known - “Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere”, “Bloodsport For All”, “Do Re Me So Far So Good”, “The Only Living Boy In New Cross” nuzzle up to recent gems such as “The Tesco Riots”. It's a short half hour, with the crowd receiving the older songs with joy and the newer ones with curiousity, laying the groundwork for a continuing journey through life as songs. After four years of high profile Carter nostalgia shows, it is a refreshing experience to have the solo songs return to life and live again in front of your eyes.



Half an hour later (and, at 8.15 prompt), Jesus Jones take the stage. For no reason other than they can, every three or four years, Jesus Jones get together for a week or so and pretend to be pop stars again. It's nothing more, and nothing less, than a thoroughly enjoyable romp through an under-appreciated bands back catalogue.

And, what seems alien now, is that it is twenty one years since their biggest record, the slender but nourishing “Doubt”. And no, it isn't a play-the-album-in-full gig. Nothing dates faster than a vision of the future that never came to pass, after all. For a couple of brief summers, this band, and Pop Will Eat Itself, and EMF, all occupied roughly the same place, welding the possibilities of drum machines and guitars and big pop songs : all admittedly with varying degrees of success.



We can laugh at the fashions now : what on earth were you thinking with orange shorts and purple leggings and huge red hats with a thousand fake legs poking out of them? Then again, the big flares or 1990, or the rat-tail jumpers of 1992 were also equally loathsome. And the big white jumpers and floppy Beatle haircuts of 1996. You don't listen to music with your eyes, anyway.

I've now passed the point where I've seen this band more in their reunion years than in their glory. And, to be blunt, they are probably better now than they were then. There's no qualitative difference, at the very least. And, whilst the set is made of old songs, it is no tired nostalgia show. Some songs you might expect - “The Devil You Know”, “The Right Decision”, “The Next Big Thing” - are absent, and instead rarely-played songs - “Blissed”, “Get A Good Thing”, “What's Going On”, are present. You may lament the loss of these songs, but a band is not a jukebox and whilst some of these songs may have paid for their houses, it is not a debt that anyone has to carry. Besides which, haven't bands performed some songs enough? I could happily live the rest of my life without hearing “Wonderwall” again.



They open with “Who Where Why”, which is probably the most enjoyably brash existential crisis I will hear all night. Sometimes its difficult really to connect the impressionistic lyrics with anything in particular : I'm not sure what “Move Mountains” is about, if anything, after twenty one years. Whilst – and in the best sense of the phrase – Jesus Jones were the indie Def Leppard, this is no insult. Words were created and used in the context of phonetics for the earlier records, and sounds were an unholy combination of technology and buzzsaw guitars. And, for a moment, Jesus Jones were huge in the music world.

Those days were different : neither better, nor worse, just utterly different : on the cusp of the analog transition into digital, and the move of our worlds into that of connected bits and bytes. When the future arrived, when computers on every desk became commonplace, and when Oasis ruled the world, Jesus Jones became obselete. We changed, grew up, or grew away, depending on who you listened to, and moved to the next stage. For some people, this music was a fad, locked into a box and replaced with television, Downton Abbey, cooking and home renovations.



Remember when you were alive? When blood flowed? When we jumped and sang and took the night by the horns? What would you know?

You could only buy hits in record shops, on vinyl, cassette, 12” picture disc with an extra song, and CD single. The charts were published weekly in inky paper, and the conduit was the monopoly of print and broadcast media.

That girl, that boy, is still here. International Bright Young Thing, is just such a song. A literate combination of pop at what were then, the boundaries, combined with something deeper. “Caricature”, a b-side that – finally – appeared on an album 21 years after release, goes down better than any other non-hit-single. Were anyone to take their heads out of their collective backside and write a definitive list of “20 best B-sides of all time”, this would be in that list.



Thankfully, it isn't just a case of “PLAY THE HITS AND FUCK OFF”, as Iain Baker's shirt says. Songs are resurrected back to live performance after two decades in hibernation - “Get A Good Thing” was rarely, if ever played, and “Nothing To Hold Me” and “Blissed” haven't been seen since 1991. The first time I saw this band, they disappeared, one by one, to the ghostly chorus of that song, adrift in dry ice and blues and reds that went like a freight train through your mind at 1am.



It's no lazy greatest hits exercise, but it is refreshingly honest to see a band unafraid to tamper with the formula and not just trot out every big song.

There's new stuff too : “The Message” and “Culture Vulture” from the last decade, and songs not played often since 1989.

The main set comes to a close with a four punch of a long lost indie disco. “Zeroes And Ones” was undoubtedly, the band showing their techy stripes – and with “Perverse” taking the unusual mantle of being the first album to be recorded entirely digitally with every instrument recorded and re-sampled – and a compelling romp towards the finish line. After “Bring It On Down”, and the rough and tumble of “Info Freako”, the main set comes to a close with “Idiot Stare” which – to me at least – is one of their finest songs, utilising the much under-appreciated dynamic of tension and release, combined with sweeping string motifs, and deft use of rhythms to bring the night to a crescendo.



And it's not even 9.30 : when I saw Guns N Roses they were still an hour and a half from taking the stage. Two songs later – the full-front Italian piano bongo frenzy of “What Would You Know?” and the aforementioned “Blissed” and it's the end of the trip to the museum of modern music. Cast out into the shopping centre, and with babysitters. Life goes on, but sometimes, for a little while, we can be whoever we were again. It is a mutual moment : Mike Edwards described Jesus Jones existence as “Going on a holiday for a week as pop stars”, and for the audience, it's exactly the same – going on holiday for a night. Last orders is still an hour away, for even if we aren't, the night itself is young.

Set :
Who Where Why / Move Mountains / IBYT /. Caricature / Real Real Real / Nothing To Hold M e/ get A Good Thing / Never Enough / Culture Vulture / All The Answers / Welcome Back, Victoria / The Message ./ Right Here Right Now / What Would You know? / Zeroes And Ones / Bring It on Down / Info Freako / Idiot Stare / What's Going On / Blissed


- posted by Mark @ 7:57 PM 0 comments links to this post

 
It's More Fun To Compute

After last weeks two hour trawl with a dodgy UKASH virus, yesterday morning was.. all things considered, fairly shit. I closed the bonnet on the PC on Friday Night, opened it up the next morning, to find the blue boot screen was frozen. No log in, nothing. The system had hung whilst booting up, and I had no option but to hard reset and start again.

I know. Buy A Mac, it just works!

When the system rebooted, it became fairly clear that whilst booting up it got stuck on one particular element : the network registry was corrupt, and the audio drivers were failing to connect. In short - no Internet, and no sound. And even when I connected the hard DSL cable, the internet was not working. In the meantime, iTunes wasn't working correctly, Windows Explorer wasn't rendering correctly, and the webcam was also out of action. An hour or so later, and it was apparent I would have to format, reload, and reinstall the OS. Bums.

Yesterday largely involved error checking the contents and backing up the Hard Drive. I no doubt missed some files, but I don't know what they are. Today involved reloading, configuring and building the hard drive, then reinstalling all the non-OS programs. I have lost all my progress on Lego Star Wars, but I was only 2.4% in, so I'm not heartbroken yet.

In other news, Amazon provided new heaphones and a new vaccuum cleaner for review, so Sunday has recovered the utter shittness of Saturday and today is pretty ace. And I have a new coat. Small things make all the difference.

How are you doing, anyway?

yeah, yeah. Buy a Mac!
- posted by Mark @ 9:08 PM 0 comments links to this post

 
PET SHOP BOYS format


The sequel, of sorts, to 1995's “Alternative”, “Format” is best seen as perhaps part of a very much a dying breed : The B-sides album. Over their quarter century (is it that long? It doesn't seem so, but it obviously is), the Pet Shop Boys have seen the dominance of the format, the plushing of the vinyl single, the rise, and hasty death of cassette, and the entire lifespan of the CD single : “Always On My Mind” was the first Number One Christmas single available on CD in the UK.

38 songs at a very affordable price in a double set : near enough every Pet Shop Boys song that hasn't been on an album. Near enough.

Now, the b-side is an anarchronism : there are no b-sides anymore. Physical singles are practically extinct : HMV in Oxford Street – the biggest record shop in Europe – contains a two feet of rack space for the CD single. Everything is available on your virtual storefront.

Taking perhaps a strange role then, this record, or box set, of something like 40 songs is a lavish, exhaustive two and a half journey through Pet Shop Boys back pages. Running from 1996 to 2009, from the bands out-of-time “Bilingual” to the largely successful commercial reappraisal of “Yes”, , “Format” is, by definition incomplete – missing the b-sides to the last three singles – and doing what most b-side albums do, which is sound exactly like a collection of songs that don't quite fit well together recorded many years apart.

To their credit, the Pet Shop Boys still bother with b-sides. For many bands, the b-side is now nothing more than a digital bundle of extra leftovers pared off and thrown randomly across the internet through several retailer-only exclusives, or perhaps, even worse, akin to the Depeche Mode remix record from the summer, where 25 extra remixes were only available from 7 seperate digital sellers.

For this band – Britains best songwriting duo – there is no such as a b-side, just a song that doesn't make it onto the album. And here they are. Keen listeners will know first few songs from the 2001 remaster set of “Bilingual”, with others from the various limited double-disc formats of the albums at the time of their release. Others – such as “The former enfant terrible” have only ever been seen as downloads. Not that this necessarily matters, for “Format” collects almost every non-album song from the second fifteen years of their lives, and places them in chronological order . Until such time as an exhaustive set of remasters and reissues slip out for their last few records, “Format” is the place to be.

It starts with “The Truck Driver And His Mate”, which is fine, chunky homo-eroticism at its finest, which perhaps, for the better or the worse, delves right into most stereotypical element of the bands catalogue : they are a gay band, and the opening song is about a gay love triangle for truckers. Beyond this, the rest of this are some of the finest songs you've never heard – 12 songs alone from the “Bilingual” record, including the under-rated remix/amped up re-recording of “Discoteca” which takes a mid-paced ballad and becomes a andrenalised stomper.

“Disco potential” and the somewhat lyrically slight “The View From My Balcony” (which is exactly that), are not the greatest Pet Shop Boys ever.

1999's “Nightlife” was, at the time, semmingly shorn of, and out of step with the world.A brash disco album with tinges of regret, the b-sides were oft overlooked : the band were at this stage, touring to half-empty arenas with a bankrupt Harvey Goldsmith taking the proceeds, and whilst their commercial stock was challenged, the record gifted some of the finest songs they ever wrote – whilst “Je T'Aime” with Sam Taylor Wood is missing, we do get the under-appreciated tussle that is the Chris-Lowe led “Lies”. Sticking with the chronological aim of the record, CD1 ends with “Sexy Northerner”, which is amongst the greatest b-sides of all time : unforgettable, daft and funny in equal measure. The key to happy living is not taking yourself too seriously, after all.

The second CD opens with 8 or 9 songs from the 2002-3 period around the “Release” album, where the bands commercial stock was as low as it has ever been, the material was presented with a somewhat realistic, organic approach and – whilst the relative “back to basics” approach of touring with a regular band of guitars, drums, and so forth and minimalist staging had a certain effect, the overall result was one of a drift from the world of big hits. As was expected, a consolidating greatest hits record was issued : the b-sides from period are both good, average, and somewhat unexceptional. You can see why songs such as “Always” - a midpaced, unexceptional, fogettable song – never made the parent album. And, despite being covered by Robbie Williams, the song “We're The Pet Shop Boys” (itself a cover) is perhaps one of the finest, funniest, and most enjoyable hagiographies ever committed to tape. Later, songs such as “The Resurrectionist”, and a retooled with-Elton-John version of 1989's “In private” are welcome additions and proof, were any needed that after twenty years, the band still had and maintained a certain, unique personality. The kind that if it didn't exist, you would miss it, and wonder where such artists wwhere in the world. By the end of the album, and the prolific “Yes” period, the b-sides of the first two singles are present : but many songs – the b-sides to the German “Beautiful people” single, the Christmas EP, “Together” are all absent without leave, and – time restrictions of the format aside – missing.

“Format” is what it is, both a dying breed of the compilation of the now sadly endangered extra track and b-side, and a compendium of extra songs that supplement and expand the previous five studio records with several additional songs each. Some of them are the finest songs the band have recorded : some of them not so. Some of them are songs that you will hold in your ears with a wonder as to where they have been all your life. Others not so. And, unless you bought a digital download from one specific website, others will be songs you probably didn't know existed. Designed for the casual, this weighty, popstuffed package is a value for money delivery mechanism for 38 songs that have, over the past 15 years, been a well-kept secret from pop music's back pages. We're the Pet Shop Boys, indeed.
- posted by Mark @ 9:30 PM 0 comments links to this post

 
FANTOMAS - "The Directors Cut" : New Years Revolution (Live)


Fantomas are perhaps one of the finest bands most people have never heard of. Their strange and wonderful combination of ambient nose and jazz-thrash metal is about as commercial a prospect as cyanide pie. To me, however, and hopefully you, this music – largely shorn of chorus, discernible structure, or lyrics, is a manna from an angry heaven. Filmed one New Years Eve, Mike Patton – the voice of Faith No More, Mr Bungle, Tomahawk, Peeping Tom, and many others – leads this unholy quartet (with members of Mr Bungle, Mudhoney, and Melvins in his racous orchestra) through the entirity of their unsurpassed 2001 masterpiece “The Directors Cut”. For many, this band were a bag of rubbish. But this album, 13 themes from classic cinema recast and covered with a respectful irreverance, is one of the finest records I have ever heard.

The performance is immaculate and finely honed - it is, amongst all other things, a unit that cohesively glues together seemingly disparate influences to form a whole that is much more than the sum of the parts. And, given that the album they are performing in full explores the world of cinema, the visuals are bizarre. Taking a cue from the classic tricks of old, don't expect a fimmaculate Blu Ray presentation of a show at your local enormodrome. This mixes footages from phones, cameras, and treated formats, combined with a dded grain, distorted, and playfully applied visual tricks including blurred moments, ghosting, static cross fades, fake VHS interference, painted on glowing red devil eyes, and anything else you can think of treating the visual images as moving palette of experiments.

Then again, if you made it to the third paragraph of this review, you'll know Fantomas aren't exactly Linkin Park for the middleaged. You should expect more than the usual run-of-the-mill singer-points-and-everyone-goes-whoo experience you will get with your latest Madonna live DVD. Besides, it's not as if there is a giant robot about to emerge from backstage, or anything like that for your delection. Just four men (one in a hat) with a cacophony of noise for you to experience. If anything, there is little music in the world that requires such rapt attention, as tempos rise and fall, music becomes a form to used, abused, and left for dead. Opening with “The Godfather”, the set for me, peaks with the totally fucking bugnuts 2-minute race through Jerry Goldsmith's theme “The Omen” - during which Satan Worship has never seemed quite so appealing. The drummer is a frantic blur of limbs. Throughout the 70 minutes, the band roar and dip and play ; in the truest sense of the word, play – with the music with a sense of amusement and outlandish quirky whimsy with whistles, theremins, and grinding guitars wormed into an experience I can best described as the musical equivalent of extreme sex. As Maybe it's something you had to be there for, or something you had to feel in your guit at an insane volume in a crowded room. Fantomas are, like everything these musicians has been involved in, a labour of love, where music is made more with the idea of the glory of the noise instead of any eye towards key issues. Who cares how many copies it sells? Who cares about many tickets? As long as you don't have to do a day job as well, a musician can make music, for that is what he does and where his instinct takes him – often at the cost and sacrifice of pension schemes, medical insurance, or an affluent life, but with a richness far beyond that of any bank balance. A glorious continuation of the muse, and the music.
- posted by Mark @ 9:40 PM 0 comments links to this post

 
How To Remove the Ukash Virus.


Yesterday I got hit with the particularly nasty malware scam. Though it took me about 90 minutes to solve, I found the whole thing was an awful lot of lead of faith and trial and error. If you've found me by a search engine, congratulations, you've probably got it. Stay calm. Get something with caffeine in. This will take about 20 minutes.

First off, you'll find your entire system is locked down so there are just two options. Task Manager, starting any new programmes, accessing anything in almost every application, all locked down. I could open .jpgs, so luckily, baby pics on a USB drive saved me.

The typical page looks like this. Yep. The usual, illiterate you were look at violence child pornography nonsense. How do you get rid of it? It's a wee bit techy, but not beyond anypne.

1. Insert a USB stick and open a file in Firefox or Chrome. (This is how I got to google the instructions to solve it and do the research). Navigate to google, and search the virus name.

2. You may have to do a hard reboot by yanking your power plug or holding down the "start" button for a few seconds. When the start page boots up, press F8 repeatedly. Boot in Safe Mode. From here, click on start. In the text box, type msconfig. From here, you will be able to see what programmes are in your start-up options when the machine boots under a normal configuration.

3. Look for a file that is a totally random string of numbers such as 08896765658807655.exe. It should be located in C:\Users\(Your Name)\AppData\Local\Temp. The manufacturer may be "unknown". Unclick the "Startup Item" box, so this will not start the program when you boot up. Tick "Apply". It was probably enabled about the exact time your system was compromised.

The virus will be called something like "Shark Fear Wait", run by The Orb Network, and have a modifed/installed date/time identical to when your system got locked down, in this menu.

4. Reboot in normal mode. Open Windows Explorer. Set it so it shows "Hidden files and folders". Navigate to the location you found the file (totally random set of numbers).exe in. Delete that file. Go to your recycle bin. Empty it. Clear out your cache, temp files, and internet history. Just to be sure.

5. Update and run a complete virus scan. Lots of people recommend Malawarebytes. I don't have a preference.

6. Reboot your system, you should now be clean.

What a ruthlessly executed idea - to lock down all your permissions apart from those needed to pay the £100 ransom demanded by a non existent police force that cannot spell. The intelligence and devious thinking demonstrated is certainly smarter than your average malware scam, and it probably wasn't cheap. Whoever coded this knew exactly what they were doing. And they didn't care about the effects on anyone apart from making money through theft.

Now. If only they'd used that to create something that wasn't a criminal scam.
- posted by Mark @ 9:25 PM 0 comments links to this post

 
Internet Addict


Is Internet Usage An Addiction?

According to the The Independent, The United Nations, Internet Access is a human right. Certainly, over the past twenty years, the Internet has revolutionised the majority of human interaction. Twenty years ago, life was clearly defined by opening hours. Shops closed at 5.30pm on Saturdays, supermarkets were only open late on Thursdays, and if you wanted to pay bills you often sat down for an hour a month and wrote and posted cheques for every service you received. The only established dialogue between people was a one-way communication from the throne of the media to the populace in the printed form. The vast majority of the world was able to spread ideas to strangers through the letters page of the newspapers, magazines, and – occasionally – in photocopied fanzines. Life was expensive, time consuming, and the stressful tussle of a Saturday morning race around the local supermarket before the shelves were stripped bare by hungry people who worked for a living was certainly one of the least enjoyable parts of many peoples everyday lives.

Nowadays, you can click “repeat previous order”, and your shopping arrives (albeit with orange juice replaced by orange paint) at your doorstep.

So... is frequent Internet use an addiction? Absolutely not. With the transformation of the access the population have from print media to the internet, anyone in the country can, if they really want, set up a website about anything. And, be it derelict railway stations, or your wedding, they can and do. In order to participate in modern Britain, Internet use is practically a necessity. If you want the best prices and largest choice for your utilities, your travel, concert tickets, consumable goods (music, books, and film), the Internet is the broadband nipple you should eat from.

How could business be done these days, if you waited for the postman to arrive with the letters in the mid-afternoon? How could you work flexibily, from home, or caring for children or relatives, or stranded with cancelled trains in a suburban snow drift, without it? Slowly, and with incumbent delays, for a start.

Engagement in many aspects of modern life, culture, news, and my friends who live half way across the world, or work night shifts, is only practically possible through the time-shifting element of the Internet. Time spent working at home in evenings, and on the train travelling to and from work, is time I don't spend at the office until 10pm. For us who are relatively lucky enough to have jobs, albeit understaffed and with high workloads, the Internet allows me to leave work with enough time to give my children a bath and put them to put at night. For those of us for who love people where 8pm in their country is 4am in mine, or for those where the only opportunity for daily phone contact is to call someone in America on their lunch hour when it is 1am in Britain, the Internet is the only practical way to keep relationships alive. Ask any touring businessman, musician, or anyone whose parents are in Australia, for example.



Imagine a world where the only way to watch the news was at three set times in the day – 1pm, 6pm, and 10pm. Imagine a world where the only news you could read had been vetted and sanitised with the agenda of a set of shareholders and checked with a Paper Editor. Where the people involved, or accused, in these stories, were silent and voiceless to correct gross lies unless it served an agenda. Imagine if all you read about Hugh Grant, or Christopher Jefferies or Mllly Dowler was through the lens of a newspaper trying to shift product.

Certainly, the signal to noise ratio can be very high. More than once, the adage “Never read the bottom half of the internet” has been heard. But it is not Internet usage which is an addiction : the Internet is a portal, and like any machine – a car, a cigarette, pornography (42,337 of the 1,000,000 most popular sites are porn) – it is not what it is that is crucial, but the usage it provides. The Internet, like any machine, is not an end in itself. A car undriven is just a lump of metal parked somewhere. A cigarette unsmoked is just tobacco wrapped in paper. In the same way that people are not actually addicted to cigarettes – but to nicotine, the medium – The Internet – and the message and function are easily confused. A woman who starved her 3 year old baby whilst playing World Of Warcraft is not an Internet addict, but a World of Warcraft Addict. It is no surprise it is called “World Of Warcrack”, and there are “Warcraft Widows” the world over. The addiction is not to the method of delivery – the cigarette, the roar of an engine, the roar of the guitar or the orgasm of promisciousity or the thrill of the goal – but to what it does to human beings somewhere inside of us on a physical, chemical, psychological basis : a temporary, impermanent escape from the prison of circumstances that surround us.

Certainly, when real life itself is frankly, mundane, often boring, and frequently fairly joyless, the Internet can offer a vital opportunity for us to recast ourselves as who we want to be and not who or what the circumstances of our finances and social surroundings force us to be. And the Internet is, relatively speaking, a cheaper, and more reliable form of entertainment than almost all the other options. A film costs £8.80 and barely lasts two hours excluding adverts for mobile phone providers and caloriffic sugary products. If reality itself were not mundance and joyless, then a Washing-Up-Simulator App, or perhaps a Xbox Game called “Get To Work On Time!” (which involves, say 60 minutes of standing motionless and trying not to touch anything, which would oddly enough be similar to games such as Desert Bus! and Takeshi's Challenge) would be an enormous success.



All human addiction is a desire to transcend and escape reality. The key to any enjoyable activity is to knowing when you have to come back down to reality. The issue of Internet Addiction is symptomatic of something else : anyone who has been a sleepless, exhausted parent knows the temptation to reclaim an hour of time to be something other than a Mother- or Father-Unit shackled to a small child.

There is no such thing as Internet Addiction, as such. Like Food Addiction, modern life has become such that to fully engage in our world around us, we must partake in use of the Internet to pay our bills and interact : in the same way that a food addict must eat or starve to death. All addiction is not an addiction to the medium, but what the trigger creates in our mind : a distraction from the often less than amazing reality.

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, does not go away.", Philip K Dick, "How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later".
- posted by Mark @ 10:03 PM 0 comments links to this post

 
Dear BBC
TOO MUCH SPORT COVERAGE.



Both BBC1 (something about Freddie Flintoff) and BBC2 (Darts! Darts! Darts! zzzzzzzzzz) are both currently showing sports coverage. Sports? In the middle of winter at 11pm? Why? Can't you create a BBC Sports and just be done with it? I don't like sport, and having BOTH channels monopolised by middle aged blokes throwing objects at each other in competition is boring, boring, boring. I spend more than enough time at work bored out of my skull, or buried under a crying sleepless child bored out of my skull, to then find the BBC are subjecting me to cheap, allegedly "quality" programming about sport. I want a wider selection of programming than SPORT SPORT SPORT. If you must show pointless sports coverage then please try not to show it on all your terrestrial channels at the same time, because then I have to watch grim social realism dramas on Channel 4 or rubbish Hollywood blockbusters with Mel Gibson, and that's only tolerable because it's not middle aged balding fat sportsmen. Less sport please.
- posted by Mark @ 11:37 PM 4 comments links to this post

 
UNDERWORLD - A Collection / An Anthology 1992-2012


Replacing 2003's now incomplete collection, “A Collection” and “Anthology” are, in effect two parts of the same whole. I despair though, of the release strategy for this. To obtain every song on this wonderful release, you have to buy both the single and triple CD versions. The new, post-Barking, 2011 recordings, including “The First Note Is Silent”, the Eno colloboration “Bee Bop Hurry”, and the download-only, unheralded 2009 single “Downpipe”, are only on the single disc, remixed/edited “Collection”. The single disc version is also the only place you can find any version of “King of Snake”.

For a more comprehensive overview, you need to plump for the full length mixes and broadband version that is triple-set of “Anthology”. Or, if you're like me, you have to buy them both. To the casual fan, it doesn't really matter which one you go for. They've all got “Born Slippy” on.

How far we have come since then. It doesn't seen 18 years ago that I loaded the phoenomenal “Dubnobassinmyheadman” onto the deck, fired up the Playstation, and played racing games, Doom, and GrandTheftAuto, on summer days with the summer sun streaming in and the sound of softly pulsing machines keeping my heart beating. It doesn't seem 15 years ago I danced all night to “Pearls Girl” in Manchester, London, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Chelmsford, Brixton, Stafford, and so many other nights knowing that whilst the morning was coming, even if it was dawn outside, the morning hadn't come yet. Steam rising from young limbs as we fell into the cold streets and rain at 2am. These songs, this band, those shows, were the ones that – like contemporaries Orbital, Aphex Twin, The Orb – were ones that are both of a time, and utterly timeless.



If Underworld didn't exist would anyone invent them? Of course not. The idea of two fifty something technogeeks pulling out three hour sets of relentless, dense, and intelligent electronic music, and celebrating the utter silliness of the world would baffle people. After all, they started out as a lumpen semi-Simple Minds, turned into part of Debbie Harry's backing band, and then reinvented themselves. Certainly, over time, Underworld evolve, change, mutate, but also, always at their heart are the same thing : a great big lump of machines making a big noise. The story is told chronologically. And whilst “ A Collection” runs backwards through time, opening with the new material – all of which stands up next to the better known 'Big Hits', the fear here is that the band put the big stuff at the end so people don't reach for off/skip button when the future starts being the recent past and not the distant past of futures unlived. Certainly, there's wonderful bursts of chemically-enjoyable breathless pop with “Scribble”, the under-stated slink of “Crocodile”, and following a mid decade absence of five years from the record scene – punctuated only by the odd vinyl, Japanese only live album, or soundtrack release – we drift back to “Two Months Off”. “A Collection” concentrates on the big numbers, “Push Upstairs”, “King of Snake”, “Jumbo” (bafflingly, a miniscule hit at the time, the pop equivalent of a 'sleeper hit'), all capture the way a big night might sound the morning after. Not the chemical rush, the crash of eyes, the brush of skin, the moment your nose fills with the smell of her midnight hair as you stare to the ceiling, and you dance, dance, dance, and wonder could this be love? Could this be The One? Who knows? The words surround and enscapulate, capture the confusion, the waitress, the red and yellow, the lager, the lager, acid ted, blonde boy and this is now and here and all happens around in your ears. And if you are listening to this on your iPhone at the station, or walking down the road, or even doing the washing up, whilst our bodies may be here, in Meatspace, we are all somewhere else, dancing in our minds, grabbing a cab home with a stranger or a lover, the music, and the gentle sound of a Sunday morning. And this is where, like The Shamen and so many others, where Pop met the dancefloor.

Certainly at one point, Underworld, like New Order, Depeche Mode, Orbital, and everyone else, changed – and became dance music for people that didn't go dancing until dawn anymore. But did this hurt us? No. You cannot remain the same forever : let that crown of thorns sit on the heads of AC/DC, who have remain frozen in some kind of musical amber since 1977. The joy, the power of this, the importance of this is not just how they were, but also how they are now, how they have tracked their lives, changed and evolved and grown up and become something else.



As “A Collection” races backwards, the listener is faced with the odd sense of the record speeding up – faster, more intense, as we race to the end. But it doesn't really matter. The cutting, sawing, heart racing “Cowgirl” doesn't mean anything, but in this rush of noise and confusion and clusterfudging, it means everything.

For “Anthology 1992-2012”, it present a more cohesive set, a wider overview : split from the necessarily evil of the pop format, here the songs live and breathe to the full extent, over three hours of material designed for cycling, dancing, or some kind of intense physical activity – an orgy, perhaps – where the mind loses itself in the body and you achieve, as I have rarely felt, but treasure, where we transcend the mind and the boundaries of known perception fall away and we are perhaps best known, in ourselves, just being, no lonmger doing, or thinking, but exploring, in our own universe. Over two discs, the mind can wander : much like those rare moments in my life – particularly seeing Pink Floyd do “Echoes” - where everything goes away and I am somewhere, someone else completely.



But the three disc set is also short shrift. “King of Snake” is not on this at all. Neither are the three new songs. Neither are the later singles such as “Dinosaur Adventure 3D” or “Always Loved A Film” or the re-recorded 2003 version of “Born Slippy.Nuxx”. Aside from the obvious, and blatant value-for-money aspect of the keenly priced, three hour set, the draw for me is the third part, which collects 80 minutes of rare, previously uncompiled material from deleted singles, compilations, ancient vinyl and elsewhere, and brings them together as a mini-rarities release in its own right. Some of this is better than their huge selling big hits. Underworld never wrote hits, or albums tracks, or b-sides. They just wrote songs. Lots and lots of songs. And they are still here. And in ten years time, they may still be here with us. Growing older, growing spiritually, mentally, and going somewhere. Just like all of us.

In either case, the music is unquestionably strong. “A Collection” is more for the pop fan looking for a short and quick hit of glorious pop. "An Anthology" a large unit of direct, weighty electronic music of deservedly renowned gravitas.

An anthology? A Collection? All of these, and more – A Life.


- posted by Mark @ 11:26 PM 0 comments links to this post

 
The Unquenchable Light


Midlife Crisis? Probably not. Life's fairly brilliant for me in many ways. Not perfect. But rarely is life brilliant. Mind races with the things unsaid. The letters never sent. Well. I don't know anymore. Many things I don't get. I'm fairly sure I lost a friend a while ago, as they listened to an Ex that was full of shit. My side, her side, the truth somewhere inbetween. Who hasn't said or done something stupid twenty or ten years ago when were 18 or 20 or 22? Who wants to be defined by one incident fifteen years ago? I know I shouldn't care about this. That life is fundamentally unfair. Some people look at me and see another dumbfuck they can rip off and abuse and steal from or treat like shit. Well, people have the right to be wrong. Me too. Life is what it is.

Still, it's imperfect. With many great friends and wonderful things in it. The internet is big and has a long memory. So do I. I'm a lucky man with where things are. A girl who I never thought I would actually be with, and who every day, amazes me with the smallest things. Two lovely boys. And everything else that is pretty good. The world, and many people in it, are assholes. And every day, someone, totally unprompted, often demonstrates to me how stupid or cruel people can be. The trick is not being one of THEM.

I don't blog about politics anymore. The fact is there is too much to discuss there. It feels as if I am trapped in a society that is setting fire to itself because it is cold, without wondering about putting a jumper on. I've never liked the world I live in, but my part in the world is to try and make it a better place in any way I can.

And, thus, the first week of the year is done. Now we have the rest of our lives to live. Ah fuck it. Music anyone?



The world will not impose its will. I will not give up and I will not give in.
- posted by Mark @ 11:12 PM 0 comments links to this post

 
Away From The Internet


Well, not really. It's been Christmas, and a very busy year. There's been love and laughter and tears.

2011 was a good year. Better than 2010.

I was nostalgic for old cinemas and wrote some words about growing up and about identity. I was looking for career progression, and found out there are no points for second place, and I made second, out of 550.

Sadly, I think Dreams are not for your children. But then, some glorious summer, April happened. In May < we saw the rare Axolotyl of Hastings. Wow.

I wrote about my first marriage and then my second marriage.

In momentous news, (I resigned). And it is hard to believe that it is now four years since I almost jumped from Beachy Head.


Our adventure has been long and strange, and in August Moby complimented me on my suit. How bizarre. I went back to Birmingham for the first time in three years.

September brought an an epic complaint with my train provider which almost put me on the BBC, briefly. A month in pictures, shows little of my commute and my work.

2011 is hard to believe, but it is 20 years since I went to Leicester Polytechnic, and time flies. I rounded off the year with New Order and I had a special evening together and The Manic Street Preachers said goodbye for a while.

It's been a busy, hard, glorious year.
- posted by Mark @ 6:05 PM 1 comments links to this post

 
THE WONDER STUFF - "Never Loved Elvis" - London Shepards Bush Empire - 16 December 2011


It's not every day a band gets a new guitarist. It's also not every day this band gets a new guitarist. After 25 years, Malcolm Treece – alongside Miles Hunt the sole remaining link to The Wonder Stuff's original lineup – has left the band. It's no longer the band that made those records. But the singer from that band, and another new band. Perhaps it might be time to stop trading on past glories, and create new material again.

It certainly feels different ; and not entirely right – but not wrong. But it isn't The Wonder Stuff. Not in the way that you recognise them. With Malc gone, it's Miles Hunt and a band – and a good one, that has slowly evolved over time. Mark McCarthy has been on bass eight years, Erica Nockalls on fiddle for seven years, and Fuzz Townsend (last seen in Pop Will Eat Itself) on drums and backing vocals. Joining them, and with barely six weeks notice to work up 29 songs, is Jerry De Borg of Jesus Jones. As it is accurately described, it's not The Wonder Stuff, but Jesus Will Eat Stuff. Certainly, the band that make the records we are celebrating, and the one that people came to see is not the same one on the stage. It is difficult to keep a working relationship with anyone for 30 years, let alone in the field of the creative arts. So many bands fall into a sort of stasis and eventually, even, disappear forever. And you miss the songs, the memories. One day all these bands will be gone and no one will sing these songs.



But these songs. They sound the same and feel the same. But the band that lasted seventeen years before the final split in 2003 no longer exists in any way anymore. The Wonder Stuff is the name for the band Miles Hunt sings in, playing songs he wrote twenty years ago. Put like that, and of course this is The Wonder Stuff. Put it another way, that the only common member between the band I saw in Walsall in 1991 and Hammersmith in 2003 and now is Miles Hunt. But it sounds the same, and would you – if you'd never seen them before, think that you were missing out? Probably not. It's not the brazen and shameless creation of an entirely new band with only a singer, using the same name of an older and better band to generate goodwill. Had Miles started a new band called The Wonder Stuff with Dave from Dyson Vaccumcleaner, Bob from Bogshed, and someone from Kingmaker, perhaps the use of the name would offend and be sued under the Trade Descriptions Act. Instead this band may only share a singer with the original lineup, but it has been a slow and considered evolution over time.

These songs set in our hearts – well some of us anyway – twenty years ago. Some of them - “Sleep Alone”, “Play”, “Inertia”, “Maybe”, “Grotesque”, “38 Line Poem” - are ones the band haven't played in ten or twenty years. With Malc absent, the band have had to rearrange longstanding performances, with Fuzz and Erica taking over backing vocals, and Keyboard/fiddle/mandolin parts replicated by Ercia on violin. It still sounds the same. Sometimes, it sounds different, but even then it sounds the same. These songs still sound wonderful.



Not that anyone really notices. People have come here to see the songs, and the names of the respective members are somewhat sidelined compared. The songs, the body of work, is bigger than any one individual. Given that he has been in the band less than a few weeks, and Malc's departure was officially confirmed four days before the shows, the fact these shows are even happening at all is the product of intense work and invention for the band to inhabit and recreate these songs. Jerry stands mostly stock still, concentrating on an entirely new recipe of songs and striving to reproduce them faithfully. In the meantime, if there is any confusion or consideration that The Wonder Stuff as is exist as the name of a musical unit with no lineage to the original partnerships, then that is certainly not mentioned here. Whilst the evolution of the band has been a whole and clearly traceable, slow path that has taken a decade, it still remains a band that performs, to a man, songs that are, at their youngest 18 years old. These songs can have sex, drink alcohol, get married, and join the army legally.

With the “Elvis” songs completed, encore time sees the same songs the band have always played. They are by any standard superior, clever songs. But after 1,000 times, surely it gets a little.. predictable to always do the same songs? This is the albatross that hangs over every band though – the songs the people came to see. “Room 512”, “Redberry Joytown”, “It's Yer Money”, “On the Ropes”, “Golden Green”, “Don't Let Me Down”, “Unberable”, “Give Give Give.” These are still the same spiky, witty, irreverent things that they were a quarter century ago. But if you think Metallica don't get boring doing “Enter Sandman” for the 1,588th time you really have no idea about what it is like to be in a band.

There came a time, a while ago, when a friend of mine – one of the many who I frequently see at these shows and has hit over 100 shows (tonight is my 143rd Wonder Stuff show) – said that he doesn't come to see the band anymore, but to see his friends. Not only is this about the music, but also, it's about catching up with friends the world wide who are all brought together by great taste in music. Perhaps what matters is that we are all here, still doing this, loving the world, loving each other – and that is more than the idea of any shared lineage between now and then. The night comes to an end in a frantic pop kid rush, a keen and excited night of jumping up and down and forgetting the house and the kids and the wife and the lies and everything else that comes with it. And then, I suppose, it's time. To the bus stop or the station or the car, to get home before the babysitter goes into doubletime, and back to the world the way it is. Maybe it doesn't matter who is in the band anymore, or what happens next, and it is just these songs and what they meant that matters. For some, certainly, the final link between then and now has been lost, and that is the end of the journey. What is more important is that, four days after confirming a new guitarist, that the Wonder Stuff performed, more than ably, and the songs will live on as more than memories. But what has changed? Everything changes. Nothing stays forever stuck, frozen in amber, for the world goes on ahead of us and the band itself moves through time, as we all do. You can't go back anymore. And for me at least, I don't think I want to.


- posted by Mark @ 9:25 PM 0 comments links to this post