“Estaba en una fiesta típica del mundillo hace unos años cuando Neil Tennant me dijo: “¿qué estás haciendo con esa preciosa voz que tienes?” y yo le dije: “Pues mayormente gritar a los niños. Cuando volvía a casa pensaba: “¿qué estás haciendo?” Y decidí grabar un disco.
(Tracey Thorn al Mojo de Febrero del 2007)
Hay cosas que no se entienden muy bien. El Rock de Lux en su vida había escrito ni una palabra sobre The Hit Parade y este mes “The Return of The Hit Parade” es uno de los lps del mes... Esto son extractos de la crítica firmada por Nando Cruz:
“Estamos ante un notición como el que supuso el “My Dark Places” de TV Personalities... Estamos ante un disco que despertará comentarios del tipo: en un mundo justo sus canciones liderarían las listas de ventas... Yo me he pasado cinco canciones al ipod... Pero la reproducción aleatoria no las programa con la frecuencia deseable. Quizá debería introducir cinco canciones más. O directamente hacer trampa. El Mundo es injusto.”
Y tanto, rock de lux, y tanto.
Esto si que es una sorpresa. Numero Group (la compañía que se dedica a reeditar las maravillas más desconocidas del universo pop) ha reeditado el primer lp de esta cantante-actriz americana al parecer hiperbuscado por los enteradillos de la jet set del soft pop. “El santo grial”, he llegado a leer; un disco que ha alcanzado los 2.000 dólares en subastas y que ahora se edita por primera vez gracias a Keith D´arcy –otrora rey de la indiepoplist y del fanzineo indie y ahora rey de los enteraos del soft pop-, ya que según los de Numero Group, “The original tapes were, of course, lost. Most likely tossed out during the spring cleaning of 1985 at London's Trident Studios. We were however able to secure a clean source copy from renowned soft-psych collector Keith D'arcy.” El caso es que la música de esta chica “It's a real rainy day affair” , una maravilla que mezcla a Carole King con el folk, pasando por bonitos arreglos jazzies. Bonito de verdad. Aquí pego la hoja promocional de Numero Group y la crítica de Uncut de Marzo del 2007 012 Catherine Howe: What A Beautiful Place
We wanted to make a really simple record. After a year of being plagued by complex compilations, multiple trips to Detroit, and a hellacious move, The Numero Group wanted an easy autumn lay up. Our office white board was overflowing with projects, the stereo crowded with LPs, 45s and spindles of little silver discs, while memorabilia sat stuffed in already too full filing cabinets. Pick one. Pre-war Ethiopian jazz? Complete field recordings of Ecorse, Michigan? We could go on and on. In Catherine Howe's case, we just loved her record.
At the time, it didn't even warrant a file. The sum of our knowledge was one CDR that sat semi-regularly wedged in the "Disc 3" position for the bulk of the summer. Slots 1 & 2 are generally reserved for current projects, but two hours into our day we would be pleasantly alarmed by the opening chimes of "What A Beautiful Place." It's jarring, almost, like something you would here at the beginning of a children's program on PBS. "Dun. Dun. Dun-dun-den. Deng," with slight reverb. And then Catherine Howe's 20 year old voice whispers post-adolescent poetry into your ear. It's a push back the chair moment.
We've never made a record like this before, but our shelves are littered with similar efforts. "Folk" might not do it justice, and "soft-pop" seems like the kind of label you might give to a contemporary Rod Stewart album. If you employ a "Jazz-folk" section in your filing scheme, now might be the time to put it to use. Tuck it in between "Bryter Layter" and "North Star Grassman And The Ravens," or more recently "Central Reservation." It's a real rainy day affair.
We're not going to paraphrase our copiously researched liners, but we will tell you a little about the history of the little orchestral English folk record that couldn't. Produced by semi-legendary jazz pianist Bobby Scott, the oft-mistaken concept album was issued by the tiny UK imprint Reflection Records in 1971. Issued to the media. Reflection went belly up before the record even hit the racks, killing the momentum created by Radio One airplay and dooming the record to an area that Numero specializes in: beyond obscurity.
The original tapes were, of course, lost. Most likely tossed out during the spring cleaning of 1985 at London's Trident Studios. We were however able to secure a clean source copy from renowned soft-psych collector Keith D'arcy, and a demo of "In The Hot Summer," which was intended to appear on the album. In addition, we conducted hours of interviews with Howe and Reflection Records owner Phil Gillin, and unearthed half a dozen unpublished photos. We sat in brutal Los Angeles rush hour traffic, ate sushi at the Santa Monica Airport, and on a related/unrelated note DJ'd a Chingy record release party. Somehow this took three months.
UNCUT MAGAZINE
It’s that strange time of year when not a lot of new albums are coming out, and the ear gravitates toward whatever offbeat material shows up in the mailbox. And so my unlikely obsession for the last week or two has been the reissue of What a Beautiful Place, an almost uncategorizable album by an English singer named Catherine Howe.
The set is due on January 30 from Numero Group, a wonderful Chicago archival label that to date has unearthed a dozen wild-ass records encompassing ultra-obscure soul, Caribbean music, gospel funk, and power pop, among other things. Howe’s collection – which essentially went unreleased back in 1971, thanks to the collapse of its label – may be the most unusual item in Numero’s eclectic catalog.
What a Beautiful Place doesn’t just exist outside its time – it was of another time at the moment it was created. In the late ’60s, Halifax-born Catherine Howe was a not unsuccessful theater and TV actress with a large portfolio of unrecorded songs. Her main writing model was Burt Bacharach; on her own website today, Howe speaks admiringly of his hit “The Look of Love,” and indeed Dusty Springfield’s 1967 recording of that tune sets the template for Howe’s composing and vocal styles.
She eventually hooked up with Reflection Records, an independent label with distribution ties to giant CBS. In 1970, What a Beautiful Place was cut in four days of hurriedly arranged recording sessions with producer Bobby Scott. A well-traveled jazz pianist in his own right, Scott had roots in an older style of pop. His sticky theme for the 1961 film A Taste of Honey had been covered by the Beatles at one of their first sessions. He had also authored the Hollies hit “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.”
The album the 20-year-old singer and the 33-year-old producer concocted could not be called a mainstream affair of its time. Made in an era when singer-songwriters were flexing their rock muscles and Carole King’s Tapestry ruled the charts, What a Beautiful Place is a lush, heavily orchestrated record that feels more a product of the early or mid-’60s. In its day, it would have sounded square, but it may be that very squareness that plays compellingly now.
It’s an off-the-wall mixture of slightly shlocky old-school pop and neo-trad English folk (though Howe denies such leanings), with some jazzy seasoning provided by Scott’s own stabbing, bluesy piano work. At its center is Howe, whose chilled, half-swallowed, vibrato-free vocals maintain a sustained, charming purity.
From a description of the music, one might imagine that What a Beautiful Place is a twee piece of work, but there’s a bracingly dark undercurrent to the album; it may not be working Nick Drake territory, but it sure isn’t Melanie, either. The tone is struck in the opening moments, when – after a six-note series of orchestral chimes that acts as a linking device throughout – Howe intones, “A tiny child knelt before a flower and he touched what he saw. Someone from a strange place stopped, saw the flower, and the petals withered and perished before his dying eyes.”
Whoa. The gloom of this opener is not dispelled in the songs that follow, which are marked by the blunt pessimism of “Nothing More Than Strangers,” the cool appraisal of a paradise lost in “What a Beautiful Place,” or the unsettling madhouse warblings of “Words Through a Locked Door.” It’s hard to say what people would have thought of this jarring blend of pop gorgeousness and interior gloom, but What a Beautiful Place never really made it into the marketplace.
Howe had a brief moment of pop success in the mid-’70s, and she emerged with a new album in 2000. I don’t know what the other work sounds like, but What a Beautiful Place indicates she’s a fitting subject for further investigation.
- Chris Morris Uncut - March 2007
“¿¿¿¿¿¿él es gay???????”
Yo La Tengo han publicado a través de iTunes en Estados Unidos un EP exclusivo. El lanzamiento incluye tres temas de los de Ira Kaplan y una versión del clásico garagero “Luci Baines” de los American Four (grupo Pre-Love) de Arthur Lee.
Los temas que incluye el EP son:
“El Es Gay”
“Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind”
“The Weakest Part”
“Luci Baines”“
El es gay” es un instrumental surf-punk y “The Weakest Part” es una versión más lenta de la ya conocida
Es el single del nuevo lp del cantante de The Superfurry Animals. A mi la verdad es que los galeses siempre me han dado cierto repelús, pero la cancioncilla en cuestión es pegadiza e incluso bella en su ingenuidad. Ver/Oír aquí: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jOQZFfTTl4 Eso si, el lp es insufrible
A través de LTM, aparece el recopilatorio que Crepuscule editó en cassette en 1980. El disco contiene desde entrevistas (Jeanne Moreau, Brian Eno) a piezas minimalistas (Harold Budd, Michael Nyman) pasando por sonidos Factory /The Durruti Column, The Names) y así como los estetas del momento (John Foxx, Richard Jobson etc) Verdaderamente curioso.
Precisamenre buscando información sobre la cinta, me he encontrado esto en el blog de Thomas Dolby
“Possibly the rarest of any of my releases is this one. It was a (cassette-only) compilation released in 1981 by a Belgian label called Crepuscule. It included a demo version of ‘Airwaves’, recorded in my back room in London well before I got a record deal. I was approached recently by a company that wants to re-release it on CD and is trying to clear all the rights. I own the masters (unusual!) so I plan to say yes. The line-up on the album is terrific.”
Y ésta es la hoja promocional:
Originally released as a deluxe cassette/book package in November 1980, From Brussels With Love featured 22 exclusive tracks from the international avant garde and new wave, as well as the celebrated Factory Records roster. Then, as now, the contributing artists include Gavin Bryars, Harold Budd, Dome, The Durutti Column, John Foxx, Martin Hannett, Richard Jobson, Bill Nelson, New Order and Michael Nyman. The programme also includes extended interviews with Brian Eno and iconic French actress Jeanne Moreau. This new CD edition has been digitally remastered from the original master tapes, and features 76 minutes of material. Most of the tracks featured here remain unavailable elsewhere. For reasons of space just one has been deleted from the original cassette (A Certain Ratio), although this track is available on LTMCD 2443. The 20 page facsimile booklet features original artwork by Benoit Hennebert, Claude Stassart and Jean-Francois Octave, as well as archive images and detailed liner notes.
En este enlace, se puede leer el texto interior que lleva el cd: click here
The Projected Passion Revue captures virtually everything Dexys Midnight Runners recorded in 1981. Comprising of three single A and B sides, a BBC Radio 1 Session and a BBC In Concert recording, The Projected Passion Revue finds the group at the peak of their game artistically. The line up Kevin Rowland built around him had to display 100% commitment; as he says in his introduction "Something happened and the sound of this group became spiritual, much more than the previous line-up." To take this group to the people, Rowland devised a show which would only play in theatres, where Dexys would be supported by a dance troupe and comedians. The shows found the group transcending the boundaries of live performance and delivering memorably intense sets. Aside from their three 45s, the group was never properly captured on vinyl. This CD, with its artwork based on the Projected Passion Revue programme is a fitting tribute to one of the most singular bands of all time. As Rowland adds, "what we were doing at this point was peculiar to us and nobody else and we meant every word." The Projected Passion Revue will be complemented by a 25 Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Too Rye Ay in July 2007. Kevin Rowland and Dexys Midnight Runners are currently working on their first record of new material since 1985
Como era de esperar, la selección de Marc Collin para la serie de “Late Night Tales” es realmente buena (Y trae sorpresas como la versión del “ I love Her” de The Beatles realizada por Shirley Horn, que me parece soberbia). ¿Habrán intervenido sus amigos MAGIC!os / Spring en ella?
Tracklisting:
La verdad es que no pensaba ni molestarme en escuchar el disco de duetos de la Hardy, más que nada porque el nombre de Julio Iglesias me tiraba para atrás, pero leyendo la crítica del Rock de Lux, me he animado y me ha encantado. Es cierto que suena todo, como corresponde a la edad de todos los implicados, muy mainstream y todo muy calculado, pero la elección del repertorio es tan sabia, que merece la pena y la profesionalidad bien entendida termina por ser un plus. Claro que otra cosa es escuchar las mismas canciones en sus versiones originales...
Por cierto, me he encontrado este blog/web que es una maravilla http://totally-hardy.over-blog.com/
Francoise Hardy's long successful journey from teen idol to Grand Dame of French pop music has always been marked out by a thoughtful choice of material. The songs on 'Parentheses' are no exception, favourites chosen because they touch the singer's heart. This is an album of duets for which Hardy has assembled an astonishing supporting cast spanning several generations. The presence of husband Jacques Dutronc is no surprise and the eleven other guests range from veterans Henri Salvador and Alain Delon to Benjamin Biolay and the young English singer/songwriter Ben Christophers with whom she performs his own song ' My Beautiful Demon'.
(Foto del artista realizada por Michelle Turriani)
Vaughan Oliver needs no introduction to 4AD fans. Over the last 25 years, he has built up a unique body of work, creating seductive and extremely influential graphic designs for 4AD and for other clients too.
His work combines word and image into a distinctive visual vocabulary which has accompanied and enhanced the careers of 4AD artists like The Pixies and The Cocteau Twins; more recently, his work has appeared on releases by Scott Walker and TV on the Radio, amongst many others. His designs form part of the Victoria & Albert Museum collection and have been exhibited in Paris, Tokyo, Los Angeles and Athens.
A new exhibition at the Stanley Picker Gallery in Kingston - entitled Slightly off the Ground - presents a personal selection of Vaughan's iconic music posters, covering the entire period for his earliest work with 4AD to the present day. It appears in a specially devised gallery installation, which hints at the street setting where many of the posters would have been first encountered, and which was designed by Vaughan together with his long term collaborator Chris Bigg. The music that inspired the designs will be playing in the gallery throughout the exhibition.
The exhibition runs until March 3rd. You can find out more at the Stanley Picker Gallery website.
Al parecer este es un cd que salió en el 2006 y es semipirata. Lo editó un sello llamado Kilt By Death y es bastante difícil de conseguir. En el blog de The rain fell down dice que Mono lo tiene (imagino que se refiere a Monorail, la tienda que trabaja Stephen Pastel en Glasgow). La canción de The Suede Crocodiles –“Stop The Rain”- la ha colgado en el blog con muy buena calidad de sonido.
Title: Kilt By Death: The Sound of Old Scotland
After two decades of punk compilations mining increasingly small claims (Bloodstains Across Andorra, anyone?), here?s a collection encompassing the full wealth of the Scottish new wave (1977 to 1984). From punk, to pop, to art, and all points in between, including live nuggets and previously unheard demos. Full color graphics inside and out, and with a twelve page booklet of liner notes. Eighty-seven songs by eighty-three bands: 35mm Dreams, Alleged, Alternative, Alternators, Another Pretty Face, Article 58, AVO-8, Aztec Camera, Basic Unit, Battery Boys, Beat Necessity, Bee Bee Cee, Boots for Dancing, Brills, Buba and the Shop Assistants, Andy Cameron, Cheetahs, Commercials, Crimedesk, Defiant Pose, Delmontes, DNV, Drive, Electric Personalities, Electrix, End Result, Exile, Exposure, External Menace, Fakes, Fegs, Fire Engines, Fire Exit, Flowers, Freeze, Fun 4, Jesus and Mary Chain, Johnny and the Self-Abusers, Jolt, Josef K, Laughing Apple, Mentol Errors, Metropak, Neon Barbs, Noise Annoys, One Takes, Orange Juice, Passionate Friends, Pastels, Prats, PVC2, Red Letters, Restricted Code, Rezillos, Scars, Scrotum Poles, Significant Zerøs, Simple Minds, Skids, Skroteez, Square Peg, Squibs, Story So Far, Strutz, Subs, Suede Crocodiles, T.P.I., Thermometers, Those Intrinsic Intellectuals, Threats, TV21, Twisted Nerve, Urban Enemies, Valves, Venigmas, Victims of What?, Visitors (Dundee/Edinburgh), Wake, Wayward Skylabs, X-S Discharge, Zips, Zones."
My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry For The Prize: The Creation Records Story - Dave Cavanagh.
Didn't read this when it came out as I was put off by its sheer size. Despite the queasy feeling of genuine nostalgia in reading of events and people I know (or know of) this is one of the best music books ever.
(Pete Wiggs de Saint Etienne en saintetienne.com)
¡y dedica canciones a Peggy Lee! (sin duda "Peggy Lee" es lo mejor de su nuevo lp) ¡Y hace instrumentales de piano! ¡Y titula el disco "Learn To Sing Like a Star"! (que, dicen, debe su título al asedio continuo de un spam con ese título en el asunto)
Kristin Hersh's new album Learn To Sing Like A Star is released on 23rd January on Yep Roc in the USA, and on 29th January on 4AD everywhere else. It will be preceded, on January 22nd, by the In Shock EP, which features three exclusive non-album tracks. Learn To Sing Like A Star was produced by Kristin, recorded by Steve Rizzo and mixed by Trina Shoemaker. It features former Throwing Muses bandmate David Narcizo on drums, and beautiful string arrangements courtesy of Martin and Kim McCarrick .
Suena como Después de oír “Temperamental” me esperaba lo peor, pero no. Es un buen disco, claro que viendo sus “inspiraciones” entiendes que Tracey (de Ben dudo) siga haciendo cosas interesantes So my solo album is finished! Been working on it for almost a year. When I say solo that doesn't mean it's just me and my guitar again, but it does mean that it's not an EBTG record. After years of making records with Ben, it just seemed time to take a break, and do something fresh.. Inspirations. Nicos Chelsea Girls, the Au Pairs live, Pete Shelley, Scritti Politti, Im still waiting by Diana Ross, Young Marble Giants, Patti Smith, Postcard records, Sandy Denny, Pet Shop Boys, Ceremony by New Order, Sufjan Stevens, Bless the Weather and Solid Air, Joanna Newsom, Evelyn Champagne King, Gypsies Tramps and Thieves by Cher, The Specials, Blossom Dearie, Aretha Franklin, The Smiths 1983-85, Jonathan Richman, Massive Attacks demos on cassette 1993, Judy Garland, Dusty Springfield, Mike Skinner, Low, Rufus Wainwright, Astrud Gilberto, Shannons Let the Music Play, Bjork and Polly Harvey at the Brits, Cocteau Twins, Arthur Russell, Roisin Murphy, Beth Gibbons, Phoenix, Vic Godards Whats the matter boy, and singing with Fairport Convention at Cropredy and Jeff Buckley at Glastonbury.. bedsit disco torch songs
I've got together with a few different producers/collaborators, and we've come up with a record that (I hope) is a true reflection of who I am right now and what I love right now.
There's some serene techno emptiness from Martin Wheeler (Vector Lovers), a bit of modernist heartbreak house from Alex Santos, an amazing pastoral arrangement of flutes and flugels by Charles Webster.. I've done 2 songs with cagedbaby (Tom Gandey) one a kind of shimmery piece of Scritti Politti-style pop called Raise the Roof, and the other a downtempo lament about gay teenagers getting bullied at school, called A-Z.
But my main collaborator/producer is Ewan Pearson, and we've done seven tracks together. A cover of Arthur Russell's Get Around To It, featuring some wonky freakout sax from Gabe of The Rapture. A new song called It's All True, co-written with Sasse and Darshan Jesrani (Metro Area), which is pure early 80's New York dance pop. A piano ballad which Ewan says sounds like "The Carpenters on acid". Also a cover of King's Cross by the Pet Shop Boys, which isn't on the actual album (had too many songs!), but will be available as a bonus track somewhere, and downloadable from iTunes. The first single, "Its All True" has been out there in the clubs for the last few weeks. Mixes from Martin Buttrich, Kris Menace, Escort, and a great dub from Ewan, Sasse and Darshan. Went straight to Number 1 on the Buzz Chart, Zzub chart and Cool Cuts chart. Pete Tong hammering it on the radio, lots of DJ's giving it a big thumbs up on the dancefloor.
It's All True will be released in the UK on Feb 26th. Video is finished - directed by Si and Ad, it features a heavily stylised monochromtaic dance routine, in which i feature almost invisibly....(which suits me just fine). I hear it has already been seen on MTV, so look out for it. I can't give release dates for the rest of the world yet, I'm afraid, as I don't yet know what the plans are from the label in other territories. I do know that Astralwerks will be releasing the album in the US. And in the UK the album will be out on Virgin at the beginning of March - I'll give you the exact date when I can find the bit of paper I scribbled it down on. Come on, you know what I'm like by now.... Time now for another music change up here - have just uploaded the Escort mix of It's All True. This lot are from Brooklyn, and they have basically turned the notion of remixing on its head, by delivering an entirely re-played version of the track, on real instruments, like, uh, guitar and whatnot, and call me an old soul girl if you must, but it is pure boogie heaven. Hand me my slingbacks someone, I NEED to dance to this, and will somebody PLEASE buy me a martini? Hope you like.... luv T xx
La cantante de The Black Box Recorder debuta en solitario. Suena como una versión más pop de BBR. Dos versiones: una del grupo belga de Factory The Names, -"the nightshift"- que está muy bien y otra del "The Black hit of the space" del Travelogue de The Human League, esta menos conseguida. El Album se llama "Sing, Memory" y está editado por el sello Service Av, detrás del cual está ¡Paul Morley!, el ideólogo del post punk. Curioso. Por cierto, el clip está rodado en el mismo lugar donde Chickfactor hizo su última fiesta en Londres. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h63Oc7L8FrI
Sarah Nixey made her show business entrance as one third of the darkly glamorous pop group Black Box Recorder. She was in the severe, dreamy centre, singing scheming songs that were deadly serious about trivia, and deeply frivolous about important matters, acting out her role as interpreter and enigma with subversive attention to detail. She sang the songs as if they were bruised lullabies, as if she was soothing the 20th Century to sleep, as if she was a friend of Alice in Wonderland and Sylvia Plath who was quite partial to the Pet Shop Boys and Francoise Hardy.
Sarah is now solo, having had her group moment, her hits inside a deadpan parody of a pop group. Her flash, exotically electric singles The Collector and Strangelove were like manifestos proclaiming that she's as committed to the idea of pop as a dream, a fantasy, as she had been in Black Box Recorder, but this time the surreal edge, the emotional pressure, the deviant intensity is all her own.
She sings smart pop songs. They tell heady, half-crazed stories about minds and bodies, flesh and spirit, memories and illusions, desperation and passion. They're theme tunes to far fetched adventures, songs that play over the credit sequences to imaginary Bond films as written by Kafka, Ballard, Nabokov, Atwood. They will be hits, but not obvious hits, not everyday hits. She sings them on her forthcoming album Sing, Memory with that tough, tender combination of explicit English detachment and cryptic European emotion that's all her own.
The single: When I’m Here With You - released 29th January 2007.
The album: Sing, Memory - released 19th February 2007.
Artículo publicado en The Times por mi gurú favorito.
Impagable la cita que destaca de Neil Tennant a próposito del You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You´re Drunk"
(“People perceive You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk as ironic,” Neil Tennant complains, “when in fact it’s a painfully heartbreaking song to me, because it’s so true.”)
E impagables también las demás citas que subraya Stanley (como la de Sade o la de Everett True respecto a Nirvana). Un Lince este Bob.
NO BIG BEATLES OR ELVIS tomes emerged in 2006, leaving the way for the super- middleweights to enter the ring. Brian Wilson hasn’t been served by a decent biography since David Leaf’s long out-of-print The Beach Boys. Peter Ames Carlin’s Catch A Wave (Rodale, £18.99/offer £16.99) is neither fawning — as much of the post-Smile press has been — nor lightweight. His writing has a New Yorker-like authority, droll enough to dismiss the Beach Boys’ MIU Album with “the horror, the horror”.
England’s best-loved Boys, the Pet Shop kind, have delivered Catalogue (Thames & Hudson, £29.95/£26.95), which proves how consistently great their artwork has been, even if the music has occasionally wobbled. Raised eyebrow dryness is leavened by their very real, English melancholy. “People perceive You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk as ironic,” Neil Tennant complains, “when in fact it’s a painfully heartbreaking song to me, because it’s so true.”
Tennant’s previous job was on the magazine Smash Hits, whose demise earlier this year is mourned in The Best Of Smash Hits (Sphere, £14.99/ £13.49). Although heavy on nostalgia, thankfully it reproduces in full Tom Hibbert’s extraordinary 1987 interview with Margaret Thatcher. Never afraid to reduce superstars such as “Dame David Bowie” (another Hibbert-ism) to the level of Nik Kershaw, “ver Hits” also found room for Sade’s hot kitchen tips: “I had some goat’s cheese for the first time yesterday. I was very impressed.”
Cum On Feel the Noize (Carlton, £14.99/£13.49), Alan Parker and Steve Grantley’s story of Slade, emerges in a similar pop annual format. It’s good (or “gud”) to discover that their habit of deliberately misspelling song titles began when Noddy Holder wrote Because I Love You on a tape box and it looked “soppy”. Coz I Luv You was the the first of six No 1s. Kurt Cobain once described Slade as “a band that would never bend over”.
Nirvana were similarly unbendable, although commercial success proved too much for Cobain. Nirvana: The True Story (Omnibus, £19.95/£16.95) is so titled because it is by Everett True, a Melody Maker journalist who was the singer’s confidante. “People say Nirvana changed everything,” True frowns, “but what exactly did Nirvana change? They made it easier for Smashing Pumpkins, Bush, Pearl Jam and a bunch of crap bands to sell a load of records.”
Such is the fate of pop pioneersIn the second of the Labels Unlimited series, Rob Young chronicles Rough Trade (Black Dog, £19.95/£16.95). Home to post-punk heroes such as the Fall, Raincoats and Pop Group, their startling roster has provided sustenance for seemingly every new group to emerge since the Strokes. Yet reading a “dunno, y’know, whateva” interview with the Brazilian group CSS recently, I pined for the fiercely monochrome worldview of the original acts. The Pop Group’s Mark Stewart claimed that “capitalism is the most barbaric of all religions”: much as I like the Long Blondes, I can’t imagine them sounding so full of ire.
Too cool to appear on Top of the Pops, the Clash still ended up playing London Calling on Tiswas to a bunch of ten-year-olds. Chris Salewicz’s Joe Strummer biography, Redemption Song (HarperCollins, £20/£18), will fuel further debate on the man. One example. Salewicz has just been involved in a Notting Hill carnival riot with Strummer: “Two days later my phone rang. ‘All the pussy men ran to the back of the house but you stood by me. Thanks,’ breathed a familiar voice. ‘No problem, Joe,’ I said. I was very touched that he was so touched. I remember when he told the story to my new girlfriend. Then he looked at her tits. ‘Gosh,’ he said, rather spoiling the moment.”
Chronicles: Volume 1 did the job that Dylan On Dylan (Hodder & Stoughton, £18.99/£16.99) falls amusingly short on. It reprints a 1980 interview: “Once I’ve said what I need to say in a song, that’s it. I don’t want to repeat myself.” Precisely.
Better to look at the pictures in Catalogue, Rough Trade or Matthew Robertson’s Factory Records: The Complete Graphic Album (Thames & Hudson, £29.95) Peter Saville´s artwork will, I’d wager, outlast Nirvana’s music or Strummer’s politics
Mucha foto en bibliotecas, mucha pose intelectualoide, para luego afirmar que "a nosotros lo que nos gusta es Harry Potter..."
What's the last book you read?
(Slightly embarrassed) I wouldn't necessarily call it high literature, but lately I've been reading the Harry Potter books.
Hey, that's cool! I'm of the opinion that reading is reading--it doesn't have to always be some sort of high-art literature.
This is going to sound very twee, but the books are really fun and there's a lot of imagination to them, and I like that. They're an escape to read.
What prompted you to decide to read them?
It was really just curiosity, mainly. It's been such a big thing for a long time now, and I have a lot of friends who have read the series, and I guess I finally just caved in. We were taking a plane trip, and I thought, "Okay, I'll read it on the plane," and I got sucked into that world, and I started reading one right after the other. I think that's how it happened for a lot of people, though. It's an escape, but it's a fun thing to do, you know?
Had you been avoiding them because they have been so popular?
I don't really do that, but I just figured that they were kids' books. I kind of read whatever I feel like at the moment. I wasn't sure I'd be that interested in them, but I found them to be really creative, and it got my imagination going, and I like that!
Growing up, were you much of a fantasy reader?
I wasn't. In fact, I wasn't much of a reader growing up. I didn't really start reading until I turned about 30. All of a sudden, I felt like something turned on inside me, and that I should start reading more. The weird thing is, I've always loved books. That's the strange thing. I've always loved going into book stores, buying old books and classics, and I'd think to myself, "Someday, I'm going to read all of these!" (Laughs) But then something turned on inside me, and I started reading them.
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