FISHING BY OBSTINATE ISLES

Anyone like poetry?

For the one of you at the back bashfully murmuring half-assent, myself and the indubitable Joe Kennedy are going to be reading a long-ish collaborative poem at this event in Bethnal Green in February. You should definitely come.

Vague concept: the North Pennines, the past, the future, leftism, modernism - the usual shite.

In a similar vein, I've got a poem out in the latest issue (XIV.2) of Oxford Poetry. Buy it!

(Actually there seems to be a problem with ordering single issues on the OP website so you might have to do the two-issue subscription thing, which is only 3 quid more.)

JUST WHAT IS IT THAT YOU WANT TO DO?

I agree wholeheartedly with this.

But how? Where?

YEARS END CRESCENDO

Away from the sound of drums, I wrote a few things this past couple of weeks about Britain, politics, poetry, and such ...

1) A review of the year in The Quietus. I sort of agree with some of the comments to this: I don't actually think there will be a revolution next year. But I do think it's at least noteworthy that ordinary folk have started using the phrase again.

2) A review with Stephen Ross of Sam Riviere's 81 Austerities in the Oxonian Review. This turned into a diatribe against middlebrow reviewing in general.

3) Also in the Oxonian, an interview with Our Friends in the North writer Peter Flannery, which actually chimes with a lot of the stuff in the Quietus piece. Some great stuff about regional arts funding, politics, and populism in this.

MORE DRUMMING

Our God is Speed focuses attention on a single city.

Well how about boiling down this Deep-South-as-the-centre-of-the-percussion-universe meme to a single album?

New Orleans Funk: surely Soul Jazz's greatest ever compilation, and a veritable apotheosis of late-twentieth century drummery. When I was a 16-year-old living in the wilds of rural Northumberland, this was all the rhythmic education I needed.

Re. Ringo, in response to Joe's comment below and Blissblog's, I think I stick by the view that Ringo is clunky, but that's not to say that he's not great. If you listen closely to Rain, you can hear that he's frequently out of time, and those fills are basically what a ten-year-old would do if you told him to be "adventurous" with the kit. But it's because of this that Rain works. Pop music is always undergirded by a populist impulse which means we applaud amateurishness and gaucheness far more than technical virtuosity. Or rather, the ideal thing is when we hear an amateur doing something extraordinary, when someone tries on a role that she or he is not quite at home with, and the listener thinks I could do that, any man or woman could do that, on an extraordinary day. This is partly why X Factor and its attendant culture is so damaging: it reverses the populist principle by taking incredibly ordinary stuff and pretending it's somehow technically accomplished, effectively saying to the populace you think you could do this, but you can't, because you don't have the X Factor. This is elitism, pure and simple.

Or, in Adorno's phrase, the "barbarism of perfection".

There's clearly a lot more to say about the formula primitive = good in pop. If you want a radical example, I think this is why early Oasis were so good: they had a truly dreadful drummer in Tony McCarroll.

This must be the shittest beat ever committed to record, but it works perfectly in context (as a foil for the trippy, corruscating guitar line; as an onomatopoeia of hopeless mundanity; as a launching pad for a melody that soars).

Here's another one:*

And another:

Rave exploited exactly the same trick (primitive pulse + soaring hook), but that's outside of our purview ...

Charlie Watts is another notable example of the primitive-populist principle in action:

I could go on, but you probably hate me enough by this point.



*I would advise all you Oasis sceptics out there - and I'm aware that's probably everyone - to give Listen Up and Fade Away some serious attention. They really are rather good.

DRUMMING

Drumming in pop: shitter = better.

Part of why pop music has always been resistant to muso professionalism (unlike, say, jazz) is that as soon as the rhythm section departs from the groove (the self-abnegating communitarian base) into narcissism and stylised elaboration, the whole thing will collapse. This is why the "drum solo" is so often cited as the ultimate transgression and tragic flaw of seventies prog.

So I've always had a lot of sympathy with the Stephen Morris of New Order theory that a drummer should try as hard as possible to resemble a drum machine. Ringo is another obvious (pre-electronic) example.

Listen closely and it sounds pretty clunky on a technical level, but taken as a whole (in Heideggerian jargon, when we regard the totality of equipment) it sounds fucking immense. As long as the drummer doesn't try anything fancy, everyone else in the band can get on with the baroque stuff (production as in the above example, songwriting, lyrics, politics) with the added bonus that simpler drumming is also likely to be more conducive to dancing from a listener/audience point of view. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think this is the hardboiled essence of late-twentieth century pop/rock/whatever, the thing that really distinguishes it from other macro-genres.

But, as the walrus said, THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS ...

The obvious Western indie example is of course Reni. On pretty much every Stone Roses tune, there is a palpable sense that Reni is single-handedly rescuing music that would otherwise be lumpen and grey, and transforming it into danceable, genre-crossing future-funk with a sort a casual, effortless virtuosity. Everyone knows the obvious examples (Fools Gold, the I am the Resurrection outro), but listen to his drumming the whole way through Where Angels Play, the way it builds and wanders and shimmies:

Without Reni, this would be dull as dishwater. As it is, the other members of the band are spurred on to be better and more alive and Where Angels Play gambols with magic.

Then there are the virtuoso moments from funk and groove-based music proper. The obvious example here I guess would be Tony Allen. Again, one of the most noteworthy and heroic examples of his brilliance is when he "rescues" this tune, which would otherwise be relatively trite white Western pop:

Now this is a drum solo, of sorts. But it gets exactly the right balance between groove and ornament. The drum riff is pretty constant throughout, but when the melody begins to open out around 3:30, Allen cracks open a can of virtuoso - ever so briefly, only for about 20-30 seconds - and when the vocal melody drops we're in Elysium again.

Some other magic moments:

KELVIN MACKENZIE: A VERY BAD MAN

This is hyperbole indeed, but at the end of a year replete with fucked up shit, this might just be the most fucked up thing of all.

The guy who smeared the Hillsborough fans asks:

Why don't [people in the North] live within their means, or move down here and see what it’s like to be taxed until they weep?

THE OPPOSITE OF FOLK

An extract from the book is up on the Zero Blog.

When I wrote all that stuff about Mumford and Sons over two sodding years ago now, I honestly thought nu-folk was already on the way out.

It wasn't.

CULTURE INDUSTRY 2012, BUMPER SUPER EXTRA

A friend asked me what I thought about the Mercury Prize …

I dunno, what more is there to say? I suppose I thought there had been another turn of the screw this year in terms of the hype, and concurrently, the irrelevance of the whole thing. The two seem to be related. The more hysterical and insular the mediascape gets, the less people care. As with the Booker Prize, The Guardian worked itself into a frenzy with ridiculous “hustings” comment pieces, profiles on the nominees, etc, all of which would have been unimaginable in, say, the late nineties. But like contemporary politics, the music industry is now at such far remove from anything like a communitarian base that even this level of coverage/noise will almost certainly have no lasting impact on Alt-J or any of the other artists.

It was interesting that Alexis Petridis said something similar in a Guardian piece/sales summary, but in a way that illustrated just how grounded in PR commentary coverage of music has become (the fact that it’s now possible to use the word “coverage” in earnest seems to be symptomatic of the shifts I’m talking about). Bands/artists wither into the void if they don’t develop "momentum", if they don’t get enough promo, if they don’t break through to “sustainable territory”. Of course these have been stock aspects of the music industry since time immemorial. But instead of abating – as one might think it would in these days of Occupy and ongoing burgeoning crisis – the capitalisation of art is deepening in ever more subtle and profound ways. The alternative has still not manifested itself. There still isn’t really anything to discuss other than career trajectories, no vocabulary outside of promospeak.

Nick Grimshaw: on balance, a lobotomised fuck.

Another instance is the recent switch between Chris Moyles and Nick "Friend to the Stars" Grimshaw on the Radio 1 breakfast show. Far be it from me to make a martyr of Moyles, who was clearly a grade-A fucking neo-Savilite working-class-Tory shit-sack. But at least there was a streak of bathos and scepticism in his presenting act. His replacement, by contrast, seems to be the result of a music industry conspiracy to get the most bland, capitalistic Yes-man imaginable installed in a position of public power and centrality. Grimshaw sounds and acts precisely like a PR man. This is probably at least in part because he used to be a PR man. Moyles was a clownish light entertainer, but Grimshaw speaks with the vague authority of Someone Who Knows About Serious Music, and plays whatever hype-bands need “coverage” in any given week. (There are manifest similarities here with the Mercury Prize, which was founded by the industry as a way of giving album sales a boost in the late-summer/early-autumn downturn.)

These might seem like minor developments, but cumulatively they have a big effect.

Of course it's a familiar story: “how the counterculture was superseded by hipster culture”. Hipster culture takes the remains of the left, the remains of the counterculture, voids it of subversion and makes it saleable. The centre ground comes to be dominated by superficially “innovative” art that is conservative or at best ideologically insensate, and one is continually forced to remind oneself that “indie” is the exact antithesis of what it once was. I repeat that I’m not saying anything very ingenious here, but I am surprised at the sheer formidable extenuation of these Adornian movements, and at the continuing lack of resistance.

In this bravura piece over at the Oxonian Review, Joe Kennedy says something very similar about modern British poetry, with much more pith and articulacy than I’ve mustered here.

And here, as a special appendix, is said friend’s soundbite summaries of the Mercury nominees, which are all pretty much spot on I think:

Sam Lee: "admirable ... a good kind of scholar"

Django Django: "don't like ... and the wanky clothes don't endear"

Richard Hawley: "sounds like fucking Kasabian to me"

Alt-J: "nicepresentableposhboys in interview ... ultimately sign-of-the-times wankers I think"

Field Music: "should have won ... they manage to be in good traditions but surprising and new at the same time"

Lianne le ...: "fairly boring"

Michael K: "can't believe this is on here ... pure pastiche surely?"

Jessie W: "zzzzzz"

Plan B: "I know nothing about rap ... but oddly I liked this more than most of the stuff here"

Jazz Trio: "err, they're a jazz trio"

Maccabees: "U2 pompous Bono vocals, stadium rock pretensions ... is this unfair?"

THE POLITICAL DIMENSION OF SENTIMENTALITY

Great post by Peter Fanning over at the NUST blog, which summarises a whole lot of straightforward righteousness. No matter how many times I read that Bobby Robson quotation, it never seems hackneyed. It's the political dimension of sentimentality, innit, like I was saying about that Del Amitri tune earlier this year.

Speaking of which, I finally finished reading Ruskin's Praeterita the other day, which has an interesting section towards the end about Carlyle and Scottish art:

... the whole tone of Scottish temper, ballad poetry, and music, which no other school has ever been able to imitate, has arisen out of the sad associations which, one by one, have gathered round every loveliest scene in the border land. Nor is there anything among other beautiful nations to approach the dignity of a true Scotswoman's face, in the tried perfectness of her old age.

Okay, so maybe this is sentimental, gloopy Victorianism, especially the last sentence. But it nails Del Amitri!

By the way, I wouldn't recommend Praeterita. Lots of picturesque descriptions of the Alps and absolutely no proto-socialism. Having said that, in my edition there was a pretty good preface by Kenneth Clark, which I read at the end (so's not to spoil the story, y'kna); Clark points out that Praeterita was essentially a work of consolation written in the wake of Ruskin's political disappointments. The pathos of this went a long way to redeeming the book's escapism. But still, I would go for the critical, political stuff instead, if you're that way inclined.

THE DAY I MET MY HERO

 

I get off the Overground at South Hampstead and it immediately starts pissing it down. I’m slightly late so I think about running, but I’ve got three layers on – a lot for an unreconstructed Northumbrian – and I don’t want to be sweaty and florid for the big man.

            Predictably, when I get to Abbey Road, I’m the first one there. Catriona the Warner PR lass meets me after a short while in the reception. She’s clearly a bit music-biz, a bit ersatz, but frankly, because of her base of friendliness and the fact that she’s not a 40+ man, she will seem more and more like a paragon of human decency as the next hour unfolds. The next person I’m introduced to, I’m never quite sure who he is. He could be the head of Warner, he could be the producer of the album, he could be the studio owner or Johnny’s manager. It doesn’t matter much. Because he looks and is dressed very similarly to Bill Nighy (Bill Nighy in, well, anything), I’m going to call him Bill, which is almost unquestionably not his name. Bill is in his forties, is wearing an expensive black suit with a black shirt underneath, and has one of those Stones-y haircuts which make me thank Sir Mick of Jagger I don’t live in Manchester any more.

            We head up to a small room on the second floor. When I daydream of Abbey Road, I think of the stock stuff: the Summer of Love, visions of the Beatles bursting into immaculate 3-part harmonies at the pinnacle of the twentieth century, Ringo eating a Chinese takeaway in the corner, that sort of thing. This room, however, looks like a basement in a sixth-form college in Stoke [no offence, Ms. Weston]. It must be less than 15 feet wide and 7 or 8 feet deep. There appears to be some sort of Blur box-set on a shelf on one side of the room (like, ew), and on the other is one of those tacky posterboard things, you know, the ones you buy from the pound shop that usually have a fuzzy picture of Al Pacino in Scarface on the front. This one has a picture of The Smiths on it, along with the words “The Smiths” in comic sans. (Only joking about the comic sans, but you get the idea.)

            I ask Bill if I can record the interview, like The Quietus has asked me to.

            “Oh no. This isn’t an interview you know”.

            “Ah. What is it then?”

            “It’s just a chance to listen to some tracks from Johnny’s new album and hang out with him!” Catriona says, with bubbles.

            “Ah. No problem”. Follows an awkward pause.

            “Sit anywhere you like,” Bill says finally. “The other journalists should be here soon, and Johnny’s just having a spot of lunch.” Which other journalists? I think to myself. What is this?

            I decide to sit in the chair in the corner.

            “Don't sit in that chair! That’s my chair. Sit anywhere, except there.” I literally laugh at Bill when he says this, but he doesn’t laugh back.

The other music journalists arrive about twenty minutes late, conspicuously dry after their taxi journeys from central London. Roger Fluellen Johnson from The Observer is in his forties, is wearing a trendy suit, and has one of those Stones-y haircuts too. Mike Thompson from Mojo is in his forties, is wearing an expensive suit, and has one of those Stones-y … you get the picture. Johnny arrives and he looks exactly like all the other guys, I’m afraid to say. Is this the man who wrote “Please Please Please (Let Me Get What I Want)”? I find it difficult to countenance the idea.

            Over the next half hour we are treated to seven songs played at ear-splitting volume from the forthcoming album, which nobody outside the room has heard before. Apparently the record company people were blown away when they first heard these works-in-progress, and thought: we really have to play these to other people. It seem that that’s where the idea for this “thing” came from (no-one else seems to know what it is either) – we just really wanted to share these songs. I find it interesting that the “other people” they want to share the tracks with just so happen to be representatives of the major music press publications (plus, inexplicably, me), but I keep my mouth shut.

            The seven songs are, without exception, unutterably lifeless, detumescent dad rock. The third one is, I suppose, not that bad. It could almost be by Wild Nothing or Real Estate (ie. bands who sound a bit like The Smiths in a decorative, 2012-hipster sort of way). But the rest is unequivocally awful, like Oasis but much, much worse, replete with lyrics like “I wanna leave town” and “lookin’ through my eyes now” and “wakin’ up in the sun now” (it’s always a bad sign when lyricists put “now” at the end of a line just to fill out the scansion).

            At the end of the seventh song, Bill leans over to the mixing desk, and theatrically turns the volume knob right down, to signal the end of the performance. We clap enthusiastically (even me - hell, what can a brother do?). Follows a long discourse from Johnny and the record company people about where the record “came from”, which is so heartbreakingly boring I won’t recount it.

            The assembled journos each take turns to say very bland, positive stuff about the songs. At one point Mike Thompson from Mojo pipes up, “It’s almost Smithsy, in parts.” The faces of the record company people fall flat. This is not the right thing to say, it seems.

            Bill interjects: “Hmm, yeah, we thought that at first. But then we thought, actually, it’s not so much Smithsy as … Johnny. It’s actually just Johnny.” Everyone murmurs eager assent, and the conversation is wrapped up. We get our coats and pile out of Abbey Road.

            “Goodbye Alex. Take care now”, says Johnny, as I head down the steps and out onto the waterlogged street.