Youtube Killed the Video Star

I don't blog here any more. Let me get that out of the way from the start. Not that anyone who reads this will care, but just in case someone, somewhere, stumbles on this post. I write now here and here. I don't have any moral reasons why I don't use Blogger any more, I just find that Wordpress is a better blogging platform, and find that Tumblr is well suited to posts based around pictures.

Anyway.

Mez recently wrote about her favourite music videos, and I wanted to reciprocate. The only trouble was, such a post as this wasn't suited to either of those blogs, so it's getting written here instead.

I wrote in comments over on that post that, growing up, my family didn't have satellite TV so I didn't have access to MTV and VH1, and with them a lot of music videos. My taste in music was limited to what I was exposed to, and music videos were hard to come by.

That said, with access to the internet since my late teenage years I have tried to go back and find videos -- when it occurs to me -- for my favourite songs.

In no particular order:

It's an uncomfortable truth for a lot of people, but I always like Hole better than Nirvana. 

Hole were more than just Courtney Love. Eric Erlandson was (and, probably, still is) a brilliant song writer and this album also drew on the talents of people including Billy Corgan and Linda Perry. For some, this album wasn't as good as the raw grunge of Live Through This, but for me it was an album of its time: to make another album exactly the same would have sounded ridiculous. Celebrity Skin was a great song, with some typical Hole-lyrics ("Cinderella they aren't sluts like you") and harmonies from Melissa Auf der Maur. The video makes the song even better.   

The video brings together all the best parts of the song.

Celebrity Skin, Hole

I have issues with both Hole and Smashing Pumpkins these days, since the failed solo careers of Courtney Love and Billy Corgan encouraged them to restart their old bands, but leaving out some critical members. I was OK with the Smashing Pumpkins relaunch (mostly) while it involved Jimmy Chamberlain, since it was his powerhouse drumming that gave them such a distinctive sound.

Band politics aside, there are many great videos for the Pumpkins. Do you choose the videos where the talented Mr Corgan still has hair, or the later almost Addams Family stylings of the (pretty lousy) album "Adore"? The obvious choice is the middle ground. "Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness", as an album, was flawed for me -- it showed a lack of self awareness to make an overblown double album. But it still had some incredible songs on it: "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" being one of them. The video suits the song perfectly.

Bullet with Butterfly Wings, Smashing Pumpkins

Perhaps my all-time favourite band The Pixies are largely a mystery to me in terms of videos: a band that I have to go back into their catalogue to see what, if any videos, they made. 

The important thing with all my favourite bands is obviously the music first, and I tell people that The Pixies invented music (before them it was just tuning up). While that's not strictly true, they did more or less invent the alternative rock style we now take for granted with bands like Nirvana and Foo Fighters. It's well known that Nirvana's seminal "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was described by Dave Grohl at the time as a "Pixies rip off" and I've read amusing interviews with Grohl since were clueless journos ask him how he came up with Foo Fighters groundbreaking quiet-LOUD-quiet style, and he explains how the Pixies were doing it first in the '80s.

"Here Comes Your Man" might not have Frank Black's (or Black Francis) trademark screaming, but it is a classic song for them and one often mistakenly played on '90s radio stations (since it was released in the '80s). It also has a video fairly typical of the time: it's hard to tell now if it was meant to be a joke, because it's pretty bad. And that's what makes it good -- The Pixies were never about image for me. Or themselves, it seems.

Here Comes Your Man, Pixies

Yes, yes. Soundgarden. Chris Cornell is a rock god. Other than making misguided albums with Timbaland, he can do very little wrong. And even when he does, you just have to say the magic words "Temple of the Dog" and all is forgiven. 

Mez already featured Black Hole Sun on her blog, so I'm going with something different. Rusty Cage. Another fantastic song from the time period, and another awful video so typical of that period. So bad it's now good.

Rusty Cage, Soundgarden

Pearl Jam. Where would we be without the big PJ? Eddie Vedder is about as close as we come to a messiah. 

Pearl Jam also famously stopped making videos after "Jeremy" -- and that was a very long time ago. Many albums later, some good, some less good, but with some stand out songs, personal tragedies and amazing shows along the way, this video got made for "Do the Evolution". 

I don't know what the story with it is, whether Pearl Jam made it, whether it was independent and then officially accepted, or whether it remains unofficial. Either way, this song is a blazing powerhouse of a song and it is made all the better with such an emotional video.

Do The Evolution, Pearl Jam

A band you rarely hear mentioned alongside these greats is one from the city of Bradford in West Yorkshire. 

Terrorvision always had an uneasy relationship with success -- not that they didn't like it, but as they once put it, it would sort of come and go. Most albums would have a stand-out single and do quite well, but there was also usually several years between albums, and the momentum would fade. 

The band found fame with their song "Oblivion" featuring a distinctive, catchy doo-wap hook, but the album it came from was also responsible for some of their heaviest songs. By far one of their best -- and heaviest -- songs combines one of the best videos. 

Alice, What's the Matter is dark and almost surrealist, but compulsive viewing -- just like the song is compulsive listening.

Alice What's the Matter, Terrorvision

Keeping things surreal are Eels. From the album Electro shock Blues -- full of autobiographical songs about death and bereavement came "Last Stop This Town", it's beautiful and sad, and it sticks in your head. 

It is accompanied by a video featuring anthropomorphic genetically modified vegetables. It makes no sense, has nothing to do with the song, but it is doubtlessly brilliant.

Last Stop This Town, Eels

I love the White Stripes. Love them. I loved how every album was different to the last, without them having to do interviews everywhere saying "we're reinventing ourselves!!" -- mainly because they weren't reinventing anything. They were doing what they always did, which was be consistently surprising. I loved their raw, stripped down sound. I loved the weird dynamic between Jack and Meg. And most of all, I love the song Hotel Yorba. 

You might watch this video, and think "So what?" but it's good because it fits the song so well. It's not showy, it's just raw, and simple, and perfect.

Hotel Yorba, White Stripes

Our Lady Peace are criminally overlooked outside of the North American continent. I saw them play in London last year at the Canada Day celebrations, and then the next night in a very small venue. I sometimes try and request their songs on the radio, without success. I just don't understand they aren't better known here. But that's besides the point. 

"Superman's Dead" was the first song by the band that I heard, and remains one of my favourites. I think the video is typical of the time: it seems to have nothing to do with the song itself, but is interesting to watch. 

And as a fun fact, there's a slightly different version made for the USA: apparently the clown-type people were too scary, so that footage is removed. 

Another fun fact: I almost posted about the song "One Man Army" which I also like, and has another strange, unrelated video. The video is widely regarded by fans and the band themselves as one of the worst ever made. I decided instead to go with a "good" one.

Superman's Dead, Our Lady Peace

Radiohead are a surprise inclusion, because if I had to list my top 10 bands they probably wouldn't make the list. Like a lot of people, I stopped listening after "OK Computer" and while I'm told some of their more recent stuff has got a lot better, I haven't really come back to them. But this is both a fantastic song and a famous video. The video is a short film (by a filmmaker whose name I don't know, or remember) and the usual footage of band playing that you get in almost every video, ever. The short (silent) film is incredibly powerful, and I've seen fans having animated discussions on forums about what the man says at the end -- to the point where they were practically beseeching anyone who could read lips to reveal the secret. I wanted to shout at them and explain it's not real, it's just a story, there's no big secret that "explains" everything. And for the record, it's pretty easy to tell from the man's lips that all he says is "I'll you what's wrong, I'll tell you what's wrong". And I only just noticed today, the short film is filmed in London -- even though the motorcycle cop seems to be American, I recognise Liverpool Street station anywhere.

Just, Radiohead

Velvet Revolver were from that weird Noughties time of supergroups -- Chris Cornell was rocking out with Audioslave, and Scott Weiland had got together with the best musicians from Guns N' Roses to make Velvet Revolver. 

This was a particularly good move, as when they performed live Scott could join  them in covers of GNR songs and improve on the originals.

Slither was their first song, and set a very high bar -- one that, for me, they never quite reached again. What Scott Weiland is playing at now is the same old story, it seems, and it's a shame. But this song -- and the accompanying video, set in the catacombs of Paris -- is still brilliant.

Slither, Velvet Revolver

The king is gone but he's not forgotten

"The king is gone but he's not forgotten
This is the story of a Johnny Rotten" Neil Young, "Hey Hey, My My"

 It's not uncommon for me to wake up on the morning with a snatch of a song stuck in my head.  Sometimes it's a song I've not heard in years, most of the time I have no idea why that particular song or song lyric should be all I remember from a dream.

One day this week, I woke up with a line from Neil Young's "Hey Hey, My My" -- a song which apparently debates whether it is better to burn out or to fade away.  One thing has always bothered me about the song, and that's the line's quoted above -- "the king is gone, but he's not forgotten/this is the story of a Johnny Rotten".  I haven't ever read an analysis of the song, so I can't be sure of all the references in it -- but it's always bothered me, because Johnny Rotten isn't dead.  Not literally, anyway.  Sid Vicious is dead, and it's Sid Vicious who is considered by many (many who aren't really that familiar with punk) to represent the movement -- I have always felt a nagging that Neil Young was confusing Johnny Rotten with Sid Vicious.

I said that Johnny Rotten wasn't "literally" dead.  What I mean is that John Lydon is alive and well, and appearing on our television screens advertising Country Life butter -- but at the same time, because of this and the passing of the years, his persona as Johnny Rotten is dead.

In the Sex Pistols, back in the 1970s, he was a crazy eyed kid who couldn't sing in tune and had more in common with Shakespeare's Richard III as played by Laurence Olivier than he did with any king of rock and roll.

Punk was a revolution.  It was the downtrodden and the pissed off giving the ruling classes, the middle classes, two fingers up.  It was about taking back control -- music no longer had to be prog-rock opuses, instead punk told people that anyone could have a go. And they did.  Those who didn't form bands made fanzines with sticky tape and paper, that was as rough-and-ready as the music it presented.

Punk as a movement caused more moral outrage and paranoia than any music before or since -- it was considered a bigger threat to our way of life than Russian Communism.

 The Sex Pistols made only one album.  Is that what Neil Young meant when he said it's better to burn out than to fade away?  Glen Matlock was replaced by Sid Vicious, just for the image, and Sid was in his own way responsible for making the safety pins and torn clothing of the impoverished working classes a punk "uniform".  Sid never "burned out" because he was never burning in the first place.

So what of Johnny Rotten?  He formed "Public Image Limited", who weren't punk at all, and dropped the Rotten moniker.

These days, John Lydon is a property millionaire, milking Sex Pistls and PIL reuinions for all they're worth.  He lives in a mansion in Los Angeles.  And while it seems he still has all the anger and bitterness of his youth, speaking out against the middle classes ands private schools and international politics, it's hard to take "Johnny Rotten" seriously these days -- he's long gone.  His opinions on the Royal Family matter less to me than someone who actually still lives here.

What really burns is that Johnny Rotten didn't even burn out -- he wasn't a candle that burned twice as brightly for half as long.  While it could be said that he should be respected for forming PIL, something completely different to the Sex Pistols and respecting his artistic integrity instead of playing up to the punk rock cliche, he has lost any kind of credibility in the years that followed.

That is the story of a Johnny Rotten, gone but not forgotten.

Musical Monday #32

In 1994, I was 13 years old. What was on my mind at age 16, what was important in my life, what made me happy and what worried me -- all of this is largely forgotten to me now. I guess music was important to me, and girls. So what else is new.

In April of 1994, on the day Kurt Cobain died, I was walking to school with a friend, just like any other day. He told me Cobain was dead, and I didn't know who it was. I'm not cool enough to say that I was a huge fan and had a candle-lit vigil for him. My friend told me Cobain was "the guitarist" for a band called Nirvana. This meant nothing more to me than it had done a few moments before. Had I heard of them? Probably, yes. Had I heard anything by them? Unlikely.

I was 16 when I did.

My friend John and I had formed a band. Just the two of us. We could barely play, but we wanted a drummer. We recruited this obnoxious half-wit called Tim, who had a lot of power and strength but no natural flair or subtlety. What he did bring to the band was Nirvana. He liked them, we didn't know them. Over the summer, he lent John a couple of VHS recordings from MTV, of Nirvana Unplugged and Nirvana, Live and Loud. John also copied a Nirvana album from a cousin he had. A casette copy of a copy of a copy.

I take some music snobbery pride in knowing this album and the first material I ever heard by Nirvana was their debut album, Bleach. It sounded dark and dirty, grunge was the made-up genre used to describe their style, and the word seemed fitting. Detuned guitars and a sound like aural sludge. It was unlike anything I'd ever heard. Gone were the guitar solos of Aerosmith and Guns N' Roses, the theatrics and the pomposity.

We listened to it all, I'd watch Unplugged over breakfast, with my cornflakes.

Bleach was fucked up, Nevermind the difficult second album that the original fans felt was a sell-out, In Utero was my favourite at the time -- with better production than the debut, and less radio-friendly than the follow-up.

At that age, Cobain's untimely death at 27 seemed a world away. I could objectively acknowledge that he had "died young", but at the same time 27 was adult, grown up. He had a wife, and a child, and I won't give any oxygen to the claims of conspiracy and murder, because I don't much care.

Today I turned 28, having outlived Cobain, along with Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Brian Jones -- not mention various others. He doesn't seem so fully grown to me any more.

I have more or less grown out of listening to Nirvana, in time. The rage and angst of their music got a little old, although I still like to dig out their albums from time to time, and still roll my eyes at commercial stations playing the listener-friendly In Bloom, or Smells Like Teen Spirit, the latter being every bit the Pixies rip off that Nirvana said it was.

Heart Shaped Box

Musical Monday #31

I'm not sure if this really is #31, if it is then this idea has been neglected for far too long -- and it's about time I brought it back.

The Waifs were originally formed in the early 90s by a couple of folk-loving sisters who made simple, straight forward music -- but it was several years later that they formed a band with a third member.

Obviously, it was The Girl who introduced me to the Waifs (both being from Albany), she was just playing music one night and I immediately took a liking to the band's sound and the stories involved in the songs.

I can't offer anything like a biography of the band without simply copying it from their official site or the wiki article, and I'm only familiar with two of their albums. I'm not even a huge fan, sometimes their music can feel a little too "country" for my liking, or just too much like Norah Jones' particular brand of inoffensive, coffee-table music. But I can write a little about my favourite songs, and my appreciation for their folk/blues roots, too.

Many of the songs have more than a twinge of sadness to them, probably their biggest song is London, Still -- which I expect is a kind of theme song to large communities of people in Earl's Court, Hammersmith and Shepherd's Bush. A kind of commentary of an Australian in London missing their family and their "sleepy Sunday town", when played live it's been known to bring a tear to the eye.

Perhaps the most obvious autobiographical of their songs is Fisherman's Daughter -- about being a "regular West Australian fisherman’s daughter...a middle class folk singing guitar playin’ girl" -- the song's feeling itself reflects the simplicity of the singers; in a slow, blues style.

A less direct autobiographical theme comes in the song Bridal Train, a song about war brides who in the second world war married sailors in the US Navy and whose passage from Australia to the USA was arranged by the USA so they could be with their husbands. It's more than just history, though, since it directly tells the story of the girls' grandmother who with many others took the "bridal train" from Perth to Sydney.

One of my favourite songs is Lighthouse, but I can only make guesses towards its subject. It's quite an upbeat and um-tempo I like to think that it's a song about depression, that the "cold headland" it refers to is an emotional rather than literal one. I'm not sure who or what the "lighthouse" is (I prefer not to consider the perhaps obvious religious interpretation), instead concentrating on the idea that we have to find our own ways back to shore.

Some of their more recent work on the album my blog now shares a name seems less directly biographical and sometimes more bluesy than folk -- Sun Dirt Water can be watched and appreciated for itself in the previous post without my comments, and maybe it's best if I let the rest of their music speak for itself after this.
Strings of Steel
Lighthouse
Pony

Musical Monday #30

Folks who are regular readers way over at What Goes Up... will have caught the recent post on cover versions. It's come to a point where if I don't write my own post about covers then I'm just going to spend all day spamming the comments and eventually get myself blocked.

Covers can be amazing, or they can be awful. They can make an artist, or they can be a source of ridicule and derision. Radio 1's "Live Lounge" has whole albums of artists performing covers live, and they are surprising and addictive and inspiring and sometimes just plain awful. Arctic Monkeys covering Girls Aloud was described by Jo Whiley as "band on band action" and is reminiscent of the time Travis were live (and drunk) on Mark Radcliffe's show and played "Hit Me Baby, One More Time" -- following which they had to actually learn to play the song properly, since it became so hotly requested. To my mind, no later performance was ever as good -- the original was spontaneous and fun, later it just sounded whiny, like so much of Travis' work.

Jojo is an artist that for the most part I try to ignore. Her music is unremarkable and appeals to an audience the clearly isn't me. However, her unexpected cover of the Foo Fighters' "Times Like These" is fantastic, and she obviously has an incredible pair of lungs on her. And I don't mean in a pervy way.

Velvet Revolver are a great band for covers -- combining the talented ones out of Guns N' Roses with Scott Weiland means you get to hear old-school GNR songs sung by someone with a good voice, and old Stone Temple Pilot songs. In a similar manner, Audioslave became very controversial when they started playing Rage Against the Machine covers -- but for what it's worth, I thought Chris Cornell was able to more than do justice to songs like "Sleep Now In The Fire", as well as bringing his improved vocal talents to Soundgarden songs. As a solo artist, I don't know if it really counts as a cover version if he sings material from any of his old bands -- but it's a shame he doesn't do Rage covers any more.

With all this in mind, I thought should go all High Fidelity today and rate my top 5 covers. So, in reverse order, the best cover versions.

5. All Along the Watchtower -- Jimi Hendrix
I mentioned somewhere else recently that the funny thing about Bob Dylan is that almost any cover version of one of his songs will improve on the original -- this isn't to say that Dylan wasn't good to begin with, but his folk style meant there was a lot to build on. But there's good covers, and there is taking a song and completely revolutionising it -- and that's what Hendrix does here; he leaves a scorching trail right through the middle of the song.

4. Satisfaction -- Cat Power
If you're not very familiar with the original Rolling Stones song, you wouldn't realise this was a cover at all. The big memorable riff is gone, the chorus has been dropped altogether, and instead Cat Power sings it with what feels like genuine sadness. Matt once told me the song is about Mick Jagger wanting to sleep with a groupie, but it's the wrong time of the month -- she says "baby come back, baby next week, can't you see I'm on a losing streak?". I don't know if this is truly what's being expressed, but Cat Power sings it with such emotion and totally changes the whole song around.

3. Jolene -- The White Stripes
Taking an old Dolly Parton song, and once again making it almost unrecognisable -- Jack White swings between singing softly and almost screaming the words. The thing is though, you can tell he really loves the song, he gets so passionate about it -- and you can't help but feel a surge of passion yourself.

2. Hallelujah -- Jeff Buckley
Why are my favourite covers today nearly all sad songs? Taking the iconic Leonard Cohen song (now there's music to slit your wrists to) and covering it faithfully, Jeff Buckley has a quiet, slow burning intensity that suits the song so well.

1. Where Did You Sleep Last Night -- Nirvana
Although not the author of this song, Leadbelly is credited with making it widely popular when he recorded it back in the 50's. Leadbelly has to be one of the most-covered artists ever, and was certainly a major influence on many of the great artists of the 90's, including the likes of Nirvana, Screaming Trees and Pearl Jam. Kurt Cobain actually first played guitar on a Mark Lanegan cover of this song, which in some respects is quite similar -- something not uncommon with Nirvana -- but the acoustic performance better suits the style. Just the same, I don't include that version on the list. If/when there is an official recorded Twilight Singers with Mark Lanegan cover then I will reconsider my position on this being my favourite cover.

An old blues song, it always reminds me of the Hendrix song Hey Joe -- probably because both are about murder, and possibly infidelity, but it's also the traditional melancholy that goes with it -- something that Cobain manages to express beautifully with his own voice.

This performance starts very simply, with just a man, a voice and a guitar -- but as the song slowly builds, more instruments join in and become more noticeable, as Cobain himself gets louder and more passionate. The song builds to a dramatic crescendo (why is it songs like this sound like orgasms?) where Cobain -- like Langean before him -- screams the final verse.

As a completely unrelated aside, the song also reminds me of the Robert Frost poem Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening -- which I suppose is because of the shared theme of woods/death.

Update: A new contender for worst cover ever!

Musical Monday #29

I did a Musical Monday post about Terrorvision ages ago -- but the trouble is, on reading it again, it just wasn't good enough. I wanted to post today about their offbeat, fans' favourite b-side of a song Tea Dance. But I haven't done the band justice, previously, so please forgive me -- I'm going to try this one again.

Terrorvision made it big with their debut album Formaldehyde, all the way back in 1993. The early years of a decade are always slightly confusing, because there is so much carried over from the last one -- so although by 1993 alternative rock was making increasingly bigger waves, there was still a lot of the 80s about it. In many ways, Formaldehyde was a classic debut album -- it had some great songs, and this album in particular promised so much of the band with thought-out lyrics and some catchy hooks. But the main thing a debut does is promise -- it hints at greatness, at what a band can achieve together, given time.

The single My House remained until the end a live favourite also set the tone for many later catchy slightly-pop/rock songs, like Oblivion and Perseverance, and it was no doubt this mixture of a sense of humour with the obvious rock edge that scored for the band a major label record deal. I think Tea Dance perhaps appeared on the original indie-label release of the album, and certainly was on their first EP, but was later dropped. I read the lyrics to the song one day without having heard it, when they were published in the band's fanzine at the time Northern Scum.

I quoted the band last time and I will again -- they say now they were always too busy having a good time to take themselves too seriously. Sometimes now I wonder if perhaps they didn't take themselves quite seriously enough. I'd like to ask them.

Formaldehyde was followed by the iconic How To Make Friends and Influence People -- a very appropriate title for a second album, especially one that really did make the band friends. Easily the heaviest of all their albums, combining the hard rock Alice What's the Matter and Pretend Best Friend with the great doo-wop singalong, Oblivion), the band had made it -- their music videos suddenly had budgets, and their gigs were probably as big as they ever got. Until the end, anyway -- their "Take the Money and Run" tour probably rivalled the success.

I couldn't tell you how long it was between the second and third albums -- but the problem with Terrorvision was always that it was too long. The fans of their albums stuck around, but any casual listeners that had like one song or another or seen them at a festival had usually forgotten all about them by the time their next album or next hit single came along.

True to their word for a band that didn't take themselves too seriously, Terrorvision followed How To Make Friends with a James Bond-themed album, Regular Urban Survivors which they said was the soundtrack to the film they wanted to make. The album had a mixed reception among earlier fans, since the harder rock edge had mellowed out a bit -- but the 90s were flying by, and anything else would have sounded out of place. Although I liked the suitably laid-back Easy , singles like Bad Actress and Celebrity Hit List never really did it for me -- although the band had one of their biggest commercial success with the song Perseverance. Everyone was singing that "whales and dolphins" song, Tony Wright presented Top of the Pops, and there was a special edition of Kerrang! magazine dedicated to them one week. "Brit Rock" the magazine called them; "Britpop with balls".

But it went nowhere. The band just sort of went quiet. I saw them live for the first time in the December of 1996, which I think was just after the album came out -- but nothing else on it was as big as Perseverance.

I wonder now if their next album Shaving Peaches would have been enough for the band if it hadn't featured a somewhat random album track called Tequila. The band had again achieve moderate chart success with the song Josephine, and it was one of their best songs, to my mind -- clever, and catchy without being all-out pop. The band apparently had filmed a dark and David Lynch-esque video for the song, but didn't like it -- so Tony Wright came up with a new one, which involved running round a race track in Madrid. In drag. It was a pun on "drag racing", since the song is about a sex change.

I remember hearing the band play Tequila live (and I particularly fondly remember a girl in silver PVC trousers, who was bouncing around next to me during the song) and thinking it would be a popular song for the band -- but among existing fans. Then Mint Royale got hold of the song, remixed it, and before you know it the band were being told by Radio DJ Zoe Ball that if they didn't release it as a single then she would do it herself. They obliged, and it was a big a song as any they ever did -- and remains popular now, although of course most people don't remember who it was by, or that the band ever had any other songs.

Their last proper album (that is, not a greatest hits or unreleased tracks compilation) was Good To Go -- perhaps an appropriate album for a final album. It's odd, the band were dropped by EMI right after their biggest commerical success with Tequila, and the band actually played Reading Festival that year without having a current record deal. They released their final album on a different label, and then subsequently called it a day. Although it seems like it wasn't so much their choice -- the band had limited success with the album's first single, D'Ya Wanna Go Faster and when they came to release Fists of Fury they couldn't get it played. Radio 1 refused to play it and said the band were no longer "relevant" (although they later gave plenty of airplay to the Gerry Halliwell song Scream if you wanna go faster). Perhaps they took exception to the band's video, parodying Madonna.

Officially, it seems that's really the end of the story. There was a farewell tour, Tony formed Laika Dog, and the other members formed their own bands, and occasionally even now there's a handful of one-off Terrorvision gigs -- though I doubt there will ever be a full-fledged reunion or another album.

To end, I return to the start -- Tea Dance is a simple song about a couple who meet years after a break up, and find that they still like each other. It's a quiet, and straight forward song -- but it makes me smile. My favourite line that sums it all up for me: "Well me, yeah, I got hitched -- and, yeah, we're still friends. I don't see her often, still I get the kids at weekends".

Musical Monday #28

Last week, I described Kate Nash as polarising opinion on the scale of Marmite -- in that one tends to fall into a love or hate category, with very little room for a middle ground. And for the record, I hate Marmite.

It seems, though, that the powers that be in this mysterious and expanding universe have been pointing me towards a MM post on Ani DiFranco. It's long overdue, Ani is one of my favourite artists, but I've struggled whenever I have tried to verbalise what I love about her music. Part of the trouble has been that one of my favourite songs is "You Had Time" -- but I only loved this song after I read Nick Hornby's essay on it in 31 Songs. Unfortunately, his writing was so incredibly good about such an amazing song that I could think of nothing original to add. But on the plus side, he only writes about the song, and not Ms DiFranco's music in general. Unlike this post.

Those of you who know me at all will know that there will often come a time when I start making you compilation CDs.

I still sort of miss making compilation tapes, -- of working out what tracks should open side A and side B, but a CD is far more practical and actually allows for a little more creativity as there can be the option of creating album artwork for the CD. The good thing about making a tape was that there was more space (usually 90 minutes, compared to 80 for a CD) and there was two sides -- so there were various techniques to employ when putting together the tracklisting.

The point is, that making these CDs is more or less a certainty in most contexts that you will know me. Following a recent compilation CD, a friend revealed to me that she didn't really like Ani DiFranco very much. Of course, there is never going to be a compilation where someone likes every single track by every single artist, but I was still surprised. I haven't played Ani to a lot of people -- I know some of my friends like Jon have probably heard her when I've played some in the car or something, but have never expressed any liking for it. I think they were probably just being polite. I started to think that maybe more than Kate Nash, Ani could be an aural equivalent of Marmite.

Then when Mez commented on last week's post that Kate Nash reminded her of Ani DiFranco, I knew this post had to be written.

Ani DiFranco was an artist I probably wouldn't have come into contact with, had it not been for Rie. I don't remember what the first song I heard was, or when it was -- often when Matt was at work on a Saturday, Rie and I would hang out and draw and listen to music or whatever. It would have been one of those random Saturday afternoons with Rie playing old personal compilation tapes that I would have heard Ani, and so these two women will always be linked. It's odd, because Rie was a huge fan of Tori Amos, but I have never got into her music.

I think first and foremost for me, Ani is a poet -- she is reminiscent of the poetry slams I used to go to in Utah coffee shops, something I had never experienced in the back rooms of pubs in Derby where we used to read our poems. I enjoy the pictures she paints with her words, the stories she tells with her songs -- the complex and imperfect relationships she describes.

One of my favourite songs is Gravel, where the protagonist of the song wants to be mad at this guy who clearly doesn't treat her very well -- but also stumbles on her feelings for him. She's "thinking 'fight fight fight' at all costs/but instead I sat you down and offered you a beer". Although he's clearly an arsehole, and has "come crawling back" after two-timing her, she still loves him and can count the ways she adores him. Maybe it's meant to be sad, about how some people will keep taking back or going back to a partner who is abusive or just no good because they are charming or charismatic and can convince them they "want to make good, in the end". Just the same, I like it because it's not cut and dry -- it's not a simple reaction to a complicated situation. You don't suddenly stop caring about someone when they hurt you.

She lists all the ways in which he was a disappointment -- he wasn't a good lay, or a good friend, and consistently let her down. But somehow there is still a wry sense of humour when she asks "But what can I say? I adore you."

Ani's voice and guitar playing in the song have a very staccato feel -- jerky, and brash, and yet somehow it works for me. It was pointed out to me that Ani very rarely sings, at least in her verses, and it's this that reinforces for me the impression of her as a poet -- when I listen to male singers, it's often for me about the range and passion and power of their voices, the Eddie Vedders, Chris Cornells and Jeff Buckleys of this world, or the intense, husky drawls of the Mark Lanegans. But Ani changes all that -- she is soft spoken and often half-narrating, before bursting into an impassioned chorus of her own.

You had Time is very different, instead a very quiet and sad song -- again about a relationship that's broken down. Nick Hornby said something to the effect of this is how you fantasise all lesbian relationships are when they break up -- still so gentle and loving and tender. It could be autobiographical, I don't know, but the protagonist has returned from tour to her lover and is expected to know what they are doing with their relationship. Her partner says to her "You said you needed time; you had time". It's the metaphors that really appealed to Nick Hornby -- the beauty of phrases like "You are a china shop, and I am a bull. You are really good food, and I am full" -- it's the same way of saying "it's not you, it's me", but who wouldn't rather hear it this way? Sometimes hearing it like that can give us an insight into previous break ups of our own maybe -- an unfortunate situation, where it just wasn't working.

I could write for days about Ani's songs -- songs like Napoleon, or Little Plastic Castle, mixing the angry with the more tender. Or Ani's angry and bitingly political Self Evident that I find so difficult to listen to because of the sheer emotion in it. Instead I will include As Is -- a kind of love song.

But I can't write for days or explore every song's stories and stanzas. I can't even urge everyone to go and listen to her music, because I can't be sure you won't outright hate it. And it's not because it's all that challenging or different as music goes, but because it's such a specific approach -- one of those combinations where you have to really like the poetry, and like the rough approach to the guitar and voice. But she is one of my favourites -- the quirky, silly, funny, angry, passionate Ani.

As Is

Musical Monday #27

Kate Nash is still a new artist, and debate rages about if she will still be remembered a year from now -- let alone 10 years on or more. Nash polarises popular opinion almost as strongly as marmite, her first single -- Foundations -- was largely ignored by commercial radio, until it went to the top of the charts in the first week of release. Naturally, after that it started getting added to playlists. The Independent newspaper described Nash's debut album asbeing in "pole position for worst album of the year" -- but it still went to number one.

All in all, I quite like her.

Nash is similar to Lily Allen in a lot of ways -- both launched their "careers" largely though MySpace, both went to performing arts school but make out that they aren't posh (Kate Nash is accused of playing up her North London accent), and both are just a tiny bit chavvy. Musically the similarities are there, too, with their simple songs and storytelling lyrics. Kate Nash owes much of her popularity directly to Lily Allen noticing her on MySpace and proclaiming her to be the next big thing -- which seems more than a little bit vain, given how similar their style of music is.

Kate Nash amuses me -- perhaps unintentionally on her part, but I think she does have a very dry sense of humour of her own, and while her songs might not be the most polished, I think she has a particular charm.

There are a couple of parts of her songs that stand out for me that I want to look at in more detail. A characteristic of the likes of Kate Nash and Lily Allen is their chavtastic syntax -- coming from Essex, how they speak is very familiar to me, and without being a snob it tends to make you sound very thick. Kate Nash overuses the word "well", as in with the song Birds "they almost fly into your eye and make you feel well scared". The first time she sings that line she says "so scared" and that sounds fine, so I don't get why she changes it.

The song Birds is a deceptively sweet tale of an inept boy trying to express his feelings to a girl, the couple seem very chav in their described anti-social behaviour -- like not buying a ticket on the train, and then drinking on the bus -- but I feel a certain affection for them, like Nash herself. One part in the song in particular always confuses me when I hear it. I'll post the lines below, then discuss it, so you can see what I mean.

"the ticket inspector saw him rushin` through he said, girl you don't know how much I missed you
but...we better run
cause I havent got the funds to pay this...fine"

. I know I'm being picky, but the way it's phrased makes it sound like the ticket inspector is saying he misses her. I get that she says the ticket inspector saw him rushing through -- and then cuts to what "he" says, and it might be sexist to assume the ticket inspector is a man, but just the same I thought at first the girl ran off with the ticket inspector. Which was odd.

Another part that amuses me unintentionally goes like this:

"...he said you look well nice.
well she was wearin a skirt
and he thought she looked nice and
yeah she didn't really care about
anything else because she only
wanted him to think that she looked nice
and he did"

Aside from that she overuses the word "nice" (like she overuses "well"), I like how disjointed and almost pointless it is -- it makes me smile, even if it makes the couple (and Nash herself) seem a tiny bit thick.

The boy tries to tell the girl how much he likes her by way of elaborate metaphors -- particularly one including birds which are scary but beautiful, even though they can "shit on your head". The girl's reaction is a spectacularly chavvy "Wot?" followed by "What are you talking about?". If there had been a third time she had to ask, she probably would have just bottled him.

Foundations is another boy/girl song -- but instead about a dysfunctional relationship. It's almost refreshing in a way -- after songs like Hey There Delilah to see the other side of the coin, not a sad song about an unhappy break up, but instead a frank look at a couple who really just aren't getting along any more. The song/story starts with the couple in the pub with their friends, and the girl notices he has a look in his eye that he's bored with what she's saying. Naturally, it escalates -- he says something to humiliate her, so in her best chav voice she replies with "yeah, intelligent input, darlin', why don't you just have another beer then?" and it descends into an argument in front of their friends.

What I find interesting with the song is that it's not just that they hate each other -- part of her does still care about the boy, on some level. The chorus says "My finger tips are holding on to the cracks in our foundation, and I know that I should let go, but I can't" -- maybe I'm a sap, but I find this a little sad. She knows their relationship is over, but quite bring herself to "let go".

The song has other little chav culture references -- the boy gets drunk and gets sick over her new trainers (and while, yeah, it's pretty awful, you can just imagine that being the worst crime for a chav, getting their prison-white trainers spoiled), or how she winds him up telling him "I'd rather be with your friends, mate, 'cause they are much fitter". That line doesn't work if you don't quote it exactly -- you've got to have the mate in there, but still you have to hear it, just for the accent.

But at the same time as knowing she should let go and not being able to face it, there is a moment -- when she's left the boy to sleep it off on the couch and deliberately not turned the heating on -- she says "Dear god, I hope I'm not stuck with this one". She almost feels trapped.

Foundations
Birds

Musical Monday #26

Hey There, Delilah

This song arouses several complex emotions in me. I figured I'd write about it and we'll see where it goes from there.

First of all, I like the song. It's straight forward -- it's simple, heartfelt, romantic and idealistic. A story of a boy and his guitar, missing his girlfriend who's 1,000 miles away -- and he just wants to tell her he misses her and loves her.

Next I think the predominant emotion I feel is sadness. Perhaps it's empathy for this young couple apart -- I assume they're a young couple anyway, and she's at university since he says "A couple of years and you'll be done with school". On the other hand, he might literally mean "school", and that would be a bit wrong. But anyway, maybe it makes me sad because I can empathise with the loneliness and longing of when you can't be with the person you want to be. But I think there is more to it -- I think there's a sort of melancholy jealousy too. It's pretty strange to feel jealous towards a song -- but some emo part of me feels sad that I don't feel that love, there's nobody here in my life evoking such emotions. And there's nobody to sing that song about me, either. And part of me is jealous because I don't think I've ever felt that -- not like it's described. Even when I've been longing for someone, even when I have been apart from someone I care deeply about -- there's not been the unfailing optimism of this song. I feel jealous I don't have that optimism.

Instead, I feel something else: cynicism. I imagine that while he's a starving musician, writing songs about his love for the girl, she's probably cheating on him while she's away. I've not known a long distance relationship to last -- either mine or someone else's, and I don't believe they do. I think it's a more likely scenario that by the time Delilah is "done with school" she will have moved on, or she will want someone who can provide better. I guess he probably he is keeping his word where he says "believe me, girl, someday I'll pay the bills with this guitar" -- I expect he is probably raking it in with this song alone....

Musical Monday #25

It's completely unforgivable, but I realise I didn't properly write about Reading festival after that first post about the Thursday. There's still three days of bands to report on -- relying only on my moleskine notebook for the bands I saw and a drink- and sun-addled memory of the weekend. But it went a bit like this:

Friday

The first day kicked off with the polka dot dresses and three-girl harmonies of the Pipettes. As the first band of the festival, they pulled a big crowd and had that simple feel-good sound that got people to their feet and set the tone for the weekend.

In the Radio 1 Lockup tent (an almost exclusively punk stage) there was The King Blues -- a band I know solely through Suicide Bid, since they share some members. Their mix of an acoustic sound and political lyrics is catching on quickly, and they are getting a big following. It's one of the things I love about a festival is that you can wander from the Pipettes to the King Blues.

A band that I hadn't planned on seeing were Gogol Bordello -- I knew nothing about them, but when a few people mentioned wanting to see them, I figured I had nothing better to do. What a surprise they were -- the surreal and explosive gypsy punk sound really blew my mind, they're one of the very few bands I can say sound nothing like anything else I know.

More familiar territory was The Gossip -- although I was totally unprepared for how good they were going to be. I knew Standing in the Way of Control, and hardly a week goes by without Beth Ditto making the music news either for her outspoken opinions, or just for taking her clothes off on stage. What started as a might as well watch, they're quite good opinion quickly changed into thinking they are very special. Beth Ditto has an incredible voice -- it has a real Motown feel to it, her passion for the music is both obvious and infectious. As a bonus, they also did a blinding cover of the Talking Heads' Psycho Killer. My only reservation is that Beth Ditto's love of taking off her clothes on stage is becoming a bit of a gimmick.

For reasons not entirely clear to me, Jimmy Eat World were scheduled to play twice on the Friday -- first the main stage, and then one of the alternative stages at the end of the evening. Either way, I scheduled their main stage appearance into the day's plans but it had been a couple of years since I last saw them and I wasn't sure how good they would be. The result was a very solid crowd-pleaser of a show -- they might not be one of the most ground-breaking bands of all time, but they played all the songs I loved.

Kings of Leon I have mixed feelings towards. I think I like them, but then I'll play an album maybe and won't be quite so sure. Just the same, live is always a different experience -- and while I perhaps didn't recognise a lot of what they played, it was a tight show and it reminded me of what I do love about the band and their music.

Overlapping slightly with Kings of Leon were Aussie punks, The Living End. Another band I didn't have a great deal of familiarity with, I was immediately taken with their passion and rockabilly style. The tent was too packed full of people for us to be able to get all the way inside, but standing on the edges we had a good enough view of the stage and were swept up in the moment when they started to play a cover of Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love. Sadly, they didn't go through with it and stopped before the vocals started.

Headlining Friday night on the main stage were Razorlight. Fondly referred to by many as "Razorshite", Jon and I instead to see Ash headlining the NME stage. Since Charlotte Hatherley left the band, they have returned to their three-piece routes (or as the t-shirts used to say "3 boy hardcore action") -- but their live performance hasn't suffered for it. Festival favourites, the boys knew to crank out their big hits and it's always with a feeling of slight longing that I stand in the dark and listen to songs like Girl From Mars and Oh Yeah -- particularly the latter with its simple emotion: "I don't know why these things ever end/I sometimes wish it was that summer again". Unfortunately, by the time they got to what they said was their last song of the night -- a new song -- we felt there was something missing. They had played the big songs, and played them well, but still it felt like something more was needed. We left before the last song finished -- they hadn't played my favourite song, Jack Names the Planets, but I'd never heard them play it live before anyway. We've since learned that the song we left during was not their last song after all, and they ended with Jack Names the Planets. Just the same, I was left slightly disappointed.

Saturday
A much quieter affair than the Friday, Saturday was all about three bands for me -- the first of which being Eagles of Death Metal. Sounding absolutely nothing like either The Eagles or death metal, they make very simple and straight forward rock and roll. It's easily digestible and very catchy -- although on the few times I've seen them, Josh Homme has never been playing drums -- despite that being one of the main selling points. The band were just right for a slightly fuzzy, drunken Saturday afternoon in the sun -- but again, despite playing their hits, it still felt like there was something lacking.

The highlight of the day were one of my favourite bands of the moment, Silversun Pickups. It was only the second time I'd seen them, the last time being an intimate gig at London's 100 Club, but both times I have been left almost dumbstruck at the intensity and passion of the music. I can't put my finger on exactly what it is they do and what other bands of the festival failed to do -- but without seeming to try too hard, they delivered exactly what I had hoped. I think they made an impression on the rest of the crowd in the Lockup tent -- after they finished, and I was making my way out, someone politely stopped me and asked who the band were. Contrast this to the stranger who tapped me on the shoulder halfway through the set to ask me if I had ever been to Fukuoka, because I was wearing a "Fukuoka Hawks" shirt. It seems he'd lived there at one time, although I didn't ask to be told this and would rather people didn't try and talk to me while a band are playing.

Jon and Nick had left me part way through SSP's set because Jon wanted to watch Arcade Fire -- and if given a straight choice, Nick will always follow Jon. Knowing only one song by Arcade Fire -- although I like it -- I preferred to watch the end of SSP, before joining Jon for Arcade Fire. I have to admit, they were another band I was surprised by -- I knew almost nothing by them, but some of their songs I really liked, and they played with an obvious enthusiasm and certain degree of show. Will I be hurrying out to buy any of their stuff? It's unlikely, but I'd certainly watch them live again.

Headlining on the main stage on Saturday were the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Notice how I said there were only three bands I wanted to see on Saturday? RHCP were not one of them. Don't get me wrong, I used to like their music -- and it's difficult for me to pin point exactly where they have gone so wrong. I liked By The Way, but I ended up disliking it after it got so over-played. I liked Californication, too, but it annoys the shit out of me that the band now don't seem to acknowledge they had any material earlier than this. BloodSugarSexMagik was an amazing album, but all they play from it is Give It Away. We left halfway through the set -- there was no passion, no enthusiasm and no longer any songs we like.

Sunday
Originally for Sunday, I had four bands noted down that I wanted to see. Unfortunately, with some rescheduling to make sure we would be on the front barrier for NIN and Smashing Pumpkins, I had to drop Charlotte Hatherley. But that's getting ahead of myself.

Again, over on the Radio 1 Lockup stage was a band I like very much -- Sonic Boom Six, also with connections to Suicide Bid. Their set although enjoyable wasn't anything spectacular or ground-but breaking, this was only the second time I've seen them and I do like them a lot -- they certainly filled the tent with people. The few songs I knew (I think featured in the last Musical Monday) went down well, and they set me up for the rest of the day. In a text message conversation, Claire who was at the sister festival in Leeds had recommended a couple of other punk bands to see during the day.

True to form, one of her recommendations was NYC hardcore punks The Casualties -- whom I ended up watching on my own. Although I'd never heard of them or anything by them before, they were pretty good -- in that hardcore punk way. The highlight of the set was their cover of the Ramones' Blitzkrieg Bop. I also had The Dwarves recommended to me -- but in the end by the time they were on, I couldn't be bothered to go watch them on my own. I thought nothing of it at the time -- but having since played some of their songs, I think I chose to watch the wrong band. These things happen.

I've already mentioned how in order to get to the front barrier for the time Nine Inch Nails were to come on Jon and I had to miss Charlotte Hatherley. What I didn't mention was how this involved pushing into a crowd of emo kids while Fall Out Boy finished. I'm pleased to say, I don't remember any of their set. I have no shame in admitting I enjoyed Lost Prophets, whom I suspect I think Jon likes because he feels a certain Welsh kinship with them. I didn't know any of their songs other than Last Train Home (which obviously they played last), but the frontman was very engaging, and the set was entertaining. Would I see them again? At a festival, sure -- but I don't think I'd see them on their own.

Our reasoning worked well -- most of the kids at the front of the crowd where we were stood had no intention of watching Nine Inch Nails, and so we had our position for the last two bands of the festival. It seemed strange for Nine Inch Nails to be taking to the stage while it was still daylight -- but once they started it was quickly forgotten what time of day it was. Unlike when I saw them earlier this year, the set was largely unknown to me -- especially since they didn't play anything from The Fragile, although on the other hand I was ecstatic when they played their cover of Joy Division's Dead Souls (so much better than the original) and the song Burn from the Natural Born Killers soundtrack. The set was worthy of a headliner -- intense and powerful, and even slightly uncomfortable at times.

The highlight of the day and the whole festival was meant to be Smashing Pumpkins. Earlier in the afternoon, I'd suggested to Jon that we just left then, before the Pumpkins played, because sometimes reality can't match the anticipation. It was a joke, at the time...

In stark contrast to their recent show in Shepherd's Bush, Sunday's headline set was one of the worst I have seen of any band. I have no idea where Billy Corgan thought he was playing, because it was a far cry from the greatest hits crowd pleaser you'd expect from the band headlining Sunday night. Granted, there were many of the big songs -- like Cherub Rock and Zero, but Billy seemed to be all the things I've defended him against. Arrogant, aloof and completely out of touch to what the crowd wanted to hear. I certainly don't think anyone wanted to hear him masturbating with a guitar for what felt like hours on end, they almost certainly wanted to hear Disarm, and didn't get it. It also seemed strange that at no point did Billy introduce the rest of his band -- since he went on so much about wanting "his" band back, you would have thought he might make some mention as to who these people were.

As melodramatic as it sounds, I felt let down and even a little bit betrayed. Smashing Pumpkins reminded us on that Sunday night why we stopped listening to their music and going to their shows the first time round. And that's no way to end a festival -- please compare it to Pearl Jam closing last year's, or any number of other bands on other years. You shouldn't walk away from the band you looked forward to all weekend feeling let down.

But so as not to end on a negative note, I liked that it was the bands I least expected that were the highlights of the festival for me, rather than some of the ones I had anticipated the most. The exception being Silversun Pickups, whom I not only looked forward to more than almost anyone else, but also delivered. And so it's their music I leave you with today -- there's so many bands I could have chosen from, but these are my favourite of the moment.

Update: if you tried to play the song and it didn't work, it has now been fixed.

Musical Monday #24

Sunday was a very strange day. A couple of months back, my friend Rhys sent me a text message to tell me that Suicide Bid and Essex punk band The Filaments (whom after they split up helped form Suicide Bid) were playing a gig called the City Invasion tour. It was a kind of all-day indoor punk rock festival at the Astoria, in London.

I was taken by surprise as I'd not heard about it, and expected our friend Pete who is in both bands to have mentioned it first. Just the same, I booked my ticket -- being sure to only book one this time, to avoid the drama of trying to find someone to take my spare, and thought no more of it. In between booking the ticket and this weekend, Rhys has been on holiday for about four weeks so we hadn't had any opportunity to discuss arrangements for the day. When he returned on Saturday, we exchanged a few text messages regarding train times and how we were only really interested in seeing Pete's bands -- since there were several other bands also playing. I tried to ascertain an idea of running times from Pete and everything seemed fine.

Until Rhys sent me a message to say there was a change of plan: his ticket hadn't arrived. All the tickets for gigs he had been expecting and thought had arrived in reality hadn't -- he had a piece of paper relating to one gig to say they didn't have the tickets at that time, but nothing further. What he did to try and sort it out, I don't know -- but the upshot was, I was going on my own. And I didn't want to go on my own. Too late now to do anything about it, I figured I'd stick to the original plan -- watch Suicide Bid, watch the Filaments, then come home. The concert was also to be the final-ever UK show for NY hardcore punks Leftover Crack, but I knew nothing of them and wasn't too concerned about seeing them.

Sunday morning arrived with grey skies and torrential rain, and halfway thorugh walking to the station, I realised I didn't have my travelcard and had to return home for it and still hope to catch my train. So far, the day was shaping up well.

I arrived at the station just in time to see a "rail-replacement" bus leaving the car park. Due to Sunday engineering works, trains weren't running from my station and a sign advised passengers journeys could be delayed by an extra 30 minutes. I hadn't allowed for any of this, and if I didn't get to the gig for when Suicide Bid took to the stage at 4, I was going to very annoyed. For a change, luck was on my side, as another bus arrived soon after and with the connecting train I had made it to London for about 3.

At the gig I was left very much with a feeling of "what now?". I was there, but I was still very much on my own with nobody to talk to. Pete would be around somewhere, but I couldn't expect him to devote all his off-stage time to me and aside from this, it was very difficult to get a reception on my phone to try and send him a message to say I was in the venue.

The first band I saw (who I think were second or third on the bill) were called the Peacocks. At first, I didn't think too much of them -- they played well, but their music wasn't doing a lot for me. To their credit, they seemed to get better as they went on and I did end up enjoying their set. After they finished, I grabbed a beer from the bar, now my mood was improving, and decided to get closer to the stage for the next band. It wasn't long before I recognised it was Suicide Bid setting up for the their set -- though I resisted shouting out to Pete.

As ever, Suicide Bid played a great set -- although it wasn't as long as I would have liked, the timings were quite strict. Everyone seemed on top form, and I was reassured to see Laila K from Sonic Boom Six was with them to do her guest vocals, especially for my favourite song "Like a Lion".

Things got even better after Suicide Bid, when it was announced next on the bill was none-other than Sonic Boom Six. They hadn't even been on the line-up I'd seen, so I was amazed and surprised and of course very happy, since they were a band I knew and liked. I don't own any of their releases, and only have a few downloaded, but I dig their work -- and would have been very excited had I known all along they were playing. Again, their set was excellent.

Pete found me after they finished and we talked for a short while, before he made his excuses and left -- and I was again just feeling a bit lonely. The music was good, and while I enjoy my independence and being able to just do things on my own, sometimes it does get a bit lonesome with nobody to share them with. From where I was stood near the bar, I noticed a cute girl also apparently on her own, preoccupied with her mobile phone.

This girl seemed to have something most of the people in the venue didn't. For a start, she looked like she was older than about 12 -- unlike a lot of the fans (I've no idea why this is), she also wasn't wearing studded leather or sporting an ostentatious Mohawk. I was reminded of how I met Fiona at Glastonbury, just seeing a girl on her on and asking her the time -- even though I knew perfectly well what the time was. I also remembered trying the same tactic at Reading festival last year, although on that occasion I didn't end up getting to know the girl as she'd quickly established she was waiting at the wrong stage. Just the same, I thought it might be worth a go.

Finding the courage to speak to her was another matter. I ran through all the possible scenarios in my head, that she'd be rude, that she'd refuse to tell me the time, that she'd make some stupid comment like "time you got a watch", but figured I'd be no worse off. Then there were other obstacles to overcome -- like I didn't want to talk to her if anyone else was standing too close. And I didn't want to interrupt her if she was engrossed in a text message conversation. Eventually, I picked my moment -- she didn't look too preoccupied to mind being disturbed, and she was relatively open. So I made my move.

Politely, I just asked her if she knew what time it was -- and she wasn't rude, or unhelpful, or sarcastic, she obligingly told me the time. To start a conversation I asked her if she knew when the Filaments were playing -- this, too, I already knew as Pete had told me they would be on next (after some band whose name I can't remember now) as another band hadn't yet turned up, so the Filaments were going on early. This was more or less the same thing the girl told me. And so not to push my luck, I thanked her and left it there -- and stood a little way away.

Naturally, with her on her own and me on my own, she moved closer to me and kept the conversation going. We talked about music and I mentioned knowing Pete, and she was a big fan of the Filaments. She also had an interesting accent I couldn't quite place, and a kind of sparkle in her eyes, but anyway. We talked about nothing for a while, and were getting on well -- until she made her excuses, and left. She said she wanted to outside for a fag, since I didn't smoke, I told her sure, I'd wait there for her. I figured this would give the opportunity to give me the slip if she wanted to -- she could just not come back, and there'd be no hard feelings. I could have gone with her, but thought she might be able to use some space and we weren't close enough for me to justify following her wherever she went.

She was gone way too long for a simple cigarette. I didn't really keep track of how long she had been gone, but eventually I gave up on her coming back. No hard feelings, she'd been nice to meet and pleasant company, but this was just how things go sometimes. I wandered off to use the toilet and grab another drink from the bar. To my surprise when I got back, she was waiting there for me. She seemed pleased to see me -- maybe she'd thought I had ditched her? -- and from then we spent the rest of the show in each other's company, including just hanging out with her while she had a quiet cigarette. We'd talk about bands, most of whom I didn't know, and during each set she'd frequently turn to me with a smile while they were playing to see what I thought of them, and compare our opinions.

I introduced her to Pete later in the evening -- she was a big fan of his bands after all, and remarked how he was every bit the great guy I'd told her was. As we walked away -- off to the bar to get another drink -- Pete called my name. I looked round, and he smiled at me and nodded his head, as if to say "She's nice".

The girl's name was Claire (probably still is, I'd say) and she was living in Hackney -- I'm also fairly sure she mentioned having moved from Canada ten years ago, though I will have to ask her about this again. Rather than go home after The Filaments played, I stayed until the end -- through English punks The Business, who seemed a bit nationalistic for my liking, though Pete assures me he doesn't think it goes beyond just being patriotic. I think today's partial deafness is the responsibility of hardcore punks Conflict and headline act Leftover Crack. Claire was a fan of both, and was particularly enthusiastic about Leftover Crack.

After the show ended, the two of us caught the tube together since she was just going a few stops further than me. We sat and talked and I was aware that with every station I was one closer to getting off and not seeing her again. I had to ask for her number, but what if she said no? What if she said she had a boyfriend? I'd come this far and was determined not to just let her disappear. We both agreed we'd had a great night and the other was good company, so I nervously asked her for her number. She readily accepted, saying we'd have to keep in touch, so took my phone and typed it in.

Then it was my stop. We hugged goodbye (as well as you can, sitting down) and kissed on the cheek -- I got off the train, waved goodbye and set off for home.

It was about 2 hours after the show ended and a £20 taxi fare lighter that I got home. I sent Claire a message just to say I was home and we'd have to meet up sometime soon. Naturally, there was no response last night -- but I expected her to be asleep. There was also nothing this morning. I considered that maybe she'd made up a number to get rid of me, or perhaps mistakenly got it wrong -- but with no way of knowing or of contacting her, resolved not to worry too much. And as before, if that was where it ended, to be glad to have met her at all.

As I sat checking my emails this morning and wondering about her, my phone buzzed with a text from her. I replied, but I'm trying not to be too eager -- we're agreeing that we should meet for a drink again soon, and I guess we will just see where it goes from there.

And just to bring things back to topic, I'm making Musical Monday special today with two songs by two different bands. I've already featured Suicide Bid in posts at least twice, so I'll pass them over today. Instead you get the Filaments iconic song Punk Unity, and Northern Skies by Sonic Boom Six.

Musical Monday #23

I was tempted to write today's Musical Monday about Elvis Costello. And you never know, when I'm feeling short of ideas I might just wheel him out -- along with an anecdote about a girl who thought he had a song about zombies.

But I can tell you're impatient. You don't want to beat around the bush today, you want to be taken out to dinner, wined and dined, and you want to hear what today's Musical Monday is all about.

Paul Simon. No, not that Paul Simon -- not Paul Simon of "curtain superstore" fame. This Paul Simon. I know it's not fashionable to admit to liking Paul Simon, in many places it's probably enough to get you shot. But I'm fairly confident that you won't find anyone else talking about Godspeed You! Black Emperor alongside Paul Simon in the same blog.

I think my liking for Paul Simon -- like many odd choices of music, including Billy Joel -- is probably rooted in my childhood, and hearing these songs in the car with my parents. I don't remember them ever playing Simon and Garfunkle, or actually any Paul Simon album other than Graceland. I think it was probably new at the time, and they would have copied the album onto cassette in order to play it in the car. It's strange, imagining my parents younger and that passionate about music.

Graceland features the engaging African harmonies of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I try to recreate that feeling of being five year's old and in the back of my dad's car, probably drifting in and out of sleep, and hearing these voices so unlike anything else I knew. And it's the song Diamonds On the Soles of her Shoes that I feature in today's post.

It's not just that one song that I love so much -- the whole Graceland album has so many great songs. The album starts with The Boy in the Bubble -- and though I don't know what it's referring to I like how lines like "the bomb in the baby carriage was wired to the radio" are contrasted with "these are the days of miracle and wonder". The title track starts with the striking imagery "The Mississippi delta/was shining like a national guitar", and the song itself is a traditional song of love and loss, with lines like "She comes back to tell me she's gone. As if I didn't know that.". Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes is about your traditional rich-girl-poor-boy star cross'd lovers, she wants to be taken out dancing but instead end up sleeping in a doorway.

By way of closing, I would like to mention that I'm not a complete heretic; even though this post is about Paul Simon as a solo artist, and in particular Graceland, I am a big fan of Simon and Garfunkle. The song America seems desperately sad and lonely and wistful -- and probably more so than anything by Simon alone.

"Kathy, I'm lost" I said, though I knew she was sleeping, "I'm empty and aching, and I don't know why"

Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes