A couple of weeks ago it was NME’s 60th birthday. Cue snarling tweets from the majority of bloggers, musos, music writers saying how fucking terrible and redundant the magazine is. Cue predictable superlatives from Brit-poppers of yore. Cue certain ambition-driven writers who work for the NME but clearly hate it, keeping quiet about the whole thing, pretending they have no affiliation with the magazine because actually being involved with the publication is actually largely fucking disingenuous and hypocritical of everything they seem to stand for and believe in. Cue a lot of people remarking on the halycon days.

It was the last batch of folk who sparked my interest the most. Let’s be honest, as far as I can remember the NME has always been shit. Fickle pedaling of pretty-boys in Topman shirts merged with casual misogyny and laddish cuntishness. Loving The Strokes, hating The Strokes, loving The Strokes again, wishing The Strokes would fuck off, wishing The Strokes would come back, wishing The Strokes would fuck off again. Basically.

However, for the last year or so I’ve been retracing the steps of the magazine through the rather brilliant blog Press Play and Record. The site is home to all of the compilation cassettes the magazine released in the 80s and early 90s, including the famous C86 compilation which kicked-off a whole genre. What strikes me about the compilations is how eclectic and left-field some of them are. ‘The Latin Kick’ is a compilation of samba and latin music, ‘Holiday Romance’ is a Billie Holiday Compilation, one tape is hilariously named ‘Plinky Plonky There’s A Donkey’. The point I am trying to make is that the NME we know today would never do anything like this. The cassettes pushed the boundaries of new music and really challenged their readership, now all they do is try to serve up their readership with stuff they know they will already like (The Vaccines). Which is pretty fucking insulting. Perhaps pushing these boundaries is now the mantle music blogs and sites have taken up, and the NME simply knows it’s place and plods along, which is a shame as it could (and should) really mix things up and help change the face of British music as blogs and sites don’t have the influence over here as they do in the States.

Anyway, delve into some of the cassettes and remember them next time you try to recall if the NME has ever been good. It appears I’ve not learned how to stop whining yet, though.

The Freshies – I’m In Love With The Girl On A Certain Manchester Megastore Checkout Desk (Indie City 1 (NME036). Fall 1988.)

Salif Keita – Sina (The World At One (NME035). Fall 1987)

Orange Juice – Blue Boy (NME/Rough Trade C81 1981)

The Rain – Hi There 1968 (My Favourite Sunday 1989. Boshi Label -roddy 004-)

Hello folks, sorry, but one more reminder for those of you in Austin for SXSW that myself and My Old Kentucky Blog were asked to curate a show for the Hype Machine which takes place on Wednesday during the daytime here in Austin.

If you are a pal and fancy a guestie, I do have a couple to give out (basically because I don’t really know that many people in Austin, obviously) so get in touch and as long as there aren’t too many requests I’ll see if I can get you sorted.

Free beer and tacos, remember.  And that lineup.  Which is pretty fucking good, if I do say so myself.

Well, it’s a vulgar headline, but you know I will.  No-one wants to be that stupid prick at the world’s busiest music festival with not a fucking soul at his fucking picnic. So honestly, please come!

In all honesty, I think you’ll struggle to find a finer lineup for an afternoon’s entertainment.  Blitzen Trapper are headlining. Mute’s Big Deal are playing too, who I discovered courtesy of the brilliant PAWS covering one of their songs for our June split 12″.  Jonathan Meiburg from Shearwater will be playing a stripped back set with an electric guitar and a backing vocalist, we have the phenomenal Micah P. Hinson, the Twilight Sad and Brown Brogues.

This is all taking place at the Hype Hotel, which I think used to be the Pure Groove House, but I’m not sure. To get in and find out all the details and all that pish, just go here and fill in some forms and so on and they’ll be sure to let you in.

Actually, from my experience of SXSW you’ll get in whatever happens, but it might cost you $15 or so if you don’t register in advance or get a badge thingy. Anyway, see you there if you happen to around.  Otherwise, well, I’ll be sure to swear at you on the internet about something soon enough.  Happy March, hipsters!

I was at the above meeting this week, and I thought I should probably mention what was said.

This could affect the music community quite strongly, as the proposed changes would require separate licenses for all events held in unlicensed premises, even if they are free or so tiny you wouldn’t think anyone would care.

If you don’t think this matters, think about the likes of Tracer Trails and Braw Gigs, who put on gigs in unusual spaces on a shoestring budget, and with everything done around people’s day jobs and college studies.  Basically, if you add a few hundred quid to the costs of these things, as well as a significant application period and a pile of paperwork (health and safety risk assessments and so on) then quite simply they would have never happened.

Most of the local bands who have gone on to play places like the Queen’s Hall in recent years have benefited from the support of this kind of gig early in their careers, and it is vital at the early stages of a band’s career, before they have proved they can bring an audience big enough to attract the attention of some of the bigger promoters.

And what about the open mic nights which are organised all over Edinburgh?  Or the in-stores at places like Avalanche and Elvis Shakespeare, these things are all under threat if this kind of legislation comes in.

I think David Cumings of Limbo actually said it best in this recent, and very good, piece in Radar:

“It has been proven over and over again that Scotland is punching above its weight in terms of creative output. But this benefit to the country does not come for nothing. It relies on – in the best scenario – organised investment in a slate of talent, creative entrepreneurs and venues on the basis that some of them will succeed, and – in the worst scenario – nurturing this necessary grassroots ecosystem from a distance and letting them get on with what they are doing. The currently proposed scenario of actually inhibiting them by inflicting an unaffordable and unnecessary tax regime is off the scale in terms of its ineptness.”

As to the meeting itself, other people have written it up better than I can, so I will direct you to the Discover Fine Acting Blog here if you want to read a little more.  I will, however, leave you with a couple of overall impressions.

A couple of very, very good points were made in opposition to this legislation, the second of which relates to Dave’s point above, and came from Big Things on the Beach, a public art organisation in Portobello who pointed out that in Edinburgh culture seems to happen despite the council, not because of it, and instead of attacking it and having to be persuaded to leave it alone, it would be nice if just for once it seemed like the council saw its role as being the actual encouragement of arts in the city.

The second point was made a little earlier in proceedings by (I think) Neil Mulholland, the head of Postgraduate Programmes and Visual Culture at the Edinburgh College of Art.  He pointed out that people should have a right to participate in culture – in fact I think he actually quoted it as being part of the Declaration of Human Rights.  That might be a slightly melodramatic way of framing the argument, but the point remains: it’s our culture and the council should not be allowed to inhibit our taking part in it.  Adding costs and bureaucracy will simply exclude certain people from making a contribution, which is just fucking wrong.

Now, Rob Munn from the Cooncil was there as well, and for all he was just a little bit evasive, I didn’t get the impression that there is much will at the council for this.  In all honesty, why they should give a fuck about gigs in record shops or poetry in cafés is beyond me, and he did point out that administering and enforcing this kind of thing, at a time when the council have more than enough on their plate as it is, is not something they are all that keen on.

The law is actually an amendment that was made at government level and councils are obliged to enact it, but according to Malcolm Chisholm MSP there is considerable flexibility in how councils choose to apply or enforce the law.  In fact this particular amendment was enacted in order to license larger free events, where things like health and safety are genuine concerns, and wasn’t really aimed at smaller ones at all, it’s just been rather vaguely worded.

We all tried to make the point that the current suggestion (a license being required, but no fee for small events) was just silly, and that they should simply say that below a certain threshold it simply shouldn’t be any of their concern, but whether or not that sunk in properly I couldn’t tell you.  Either way, there will be planned disobedience on the 1st April – the first day of the legislation being enforced – if it does end up going through, with free artistic events planned around the country.  I think we should host a free gig, myself.  And probably call it Bad Fun.

To keep on top of progress with this campaign please sign up to the Facebook page, and PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION opposing the licenses, here.

 I was told off in the comments of a recent podcast for being mean about her, but I honestly couldn’t possibly care any less that Whitney Houston is dead, and when the news was announced I spent no more than a minute or two even thinking about it.

Her music was so fucking awful that I only slowly realised, as the eulogies began to roll in, that she actually sold a lot of records.

Given I love loads of music which is shite in almost every technical sense imaginable, I tend to define ‘good music’ as being a phrase which only means anything if it is entirely conflated with the term ‘popular music’.  The music I like being shit or unpopular doesn’t make me like it any the less, and no-one is going to lessen my enjoyment by providing objective, empirical proof that it is rubbish.

Music is good if you derive something out of it which means something to you, personally, so I am left with little use for any broader meaning of the phrase ‘good’ music other than ‘lots of people like it’.  By this definition, of course, most of the music I listen to and release is shit.  I don’t care though, I can live with that.  As I said, this doesn’t make me like it any the less, but does that mean that Whitney Houston was actually quite good?  Please no!

Of course there are obvious ways to look at it differently, and one such was very nicely expressed in this particular blog post recently, which made the excellent point that even though the Toyota Corolla is the best-selling car of all time, no-one would make the argument that it was the best.  Art and automobiles are evaluated by rather different criteria of course, so the analogy is not quite right, but it’s still a good way to look at it.

However the ‘just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s any good’ point was actually made as part of a wider argument that, irrespective of record sales, Whitney Houston was actually a pretty shite singer.  I agree with this, personally, as the constant warbling did my fucking head in, but there are more reasons than aesthetic preference put forward.

The writer makes the distinction between a great singer and a great voice, and points out that irrespective of the notes you can hit or hold, being a great singer has as much to do with creating an emotionally resonant delivery of the actual words you are singing as it does with showing off your facility for vocal gymnastics. In that sense, Whitney Houston reminds me of the slightly sad sight of the busking footballer who can do endless keepy-uppies and ball control tricks, but is nevertheless fuck all use to anyone on a football pitch.

Her ludicrous, pantomime delivery of I Will Always Love You by Dolly Parton has so distorted its meaning that people actually get married to the song, which is just daft when you look at the words.   It’s pretty undeniable that the bombastic Disneyfication of Houston’s version seems entirely consonant with the wedding use, and I thought ‘damn, he’s right, she’s not just interpreted the song, she’s broken its entire meaning’.

The most obvious other example of this would be the American right’s co-opting of Springsteen’s Born in the USA.  The song is obviously a protest song, and the lyrics are a harsh social critique which run in more or less diametric opposition to the context in which the song tends to be used, when it is used for clumsy propaganda.

Born in the USA, however, was initially recorded for the Nebraska Sessions, and sounded radically different. The version of Nebraska we know and love is not actually what Springsteen had in mind, apparently, but rather a series of demos which were intended to be re-recorded with the full E-Street Band.  Those re-recordings never quite sounded right, so in the end the demos were released instead, although a radically different Born in the USA did make a famous re-appearance on his eighties album of the same name.

Bruce Springsteen – Born in the USA (Nebraska Sessions Version)

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Listen to the above version, and it’s pretty obvious what the tone is, and many people have expressed total bafflement and contemptuous derision that those on the right could possibly think the song expressed anything which chimed with their politics at all.  I understand that bafflement of course, but in some ways you can say that the fault also lies with Springsteen himself.

Listen to the album version below.  You can’t really blame chest-beating jingoists for co-opting a song whose most obvious musical characteristic, in this version anyway, is a kind of giddy, air-punching euphoria.  There are many songs whose deliveries are at odds with their message, and I can understand the argument that the bitter message of the lyrics and the anthemic bombast of the music are intentionally cast in satirical juxtaposition.  But the misinterpretation of the meaning of this song in particular, a little like Houston’s mangling of I Will Always Love You, does seem to be actively encouraged by the musical interpretation offered by the artist themselves. 

And just as I was about to close the book on that one, write Houston off as someone with plenty of vocal dexterity but no artistic sensitivity whatsoever (and to rather more quietly chide Mr. Springsteen for being a grandiose muppet), I was reminded of another occasion where people completely bypass the meaning of a song and treat it as something completely different from what the artist intended.  And in this case it’s really a lot less clear that the musical delivery is anything like as complicit in the confusion.

The song in question is The One I Love, by REM. This, like I Will Always Love You, is another song chosen frequently to be payed at weddings, and this one is equally baffling when you listen to the lyrics. It’s basically a song about treating a relationship as light entertainment and then discarding it when convenient – the very antithesis of marriage.

As I said, though, in this case I really am not so sure where the misinterpretation comes from. Stipe’s delivery is far from saccharine.  It’s not even all that passive – the song is howled acrimoniously at the listener. With familiarity, the guitars sound less awkward and unpalatable these days than when the song was released, of course, but it still seems a long way from the kind of warm, fuzzy stuff you’d want soundtracking your nuptials.  Mind you, what the fuck do I know, I had Better Off Without a Wife by Tom Waits playing at my wedding.

So maybe it’s not Houston’s fault after all.  Maybe people are just fucking idiots.

I don’t know where I was going with this, but there are some points to be made, I guess.  Just because she sold a lot of records doesn’t mean she was any good.  Just because she could hit a lot of notes doesn’t mean she was a good singer.  Bruce Springsteen can be too damn over the top for his own good at times. Document by REM is a fucking incredible album. I should DJ more weddings.  And no-one at any point in human history will look back fondly on the Toyota Corolla.

REM – The One I Love

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Work effectively you might not be able to, but watching telly with a massive hangover is just about manageable, so while I get the last bits for the Kid Canaveral Toad Session done I thought there was one more thing I might share with you.

Mrs. Toad and I have always been part-time Trekkies, in the sense that I think we both watched a fair bit of The Next Generation, and possibly dabbled in a couple of the spin-off series and stuff like that, but neither of us is what you would call a committed fan.

In the tradition of using the prequel to further milk any good idea which previously might have been thought to be wrung entirely dry, the bigwigs in Hollywood started a screening Enterprise a few years back, based on the voyages of the very first Starship Enterprise.  It has the now obligatory hot babe* in a catsuit, pan-pipes used to instantly signpost either very primitive or very spiritual communities and that bloke from Quantum Leap as the captain (which took a bit of getting used to).

But in general, it is exactly what you would expect, and judging by the handful of episodes of the first series which I watched last night when the worst of the pain had subsided, it’s not at all bad. Fluff.  But entertaining fluff. And it has spaceships, which I like.

The reason any of this at all is relevant to a music blog will already be apparent to those of you reckless enough to have clicked on that wee video above, which is the title sequence for the series.  Yes, the song.  Jesus cockfighting Christ!  Normally Star Trek theme songs are that sort of cross between soft-focus idealism and the sort of rousing claptrap which appeals to that pathetically infantile part of the human heart which gives a fuck about national anthems. 

This, on the other hand, is a different kind of abomination altogether. It’s as if they were trying to imply that humans invented spaceflight in the era when Michael Bolton was at the height of his powers.  In fact, this is actually even fucking worse than Michael Bolton at the height [sic] of his powers [sic].

It’s so utterly fucking cringeworthy that both Mrs. Toad and I ended up quite literally squirming out of sheer embarrassment at the start of every single episode we watching because it is just so tortuously, ear-fuckingly, toe-curlingly, sphincter-sprainingly awful. It’s almost as bad as that horrific seduction scene in The Saint with Val Kilmer, which is so utterly excruciating that the film studio won’t let anyone post it on YouTube, presumably in case the internet commits ritual seppuku and fucking shuts itself down out of embarrassment.

*Disclaimer: I actually find her kinda funny lookin’, but I get what they were trying to do.

 One of the things I’ve noticed since I started working in the music industry is how much fun it has been.  Sure it’s a challenge, and there are times when it can get you down, but fuck, you go to gigs all the time, you hang out with your pals, you have a few drinks, you share awesome experiences together at amazing shows, and even the dreadful ones generate a sort of camaraderie based on mutual awkwardness.

It’s fun, it really is fucking fun.  It’s culture too.  Not high culture of course, and there’s no way you could say that normal people getting involved in the arts and building communities and shared projects together could possibly do as much for the rich cultural life of the nation as keeping a handful fabulously wealthy people entertained at the ballet or the opera.  That would be crazy.  But nevertheless, music is fun, and it is culture.

Edinburgh is of course a city of great culture, and one which has invested a huge part of its considerable sense of self-worth into giving the impression that it supports culture.  And fun.  Although if one had to choose, then probably just culture.  Fun, after all, genuine balls-out taps aff belly laughing giddy fun is not really what we do here.  That is for vulgar people.  It is, in short, what Glasgow is for.

The kind of purposeful, determined fun had at the Edinburgh Festival – oh the wonderful festival, with its wonderful lineup of multi-cultural arts events and billions of pounds in profits for all the wonderful local industries like, er, Magners – that sort of fun is deliberate, and part of an image Edinburgh cultivates for itself more assiduously than any bowerbird, carefully building its nest from bits of discarded food packaging and used condoms.

Deliberate fun, or Compulsory Fun as a friend of mine so delightfully put it, is much more worthwhile that tawdry old spontaneous fun, because it is enriching, validating and nourishing for the soul.  It is also, generally, devoid of any actual fun.

You’d have thought the bonfire of the fucking bankers would have slapped the smug haughtiness out of Edinburgh a little bit recently, but the impression still remains that this is a city which secretly believes that for all people at nightclubs and pop concerts and ludicrous blockbuster movies think they are having fun, really that isn’t proper fun at all, and it most certainly isn’t culture.  Look, not one of the people in that band is even wearing tights!

So having defined, packaged, branded and then sold Compulsory Fun to the entire fucking world in August, Edinburgh seems to have recently realised that sneakily, under its own very nose, people in the damn capital have been having actual fun behind everyone’s backs.  That, of course, won’t do at all.

So, without ever needed any kind of grand conspiracy, but nevertheless somehow moving as one being with one purpose, the people of Edinburgh set about sorting out all fun which could be described as ‘really not our sort of thing’.

So first we burned down the Liquid Rooms.  Then fuck you Bowery, off you go, and balls to the Roxy too, which followed it.  Next we polished off The Lot, then set about losing the GRV/Octopus Diamond/Left Banke/whatever the fuck it called itself at the time.  Then the Forest, which probably self-combusted due to the sheer heat generated by all the burning incense.  The Red Door was also surplus to requirements, so fuck that as well.  And actually, who needs Cabaret Voltaire either, I have definitely seen Bad Fun taking place there, and you know what, fuck the Bongo Club too, as Edinburgh University are currently doing.

Sometimes I think we are actually trying to make it impossible to enjoy yourself in any more that one or two nice, approved ways in this fucking town.  Is it any wonder it’s a massive challenge to get decent bands to play here?  And contrary to the number of talentless, fat-tongued drama school toffs we import every August, and to how many tickets to the Ladyboys of fucking Bangkok we sell or how many companies get rich off the back of the fucking Festival, that has fuck all to do with culture in Edinburgh.

Culture in Edinburgh has far more to do with actual people from Edinburgh taking part in fucking culture, even if culture to them is being in a shit death metal band. In fact, I’d rather a hundred people in shit death metal bands actually doing something than two hundred serious muppets in museums looking suitably thoughtful at something painted a hundred years ago.

Still.  Despite all this shit, there’s a part of me which kind of thrills at the incredible case of venue suicides in Edinburgh in the last two years.  It’s almost like Nick at Sneaky’s, the guys at the Circus and Henry’s, hopefully now joined for the long term by the team at the Third Door are fighting a gallant last stand in the name of Unapproved Fun.  And fuck you, the harder it gets the more fun is to be had in fucking fighting it.  Fuck your Festival Theatre and your Scottish Ballet.  BOOOOOO-ring!

You can take every last fucking venue out of this town and force us to hold our gigs on the forecourts of fucking Tesco’s but Unapproved Fun will not fucking go away, you fucking twats.

 I think that the readers of this website will be more aware than most of the direct correlation between the obscurity of the music they listen to and the overall quality of a person’s character.  In fact, never mind correlation, I think it’s fair to say that there is almost certainly a direct causal link.

No one can argue, surely, that ceasing to listen to chart music will improve your soul – in much the same way that no longer reading the NME will liberate your brain and give you a wonderful feeling of clarity and, more importantly, self-respect.

So given that your fundamental worth as a human being can be directly measured by the obscurity of your music collection I was horrified to plug my last.fm profile into the Obscurometer and discover that my hipster score was a measly 81.2%.  81.2% for fuck’s sake?  That means that 18.8% of last.fm users are BETTER THAN ME!  Nooooooo, this cannot possibly be true!

Now, last.fm can be a truly treacherous bastard, telling the world all sorts of dirty little secrets about your secret Alison Moyet evenings, and extensive collection of K.T. Tunstall b-sides.  Or, even worse, having written the review this afternoon, last.fm now knows I have actually listened to that fucking Lana Del Rey album, and Christ on a fucking bike, who knows who it might tell!

Anyhow, the Obscurometer can give you a hipster self-respect score for all the the listening intervals last.fm records.  Now, I’m getting better and better at this shit, so I figured that even if I had let myself down in the past, the last twelve months should represent a pretty decent improvement in my right to a sense of social superiority.

Tragically, even though I thought I would have known better since well before 2011, my score was still that devastatingly unimpressive 83.6%.  An improvement, but not very impressive, as I’m sure you’ll admit.  Despite cleverly listening to bands like Benjamin Shaw and Death Songs, with artistic validity ratings of 93.3% and 94.9% respectively, I undermined my best efforts by foolishly playing music by the crushingly well-known likes of Wilco (37.2%) and The Mountain Goats (49.4%).

Anyway, I may not have been able to acknowledge it to myself, but clearly my instincts told me something had to change, and it seems that thankfully some inner sense of self-preservation has restrained my urge to listen to whatever that damn hell I want, in favour of stuff other people will never have heard of and which therefore reassures me that I am better than them.

By six months ago, a mere year after giving up my tragically unhip grownup job, I seemed to be getting the hang of this thing, improving my score from the frankly embarrassing initial 81.2%, through the improved but nevertheless not particularly impressive 83.6% percent of a year ago, to the increasingly swagger-worthy 85.4%.

Anyhow, whilst you can’t deny that those are some pretty impressive numbers, they are nothing compared to where I am now.  Now, whilst 85.4% would probably and rightly intimidate most people, by the time we look at my score for the last three months, I am at the frankly knicker-elastic-snapping 90.5% personal validity score.  I can look down down my nose with confidence at all but the most determinedly obscure of last.fm’s users.

Looking at those listening habits, you can see a couple of key influences, thrusting me to the forefront of cultural value ratings.  Firstly, listening only to Song, by Toad Records bands.  Being a woefully unsuccessful record label is of course incredibly cool, seeing as if lots of people like your music, then you are almost certainly a populist sellout who most self-respecting hipsters stopped liking after their first couple of singles three years ago.

However, that is still only good enough for a 90.5% personal worth score.  By the last week, however, I am clearly becoming seriously awesome.  How awesome, I hear you ask?  I’ll tell you: ninety-fucking-six point two fucking percent.  Yep, 96.2.  That’s seriously fucking awesome.  That’s like a black fucking belt in hipsterism, that is.  Motherfucker, if you thought I was pretty damn worthwhile before, I am now undeniably fucking amazing – better than 96.2% of last.fm users, who are already mostly hipsters to begin with.

The key (if you look at what has been scrobbled for the last week – listening to the new Jesus H. Foxx album, the new album by The Leg and the mixes for our as yet unreleased split 12″) is very clearly to listen to music so fucking cool that it hasn’t even been released yet.  In fact, you should probably listen to unreleased music by bands who don’t actually exist yet, which is what I will be endeavouring to do as I push on for that magic 100% score. Finding their recordings might prove a challenge though, because if I thought Googling Girls’ debut album (called Girls) was a challenge, imagine how hard finding a band who don’t actually have a name yet would be.

Anyhow, I think from studying the results of the Obscurometer, we can divine a clear way forward for both myself and Song, by Toad Records in future: never actually release any of our albums, thus instantly making us the coolest record label in the world, and meaning that I will simultaneously win the Gold Medal Super Hipster Prize for listening to more of the most obscure music than anyone anywhere ever!

And then I will turn off the internet and we can all go and read a book for a bit instead.

Apart from the number of my friends who work there, it’s difficult to feel any real sympathy for the lumbering dinosaur that is HMV.  Nevertheless, I do find the company’s struggles quite fascinating, and they really do seem to be on death’s door at the moment.

Generally when I end up discussing this with anyone it tends to be solely within the context of music retail.  What will the slow death of HMV do for smaller independent shops?  What will it do for music sales when the only remaining large high street retailer finally vanishes?

These are valid and interesting questions of course, but they tend to lead to quite narrow discussions about what little remains of their business model.  HMV is struggling not just because music retail is fucked, but because the whole retail sector is in turmoil.  In the wake of the disruption caused by the internet, out of town aircraft hanger superstores seem to be fine and high-end boutique retailers seem to be fine, but HMV is neither of these things, so it is facing difficulties both by virtue of its place within the retail environment, as well as the more sector-specific issues caused by the fact that the selling of mp3s quite simply makes shops redundant in the first place. Read the rest of this entry »