There is something definitely strange and perhaps vulgar about a funeral being announced as an event on Facebook. The tapeworm of social networking swallows up the only single human inevitable. The Blue Whale has no real idea that the flotsam and jetsam sieved through its baleen plates are living things, dying things, dead things. Funerals have always been announced. Notes in local newsagents and front windows; letters, cards, national newspapers even. It's the formula of Facebook that feels like someone has thrown a shitty plastic wreath into the works. 24 may be attending. 43 will be attending. 14 will not be attending. Bereaved relations want to contact everyone who cared about their loved one, but the sentiment is cheaply buggered by a web developer's macro marketing template. And it's nobody's fault.Today I had another unsettling encounter with a small portable colour television. Clearing out my room, I uncovered what initially appeared to be the same villain that haunted my sleep one month back. But it was a different one. I was leant it half a year ago. I never got round to plugging it in. It was under the laundry basket, hemmed in by three empty gin bottles (time-lined, entropic: at first Tanqueray, then Gordon's, then Asda's) and countless Amazon packing cases. Moving house is stressful; according to some statistic of unfathomable origin it comes fourth after bereavement, unwanted pregnancy and divorce. My flatmate put it simply, "well, it's just change isn't it". It really is. According to animal experts of verifiable authority, changing the location of a dog or cat causes them more stress than changing their owner. For cats this seems obvious; everyone knows the Janus-faced little bastards don't give a shit about you. But dogs really do. They love you. They just get confused. When they wake up on a sink estate in Plymouth after five years in Royal Tonbridge Wells they will be bewildered. No more line-caught Yellow Fin Tuna steak for you, Muggins, it's mechanically-recovered lips 'n' flaps now. But that flesh-coloured shape on a stick that calls it by a new name is basically the same, as long it gives them plenty of attention.
We had five cats at one point. The smart ones died, leaving only Shitbox, and his mother, Mrs. Minkles. Were Shitbox to be transmogrified into human form he would quickly be recognised as a nasty right-wing thug. He still lives with his wretched, neurotic mum and he beats her up. He can't use the cat-flap. He sits there waiting for you to hold it open for him. Rather like Nick Griffin, he wears a suit and a mask and we're not fooled.
Someone took a shit on the front steps of my new flat. Exactly halfway down; it seemed planned; it seemed human. There is a porch beneath the steps with an electricity meter. They could have gone in there. I found an empty Benson and Hedges packet (underclass cigarettes according to my friend in marketing), fried chicken boxes and a syringe. A van goes round the area. 'Sex and Drugs Litter Rapid Clean Up Team' rather too proudly on the side; bubble lettering, graffito styles, community-friendly 'Hey Everyone!' (why not cameras and a documentary? Been done already), so I'll make a call and leave it to them. St. Paul's has its unfair share of problems, yet the rents are as extortionate as everywhere else on this island. The only people who benefit are the property developers and the debt traders. Switch everything for one day and then one night, just briefly, for Karl Marx's sake, for old times, go on. Some simple old-fashioned class war. Pimp their sorry smack-sick arses at 3 a.m. in the maddening cold then send them out again the next morning to clean up the mess.
"When, in a city of 100,000, only one man is unemployed, that is his personal trouble, and for its relief we properly look to the character of the man, his skills, and his immediate opportunities. But when in a nation of 50 million employees, 15 million men are unemployed, that is an issue, and we may not hope to find its solution within the range of opportunities open to any one individual. " C. Wright Mills
"He responded to others' claims that his behaviour was boorish by behaving even more outlandishly. Critics were disarmed when he admitted to even worse character faults than he in fact possessed.. " On the character of C. Wright Mills
30 comments:
Come off it pussy, you're far too obsessed with your shitty TV-set. You're sucking us in.
People in Poland would say that you are lucky! The glass is half full: Stepping into shit means having good luck in Poland. So the new year started very well for our bleating bourgeois businessman.
Forget about dogs. Get yourself a manure heap to sink in and fortune will be your true companion.
The shit was human? Well, then it needs to be loved, just like anybody else does.
In some countries funerals are announced by posters with a picture of the person who has died.
If the dead person was a young girl, supposed to be a virgin, she has to wear a white wedding dress, a veil and gold jewelry. Her yellowish, clay-like corpse, bloated by starting decay and sewn with bruises, cuts and contusions is being disguised as a bride. The mourners are throwing white sugared almonds at the coffin, like people use to do when the bride and her groom are leaving church.
Has anyone ever seen a bride going to her own marriage, looking like having been beaten up the day before?
This is not digusting, this is a burial ceremony. A form of tradition. As kissing a cold corpse for a hundred times without being necrophilic. Even if it might be a cultural shock for some of us.
And Jehovah's witnesses are looking out for the latest obituaries with the names of the mourners they will contact next - potential prey. Filling a gap in the market.
As nobody cares when an unknown little fifteen comes to death.
Shitbox
24 up, 20 down
1. Shitbox is a colloquialism meaning "anal canal". However, although technically "shitbox" may be used as a direct substitute for "anal canal" it is in fact used almost exclusively when referring to the act of anal sex. Specifically one gets taken up the shitbox or one party takes a second party up the shitbox of the second party. It is worth noting that "Shitbox" is often shortened to shitter".
2. Due to the social unacceptance of anal sex in polite society a secondary derived meaning of shitbox is "very bad".
Unsurprisingly the term is derogatory and used mainly by male virgins in the company of their peers during puberty when discussing their as yet unactualised sexual desires and fantasies.
Especially popular in Kent in the mid 1990's "taken up the shitbox" rose to become the favourite phrase of the sixthform boys of Chatham house boys grammar school in Ramsgate, Kent in the years 1996-8.
1. Nigel have you taken her up the shitbox yet?
2. Yes I bent her over my Astra outside Frank's and gave it to her hard right up her shitbox.
3. And did she like it in the shitbox?
4. What the fuck to you think? Have you ever met a bird who liked it in the shitbox? Oh no you are a virgin aren't you.
5. So are you Nigel you lying shitbox.
6. Shitbox!
by Brian Tyler Oct 21, 2004 email it
Anonymous (Brian Tyler?)
Do you actually know Mr. Talbot, and did he wrong you in the past at some point? If not, I suggest you try to articulate what your exact criticism of him/his views are. Or maybe take your considerable frustrations back to some of the actual causes of them in the first place and deal with them at the root. I suppose at least your saying something, but these don't seem to me to be the engagingly rambling comments of the type that perhaps you were aiming to achieve if I may be so presumptuous.
Squimpleblorf
Dear Mr. Jeff,
thank you very much for your analyzing comments. I shall discuss them with my shrink next time I see her.
Actually, I do not know Mr. Talbot himself as he does not know himself neither, but I know his music and I do appreciate very much that I can listen to it from time to time. I do like Mr. Talbots voice very much and I think he has a great talent in composing songs which meet my taste in music.
As far as his comments on this page are concerned, I believe that most of them are aimed at provocation. And provocation is aiming at reaction, isn't it? Mr. Talbot cannot prescribe the nature of these reactions.
If Mr. Talbot is not amused about reactions that may contain some form of critique or resentment, well, then I suggest that he himself should express himself in a rather harmless and neutral manner.
Maybe you did not read Mr. Talbots comments very closely, where he speaks of boring people, despectively about fat people and so on. Not to mention that he is proud of using vocabulary as "fuckhead" in one of his songs. Would anyone who belongs to the working class be aware of using such words? No. Would any adult call his cat Shitbox? Rather not.
So if Mr. Talbot is not in his puberty anymore, I shall presume that he wants to provoke an argument with his readers. It's too boring to be just admired by everybody. Isn't it? Sometimes these arguments may reflect Mr. Talbots kind of style to express himself.Sometimes they are deviating from what Mr. Talbot pretends to be thinking. Sometimes they are just kidding.
Maybe Mr. Talbot does not always think about the fact that his readers might be as sensible as himself.
Glorifying violence has never had anything to do with artistic expression.
But maybe we are just talking about marketing measures...who knows?
Probably Mr. Talbot.
I don't see much discussion in the way of music on this blog ...well maybe a bit. I'm not familiar with Mr. Talbot's musical career.
Since you don't know him personally, your obsession with Mr. Talbot and his... hypocrisy? public persona/private life? is driven by his not living up to your standards of... what?
All seems a bit overdramatic.
Will have to investigate this music of his.
Blimpsquirm nerdfarm malted pus lozenge
Dear Mr. Jeff,
you are completely right. It is too overdramatic to oppose on a virtual level.
Maybe it is a waste of time, but on the other hand inveighing against Mr. Talbots dishonesty and the hypocrisy of so many people in general improves my English. I don't want to disregard the positive effects.
(Just your last sentence is a bit difficult to understand, too colloquial for me.)
So, why do you stand up for Mr. Talbot, if you don't know him neither? Do you share his opinions or hold his views?
I'm not obsessed with Mr. Talbot. I just cannot stand that somebody rails against the manipulating mass media and at the same time he uses them, making you presume that it is COOL to promote his music with statements such as: If you want to understand what a killer feels, well then you have to kill somebody, or: Once you have tasted hatred, you want more, it's completely okay to be violent, because it's inherent in everybody, absolutely human. Never mind if you get angry and hit somebody, it's alright, it is dormant in everyone of us.
I have to ask myself, does Mr. Talbot think that his music is so poor and his voice so low that it has to be pimped with glorification of aggression?
If Mr. Talbot knew how it feels like to be exposed to domestic violence day by day without having a chance to escape from it, maybe then he would rather focus on fighting against it.
But it is cool these days to promote one's music declaring to get stoned out of your skull before each concert. It's cool to collect empty gin bottles at home. It's cool to dream of suicide.
At least some teenagers believe that Mr. Talbot finds it cool. But if you have lost two family members by sudden death and if you have had a friend with anorexia who told you each day that she wanted to die, you don't think that suicidal tendencies are in some way cool or necessary to cope with life.
So many young people are suffering from instability, breaking up families and they ruin their lives with alcohol and drugs. Why can't there be some more positive ideals and idols for them? Someone in public who imparts optimism instead of "No future" - hymns?
It's okay to spell out one's world-weariness, but do we really have to promote music calling for violence, binge drinking and suicide?
IS IT SO HARD TO WRITE THAT LIFE IS ALSO SOMETIMES BEAUTIFUL, MR. TALBOT? OR ISN'T IT COOL ENOUGH?
I have hobby. But it's nothing very special. I do the garden, I watch girls. I am so ordinary.
I don't write about music on this blog because I don't like to take my work home with me. I write about other things. One of the nice results of this is that people who don't know my music still read my blog. And then there is the odd result that someone, Anonymous, appears to like my music, but dislikes me. Or at least appears to take issue with even my least controversial musings.
So, Anonymous: I'm sorry if it's a language barrier thing, obviously English isn't your first language, but I get about two sentences into your posts and just completely lose interest. If I muster the stamina to push on regardless, I still can't find any coherent point to your comments. And your use of capital letters makes you look like a lunatic.
Can I make a couple of suggestions?
1) Don't take anything I say too literally. There is a strong tradition of irony in English journalism.
2) Don't take anything I say too seriously. There is a strong tradition of irreverence in English journalism.
3) I have political views and I make some political points but most of the time writing, for me, is about style and the use of language. I am first and foremost interested in language. I am less interested n what people say than in how they choose to say it. Although some of my blog posts are explicitly political, I often start blogs with no idea how they will end.
For the record, our (my parents') cat really is called Shitbox.
Your post about the child-bride funeral/wedding was really fascinating. (I assume that that anonymous is this anonymous).
If you are going to continue to rail against my alleged dishonesty and hypocrisy, keep your posts shorter and maybe get them proof-read. And throwing in quotes from my lyrics is a bit lame. Just get to the point.
Warm regards
Nick
Dear Mr. Talbot,
I was expecting Mr. Jeff to answer on my comment, but I have noticed that you're still there.
Obviously there are only a few people who read this blog, or let's say who make comments on it, so you're right , it's me again. Anonymous was Anonymous.
Despite of the fact that my utterance appears incoherent to you, there was something in it that made you recognize me. The apparently LUNATIC style. And until I revealed it, you were not doubting in any way that my mother tongue is English. Hah,that's great. Well,I'm beginning to like you.
(You don't know how my colleague in Spain had to suffer from my incoherent Spanish utterances when I was shouting at him because Spanish men never get their shit together at work! "Tomorrow morning" or "soon" is their standard answer. "Soon" can mean "you will have to push me again and again" or it means "you will never get an answer". Basque people seem to be in general less open towards european standards...)
If you don't take your work home with you, then you don't write music at home?
Not only English people should never be taken too seriously, anonymous people, too. If one of my main aims in writing on this blog is practising the English language and having at least some fun in doing it, it would have been unfruitful to post short comments of approval. Mr. Jeff had never opposed to it. Hadn't you Jeffy?
Another thing is that I'm not so familiar with English politics, or let's say politics in general.
But I'm interested in language, too. I speak five languages. Four of them at work. The beauty of poetry, literature, and the interest in the origin of languages and their interrelations has been my main motivation to study them more profoundly than at school.
What's fascinating me about language is when people are good at playing upon words and using puns. I like to do this, too, in my mother tongue. But I think I couldn't compete with you in English. Journalism is a staff of life which is hard to gain.
Don't mind me being incoherent. You're incoherent, too. We're all subjects who are composed of various fragments of identity. We're just playing different roles and we are shifting between different worlds.
The funeral post is not so fascinating when you had to assist to such kind of funeral ceremonies for two times within only two weeks. And when the dead bride is your sister.
One of the last things which I remember having done with her together, was dancing in a club which was called "Ballroom". She was only 15, so officially she was not allowed to enter a club, but they let us in. I remember her doing some headbanging at "Alive" from Pearl Jam. A strange thing, to sing "I'm still alive", not knowing that death is waiting 'round the corner...
I had to discard my Nirvana tape at that time.
Cordiali saluti,
A.
Neat twist of emotional manipulation towards the end there regarding your dead sister; I'll take that as genuine. If you are the same anonymous all the way through this thread may I refer you back to your first comment, which had a rather nasty tone to it:
"Come off it pussy, you're far too obsessed with your shitty TV-set. You're sucking us in...Forget about dogs. Get yourself a manure heap to sink in and fortune will be your true companion...The shit was human? Well, then it needs to be loved, just like anybody else does."
It is pretty clear that English isn't your first language, unless that is, you are just genuinely nasty and genuinely a bad writer. It's not just me; Jeff noticed it too, and Jeff and I don't even know each other. Your posts come across as aggressive, to put it mildly. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt though. Maybe give yourself a user name? You can still remain anonymous, it's just less sinister, and then we know all the comments are from the same person.
Well I found one Gravenhurst song, "The Diver" on the internet. I couldn't focus on it on first listen and was easily distracted from it. It sounded better, or more intimate I guess, on the second listen with the headphones on. It didn't really grab me in a big way, but it doesn't seem like it was designed to "grab". I could see unwinding from stress listrening to it.
Music in this style has to grow on me over time like with, say, Fairport Convention or Comus.
Fleedge
To answer Anonymous regarding standing up for Mr. Talbot.
The first thing I ever read on this blog was the piece about the talking surveillance cameras and the holosonic audio spotlight from Dec 19. It was fascinating to read about these two different yet similar uses of technology, one clunky and harsh, the other subtle and sophisticated, but both invasive to a mental-illness-triggering degree. I liked the style in which Mr. Talbot wrote about these things, and thought bringing them to people's attention could foment useful further discussions of them.
On a later visit to this blog, my cough syrup drenched mind had an epiphany about possible solutions to an overly self conscious and surveilled society and felt compelled to post about it. I still have a memory of this idea that seems visually interesting but perhaps not as practical on sober reflection.
Oh man what was I talking about?
Glabf
Nasty Rita (= former Anonymous)
To answer chief editor Nick Talbot:
The wish to answer again was not that strong, but, for God's sake, in order to restore peace, you shall get this answer.
First of all: I don't want to have your babies, Mr. Talbot.That's pretty clear.
Second thing: Why do the English believe that they have a better sense of humour, especially a sense of black humour? Where have you lost it, Mr. Talbot?
I don't suffer from any mental illness. I'm not a nasty, neither an aggressive person. I'm as soft as a lambchop and as sweet as turkish delight. My nephew and my nieces love me for being as I am. Maybe, 'till now they are the only ones.
Why should I be more genuine than you are on this blog? You like to invent things. Why should I refrain from posting critical views? Erase them, if you like to. I never had journalistic ambitions on this blog in contrast to you, so I don't mind if you call me a bad writer in English. (you still doubt that it cannot be my mother tongue? At least my English is not too bad.)
If you allege that I have dishonest motives, such as manipulating your emotions when I let you have a look at my most private feelings, I could claim that you are projecting your disposition and your modus operandi on me, for you do not know me personally, neither.
Concerning the "aggressive" quotation, let me explain:
A) During my years of study I have never had the opportunity to use colloquial expressions. Just as I would like to now how my grammatical/lexical errors sounded like in my mother tongue, I would like to know how those expressions come across in my mother tongue. I wanted to see, if they BRING YOU OUT OF YOUR SHELL. ("Experiment IV") Sorry for that.
B)Pussy has various meanings. I intended to say it short for "pussy-cat", because once you already came across like a poor black tomcat when you had a simple cough. In the last post you pitied yourself for being shitted at. So I just wanted to commiserate you.
C)If you write about rather dull and disgusting nonsense about somebody taking a shit on your threshold, in which way should it be commented than by writing shit?
D)You think you hold a monopoly on irony, just because of being English? Well, that's rather narcistic. If shit brings good luck, (and people in Poland really do believe so), the logical consequence is that the more shit you get involved with, the more luck you will have.Consequentially, a manure heap should be the apogee of fortune one can have in his life. In other words: It was a New Years wish for you. Always look on the bright side of life ("and close your mealy mouth"). I'm not nasty, but Mozzer is.
E)May I remind you of your post concerning boring people, who "suck you in" (your nasty words) with their endless conversations in which you are trapped in for hours? It's not their problem, it's your problem as long as you listen to them instead of going away or changing the subject. I did not know what to comment on your TV-set-tryptichon, because, to be honest, it was not that interesting. I wanted to show you that sometimes even Nick Talbot can trap you in endless conversations about TV sets....
As a philologist, which I am, I could also value it as a contrary of the stylistic device of personification: The TV set is an alter ego of the author. You/the first-person narrator/the lyric self wanted to commit suicide by jumping from a draw-bridge. Your soul was smashed and chucked around. You had problems with alcohol. But this would mean interpreting it too literally. Maybe the TV set was thought to be kind of a leitmotif (guiding theme), standing for... what?
To sum up all this: I started to write on this blog when I stumbled across your declaration that one of your former band members had died in a car crash. I found out that, apart of the fact that I like your music, we have this traumatic experience in common. In my case it was my sister and my father. As I have never spoken about it with somebody who experienced the same, it raised my interest in your posts. It's clear that I could never have asked you directly to do so, because it would have been impolite or indiscrete and you are a public person, being at pains to entangle yourself in inconsistencies, as it seems.
To answer Jeff regarding "The Diver":
You listened to my favourite song of Mr. Talbot. I like it, because the music possesses something comparable to an onomatopoetic quality, as you would call it normally when referring to lyrics.
Onomatopoetic words reflect or underline the subject which a poet is describing with their sound, when you read the poem loudly.
In the Diver's case it is the repetition of some chords, the gentle and suave flow of the melody which causes associations of floating through the water. (Maybe you noticed it as unwinding stress because you felt to be in utero again, or at least in the bath tub) The low sounds evoke the feeling of getting deeper. The minimalistic use of the chords even intensifies the impression of being under water, where nearly the only thing you can hear is your heart beating and your pulse pulsating.
Maybe there is a technical term for it in musicology, but I'm not a music journalist.
For me it also has a personal meaning. As a 5 year old child I was standing in a lake on a soil which was the transition to a deeper zone of the lake. My father had told me not to go any further, but I was experimenting with it, standing on my tip-toes, looking how far I could go. Suddenly the soil beneath my feet slid away, and my head was under water. I could not swim, so I couldn't help myself. I still remember an air-bed with other chlidren gliding above me, but I was too shy to grab for it and my survival drive was too weak to override my shyness. It seemed to me that I was under water for hours until my father pulled me out and saved my life.
I still do have a phobia of fishes. And at the same time underwater-docs are the most fascinating films one can watch.
Ok, cool, that's that sorted out then.
added to Mr. Jeff again and to whom it may concern:
We must be careful Jeff that Mr. Talbot doesn't rebuke us for writing about music on this blog. Lately he wasn't on the ball. I was. Carnival is going on here.
I've searched for some pieces of Comus and Fairport Convention. I didn't find that much, and maybe those songs which I have listened to were not exemplary for their whole artistic producing, but, in any case I'd prefer Comus to Fairport Convention. The "Song to Comus" was quite interesting. Could be part of a musical. Nonetheless it's music that sounds strange to me, and definitely related to another "era". Although the album was released in my birth year.
There are some female voices from which I got goose-flesh when I heard them performing live or when I listened to their music for the first time:
Lisa Gerard (Dead can Dance), Teresa Salgueiro (from Madredeus, a portuguese band), Mara Aranda (from L'ham de Foc, a catalan band, listen to the song "Andarletto" f.ex.), Carmen Consoli (an italian songwriter playing acoustic guitar, she's great!!!), Etta Scollo (italian, too, I like her album "Casa"), Loreena Mc Kennit, Kate Bush, Suzanne Vega, Tracy Chapman.
As far as male voices are concerned , I should mention José Gonzalez (swedish songwriter) and Max Gazzé (italian songwriter).
I've tried to keep it shorter and less lunatic this time, Mr. Talbot.
Forgot to mention Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac of course.
Yeah, Suzanne Vega is tottaly underrated. I ripped off loads of her stuff. 'Days Of Open Hand' is such an amazing album; but her music suffers from slick eighties production that sometimes polishes away the soul of it. Sometimes the arrangements work brilliantly('Pilgrimage' is built around a cyclical vocal part; fantastic, no way it could be performed live) sometimes they ruin it (cheesy faux-harpsichord lines in 'Knight Moves'). Like so many artists signed to major labels she was under pressure to use expensive production values... there are some acoustic solo performances of her on You Tube..
hey, we are all friends again now.
xxx
You are generous and patient as it appears, genuinely spoken, that's hard to find these days.
I discovered Suzanne Vega in the eighties via a radio feature where a lot of her songs and the history of their origin were told by herself. It was so interesting, especially what she commented on "Calypso" and Ulysses and on "Wooden Horse" and the life of Caspar Hauser. I was 16 at that time and I had never heard of Caspar Hauser before, so I went to the library and grabbed every book I could get about it. I was reading them during a school trip to Brittany while listening to the album "Solitude standing".
When I was younger, every part of my life, every event was tightly knitted with some piece of music I was listening at that time. Now it's different. Days and music pass(es) by and it's hard to remember what happened in which year.
I saw Suzanne Vega twice in concert. She always starts her songs with a short summary or story about it. I liked it, because it shows her personnality and what moved her. One of my favourite songs is "Small blue thing", which still touches me so deeply. I also like "Knight moves", Solitude Standing" and "Left of Center" very much.
I forgot to mention that your "Diver" also reminded me of Kate Bush's "Under ice". The initial low monotone bows of the cello with the interfering lighter deviating sounds imitate perfectly the regular and irregular skating she sings of, changing between a harsh and a soft singing voice, which also reflects the contrast between the beautiful winter's landscape and the icecold water. The song is a wonderful metaphor for the subconscient. You can almost feel sort of an apprehensiveness while listening to it.(By the way, I adore cello sounds, also in Morrissey's "Angel, Angel, down we go together").
I also like her "Breathing" very much, which actually got remixed by an Italian, I think. "Hello Earth" and "Jig of life" are great, too.
Fleetwood Mac is fascinating because of their versatile music. I love "Beautiful child", "Crystal", "Make me a mask", "The chain", "Dreams", "Oh Daddy" and many, many other songs of them. There is a great unplugged (?) live version of "Big love" on Youtube.
For tonight I close this thread with "Sing me to sleep, sing me to sleep, I'm tired and I want to go to bed."
I am disappointed that I have seen neither Morrissey nor Suzanne Vega in the flesh. It doesn't seem plausible.
But they both tour a lot, so I'm sure it will happen.
I'm seeing MBV in June.
Woah.
Nick the Ripper, you have not seen them yet in flesh because,
A) at the time you were too young and maybe yet too green to understand what they were singing about. While you were playing doctors and nurses, life's hard heart was still beating elsewhere. Since I was a tough cookie, and I guess, a few years older, I even dared to see Morrissey, naughty fruitloop himself, twice in concert. But it was disappointing to observe that between the first and the second time he obviously had lost good part of his stirring rebellishness and nonconformity. Maybe he got the "pains that come with age" or a burnout. As if he went through with his verve-lacking program, just because he got paid for it.
And though the Smith(but first of all Morrissey) is the only band of which I have acquisted nearly every album.
B) you discovered them in the late nineties in the course of the beginning revival of the eighties as a good source of, let's say - inspiration.
Lately when I went out, a younger guy asked me for a dance on a cover version of AHA's "The sun always shines on TV". In these cases I use to ask if he grew up with the original version. Not uncommonly this question causes confusion...:p
Judging from what I have listened to so far, MBV is a bit too noisy for my delicate ears. Maybe I shall have a second look at it.
I prefer Placebo's, Garbage's or Iron Maiden's noise. In fact it's more commercial or out-dated noise but less diffuse noise.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ReTZcadkK-M
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=oKFtTK0oUP4
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5OTTPes1dgc
Jeff's post got me thinking about what got me liking Gravenhurst so much.
I was lucky enough to discover the song "The Diver"(and Gravenhurst) completely by accident in the town of Bristol England. First when seeing Nick play supporting another act (I think it was Kevin Tihista) and then the second time, again accidentally but this time the song connected with me, was definitely when Gravenhurst were supporting Nina Nastasia, I remember.
I'm felling quite sincere and earnest today so sorry that post was a bit dry. It is Sunday. Danny isn't my real name.
Hi Danny,
wanna share some greased tea with me? Yesterday was just another manic Monday.
The Kevin Tihista "Lose your dress" video is really worth watching it, just because of the little boy's free-style (next to the girl with the red shirt).
Nasty Rita is not my real name. Mr. Talbot baptised me, because I was nameless.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Tomb_of_the_Diver
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/
italy/paestum.htm
I suddenly recall, why I like "The Diver" so much....
"The other highlight of a visit to this museum (at Paestum)is the series of mural paintings which decorated Poseidonia's tombs. They date from around the fifth century BC and include the world famous "Tomb of the Diver", one of the few surviving examples of Greek painting in the world. This famous piece consists of five panels, four of which depict the deceased accompanied into the next world by singers, dancers, games, banquets, lovers and music. The fifth panel, the lid, shows a naked youth executing a perfect dive into the blue sea below. It is an unusual allegory of death found in no other painting of the collection and it is thought the diver was a musician who had come to Paestum to practice his profession and thus as an outsider, he was given a different type of burial. Whatever the reason for its existence, nearly 3000 years later the painting is still a stunner."
"Comme un nageur venant du profond de son plonge,
Tous sortent de la mort comme l'on sort d'un songe."
Like a swimmer reemerging from the depths of his diving, they all rise from death like arising from a dream.
Agrippa d'Aubigné, Les Tragiques.
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