A Rant About Music
Everyone's into it, everyone wants it but does it want them?
Gonna come off like a complete snob but really I'm a pussycat. I know people who make showing their nostrils a career, who will not hesitate to kick the puppy who is raving about the latest release. They humour no-one. They tend to be the people I work with in a record shop.
My point is that if someones really into something and they're passionate about it then I respect that, even if I think it is a load of tedious crap. For example the Scissor Sisters who, from what I've heard sound like a bad cabaret act whose music appeals to over the hill music industry people who remember the eighties. Give me the early trashy years of Madonna any day (they don't really sound similar but thats the point). But if you feel those crazy siblings really speak to you then don't get upset just because I or whoever else disagree. Tell me off and say that you like them for their camp sense of fun and wacky costumes and I'm just a cynical loser who memorises release dates and thinks he knows the difference between a producer and an engineer.
I suppose that the revealing your favourite new band is quite a serious thing. A way of getting to know someone, a kind of intimacy between two music geeks. Its an admirable to tell someone what you have been living your life by for the last few weeks or months. But having opened up your heart, don't expect anyone to empathise, especially not the proffessional critics who work in record shops. Subjectivity isn't a new idea.
Basically what I want to see is more people having fights about who is better The Darkness or Def Leppard in Camden pubs. No contest. I believe in a thing called love.
Shellac @ All Tomorrow's Parties Sunday 28th March 2004
We had got out of the chalet in record time, just so we could catch their first set at the small stage only to realise that the clocks had gone forward and left us behind. Needless to say when we got there it was packed and they were finishing up. I wasn't disappointed having experienced two of their three afternoon performances at ATP 2002, both of which left me feeling slightly let down. This was probably a case of me not being into rushing out of bed at a festival to see a headline band play in a room that is clearly too small, with the vocals turned down and sleep still in my eyes. This is not what mornings and afternoons are for.
Enough retrospect, the scene moves to the evening of the last day of a great festival and a large good natured crowd have gathered at the big stage. A friend had told me about someone we both knew at the London Scala show doing one of those hip hop style rocking chair dances throughout. Apparently it was like he was doubling up in laughter or just having a fit. I found this quite droll so imagine my suprise when not only myself but half the people around me adopted this very caper. No doubt a testament to the tightness of the groove supplied by Messrs Trainer and Weston. We've all heard of this before but to experience what it does to you is something else.
They play many favourites (well, I can vouch for mine), invariably missing out on others, however tonight everything they touch seems to be turning to gold. The the statutory Q & A session entertains but perhaps goes on too long due to the amount of people holding up hands. I'll forgive them though because Todd quips that Lightning Bolt fans are 'trendy fucks' and he's right, we all are. Albini, in response to someone interrupting his beloved plane song, has the genius to resurrect the term 'cunt-hole' from god knows where and make us all guffaw like we are his bitches. And that night, we were.
Highlights: Dog and Pony Show, My Black Ass, Prayer to God, Copper, Crow
