Also in Mojo we learn that Frank Black has a new album, Dog in the Sand, on the way. So what? you may ask - but on this album Mr. Black has upped the production after years thrashing about in his faux-garage, and he’s also recruited one Joey Santiago to play guitar on it. My head tells me that the record will be a mild disappointment at the very best, but my Pixies-lovin’ heart is actually quite excited about this. Mojo’s website is down, and I can’t locate the official FB website (is there such a beast?) but I can find a little piece where the man talks about his last record and other musical stuff. I still have my T-Shirt from the Teenager Of The Year tour, and even wear it sometimes.
Love’s anatomy: stop sniggering at the back, boy, it’s an interview with Stephin Merritt. Heard most of it before, but I gleaned a few more details about his musical: “It’s a successful invasion from Venus in the form of a pretty love song.”. There’s also an interview with Stephin in the new Mojo, in which the very Mojo-ish question is asked - “If you write 69 Love Songs, not all of them can possibly be heartfelt and personal. Does that matter?”.
POP STAR DATING TIPS - PART 1
Surprisingly you will find that I rather approve of your average joe dating a Pop Star. The reason is simple, the more time he or she spends doting over their new found love, the less time they will have to commit their attrocities of sound upon the world. Nevertheless there are a number of hints and dangers which should be highlighted before you dip your wick in the musicians wax. Hint one is very much one of personal safety.
If a pop star asks you to go down to the river with him - DO NOT GO
For some reason if a pop star feels that a relationship is not going well, they are usually presented with two options. Option one is to wait to be dumped by their partner and write a dirgey album about it (hello Damon Albarn). Option two however is the slightly more unusual act of taking them down to a river and murdering them. And then writing a plaintitive song about said act, asking their audience for forgiveness. Neil Young, PJ Harvey, Bruce Springsteen have all owned up to riverside murders. Nick Cave has - on last count - murdered about fifteen people via the simple use of flouncey dress and babbling brook. He could almost certainly be cited as an accomplice in Polly Jean’s crime too. Neil Young, being a bit simple and all that, took his love down by the river and then shot her. Cave would disapprove of this method, too messy and noisy - but then Neil was always a bit fan of pointless noise (circa - his entire career).
So remember kids, pop star + river = danger. Which brings us nicely on to the greatest unsolved crime in the history of pop music.
RICHARD MARX - Hazard
The only reason that this murder was never solved, and the least amusingly named of the Marx brothers was left to go scot free, was that the police in Hazard County were never all that bright. (I mean - all they had to do to catch Bo and Luke Duke was to wind up their windows.) Still let’s look at the facts as stated over cheap Casio backing:
“I swear I left her by THE RIVER
I swear I left her safe and sound”
That’s a river he’s left her by. You know, pop stars choice place of murderage. I cannot see a court of law where Richard “Up The Proletariat” Marx would not go down. I guess it was just beyond Roscoe P. Coltrane’s brain power to see it. That’s what happens when you grow up in a southern state and your brain is addled by listening to George Fucking Jones all the fucking time.
(As an aside - would you move to a town called Hazard? You’ve got to say the clue is in the question.)
Golden Oldies is a top article about rock critics which asks the forbidden question: are they too old to write about the music? Poking this particular stone makes all the lice curl up in a frenzy of defensiveness.
My point of view - I have no time for the 40-year old film studies professor who is writing a book arguing that rock critics are too old. First off: he’s forty too. Second off: films are just as stupid (and cool) a thing to be spending your time writing about. But ultimately, he’s right - a lot of the current rock critics are too old, even the good ones are too old. I feel too old myself sometimes, and I’m less than half Robert Christgau’s age. It’s not because there’s something inherently wrong in writing about pop when you’re 60 - all writing involves a degree of empathy, after all. We’ve stopped pretending pop is ephemeral, so why should its critics be?
But it’s the very non-ephemerality of pop which is the problem. Since pop isn’t ‘disposable’, it’s likely that you’ll like the same artists and albums at 60 as at 30. And if you’re in a position of critical influence, that’s going to lead to a furring up of pop discourse in general as fond retrospectives, lists, and overpraise of old artists’ mediocre new material take up space which could be spent shining some intelligent light on the really Now stuff. “When was the last time you saw Hendrix?” is Robert Hilburn’s impossibly smug answer to upstart critics. To which the only possible response is, “Who really gives a fuck about Hendrix?”.
The real story here is that this ageing critical population is confined to print. As everyone interviewed says, the younger critics are writing for websites and zines. But they all still seem to think that this is somehow less legitimate than spending your life cranking out shite for some American newspaper. Perhaps the real problem isn’t rock critics’ age, but that they make a career out of something which their readership thinks of as a hobby.
(This link previously covered by Catherine and Fred)
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