I Remember Blind Joe Death

John Fahey 1939-2001

Forty-two years ago John Fahey released an album of solo acoustic guitar based upon classical structures - Bartok played by Mississippi John Hurt being the simple concept - in an edition of 100 with money made as a gas station attendant, and invented a genre in the process. Since then he’s been discovered, forgotten, and rediscovered by more communities than I can name, as seemingly contradictory as Windham Hill and the avant-garde, Christians and acid casualties. His passing, 22 Feb 2001, affected me in a way I had frankly thought not possible in days like these where death exists a remote control click away at all times, and often closer. … read on …

Things That Go Bump In The Studio

The Fall - The Unutterable

Mark E Smith used to “sing” of spectres, and told ghost stories with loud amplifiers. Nowadays, though the supernatural atmosphere of “Dragnet” and “J Temperance” has all but evaporated in many respects, he is himself a ghostly presence, a poltergeist in a house of musicians. … read on …

Britney And Co-Dependence: BRITNEY SPEARS - “Born To Make You Happy”

I’d previously stated that I like three things about “Born To Make You Happy”: its beat-based balladry, Britney’s unusually expressive vocals and that key change. I still like these things, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to justify to myself why I’m continually drawn back to its melodramatic charms. It is neither as sonically exciting or fascinatingly bizarre as much of the excellent pop music of the past few months, and Britney’s previous quality singles have both worked only in the context of initial impact, followed by diminishing returns.

Obviously then, I identify with this song somehow; and that’s scary, because as Tom pointed out in his review, there’s something really disturbing about “Born To Make You Happy”. The concepts of absolute devotion and complete emotional servitude sit uncomfortably with the large majority of us at the best of times, and Britney is young enough, small enough, but most of all girlish enough to make the idea quite sickening (too add insult to injury, Britney’s next album is tentatively titled “Oops… I Did It Again”). Certainly it doesn’t harm Reynolds’ sharp assessment that critical identification with Britney is tantamount to pedophilia.

But then, if listeners feel the instinctive need to distance themselves from this overbearingly emotional display, there’s also something bizarrely compelling about it, at least for me. The same reason I love Buffy The Vampire Slayer - the delight in watching the mundane stretch towards greatness - makes me want to applaud Britney, or her writers and producers, for making a pop song a construct to convey something so ambitious, so extreme. In essence, this is Britney’s ultimate manifesto, and it couldn’t be more at odds with the prevailing nature of disposable pop today.

You see, this song isn’t so much a declaration of love to an ex-boyfriend, or her slavering fifty year old fans. It’s really Britney saying “I think love is, or should be like this: if it isn’t perfect it’s terrible.” Love is an ideal (of course), and even if we feel it for someone else that doesn’t stop us from distinguishing between “reality love” - the love of relationships and marriages - and “ideal love”, which may not even be love at all so much as the belief that two people might become inextricably intertwined, unable to find the way out from eachother. It’s ideal love that teenagers and the lonely think about when they aren’t thinking about sex, because we’re not cynical enough or lucky enough to settle for anything less. It’s a puerile ideal - in real life we’re all far too independent and self-centered to want to dissolve ourselves in another person. It’s also selfish: this kind of love, even if reciprocal, would be so demanding, so utterly needy that the only candidate for it would be a clone of oneself. But if it’s puerile and selfish, it is still noble. We’ve been gifted with complex, powerful emotions, and it seems ashamedly small-minded to go through life living “safe” thoughts. Britney’s world might be scary, but it isn’t it correspondingly more alive? Don’t we all ultimately wish, if just for a day, or an hour, or a minute, that we could crash and burn into someone else’s psyche? Leave a mark indelibly on another human being, and receive in turn some imprint of that person upon ourselves, that changes us forever? Well, probably not, but it’s about as far as one can get from the ennervating monotony of the real world, where isolation isn’t so much a problem as a given, so the negatives can easily be brushed aside.

This undeniable urge is captured in two different lines in the song, each turning on the same heartbreaking melodic hook. “I don’t want to cry a tear for you, so forgive me if I do,” Britney sings, holding up another ideal - that love should always run counter to rational thought. We shouldn’t be able to control ourselves in love, just as we shouldn’t be able to pick our partners based on logical ideas of suitablity. Then, “If only you were here tonight,” she cajoles, “I know that we could make it right.” There’s a sharp ascent on the “we”, as if she’s gasping in pain at her own most desired fantasy. For Britney’s character within the song, reuniting with her lover is the equivalent of a self-destruct button - an end to all the agony in one final blast of soul-destroying oblivion. And though she may not actually mean it, she sings it like she does, and that’s more than enough for me. Suddenly it seems that nearly all my favourite songs have some element of this obsession bubbling under the surface. I see in “Born To Make You Happy” the same fundamental message of The Smiths’ “I Know It’s Over”, or in a different way Amira’s “My Desire”, or Kate Bush’s “The Hounds of Love”, or Kitchen Of Distinction’s “On Tooting Broadway Station”, or any number of songs that have quietly resided in my collection, unaware of the common link they all share.

My friend David complains that we are surrounded by media (film, television and music, although not The Media, whose concept is love is usually quite sanitised) that tells us that love is this primal force that swings our lives mercilessly between agony and ecstasy. “It stuffs us up” he says, because it creates unrealistic concepts of what love should be. But the magnetic attraction these larger-than-life characters and their all-consuming passions hold over us tells us more about ourselves, and how we would like to be, than any “gritty” drama or down-to-earth punk holler. So, ultimately, yes I do empathise with “Born To Make You Happy”, because I secretly share some of it’s ideals - ones we might never see, or never want to see, enacted in public, but for a couple of wistful minutes, Britney will do just fine.

Tim Finney, April 2000

ARE YOU LOCAL?

England is DIFFERENT (or SPECIAL if you want to be polite) to everywhere else for many reasons, but one is because our music “industry” (it’s not an industry - making baked beans is an industry, and nobody does THAT in their spare time, writes fanzines about it or has them poured over themselves at weddings. Usually) is SO virulently centralised. Bands in, for instance, France, do not all dream of moving to Paris the SECOND their first tape demo is posted to Le Fanzine De Pop!, for example, but here it sometimes seems that London Is Everything - the major labels are all there, and the “professional” “music” “press” is too, with its “journalists” unwilling to venture past the M25 when new bands can be discovered simply by asking their idiot friends what group they’re in THIS Friday.

ANYWAY, the GOOD thing about this is that we get to have the LOCAL BAND, “local” here meaning “not from London” - bands from Scotland or Wales are, of course, labelled Scottish Bands and Welsh Bands (in that order). That’s not to say Local Bands are the same throughout England - for instance, Derby Bands will want to ROCK, Leicester bands will never have anything resembling a singer, Bristol bands will think they are much cooler than anyone else, and Birmingham bands will own a Stereolab record - but the Basic FACTS about them will remain the same. And here they are for you to learn and enjoy.

LET’S CALL OURSELVES FREE BEER

One of the first things a Local Band needs to do is think of a name, and for many it is the ONLY thing they will ever do. It is the LAW that EVERY band, local or not, MUST attempt to think of a name one night in the pub, and the first idea will ALWAYS be “Let’s call ourselves ‘Free Beer’! Then we’ll get a really big audience!” Other suggestions will be “The Band With No Name”, “Cancelled”, “SEX!!!” and “To Be Confirmed” before it moves on to the bass player (who will be The Organised One) saying “What about Beermat? Table? Floor? Pint?” before they think of something stupid that has to be changed after the first gig.

THE FIRST GIG

The first gig will be a ROCKING TRIUMPH, because all the band will force everyone they have ever known to attend. 90% of these people will never have been to a gig ever in their lives, and will be impressed by the fact that the Local Band are even on STAGE, doubly so if they managed to stop the songs at roughly the same time as each other. After this the Local Band will book 15 gigs at the same place in the next two weeks, not put any posters up because they are now famous, and nearly split up during gig 3 because the man from EMI (who the singer’s sister’s friend’s cousin knows because she cleans the offices next door) didn’t turn up. Then they get a Manager.

THE MANAGER

This will EITHER be the most hopeless friendless berk that the bass player knew at school, or one of the Sad Old Twats who always goes to local gigs. All Local Bands MUST have a manager, because it said in an article in Making Music that it looks “professional” and will help them in the contract negotiations that will never come. The Manager will be responsible for having ideas, and promising to get gigs out of town.

IDEAS AND GIGS OUT OF TOWN

Local Bands and their Managers have some SMASHING ideas. These include:

1. Putting “appearing live” on all posters, just so people don’t think you’ll be appearing on a Vidi-Screen or by Hologram or something.
2. Having a Shit Logo, drawn by the guitarist on his computer.
3. Putting large copyright signs over EVERYTHING, to stop other Local Bands nicking their shit logo.
4. Playing gigs that are “a bit more than just a gig.” This will ALWAYS mean that The Manager owns a slide projector.
5. Playing a gig out of town. This is the DREAM of all Local Bands - Local People just don’t understand, it is time to take the message elsewhere. Usually they will play the Rock Garden in London, and discover that their three mates who always come to their gigs in case there are any Groupies there this time look a LOT smaller in a big venue than they do in the back of their local pub. Also getting there will be a NIGHTMARE beyond comprehension, and will usually involve the drummer and his Fiat Punto.

I KNOW A DRUMMER

It is a FACT proved by Scientists (using Science) that in any major European Conurbation you will never be more than three feet away from a Guitarist. This is why if you ever see an advert saying “Guitarist Wanted” you should NEVER ring, as the person advertising will have no friends whatsoever, possibly for good reasons. However, there will only EVER by 3 drummers in any city, and one of them will be a scary old bloke who plays in the jazz band on Sundays. This is because drummers are funded by the council, or something. They will always be in fifteen other bands, and be a bit older than the rest of the band, and will always drive a Fiat Punto, though the older ones may still own a Maestro. They will be the first to leave the band, at which point the singer will say “Why Don’t We Just Get A Drum Machine?” and the rest of the band will reply “Because We Like To Jam.”

WE LIKE TO JAM

Despite years of evidence to the contrary, Local Bands always think it is a Good Idea to “JAM” during their gigs, or rather, to play the end of a song over and over again forever. You can differentiate the “JAM” section from the tedious monotony of the rest of the set by looking at the singer to see if he is even more confused than usual. This usually takes place at the end of the set, followed by another GRATE Local Band Tradition - Feedback.

FEEDBACK

Despite having been around since Henry VIII first left his lute standing too close to the cupboard, Local Bands still think Feedback is a) revolutionary b) daring and c) a Good Idea, despite it being only d) annoying. Rather than try and USE feedback to make an actual noise or something, Local Bands prefer to use it as a “dramatic” end to the set. During the “JAM” at the end of the last song, the singer will walk off. The bass player will soon follow, and then the drummer will finally give up, leaving the guitarist to enjoy his ONLY moment of Getting Any Attention. He will eventually tire of this, prop his guitar against his amp, fiddle about forever until it feeds back, and then storm off. This looks COOL for about 30 seconds, at which point the illusion will SHATTER when his DAD walks on and switches it off, smiling benignly all the while.

OH NO MY PARENTS ARE HERE

The true Local Band will have Proud Parents - they’re the ones who paid for the expensive amps, in the theory that A New Hobby would be much more educational for their progency than the previous Hobby i.e. Perpetual Masturbation. THUS they will insist on attending a “concert” (and insist on calling it a “concert” and not a “multi-media experience). You can always see them stood at the back, clutching a pint (or gin and tonic for mum). They can be differentiated from the Sad Old Twats because their jeans (worn in an attempt to fit in) will be slightly cleaner.

THE SAD OLD TWATS

Every Local Venue will be supplied, by the Council, with a smattering of Sad Old Twats, who add ambience by standing at the back for most of the gig, then entering the “dressing room” (also known as “the Toilet”) unannounced and saying “Great Gig Lads!” They will probably also work for the Local Listings Magazine.

THE LOCAL LISTINGS MAGAZINE

This will think it is The Guardian, and be full of book, record and cinema reviews that no-one ever reads but are there so the writers can get free books, records and cinema tickets. The rest of the magazine will be full of rave reviews of Local Bands using words and phrases long since made illegal in the Real World e.g. “Rockin’” “Competent” “Committed” “Raw Professionallism” “Bitchin’” “Kick Ass” and “Powerful Slammin’ ROCK.” For some reason all Local Listings Magazines have the “g” removed from their keyboards. They will think they are important because Local Bands put bits of their reviews on their posters, because the Local Band has been told of the importance of the Local Listings Magazine by the Sad Old Twats, and so the circle spins, unto its doom at the End Of The Road.

THE END OF THE ROAD

After about six months the Local Band will play a gig organised by The Manager, perhaps in conjunction with The Local Listings Magazine. Posters, featuring many Good Ideas will go up and there will be MUCH EXCITEMENT, but no-one at all will come. The Parents will have a Round Table Meeting and the Sad Old Twats will have now moved on to the next Small Thing. The Drummer will leave, the bass player will go to college, the guitarist will form a band and the singer will moan about it to his girlfriend FOREVER.

And that’s the way it is, the natural life cycle is SHORT but for good reason. Only one Local Band has ever “made it” and been on the telly, and that was The StereoPhonics, and we wouldn’t want THAT to happen again, now would we?