Waiting for Whitney to Cark It

Is anyone else sick of this Whitney Houston thing yet? Yes, she’s dead; she died, in a hotel, in a bath, pumped full of alcohol and drugs. 3 American television channels cancelled all their programming for round the clock coverage of her death. There was a report in the Manchester Evening News. There are people all over the world crying their eyes out for this person they've never met, or even know.

She is frequently cited as one of the most influential musicians of any generation. She won over 400 different awards for various things and has sold 170 million records.

I can't jump on this bandwagon.

In her entire studio album career, spanning 6 albums (3 of which had practically the same fucking name, she’s as imaginative as a fucking carrot that one), and 2 soundtrack albums, she wrote 2 songs. 2 fucking songs, so apparently she’s a fucking songwriter. She also did vocal arrangements, which basically means she decided where to sing, or to put it another way, she listened to the songwriter then filled every song with that warble-y shite that female vocalists seem to love. Musicians would call it a trill, vocalists call it vibrato, and I call it a fucking abomination. She chose who she wanted to produce an album, so she's a producer. By this logic, I'm a vocalist, backing vocalist, vocal arranger, transposer, guitarist, guitar tech, bassist, bass tech, percussionist, drummer, songwriter, arranger, transcriber, studio tech, producer, mixer, runner, audio engineer, mastering engineer, A&R, marketing, artist, liaison, and sales, as well as a band member.

It's official. I'm the greatest man who ever lived.

She also never played an instrument, so I’m struggling to see how she can be classed as a musician if she can’t read music or play an instrument. I get sick of the attitude towards vocalists. There are very few bands in which the singer was the best part. If they are writing their own lyrics, then there is something to hook onto but these overblown divas? They are little more than puppets. The songs they sing are traded from singer to singer based on what their management want to push next, all the time being told they are quite literally gods gift. They are overexposed and over-loved, this leads to the fawning attitude.

I fucking hate the fawning. She must have had one of the cleanest arses in America. The amount of tongues up there must have been sickening for the poor mare. You’re so brave Whitney, you’re so beautiful Whitney, you’ll get through it Whitney, We understand you Whitney. It’s a shame they don’t say the same things to people who have real problems. Whitney Houston was, for years, a crack-head of immense proportions, whilst raising her children on the fucking television in a car crash for all of us to see. This I don’t understand. Why are people on the street addicted to crack vilified but somehow Whitney is OK because she’s Whitney.

Michael Jackson was the same, he basically got off all the charges because parents in America didn’t want to believe that Michael Jackson wanted to put wine in a coke can, call it Jesus Juice, get their kids drunk and then fuck them. That was all he was doing. The words “I never had a childhood” is not a defense open to the common man.

There were people looking up to this wreck, all because in 1987 she had a voice and a cheeky smile. An interview she gave in 2009 was billed as “The most anticipated music interview of the decade”. The fucking decade? Jesus Christ. You know what she said in this interview? She said she'd been using copious amounts of drugs, for years and years. Really? I had to wait a whole decade for that pearl of fucking wisdom. I knew that in 1996. It's not like all these signs weren't there. She was relying on technology to keep her voice in check, she had been fired from musicals and performances for “erratic behavior” and she was taking every substance she could get her hands on. She couldn't see the line because it had gone up her nose.

The thing that really annoys me is that her voice isn't really all that good. I find it quite weak. I think that when she is really pushing it, she straddles that line between feedback and strangled cat. She never wants to hold a note. She just wants to move around it. It makes her sound totally indecisive. It's not an attractive type of singing. The absolute worse thing is the plethora of amateurs who then try it. They sound even worse. At least the studio magic keeps Whitney's voice on a note that kind of makes sense. Karaoke nights are full of wannabe girls machete their way through these soft pop ballads all being sold the same fucking dream.

Whitney Houston could have been replaced by anybody. It's quite simple. She was lucky, she happened to be singing in the nightclub Clive Davis happened to walk into. There were hundreds of others, some were probably in the night club next door, but Whitney happened to be chosen. It's the dream. Comes from nothing because of this “special” talent. Our music industry, press, venues, and everything else are part of a machine selling us this dream because it's cheap. They are shitting on us from a great height and loving it. Rags to riches. With as little work and effort as possible. It makes you wonder why you fucking bother.

And you know she isn't going away. There will be literally hundreds of recordings that have been kept back. RCA have been waiting for Whitney to cark it. The amount of re-releases in time for Christmas will be totally sickening. Then, when that's all died down, someone will have been searching in the vaults and will have found something that's never been heard by anyone. Something that was lost in 1987 and has honestly not been kept in the warehouse in the future obituary section, alongside Mariah Carey, Britney Spears, Barbara Streisand and Justin Bieber.

Dealers in dreams and death.

I'd say good riddance, but there's always another one around the corner.

Review: Ren Harvieu - "Through the Night"

There's a heron in the music video and her online biography is funny: Ren Harvieu

Ren Harvieu has a single out - Through the Night. It has singing and drums and a promotional video shot using the instagram app for iPhone. I think it is the sort of thing the cast of (new) Dr Who would listen to in-between takes. Here is Matt Smith sitting on a hollow plastic gravestone listening to Ren Harvieu on the radio; once again he is trying to find the courage to be eccentric in a way the Americans will enjoy, in a way they will think of as quintessentially British. The red-haired sidekick woman creeps up behind him wearing a cyberman mask. She grabs his shoulder. Matt jumps. In a robot voice she says: 'straighten that bow-tie you cunt, we've got a scene in five minutes.' She drops the mask and falls about laughing. Matt Smith watches her with a set expression. There was a time when he found her attractive...

One remarkable thing about 'Through the Night' is, there's a heron in the music video.

If you want to see the heron, but don't want watch Ren having a sexual epiphany in the shadows, the only apparent stimulus being the sound of her own singing voice, skip to 53 seconds, then press stop at 55 seconds. Remember to press stop at 55 seconds.

I give the song 5 herons out of 10 (herons), and at least two of those herons are down to heron in the music video. To put that score in context, I only gave Florence and the Machine's last single 2 herons. Some people said 2 herons was harsh, but what those people didn't realise is, that review was only out of 3 herons.

I used to know someone whose surname was Heron.

 

This is the end of my music review.

This is the beginning of my review of Ren Harvieu's biography - her snivelling, portentous biography - which you can read here.

It is very funny.

At the top of the page, there are two quotes from selected press reviews:

“A voice to die for“ Grazia

“She reveals her remarkable voice, a tender and muscular organ, that evokes some of the great divas of bygone years.” The Observer

Whoever wrote '...tender and muscular organ...' had porn open in another window.

The biography is too long to go over line by line (which is funny  in itself), so, for ease of slyness, I have identified four broad categories of things to pick fun at. The categories are as follows:

1. Assertions that Ren is down-to-earth.
2. Lines so hokey, it's hard to believe they weren't intended to be funny. 
3. Cynical and repeated evocation of back injury. 
4. Claims on the supernatural/that Ren is exceptional/that the hand of god is at work.

There is also an informal fifth category: things that can only have been written by Alan Partridge. I will highlight these as they arise by underlining them.

Here are five examples from each category (my comments are in [] brackets):

1. Assertions that Ren is down-to-earth

1. ...her manner as down-to-earth as the streets of Broughton in Salford, which is where she was born [what a stroke of luck to be born in the exact place you just happen to be as down to earth as. I'm as down to earth as Donetsk in the Ukraine, but I was born in Bristol]...
2. ...schooled in dusty youth club contests rather than star-spangled pop schools...
3. Although Ren loved music, she wasn’t a diva in the slightest. She just wasn’t arsed, she laughs [it's a strange thing, not being arsed to be a diva].
4. She was happier in lock-ins with friends than out in the spotlight.
5. She’ll remember her Dad’s stories, his old lessons in stagecraft: ‘back against the wall, chest out, hit ‘em’. She’ll remember the teachers who told her she couldn’t sing, who have recently tried to befriend her on Facebook – she clicks ignore when she sees them, and beams broadly as she does so [needless to say, Ren had the last laugh].

2. Lines so hokey, it's hard to believe they weren't intended to be funny.

1. So here she still is – and how she sings.
2. her voice transports us to a place where youthfulness becomes yearning, where dreams become dramas, and music aches longingly, full of beauty and power.
3. [This whole paragraph] Her first song was Through The Night, and she still hears a shy girl in its old-fashioned swing [what?]. In Twist The Knife, she hears a young soul too, but also a mood starting to reach out to the ears beyond the room [what?]. Once the mood reaches you, you will hear something extraordinary [what?]. In Tonight, a new soundtrack queen finds her feet [w...]. In Do Right By Me, a country soul is set free [no]. In Forever In Blue, we return to a time of Autumn Leaves, sentimental journeys, flying to the moon [WHAT!?]. We hear an effortless vocal with no flounces or fuss, stunning us every time it soars [gnuuuuuuffffffgghhh].
4. Protective friends were told she was now like the Bionic Woman, a girl with metal in her spine, even more iron in her will.
5. Then Ren will open her mouth, and start to sing; as she does, a new angel of the North will ascend.

3. Repeated, cynical evocation of back injury.

[Now, it really does sound like a terrible accident, but I think the author has chosen to present it in a cynical manner. Ren is being sold to us as 'the girl who recovered from a back injury' just as much as she is 'the singer with talent'. The story has been drawn out to a morbid extent and it has a kind of sinister, ingratiating tone...which is quite funny. It's basically one of those x-factor back (no pun intended) stories.]

1. ...only four months after she thought she would never walk again, she is walking back to us.
2. How close these came to these being her first and only recordings; how close she came to these being her legacies.
3. She remembers every moment: the voices around her, the lack of feeling in her legs, the sensation that this was it, this is how it ends.
4. In this specialist unit, she had the worst injury on the ward, and many of her fellow patients had been told they would never walk again. 
5. Ren’s brush with death has given her life so much more depth, she says. She was determined before; just imagine how much she is now [when I try to imagine, I just see  herons].

4. Claims on the supernatural/that Ren is exceptional/that the hand of god is at work. 

1. She had no idea why she kept performing; something kept her going [this 'she did not know why' stuff crops up several times throughout the biography, and, interestingly, as a lyric in Through the Night – which makes me think Ren herself is the author].
2. She was shy as a child, observing everyone while the world whirled around her [I hear it was the same with Leonardo Da Vinci], soaking up the music she loved like a sponge [sponges soak up water, not music].
3. By a miracle, she calls it – her first one, before the huge one [meaning her recovery] – manager Paul Harrison chanced upon her page, falling in love with her lovely young blues [' lovely young...soft, yielding, boob-– BLUES'].
4. She was a strange one, she knew that [Ren uploads bathroom mirror shot to facebook. The caption: I'm a strange one].
5. [The night the accident happened] It felt strange from the start, she says; as if something was going to happen.
6. But somehow, Ren could feel things. Doctors kept asking if she had any sensations; one day she was able to move her legs like she was cycling. After six weeks, she wheelchaired [WHEELCHAIRED] herself into the kitchen to make a cup of tea; her doctors shaking their heads, not knowing how this was happening [the kettle wasn't even plugged in]. The day she washed her hair by herself, she knew she would be alright. She left the hospital in August, walking with a cane; she is now getting better, slowly but surely, every day.

There needed to be six in that last one.

The biography puts me in mind of Darth Vader's hypothetical bum flap. On the one hand, it has been designed to look all sleek and stern, painted a particularly evil shade of black by a team of grim-faced Imperial engineers with British accents, but on the other hand it's a bum flap. And bum flaps are funny.

Imagine Darth Vader's changeless facial expression, that sick, raspy breathing. At last he is alone. His gloved hand creeps toward his chest plate. He fingers the glowing red button, the one that nobody is allowed to ask about – it's the bum flap release. He presses it. The bum flap falls open behind him. More laboured, mechanical breathing. A bloodless Sith bottom marked by strange scars and dead veins protrudes through the newly opened orifice. It seems tentatively to sniff the air: an uncertain badger on the cusp of twilight. He's been needing this dump for ages.

Rock's Backpages

~ Chester Whelks tunnels deep beneath the sarcophogus of the Rock Writers' Mausoleum.

To celebrate Manchester Library Card Holders’ newly granted access to Rock's Backpages, a wonderful online repository of a wealth of material dating back to the birth of the Rock, the Roll, and the writing thereupon (but deserves special condemnation for containing not one article on The Daddy of Rock N’ Roll: Wesley Willis), a select number of diligent Manchester Library user-musos are gathered in an oak-paneled study room in the City’s makeshift Library in Elliot house on Deansgate, for a pub-quiz style competition. Sans alcohol, naturally. The idea behind this event presumably is that the loser could always bolster their woeful knowledge by accessing the aforementioned website. Leading proceedings is Brother John Robb – author of a Demi-Century of articles to be found on the site in question, on subjects ranging from The Roses to Rapeman and My Bloody Valentine.

The backpages of Rock magazines were always to my mind, the preserve of frustrated musicians seeking to make contact with likeminded individuals, isolated by geography or a fierce, alienating taste. While not, I imagine, the intent behind the title, its still very apt, considering music writers are supposedly just that: Frustrated, failed and embittered musicians. Jealousy is their Muse. Source of both their scorn and fauning. Her untouchable honeydewed mammilla swings pendulously, each extreme of a nipple's swing ticking away the seconds of their wasted lives, agonizingly out of reach of the frantic suck of their pucker. Not Robb, who has gorged himself to succor at bosom, bush and backdoor of the Floosie-Muse - a Renaissance Man-Jack of all trades.

Maybe I’m in the wrong job?

John Robb? What a job…

…but which one?

He does it all, having earned his Punk Rock chops in 1977's The Membranes. After their dissolution he osmosed his way into writing for seminal music mag SOUNDS, before forging Punk Soul combo 'Goldblade', for whom he acts as bug-eyed, hoarse-throated vocalist. He's also recognisable to a portion of the docile populace as a regular Talking Head on self-indulgent TV nostalgiagasms such as 'I Love The…(Past)'

He's a Mental Gentleman and a Rock N’ Roll Scholar. A riddle wrapped-inside an Enigma, and a Quizzical wizard, but tonight, he's pointing his throbbing, knotted wand squarely at us...

...but first, if I might be so bold as to foray into an alien vocation, I’d like to step off the beaten track into intimidating wilderness (where still looms the odd Barn casting a shadow the colour of dried-up blood) and impress upon you a poem.

THE 'GROWING-OLD' RADIO SHOW

A November 9am is worth just as much as a summer's 6,

Or at least, the skies plough their clouds with a similar, if chillier, indifference.

While last night's poos commute through the sewer…

I sit-up from slumber and enmesh myself headfirst in the switchboard-limbo of a morning radio DJ.

The delicious intern screens me like she did the comb segmenting her hair at 5,

Ironing-out any personality chasms that might house unforeseen twitches or nits.

A Tourette’s sufferer stutters at her inability to p-p-p-put him on the Nun-fucking Air,

Forgetting she’s in her Hitler-position based on knitting-pattern and fringe-skirting logistics.

("Of course I've fucked some ugly girls, the good-looking ones are too much hard work.")

Quarantined in the Leonard Cohen introspection of the anechoic chamber of a telephonic waiting area,

I beatbox-compete with my own tachycardic biorhythms,

Until the paterfamilias of the wheels of steel eventually lets me out and welcomes me in:

“Long-time caller, first time listener...

Even as a toddler I promised I’d never be here, providing the likes of you with your microphone goo,

The whooping cough of your infantile, mongoloid colic.

Using my aimless AM to populate FM radio with banality chatter for the work-bound jerks.

The grumpy sun screaming out from behind lung cancer cloud cover promising that, despite jobs to the contrary -



I was alive.

                        Dancing about Grave Architecture: “Fuck Art. LET’S DANCE!”

Look at these people: They don’t know either. 

Rock’s Backpages crystalizes a time when Music Writing was an invaluable source of information for bands that couldn't get mainstream airplay or TV time, gaining notoriety instead via reliance on fans’ mix tapes, festival attendance, resulting word of mouth. Now our information is trickled down the thighs of the go-to guys – from the Pitchfork, the Stereogum, disseminated by Twitter and cast to the digital winds. Rock’s Backpages is a familial Mausoleum for the Golden Age of Rock Writers, resplendent with various crypts, niches and sarcophagi, and I heartily recommend it as an indispensable reference pension.


But remember to siphon some life through your pipe.

Easter, Outer Dark + Cyril Snear - Dulcimer 12/1/12

“No sooner is Christmas in the bin than we’re thinking about Easter.”

The pine needle outlines tell me the bin men have finally disposed of the Christmas tree corpses that have besieged my street for a week. I’m Febreze-ing my bollocks-off this frosty Friday the 13th, because as chance would have it, I’m sat only in these pants, and last night saw fit to damn them to the stench of ‘Kaltenberg Hell’. Why don’t they arbitrarily randomize the smell of Febreze? This stink is an insinuation of filth. Much the same as Hospitals seem like they’re frantically distracting your olfactics from their clandestine death.

It’s refreshing to be away from the inner circle of the City Centre’s scene & herd – the overambitious bollocks of atrocity boys and cupcake-baking girls…but then again, this is the bohemian outpost, of which I’m swiftly reminded by a streetlamp in knitwear as I make my way down Wilbraham Road.

Dulcimer is dully simmering as a band sound checks upstairs, attempting to approximate the date (“1-2…1…1-2″) and Thursday night pints are sunk in its cosy corners amid handovers in conversation. Bypassing the vacant ticket table at the top of the stairs I inadvertently eavesdrop on the start time being pushed back to 9 0′clock from the stated ’8′. When I come around to the idea of descending for last minute cigarettes and drinks, I think it best to introduce myself to the guy now manning the desk, who identifies himself as Paul from ‘Outer Dark’, and offers an outstretched hand along with his thanks for coming down. My cynicism insists this is an act of pandering to ‘the press’, but is seemingly sincere enough to make me hope his band isn’t shit.

Having minus’d my life by 11 minutes while Kitty Saros was at the bar pledging her allegiance to the cirrhosis sorority after pleading free drinks from the bar after some unrepentant cunt vanquished her vodka, its time for another insinuation of villainy as we rendezvous with…


CYRIL SNEAR

 

“This song’s called ‘My Pet Goat’”.

Rather than the menace suggested by the all-but-naked, pink skinned, cigar-chomping nemesis of Evergreen Forest, the now audience-plumped upstairs is enveloped by the harmonic fretboard slaps and sit-atop-clobber-box of tonight’s stripped-down Cyril Snear, swaying with the mystical whimsy of a time signature reminiscent of Jeff Buckley’s ‘Grace’ with similarly earnest, if less adventurous, vox frosting-it. Skinny Arms gee-tar man ironically has a ‘Fear and Loathing’ tee on, with it’s Steadman illustration of our narcotic-Don Quixote & Gonzo-Sancho Panza cannonballing toward the rollercoaster ride of the undulating gradient of Vegas’ skyline, which is at odds with the temptation to cosy-up to bobos in the redundant bass drum’s muting duvet & pillow combo.

OUTER DARK

Outer Dark look like Middle class white guys who profess to like Tom Waits, and shake their flaky heads at sacrilegious Cookie Monster comparisons. The opening song is a vociferous behemoth reminiscent of Mastodon, with intermittent funky Jazz schisms and underlying Pearl Jam lamentations. On the whole, they make a sound that simpletons think-of as ‘Grunge’.

A bandaged hand whose brother I shook, strangles the fretboard and neck of a Gibson SG. Funky stop/start nipple-high bass pulsations are wrought by a guy that looks like Jeffrey Treblezine to whom I owe a month-overdue review of The Fall’s ‘Ersatz GB’ and is freaking me out. Everything slides into a Roni Size avalanche of overabundant beats, before cascading into ‘Morning Bell’ skibbidy-bop catch-up drumming. The arpeggiated guitar riff Goosy Ganders upstairs, downstairs, while the keyboard tinkles like streetlights on rainy Rhodes.

‘Outer Dark’ aren’t my cup of tea, but tea isn’t my cup of black coffee. Outer Dark aren’t as outré or noir as their name suggests, but frenetically caffeinated enough to be of interest…

"WEIRD ERA, ARE YOU PLAYING SOUNDS FROM THE OTHER CITY?"

…having said that, while they’re winding-up their set, I’m distracted by Adam from ‘Weird Era’ who is front and centre, mentally dissecting them for himself. I’ll spare you the metaphorical cock-suck I undertook and just tell you that Adam says: Yes. Yes they are.

EASTER

Like Jesus, I’m late for the start of Easter. While I’m wondering if that duct taped guitar strap on the lead singer’s Fender Jaguar is really necessary or just a tokenistic Indie Rock affectation, stage left’s Merzbow T-Shirted guy Greenwoods his guitar into a Three Mile Island of a sonic cacophony courtesy of what he’s learned from his Japanese noisemeister idol, undercutting the coolly crafted Indie Pop the song once was, and everything vapourises into cloudy screams reminiscent of ‘Yrself Is Steam‘, until I no longer give a fuck about the duct tape’s integrity, as I’m blown away. I don’t know what else to say. Easter held my attention hostage with unknown melodies underscored with skilfully invoked explosions, ploughing tinnitus into us as guitarist and bassist physically shifted their most unwieldy speaker to the front of the stage as the showstopper.

PrettyfuckingWOW.

Easter is, like, a festival of Death & Resurrection which has been supplanted by chocolate eggs, which presumably are a metaphor for the shit we feed our children, i.e. the fairytale of a well meaning Biblical hippy whose depressing execution needed a happy ending tacked onto it so we don’t get all Emo over the futility of our existence.

‘Easter’, resurrected my faith in Rock N’ Roll or something…that’s all I’ve got for my showstopper.

Hey, it’s better than saying I was chained to a radiator with a stiletto in the testicles.

But I did spill beer on my leg, honest.


Photos: Kitty Saros

Review featured on Manchester Scenewipe

Fanclub Flyers : Stone Love, The Phoenix 1999

Fanclub Flyers : Fridays at South 1998

Impressions of Manchester: A Transcendental Perspective

I have never physically been to Manchester, but one evening, meditating on the reflection of a candle flame in a bowl of Sasquatch milk, I believe my consciousness went there.

[You can replicate the experience by following this procedure:

• Prepare strong black coffee
• Spread poo over signed photograph of Jack Duckworth
• Get into lotus position
• Place dirty photograph on knee
• Hold breath for three minutes
• Exhale like affected spiritualist
• Quickly drink coffee
• Look up at light bulb (>80w)
• Sneeze
• Do candle/sasquatch milk meditation (see Fig. 1) 
• Make up lies about consciousness going to Manchester]

Fig. 1

 At first there was a kind of infinite nothing, only not a perfect nothing because it smelt like a catered holiday to Majorca – a mix of super-sweet orange  juice, sun tan lotion spread over fat backs, and pale slabs of veal bleeding under heat lamps – then I was in Manchester. It was pretty weird.

There were lots of red brick houses all squashed up into long rows, and each house had a look of defilement on its face, as though it didn't like being touched by the other houses. The roofs of the houses were hippopotamus-grey and seemed to sweat...like hippopotamuses. In the distance, there were tall blocks of flats that looked like strips of yellowing graph paper, complete with rubbed-out pencil marks where someone had messed up the scale for the y-axis more than once.

I floated in for a closer look.

Every flat had a balcony for drying wet Manchester United towels and storing deflated footballs, and people came out and stood on them to shout WANKER at me, even though all I was doing was astral projection and a bit of shimmering. There was a scary pugnacity about the balcony people (see fig. 2), like cheekiness turned sour by repetition. I thought I could identify myself as a friend by shouting out that my favourite player was Dave Beckman, but this only seemed to anger them further.

Fig. 2

The air was a bit like church air after a long sermon on Satan's minions, and it smelt faintly of burning coal dust. The birds didn't want to fly in it, so they lined up on walls and telephone wires looking slightly irradiated but quite well fed. There was a young boy just staring up at the birds, and that young boy was Bez – a bit of time travel must have happened because Bez isn't a young boy (physiologically) at the time of writing this.

Milkmen were delivering milk, and along with the milkmen there were men delivering bread. Such a thing as a 'bread round' existed, and it was existing right in front of my disembodied eyeballs. Other men delivered pieces of scrap metal for uncles to tinker with. There were a lot of uncles in Manchester, and they all used cologne-scented talcum powder instead of lynx - despite having tried lynx last Christmas when their daughter-in-laws gave them some as part of a festive gift pack that also included shower gel and shampoo. Most of the uncles preferred lynx to talcum powder, but simply had no idea about where one might go to buy it.

Then I possessed a woodlouse and did some spying. What were ostensibly conversations between husband and wife over breakfast were, in fact, two parallel monologues on unrelated matters. The men talked about how much they hated flamboyancy, whilst the women dissected the merits of cheese and onion crisps, why the snack is good, but also bad, but also good, etc. The expressions and phrases used were creative and funny: precise, frank language is reserved only for combat.

Bez's mother comes outside. She's holding a rolling pin with bits of yellow dough stuck to it. 'You have to choose between being introspective or being a brute,' she says. Bez laughs and starts doing the Bez dance. She lets him off, again.

The Smiths are being chased by Oasis down an alleyway. Andy Rourke clatters into some bins, falls. Noel leaps on top of him, straddling Rourke in a way that looks something like the cowgirl sex position. Noel has never actually punched a man before, and he's feeling uneasy about the proximity of the craven bassist's willy to his bum hole.
''it 'im our Kid,' demands Liam in a Mancunian accent because he's from Manchester.
Noel can't do it. Instead he screams like a snapped nerd and rains down a thousand indecisive pats to Rourke's head. It looks like he's playing the fucking bongos, thinks Liam. Rourke thinks it's worse thing that's ever happened.
Morrissey escapes, though, and writes 'This Night Has Opened My Eyes'.
Then I went back to the infinite nothing. It still smelt of a catered holiday to Majorca, but now there was music – Manchester-type music. The musicians had character and humanity and the male ones made it seem okay to be male. They seemed authentic, like blues players who'd decided pop was the real thing, or punk, or post punk, or whatever. Oasis were also playing.

I came back into my body and noticed that the Sasquatch milk had turned into Sasquatch cheese. I had an erection. My mother came in – she sort of knocked and turned the handle at the same time, which was annoying.
'What's all that over your face?' She asked.
I felt my face. It was Sasquatch cheese.
'It's Sasquatch cheese,' I said.
Nothing happened; then something made me look down at my erection. She followed my eyes down and flinched when she saw it.
'Mum, I...'
'Get a job.'

But I didn't get a job: I waited until she'd left the room, then put the radio on. The DJ was using the word 'new' too much. He interviewed a band from (and by 'from' I mean 'living in') Manchester that sounded full of cheery earnestness; they were happy to be alive in a world that was treating them well. They did a song: the singer's voice was all squelchy with sham emotion and the band had used four tonnes of flashing electronic equipment to produce something that sounded like a muzak take on a bad Paul McCartney song. The DJ said 'new' a few more times, then did another little bit of interviewing. The band talked about their new music video, how it was filmed on a beach and had some CGI in it. The drummer seemed to have less soul power than the average deal or no deal audience member. My erection disappeared. It all felt bit like a New Labour party conference, somehow; the psychic landscape was the same.

Then I ate an apple and thought about the backlash.

This is Sir Ian Morgan's inaugural post for The Mancunia - he's positively our favourite non-Mancunian music writer.

Fanclub Flyers : Thursdays at 5th Avenue 1998

Fanclub Flyers : Tuesdays at 42nd Street 1998

Fanclub Flyers : Thursdays at Jilly's RockWorld 1998

Riot Hit Gig : R. Stevie Moore, Manchester 2011

R. STEVIE MOORE : THE CASTLE, OLDHAM STREET, MANCHESTER, WEDNESDAY AUGUST 10th 2011

The gig of the century, that never transpired, through a riot-hit Mancunian mist.

Spreading the good word in dirty-earnest.

If the theory of Parallel Universes has any validity, I can guarantee you, you’re in the wrong one. In a certain groove of the musical Multiverse, R. Stevie Moore is a name as familiar to your echo-self as any of The Beatles, only in that reality, these Beatles-of-a-lesser-John performed in obscurity, before calling it quits. Luckily, there exists in our reality the stubborn endeavours of a Bona Fide Genius, who for some reason missed the fame train. Or rather, it missed him. 

The Beatles analogy is maddeningly valid, and R. Stevie Moore has written more songs of optimum quality than had all four been as prolific as an amphetamine-addled Daniel Johnston in the 1980s, for double the decade they dominated. Like Johnston, Moore is regarded as an Outsider Musician, but for no other reason than he has predominantly home-recorded his material, and is dizzyingly prodigious. Moore’s mental state is not in question, though after nearly 40 years on the periphery I’m not sure how. 

His father Bob Moore was a respected musician in his own right, as a bass player most commonly associated with Elvis Presley & Roy Orbison - but also with Bob Dylan, Jerry Lee Lewis, Sammy Davis Jr, Andy Williams and Quincy Jones to name but a few. Such a talent-gasm must have sent shockwaves reverberating through Bob’s seminal vesicles considering R. Stevie rivals them all.

From the moment I heard ‘Melbourne’, I knew I had found what I was ultimately looking-for.

Little did I know how completely nut-punched I would be with every subsequent song I heard. Every fucking song I heard on ‘Phonography’ sounded like a classic from a parallel universe. ‘I’ve Begun to Fall in Love’ is just scrotum-shrinkingly good. Devastatingly incredible.

Like the prequel to ‘Caroline, No’ by Brian Wilson, (via ‘Don’t Talk, Put Your Head On My Shoulder’ maybe), it is so innocent, so beautiful. so DOOMED. I can’t help but contort my face with every chord-change to represent the particular feeling it evokes, as it meanders so unexpectedly into each incongruous, but perfect chord. Such a weird uncertainty… his voice seems to be so defiant, and sure of how righteous his love is for Carolynn, as it fights against the lugubrious, mournful-sounding chords, that seem to simultaneously echo, and negate the feelings that formed lyrics.

Shortly after discovering his music I embarked upon a flight. It had been a while since I’d done so. It’s not natural, and anyone in their right mind would have to get their mental doormen in-place to stave-off the panicky disaster-bastards from bleeding-in, hooting and gnawing at the console, their shit-filled pants spilling out undetected among the stench of the apocalyptic in-flight meals. My particular mental-employees would lullabye his songs through my mind, and I found I was afraid to die only because, at that point - I had just three of his albums.

The feeling I was enveloped-by, in the midst of discovering his music, was nothing less than love itself. My girlfriend caught us. One day while puttin’ up the groceries, she turned around to see a most peculiar look on my face. The expression spoke of a man who has indulged in pocket-Billiards to such an extent, that his face betrays his secret tournament to the watching world. I was so enraptured by the choice of chord change on ‘What’s The Point?!!’, she thought I’d friction-singed my intimates.

So selfish am I, that upon discovering music that I so abruptly crumble-to, my instinct is to keep it to myself. But in this case it became impossible. That selfish desire fell-away the more blank faces I encountered when spreading the word. If you stumbled across a cure for cancer, could you keep it to yourself?

R. Stevie Moore might not cure cancer (at least, he’s not been widely regarded-enough yet to be put to the scientific test, or exposed to a large enough demographic), but if you had the misfortune to contract-it having been lucky enough to have discovered him – you’ve had a good run.

R. Stevie Moore has written more than enough music to last you a lifetime, there’s just something about it that sets my soul aglow. 

During an evangelical bout of fevered letter writing in 2009 which included the director of ‘The Devil & Daniel Johnston’ Jeff Feuerzeig, ex Public Image Ltd Bassist Paul Jones, and BBC commissioning editors and their minions, I spoke to Half Japanese’s Jad Fair, who theorised that R. Stevie’s relative anonymity was down, in part, to a reluctance to play live.

"I think part of the reason he isn’t better known is that he hardly ever plays out. I did 3 shows this year on the same bill with him and he sounded superfine.”

                                                                                    Jad Fair, Half Japanese

Well, now he is, on Wednesday he plays Manchester for the first time, and it’s your chance to play a part in a long overdue and deserved ascent into recognition. You’ll either come and be enraptured, or come and be able to say that you were there. Either way, it’s definitely not something you want to miss.

His forever-indebted Mooreon,

Chester Whelks

Retrospective : Placebo, Manchester Academy 1998

PLACEBO with ULTRASOUND, MANCHESTER ACADEMY, OCTOBER 18th 1998

1998 was the gig-going year of my youth - I attended many gigs before and after this year, but 1998 was the year when I truly felt like I'd gained my post-school, young-adult status and freedom.
I had a small amount of income from my part-time job working at Afflecks Palace, and still living at home meant I could spend the cash any way I so desired, which mostly meant attending 2-3 gigs a week.
When I picked-up an Academy flyer during one of my shifts at Afflecks, and saw Placebo were coming to Manchester, I elatedly ran to a phone box to call my then-best friend, and offered to pay for her ticket in advance - this was a show I thought would sell out almost straight away.

You see, for us indie kids who gained our seminal self-defined musical education via the twangy guitars riffs and jolly-holiday sentiments of Brit Pop, Placebo were like a heart-jumping, body-seizing last gasp of fresh air when all was starting to feel musically stifled and suffocating.
Placebo were cool. We were just that bit too young to really appreciate Nirvana and the rough-and-tumble of Grunge, with all it's heavy guitars and politics. However, with Placebo, we had our own opportunity to really rock-out and a reason to wear eye liner, a chance for indie kids to dip their toes in the edgy and unknown world of heavy indie rock, which was sprinkled with hints of Goth, Metal and Grunge. Placebo were exciting.

They also spoke a language which had laid dormant since the age of Grunge; the voice of the disgruntled, unappreciated outsiders to mainstream culture. The Gothy S&M front of Brian Molko, along with his androgynous and svelte silhouette and his offbeat lyricism gave the "townies" and conservative types something to gripe about and, quite ignorantly, fear.
Other than the twee and tongue-in-cheek statements made by Jarvis Cocker in songs like "Mis-Shapes"

You could end up with a smack in the mouth, just for standing out

there really wasn't anyone around fighting the corner for those of us on the side-lines in the popularity game any more.
Then came Placebo. "Teenage Angst", "Nancy Boy", "Without You I'm Nothing" and "You Don't Care About Us" screamed at us from a void that was waiting to be filled.

When I arrived at the Academy I sensed the euphoric anticipation in the air, it was intoxicating. I was thrilled to find that prog-rocking, alt-indie outfit Ultrasound had been brought in as support to Placebo, and I knew this was going to be an important gig experience.
However, I didn't realise why this gig would be a cornerstone in my social and musical life until Ultrasound came to the stage.

It's no secret that "Tiny", lead singer of Ultrasound, possibly has the most ironic stage-name in music history. He is, of course, really not tiny at all, and in fact quite large, in regards to the BMI spectrum.
As far as I was aware, he was quite rightly proud of his large stature, and this being just before dawn of the 21st century, he made no qualms in supporting the other culture "outsiders" like himself.

Most notably, Tiny was employed by kitsch working class-champion and entrepreneur Wayne Hemingway, to strut his topless, ample torso down the Catwalk with "Unique" emblazoned across his midriff in red lipstick. Frankly, he didn't seem to give a shit, and nor did I, I appreciated his forth-right stance on self expression.
Ultrasound's most significant release was "Stay Young" - tribal drums, swooping and glazed Neil Young-esque guitars. Fantastic lyrics about urging the young not to relinquish their youth in pursuit of unknown pleasures. Then the spine-tingling, operatic vocals of Vanessa Best to top it all off... it still remains one of the most unappreciated tracks to be released in the 1990's.

In my mind, this Placebo gig was a hive of the unappreciated. I naively thought that we, the audience, were all there in a kind of musical-stronghold, heralding the concept of individualism and the right to exist in whatever form you so desired, as long as you didn't harm anyone else in the process.

It turned out I was wrong, oh so very wrong.

Ultrasound arrived on stage and burst straight into the first song of their set. When they finished, they were met with a shoddy round of applause, and then, a barrage of insults.

"WHO ATE ALL THE PIES?!"

"GET OFF THE STAGE YOU FAT BASTARD!!!"

Groups of the audience chanted together, laughing, booing. My soul took a stage dive.

What happened to this "Hey we're all in this 'being on the outside' together" ethos I thought we were all here to champion? Around me I heard sneering comments about Tiny's waistline, churlish cackles about him being too fat to be on the stage.

I was dumbstruck. I came to realise that these "alternative" folks were nothing but a bunch of judgmental, cool-kids who'd come to see the freak in leather sing about lube, ass and cross-dressing. They'd somehow got the memo that Placebo were the kind of music you should listen to if you want to piss off mummy and daddy, and that was the only substance to their attendance.

Tiny's facial expression dropped slightly once the insults started, from eager excitement, to crestfallen acquiescence of the crowds' disapproval of his apparently problematic physique.
My heart dropped along with his features, these aren't my people, I am ashamed of these cultural interlopers.

In a brief break betwixt the heckling, I emphatically screeched out an opposing "I LOVE YOU ULTRASOUND! I LOVE YOU TINY!", my 16 year old girl-voice lost in the crowd.

Ultrasound boldly continued on with their set, but not without a taint of rejection and sadness to their performance. Vanessa Best could be seen stage-right, occasionally interjecting her bass-lines with a snarling exchange of "WANKER" with various crowd members.
The crowds continued to disrupt the Ultrasound show, until Molko made an impromptu appearance mid-set, when he promised the crowd they would be going home without seeing Placebo perform if they refused to show a little goddamn respect.

I knew times were a-changing, it was undoubtedly the first time I realised that being "unique" was often actually nothing more than a badge to be worn by those whom didn't have anything noteworthy about themselves otherwise.
You can dye your hair black, wear black nail polish, tattoo and pierce yourself from head to toe, but when you start deriding a man for being too fat to sing on stage, there's some serious hypocrisy that needs resolving.

After Ultrasound vacated the stage, Placebo followed-up soon after, with Brian Molko slinking his way under the spot light, a glint of indignation in his eyes as he surveyed the whistling and screaming crowd.
Two songs in to the set, he moved close to the microphone and said quite sternly "THIS SONG'S FOR ULTRASOUND. IT'S HOW THEY FEEL ABOUT YOU" at which point, the band erupted in to "You Don't Care About Us", full-throttle.

You Don't Care About Us by Kittysaros

It was Placebo's FUCK YOU to the paying audience, without putting too many noses out of joint.

I sensed a vague nuance of embarrassment in the audience once Molko made his musical statement on behalf of Ultrasound. It seemed as though those that had previously been jeering Tiny, were somehow surprised to find that Brian wasn't exactly on their side.

I put my anger and disappointment in my peers straight back in to the event, and allowed myself to be thrown about the writhing crowd and mosh-pit of the Academy. I scream-sang so loud, I lost my voice for 2 days afterwards. I left the gig sweaty, tired, musically-fulfilled, but with a small dent in my heart that had been otherwise quite pristine beforehand.

Think I'll leave it all behind, save this bleeding heart of mine.
It's a matter of trust.
Because.
You don't care about us.
It's your age, It's my rage.

On Having One's CAKE & Eating It.

You bastard hack. My, oh my, but that's a bad title. Lazy. Like you've been waiting for an opportunity to use it…

“But it really happened!”

Well, nearly happened. 

The charismatic John McCrea is explaining how this ‘evening’ is going to work as the band ready to ease themselves into the 'INTERMISSION'.

"'INTER-MISSION'. It's such an adult thing to do. We take our time, savour the first half, take a short break and reconvene with renewed vigour."

"YOU CAN HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT!" - it occurs to me to say at that moment…

But I stop short of shouting it. Maybe it's my internal critic? More likely the prohibitive bar prices in this newly refurbished Ritz (lowest priced pint £3.90), which are a far cry from my free pint of Hoffmeister and £1 bottles of beer when I came here as a teen in the 90s for Monday'sfamed 'Alternative Night'. We all complained about how shit it was. We all returned the next week to say the same.

Though at some point, I obviously stopped before the night did, as I've not been back here since before I got into CAKE, which was admittedly pretty late. I used to get here early, before 10pm in order to quaff the gratis Hoff and boost my confidence in pursuance of the girls. Once sufficiently emboldened with additional Pils, I'd sit in a corner looking miserable.

You know, really putting out 'the vibe'.

I find my corners of choice have been walled-off when entering The Ritz for the first time in 11 years. Though it still has the majority of its former glory in situ. The balconies, bars on either side and, contrary to popular belief the fabled dancefloor which remains as bouncy as when my teenage feet in dervish Converse scuffed it-up in the '90s (My assumption as to the proliferation of this bit of misinformation is first-timers attending this resurrected Ritz and finding an actual dancefloor rather than the trampoline they were presumably expecting.)

I got into CAKE with their 'Comfort Eagle' album of 2001, immediately taken by the deadpan hilarity arising out of the absurd self-reverence of the arrogant, album-opening 'Opera Singer', the Commissioning of a Symphony in ‘C’ by an Austrian Nobleman, or ‘ClassicalGas’s Evil Twin, ‘ArcoArena’ which sounds like the kick-ass opening of an Educational programme from the late 70s/early 80s they made you watch at school, from which the theme was your only enduring impression. CAKE needn’t kick the shit out of you, opting instead for funky bass, the odd whip-cracking “H’YA!” underscored by Mariachi brass. 

In the live environment, as with his recorded delivery McCrea takes a stepping stones ‘cross the stream approach, seeming reluctant to land his vocals on the spots you’re willing him to, instead letting the music almost pass him-by before casually relinquishing his grip on the lyrics. Similarly tonight’s setlist, being the ‘Evening With’ that it is, plays it safe refusing to abandon the sure-footed retreads of old favourites - after the hilarious and agonizingly drawn-out ‘WAR’ theme from Rocky IV, CAKE finally sidle on and launch into Willie Nelson’s ‘Sad Songs & Waltzes’, McCrea weaves in and out of the stage’s placement-indicating ‘painted tape’ (careful to avoid an incongruously planted sapling sat at the front of the stage), throwing his white gloves into the crowd as he kicks the show off proper with ‘Opera Singer’ before the band hand over co-writer credit of their ad hoc setlist to the temperature of the room. Before the break McCrea divides the crowd into two sides to provide backing vocal duties for new album’s ‘Sick of You’, even going so far as to supply each side with ‘their motivation’ as we sing the freedom decree: “I-I-I-I’m gonna fly away” to each other’s respective oppression. While probably an audience participation skit fine-tuned over months of this over a year-old tour’s is tonight given a special significance after today’s ‘Occupy Wall Street’ ejection from Zucotti Park.

Which leads us into the break (which is where we came-in).

In their own divisive show of oppression, the Ritz bouncers funnel those of us wishing to leave for piss or cig respectively, out of two dedicated doors. Us smokers are subjected to a negative nightclub-entry ‘one-in, one-out’ scenario – corralled and packed like a fresh 20 pack behind the foil of the metallic barriers on the pavement outside, meaning we miss the resumption.

Tonight’s second slice of CAKE…Come on, I’m not really going to do that, give me some credit!

“But you did! You’re saying you’re not going to lapse into cliché, BUT YOU ALREADY DID IT!”

YOU CAN HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT!

While the first half was given over to indulgence of their most recent record, the second half is peppered more heavily with firm favourites, which paradoxically proves far less entertaining than the midpoint when McCrea gives away the tree to whoever can correctly identify it (Answer at bottom of page*) under the proviso that the recipient agrees to replant the tree in a place it is likely to remain in perpetuity, and photographic evidence of its progress regularly sent in to a designated page on their official website.

“H’YA!”

ǝǝɹʇ ɯnld ɐ :ɹǝʍsuɐ*

Photos by Kitty Saros