tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32674512011-12-31T23:54:04.120ZKissing in the churchyard, I know a righteous womanMarcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4071100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-86564050309042915092007-11-25T15:41:00.000Z2007-11-25T16:12:16.972Z

CLOSURE AND OPENINGSI began this weblog just under six years ago on the explicit advice of the psychotherapist I was seeing at the time as a part of the Kobler-Ross five-stage bereavement programme. An element of the latter involves looking at or listening to things, artefacts, which the bereaved shared with their departed partner, to remind the bereaved of what was so valuable and good about

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-87116872231706692082007-09-17T16:24:00.000Z2007-09-17T16:32:06.794Z

CoM: THE SANDBOXThe recent avalanche of well documented personal life developments, combined with the ongoing necessity what I shall diplomatically call my "private writing," and the completely unexpected onset of commissions for Actual Paid Writing About Music (at this late stage? What are they thinking?), has meant that I haven't had much time of late to devote to the venerable Church. Rather

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-8729285212682106822007-08-24T11:45:00.000Z2007-08-26T10:16:10.144Z

I DON’T THINK THAT WE SHOULD TAKE ITJust as I get to the point where I can, with some persuasion, tolerate the efficient idiocy of broadsheet music writing, the Guardian always seems to find a way of raising the bar to a new low. I present for your aghast anti-entertainment this truly sad display of towel-flicking, tongue-sticking sarcasm which Mike Love would have been proud to have written.For

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-33534837310524281042007-08-22T16:12:00.000Z2007-08-22T16:13:46.310Z

ONE YEAR, NOT SIXThe obvious thing to say is that it doesn’t feel as though a full year has passed since we made it official at Marine Ices, although I suspect the next few months may feel like a couple of years in terms of everything I have to cram into them. But it is worth all the cramming - more than worth it. Last summer was the first summer in five years which I had been looking forward to

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-22804715851560297032007-08-13T16:11:00.000Z2007-08-13T16:13:24.430Z

LIBERATION DOESN’T HAVE TO HURT: TONY WILSONIt was all about playing. Playfulness. Having the ability to play, leaving time for play, realising that work is the most refined form of playing imaginable, and thereby reintroducing the word “imagination” into work – do you see what he did there? You were never going to see him hosting The Apprentice since that systematic deconstruction of the work

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-73193856425309977392007-08-07T16:25:00.000Z2007-08-07T16:29:08.621Z

THEY ALWAYS COME IN THREESIt’s true. When someone of stature dies, then it always seems to happen that two others follow suit soon afterwards. And it always seems to happen at the weekend. First, Art Davis, who vied with Henry Grimes for the title of jazz’s forgotten bass maestro, and was latterly a doctor of psychology, passed away from a heart attack aged 73. I felt rather guilty at hearing

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1376488732227957902007-08-03T11:38:00.000Z2007-08-03T11:40:37.912Z

ABOUT TIME, TOOThere is a hint of "get him before he goes" about this but no one can say that he doesn't thoroughly deserve it. However, remarks such as "early 1960s acclaimed (sic) jazz musicians such as Charlie Parker and Miles Davis regarded Coleman's music as a direct affront to their years of training" suggest that it's probably not the best of ideas to let 19-year-old work experience

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-72670833196356894792007-08-02T16:21:00.000Z2007-08-02T16:22:34.862Z

KEITH TIPPETT’S RICH TAPESTRYThere has been a tendency among jazz writers of recent times to sideline musicians like Keith Tippett, and perhaps even snigger at them behind their expensively gloved fingers; 2007, and he still thinks that free improvisation and rubbing wine glasses together constitutes the way forward – after all, it’s so old hat, isn’t it, all that revolution and unity talk, it’s

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-44301221211589793612007-07-25T16:14:00.000Z2007-07-25T16:15:27.164Z

OVARY LODGEI remember, looking at the original sleeve of the third album by Ovary Lodge back in 1976, thinking that London SE27 must be in the exotic depths of nowhere. You never saw live albums recorded in places called Nettlefold Hall in such a remote-sounding district as SE27. In conjunction with the earthily unearthly music which the sleeve housed I got the impression that this release

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-21358668470904719002007-07-23T16:12:00.001Z2007-07-23T16:12:47.058Z

THE BLUE MOON OF ELVIS PERKINS“Oh, I’ve been scanning pond and holeAnd waterway thereaboutFor the body of one with a sunken soulWho has put his life-light out”(Thomas Hardy, “I Looked Up From My Writing”)Angeleno singer/songwriter Elvis Perkins isn’t the Sun Records tribute act his name might suggest, but if there is a connection to be had it is with the other Elvis’ “Blue Moon” in which Presley

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-54202050577430725062007-07-19T16:22:00.000Z2007-07-19T16:23:54.726Z

THE GREATEST SINGLE EVER MADE AS OF 6 MARCH 1981: “S-S-S-SINGLE BED” BY FOXIt was one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of great singles of 1981, even though it was recorded and released in the spring of 1976. Many have identified the vocal stylings of Noosha Fox as a clear precedent for everyone from Kate Bush via Macy Gray to Alison Goldfrapp, but on hearing “S-S-Single Bed” again after a

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-29951798678282140282007-07-17T06:58:00.000Z2007-07-17T06:59:46.210Z

THE ELATION OF MINGUS AT CORNELLIn his excellent sleevenote which threatens to make an article like this one redundant, Gary Giddins notes, “Here is the sound of Mingus elated.” In abrupt contrast to the fumblings and frustrations leading towards the final, dense triumph in his UCLA concert/workshop 18 months later, the sound of Mingus’ sextet, as recorded in concert at Cornell University in NYC

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-24890768780553667712007-07-16T09:52:00.000Z2007-08-26T10:13:35.644Z

PLANET MAILMost British readers will already be aware of the controversy which has raged over the decision of the legendary American recording artist Prince to give away a copy of the newspaper The Mail On Sunday free with his new album, Planet Earth. The star has in turn argued, probably rightly, that in an age of increased competition from the internet, newspapers have to find different ways of

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-57653434389850461982007-07-13T06:43:00.000Z2007-07-13T06:44:51.329Z

BAD GONE – GIRL GOODRihanna, take three, starts with the missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle – it is only available on British copies – with the initial precipitating tragedy. “My mind is gone, I’m spinning round,” she quivers quietly on the song “Cry” over circuitous piano as she watches the one she thought was The One curtly walk out. She casts herself as the victim, but there is a residual

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-6460859479565020302007-07-12T06:49:00.000Z2007-07-12T06:51:16.102Z

ANGEL OF IMPOSSIBLE VIRTUE: BERNARD SZAJNERLast week I found, second hand, a record which I had not heard for more than a quarter of a century. It’s at times like these when terms such as “a quarter of a century” really hit home. I owned Some Deaths Take Forever on vinyl for a couple of years, mainly 1980-81, having bought it on the strength of a rave review by Lynden Barber (now, whatever

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-4549470579751902452007-07-11T07:05:00.000Z2007-07-13T06:43:38.126Z

DAVE DEE, DOZY, BEAKY, MICK & TICHAlmost alone among sixties acts, DDDBM&T have yet to be admitted to any sort of canon. Even though with thirteen straight Top 40 hits between 1966-9 they were among the most successful of all British pop groups of that decade they have routinely been dismissed as teenpop fodder, a mere vessel for the increasingly strange fantasies of their managers, writers and

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-7431144762085064832007-07-10T12:11:00.000Z2007-07-13T07:23:17.174Z

CHANGE OF ANOTHER CENTURYI didn’t know what time it was when I came out of the Royal Festival Hall for a second consecutive, reeling night. All I know is that it was light when I came in and dark when I crept out. My body clock still hasn’t adjusted (the automatic pilot takes over in emergencies to look after daily routines). But then Ornette has done nothing if not stretched time these last

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-40376962227693432352007-07-09T12:29:00.000Z2007-07-13T07:22:07.433Z

CECIL’S ROADSCecil Taylor has always been the musician I have most wanted to be. Not long after I started my after-school piano lessons I heard his playing for the first time, in the context of the 1961 “Gil Evans” album Into The Hot (issued under his name but devoted 50/50 to the works of John Carisi and Cecil; one participant famously stated that the most Gil did in the sessions was go out and

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-10699906712237942882007-07-06T06:39:00.000Z2007-07-06T06:41:37.461Z

BROTHERHOODMore vital catching up to do. When the Fledgling label reissued the two RCA albums recorded by Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath in the early seventies a few months ago, I assumed that everyone who wanted to know about that would have known about it and not waited for me to herald it; besides, the writing I have done on the group elsewhere – or, indeed, that done on Amazon back

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-25263497068857486352007-07-05T06:47:00.000Z2007-07-05T06:49:08.105Z

BELATED B’DAYAn open request to CoM readers, particularly those in, or within striking distance of, London; can you please forcibly remind me to take some paracetamols with me whenever I go record shopping? I had a headache that Saturday morning, and Beyoncé’s B’Day album blasting out at authoritatively earsplitting level only intensified it. I beat a hasty retreat, internally muttering about

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-3329470981137797962007-07-04T06:42:00.000Z2007-07-04T06:43:43.683Z

SIMIAN MOBILE DISCOFirstly I have to say that I don’t care about the questionable indie past of Simian Mobile Disco; while they almost never impinged upon my musical planet as plain Simian, if I were going to dismiss every indie chancer going dance then I would have to bid farewell to the Beloved and the Shamen and the KLF, amongst numerous others. What matters is what they are capable of doing

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-30712239155634010062007-07-03T06:56:00.000Z2007-07-03T06:57:41.840Z

JUSTICEWith its black and gold cover depicting a Dali-esque cross and track titles like “Genesis,” “Let There Be Light” and “Waters Of Nazareth,” you could be forgiven for thinking that the eponymously-titled debut album by Parisian dance duo Justice represents an attempt by Andrew Lloyd Webber and/or Jeff Wayne to go nu-electro. “Genesis,” for instance, begins with portentous fanfares and

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-71138324189801819532007-07-02T07:10:00.000Z2007-07-02T09:38:25.256Z

PICK OF THE POPS – WEEK ENDING 1 JULY 1967Because of the TV and radio live coverage of Wembley’s Concert For Diana – a tenth anniversary tribute to that most questionable of paper idols – this week’s edition was condensed from two hours to one (“They’ve abridged me today!” wailed Dale, adding “Oh yes, I’m a bit shorter than usual”), but somehow this served to concentrate the programme’s mind (

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-51306653782285747202007-06-29T06:47:00.000Z2007-06-29T06:49:21.220Z

ADD IT UP AND SPELL IT OUTAs you may recall from “Imagine” three years ago, it was always Dizzee Rascal’s ambition to exceed and escape from the life and the neighbourhood in which he had to grow. The similar drifting winds of synthesisers which float Maths And English, his third album, into being, barely conceal the police sirens lurking underneath, and the sharpened knives which provide the

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-15372417066167625522007-06-28T06:39:00.000Z2007-06-28T06:40:33.458Z

LED BIBAnother case for the advancement of British jazz after twenty miserable years of politesse, the quintet Led Bib, comprised of drummer/leader Mark Holub, saxophonists Chris Williams and Pete Grogan, keyboardist Toby McLaren and bassist Liran Donin, make me glad that the Polar Bear nexus aren’t the only ones at it. As someone who grew up in a period when jazz in Britain was at its finest

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-87798097294502842852007-06-27T06:52:00.000Z2007-06-27T06:53:55.153Z

FULBORN TEVERSHAMSince I heard his startling drumming on the Paul The Girl album some three years ago, and strengthened by his involvement with the interrelated groups Polar Bear and Acoustic Ladyland, I have remained convinced that Seb Rochford is increasingly becoming one of the most significant figures in British music, and perhaps one of those rare, unknowing polymaths which British music

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-32921910018249051402007-06-26T06:40:00.000Z2007-06-26T06:46:35.803Z

PICK OF THE POPS: WEEK ENDING 26 JUNE 1982Phil Swern seems to have an uncanny knack for selecting weeks or times in pop when we’re all impatiently waiting for something to happen, or, as with this week’s edition, it’s all started to go a little wrong. Had he picked the chart of the week ending 29 May a month ago it would have been the reiteration and reinforcement of a glorious story to be

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-42491245243561200312007-06-25T06:37:00.000Z2007-06-25T06:38:31.953Z

BELL ORCHESTREWatching this week’s chapter in the BBC2 series Seven Ages Of Rock, which concerned itself with the rise and collapse of “alternative” rock, or college rock, in the America of Reagan and the first Bush – a “morning in America” which seemed to have omitted the letter “u” somewhere along the way (“Something In The Way” indeed) – with a particular focus on REM and, especially, Nirvana,

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-52458854207975815242007-06-22T06:56:00.000Z2007-06-22T06:58:00.071Z

“Since the lights are down low and we shouldn’t change position…”If Charles Mingus was hard work, both as human being and bandleader, then to a large extent he had to be. While his small group records remain a brilliant and unsurpassed testimony to the variety and flexibility he was able to bring to his music with resources limited in number but inexhaustible in inspiration, his large-scale

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-68199755646895137332007-06-21T06:53:00.000Z2007-06-21T06:54:34.250Z

THE BIRD AND THE BEEAt first, with its brightly primary-coloured cover – a simple painting of red girl guides holding white butterfly nets in green fields shadowed by distant farm outhouses under a blue sky – the eponymous debut album by LA duo The Bird And The Bee seems like another entry in the procession of smilingly inviting twee (in the best sense) indie records in the wake of, say, last

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-65382504104026726722007-06-20T06:51:00.000Z2007-06-20T06:52:26.612Z

NATASHA – TAKE NOTICERevelling in the lovely lunacy of “I Wanna Have Your Babies,” one of the singles of the year, reassures me that Natasha Bedingfield is one of the very few authentically mad British female pop stars we now have. By “mad” I do not mean insane but the merriment of madness which overcomes a rational mind when faced with the inarticulable but inescapable presence of love,

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-31959332321488640102007-06-19T06:48:00.000Z2007-06-19T06:50:26.532Z

HER SPLENDID, SPARKLING FIREFrom the outset, I have to admit that Björk is not an artist whose progress I follow avidly and lovingly. She has always struck me as the kind of artist to whom you pop your head in for a visit every five years or so. Thus after 1997’s Homogenic I didn’t really reconnect with her until 2001’s Vespertine, a finely drawn album of dreams subsequently rendered unplayable

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-91800490382202039342007-06-18T06:46:00.000Z2007-06-18T06:48:43.396Z

SUBURBAN KIDS WITH BIBLICAL NAMESThe cover of this month’s Observer Music Monthly – “THE TEEN ISSUE” in big, slanted capitals – is emblazoned with the hopeful “Meet the bands and the fans kickstarting a youth revolution.” One’s instinct immediately leans towards wondering whether a real revolution would ever make it to the OMM’s cosy pages, let alone be championed within them. The issue boasts

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-70563326804029473662007-06-15T06:49:00.000Z2007-06-15T06:50:19.644Z

BATTLES (INTO)“Atlas” by the NYC quartet Battles, as featured on their spankable new album Mirrored, is one of this year’s tracks. Setting up its almighty Sweet/Quatro glam stomp, it is quickly mirrored (QED) by a demented speeded-up vocal chorus, more Joe Meek’s still new world than Chipmunks with only occasionally discernible words (“Won’t you show me where it is?”) which heighten the

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-68414351288318763702007-06-13T07:08:00.000Z2007-06-13T07:09:39.631Z

ELEGIES AGAINST BOREDOM: RUFUS WAINWRIGHT – RELEASE THE STARSFor such an apparently wide open record the question has to be: what is Rufus Wainwright hiding from? I’ve lived with Release The Stars for about a month now and am still no closer to finding the answer. But the songs’ endlessly ecstatic orchestral climaxes suggest a happiness which doesn’t actually exist within their singer. He has

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-12924845096927180982007-06-13T07:07:00.000Z2007-06-13T07:08:16.978Z

LAVENDER DIAMONDMaybe it’s indicative of a general spiritual poverty that one is tempted, when presented with Imagine Our Love, the debut album by LA quartet Lavender Diamond, to look for the angle, the giveaway wink. After all, here is a record which comes dressed in lilac and swimmingly drawn, ecstatic faces in a post-urban paradise, which proclaims on its cover, “SONGS for you to HEAR,” “

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-54690978847711271432007-06-11T06:34:00.000Z2007-06-11T06:36:58.111Z

AMERIE – GIMME SOME 2007I find it immensely gratifying, not to mention relieving, that I can still embark upon a love affair with a great pop record. The fact that the music blogosphere is by and large not chairing Amerie’s “Gotta Work” on its shoulders and venerating and cherishing its magic is regrettable but hardly surprising; in a devalued era where writers will it seems do anything to avoid

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-45733139126085201112007-06-07T14:29:00.001Z2007-06-07T14:29:37.719Z

THE APPRENTICE“No poor businessman is prevented from creating a fortune”The slow-motion, double-bluff demolition of Katie on last night’s The Apprentice was, if painstakingly staged and extensively edited and maybe even re-edited, one of the most chilling things I’d seen on TV for a long time. Throughout this series in particular, despite Sugar’s repeated protests that he was looking for “proper

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-70407492399726637992007-06-06T09:12:00.000Z2007-06-06T09:17:52.677Z

YOU BE 40Part Three: “revive hopes of progress in pop music”“A, B And C” seems to me one of the most remarkable episodes of The Prisoner. Although not part of McGoohan’s preferred seven-part central canon, it nonetheless seems the most contemporary of the seventeen episodes which were made. Inventing virtual reality about a quarter of a century before the event, that week’s Number 2, convinced

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-79093340115907148992007-06-05T07:49:00.000Z2007-06-05T07:52:47.260Z

YOU BE 40Part Two: “…not to mention a heavy-handedly facetious number about a laughing gnome which was ecstatically plugged for several weeks by the pirate stations but steadfastly remained the flop it deserved to be”The above quote is taken from William Mann’s original review of Sgt Pepper, published in The Times in 1967, which I suppose only goes to show that it’s impractical to know where the

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-43556301377275291912007-06-04T12:29:00.000Z2007-06-04T12:40:28.947Z

YOU BE 40Part One: “A jetplane made of golden syrup”Everything about its circumstances, inspiration, recording and packaging suggests that Sgt Pepper was from day one intended to be an Event, and unless you were, as the late Ian MacDonald emphasised, between the ages of 14-30 at the time you will never know what it was like to be “alive” in the middle of that Event, can never hope to comprehend

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-87145766115156838972007-04-29T12:04:00.000Z2007-04-29T12:12:05.362Z

TO WHOM WHO KEEPS A RECORD: THE THINGS I FOUND – OR REDISCOVERED – IN LONDONThere were too many accidental discoveries for Easter to have been an accident. Things which I had been unsuccessfully seeking since August turned up as soon as she turned up – so maybe there’s a lesson here. And I have to say that since she had to fly back, I haven’t gone off the habit of browsing for music but I no

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-10855180983928205892007-04-16T13:05:00.000Z2007-04-16T13:09:50.495Z

PICK OF THE POPS WEEK ENDING 15 APRIL 1989No, your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you; this is about as far into the future as POTP has ever dared to travel – I recall some early ‘90s visitations in the Alan Freeman/Saturday afternoon era but prior to yesterday’s show 1986 was the limit. Perhaps Radio 2 do pay some attention to my prolonged whingeing after all. However, the underlying

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-44497091652026017312007-04-14T14:17:00.000Z2007-04-14T14:30:11.199Z

WISDOMRebirth from Streatham to Hampton Court, Sunday 8 April 2007It helped that this time I did not walk there, and that this time I was not alone. It was a beautiful, nowhere near freezing early spring morning, which always makes the task of rebirth much easier. We took two buses to get there; the white-topped 57, like a swirling summery haze in the distance (that string synthesiser line on

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-30410443669061147862007-04-07T11:23:00.000Z2007-04-07T11:56:52.857Z

CURVEBALLS OF PUNCTUMOur Club Poptimism playlist from Last Night (Friday 6 April 2007 for the benefit of future Channel 4 documentary researchers)There are few spectacles capable of stirring one's heart with such deft aplomb as providing a highly listenable soundtrack to accompany the playing of sundry board games - is 'Allo 'Allo The Board Game the croquet de nos jours, and if so are Lena and I

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-22766101796887588712007-03-22T08:19:00.000Z2007-03-22T08:20:58.725Z

APOSTLE OF HUSTLE: PSYCHIC DETRITUS ON ROCK’S LAUNDRY LINEBuried deep within the rather exhausting Morley piece on Arcade Fire in this month’s Observer Music Monthly is the subtly slighting reference to current Canadian music as “lightly experimental.” A quarter of a century later, those dreams of stadium entryism are evidently hard to still, as though any group who didn’t want to be as big as

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-52964782197997850932007-03-15T08:28:00.000Z2007-03-15T08:29:54.586Z

NEON BIBLEA degree of bigness is of course a vital prerequisite of music; there are the intimate, whispered gestures, but their microcosm is so greatly magnified by the balance of large emotions (if not necessarily large gestures), and sometimes when you’re unwell you need that bigness to drag or entice you back into the wider and lighter world. Bigness doesn’t have to mean the arid, echoing

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-26056638193924101182007-02-26T13:22:00.000Z2007-02-26T13:23:04.110Z

“JUST A VIOLET SPARK BETWEEN THE FLICKER OF THE LIGHT”The last four notes of “Beyond The Sun” by Billy MacKenzieIt is now just a little over ten years since Billy MacKenzie ended his story, and I’ve recently been listening again to Beyond The Sun, a record which could most aptly be described as notes for a comeback album. There had been previous attempts at comebacks, but the material wasn’t

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-69883183390969854532007-02-21T08:04:00.000Z2007-02-21T08:07:43.946Z

JUDEE SILL, PART 2: CURSED IS THE LONESOME PIONEERCould we have saved Judee Sill if we’d been nicer to her, more open to and celebratory of her art? That was one of many thoughts which went through my head following the latest semi-barbed critique aimed at music bloggers from a middle-aged veteran – and I’m a middle-aged veteran, so I speak with some authority– who reads me, or at least glances

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1171441138151966232007-02-14T08:14:00.000Z2007-02-14T08:18:58.400Z

JUDEE SILL – PART I: SAVOR EACH WORD LIKE A RASPBERRY“That’s rather unfair, you know, to stop me criticising the whole of western society just because I can’t suggest a better alternative on my own.”(David Nobbs, The Death Of Reginald Perrin)I’ve only just started reading the Reginald Perrin novels, which were written before the TV series was made. Although it is impossible not to visualise the

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1169716220021797572007-01-25T09:09:00.000Z2007-01-25T09:10:40.830Z

A BIRTHDAY EPIPHANY – TREASURE BY THE COCTEAU TWINS: REHEARDShe mentioned something about it to me, so I had to listen to it again. It’s not a record which I revisit regularly, but something above and beyond that; Treasure I regard as something of a sacred text, and like Escalator Over The Hill or Closer I only feel the need to hear it perhaps once a year, or once every two years, just to remind

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1168852113451921812007-01-15T09:07:00.000Z2007-01-15T09:08:33.470Z

THE STOOGES – THE WEIRDNESSSo how does the enterprising music writer avoid the Stunning Return To Form trapdoor? Ceaselessly our aesthetic faces are in receipt of unsolicited licks from over-eager, or over-fearful, music press lapdogs strenuously trying to convince us that the new Stones or the new Bowie or the new Prince is indeed a Stunning Return To Form rather than a sub-Antony

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1168249779308364502007-01-08T09:47:00.000Z2007-01-08T09:49:39.836Z

PICK OF THE POPS - WEEK ENDING 6 JANUARY 1973They’ve done this chart before, or one very near to it, since I remember listening to it on the way back down the post-festive motorway to London four winters ago, and I briefly referred to it at the time, but to paraphrase Dolly Parton (or, more disturbingly, Julia Bradbury and Tony Christie on last week’s Just The Two Of Us), here “you” come again.20

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1167909905093508182007-01-04T11:17:00.000Z2007-01-08T14:18:07.266Z

PICK OF THE POPS – CHRISTMAS 1968There really are no better conditions for assessing the charts of years gone by than lying carelessly across a generous sofa in the warm and cosy front room of the family home on Christmas Eve, clad in my dressing gown and pyjamas, sipping a glass of Warnink’s Advocaat (ah, decadence; ah, decidedly guilt-free pleasures and no trademark) and generally feeling

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1167831460695403922007-01-03T13:36:00.000Z2007-01-03T13:37:40.713Z

SOCKETS TO THEM, J.B.As with many other artists, my delayed appreciation of James Brown was a direct result of the militant absolutism of mid-‘80s NME, the music paper which told its readers that they should listen to Aretha or JB for half an hour every morning (“Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin)” indeed) in order to teach themselves some dignity, which routinely sneered at and decried the

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1166172810140292102006-12-15T08:44:00.000Z2006-12-15T08:53:30.353Z

THE CHURCH OF ME 2006 TOP 50 ALBUMS: THE TOP TEN10. SLOAN: Never Hear The End Of It“My name defined uncoolI didn’t belongI didn’t belong.”Sloan were my major musical discovery of 2006, and perhaps if they’d been enough people’s musical discovery of 1994, when their masterpiece Twice Removed was released, things might have been different. McGee was at one stage reportedly on the verge of signing

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1166085814923989822006-12-14T07:58:00.000Z2006-12-14T08:43:37.233Z

THE CHURCH OF ME 2006 TOP 50 ALBUMS: 20-1120. SUFJAN STEVENS: The AvalancheDoes he ever get tired? Does he ever run out of ideas, or things to say? One would sometimes be suspicious of such prolix activity, but with Stevens it’s clear that his stories need to be told with as much length as patience allows. Only two states into his fifty-state project, and while he has claimed that each record

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1166001124526382312006-12-13T09:09:00.000Z2006-12-13T09:12:04.546Z

THE CHURCH OF ME 2006 TOP 50 ALBUMS: 30-2130. J DILLA (JAY DEE): DonutsDictionary definitions are one thing, but for these necessarily selfish purposes I will take “hauntology” as using elements of the past to signify memories of a future that never was, could never have hoped to have passed. In the case of Donuts this assumes the form of a bright, summery absence – tell me about it – with its

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1165912288392162192006-12-12T08:28:00.000Z2006-12-12T08:31:28.413Z

THE CHURCH OF ME 2006 TOP 50 ALBUMS: 40-3140. I’M FROM BARCELONA: Let Me Introduce My FriendsSenior CoM readers may recall the Polyphonic Spree – lots of them, all singing in and about ecstatic redemption – and have long since resigned themselves to wondering what they might have been like had they remembered to write whole songs and not just middle eights. Although I’m From Barcelona are in

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1165827367975001982006-12-11T08:46:00.000Z2006-12-11T09:17:10.146Z

THE CHURCH OF ME TOP 50 ALBUMS OF 2006: 50-4150. BONNIE ‘PRINCE’ BILLY: The Letting Goi am loving always holding while she sleeps her song unfolding epic song it tells of how she and i are living nowHere is how this particular epic begins to unfold. Recorded in Iceland, there are two voices here, a man and a woman. The music is ghost-folk and is taken so slowly and patiently that it sometimes

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1165309101543634352006-12-05T08:53:00.000Z2006-12-05T09:00:17.780Z

2006: PARADISE REGAINEDThe most important lesson I learned this year is that no writer writes for himself. Even though this weblog started out as a Kobler-Ross (Stage III) therapeutic tool, there would have been no point in writing it since, if no one else reads it, then conclusive proof of one’s own existence is reduced to unhelpful Descartian principles. I can’t forget the spirit in whose

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1165221530252062272006-12-04T08:36:00.000Z2006-12-04T08:38:50.276Z

PICK OF THE POPS - WEEK ENDING 2 DECEMBER 1978Yet another not-very-much-of-anything chart – what a contrast to the Top 20 of a month so later, with its rhythm sticks, hearts of glass and one nation under a groove, which I suspect unlikely to be aired. Nonetheless Winton did pay due tribute to Fluff, and next week they’ll be broadcasting an archive Freeman programme (well, from 1998) and, as we

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1164705433551160852006-11-28T09:16:00.000Z2006-11-28T09:17:13.890Z

REST IN PEACE, FLUFF – ALRIGHT?Sometimes premonitions really do occur. Last night I dreamed that Alan Freeman had just died, and when I opened this morning’s Times I found that that was exactly what had happened. I also thought of him while listening lazily (there is no other way of doing so) yesterday evening to Humphrey Lyttelton’s Best Of Jazz programme, since Lyttelton seems to be one of

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1164616726326613602006-11-27T08:35:00.000Z2006-11-29T16:32:17.493Z

PICK OF THE POPS – WEEK ENDING 29 NOVEMBER 1967Time of the schism.20. Eric Burdon & the Animals – San Franciscan NightsNot played. Burdon’s voice is half paean, half leer, but the record works almost despite itself and its Dragnet intro. However! “Trans-Love Airways!” A concept so cool that Don Cherry named a tune after it (it’s on Relativity Suite, and is a gorgeous feature for Charlie Haden’s

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1164185423902088542006-11-22T08:47:00.000Z2006-11-22T09:41:07.196Z

PICK OF THE POPS – WEEK ENDING 19 NOVEMBER 1983Ah yes, I remember this very well. Although New Pop had more or less washed itself out, or been washed out, there were a few rays of hope emerging (ZTT and the Smiths being not the least of them, and the Cocteaus fluttering into full flower). Nevertheless this chart, though not an out-and-out dire one, is very much a ground-holding effort; everyone

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1163421944390022512006-11-13T12:18:00.000Z2006-11-13T12:45:44.410Z

PICK OF THE POPS: WEEK ENDING 15 NOVEMBER 1975Does Radio 2 deliberately keep picking these bland, uneventful charts for Sunday afternoon audiences? Is that the most pointless question ever asked? Of course, from a Robbie Williams point of view this is an all-time classic chart, full of "iconic" records, but does this make the Radio 2 Music Club demographic anything other than weary 55-year-old

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1162811489925701992006-11-06T10:39:00.000Z2006-11-06T11:11:33.676Z

PICK OF THE POPS - WEEK ENDING 4 NOVEMBER 1965I recall posting at length on ILM (though I cannot pinpoint the exact thread) about a very similar chart just over a year ago. This indicates the necessarily limited timescale of an exercise such as this, since inevitably by the time we get to May 2007 everything will start to repeat itself. Nonetheless, here we find the Light Programme/Radio

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1162208281862330272006-10-30T10:26:00.000Z2006-10-30T11:38:02.606Z

PICK OF THE POPS – WEEK ENDING 27 OCTOBER 1973I note in passing that this was the penultimate Top 20 that BS Johnson would have lived to see. Not that he had anything but contempt for pop, but I think even BSJ would have found some of this list to his liking.20. Nazareth – This Flight TonightBizarre hard-rock adaptation of one of the quietest expressions of pain and grief in music (near the end

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1161588787963654792006-10-23T07:26:00.000Z2006-10-23T07:33:09.013Z

PICK OF THE POPSA brief explanation is in order; firstly of the programme, which used to be the BBC’s main singles chart rundown show. Presented by Alan Freeman, the original series ran from 1962-72, following which it was succeeded by the Solid Gold Sixty show and subsequent variations on the basic Top 40 countdown model. The name was then revived in the ‘80s, firstly on Capital Radio and then

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1160724353261495752006-10-13T07:23:00.000Z2006-10-13T07:25:53.280Z

EMILY HAINES & THE SOFT SKELETON: KNIVES DON’T HAVE YOUR BACKFrom her recent Q&A interview on Exclaim!, I learned that Emily Haines’ father had passed away in the middle of compiling a mixtape. Perhaps it says something terrible about my attitude to loss that I am far too keen to know what was on that tape, or at least what had already been put on it. Even without a tracklisting I know that it

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1158651861531869812006-09-19T07:43:00.000Z2006-09-19T07:44:21.546Z

S.O.S.I was absolutely delighted to receive in the post this weekend the CD reissue of the album S.O.S. by the group of the same name. This is the second time that Ogun boss Hazel Miller has sent me the album – the first copy, on vinyl, was posted to me at my request some thirty years ago, when I was but a schoolboy, and still resides proudly on its shelf at the family home in Glasgow. It is a

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1158134521495446652006-09-13T07:58:00.000Z2006-09-13T08:02:01.513Z

FUN-DA-MENTAL: ALL IS WARThere are those among us, of course, for whom all is escapism; hide under the blankets and pretend that they’re still having uncomplicated fun. Some may still wish to pursue the Justin Timberlake path of pop-as-corporate-knocking-shop, who care nothing more about the Middle East than to visualise Timberlake in a mythical (or actual) Dubai, “swanning around in detective

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1158049027811335402006-09-12T08:15:00.000Z2006-09-12T08:17:07.826Z

CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG: 5:55I have known that feeling too many times; usually I am too preoccupied with getting ready to get out of bed, but when I don’t – well, it has struck me; it doesn’t strike me now, because everything has changed and I am no longer alone – but those endless ends of the night, where you blink yourself into bleary consciousness “adrift upon the night/And miles away from land.”

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1157963134782165322006-09-11T08:23:00.000Z2006-09-11T08:27:18.390Z

THE MYTH OF PATRICIA BARBERI kept hearing the name Patricia Barber in various hidden places, and there was a review of her new album in Friday’s Guardian which sounded arresting enough to make me want to investigate further – you see, section editor, you can persuade readers to listen to music if you don’t treat them like retarded five-year-olds. An Ovidian concept album about Mythologies? It has

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1156924616821456272006-08-30T07:55:00.000Z2006-08-30T07:56:57.793Z

TO THE MOON AND BACK, or: GOODNIGHT SOMEBODYIn the first instance it is probably best just to list the high water marks of what has been without doubt the greatest week of my 42-year-old life. The news is well known, and Petula Clark’s song “Gotta Tell The World,” rings true and clear and resonant and relevant (“Ring every bell in every steeple now!”). I will not term them memories, since

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1156420013269540512006-08-24T11:28:00.000Z2006-08-24T11:47:31.296Z

THE FLAME OF CONFIRMATION BURNS BRIGHT AND PROUDSuddenly, he arose from his sopha-bed and exclaimed at the incoming flood of light from the Heath. It was as if he had been visited by an abrupt but deep miracle and had been cured. The blood and pain had ceased; he had scarcely found it easier to breathe in at least two years. In this world he grew up, and stayed with Fanny Brawne, and lived to

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1155632432651427452006-08-15T08:21:00.000Z2006-08-15T09:00:33.700Z

FIVE YEARSI think Laura would have been pleased and satisfied with The Church Of Me, albeit a little bewildered. By its very nature it is not a project which could have been entertained in her lifetime; there are two preceding decades of writing which only Laura ever read, and indeed was meant only for Laura to read (only two of the more relatively objective pieces have found their way into the

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1153466967904269022006-07-21T07:26:00.000Z2006-07-21T07:29:27.923Z

BS JOHNSON VERSUS BS JOHNSONDuring his lifetime he did assemble a compilation of bits and pieces he’d written about religion for the stage and entitle it BS Johnson Versus God, and that seems to have been the writer’s self-defeating mission for most of his life. Reading the preface to Jonathan Coe’s BSJ biog Like A Fiery Elephant, I was ready for a predictable and weary assault on the concept of

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1152690901015257622006-07-12T07:04:00.000Z2006-07-13T06:45:04.213Z

"And I'm most obliged to you for making it clear that I'm not here."The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn was the third album I ever owned, after Abbey Road and Let It Bleed, and I wanted my own copy because, as a six-year old, my favourite book was The Wind In The Willows, and that seventh chapter (along, to a lesser extent, with its ninth) is what makes the book something more than a cosy fairytale

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1151653644887218932006-06-30T07:46:00.000Z2006-06-30T07:47:24.903Z

WALKING AWAY, BACK TO YOUI seem to have returned, quite naturally, to the habit of long-distance walking around London. This Saturday I somehow contrived to walk from Chelsea to Richmond (note to readers unfamiliar with the geography of London: it is a very, very long way) and then back across the river to Ealing Common. A walk full of signifiers, but thankfully these are now working in a

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1151046859357338892006-06-23T07:12:00.000Z2006-06-23T07:14:19.370Z

JOAN AS POLICE WOMAN – REAL LIFEI love the way Joan Wasser breathes, like she’s breathing not just into my ear, but through it – “’Cos anyone can see through me…but you’re not anyone.”I love the name Joan As Police Woman, like the tributary of carnality flowing into the ocean of knowing and faithful love.I love the fact that Paris Hilton could never have come up with the name Joan As Police Woman

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1150103500692016642006-06-12T07:42:00.000Z2006-06-12T09:11:40.746Z

ENCOUNTERS OF DIFFERENT DEGREES OF CLOSENESSIt's always something of a shock to me when, in the course of what I will glibly term Real Life, I run into other people whom I am inclined to forget also exist outside the world of music blogs. Thus, while making my way down Soho's busy Berwick Street of a pleasingly hot Saturday morning, I should not have been surprised to encounter the Woebot man

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1149674445014748052006-06-07T07:23:00.000Z2006-06-07T10:00:45.080Z

SHUT UP, PLEASEYou’ll forgive me if I don’t clap my hands and join in with glee at the unsightly and rather ugly spectacle of middle-aged middle-class men walking into pubs and putting on Metal Machine Music or Dondestan or whatever – and what a cheap INSULT to Wyatt, a generous and wise man who has never made any secret of his equal valuation of Lynsey de Paul and Ornette Coleman, to name this “

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1149153018875366022006-06-01T07:29:00.000Z2006-06-01T09:15:37.643Z

BURIALKazuo Ishiguro's last novel Never Let Me Go is currently haunting me. For if we are to envisage a virtual city of the future, or even of "England" in "the late Nineties," a city where every taste, aesthetic and otherwise, is indeed catered for and codified, then through knowledge of common capitalist theory and practice we can safely deduce that such a city would only represent an illusory

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1147441203945210762006-05-12T13:14:00.000Z2006-06-01T09:14:37.236Z

THE DRIFTCOSSACKS AREWhen he wanted to experiment with lithography, Niépce, who lived in the country, ran into the greatest difficulties in procuring the necessary stones. It was then that he got the idea of replacing the stones with a metal plate and the crayon with sunlight.Click. It clicks.The citadel next to Ebury Bridge; not quite Victoria, not quite Pimlico; or is it an electricity station?

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1147332880008393482006-05-11T07:27:00.000Z2006-05-11T07:34:40.016Z

IT'S 1985 AGAIN - BUT NOT AS WE KNOW ITThe unexpected influence of Paolo Hewitt on 21st-century music writing creeps into even wider waters.Still, I am extremely grateful to Mr Reynolds, for his parade of long-lost memes such as "ideology," "passionate," "get worked up" and "late capitalism" unintentionally spills the beans; Ariel Pink, Matmos and Hot Chip are this decade's own Faith Brothers,

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1147191389636494492006-05-09T16:13:00.000Z2006-05-09T16:16:29.666Z

BOOGYBITES VOL.01 – MIXED BY KIKIIt’s a terrible title, with a terrible cover, and the German DJ’s stage name isn’t too inspiring either; but it’s the best – what on earth does one call it now? Nu-electro, under which puzzlesome category it was filed in HMV? – mix since Miss Kittin’s Electroclash epic which came free with Muzik magazine some four years ago. It works not only because of the not

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1146570228779210332006-05-02T11:40:00.000Z2006-05-03T07:29:36.310Z

ARTHUR RUSSELL, COME TO THINK OF IT…and while I’m still, just about, on the subject, the definable missing link between the Mary Hopkin who sang “those were the days, my friends” and the Mary Visconti who do-do-doodoo’s on Bowie’s “Sound And Vision” is Philip Glass and Robert Anton Wilson’s Einstein On The Beach…among the first words which we hear on the latter are “these are the days, my friends

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1146138190226192032006-04-27T11:41:00.000Z2006-04-27T11:43:10.243Z

GNARLS BARKLEYThe sentient critic always has to be wary of hyperbole, but the hindsight of tomorrow sometimes has to be measured against the passions of the day whose parameters are set by one’s experience of the past. What I am confident in saying now is that “Crazy” is one of the greatest of number one singles; what I am slightly less confident in whispering is that it just might be the

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1145965581907762532006-04-25T11:44:00.000Z2006-04-25T11:46:21.923Z

PLANETS CONSPIRE TO FURNISH US WITH EMPATHYAlthough it’s not due for official British release for a further two months, it is Rough Trade’s album of this month, and the Rough Trade shop in Covent Garden is where I found it, and I will still take a lot of convincing to believe that you didn’t sneak into that shop while I was away and place a copy there so I could find it, exactly when I needed to

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1145888414946453002006-04-24T14:17:00.000Z2006-04-24T14:20:16.736Z

PAUL MORLEY IS FINISHED – AND IT’S ALL GIRLS ALOUD’S FAULTThere is a writer named Paul Morley who contributes regularly to British broadsheet newspapers with regular repeats of what is essentially the same article. On first sight he seems no more than yet another reactionary fifty-quid man angrily denying youth their youth because he is no longer capable of recapturing his at first hand.

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1144842403029180232006-04-12T11:42:00.000Z2006-04-12T11:46:43.056Z

A DUOPOLY OF 1969PART ONE: TROUT MASK REPLICA“We didn’t want to make sense. The last thing we wanted to do was to make sense. So we worked on that.”(Spike Milligan on the genesis of the Goons)The Child…and the secret, really, to understanding, to dwelling within, Trout Mask Replica is to make sure it’s the first record you ever hear; I first heard it sometime in 1970, aged six – my dad had the

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1143632500098778182006-03-29T11:39:00.000Z2006-03-29T11:41:40.113Z

SPRING SYMPHONIESThe Constantines: "Shine A Light"…because of course you know, it’s so obvious when it happens, even after you’ve been pleading for years, inwardly, to be saved, borne away and nurtured, that when it’s there, when she’s finally there, your absolute instinct to nurture her suddenly blooms, and that’s what it’s about, love that is, the desire and ability to nurture each other, to

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1142253878323246872006-03-13T12:43:00.000Z2006-03-13T12:44:38.513Z

SIGNS OF LIFE, AND SO ON: BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE…and so, on the radio as I checked my email yesterday morning was “Silly Love Songs” by Wings, and indeed, what’s wrong with that, what’s wrong with being in love, in coexisting in a far from imaginary perfect state, where mutual trust and massages are cherished as tenderly as Port Meadow petals of old, and so Broken Social Scene, who may one day be my

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1141130903855726232006-02-28T12:45:00.000Z2006-02-28T12:48:23.873Z

SATURDAY SUNThis Saturday just past was one of those miraculously near-perfect days for someone like me who likes nothing better than to spend an idle day roaming freely and semi-randomly around London; although it was extremely cold (well it is winter, and more snow is expected round these parts before we’re out of it), the sky was a flawless blue and the sun fulsomely bright – it felt like the

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1140612191354093562006-02-22T12:39:00.000Z2006-02-22T12:43:11.376Z

NEIL DIAMOND – CAN YOU BELIEVE HIM?Is it only me who feels a little nauseated at the alacrity with which Leo Sayer is currently chasing his own ambulance? There is a record entitled “Thunder In My Heart Again” at the top of the charts, but it is credited to Meck, the hapless DJ who actually put the thing together; and while it is good that Meck should see the potential of what was already a

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1140203446719957512006-02-17T19:10:00.000Z2006-02-17T19:10:46.736Z

THE 1965 BRIT AWARDSOne of their huge tuneful hits is called “Midnight In Moscow” – but even the most devoted fans of the kings of Trad, Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen, would find that easier to imagine than their shocking victory in this year’s Brit Awards, where the loveable, cleancut lads have scooped the award for Best British Act ahead of highly-rated fellow nominees Gerry and the Pacemakers,

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1139423780730630942006-02-08T18:27:00.000Z2006-02-08T18:36:20.760Z

GHOSTS MADE OF SCARCER VOICESThe talk now is of “hauntology,” and it’s a subject with which this weblog should feel immediate empathy. After all, The Church Of Me has for the last four years or so been primarily concerned about ghosts; about learning to live with them, about extracting new life from their pale, glum shrouds – and maybe, eventually, learning to let them go. Because the aim has

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1138818784524640662006-02-01T18:26:00.000Z2006-02-01T18:33:04.570Z

CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER – AUTOPSY OR PROLOGUE?Of course Chantelle had to win; she recognised her designated role very early on, and the public theirs. After all, if Celebrity Big Brother were to present us with a test case of how a perfect and mutually equal human society could exist – an ideal life where, as in ideal art, every person should be the same size – then its experiment would have

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3267451.post-1138128680942209502006-01-24T18:46:00.000Z2006-01-24T18:51:20.986Z

LUSHLIFE: WEST SOUNDSOn the rear cover of the CD of LushLife’s West Sounds is a quote from Brian Wilson: “I think we are at the lowest point we have been in the history of [music]…like in rap music, it all adds up to one big minus.” Now, such a statement has to be taken with several caveats; for a start, it seems unlikely that Wilson has listened to much rap music, or it could be that the

Marcello Carlinnoreply@blogger.com