Gene

Chances are you don't really remember Gene, plucky underachievers of the Britpop 90's...singer Martin Rossiter was smeared (er, fairly) as a Morrissey copyist, but their first album Olympian [1995] stands almost shoulder-to-shoulder with the first Smiths LP; in fact, it's better. Flashes of Queen and Small Faces commingle with chain-swinging counterfeits of their Manchester heroes' tunes, and "Be My Light, Be My Guide" (an early single added to the US version of the LP, wahey!, Smiths-style) is as good as any early Smiths song.

Go figure that these guys hung on until 2002! Likely sat around the Fleece and Ferkin hoping someone would buy them pints. Their final, self-released Libertine is as good as the debut and the band stretches out and basically does whatever the hell they want. They sound less constrained than on the intervening Olympian follow-ups and actually seem like they are having (gasp!) fun. Check for "Walking in the Shallows" if thou dost think me a liar. This is a surprisingly great record, all the better for the fact it doesn't need to exist.

"Be My Light, Be My Guide"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B6nrfR3hY8&feature=related

[PS - A youtube commenter says: It might interest you to know that Martin Rossiter is now a music teacher in Brighton. He teaches me at college. I'd never heard of him so it's really wierd* to see him in professional videos since I know him really well. He's really good at piano and music theory, but he often makes jokes that aren't funny and laughs at himself :/

heh.]

* nice spelling, prat

Football season

It's hot today, but:

Do you remember a fragrance girls acquire in autumn? As you walk beside them
after school, they tighten their arms about their books and bend their heads
forward to give a more flattering attention to your words, and in the little
intimate area thus formed, carved into the clear air by an implicit crescent,
there is a complex fragrance woven of tobacco, powder, lipstick, rinsed hair,
and that perhaps imaginary and certainly elusive scent that wool, whether in the
lapels of a jacket or the nap of a sweater, seems to yield when the cloudless
fall sky like the blue bell of a vacuum lifts toward itself the glad exhalations
of all things. This fragrance, so faint and flirtatious on those afternoon walks
through the dry leaves, would be banked a thousandfold on the dark slop of the
stadium when, Friday nights, we played football in the city.

- John Updike "In Football Season"


Also:


















(image: Po)

Pallid, rested and ready

Quote of the day, part the second (conclusion)

Last will and testament of Francois Rabelais:

"I have nothing, I owe a great deal, and the rest I leave to the poor."

"10 cc's of day lilies, STAT!"

Called about some flowers yesterday for a, um, project that is upcoming, sort of guessing the Flower Man warehouse-place here would be closed. They were, but a guy answered the phone, sounded like he'd been awoken from a Labor Day siesta...

"Um, are you open today?"

"No, we're closed. Is this an emergency?"

What exactly could constitute an emergency to a flower wholesaler?

"Yes, I forgot my 70th wedding anniversary. And to put my pants on."
or
"Yes, the funeral is starting and everyone brought flour (with a u) instead of flowers..."
or
"Seattle Slew's grandson-horse is coming for dinner and we need a wreath of roses! HURRY!"

Odd.

Enough reverence, thanks

Here is a pic from Pitchfork today (c and p them, yes) of some of Wilco and Fleet Foxes covering a Dylan song.

1.) note the sincere ear-plugging, to find proper pitch

2.) Nice circle-be-unbroken folksy stances all around...

3.) Dylan is the most over-rated (yes, over-, not under-) songwriter of all time, overtaking no 2 (Lou Reed) by a mile

4.) The band members' English-lit prof aunts at Columbia or wherever are smiling wryly, glad to see the kids paying respect to the masters...

See, I can't even get my thoughts collected enough to get across to you how much this sucks, actually, as I am like a cobra spewing venom on a flatscreen, and the screen is scarcely visible for the vitriol. Regardless, the mawkish reverence in this photo is more than one man can take. This reminds me also of when I see a teenager in an AC/DC or Pink Floyd shirt or the like (even Pistols or the ubiqituous Misfits skull) I want to shake them and bring my standard scold to the fore, to wit: if it was 1971 and Who's Next was just out but you insisted on listening to music that was 30 years old, you'd be listening to Glenn Miller.

Like the man said, retro is killing culture:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA18xHStrQA

Quote of the day, part the first

"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered." - George Best