Spin me right round

I've been gone so long that I've missed several rants on Cynical Ben's blog, but I've been having lots of fun. I went to see Tindersticks at the Union Chapel in Islington and it was amazing in so many ways (thanks to Gigantic.com for sorting out the ticket so kindly - 10% of the booking fee goes to Oxfam, and thanks too to my sister Hilary and her fiancé Dominic). The venue is an octagonal neo-Gothic Victorian Congregationalist church which doubles up as a gig venue. I saw the BBC footage of an Arcade Fire gig there last year and was impressed, but being there was amazing. It really lends itself to the intensity of cult bands - of which number Tindersticks are definitely counted. They're a 7-piece not afraid of Jim Reeves-style crooning, cellos and feedback. 

The first records I ever bought were 10" vinyl. One was Tindersticks' Sweet Kathleen and the other was Gorky's Zygotic Mynci's Patio LP, purchased from my most favourite but ruinous shop in the world, Recordiau'r Cob in Bangor, North Wales. All I owned before I rolled up at Bangor Uni was a cassette tape of Automatic for the People (a present) and a love of Slayer. Why I chose GZM and Tindersticks I can't remember, but they were great buys - I'm still a sucker for lo-fi, cellos, side-projects and vinyl. 

Those gits at Cob made a fortune from me. They were all in Welsh-language bands like Ectogram and would stuff my pre-order bags with their own stuff and any old shit that nobody else would buy. I wouldn't have minded, except that they handed over all this stuff while keeping up a continuous running commentary on the all-round awfulness of everything I'd actually chosen to buy. For five years. I miss that kind of dedication - there's no record shop in Wolverhampton. 

The other reason I enjoyed Tindersticks was that it reminded me that there's a delightful, slightly self-satisfied but adorable world of bourgeois enjoyment out there. The crowd looked like extras in a St. Etienne video - cool, liberal, relaxed geography teachers. Most 'cool' people belong in a camp. They spend too much money on hairstyles and designer glasses, while solipsistically ignoring the world's woes (most of which they've caused). Tindersticks fans (and Belle and Sebastian fans, despite Cynical Ben's outpouring of faux-proletarian hate) are kind, warm, sophisticated people and there aren't any of them in Wolverhampton.