What I Heard And What I Missed

What an odd weekend: a funeral followed by a gig.

After my grandmother's send-off (I delivered a reading as though it were a lecture to a particularly dim group of students), I spent a day marking online student discussions until my eyes bled, then headed off to London with my sister: I'd bought Belle and Sebastian tickets for her and her husband as a birthday present.

The journey down was quite pleasant, despite me hating car travel. They're both interesting and funny, and I had their kitten climbing all over me: it had been to Shropshire for a few weeks' holiday.

Belle and Sebastian played at the Roundhouse in Camden: they were great, especially at audience interaction, and the new album is loads better than the previous couple. What a venue: a circular Victorian train shed. Great views, good beer, excellent sound quality and no heavy-handed security.

What I missed was The Nightingales in the Purcell Rooms on the South Bank. Between marking and travelling I just couldn't manage it, which is a desperate shame, as they're personal friends. I missed their local gig due to the funeral too: apparently those two gigs are the best they've ever done.

So long (for now)

I'm off for a few days. It's my grandmother's funeral tomorrow, and as nobody's presented me with a free iPhone, I won't be live-blogging it. After that, it's a couple of days in London with my sister to see Belle and Sebastian, then back to spend the bank holiday doing more marking: it's all got to be done by Tuesday morning.

My mother's asked me to give a reading. Even though I'm an atheist, I'm doing it. It's from Acts, and it's a letter to Cornelius. Being an irreverent pop-culture maven, the only Cornelius who pops into my head is this chap.

Have a good weekend. 

Just for Ben: a big bucket of Twee

Today's album is Belle and Sebastian's Tigermilk, with their BBC sessions thrown in. I have everything else the band has done, but only on vinyl, so Ben's spared the full horror. Why Ben? Because Belle and Sebastian represent everything he despises: they're mostly middle-class, they sing about middle-class things, he claims they're sexless (despite an album called The Boy With the Arab Strap), they're named after a French children's novel and TV show, and they're in thrall to the 1960s.

All this is true. But. They write thrilling tunes (not always, but often), I'm middle class (as is Ben), sex isn't everything and I don't care where they got the name. It's good to hear Scottish accents rather than faux-American, I like listening to songs of ordinary life, and they aren't nearly so unadventurous musically as their reputation suggests. They're great to dance to and good for listening to alone. They're pretentious and precious: good. The world needs them.

Tigermilk was made for the band's college course, and only 1000 copies were produced - I got my CD bootleg under the counter at my favourite record shop, as word spread. I loved the excitement of such a new band becoming popular by word of mouth. I also liked the envious glances at indie night when James and I turned up with the first B+S t-shirts in North Wales!

'Electronic Renaissance' is my favourite track.















Sorry Ben. Suck it up!

Our house, in the middle of our street

Welcome to another week in the fun factory.

It's been a momentous and hugely expensive weekend for me. £3000 later, I've moved house for the first time in 9 years and 10 months, from the cramped room in which I wrote my PhD (occasionally) to a city-centre apartment. It's now piled high with boxes of books and my beloved vinyl records - I'll post some photos tomorrow, but I've cleared a space on the bed at least.

I'm now persuaded that going to the pub, then to a nightclub and dancing until three a.m. is not the ideal way to prepare for a weekend of heavy manual labour. Still, it was fun.

Taking down the old room was weird. Mostly joyful, but very hard work, and I kept finding things which touched off odd memories. My madeleine moment was finding photographs, and a load of band t-shirts from the mid-nineties, when I was rake thin: they were mostly skinny-fit and cool: Velocette, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, Silver Sun, Super Furry Animals, Catatonia, the Belle and Sebastian 'Study at Stow' shirt from 1995, my 1970s Adidas v-neck shirt, a C+W embroidered shirt, alongside my old biker jacket, which will definitely appear in public again. The t-shirts, despite forming a significant role in my cultural development, will be awarded to the girls I know who can squeeze into them. Despite all the swimming, I won't be seeing a 28" waist again unless I develop some horrendous disease. Anyone know of a good one?

Anyway, I need to say a massive public thankyou to: James (who used the excuse of driving the big white van to air his most reactionary views: the Daily Star on the dashboard was the piéce de resistance); Gerry, Mark, Dan, Neal, Anita and Howard. They all overcame their various disabilities to shift massive, heavy things for almost 12 hours. Nothing was broken nor lost, and nobody complained, despite the intense provocation afforded by my half-arsed organisation. I'm not, it's fair to say, going to have a second career in logistics.

I also saw Cynical Ben on Friday. Having explored the delights of Walsall and Willenhall for the day (he's a local lad) he texted to cancel going out for a drink with the words 'Fuck the Midlands, I'm off. The idea of spending another 3 hours here is giving me the fear. Sorry'.

He relented, and sat in my first-year poetry lecture, and had the good grace to not openly mock or heckle, so thanks to him too! He even met Zoot Horn, which was all a bit postmodern.

Help! Inspiration lacking!

My third sister gets married next week. I hate wedding presents, they're all utterly unimaginative. I don't want to mark one of the greatest days in someone's life by giving them a toaster. What do you suggest? She's cool in a Belle and Sebastian way, and he's just finished a PhD in theoretical geometry mathematics or something like that, and they're in their mid-twenties.

Brief notes

Doonesbury has another go at the terrible diversion that is Twitter. His line is that it's appallingly narcissistic.

Got some proper twee in the post today: God Help The Girl's 'Come Monday Night' 7" single. They're a Belle and Sebastian side project.

I've also discovered pitchfork.com, for all your indie needs (farewell, Word and other magazines for aging losers), and Jim Carroll's On The Record blog at the Irish Times, which Anita assures me is highly reliable for hot indie tips.

Here's some Th' Faith Healers - there's not a lot out there, probably because they split in 94.

I'm such a middle-class w*nker

How gloriously bourgeois: I'm marking essays while listening to a Belle and Sebastian live album. Ben would hate it. James would secretly like it but is too cool to admit it. Jo, I feel, would approve.

Cynical Ben will hate this

My twee, Sarah- and Postcard-loving soul thrills to the delivery today of the Belle and Sebastian BBC sessions. John Peel liked them too, so you can all sod off.

Where have all the great record companies gone? I used to collect Fierce Panda stuff, until they decided to become a super-indie rather than a launch pad for all sorts of weirdoes. Ankst used to be fun but their moment's gone. Bella Union are reliably brilliant, as are 555.

I see that my friends The Nightingales are no. 14 in the Dandelion Radio Festive 50 for last year - and they're getting better and better, mostly because we bought Alan a theremin.