It's warm inside the bubble. Let's never leave it.

Morning all.

Despite the general gloom (a viciously rightwing government intent on grinding our faces into the dirt, environmental collapse, all the marking, deadlines etc. etc.), it's actually been a rather lovely few days for those of us here in Vole Towers.

Quite a lot of the weekend was spent in my favourite city, Manchester. If it wasn't for their football teams' blend of arrogance and entitlement, it would be the best place on earth. Fine food was eaten, beautiful beers were consumed in fine independent establishments like the Port Street Beer House, arty gifts were bought and we saw Ride, reformed and in amazing form at the Manchester Albert Hall, a venue suspended in decaying beauty. The same goes for the crowd actually. The band looked trim and barely aged, and the audience had unearthed all its shoe gazing and baggy clobber for the occasion: t-shirts from back in the day and a fine collection of Italian leisure wear last glimpsed on the terraces in 1991, worn by (mostly) chaps whose jowls, hairlines and paunches hadn't stayed quite so pristine. I sang along to all the songs, as did most of those present, and the band soaked up the adoration. By the time they name checked their favourite Manchester bands we were eating out of their hands.

Back at work, we hosted a talk by Narinder Dhami, author of 200-300 childrens' books (so far), ranging from novelisations of Bend It Like Beckham to her 'Bindi Babes' series and crossing genres from light comedy to (in her new novel 13 Hours) thrillers. With her mother and sister in the audience, she read extracts from the new novel, talked about basing characters and events on her childhood, avoiding 'issues'  writing, the work involved in being a prolific author, how to get published and stay current, her relationship with fans and the writing process itself. Afterwards we went for dinner and I spent a long time chatting with her husband about our mutual favourite subjects: leftwing literature and photography. It sure beats moaning about marking.

I took a few photos:

I spent the rest of the sunny evening on grass

Leaving them all behind

So, after a week of marking and funerals and sibling birthdays, we have a long weekend ahead of us. As it's raining, I'm going to Manchester where at least that's normal. I'm off to see Ride, one of the first bands I really fell for (see also Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, Tindersticks, Elastica and REM).

Being deprived of music until I got to university in 1993, I caught the tail-end of shoe gazing, just as Britpop killed off all the genuine indie bands. Britpop added ambition, cocaine, Union flags, football laddishness and fun. Not all of these things were conducive to good music, though looking at my enormous collection of coloured vinyl 7" singles, I clearly wasn't a very discerning listener. I just bought everything NME told me to, and passively accepted whatever the staff of Cob Records foisted on me (unsaleable stuff by their bands mostly). They'd openly mock what I asked to buy, and they were largely right. Nobody needs more than one Cecil or Northern Uproar single.

Not that I'd deny my youthful taste in music. The point of being young is that however derivative a band's sound is, it's new to the young. Once I'd bought all the new bands' music I could, I found the albums they'd been listening to. Without the (literally) thousands of Gomez and Helen Love and Starsailor singles I bought, I'd never have found My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, This Mortal Coil, Cocteau Twins, Mazzy Star, Stereolab, Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, PJ Harvey, Joni Mitchell, Galaxie 500, Low, Datblygu, Tystion, Fflaps, Keith Jarrett, Kate Bush, Scott Walker, Steve Reich, Field Mice, Huggy Bear, Catchers, David Wrench, Bikini Kill and all the others (all links to favourite songs).

So, Ride. Good hair. Introspection. Enigmatic artwork and designs. Mumbling. Softness followed by jarring LOUDNESS. Britpop wiped them out for not being ambitious enough but they seemed fairly big and outgoing to me.* I also liked that wave of one-word bands: Pulp, Salad, Ride, Blur, Lush, Verve and so on. My favourite Ride album is Nowhere: here's 'Vapour Trail'.



I also love this melancholic American cover version:



I've also had a soft spot for 'Twisterella', 'Leave Them All Behind' and 'Chrome Waves' from Going Blank Again.







All their albums have a place in my heart, but Carnival of Light is special - the sound of a band with the vision and cash for a sprawling, cosmic piece of work. Once you've got a children's choir on board, you're off and away:



Finally there's the song and album that broke them up. 'Black Nite Crash' is a riffing monster. I love it.



I think what was lost with Britpop was a sense that the music itself was important. So many Britpop bands (and almost all the ones that followed) seem happy to be the soundtrack to a football goals highlights package or adverts. The British indie scene was often smug, precious and introverted, but there was a commitment to a culture that went beyond commodity entertainment. Yes, Ride had a prog element, but however imperfectly, they made art rather than stuff that eventually got them a judge's seat on Britain's Got Talent.

So anyway - off to Manchester for a loud night's shoegazing. Enjoy your bank-holiday weekend.

*also the drugs. I read a very amusing interview with them in which the singer was obsessed with whether the tongues of his trainers could be seen peeking out from his trousers. In retrospect, it seems likely he'd refreshed himself over-liberally.

Forward to the Web Revolution

I'm getting hits from Canada and Algeria from people searching for Damian Mcbride. Hopefully they aren't from politicians wanting to hire him. So anyway, some of my readers are clearly interested in politics but are too shy to comment.

In case any of you missed it, my take on McBride is this: the Tories are utter scum, and there's loads of political ammunition available. What socialists shouldn't do is reach for gossip about people's private lives, especially false allegations. Let's just tell people what the Tories are actually like - arrogant, vicious, self-interested individualists who would serve up granny's mechanically-recovered spinal tissue as burgers to their children if it won them a vote. We all know that the Labour government (as opposed to the party members) are collectively addicted to the meanest, most selfish facets of conservatism, but we needn't decline to the state where we take Guido Fawkes and his ilk as a model of progressive campaigning.

Wig out

I don't sing the praises of non-Britpop indie bands nearly enough - I love Field Mice, Galaxie 500, Low, Ride, Stereolab, Velocette, The Go-Betweens and loads of others and have well over 20,000 records in my room to prove it (and no money). Turn up your speakers and rock (metronomically and exponentially) to Super-Electric by Stereolab.