Cybele's Reverie

I was lying in bed last night listening to Stereolab's Emperor Tomato Ketchup album (mmm… French Marxists playing a mix of 60s pop and German motorik) and it triggered a real madeleine moment.



I was transported back to my favourite student room in Bangor. It was accessed by some precipitous stairs, through a trapdoor and into the roofspace. I'm quite short, but even I could only stand in the middle of the room thanks to the steeply sloping roof. A skylight afforded a great view of the yachts' masts in the harbour, and the mountains. On windy nights, the yachts' bells and ringing created a beautifully, unearthly sound.

All I had in there was a bed and a chest of drawers containing two pairs of black jeans, two black shirts and a black leather bikers' jacket. Books and records were piled up against the limited wall space. By the bed was my 1970s record player and unutterably crap speakers, reachable without having to crawl out from under the duvet. Black and red Doctor Martens boots were tucked into the corner. Black clothes, DMs, very long hair and extreme slimness - what a stereotypical student.

The records which were on constant rotation were classics of the 90s: The Boo Radleys' Giant Steps, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci's wonderful 10" Patio (pop-psychedelic Welsh-language teenage genius) and Elastica by Elastica. I have two copies of that - I fell out of bed and the crash scratched the first track. I'm still sad about that, but it meant that I could legitimately order the US release which has an extra track on it. Elastica did good specials: 'Stutter' is on a 10" transparent gold platter with glitter scattered inside. My tastes widened, but I still think these albums have stood the test of time.













On a quiet morning, I could lift the needle on something cool, grab a book - often some critical theory or a fat 18th-century novel like Pamela, feed biscuits to the mice which played at the foot of the bed and settle in for a day's indulgence.

That was my second year at university. Later on, when I came back for an MA, I moved back into the same dark, musty, cosy house. My room had been declared unsafe for accommodation (trapdoors and drunkenness don't mix) so I paid an extra £5 a week rent (making the total £38 per week) to use it as a library, books ranged in endless rows. Unfortunately, one of my dubious Irish housemates left the skylight open in a rainstorm and damaged huge numbers of them - totally unapologetically.

I loved living in that house. Surrounded by freaks, hamsters, guinea pigs, a tarantula, hugely stoned juggling goths, a Swedish psychopath and assorted weirdos all finding each other highly amusing. The next year was another story entirely…

Why I miss the early 90s, part 349

I'll display my unashamedly nostalgic side now. I was caught up in the Britpop craze, having started to buy music while at university from 93-96. Some of those bands were rubbish (Powder, anyone?) and some great (Elastica, Blur's Modern Life is Rubbish distils an era, though it heralded Britpop rather than fully partook in it).

But. Britpop killed off the jungle of non-corporate music - such as shoegaze -  or at least drove it to the margins, where it became fragmented and overly precious. Chasing hit singles, appearing in style mags and being spotted at celeb events became signs of success, rather than producing great work or remaining artistically honest. It was also a deeply laddish culture - females (Lush, Pale Saints, Juliana Hatfield, Liz Phair, Riot Grrl) were marginalised, however good their music, with odd exceptions such as the wonderful P J Harvey.

So today I've been listening to Belly, fronted by Tanya Donelly, formerly of the even more wonderful Breeders and Throwing Muses (I'll come to them in due course). Belly melded jangly guitars, an ethereal voice and a muscular rock rhythm section to produce something captivating. Indie night classics!

Book news

I read a glorious, pointless book yesterday. It's Bad Vibes, by Luke Haines - his account/autobiography of the Britpop years. Haines was the misanthropic egotist behind The Auteurs, Baader-Meinhof and Black Box Recorder, as well as recording under his own name. In thrall to The Go-Betweens and Nick Cave, but adding his own splenetic misery, Haines uses the book to attack, well, everybody, while declining false modesty. Everyone else was shit, and he's a genius. According to him.

A whole book of this would be unbearable, were it not for one thing: Haines is right. He is a genius and most other bands were rubbish compared with him. Unfortunately for our hero, the corporate world of music isn't really set up for misanthropic musical critiques. It likes singles and populist albums. And thus the stage is set for artistic ascension, critical approval and commercial failure. Which is a problem because, as Haines unflinchingly records, he likes fame, attention, money and drugs. All of which come to those who play the game - and he can't do it. The book's brilliant because Haines doesn't spare himself from unflinching criticism and scorn for his arrogance, petulance and narcissism, while dishing it out to everybody else too.

Save our Nerds

All subcultures are appropriated, hollowed out and reoriented for the purposes of capitalism. This is just true - and Dick Hebdige wrote about it a long time ago. But I guess we don't care about it much when it's somebody else's subculture. I got it around 1992-1993, when Indie became Britpop and a world was lost. Other may feel that Topshop selling metal band t-shirts to townies was pretty insulting. Now this guy feels it's been done to nerds. True - but so late: I'd guess Weird Science started the rot in 1985. The Big Bang Theory is simply the coup de grace.