I wrote a fairly long blog entry at school today between lessons and at break and lunchtime, but as is the way of such things I forgot to lift the file from my laptop to bring home. I dont transport my laptop between school and home these days - it hardly seems worth it most days, but that's another story. So, um, another day goes by without much here. So I'll try and remember to post todays entry on Monday, by which point I'll be able to tell you if my projected weekend worked out the way I thought it would. As if you care...

Not sure where to post this as it's inevitably going to throw out the whole flow of things, but below is what I wrote Friday for the Friday night blog entry...

Bloody January.

I was talking to a colleague this week who said that last January she wrote a note to herself to be read this time this year. It read: ‘It gets better!’. But as she said, it doesn’t really help. Because January still sucks.

So here I am, at the end of another week in which it seemed like finding the space to breathe was almost impossible, feeling lousy with another cold coming on, and… well, you know, it’s JANUARY.

There have been flickers of light of course. Last weekend was good, even if we did have to spend several hours in the Cavern fending off drunken lads in ‘Rancid’ t-shirts and pub over-spill looking for late-night drinking who certainly didn’t care about buying a cool magazine or listening to Everett play The Gang of Four or The Pop Group. But I cared, and so did some others, and it’s always good to meet new souls who are doing good things. So respect to Ben from Sink and Stove records and the Playwrights, whose new single is very fine in a post-out-rock-pop way and in fact makes me think the Playwrights could be a Bristolian version of Australia’s fine Deloris, which of course is good news in my book. Or Nick from Silent Age records and Gravenhurst, whose set was cruelly curtailed by the notorious Cavern sound system, but whose Internal Travels album (Red Square / Silent Rage) is an enchanting mix of Low, Blueboy and the kinds of melancholy desolation and decay captured by the early Red House Painters. I’d vow to catch them again soon if I didn’t know I was going to be holed up in the attic.

And then there’s Chikinki, who played a set which was at times all over the place, and whose singer Rupert was so drunk that he tried way too hard it was beyond funny, BUT, as time went and the monstrous sub-bass and keyboard wails come on strong, gelled spectacularly into a deranged avalanche of electronic ice shelves. The album, on Sink and Stove, is less dynamic than their live set, but intriguing nonetheless.

Trouble is of course that we’re all getting older, and these kinds of late nights just sap our strength these days. Or at least they do mine. Everett reckons nowadays he turns into a pumpkin after midnight, although I can’t say I noticed, but that was probably because I’d changed into one too. Whatever.

I got my copy of Sim City 4 last weekend but have barely had chance to even look at it. It’s probably terribly embarrassing to admit it, but I’ve always loved Sim City. Sim City 2000 was the first computer game I bought, and it was completely addictive. How well I remember hearing those words ‘reticulating splines’ as the game loaded, and hey, didn’t 4-Hero use that sample in one of their tunes, or am I imagining that? It’s been such a long time since I played any of those old 4-Hero records, and I really ought to dig them out again because weren’t they just amazingly good? I’m sure they’d still stand up… But yeah, Sim City 4. It’s sitting on my computer and I’ve barely laid down a road or zoned a batch of green so that cheap housing can be erected, complete with old washing machines in the yard. So maybe this cold is a blessing in disguise; an excuse to sit in all weekend in front of the screen, not thinking about anything except zoning and laying down transportation networks and fiddling with tax rates. All of which I KNOW sounds interminably dull, but then maybe that’s just how I am these days… or have ever been, I don’t know. It’s fine either way.

Something else I got this week which has been a god-send is a CDR of various recordings by The Wild Swans. In case that name means nothing to you, I’ll quickly just mention that they were maybe THE crucial Liverpool group at a time when there were a clutch of essential Liverpool groups (we’re talking late ‘70s / early ‘80s), a group who evolved through various guises and which included at various times future members of the likes of The Lotus Eaters, Care and the Woodentops. They are particularly revered for their single on Bill Drummond’s Zoo label, ‘The Revolutionary Spirit’, a single that more than one person has deemed the greatest single ever. It’s a description that is of course bang on the money. So this CDR collects that single, and a group of mythic radio session recordings and previously unheard demos, and it’s been the one thing brightening up my mornings before heading off to the drudgery of school, its glorious sounds being perfect breakfast accompaniment.

I’d actually been looking forward to this CDR for a while, ever since hearing about the planned CD compilation of elusive and exclusive Wild Swans recordings that was being coordinated from an old Exeter post-office. It was all kept under wraps for some time, but now it seems to be an official project to be put out by the Renascent label who did such a good job packaging those Sound reissues. No idea when the official release will be but it looks like the early part of 2003 at least will be one of great anticipation…

Oh, and please don’t ask for a copy of the CDR because the answer will be no :-) A promise is a promise.




posted by duke harringay at 5:04 PM