| Monday May 15 It rains. In Borders, buy two books - Ed Jones' frank, depressing and amusing account of how to be a failed indie rock star in "This Is Pop" and Nick Johnstone's appalling history of the Melody Maker. (Oh, I do like my soulful lifework reduced to a series of lists.) The irony of these purchases is not lost on me. I start e-mailing various friends and work contacts. (Two days later, my Sent Messages File has cleared 250, and that's not even including the deleted ones.) This task is so massive and time-consuming and depressing that, despite its end result - a mantelpiece boasting at least 20 CDs, most of which I want - I would rather go back to cleaning bedroom blinds for hours on end than have to suffer it again. Michael Bonner at Uncut does me a massive favour and e-mails me his contacts list. This means that later I have a couple of extremely gratifying, positive conversations with the ever-lovable Mick Houghton (a book should be written) and Penny from Delta PR (who follows up her chat with a parcel-load of reissue CDs, including Ramones, Richard Hell and MC5). It also means that I end up speaking to slightly nonplussed managers of dance acts, cos I can't recognise half the numbers. And of course, I get the obligatory runaround - in this case, from Best In Press where I'm treated like a 17-year-old trainee (albeit, very politely). However, having experienced a year of this from Australian PRs, I am able to shake this call off like a duck jettisoning a hurricane. Stephen Sweet calls to ask if I can look after wife and baby this weekend in London while he jets off to the States to shoot the new Babes In Toyland, Kittie. Except Kittie are all about five years old, dress in PVC and sound like Korn. © Everett True 2000 |
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