song of the week 36: felt - sunlight bathed the golden glow

Last night I went to the BFI to see Paul Kelly's new documentary "Lawrence of Belgravia".

The eponymous Lawrence (his surname is never used) is difficult to pin down: certainly eccentric, sometimes funny (wittingly or unwittingly), generally not particularly likeable though endearing on occasions, above all optimistically single-minded in a search for pop stardom which, to those looking on, seems doomed to failure.

Erstwhile lead singer of eighties jangly indie darlings Felt and nineties glam rockers Denim, these days Lawrence fronts the novelty synth-pop outfit Go Kart Mozart. In one of a series of interviews shown during the film, he claims that he's now "legally bonkers". Fleeting shots of methadone prescriptions and arrest warrants in his name suggest he might be right.

If he seems a bit at sea these days, that doesn't mean that some of the music he made all those years ago wasn't pretty fine:

world of twee

I notice that on its weekly new album reviews page, last Friday's Independent awarded a solid, if unspectacular, three stars out of five to the new offering by a band called Stornoway. Probably fair enough: from what I know they're solid, if unspectacular, purveyors of generally inoffensive tunes. Reviewer Andy Gill's parting shot though is that "they can't rock and roll for toffee". The general tone of what he says seems to suggest that he'd like to add "...and you kind of wish they did, frankly".

But Andy, there have been many, many bands who in their time have been totally unable to rock and roll. And as far as I'm concerned I'm not sure we would have wanted it any other way.

Besides all the glitzy New Romanticism and power pop around at the time, in the early 1980s a number of bands were quietly making names for themselves in a kind of off-shoot of the indie canon which was being established during these years. These were bands who had none of the testosterone-fuelled swagger and posturing of the leather clad metal rockers of the early seventies, none of the phlegmy vitriol of the punk rock explosion. Yes, they had guitars but none of the meaty riffs which had been rife in the previous decade. They played chords in the form of rhythmically percussive syncopations or delicately jangly arpeggios, sometimes in a gentle, almost Latin style.

These were bands usually made up of whey-faced (often Scottish) young men--occasionally women--wearing long tweedy coats with collars turned up against the wind and the rain. Regulation hairstyle (both sexes): long at the top--often quiffed--and short at the sides.

As if to celebrate the general wilful rejection of machismo, fans of this music, typically self-deprecating, proudly labelled it "twee".

And some of it was pretty good...

• Orange Juice - Falling and Laughing (1980)
• Everything But The Girl - Night and Day (1983)
• Aztec Camera - Walk Out to Winter (1983)
  
• Bluebells - I'm Falling (1984)
• Go-Betweens - Bachelor Kisses (1984)
• Lotus Eaters - First Picture of You (1984)
• Wedding Present - Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft (1987)
  
• My Bloody Valentine - Strawberry Wine (1987)
  
• Bradford - Skin Storm (1988)
  
• Blue Nile - Headlights On The Parade (1989)
• Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas (1990)
  

More recent decades have continued to produce their share of "tweeness" and hoorah for that. Here are some of the bands who held out against the Mancy swagger of those brash Oasis louts during the Britpop era:

• Lush - Sweetness and Light (1990)
  
• Blueboy - Boys Don't Matter (1994)
• Bluetones - Slight Return (1995)
  
• Belle and Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister (1996)
• Trash Can Sinatras - How can I Apply? (1996)
• The Sundays - Summertime (1997)

...and here are some from the last ten years or so. These days they're sometimes Norwegian, like the Kings of Convenience. Occasionally, like the Postmarks, they're (whisper it) American.

• Spearmint - Scottish Pop (1999)
• Kings of Convenience - Toxic Girl (2001)
• Camera Obscura - Lloyd I'm Ready to be Heartbroken (2006)
• Postmarks - Goodbye (2009)

I've just finished reading "Falling and Laughing" (see also above) by Grace Maxwell. It's the fantastically uplifting account of her partner Edwyn Collins's recent return to music-making and a life of at least partial normality after suffering two massive strokes in 2005. It seems that in their early days Orange Juice used to revel in the Twee philosophy:

They used to say they were 'anti-rock'. In the early days, Glasgow audiences used to chant 'Poofs! Poofs! Poofs!' at them. They liked that just fine. There was a campness in their delivery, deliberately affected to annoy the manly men of rock.

Take it away Edwyn...



(Spotified--more or less--here, if you're wondering...)

80s balladeers uncovered!

Stackridge @ 100 Club, 6th November

What we learned tonight:

• Stackridge have been going for ages
  
• In fact, they performed at the first Glastonbury Festival in 1970
• They probably get filed under "folk" in HMV but I can spot elements of prog and guitar pop too...
  
• They've often been compared to the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah band
• ...which may or may not be due to their occasional Wurzel-like trombone-based West Country oompah songs (boo!)
  
• But wait, they also do a nice line in BigStaresque jangly guitar songs (hoorah!)
  
• What's more, in another life they were the Korgis:

Double hoorah!!

parklife 2

Tindersticks & Big Star @ Hyde Park, 1st July

Big Star got all their best ideas from Teenage Fanclub*. What a cheek eh?

Listen to this, for example...



* No I know. Not true. Big Star=1971-1978 and 2005- . TFC=1990-2005.

summat for nowt

Fopp Records have two of my favourite albums (Grand Prix and Songs From Northern Britain by Teenage Fanclub) in a box set. They are selling it for £3. This is scandalous. Consumers should not be allowed to have great music at grotesquely reduced prices like this.

shrag. v. t. to trim, as trees; to lop

Shrag, The Tender Trap, Arthur and Martha @ The Lexington, 2nd April

Arthur and Martha are big on synths, drum machines and other electronic gubbins, including an unwieldy theremin. Bleeps and bloops ensue. They in no way sound like Hot Chip however. Song title of the evening: "Squarewave to Heaven".

The Tender Trap: Women sing and play keyboards and drums standing up. Men play guitar and bass, also standing up. (Is that that bloke out of Nirvana on guitar?) The addition of two extra woman backing vocalists recently has filled out their sound a lot since last time I heard them, and their "ba-da-ba ba-da-ba"'s remind me of Stereolab and Teenage Fanclub. Which cheers me up.

Shrag: Energetic, occasionally profane, "jagged post punk". Again, men play guitars and bass and women sing, play dinky electronic keyboards, but also shout a lot and kick a considerable amount of ass on the drums. Great stuff. Hear more at their lastfm page.