Come On Up To The House

Ooh. I’m sleepy. And confused: for possibly the first time in my life I didn’t have any substantial food all day (pastries don’t really count, I think) and I still wasn’t hungry come teatime. It didn’t stop me eating like I know I should - nay, must! - but that was a little disconcerting. Must be to do with the somewhat frantic of problem-solving, with-childish-superiors-dealing, and Turk-pacifying. My role in life is curious. Today has been a long, hard slog, and buy the whole time, and yet, perversely I finish it listening to Gangster’s Paradise (downloaded via Skreemr, potentially the greatest thing since the Hype Machine), and various other oldie hip hop. Loving its work.

Can’t type much more, need rest, but really, it is tricky.

I’m currently loving me some Wedding Present. I feel like there’s a column coming on here, the purchase of Seamonsters edging out this slightly more esoteric, almost outsider art of Half Japanese’s noodly twangings. But more on that later, no doubt. In the meantime, blogging - unusually from home, I present the excellent opening track from Seamonsters.

The Wedding Present - Dalliance

At risk of being a standard blogger, my life is all about the yucky business end at the moment. Too much work, too much shoulderly tension, too little time or energy to spend with the people with whom I wish to spend time.

What’s keeping me going is the forward look at a hoped-for future (at least, foreseeable future: in the grander scope, the world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through, but that’s a bit lofty for a Wedding Present post). I’m currently working out a feasibility study on a career change. That is to say, to start a career, as I don’t really consider an accidental slip into HE administration a career. I want to do a second degree, most likely this one, and I need to work out whether I can clear my hefty overdraft in a year, whether I can get any sort of government funding/grants/moneys, whether I can work from home during the course or something (maybe i could answer questions for 118 118), etc. I’d love love love to get on with this, and although it doesn’t look likely until September 2009, I think I have a goal now. Weird.

So maybe COUTTH will become a documented experiment in living frugally. Steps taken so far:

• Shopping at Aldi
• Cutting out takeaways
• Packed lunch
• Not eating snacks (not going well)

I’m looking at downgrading my beloved motor, but don’t want to face up to the fact that I might have to ditch it altogether.

DO NOT WANT.

It has forgotten art’s lofty mission: instead of raising the crowd to its level, it has lowered itself to the crowd’s.

So says Honoré de Balzac, referring to the populist nature of the Italian music contemporary to the looming titular character in his Gambara. It’s an interesting sentiment, and one which I can well see defining the age-old question: what is art?

I like that it’s referring to music, for a start. This is something I can get my teeth into. And it segues nicely from the preceding Unknown Masterpiece in my edition, apparently Balzac’s desire. Both deal with the private madness and obsession of art, with perspective and opinion as central themes. I love the way that the mission of art is described here, not to dumb itself down to meet the simple tastes of the great unwashed proletariat, but to raise their level of expectation higher, to improve them. Art should make people better, should make them more aware and give them more desire to grow and become better.

Such was Balzac’s opinion, or at least that of Count Andrea Marcosini. And I’m inclined to agree. Art, in all it’s forms, should not be lowest common denominator. Though those in the book conducting this conversation were derided, sometimes I think it’s acceptable to take a subjective, hardline approach to this sort of thing. Music that is made to appeal to as large a demographic as possible is barely music any longer - that’s why X-Factor, American Idol et al, while entertaining, are essentially pointless. Music doesn’t have to be elite: witness deep southern soul, the music of the people (as Joey ‘The Lips’ Fagan would probably have it), but it’s still wracked with emotion, with no edges shorn off to prevent certain subgroups getting upset.

Music shouldn’t be made for an elite, either, that’s just as bad as trying to appeal to any market area. Music should be made for its own sake, never dumbed-down or diluted, it is what it is and you have to make yourself better to appreciate it. I guess in essence that’s why hardcore music fans inevitably narrow their outlook so far that they can dismiss great things because they are more interested in searching out the better and the best, the Platonic ideal in their own chosen sphere. And that’s fine. It’s great. Art was never meant for the morons, the morons were meant to attain to the art, and that’s where the best work succeeds, and why I remain happily committed to slating sell-outs and frauds and Simon Cowell and faceless suits who churn out vacuous sounds for vacuous minds. I’m happy to remain pretentious, aloof and proud of the music I listen to, just like Marcosini, just like Gambara, just like Balzac.

I so rarely post about music anymore. Despite what you may believe from browsing recent posts, I’m not a political animal, I don’t like it. It’s just that I find that I find out what I myself believe through writing, often. Not about the truly essential stuff of life: but about political stances (and sorry, I don’t consider that to be indispensable), reading, food, my own education, all these things. I don’t tend to read back what I blog before I post, whether it’s a quick note, a link, or full-blown, clever-sounding essay of a post, and so my writing is a little bit of self-exploration. Or rather, it is here - elsewhere, when I write, my thoughts are distinctly more carefully considered. But I like this style of blogging, it means I keep track on the development of my own ideas over time, and as i’ve never kept anything resembling a journal, it’s quite nice.

But I don’t often post about music anymore. In many ways, it’s a better thing than politics, than the hack and slash of left vs. right, the ideologies and the theories and the conjectures. I’ve never found a single political ideology or philosophy that adequately covers this human sphere quite as completely and satisfactorily as my own christian faith, and therefore while these things are interesting, I consider myself a little removed from them, like they’re separate things, outside of my immediate vicinity.

But music. Art and creativity and emotion and soul, that which separates us from the animals. This cuts across political boundaries (or should), all divides, all barriers. Even if it’s just the Four Tet EP that was on my mind at the beginning of the post, a bounteous morass of techno, Glass-esque minimalism and outlandish drum loops. This is a far better thing than the ructions of fractious mankind and the squabbly, myopic attempts to resolve things, far better than most things, you know.

Ones first column is now available at the esteemed No Ripcord. I’m biased, obviously, but since the revamp it’s a really good-looking site and if I can pull my finger out and get some reviews on the go, then maybe we can make it a real contender. It’s already less ridiculous than Pitchfork, more cosmopolitan than DiS, and is back on metacritic - if you look closely, you’ll see I am classified in a “carefully-screened group of the most respected critics.” Oh yes I am.

I’ve been doing this writing business for about 5 years now. I started doing it because I didn’t know how best to keep my hand in after university, and although I get lazy now and then, I’ve not stopped. I like seeing myself on Metacritic, it makes me look legitimate and everything.

I even get a column. I like this. I like that I have a column and not a blog there. Look at me! I’m a journalist! Etc. I need to get myself a smug headshot to put next to it, then next think you’ll know I’ll be writing for the Guardian.

You can see what I thought of Mr Nick Cave at the newly-improved, and I have to see pretty exciting again No Ripcord. David, if you’re reading this, sorry I screwed up the picture.

As you may gather, I wasn’t too impressed. Less the scintillating, gorgeous sound of his records, more an aging man trying to regain his youth. Sad. Glimmers of wonder there were, but the band were woefully underused, and even Mr Cave himself didn’t seem too happy.

Today, the heat continues, the workrate diminishes rapidly, and tonight I’m spring cleaning. The joy!

So Nick Cave was… alright. More on that another time. What is really on my mind is the fact that I don’t really go to gigs very much these days. Why not? Is it the bands that play? Is it that I’m too old to stand up for two hours? Of course not. It’s a family tradition that’s creeping into my own life. It’s other people.

For as long as I can remember my dad has parked as far away from other people as possible, and as a family unit we have shunned the social scene in favour of splendid, bucolic isolation. And that appears to be affecting me in my old age also, just like gardening, and the looming threat of high cholesterol. Rock’n'roll concerts have lost their tang, their flavour for me, based on the horrors and the hideousness of Other People and their lack of respect for the conventions of civility and social etiquette.

The Hammersmith Apollo is a nice theatre. If you went to see a play there, or perhaps a comedy gig, you wouldn’t expect to find people climbing over three rows of seats to get out. Nor would you expect to find drunk, hairy men finishing the comedians’ jokes for them, a little out of time and in a distinctly ineloquent fashion, while bouncing off the people around them. A little social skill would go a long way in a venue such as this, but such is the rock’n'roll show, for some reason: you have every reason to be loud, lairy and annoying to others around, y’know, cos it rocks and it’s fun. Right?

WRONG.

Tonight I’m going to see Nick Cave. I’m looking forward to it: I haven’t been to a gig in ooh, an age, and it’s in Hammersmith Apollo, which is meant to be a nice venue. I’m not half getting old these days though. There’s a large part of me which would be happy to stay home, and I’m wondering if this review, by the always reliable Coxon, of an angry-sounding Cave is representative of the whole tour.

We’ll see.

I’m currently reassessing my options in the light of the cancellation of my Polish classes. Because while I was sad for that, for a while, maybe it’s a sign I should be looking a little larger scale in my endeavours. I was told, by my careers advisor-cum-flatmate, that I should do a second degree, in Geography. Interesting, I thought. So I’m researching my options, and no doubt (as I’m sure you avid readers of this blog will be hanging on my every word) I’ll get back to you.

I blame this wonderful book.

So, it turns out, America is weird. This city of Miami, for example, I kind of love it a bit but at the same time I don’t understand it in the slightest.  Things I now love:

• Cuban-style coffee
• Air-conditioning
• Retro cars and motorbikes
• Coffee-maker in room

 Things I’m getting used to:

• Driving on the opposite side (although it still feels precarious).
• No tea available
• Tipping (an arcane art)

 Things for which it’ll take a little time:

• Everything’s covered in sauce
• Jobs are divided by race far more than in London
  • Manual jobs – black people
  • Service jobs – Hispanic people
  • Anything-collar jobs – white people
• When to cross the road?

 Things I’ll never be able to do:

• Hail a taxi, apparently.

I’m enjoying this city of gleaming, roaring motorcycles, scorching March’s, pavement cafes, Cuban coffee and spotless tans. I ended up choosing from Ocean Drive’s myriad of restaurants on the basis of the music blaring from the PA - New Order good, Bob Marley better, REM’s Driver 8 - the definite winner.

I wrote a post here about Paul Westerberg. As you can imagine, it was full of witty insight, deft manoeuvrings around the English Language, sharp critical analysis and the occasional belly laugh. But I’m cursed in that my post has disappeared, I do not know where.

 To catch up, do listen to:

Paul Westerberg: Folker
Replacements: Let It Be
Replacements: Pleased To Meet Me

PS - hurrah for Fopp!