Guilty pleasures have
always perplexed me. They exist – somewhere, sometimes. When you eat Christmas
puddings all through the year, that’s a guilty pleasure. When you drink too
much – before it smacks of addiction, that’s a guilty pleasure. Not
necessarily, but could be.
When it comes to art – there’s no such thing as a guilty
pleasure. If you like a Katy
Perry song, that’s you liking a Katy Perry song. Plain and simple. I’m not
saying there’s nothing wrong with that (and who am I to judge?), but ‘guilty
pleasure’ is just a silly excuse invented by confidence-lacking people to cover
their gaping insecurities.
The leak of Spotify
playlists is totally irrelevant, but it has
revealed some interesting things. The Pitchfork founder in particular got found out.
As it turned out, the guy is a closet Nickelback fan. This is funny and rather
sad. Funny – because it is Pitchfork. Sad – because you can see how easily
Facebook years will let that happen. Some people just have to build another life around themselves,
something fake but ultimately more attractive.
A century of fakers,
and Stuart Murdoch put it so beautifully on a train from London to Glasgow (or
that’s what I hear):
It was around 2006
and the release of Modern Times that
Dylan reached the point that very few living artists are allowed to reach. It’s
no longer relevant if his latest work is a triumph or if it’s a complete
disaster or if it’s merely okay. Funnily enough, you can’t even tell anymore if it’s
any of those three.
Well, I laughed at
some of that Christmas stuff. And got distracted too many times during Together Through Life. And now I had a
chance to dream all through Dylan singing Sinatra. But that is all I can
suggest. Oh, and perhaps I can also say this: last time he made me shiver with
genuine, primordial excitement was during “Workingman’s Blues #2”. And that
was, what, almost ten years ago.
There are stories. Great
stories you wouldn’t recommend even to a best friend who likes this writer more
than any other person you know.
Ian McEwan’s recent
article about his early writings got me thinking about those two short-story
collections he wrote back in the 70s. First
Love, Last Rites and In Between The
Sheets. Perversity, pornography, incest, bestiality. This was the man,
remember, who came to write Atonement
and, most recently, The Children Act.
Brilliant books. But decent books.
Two stories in
particular seemed to me the most disturbing, harrowing literary creations I had
or have ever read. I tried retelling “Butterflies” to a friend the other day
and realised this is hardly possible to put into words. This is stronger than
the mental rape that David Lynch does in Wild
At Heart. This is so unspeakable you immediately wish to unread it (too
late, this will stay with you forever, so please stay warned) and equally you
wish to give this book to certain misguided, corrupted souls who would probably
learn something.
And then he follows
it up with “Conversation With A Cupboard Man” and suddenly you need Dostoevsky’s
Notes From The Underground as a
breath of fresh air. But it’s the last bus, it’s a little past midnight, and that story is all you have.
To mature is to keep
those monsters at bay. That is, to dissolve them in experience.
I was planning to skip this, seeing how Banksy
leaves me completely cold (best thing he did was inspire Jesca Hoop to write
one of her greatest songs), but the ubiquitous pictures got me in the end. Quite
simply, Banksy is art for people who don’t want to try. But in an odd
postmodernist twist, I would like to see it one day. When the queues disappear
and suddenly it’s no longer relevant.
I don’t even want to
say The Jam since you might think of pale imitators. If this is The Jam, then
these are some of the best songs Paul Weller didn’t write in the 80s (stuff
like “Need You” and “Another World” in particular). They play soul punk music –
direct, concise, with fantastic attitude. They are Australian, too.
Just great melodies
all around. Choruses in the title track or “Carolina” are garage-rock bliss, and
High also features “Garbage” which is vitriolic and “Wouldn’t You Know” which
is a forgotten soulful gem from the 60s.
You won’t get tired
of it, however hard you might try. If anything – you’ll want more. The good
news is that their 2011 debut is almost as good. Year’s most exciting etc. etc?
Sounds about right.
This 1947 classic,
one of the greatest ever examples of film noir, easily beats The Sunset Boulevard and Double Indemnity and The Maltese Falcon, but how do you enjoy
something this old?
Indeed, how do you
get over the dated nature of it all? Same of course goes for music, literature,
visual arts – but to a much lesser extent. Cinema, technology-reliant as it is,
seems a lot more vulnerable in that respect.
It’s a scary thought
that these are not the right times for Pet
Sounds or a film like Out Of The Past.
But then I guess you simply have to approach certain things as a piece of history.
And suddenly, the history will start making sense and the modern eyes and ears
will not be too modern anymore.
Mind you, this sounds
a whole lot easier than it really is.
Again, there are
artists that you have an aesthetic connection with. This goes beyond plots and
melodies. Very often you can actually see that in the cover, the concept or the
track list. Luke Haines does that so effortlessly with his new album.
Aesthetically, it hits me right where it should.
I’m also reminded of
a Martin Amis essay on Nabokov in which he claimed that Humbert Humbert’s
problem was not sexual, but rather aesthetic. It’s there that he is
dysfunctional and distorted. And that is also true in the world outside art, in
which we constantly crave for an aesthetic connection with people and things. Otherwise,
we are not interested.
Deep down, people just
love looking at freaks. And this
freak-show of a film… Christ it’s completely demented. In other words, I
finally did the inevitable the other day and watched Mad Max.
It wasn’t the hideous
midget. Not one-armed Charlize Theron. Not the fact that nobody says anything
that would make even remote sense. Not insane people spraying their mouths with
silver and screaming ‘TO VALHALLA!!!’
No, not them. It was the fucking lead guitarist on a bunch of strings that got me.
Can I say hilarious?
Because I’m not sure I can.
Mad Max is like a feverish dream of a 13-year old kid who played computer games
all day long and then blacked out due to complete exhaustion at some point
after midnight. Entertaining but mostly ridiculous. There’s no way you will pin
this down. And you just won’t beat that lead guitarist playing a goddamn Sepultura
jam ad naseum.
A list of my own
then. Having started on a hundred greatest songwriters, I got bored after number
three and decided 10 best songs by Pulp would be a better idea. Note, please,
that their best song is “Dogs Are Everywhere” (Sartre would have been proud),
but it’s not on this list. That was a different Jarvis Cocker, and those were
different times…
10. “Mile End”
Cocker was on one
hell of a roll in mid-90s, and this was just a b-side of “Something Changed”. This
delirious pop classic was also used in Trainspotting.
9. “Joyriders”
There’s always room
for sentimentality when it comes to Pulp, and the pulsating opener from His ’n’ Hers was what made me a fan back
in 1879 or something.
8. “A Little Soul”
This Is Hardcore was an even deeper, quirkier Jarvis Cocker. ‘I used to practice every night on my wife…
now she’s gone’.
7. “Do You Remember
The First Time?”
‘You bought a toy that can reach the places he never
goes’. Who else can get
away with a lyric like that?..
6. “Bar Italia”
On an album full of
fantastic pop songs, this was the perfect closer. Christ how can you not sing along when this one is on?
5. “Sylvia”
High on adrenaline,
late at night, when nobody cares.
4. “Underwear”
‘If fashion is your trade then when you’re naked I
guess you must be unemployed yeah’. Musically, too, some of the best melodies I can think
of.
3. “The Birds In Your
Garden”
Not every songwriter
(other than Taylor Swift, of course) can pen a long chorus and make it this tuneful
and entertaining. From the wonderfully patchy We Love Life.
2. “Ansaphone”
How on Earth was this
not on Different Class?!? With Cocker,
even the fake telephone conversation works.
You need two things
to make a list. First, you have to know what you are talking about. RS clearly
doesn’t. I particularly appreciate seeing such songwriters as Radiohead and
R.E.M. Yeah right. What are your fucking critirea? Also, you have to have some sort of taste to begin with. If you
did, you would know that Taylor Swift isn’t a songwriter. She’s crap.
I honestly think that
my computer would have done a better job.
Inside Out does something very few animated films do: it doesn’t
have a negative character. For a modern-day film targeting kids and summer box
office – this is quite incredible. That it succeeds and remains entertaining
all the way through just goes to show the brilliant imagination at work here.
And it is brilliant. Even more so after the Cars 2 disaster (wasn’t any good in the
first place), Brave mediocrity (the
scenes with the bear still flummox) and Monsters
University modest greatness (much, much better than they have you believe).
This is the sort of all-out inventiveness that made you fall in love with Pixar
in the first place.
There was a small kid
screaming, an old man grinning and myself admiring every second of it. There
was even a pregnant woman sipping orange juice contentedly a few seats away.
I don’t mind saying Inside Out is going to end up in my
end-of-year top 10. For the record, I thought Toy Story 3 was the best film of 2010. Not just animated. Any film of 2010.
This is odd, but Coetzee
has come closest to making me walk out of the cinema halfway through the show.
Either him or John Malkovich or whoever was responsible for the film adaptation
of Disgrace.
A great novel, one of
the greatest in recent memory, completely deserving of its Booker Prize, but
Christ is it a gruesome viewing. Literary form spares you somehow, gets you off
the hook and allows you to do something else (look out of the window, talk to
your wife, feed the cat, go to bed), but the screen just freezes you dead. The
screen destroys you. As does Disgrace.
Its warmth is didactic
and its humour (you don’t need much, you only need a little) is nonexistent. The
girl I was with nudged me and implored me to leave with her red crying eyes. I
stood up and we walked to the aisle. Maybe stay? She thought for a while and
nodded uncertainly. We stayed. And survived, for another hour or so.
It’s hard to imagine
that David Bowie existed prior to Space
Oddity. You see, I don’t think he did. For all the cuteness of “Love You
Till Tuesday” and inane charm of “The Laughing Gnome”, that really was someone else.
I’m not even talking
about poor songwriting (ah but it is
poor, even if I still have a soft spot for the totally made-up 1966 single “Can’t Help Thinking About Me”). I’m talking about his identity, at the time when he was no longer
Davy Jones but David Bowie trying to be Ray Davies. It’s not such a bad thing
to emulate Ray Davies, but Bowie had to try a fake identity for it to work.
And in his case – it always
did. Even when the 80s took hold and it didn’t. If that’s not unique, nothing
is.
Alan Bennett’s classic
monologues that never get old. The timelessness has now become so clear that
you are moved to tears by the sentimentality of “A Cream Cracker Under The
Settee” and still jump from your chair at the word ‘fuck’ in “A Lady Of Letters”.
And then of course
there’s always time to puzzle over “A Chip In The Sugar” where it could really
be Graham’s secret and not his mother’s. Which is the sort of thing that
postmodernism does to you in the 21st century, at the decidedly
old-fashioned Theatre Royal Bath.
Good music
you will never hear. Some of it out of sheer neglect, some of it happens to be
buried too deep in the remote corners of the Internet. Interestingly, neither
of these two reasons seems like much of an excuse these days.
Like you will never
hear GUMS!, a Scottish band (Glaswegian – if you need a genre) whose members
were once part of the now extinct Plimptons. Their new EP, How Nights Out End, is brimming with melodic quality (“Christina
Gallagher” is a true Glaswegian gem) and even offers a little in terms of
diversity. “What’s Left” is a distinctly Scottish accent against the background
of a Motorhead groove. Intriguing.
I could say
hopelessly old-fashioned, but do come on – what is old-fashioned anymore? I
guess my only serious complaint is that “February” may just be too good for the
most depressing month of the year. Or is that a sign of a good band. Next up is
“Rottenrow”, an anthem trapped in humility.
It’s always easy to
resist the unknown. No, you won't hear them. But with tunes so inescapable, what reasons have you not to?
Strange though this may
sound, sometimes the quality of a work of art doesn’t really matter. It’s a
very rare instance when this is the case, but then how can you take quality
over ideology in Joseph Mankiewicz’s 1958 adaptation of Graham Greene’s classic
novel?
The film is quite
good, possibly. Not as good as the 2002 version (even though you could argue
that Michael Redgrave’s performance rivals that of Michael Caine), but
definitely a success if you can disengage yourself from the blatant mutilation
of Greene’s book which in Mankiewicz’s case was turned into an American
propaganda film.
Except one can't, and shouldn't. With The Quiet American this is simply
unforgivable, and I’m willing to completely disregard Redgrave’s brilliant
acting. The quality didn’t suffer, it was abused.
Always exciting to
see where it all began. Or rather – how.
Perhaps the most
striking thing about Will Self’s first novel is the fact that it’s accessible.
Not by anyone’s standard – but by the standards of Will Self. After The Book Of Dave, after Umbrella – or anything else really. It’s still so dense
it is bound to give you a literary headache at some point, but essentially this was the time when the
man cared for your interest. Or, dare I say it, wanted to be liked.
Or take another,
equally fascinating route. Sweet Tooth
or The Children Act will give you no idea about the incest and mutilations
of McEwan’s early novels (and even THAT won’t prepare you for something like “Butterflies”
or “Conversation With A Cupboard Man”).
A rather interesting
distinction that makes you think.
If there’s anything
that the trailer of Tarantino’s new film made me think about (other than the
fact that I saw Tim Roth rather than Christoph Waltz), it’s the fact that this
song by Anton Newcombe won’t ever appear in any of his films:
A few years ago I
wrote a very short but somewhat inspired piece about how Robert Forster is a
better songwriter than Luke Haines simply because he can write a love song.
Taking the question
of love songs a bit further, I’d say there is a crucial difference between the
way songwriters approach it. Some think love is a good enough reason to write a song. Others treat love as merely a means to
say something else. Without any reservations whatsoever, and without even bothering
with a boring list of exceptions, I should say that it is the latter category
that I admire.
You can live without
them. Far too many artists never gave a fuck or chose to include everything
worthy on the actual album. Like I say, not the end of the world and hardly a
sign of severe songwriting ineptitude. Unless it’s some god-awful remix, in
which case it’s just laziness and poor taste.
However, I have an
utmost respect for an artist who can record a terrific B-side and then leave it
at that. Of course, on occasion it simply goes to show that the artist in
question has no control over quality and can’t tell good from bad, but that is
hardly the case with songs like Nick Cave’s “Little Empty Boat”, Pulp’s “Ansaphone”
or, say, Luke Haines’ “Car Crash”.
Oh the number of
fuckers who would kill for coming close
to this brilliance:
There’s not much in
it – other than the clash of egos. But what
egos. Laurence Olivier versus Orson Welles. That and the idea of Welles staging
a seminal play from the Theatre of the Absurd and Olivier playing the main
character. That in itself is a brilliant non-sequitur.
But perhaps the most
intriguing part of it, beyond the masterful acting and the intimate setting of
an independent theatre (and the fact that I’m soaked through, with only a small
bottle of white New Zealand wine to make me warm), is that it’s all about Rhinoceros. A play which in Orson’s Shadow has the intensely invisible role of Ionesco's odd-toed ungulates.
In the Rose Hill
sports village, Abigail was sitting on the grass smoking a silent cigarette and
getting towards the end of Sharp Objects
by Gillian Flynn.
As I approached, quietly
as I only could, she turned around and looked up at me. There was a certain
deafness in her eyes, charmed and pretty in the setting sun, and I realised
that for a few seconds, maybe minutes, I would be a character in her book.
How do you get over
the fact that an artist doesn’t like his own work? How do you read When We Were Orphans when Kazuo Ishiguro
himself thinks it was not particularly good? In view of this, it is actually irrelevant that you consider The Unconsoled a modern
masterpiece and both The Remains Of
The Day and Never Let Me Go among the most affecting books ever written. But perhaps an artist should never
judge his own work – after all, Martin Amis may still be in love with Yellow Dog.
Likewise, I could
never take Somerset Maugham seriously. His humble admission that he is an
average writer is as inexplicable as it is ridiculous. So much so that every
time I began reading his books I felt them to be exactly that – agonizingly average. Whether
it was his own statement or the actual quality of his writing that had this effect, I don't know. And does it really matter?..
And yet there’s
always the small issue of “The Lotus Eater”, Maugham’s short story from 1935.
In the middle of a decisively ‘good, not great’ set of his best fiction, this was something else. The writing was all the
same. The setup was hardly a hoot. But when the story takes turn for the darker
halfway through, it suddenly becomes one of the scariest things ever written.
Maybe it was the age, my age, how can
you ever tell, but the psychological blow was devastating. If ever Somerset
Maugham proved himself wrong…
Normally I do not
approve of a musician being called a genius (let’s reserve that for Einstein),
but in case you were wondering why Kate Bush is the best thing that happened to
music in the previous century, these are three points I would mention:
1. “The Man With The
Child In His Eyes” was written when she was 15. And you won’t find many songs more
moving and mature than that.
2. Whatever your
opinion of folk music may be, “The Jig Of Life” rips to pieces all those bands
toiling away in Ireland and elsewhere.
3. She may well be
the only artist in the world who manages to thrill you by just laughing for more than a minute during a song (“Aerial”).
I should put The Ninth Wave somewhere in there, but this has to suffice.
There could be films
better than this. Theoretically – it’s possible. I seriously doubt that, but
you just never know. However, there can only be one film you watch at 4 o’clock in the morning when you’re 16 years
old.
It’s somewhat
incredible to rewatch it years later. Because as you do it, you realise that
all those tiny little details, all those intonations coming from Richard Burton
and Elizabeth Taylor, the ones you know by heart – they do not simply affect
you the way they did before. They are also well inside you, and have been all these years.
This should all sound
awfully sentimental, and yet emotionally I still can’t get over it. Edward
Albee’s plays have always done it for me. “The Zoo Story” got me into Beckett. “American
Dream” got me through hospital hell. “Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?” taught
me more about human relationship than any other work of fiction. More in fact
(and I do of course understand the blasphemous nature of what I’m about to say)
than some real relationships I’ve had
over the years.
And I still find it
transfixing. The jokes sting, and the drama drags you across the floor and
whips you about the room. Because you still don’t know – which part of it is
illusion and which part is reality. This ‘snap’ part comes at any point. At any point.
Bill Fay’s surprising comeback (after 38 years, I still can’t get my head around that number) is amazing
for two reasons. First, the music is good.
Second, the music is arguably even better
than it was in early 70s.
Pretty much like Fay’s
acclaimed 2012 album, Who Is The Sender?
is a collection of gloriously spiritual piano-based ballads that will blow you
away by the sheer class of the songwriting. “The Geese Are Flying Westward”
sounds timeless, and he doesn’t let go from there.
Spirituality is
subtle and doesn’t nag too much. It’s the tunes and Bill’s beautifully frail
voice that shine. Honestly: I don’t care who the sender is, but this really
is a masterclass.
They say that during
an African masquerade a person dressed as a dangerous local animal (say, a
hippo) can actually attack you. Physically shove you, knock you off your feet,
stab you and cause a serious injury. With some (bad) luck, he might even kill
you. Listening to the new album by Beach House, I realise I want art to be that
way.
I like it (I don’t)
when somebody tells me: well, you like Woody Allen, but his latest movie is
shit. As if that statement is somehow controversial. It’s true that Allen is my
all-time favourite filmmaker but it’s also true that I’ve seen each and every one
of his films and believe me – I do
know when he misfires (which in this day and age happens rather too often).
A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (unfunny)
September (dull)
Small Time Crooks (pointless)
The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion (daft)
Melinda and Melinda (annoying)
To Rome With Love (unnecessary)
Magic In The Moonlight (clichéd)
That’s seven Woody
Allen films I don’t rate. My affection for his style means that
aesthetically I find even his most dire offerings perfectly watchable and even
pleasing, but that does not negate the fact that the plot is slapdash, the
dialogues are trite and there really
is nothing wrong with taking a break between making films.
So you see, I have no
problem with Irrational Man being a
bad film. Allen has earned the right to be bad when he (unwittingly, of course) chooses to.
We were introduced at
a café near Cutty Sark. He was a music writer of some importance, 59 years of
age, and he dedicated most of his life to writing about classical music. His
knowledge was vast. Listening to him talk about Schoenberg was like listening
to David Hockney talk about Picasso. Riveting. He was one of the nicest and
most intelligent people I’d ever met. A complete madman though.
He had this oddball
theory that every piece of classical music written in the 20th
century was, this way or another, a representation of a sexual intercourse. Sipping
red wine of some little known Italian province, he was looking directly at me
and probably wondering if I was getting any of that. At various points during
our lunch I tried different topics, but there was nothing else he wanted to
talk about.
Stravinsky’s Apollon Musagete was his favourite
example. ‘Perfect showcase’, he repeated a number of times. “Apotheosis”, the
final part of the ballet, was talked about at great length, and he got me
through every detail that he said reflected the last act of a coitus. Sometimes
he would lose me and I would just stare at this really expensive tie that must
have cost a fortune.
It was daft, his
whole theory, but I liked the way he talked, and wanted him to go on –
wondering, as our conversation was reaching its climax, if there was a single
act in the 20th century that did not resemble a sexual intercourse. Wondering what he thought about
this horrible pop music blasting from outside the café. And what kind of
atrocious gang-rape it represented.
Whatever the creators
of this documentary set out to achieve, they certainly achieved that rare quality
of a film that can be summed up in two words: disastrously good. Come to think of it, there’s no other way you
can think of this face, swallowing every close-up, this talent, so inescapable
as to seem completely out of control, and this girl, glorious and tragic.
Indeed, this felt like a
message from another world. Too bad the message is lost in the fucking songs.
