Album of the Month: BEAT POETRY FOR SURVIVALISTS by Luke Haines & Peter Buck

Let us be clear on this. Peter Buck's guitar (which is very much stuck in that pleasantly distorted Monster mode) certainly adds juice to the proceedings, but make no mistake: Beat Poetry for Survivalists is a Luke Haines solo album through and through. It is the same voice of utter spite (an acquired taste, granted, but you would be a fool not to acquire it), the same nastiness in pretty melodies and the same preoccupation with cultural icons (some obscure, some less so) of the past. The recorder has not gone anywhere either. 

It is a very good Luke Haines solo album, too, with what I believe to be his best songs since The North Sea Scrolls. Infectious, glammy stuff that should get a lot more recognition than it will.

The story behind the way this LP came about has been recounted quite a few times now, but the gist of it is that Peter Buck bought a Luke Haines painting of Lou Reed and one thing led to another. 'Another' being this album that was recorded almost entirely by correspondence. The correspondence must have been good, though, because the whole thing sounds delightfully homogenous, and Peter Buck's guitar seems to be the most natural continuation of Haines's songwriting. Plus, the stuff he does on, say, "Last Of The Legendary Bigfoot Hunters" is fascinating in its own right.

The anthemic "Jack Parsons" about the American occultist-researcher (how else?) is the perfect start, but it is the second song, the Donovan-referencing "Apocalypse Beach" that is the high point of the album. There is just something about the "Radio waves in my head..." chorus that literally takes me someplace else. A Luke Haines classic, that one, worthy of anything he has ever written. Other personal favourites include the criminally catchy "Witch Tariff" (reminds me of his Rock'n'Roll Animals album, in fact, either due to 'the cats' or the fucking recorder*), the deliberately ugly "French Man Glam Gang" (oddly, this one makes me think of The Fall's "Jetplane") and the playfully sinister "Bobby's Wild Years". The latter has to be about Robert Forster, of course, as anyone who has read the brilliant Grant & I memoir would figure out. I particularly like how Haines rhymes 'genius' with 'genius' - something Forster, too, did so beautifully in "You've Never Lived" (my favourite Go-Betweens song, no less).

Excellent album. In fact, my one complaint would be the relative absence of variation. "Rock 'N' Roll Ambulance" is a wonderful closing ballad but I would argue the album is in need of another one at some point after "Andy Warhol Was Not Kind". Still, this is but a minor quibble that should in no way detract from the fact that these are some of the best songs from one of the world's greatest songwriters. And now that my vinyl copy has finally arrived, I think I will join the survivalists. Times being what they are, etc.

*I love the recorder. I mean, I hate it, of course, but I do also love it. Unconditionally.


MARCH ROUNDUP:


Luke Haines - Beat Poetry For Survivalists

See above.

Stephen Malkmus - Traditional Techniques

Think "Church On White" but lacking a bit of spark.

Monophonics - It's Only Us

This one sounds like a lost psychedelic funk classic from the 60s. Delightful. 

Paul Heaton - Manchester Calling

An uncool album from an underrated songwriter. Very good. Overlong, too. 

Boomtown Rats - Citizens Of Boomtown

Glam trash of the highest order. Occasionally brilliant, occasionally tasteless. Mostly both. 

Morrissey - I Am Not A Dog On A Chain

Hopefully, the world will come round eventually. The music is too good. 

The No Ones - The Great Lost No Ones Album

Another Peter Buck featuring album with beautiful psychedelic melodies from days gone by.

Baxter Dury - The Night Chancers

The perfect marriage of Sleaford Mods and Serge Gainsbourg. "Baxter loves you". 

Carla Bley Trio - Life Goes On

Superior jazz for a late night. Seriously, this is the best I can do. 

Rustin Man - Clockdust

This time, it felt to me that he chose atmosphere over songs. Still good though.

My Cultural Highlights: TRUCKLOAD OF SKY: THE LOST SONGS OF DAVID McCOMB VOL.1 by The Friends Of David McComb

I have always believed that David McComb is an artist worth obsessing over. The very idea of him seems so remote and yet so powerful that there is no escaping a certain David McComb cult. I joined it fifteen years ago, back when I first heard Born Sandy Devotional (a top ten album, still) and then rejoined it for Calenture and his criminally underappreciated solo album. Christ, I was even obsessed with "Memories" once, the Leonard Cohen cover from The Blackeyed Susans' excellent All Souls Alive which I could not stop playing back in my troubled late teens. I might say my obsession was due to Warren Ellis's infectious violin or Leonard Cohen's sex-possessed lyrics - but, really, how could it ever be anything other than that voice?..

Which makes it inevitable, really, that each time I play this record (and I have been doing it quite a lot over the last month), I imagine that it is David himself who is singing these songs. I imagine a lost Triffids tape or else an unreleased second album - whatever it is, I hear a classic David McComb LP fucked up by providence. By doing that, I am not willing to denigrate any of the musicians behind the album - I am sure that David's friends would not mind. If anything, that has to be exactly what they were trying to achieve here.  

The voice, however, is only one part of the story, and it would not have been the same without the songwriting. Which, if you discount the misguided last album by The Triffids, was absolutely out of this world. In fact, I would be ready to wipe out any great name you would be willing to mention with nine minutes of "Field of Glass". Needless to say, I was thrilled to find out that a few friends (mostly people from the Blackeyed Susans, plus David's brother Rob) decided to record a collection of unreleased songs written by the great man.  

An album like this is made for the listeners (mostly obsessed people like myself) as much as for those musicians who are involved in it. There is a great warmth to the whole thing, and you are just happy to be part of it. Because of course the songs are great, and they all have that unmistakable intensity which can be playful one moment and tortured the next. The opener "Kneel So Low", for instance, is every bit as good as David's "Setting You Free" single from 1993. The utterly charming Angie Hart-sung "Second Nature" is everything you need to know about McComb the pop songwriter. Other personal favourites include the laidback "Look Out For Yourself" and the spirited "Thanks For Everything".

Again, imagining David McComb singing these songs is absolutely fucking euphoric. Sad, too, but very often in life you have to take those things together. In the end, all that counts is that these are eight (eleven, if you buy the CD version) lost songs from one of the greatest songwriters who ever lived. A miracle, really, and the fact that this is Volume One only adds to the wonderful sensation of discovering something that could have been gone forever.

My Cultural Lowlights: FLEABAG

Sometimes I think it is all about the sense of humour. Really. The whole shebang. You can fake it through a decent relationship with different tastes in movies and different political views. Different gender, too, is still acceptable. It is the disparity in what makes you laugh that will be your downfall. Equally, a comedy that does not make me smile once reveals a certain incompatibility. Also, it brings up the following dilemma: either it is me who is humourless or the world. And, being the reasonable person that I am, I strongly believe it is the latter.  

Still, fifteen minutes spent in the culture sections of most newspapers will tell you the inevitable: Fleabag season 2 is the greatest thing ever and Fleabag season 1 is the second greatest thing ever. The TV show is a triumph and Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a national treasure. The hype is nauseating. I try again and yet again I fail. Twenty minutes in, I raise my eyes to the fucking ceiling: where are the jokes? Surely it cannot be my inability to grasp British humour that won't allow me to enjoy this. Peep Show, The Thick Of It and Black Books have me in fits pretty much all of the time. Fleabag has me bored as a comedy and completely unmoved as a drama.

Perhaps the worst thing about Fleabag is that it desperately tries to shock you (it does seem like a conscious attempt, I am afraid to say) and the result is horribly flat. It is childish and crass but never shocking. All you see is a middle-class character of Waller-Bridge wandering around middle-class London trying to solve her middle-class issues that you do not really give a damn about. And then there are all these excruciatingly 'clever' asides where she just looks into the camera and says something cynical or vulgar or heartbreaking. Something that should make you laugh. Or cry. Or whatever. 

travelling notes (cxxi)

I once saw a man do a Houdini trick outside the National Gallery in London. It was a cold day in early December, and there was a small crowd about to see how he would unshackle himself from the chain that looked so tight around his chest. We looked on, anticipating a miracle. And then the curtain went up, in thirty-eight seconds or so, and the man looked gloriously unchained, and most of us turned around to leave. Somebody threw a coin into a dull hat, someone applauded in that limp way of early winter. There was an air of disappointment around Trafalgar Square. To this day, I think we all wanted him to fail. That was the kind of miracle we had all come to see. 

Скетчи про Минск. Beten Gav.

Я всегда хотел увидеть такое место рядом с домом. Со времен узких улиц Толедо я мечтал об этом. Со времен Сиены. Чтобы можно было выйти из дома, пройти пять минут по любимой улице и зайти в теплую дверь семейного ресторана. И пусть он не будет семейным в том смысле, который вкладывают в него итальянцы (об этом ниже), но здесь не будет больше пяти столиков, здесь будет хорошее красное вино, и отсюда не захочется уходить. Да, и здесь будет играть музыка. Я только не знал, что израильская.

В прошлом году в доме 28 на улице Киселева со скандалом закрылось одно место и незаметно открылось два новых. Первое - это хорошая кофейня 32.08, второе - израильское бистро Beten Gav, в окнах которого свет напоминает тепло. 

Именно к этому свету я пришел однажды в Сиене, когда начиналась гроза и не хотелось прятаться в католическом соборе. Сквозь серые капли я рассмотрел горящие окна и зашел в маленький семейный ресторан, где на трех столиках стояли бутылки домашнего вина, и на ужин подавали только лазанью и пасту. Причем подавала сама хозяйка ресторана, та самая милая женщина в домашнем фартуке, которая и приготовила всю эту еду. Лазанья была приятной на вкус, без пошлости и претензий, и я просидел там ровно до тех пор, пока вино не было выпито, голоса молодой американской пары за соседним столиком не стали казаться привычными, и пока не закончился дождь. Затем я вышел на улицу и увидел, что тучи расступились и в Сиену вернулся день. Я уже хорошо понимал, что ничего подобного никогда не повторится, но я запомнил это ощущение так, как дети запоминают зрительный образ: сильно зажмуривают глаза и держат их закрытыми до тех пор, пока "фотография" не отпечатается. 

Помимо света, в Beten Gav мне понравилось вот это чувство семейной атмосферы и домашней камерности, которая, кажется, впускает в себя только хорошие разговоры и правильных людей. Я слабо разбираюсь в израильской музыке (не путать с еврейской), но то, что я услышал в этом кафе, приятно заполняло собой атмосферу места. Не стоит верить всякой пошлости в духе того, что вы словно попадаете на улицу Хайфы или Тель-Авива. Нет, конечно, однако музыка делает вкус еды острей. Я слабо разбираюсь в израильской кухне, но фалафель и хумус здесь действительно замечательные. В них нет ничего сверхъестественного, однако я устал от сверхъестественной еды. Она вся ужасная. Наконец, пара бокалов кошерного Мerlot - одно из недооцененных удовольствий жизни. Равно как и вид Осмоловки из окна.

Так редко в последнее время удается сходить в минское кафе или минский ресторан, в который хотелось бы вернуться. Такое ощущение, что я навсегда покидаю место еще до того, как увижу меню или сделаю заказ. Разочаровывает многое, но в первую очередь - отсутствие адекватности. Людей, музыки, интерьеров, цен. В Beten Gav мне понравилось сочетание деталей, чувство, что все сошлось в нужном месте, и нет ничего лишнего и того, что хотелось бы додумать. У меня не было ощущения, что я снова пережил грозовой день в Сиене, однако что-то заставило меня сесть за один из пяти столиков и вспомнить его. Пожалуй, самое лучшее в Beten Gav то, что это место не пытается понравиться. По нынешним временам - почти подвиг.