self-indulgence
You folks can have your Facebooks, I'll just happily rot here. Were I to think that anyone was actually paying attention, I might hold back: but I feel the urge to eulogize, to give my little panegyric, on two points:
The Manics. What a lovely band they are.
Back in those heady post-C86 days, I did quite like Pixies, and Throwing Muses, and The Sugarcubes, and... Frank Sinatra, and Captain Beefheart, and The Grateful Dead, and Judy Garland, and John Cage. But British indie music was pretty dreadful! Okay, I do now recognise that the Stone Roses were actually pretty fucking good. But, at the time, 'Made of Stone' put me off. Didn't sound original. Happy Mondays likewise. I had a hang-up about orginality and creativity. Admittedly, it wasn't until 1991 that I discovered Isidore Isou: but he did latch onto something that was definitely already there in my mind, about originality. And so I remember watching the Manics on Snub TV, where they were saying "we're the most original band in the last twenty years". Only what they really meant was that, if only they could have been doing this twenty years before, they might back then have actually sounded original. I was not convinced. A lot of hype followed, but I still wasn't convinced. And dreadful bands like The House of Love, and Kingmaker, and The Levellers (and, oh, fucking Carter USM?! And PWEI?!!). All in all, it just helped in putting me off from the very idea of British guitar music. So, when the Manics started releasing albums, I'm sorry to say that I missed them. I had decided not to pay attention.
So I really owe a lot to Pulp, because it was they who finally convinced me that, actually, British boys with guitars can do worthwhile things. Who knew?! It was during the lull between Richey's disappearance and the band's comeback, that I finally 'discovered' this band. Pulp had opened my mind to British 'indie' music, and I started paying attention. And noticed that the Manics were actually just as devotedly in love as I was with most of my idols: from Burroughs, to Plath, to the Situationists. So of course I should check 'em out! And so I bought a copy of The Holy Bible from HMV in Herald Square in New York. (It's not there any more).
And yet it did still take me a while to get into it. I genuinely wasn't sure whether I liked it or not. Only then I spotted something: it seems that I've been playing this album, an album I'm still not sure I like, at least once a day, every single day, for about three months. That realisation was enough to convince me that, actually, I did like it after all. And then they brought out 'A Design For Life', and all the rest, and... aww, bless 'em!
And I think that one of the things I liked the most about them was their imperfection. They're so endearing! So, for instance: "Be pure, be vigilant, behave". Yes, dears, I too used to read 2,000 AD in the early '80s, just like you evidently did, and I remember Nemesis The Warlock. Or: "Listen to Luke sermon 6, etc." I can't be bothered to stand up and find the book (i.e. the book), and to type out the rest. You know the one. I was just so touched that they would not only be mis-attributing it (it's not Luke, chums, it's Matthew), but that the version they were using wouldn't be the KJV, or even the NIV. No: it's the 'Good News Bible'. Bless!
But, hey, I'm not knocking them! At the same time, they could still conjure a line that went way beyond anything that anyone else was doing! I remember talking to an English chap in the bar at Princeton, shortly before they did 'A Design For Life', and reciting all of the lyrics of "4 st. 7 lb." Now that's what I call genius with words, and originality to boot.
Which brings me onto my second thing...
I've been trying to watch Krapp's Last Tape tonight, as I've been typing this. It hasn't really worked. Though the thought was surely an apt one. Spoooool! But I have been in a Beckett mood of late. Inspired, I guess, by the fact that I've been reading the new second volume of his Letters. Occasionally interesting, but mostly just taking me back...
I didn't really discover Samuel Beckett until he died, in December 1989. I'd heard of 'Waiting For Godot', of course, but I'd never actually read or seen it; and that was about as far as it went. But, when he died, both BBC2 and Channel 4 paid tribute by broadcasting two completely independent seasons of his plays and other works. My mind was blown.
I think I read the trilogy out of order: Malone Dies before Molloy and The Unnameable. But those too blew my mind. Mind you, if anything, I preferred Watt, for no other reason than that it was flawed -- Manics-wise -- the others being just too austere in their perfection!
Oh, but time seemed to move so swiftly back then! I remember going to the ADC Theatre, for a production of Endgame, plus Act Without Words I. And, before you know it -- I'm thinking, 22 September 1991 -- I'm watching 'Waiting For Godot' in the West End, with Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson. And Christopher Ryan. Set designs by Derek Jarman, no less.
Oh, and I saw it again as an undergraduate. In French. I don't know why the only copies that -- even to this very day -- I have of that and 'Fin de Partie' are the French ones. I'm really not that good at French! But I suspect that the English ones would have been fifty pence more when I was buying them, so I didn't. And then there was another time, in Princeton, where they did 'Catastrophe' (dedicated to Vaclav Havel, no less), and some other stuff.
I did get Eleuthéria when it came out, and Dream of Fair to Middling Women too. I wasn't exactly blown away by the former: though I do have sweet memories of reading it in the sunshine, on Grantchester Meadows. But I absolutely hated the latter. Indeed, that (alongside Harry Crosby, Gertrude Stein, and Andy Warhol -- specific works, mind you, I still love 'em all more generally) is one of the few things I have that still has a bookmark stuck in, to signal that I never got beyond this point.
But then there's that 1991 broadcast of Endgame. It was late at night, after the proper folks had all gone to bed. It was one of those Open University broadcasts: but perhaps the best thing that the OU ever did! I taped it, and I have since watched it over and over. This is what really inspired me here: I have, this evening, been transferring it from a video cassette to a DVD. More convenient, I'm sure. For it really is the best Endgame ever! I did get their DVD set, when they put it out in 2004 or whatever it was. And I did once watch their Endgame, but it ain't a patch on mine! Mine has Stephen Rea (out of The Crying Game, and V for Vendetta), and Norman Beaton (out of Desmond's), and Charlie-fucking-Drake! And, um, someone or other playing Nell.
I really do have to press the button to post this tonight, or else it's all going to get deleted in the sober light of day.
The Manics. What a lovely band they are.
Back in those heady post-C86 days, I did quite like Pixies, and Throwing Muses, and The Sugarcubes, and... Frank Sinatra, and Captain Beefheart, and The Grateful Dead, and Judy Garland, and John Cage. But British indie music was pretty dreadful! Okay, I do now recognise that the Stone Roses were actually pretty fucking good. But, at the time, 'Made of Stone' put me off. Didn't sound original. Happy Mondays likewise. I had a hang-up about orginality and creativity. Admittedly, it wasn't until 1991 that I discovered Isidore Isou: but he did latch onto something that was definitely already there in my mind, about originality. And so I remember watching the Manics on Snub TV, where they were saying "we're the most original band in the last twenty years". Only what they really meant was that, if only they could have been doing this twenty years before, they might back then have actually sounded original. I was not convinced. A lot of hype followed, but I still wasn't convinced. And dreadful bands like The House of Love, and Kingmaker, and The Levellers (and, oh, fucking Carter USM?! And PWEI?!!). All in all, it just helped in putting me off from the very idea of British guitar music. So, when the Manics started releasing albums, I'm sorry to say that I missed them. I had decided not to pay attention.
So I really owe a lot to Pulp, because it was they who finally convinced me that, actually, British boys with guitars can do worthwhile things. Who knew?! It was during the lull between Richey's disappearance and the band's comeback, that I finally 'discovered' this band. Pulp had opened my mind to British 'indie' music, and I started paying attention. And noticed that the Manics were actually just as devotedly in love as I was with most of my idols: from Burroughs, to Plath, to the Situationists. So of course I should check 'em out! And so I bought a copy of The Holy Bible from HMV in Herald Square in New York. (It's not there any more).
And yet it did still take me a while to get into it. I genuinely wasn't sure whether I liked it or not. Only then I spotted something: it seems that I've been playing this album, an album I'm still not sure I like, at least once a day, every single day, for about three months. That realisation was enough to convince me that, actually, I did like it after all. And then they brought out 'A Design For Life', and all the rest, and... aww, bless 'em!
And I think that one of the things I liked the most about them was their imperfection. They're so endearing! So, for instance: "Be pure, be vigilant, behave". Yes, dears, I too used to read 2,000 AD in the early '80s, just like you evidently did, and I remember Nemesis The Warlock. Or: "Listen to Luke sermon 6, etc." I can't be bothered to stand up and find the book (i.e. the book), and to type out the rest. You know the one. I was just so touched that they would not only be mis-attributing it (it's not Luke, chums, it's Matthew), but that the version they were using wouldn't be the KJV, or even the NIV. No: it's the 'Good News Bible'. Bless!
But, hey, I'm not knocking them! At the same time, they could still conjure a line that went way beyond anything that anyone else was doing! I remember talking to an English chap in the bar at Princeton, shortly before they did 'A Design For Life', and reciting all of the lyrics of "4 st. 7 lb." Now that's what I call genius with words, and originality to boot.
Which brings me onto my second thing...
I've been trying to watch Krapp's Last Tape tonight, as I've been typing this. It hasn't really worked. Though the thought was surely an apt one. Spoooool! But I have been in a Beckett mood of late. Inspired, I guess, by the fact that I've been reading the new second volume of his Letters. Occasionally interesting, but mostly just taking me back...
I didn't really discover Samuel Beckett until he died, in December 1989. I'd heard of 'Waiting For Godot', of course, but I'd never actually read or seen it; and that was about as far as it went. But, when he died, both BBC2 and Channel 4 paid tribute by broadcasting two completely independent seasons of his plays and other works. My mind was blown.
I think I read the trilogy out of order: Malone Dies before Molloy and The Unnameable. But those too blew my mind. Mind you, if anything, I preferred Watt, for no other reason than that it was flawed -- Manics-wise -- the others being just too austere in their perfection!
Oh, but time seemed to move so swiftly back then! I remember going to the ADC Theatre, for a production of Endgame, plus Act Without Words I. And, before you know it -- I'm thinking, 22 September 1991 -- I'm watching 'Waiting For Godot' in the West End, with Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson. And Christopher Ryan. Set designs by Derek Jarman, no less.
Oh, and I saw it again as an undergraduate. In French. I don't know why the only copies that -- even to this very day -- I have of that and 'Fin de Partie' are the French ones. I'm really not that good at French! But I suspect that the English ones would have been fifty pence more when I was buying them, so I didn't. And then there was another time, in Princeton, where they did 'Catastrophe' (dedicated to Vaclav Havel, no less), and some other stuff.
I did get Eleuthéria when it came out, and Dream of Fair to Middling Women too. I wasn't exactly blown away by the former: though I do have sweet memories of reading it in the sunshine, on Grantchester Meadows. But I absolutely hated the latter. Indeed, that (alongside Harry Crosby, Gertrude Stein, and Andy Warhol -- specific works, mind you, I still love 'em all more generally) is one of the few things I have that still has a bookmark stuck in, to signal that I never got beyond this point.
But then there's that 1991 broadcast of Endgame. It was late at night, after the proper folks had all gone to bed. It was one of those Open University broadcasts: but perhaps the best thing that the OU ever did! I taped it, and I have since watched it over and over. This is what really inspired me here: I have, this evening, been transferring it from a video cassette to a DVD. More convenient, I'm sure. For it really is the best Endgame ever! I did get their DVD set, when they put it out in 2004 or whatever it was. And I did once watch their Endgame, but it ain't a patch on mine! Mine has Stephen Rea (out of The Crying Game, and V for Vendetta), and Norman Beaton (out of Desmond's), and Charlie-fucking-Drake! And, um, someone or other playing Nell.
I really do have to press the button to post this tonight, or else it's all going to get deleted in the sober light of day.