Five Thoughts

I know that Five Thoughts has stagnated, but if you enjoy the words that I write, you’ll be pleased to hear that I have a new project launching very soon. It’s also going to be here on Tumblr, so if you’d like to add youthgroups.tumblr.com to your feeds, I’d certainly appreciate that. The introductory post will run tomorrow morning on there, and it’s something I’ve been developing for a while, and I’m excited for people to start reading it. More tomorrow!

(The short of it: unfollow this, follow youthgroups. The end).

1. Before its demise in the year 2000, Select Magazine was my favourite music publication. I liked that it had good contributors, introduced me to interesting new bands, and was something to look forward to every month. So it was exciting when I recently heard about an online archive of Select Magazine scans. Even though it’s pretty sparse, there was plenty of interesting stuff in there, but the thing that grabbed my attention the most was their list of the best albums of 1996. Now, I want to make it clear that I’m not writing this post to say “What an embarrassing list! They should be ashamed of themselves! What a bunch of idiots” and such. I was into most of that stuff at that time, too. What I would like to do, though, is use the benefit of hindsight to discuss what became of some of the bands who made the cut, and also think about some of the other 1996 releases that weren’t deemed top-30 worthy.

2. Let’s start with their number one. No complaints from me, fifteen years on. ‘Everything Must Go’ marked the point where Manic Street Preachers became a household name nationwide, and where they became the biggest band in the universe in my 13 year-old eyes. Of course, most die-hard fans of the band agree that ‘The Holy Bible’ is a better record, but I was eleven when that came out, and to paraphrase my last post about Mercury Rev, beware 11 year-olds who love a song called ‘Of Walking Abortion’. I still remember buying ‘Everything Must Go’, on cassette, from Brent Cross, the day it came out. It didn’t just rock, but it also sounded important and meaningful, which made a nice difference from most of the other stuff I was listening to at the time. ‘A Design for Life’ had me hooked, and the band would not let me go for half a decade.

3. Of course, 1996 was pretty much the peak of “Britpop” was we tend to remember it. Blur’s self-titled album would come out the next year and bring with it the lo-fi influence of American indie, but in 1996, it was a resolutely homegrown sound that ruled. (But nice of them to let ‘Odelay’ squeak in). So it’s no surprise to see a few albums in the list which were largely forgotten about by 1998, never mind whatever year this is now. Dodgy’s album made the top five, presumably on the strength of one monster summer single, while the Boo Radleys got props for making an album that tried to disavow their previous monster summer single. I think it’s funny that the article’s title and intro blurb belittle the band The Bluetones (“Of course not”), dismissing them, I guess, as a disposable, generic guitar group, while Sleeper, Kula Shaker*, Ocean Colour Scene and Shed Seven all made the list. Again, though it’s uncool to admit it now, I liked all those bands at the time, and saw them all on one bill, plus Bjork (!) at Wembley Arena, the day Tupac was killed. It’s weird that I remember that much detail about it, but it’s weirder that they would dismiss one band while including a handful of others who were in the same ballpark. Also out in 1996 were debut albums from Placebo and Longpigs, bands who were certainly more interesting than some of those in the top 30. Oh, and you know what else came out in 1996? ‘Tigermilk’ AND ‘If You’re Feeling Sinister’.

4. As I said, Britpop was Select Magazine’s bread and butter, so it’s not a surprise that there’s not a lot of hip hop on the list. If those dudes weren’t in the Prodigy, there probably would never have been a black person on the cover of the magazine. So the inclusion of Nas’ ‘It Was Written’ seems like a bit of weird tokenism. Besides, ‘It Was Written’ wasn’t even that good. I think it’s really interesting that they mention the song ‘If I Ruled The World’ in the blurb - you know who else was on that song? Lauryn Hill. You know what else came out in 1996? ‘The Score’, an album that housed three or four massive singles and sold a billion copies! That one couldn’t make the list? ‘ATLiens’ was out that year too, but that band wouldn’t make it in the UK for another few years.

5. Where there is barely any rap, I do admire their commitment to experimental dance music, with the nods to Tortoise, Underworld, Orbital and DJ Shadow. So that’s something. I remember being annoyed that ‘Second Toughest In the Infants’ didn’t even include Underworld’s big single (initially, at least). Speaking of - it’s surprising to see the ‘Trainspotting’ soundtrack on that list. With the exception of ‘Born Slippy/NUXX’, I can’t think of any songs in that film that were new, i.e. from 1996. I mean, we all remember ‘Lust for Life’, ‘Perfect Day’ and ‘Nightclubbing’, but they’re older songs. I wonder if the magazine was just trying to acknowledge the big cultural impact of that film and that soundtrack that year.

*The guy from Kula Shaker is now directing Simon Pegg in a film about murdering. Huh?

1. This morning as I was reading Shovel.com’s very positive review of the new deluxe reissue of ‘Deserter’s Songs’, I was struck by a thought. “Man,” that thought began. “I really loved Mercury Rev. I should write about them.” So here I am, blowing the dust off of this website, and sharing some memories about how I got into the band around the time this record came out.

2. Like most people, ‘Deserter’s Songs’ was the first I had heard of Mercury Rev. I know they had put out three albums before that, but I didn’t know that when I was 15. Why would I? Beware any 15 year old saying “Pfft, they were so much better with the fat guy with the deep voice and the songs about bees.” I heard ‘Deserter’s’ lead single, ‘Goddess on a Hiway’, and immediately fell in love. The music and vocals were so sweet and gorgeous that it took me a while to realize that the lyrics were really sad. This was a big deal for the impressionable young me. Bands could do that?! I recognized the name Jonathan Donahue from ‘The Private Psychedelic Reel’, a track from the Chemical Brothers’ album of the previous year, which was even more epochal for me. (By the way, can we agree on the fact that Jonathan Donahue was an aloof, handsome vampire an entire decade before it was cool to be an aloof, handsome vampire?). The deluxe edition comes with an early demo of ‘…Hiway’, from 1989. It blows my mind that the band had such a gorgeous song just sitting in the vaults for a decade. Especially when you consider that their album ‘Boces’ gave me fire nightmares.

3. Listening to the album today, it still amazes me how they combine often very romantic sentiments (cf. ‘Tonite It Shows’, ‘Endlessly’) with what sounds like an amazing, joyous party in the woods. A lot of credit goes to producer Dave Fridmann, whose discography around this time period should earn him some sort of lifetime achievement award. This dude did The Great Eastern, The Soft Bulletin, Come On Die Young, It’s A Wonderful Life and Hope and Adams from 1999 to 2001. It’s as if he was making records solely for MY enjoyment. There are a lot of little, old-timey interludes that fit the mood perfectly on ‘Deserter’s Songs’ - it’s the kind of set where a crackly music box (‘I Collect Coins’) can work perfectly as an intro for the still-grandiose ‘Opus 40’. ‘Hudson Line’ still leaves me cold, though, largely due to the overly-FM-radio saxophone.

4. Speaking of grandiose, how about ‘The Funny Bird’? And ‘Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp’? Amazing! I got to see Mercury Rev live twice. Once was at Glastonbury and the sun was still out, so it didn’t work at all. T’other was at Shepherd’s Bush Empire and my pal Ewan and I had a private box overlooking the stage, for some reason, so everyone on the main floor could look up and see the two of us in some sort of weird trance above them. A truly incredible concert experience, and I think they starting playing ‘Once In A Lifetime’ by the Talking Heads during ‘Opus 40’, which only made it even more awesome.

5. I really liked ‘All Is Dream’, the album that followed ‘Deserter’s Songs’, too, though it was a lot darker, with songs about spiders and chains and the eyes of Abe Lincoln. After that, I moved to the States and moved away from the band. There’s a couple of good songs on ‘The Secret Migration’, but I’ve not thought about them in a long, long time. I’m glad I read the piece on Pitchfork this morning, because ‘Deserter’s Songs’ is a gorgeous album to come back to.

1. Though I don’t write in it any more, I used to maintain a blog where I’d mostly write about music, and I foolishly put my email address on there. As a result, I get lots of mass-mailed press releases from bands, PR companies and labels. Since I don’t keep that site going, I mostly ignore these emails, though I’m always looking for something to send to Shut Up, Bands. A few years ago, I got an email from The Joy Formidable, and it sounded interesting, so I clicked through and listened to their song, ‘Austere’. I liked it enough to write about it. The next day, I got a very appreciative email from the band, and as a result, I’ve always been onboard with the band.

 2. That’s why I’m really excited about their debut album The Big Roar. Firstly, the good news is that they’ve carried over all the best songs from their mini-album A Balloon Called Moaning, so they’re not lost to the sands of time. ‘Austere’, ‘Whirring’, ‘Cradle’ and ‘The Greatest Light is the Greatest Shade’ all get promoted to being on a “proper” album, and all still sound great. ‘Whirring’, particularly, is now a monster. But, a monster that I am in love with.

 3. The band does hooks really, really well. Like, giant choruses and big walls of sound. That may be their only trick, but I don’t even mind, because they’re so good at it. When they do try and change things up, it gets problematic – ‘Buoy’ sounds too grunge-inspired, and it’s kind of a dirge. The album reminds me of great Ash albums, in that they’re just super-energetic with anthemic choruses and great crashing guitars, and if something slower comes along, it’ll be over soon.

 4. I even like the songs ‘Chapter 2’ and ‘The Magnifying Glass’, where the band temporarily loses its sense of fun and tries to put its head down and rock. Even though I miss the other songs’ looseness, these songs get by on massive, convincing choruses.

 5. The Joy Formidable are touring all over these United States. Almost all over them – nothing in my corner of the country. I hope you get a chance to see them, because I’m sure these songs would really punch your face in person. Listen to their truncated SXSW set here, and also enjoy the ‘Whirring’ video. What a great band; long may they reign.

1. I wasn’t old enough or living-in-America enough to follow the Letterman vs. Leno war of 1993, but I’d subsequently heard plenty about it. I was, however, like most of you, a keen observer of the Leno v. Conan debacle of winter 2009/2010. At the time, to me it looked like Conan had got the Tonight Show (again, not growing up in the States, I don’t personally grasp its extreme significance, but can see why it’s such a big deal to comedians of the generation above mine), had a set that looked a bit like Super Mario 3, and then got cut off after seven months, but I wanted to know more about the machinations. I love that kind of industry minutiae. That’s why I really enjoyed reading (fine, listening to) ‘The War for Late Night’ by Bill Carter. Carter’s book ‘The Late Shift’, about the 1993 battle for the Tonight Show after Johnny Carson retired, is well-respected and authoritative, and I’m sure that, when all this business with Conan and NBC was going down, Carter thought “Well, I guess I know what my next book will be about”. He could almost have just run a “find and replace” on his previous work, so similar was the story almost twenty years later.

2. The person about whom I learnt the most from the book wasn’t Conan – I already knew he was the guy that loves his staff, hates confrontation and is prone to severe depression and self-loathing – but Jay Leno. Contrary to what the rabid members of Team Coco would suggest, Jay doesn’t come off as a mean, scheming, horrid dude. Sure, his comedy is pandering and low-brow, but that’s more of a generational thing (more on that later), but it seems that his biggest flaw is that he just doesn’t want to stop working. Apparently he hates going on holiday, to the extent that his wife travels the world without him, and the idea of “Why don’t you just retire?” is completely alien to him. He simply has to perform an hour of comedy on TV every night. That’s hard for me to understand. If I had tens of millions of dollars (maybe hundreds?), I would stop working, buy a mansion the size of Rhode Island, and become a weird recluse with a cool LED TV. Retirement is not Jay’s way, though.

3. The villains of the piece are clearly the suits at NBC (some, far more than others), who in 2004 offered Conan the Tonight Show in the future, as a way to ensure that he wouldn’t go to a competitor. They figured, at that time, that Jay would probably have lost his appeal by the handover, so it’d be a smooth handover. But when the time came, Jay was as popular as ever, and now they didn’t want to lose him to a rival network, especially since he’d probably go up against, and doubtless beat, Conan. Hence that terrible 10pm Jay Leno Show. Remember that? My primary memory of that show will always be Jack Donaghey talking about mediocrity over the credits on 30 Rock, and then saying “Ladies and Gentlemen, Jay Leno” right before the first episode began. As Carter said in his recent Sound of Young America interview, NBC couldn’t make a decision between Jay and Conan – they were so desperate not to lose them both, that they had no idea how to accommodate them both, so they came up with many possible ways of having them both. The worst of these: Have both men host the Tonight Show – maybe a couple of nights each, or one week of Jay, one week of Conan. Not surprisingly, most of these plans were rejected.

4. Carter explored the idea of baby boomers vs. Generations X and Y in a way I found interesting. Obviously the two men represent different eras and comedic sensibilities, and Carter suggests that the Team Coco movement was fuelled in part by an outrage that The Man was, once again, trying too hard to assert its influence over the kids. In a business where ratings are the be-all-and-end-all, it was one thing for Conan to have all the online support, but were all of these people in the I’m With Coco facebook group actually watching his show? Apparently not. I personally watched it the next day on hulu, rather than as it aired, because I am old man with a fixed bedtime. Hulu and DVRs are terrible for the ratings, so Conan’s Tonight Show sank. Also, there’s plenty of talk about NBC execs telling Conan to go more broad for his new show: less of the string dance, more mainstream stuff. Don’t alienate older viewers. In essence, change who you are so it’ll appeal to more people. I do find the concept of “lead-ins” very interesting: the idea that your show will suffer if there’s not a strong show airing right before it. As I understand it, a huge number of people will watch a show just because they liked what was on before, and are too lazy to change the channel. A huge number. Lead-ins are a really big deal. Lead-ins, ratings among target demos, affiliate boards, upfronts… all the industry talk is super-interesting to me, but maybe not for a casual reader.

5. What else? I liked that Carter painted a very detailed picture of everything going on, including profiles of the other players in Late Night, including people who you’d think would be less significant like Craig Ferguson and Chelsea Handler. He did mention a couple of my favourite Conan bits – the run across America at the start of the Tonight Show; and the old-timey baseball league from the Late Night show. Two stone cold classic comedy routines. While I knew that Craig Kilborn was the initial host of the Daily Show, I didn’t know that he was essentially canned for making lewd and stupid remarks about the show’s (female) co-creator in an interview. It’s a shame that that program just faded into obscurity after that. Oh, and Carter uses the word “ersatz” an awful lot. 

1. I only heard about The Twilight Singers’ last album, ‘Powder Burns’, by accident, when Denis Leary gave it a shoutout on The Daily Show. So, it was a happy and appropriate surprise to see that they had a new record out last week. Buried underneath all the press for the PJ Harvey, Mogwai, Bright Eyes and - yes - those dudes from Oxford, you might have heard that ‘Dynamite Steps’ just came out.

2. I’m pretty sure that my friend Nick got me into the band, via their song ‘The Killer’, many moons ago. Everything that I loved about that song - huge chorus, giant guitar riffs, impassioned vocals - is present and accounted for on ‘Dynamite Steps’. Therefore, in the words of John Mulaney, “I love it!”.

3. Some highlights from the new record are ‘Gunshots’, which sounds like it could fit onto ‘Powder Burns’, and ‘Blackbird and the Fox’, which is slow and sexy and Ani DiFranco-ized. And I really enjoy how ‘Waves’ starts as a slow, moody bass-monster before the chiming guitars and reverb come in, making it a fast, moody bass-monster.

The Twilight Singers - Gunshots by 2046songs The Twilight Singers - Blackbird And The Fox (featuring Ani DiFranco) by subpop

4. This record is less immediately anthemic and more brooding than its predecessor, and dark is something that works well for The Twilight Singers. Greg Dulli has never been afraid to experiment with different sounds, and it sounds like he’s stretching his comfort zone a little more. So there’s a bit more electronica, and a weird round of applause at the end of ‘Get Lucky’.

5. The band’s imminent tour is, of course, avoiding Florida. I would recommend that if you live in a proper city that you go and see the band when they come through. Like The Hold Steady, these guys would clearly be an incredible bar band - drinks, hooks, and choruses. Perfect.

1. I love Simon Pegg. ‘Spaced’ is my favourite TV show of all time, and ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and ‘Hot Fuzz’ are two of my favourite films of all time. I even have ‘Big Train’ on DVD. So Lauren ordered me his autobiography from Amazon UK for Christmas. It finally arrived on January 14th. Thanks, blizzards!

2. It wasn’t what I was expecting. He’s very deliberately written a book about his upbringing, his influences and sort-of how he got to where he is today. There’s not a lot of cool behind-the-scenes gossip from the sets of ‘Spaced’ or ‘Star Trek’ or whatever. It’s a bold choice, to eschew going into much detail about the works that made him famous, instead going for an origin story. I think it works quite well. Weird, though, to not feature one Nicholas J. Frost until page three-hundred-something.

3. Pegg punctuates the chapters with an imaginative story about a self-conscious millionaire playboy who has to save the world from possible explosives-oriented calamity, while sleeping with sexy ladies. His name is Pegg, and he has a robot sidekick named Canterbury. This whole section isn’t really necessary, but it lets Pegg’s imagination go off, and it certainly has its funny parts.

4. Not surprisingly, there are large - large - chapters of the book devoted to Star Wars and zombie films. Pegg does a good job of tying things together. He describes seeing Raiders of the Last Ark in cinemas as a ten year old, and then later remembers this event specifically when meeting Steven Spielberg. It becomes clear that he’s a guy who’s been very lucky: he’s met just about everyone he loved as a young’n. When he discusses his meeting with Carrie Fisher, both her reaction and his are priceless.

5. I really enjoyed the book. His writing is consistently humble but funny. Thank goodness there was no mention of ‘Run Fatboy Run’. He renames certain pivotal women from his life to keep them anonymous - so the character that inspired Sarah from ‘Spaced’ is referred to throughout as ‘Eggy Helen’, a much better name. I don’t know when ‘Nerd Do Well’ is coming out here in the States (edit: June 9), but whenever it does, it’ll be well worth your time.

1. A film about Allen Ginsberg’s most famous work, starring James Franco, Jon Hamm, David Strathairn, Jeff Daniels… Sounds pretty good, right? We were excited when we first heard about it a while back, then it seemed to come and go very quietly. So we rented it from the library.

2. Hoo boy, did this thing stink. One part courtroom drama, one part frank Ginsberg interview, one part live ‘Howl’ performance, three parts mess. And lots of animated sperms. The tone and narrative jumped around really starkly, and even though there was a thematic unity between all the different elements, the film didn’t try to tie them together very well.

3. This is a film about the poem, and not about the poet. It’s established early on that Ginsberg himself is not on trial, nor is he even present at the trial. But Ginsberg is the focal point of the whole film. So the courtroom stuff doesn’t really feel like anything is at stake. The person on the dock is the publisher of the poem, charged with obscenity, but he doesn’t say a word the whole time, so it’s hard to root for him. The courtroom scenes carry the most drama, and it would have made for a more compelling drama to have just seen that play out. The performances from Hamm and Strathairn – as defense and prosecution - are both great. But the other segments, especially just seeing Franco’s Ginsberg read the poem to a roomful of nodding hipsters, felt like a drag.

4. The movie makes it clear from its first frame that, as much as possible, the dialogue reflects real quotes actually said by the actual people. That’s an admirable goal, that makes for good authenticity, but it stifles the film. It’s not a documentary (this is also made clear at the start) but it’s trying really hard to be one.

5. Best moment: In his closing argument at the trial, Jon Hamm’s performance is pure, pure Don Draper. I’m surprised they didn’t pan into the gallery to show Harry Crane quietly weeping. 

1. When their first record came out, I fell for Glasvegas hard. It was a rough time: I was in my last year of law school, didn’t know where I’d live in a few months, what I’d do, whether I’d be qualified, and so on. So the records’ dark themes but giant anthemic choruses really worked for me. Even if the album had a load of filler, the singles were majestic, and they became one of my little bands. 

2. So now they’re coming back with a new record, called EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\  - Cool title, guys! Nice and simple! - and the first track from it is now available as a free download. Like I said, I loved them a couple of years back, but things are a little rosier for me these days, and admittedly I haven’t relistened to the band for a long, long time. So how’s this new song? 

3. Well, it sounds like there’s auto-tune on some of the vocals. That has to be my crappy speakers, right? They wouldn’t make like T-Pain. They have a new drummer, and I can hear some more fills and comparatively complicated drumming technique. 

4. Structurally, it sounds a little all-over-the-place. They’ve got their loud parts and quiet parts, but they all come off as rather disjointed. Maybe this is just a first impression, and when I’ve heard the song as many times as I’ve heard ‘It’s My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry’, I’ll love it. 

5. Would I have fallen for it immediately if this had been a Nas cover? Probably. James Allan’s Scottish accent over those intricate rhymes would be amazing!

Listen for yourselves, below. 

The World Is Yours by glasvegas

1. I’ve never read ‘Freakonomics’, but I did read – and enjoy - its sequel ‘Superfreakonomics’, although that might be because I thought it was a tribute to Rick James. Ouch. This first thought was a clunker. Onwards and upwards.

2. I like the chemistry between Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. I listened to a few episodes of their podcast, and especially enjoyed the one about penalty kicks. Also, it’s pretty amazing to me that Dubner used to play in a band with Jon Wurster.

3. If you don’t know, the movie is a patchwork of four short films, each made by a different documentary heavyweight, between which there is some talking-head stuff from the Steves and some interstitials, directed by Seth Gordon (The King of Kong). It’s really interesting to see how each filmmaker kept to their own style for their individual pieces. For instance, the first film – about how a baby’s name can affect its upbringing and eventual lot in life - is made by Morgan Spurlock, and so sure enough, there are plenty of wacky sound-effects and floating graphics. Contrast this with the next piece, made by super-serious director Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room), which is much darker in tone, has a restrained but ominous score, and takes on a much heavier issue, the silent culture corruption in sumo wrestling. (Heavier issue, you see). The changes in tone from piece to piece weren’t as jarring as they could’ve been, which definitely helped keep me interested.

4. If you didn’t already know, I’m not actually an economist, but I find the Freakonomics stuff fascinating, because it’s simple enough for me to understand. There’s a piece (from Eugene Jarecki) that connects the fall of Communism in Romania to lower crime rates in the U.S. twenty years later; that one I didn’t find too interesting. That aside, I was onboard and paying attention the whole time, which is a high compliment for a film that doesn’t feature any robots smashing things.

5. The strongest piece of the film was the last one, about offering incentives to kids from troubled backgrounds to do well in school. For every passing grade, they get $50. It’s an interesting concept, the two students they focus on are real characters, and the film is made really well by the ladies that did ‘Jesus Camp’, so they know how to get the best out of kids. It was a solid conclusion to an interesting and well-presented film.