The Wake - 'Here Comes Everybody'

On paper I shouldn't really like this record - Factory pretty much passed me by in the sense that I was't even in England for any of it, and when I came back here the 'classic' Manchester/Factory of the 80s was all over and the likes of Northside were firing up. By this time it seemed a hagiographic smokescreen was already in place for all things Factory, and objective viewpoints to any of it were difficult to find in a pre-internet age. It rendered any random delving into the label's supposedly 'incredible' albums something of a minefield quality-wise - for an outsider looking in (and dwelling in Manchester at the time) it was always difficult to work out which albums on Factory were definitely worth a look and which ones were possible tax write-offs.

This one thankfully falls into the former category, coming across like a more introverted Pet Shop Boys than plodding post-punk also-rans (the default Factory setting in my head), with distant vocals and a hazy layer of echo above masses of airy layered synths. At times singer Caesar sounds so doleful - even on the more upbeat songs like Talk About the Past, it comes as no surprise that after Factory fucked them around, barely promoted their record and the band had enough, they later signed to beloved Bristol C86 quietcore label Sarah records - a perfect fit alongside labelmates such as The Field Mice.

It's the perfect melancholic record to stick on when you've caught the nightbus back alone from an electro-indie night (invariably named after a The Normal b-side) and made yourself a plate of beans on toast - which you later throw at the wall, in tears. Which is a compliment, by the way - that's a coveted slot.

Wakefact: The band featured Bobby Gillespie on drums for a few short years before he went on to get on with the rest of his well-documented career.

The Wake - 'Talk About the Past'

'Downloads Make Music Better', Says Fleet Fox

From today's CMU Daily newsletter:

Fleet Foxes frontman Robin Pecknold has said that illegal downloading, far from having a negative impact on the music industry, actually makes music better, because it allows musicians to be influenced and inspired by a wider range of other artists.

Pecknold told the BBC: "The more music a musicians can hear, that will only make music richer as an art form. I think we're seeing that now, with tons of new bands that are amazing, and are doing way better music now than was being made pre-Napster. That was how I discovered almost everything when I was a teenager - my dad brought home a modem. That was how I was exposed to almost all of the music that I love to this day, and still that's the easiest way to find really obscure stuff. I've discovered so much music through that medium. That will be true of any artist my age, absolutely".

Up until my early teens I lived in the US. Not a remotely cool part of the US, it was a small town in Florida called Ft Walton Beach. If you wanted to buy music you went to the Santa Rosa Mall. The mall contained the only record store for 30 miles. I'd love to say I was raised on a diet of rare SST and Blast First imports - but, this being the middle of nowhere, I was lucky to find even a massive mainstream release such as The Beastie Boys' 'Licence to Ill' in the racks.And if I did manage to get hold of a copy, thanks to Tipper Gore's one-woman conquest against profanity it was invariably the 'clean' version.

Fast forward to my GCSE years and I'm now living in a forgettable Midlands town in the UK. We have a record store called Nervous run by an old hippie called Gordon who has the look of someone who had a very short, very intense flirtation with psychedelic drugs at some point in his life - resulting in objects permanently being framed by multicoloured halo, with a faint soundtrack composed entirely on a Gameboy playing on an endless loop in his head. Gordon stocks tons of records. If they were made under the influence of drugs, or made the drug-taking experience more exciting, or simply had a cover designed under the influence of drugs, Gordon had it.

By this point I'd started buying import magazines and weeklies, and asking for stuff Gordon simply did not have, or he'd put on back-order and would arrive about 2 weeks later or often not at all, as Gordon had forgotten to order it. Occasionally I'd buy a record from some far-off exotic store like Alan's in Wigan or similar out of the back of the Melody Maker that I'd heard on John Peel, but rarely as it involved catalogues and phone ordering and someone with a credit card. You'd hear a band like Blur or Julian Cope namechecking all these weird and wonderful Krautrock and psychedelic releases, but in a pre-internet age even finding out their names was a huge piece of detective work, let alone discovering anywhere that stocked them. I'd always take a notebook of stuff I was after out to charity shops or day trips, just in case.

Forward again another 5 years and I was playing drums for a band called Mum and Dad - borne out of all manner of esoteric influences, partly from records you stumble across once every few years in tiny secondhand stores that look like they were left there by aliens, such as The White Noise's An Electric Storm. One of the freakiest, most frightening, far-out and forward-thinking albums you may ever get to hear - one of those records that when you hear it for the first time it feels like you've been let in on a huge, monumental secret. I waited 3 years to pick up a copy, which I eventually found in Barcelona, and paid through the nose for it.


To quote their own liner notes:

“MANY SOUNDS HAVE NEVER BEEN HEARD – BY HUMANS: SOME SOUND WAVES YOU DON’T HEAR – BUT THEY REACH YOU. ‘STORM STEREO’ TECHNIQUES COMBINE SINGERS, INSTRUMENTALISTS AND COMPLEX ELECTRONIC SOUND. THE EMOTIONAL INTENSITY IS AT A MAXIMUM”

Which says it all. The record had a profound effect on much of what I did musically afterwards, from approaching recording to having a desire to plug everything in ass-backwards to see what happened. There were plenty of other 'secret' records I gradually got introduced to as years went on, and then downloads suddenly hit. Or at least internet connections suddenly got decent. All of a sudden you could read up on Greek progressive rock online, or find out more about Eastern European film scores than 12 years of lonely crate-digging could teach you. And then own it all, minus the clunkers.

I can only imagine what effect it might have had if I'd been 12 when this was happening. And now there's nothing to stop a 12-year old downloading the whole White Noise album from wherever they might be. Or Aphrodite's Child's 666. Or the entire Carl Craig back catalogue. Or taking a crash course in Basic Channel. It's brilliant - and Robin Peckhold is completely right.

After all that

I never got round to posting anything did I? This nicely illustrates why I should never have responsibility for anything that needs feeding, attention or regular maintenance. The only plant I'm capable of propagating with any degree of success is mint, which doesn't count - it would quite happily do its own thing without me. Indeed it does, all I did was put it in the ground. In fact, I think it may technically be a weed. When I was younger I had a land hermit crab as a pet. It was great, you could leave it around 3 weeks' food at once and it would happily do its own thing without relying on its bungling, incompetent owner. Which was just was well as I often forgot I owned it. I suppose the worst thing that can happen to a neglected blog is that no-one reads it. Which I'm fairly certain is where we are at right now with this one.

I just got a new laptop. It is single-handedly the most expensive thing I have ever bought. There's actually a pretty huge drop-off between it and the next most expensive thing I've ever bought (a large multipack of Primark socks, since you ask). I rarely buy anything to be honest - I've gone from being 8 and having this huge, imaginary list of stuff I want in my head at all times to not even being able to think of anything I would like, even if money were no object.

Anyway, it effortlessly does most things - it says here on this leaflet - so this weekend I am going to record a bunch of banjo, and possibly some drums if I can get everyone in my house to go out for a bit. Depending on how it goes I might post something up here. That's what you do with a blog isn't it? Nascissism. Hitting all 5 of your readers firmly in the face with a needy blast of 'me' every so often.

Obviously there's every possibility I could be following up this post in another month with a 'oh yeah, that weekend I um, got drunk and forgot to hit 'record'. I'll keep you posted. If I remember.