living in the ethereal world

 

And I am an ethereal boy...

My faves of 1987 in the Melody Maker end-of-year Xmas edition

Most Important / Best Artist of 21st Century (how it looked in 2017)

 original Q - who's the Best Artist Since 2000....

No overall single figures springs to mind, I'd have to divide it up into categories and with multiple contenders jostling for the top spot

* Pop Star as Public Figure -  Kanye West versus Ke$ha versus Lady Gaga (with the proviso I've little appetite for the audio bar "Bad Romance") versus Drake

* Performer / Vocal Presence - Future versus  Ke$ha versus Dizzee

* Beat-maker  - Terror Danjah versus Metro Boomin versus Mustard (aka Dijon McFarlane - no really that is his actual  name).

* Pop Group in the Bygone and Obsolete Sense - Vampire Weekend versus Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti.

* Endless personal pleasure tinged with awareness of marginality in the scheme of things - Ghost Box versus Moon Wiring Club versus Ariel Pink versus Ekoplekz/eMMplekz

* A Compelling Case to Be Made although somehow I don't quite feel it fully myself - Burial versus Radiohead versus Daft Punk

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

2025 thoughts / amendments

Some new categories

Truth speaker  - Florence Shaw of Dry Cleaning 

Sound sorcereress - SOPHIE

"Masterpiece Theater" - Kendrick Lamar, Lana Del Rey

A widening world - Rosalía

Additions to Existing Categories

Performer / Vocal Presence  - Young Thug, Playboi Carti

Endless Personal Pleasure - Migos

Pop Star as Public Figure - Taylor Swift (objective measurement, not subjective partiality)

Demotions

Vampire Weekend

Fave books (2012)

 My Favorite Books Q/A

done for Interview magazine Germany

2012

- What books are on your nightstand right now?

I have something like 50 books lined up to read (seriously, I do -- I am a nut about buying books). But the ones I’m seriously focused on reading right now are: Tubes: A Journey To the Center of the Internet, by Andrew Blum, and Camille Paglia’s Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars.

[historical footnote - did not finish, indeed barely ever started, either of these]

- Which book was the last one that profoundly impressed you? Why?

George Melly’s Revolt Into Style: The Pop Arts, which was written at the end of the Sixties and is a very sharp take on the significance of pop music and pop culture in general, and informative too, which lots of stuff on things going on in Sixties Britain that are now forgotten. I was also impressed by the writing style and elegant thinking of Decadence: The Strange Life of An Epithet, by Richard Gilman, while not necessarily agreeing with the argument.

- Is there a book that changed your life? When was that and what did it change?

Roland Barthes’s The Pleasure of The Text, as the representative text of a whole bunch of French critical theory that changed my conceptions of what art (including music) was about and how it worked. 

- Which book was your favorite when you were a child?

Too many to list really, I was a serious bibliomaniac. But if pressed to pick one, I’d probably go for The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. 

- Is there a piece of classic canonical literature you didn't like at all?

I can’t really think of one that I completely detested and couldn’t see the point of at all.  But I was underwhelmed by Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. There’s some great passages of mystical writing in it but overall I found it not very engaging. I got to about 40 pages from the end and then just stopped. Had no interest in finding out how it ended. I don’t know if Kerouac counts as “classic canonical” though.

- Where is your favorite place to read at?

On the sofa, when everyone in the house has gone to bed. When you’re so into a book you willingly give up sleep. There’s been books where I’ve been so gripped, that even though my kids will be waking me up at 7AM, I’ll have stayed up until 2AM.

- Which literary character do you adore the most? Would you like to be him/ her for a day or two?

I’m finding it hard to think of a literary character I adore. I don’t adore Maldoror in Lautreamont’s Chants de Maldoror, but he is pretty charismatic. Same with Des Esseintes in Against Nature by J.K. Huysmans. But neither of them are admirable. They’re not people I’d like to be. Often the most compelling characters are evil, or damaged, twisted individuals, or pathetic. Like in Nabokov's novels: Humbert in Lolita, the crazy professor in Pale Fire, Van Veen in Ada.  Or Alex in A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.  Or the protagonist of Dostoevski’s Notes From Underground.  I wouldn’t want to really be inside any of these guys’s skins for a day, or a minute really.

10 for 2010

Favourite Albums of 2010, submitted to some publication or other.

1. Rangers - Suburban Tours (Olde English Spelling Bee)
2. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today (4AD)
3. Vampire Weekend - Contra (XL)
4. Gonjasufi - A Sufi and A Killer (Warp)
5. Moon Wiring Club - A Spare Tabby At The Cat's Wedding (Gecophonic)
6. Jim Ferraro - On Air (Muscleworks Inc.)
7. Actress  - Splazsh (Honest Jon's)
8. D.D. Denham - Electronic Music in the Classroom (Cafe Kaput)
9. Oneohtrix Point Never - Returnal (Mego)
10. Die Antwoord - $o$ (Interscope)

I think all those albums stand up

Probably the one that has receded a bit for me is the Vampire Weekend.  

And Actress, maybe although it mightily impressed me at the time. 

I would be curious to relisten to On Air but at the time it was easily my favorite of his many efforts. 

Not so long ago I saw a doc on Die Antwoord, which demystified them to their detriment, but reminded me how cool and strange their records / videos were. 

Actually looking at it's surprising the proportion of the people on it who have taken a reputational hit subsequently, not for their music, but for other behaviours. 

Well, three to be precise, but that's almost a third... 

50 faves (variant)

 Fifty fave tunes done for an Italian magazine, can’t remember when - just what struck me that day…

The Eyes -- "When the Night Falls"

The Beatles -- "Strawberry Fields Forever"

John's Children -- "A Midsummer Night's Scene"

We The People -- "You Burn Me Up and Down"

The Byrds -- "Everybody's Been Burned"

Pink Floyd -- "Paintbox"

The Doors - "The Soft Parade"

Love -- "You Set The Scene"

The Stooges - "Ann"

Scott Walker -- "Boy Child"

Miles Davis -- "Bitches Brew"

The Rolling Stones - "Moonlight Mile"

Roy Harper -- "The Same Old Rock"

Black Sabbath -- "Iron Man"

John Martyn -- "I'd Rather Be The Devil"

Roxy Music -- "If There Is Something"

Al Green -- "I'm Still In Love With You"

Can -- "Quantum Physics"

Kevin Ayers -- "Decadence"

Robert Wyatt -- "Sea Song"

Faust -- "Jennifer"

Neu! -- "Seeland"

Max Romeo -- "War Inna Babylon"

Television -- "Marquee Moon"

Sex Pistols -- "Bodies"

X Ray Spex -- "Let's Submerge"

Ian Dury -- "My Old Man"

Kraftwerk -- "Neon Lights"

The Slits -- "So Tough"

Public Image Ltd -- "No Birds Do Sing"

Gang of Four -- "At Home He Feels Like A Tourist"

Fleetwood Mac -- "Sara"

Michael Jackson -- "Rock With You'

Scritti Politti -- "PAs"

Talking Heads -- "Seen and Not Seen"

The Associates -- "Party Fears Two"

The Blue Orchids -- "Low Profile"

Meat Puppets -- "Two Rivers"

The Smiths -- "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out"

Nitro Deluxe -- "This Brutal House"

Public Enemy -- "Public Enemy No. 1"

My Bloody Valentine -- "I Believe"

Orbital -- "Chime"

Joey Beltram -- "Energy Flash"

Aphex Twin -- "We Are the Music Makers"

Omni Trio -- "Renegade Snares (Foul Play Remix)"

New Horizons - - "Find the Path"

Daft Punk -- "Digital Love"

Jay-Z -- "The Takeover"

Dizzee Rascal -- "I Luv U"

Must have been early-mid 2000s judging by the final record here

questionnaire pour Libération (2020)

What is the first record  you bought in your youth with your own money ?

Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Do It Yourself, 1979

Your favorite way for listening to music ? (MP3, CD, vinyl, radio for example) ?

Radio – London pirate stations in the 1990s,  listening to rap or classic rock in the car in Los Angeles today.

The last record you bought?

Last vinyl was Some British Accents and Dialects (BBC, 1971). Last digital was Beatriz Ferreyra, Echos+ (Room40, 2020). 

Where do you prefer to be when you are listening to music?

I like to be doing something that occupies me physically but leaves me mentally open to the music – in the kitchen, cooking, is ideal.

A mascot/favorite record to start the day with ?

Sacred, “Do It Together (London Massive)”, 1992

Do you need music for work or do you prefer silence ?

Usually I’m listening to what I’m writing about, but for pure acceleration as the deadline approaches, hardcore rave and jungle tapes that I made off pirate radio in the early Nineties maintain my pace and sustain my spirits.  

The song you feel a bit ashamed to listen to with pleasure ?

I don’t feel shame about liking anything, because – through solipsistic logic – I conclude that if I like it, it must be good. But if pushed, I would admit that enjoying “Rock You Like A Hurricane” by the Scorpions feels slightly embarrassing.

The record that everybody likes and that you despise ?

I can’t think of a record that everybody likes – there’s always a contrarian these days who’ll say “this is overrated”. I’m actually struggling to think of a record I despise. Panic! At The Disco’s “High Hopes” is fairly horrific, but I’m sure many would agree with me.

The records you need to survive on desert island ?

I made it records plural because it’s too hard to pick just one. Miles Davis, In A Silent Way. Joni Mitchell, The Hissing of Summer Lawns. John Martyn, Solid Air.

What cover art would you frame at home like a piece of art ?

Electronic Panorama, a Prospective 21e Siecle series box set released by Philips in 1970. I don’t have it framed but the silver metallic box is displayed on a shelf in our living room.

Your best memory of a concert ?

Daft Punk making their US debut at the Even Furthur rave in the wilds of Wisconsin, 1996.

Do you go in a club to dance, listen to music on a big sound system, to chat up… Or you never go in the clubs ?

I used to go to clubs and raves all the time. But now hardly ever. When I went, it was to dance and to do certain other things people at raves do. But also increasingly I went as a participant-observer, the use the anthropologist’s term. To read the living text of the crowd, decode the rituals.  

What is the record you share with your significant other in your live ?

Too many, but among the core shared favorites are Pixies, Cocteau Twins, Aphex Twin, A.R. Kane, Fleetwood Mac, Saint Etienne, Omni Trio, Orbital, Ultramarine.

The track that makes you mad with rage ?

I cannot think of one at the moment. There are tracks that make me rage with madness, in a good way, i.e. Dionysian frenzy – The Stooges’s “TV Eye”, Beltram’s “Energy Flash”, Future’s “Fuck Up These Commas”.

The last record you listened to over and over again ?

Thin Lizzy, “My Sarah”.

The band you wish you have joined ?

Often the bands that do great things that I’d have been thrilled to be involved in creating also have nasty internal struggles and a long periods of misery and decline. So I will say the Wilson Sisters, a very short-lived conceptual outfit started by friends of mine, with whom I did the Oxford pop journal Monitor. But I had moved to London so missed their one and only  recording session.

The piece of music that makes you cry ?

The Smiths, “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”. Runner up: Kraftwerk, “Neon Lights”.

Do you know what drone metal is ?

Sunn O))) ?

Quote the lyrics of a song you know by heart ?

The whole lyric? I’m not sure I know every last word in this, but I know most of it. This is just one bit:  “Why in the world are we here? Surely not to live in pain and fear. Why on earth are you there? When you're everywhere, come and get your share. But we all shine on, Like the moon and the stars and the sun, And we all shine on. On and on and on and on.” (“Instant Karma”, John Lennon)

Name three of your favorite songs ? 

Sly and the Family Stone “Everyday People”, Foul Play “Open Your Mind (Foul Play Remix)”, The Sweet “Ballroom Blitz”.

Cultural Striptease

(done in 2010) 

Your first cultural memory?

Probably The Beatles ("Yellow Submarine"). Unless we count British children's TV shows like Andy Pandy and Pogle's Wood.

The song where you would like to inhabit?

The second (subaquatic idyllic) section of John Martyn's "I'd Rather Be The Devil", but I'd need to have gills instead of lungs.

A song you are listening obsessively on your iPod? (do you have one?)

I do have an iPod but hardly ever use it. The last song to obsess me was Black Eyed Peas's "Boom Boom Pow" which came out in summer 2009 but which I only heard this month -- that got several replays on YouTube.

An embarassing (or dangerous cultural) pleasure?

I can't think of anything that embarrasses me. 

I suppose I am ashamed of how much time I waste watching junk TV -- cooking shows, reality-type pseudo-documentaries, "Best Interior Design/Next Top Model" type contests. There really are so many better things I could do with my time.

 

The song/movie which changed your life (a quote from it).

Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the U.K."--no specific line, but the excessive demand in the song and Johnny Rotten's performance left me with excessive, unrealistic demands in terms of what I expect from music (world-shaking impact, breath-choking intensity)

A recent album/book/movie/author that you consider your personal discovery.

In the era of webbed music and hyper-hipsterism, it is very hard to be first on the block with a new group, or a new anything. Generally I am happy to pick up on things a little bit after the "new thing" hunters get there.

Things your children should read, listen and see?

The Wind In the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony.

The Railway Children.

 

If I say television: is there a sitcom or something unexpected you can’t stop to watch at?

Peep Show.

 

Music: the playlist/soundtrack of your life, in 5 songs.

The Slits, "So Tough"

My Bloody Valentine, "Slow"

Orbital, "Chime"

Omni Trio, "Renegade Snares (Foul Play Remix)"

Ariel Pink, "The Ballad of Bobby Pyn"

 

The ringtone you have on your your mobile phone, now?

The standard one it comes with.

 

What do you think of people who obsessively wear earcuffs while walking or other?

It's not how I would choose to live. I don't like to be insulated from the outside world. I was never a big fan of the Walkman and the only time I use my iPod is on long train or bus journeys, or late at night when I want to read while sitting on the sofa (rather than attached to the stereo via headphones).

 

A quote from a song to tell someone: you love him/her; you want to leave him/her. And a song (quote) to convince someone to stay with you?

"It's only me/Who wants to wrap around your dreams"--Fleetwood Mac, "Dreams"

"Lovin’ you...isn't the right thing to do"--Fleetwood Mac, "Go Your Own Way"

"I can still hear you saying/You would never break the chain"--Fleetwood Mac, "The Chain"

 

Your relationship with new technologies: do you have a Blackberry/iPhone, you are an email addict, what’s your opinion about Facebook or similar?

No Blackberry, no iPhone, only shaky command of my mobile phone to be honest. Email, addicted, yes of course. Facebook--coming up with clever comments on stuff is too much like work for me. I'm on it but I hardly ever update or leave anything comments. Twitter is another step in the ephemeralisation of everything: I can remember magazine articles and music paper record reviews from 30 years ago; I can remember certain blog posts and online essays from 7 or 9 years ago. But do people remember a Tweet for more than a day?

A stupid thing that you cannot stop to do online. Or a digital gaffe.

Saving articles and blog posts "to read later". "Later" never comes and I have a folder called Reading Matter with a couple of thousand files inside it.

Have you read books on kindle or some e-readers?

No.

What you would have want to learn to do in life?

Practically: Drive a car (I've just moved to Los Angeles so this is essential). Play a musical instrument. Learn how to make beats. Learn how to beat-match as a deejay.

Existentially: Be more patient. Waste less time.

 

What did you learn from a book/movies/music about: sex?

There's no substitute for hands-on experience.

 

Do you read magazines?

Yes, but not as much as I used to.

What did you save/hated of our last ten years culture, the so called Noughties, Anni Zero.

Love: Music's inexhaustible capacity to come up with the unexpected, the revelatory, unknown pleasures (Dizzee Rascal, Animal Collective, Ariel Pink, Ghost Box, Vampire Weekend...). Blogging as a rebirth of music  journalism.

Hate: The effect on the internet on my attention span, which is shot to pieces (see above, about magazines). The wars and the propaganda machine that attempted to justify them. Still waiting for the future/the 21st Century to start, the first ten years just seem like the Nineties continuing. Twitter as the slow erosion of blogging

A word that you love. A word that you hate.

Joy

Root canal

Were would you go for a “cultural” tour? 3 places

Places I've never been -- Tokyo, Bombay, Beijing.

If you would have to write an autobiography, what could be the firts line? And the dedication?

 I will never write an autobiography. But the dedication would be "For Jenny and for Joy".

fave raves

I'm not sure what the logic was exactly but as tie-in to Shock and Awe, iD asked me  to list my seven favorite / life-changing clubs / nights-out-dancing. No I don't quite understand either but a fun and easy exercise so why not? I included raves as essentially very large, roof-less clubs.  Listed in chronological sequence rather than ranked according to life-changingness.

1. Progeny, Brixton Academy, London, October 1991

"Orbital entrance with their live techno performance (then a rare thing) and the immortal tingle-riffs of "Chime". But at this irregular rave organised by The Shamen, it's the born-again rapture of the audience - blissed out girls blindly carving shapes in the air, shirts-off and shadow-boxing boys lustrous with sweat - that really turns me into a rave convert."

2. Castlemorton Common, Malvern Hills, Worcestershire, May 1992

"Anarchy in the UK, for real. Hordes of urban ravers join forces with cavalcades of hippie travellers in their caravans and trucks, and the result is an instant city - estimated population 40,000 - springing into existence in a remote rural part of the West Country. Causing consternation across the nation and ultimately leading to the Criminal Justice Act, the free party - instigated by soundsystems like Spiral Tribe and Circus Warp - rages for eight days. I'll never forget the ashen light of dawn rising after the first night - and the hairy drive back to London, with my friend Samantha nearly falling asleep at the wheel several times..."

3. Labrynth, Dalston, East London, 1992-93

"A catacomb of garishly painted caverns and corridors, with a deceptively halcyon outdoor garden, and a murky and jostling main floor, the Labrynth was my favourite club ever. It's where I witnessed hardcore rave turn to the dark side: hands-in the-air choruses and happy pianos gradually, insidiously eclipsed by scuttling 'n' seething breakbeats, foreboding bass-tremors, macabrely witty horror-movie samples, and shudders 'n' shivers of clammy synth-slime. What I remember most about Labrynth is that you never once saw the DJs - they were tucked away in the corner somewhere out of sight. Instead, the stage was occupied by the ravers themselves: a crammed, teetering front row of kids facing the crowd from out of which they'd climbed. The crowd literally became the star of the show."

4. Even Furthur, Wisconsin, USA, May 1996

"Anarchy in the USA, for real. Hordes of candy-ravers and gabba warriors - most from the nearest cities, Milwaukee and Chicago, but others who'd flown or driven from every corner of the nation - descend on a scouting camp in a remote rural part of Middle America. The chaos was partly chemical and partly weather induced. Sporadic rain turned the dancefloors into swamps full of puddles. Along with the mud and the screams of acid freak-outs that intermittently pierced through the trees, what I remember most vividly is Scott Hardkiss dropping his skin-tingling, never-to-be released remix of Elton John's Rocket Man. And the debut US performance of Daft Punk, then barely-known but already a fully-formed juggernaut of joy."

5. Club Voodoo, Bayside, Queens, April 1998

"NY's compact but fanatical hardcore scene congregated for the birthday bash of Brooklyn techno warlord Lenny Dee - and for the US debut of The Mover, just one of the aliases used by the German producer Marc Acardipane (whose 1991 track We Have Arrived pretty much invented gabba). He played a searing, stampeding set that drew on an arsenal of tunes by himself and allies like Renegade Legion and Miro, all released via the Frankfurt label cluster PCP / Cold Rush / Dance Ecstasy 2001. The strobing riffs of Apocalypse Never and Torsion seem to swarm through the ravefloor like a cloud of poison gas. Then the fire marshals arrived to shut down the party for being dangerously overcrowded."

6. Drive By, New York, 2000-2001

"I went to a bunch of UK garage clubs in London but I never had as good a time as I did at Drive By, the hub of NYC's intimate 2step scene. The parties took place at various locations, but my favourite was the Frying Pan, a boat - moored off the Hudson River at the Pier 63 quayside - whose interior was fantastically corroded (it had been sunk for several years, then refloated and repaired). Unlike the UKG vibe of snooty exclusivity, Drive By's atmosphere was friendly and fervent, with a striking dearth of designer labels and not a drop of ostentatiously swilled champagne; the dancing too was more fluidly nubile and expressive. The mismatch that had always pained me during my UK excursions - the gap between 2step's frisky euphoria and its audience's screwface cool - was gone. For once, instead of being a pale copy of the UK original, the US transplant was like a corrected and perfected version."

7. Hard Summer, Los Angeles, August, 2012

"EDM is rising to a peak, its take-over of the USA seems certain. I visit LA's premier EDM festival - two successive weekend nights, drawing fifty thousand - more as an anthropologist than a participant. (I also have my 17-year-old niece, a bit of a handful, in tow, which means I have to be the responsible, surrogate-parent). Despite these constraints, the two nights are both big fun and a revelation, reminding me that the music is always changing, that it will always have a surprise or two up its sleeve. Such as the retina-blitzing bombast of Skrillex and his headlining concert, which shows the extent to which electronic dance music has become a fully integrated audio-visual spectacle. While also showing that this doesn't always have to be a degrading (d)evolution, a travesty of the original spirit. For sure, things have come a long way from the darkness, the tucked-out-of-sight DJs of early rave clubs like Labrynth. But the music is still all about the rush, it's a celebration of noise and sensation and excitement for its own sake. And when Skrillex flips the cameras onto the fans and then projects that teeming throng of faces and hands, that glittering constellation of held-aloft phones, onto his towering video-screens.... well, once again, the audience is the star."