As If to Prove the Point

As if to prove the point in my last few posts, I went away for a couple of days and went on a boys' night out with an old friend from school. It says something good about me that I have old friends and new friends, and men friends and women friends.

Right now I'm sitting home alone with a glass of wine and some tunes on the stereo, (Supergrass, The Dead Weather, Taj Mahal) doing some computer repair and wondering about doing a little bit of writing between now and ten o'clock, when Match of the Day is on. Four matches and fifteen goals in today's programme. That promises to be worth watching.

I lit a scented candle twenty minutes ago, and just realised I can't smell it. That's because I didn't light it. Ah. Easily done, easily overcome. My mind is still good at freezing, distracting, burying. I don't need those bad habits anymore, but so far I haven't figured out a way of dropping them.

This thought just drifted into my head. I can't remember a time when I was less horny in my life. Not since I was ten, at any rate; but that was pre-history, a time when I had no knowledge of such matters, and no desire to look in the mirror, wash my hair, have good clothes to change into after school, or be able to play a guitar.

The bright, light, warm, sparkling side of my nature is very quiet at the moment. The dark, difficult, broody, cynical side is fading. Do you know how hard it is to throw away old, faded clothes, even when they don't fit any more?

Deacon Blues

Steely Dan was a great band, and a strong influence on my cynical youth. I imagine some people will see the title to this post and think of Deacon Blue, the Scottish pop band. I would have sneered at such people back then.

There were two guys who wrote the songs, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, and a bunch of really good musicians around them, most of seemed to be in the Doobie Brothers as well. They wrote very clever lyrics, and tunes with jazz chords in them: Sixths! Ninths! WTF?!?!

This isn't one of their clever lyrics; it just got stuck in my head the other day, when I free associated from "bright red Georgia clay" to "Alabama the crimson tide". I always assumed the crimson tide was a big muddy river, but it's actually something to do with photosynthetic pigments in algae.

I like the chorus. The narrator is obviously a bit of a loser, and his dream is to be a saxophone player, and a bit of a drunk. High hopes, eh? Even in his dreams, he's going to be a loser! But he wants to be a renownded loser, with a famous name. Good luck to ya, buddy.

This is the day of the expanding man
That shape is my shade
There where I used to stand
It seems like only yesterday
I gazed through the glass
At ramblers, wild gamblers
That's all in the past

You call me a fool
You say it's a crazy scheme
This one's for real
I already bought the dream
So useless to ask me why
Throw a kiss and say goodbye
I'll make it this time
I'm ready to cross that fine line

I'll learn to work the saxophone
And I play just what I feel
Drink Scotch whiskey all night long
And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world
And I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the crimson tide
Call me Deacon Blues

My back to the wall
A victim of laughing chance
This is for me
The essence of true romance
Sharing the things we know and love
With those of my kind
Libations
Sensations
That stagger the mind

I crawl like a viper
Through these suburban streets
Make love to these women
Languid and bittersweet
I'll rise when the sun goes down
Cover every game in town
A world of my own
I'll make it my home sweet home

I'll learn to work the saxophone
And I play just what I feel
Drink Scotch whiskey all night long
And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world
And I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the crimson tide
Call me Deacon Blues

This is the night of the expanding man
I take one last drag
As I approach the stand
I cried when I wrote this song
Sue me if I play too long
This brother is free
I'll be what I want to be
STEELY DAN

To Be Born Again

If I venture in the slipstream
Between the viaducts of your dream
Where immobile steel rims crack
And the ditch and the back roads stop

Could you find me?
Would you kiss my eyes?
And lay me down
In silence easy

To be born again...

The Sun Hasn't Set On This Boy Yet

I dropped out of high school
It bored me to death
They taught me a dress code
And lodged my respect

I flied up to New York
And learned from the plants
That the sun hadn't set
On this boy yet

I came back an artist
I tried to play a story
Friends called me loser
Yet envied the glory

I fought for humanity
I sank in the sand
But the sun hasn't set
On this boy yet
On this boy yet


Everyone just makes me strong alright
Somehow when the lights went out
I got myself through the night, yes I did

So I went west
And I found out
Hope was all around me
And that's what life is all about

I'm back on my feet
Err, with no regrets
'Cause the sun hasn't set
On this boy yet

No, the sun hasn't set
On this boy yet
The sun hasn't set on this boy yet
On this boy yet

NILS LOFGREN

This Used To Be The Future

I bought one of these for 50p

Thirty years ago this week, The Human League released their first single, and British synth-pop was born. (Ta - Da!)

Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh were working as computer operators. This was back in the day when computers filled entire rooms. They bought themselves synthesisers (one of them was a Roland, the other one a Korg, fact fans) and they formed a band. (Ta - Da!)

The name of that band was The Future.

They weren't very good.

Then, in 1978, along came their friend Phil Oakey, with his Northern nasal baritone and his beautiful lopsided hair. They changed their name to The Human League and left The Future behind.

Phil Oakey

Their first single was rather arty and pretentious. It was about silk stockings - but not in a Cyd Charisse way... oh no... Fifteen years after Dylan sang Blowing In The Wind, and seven years before Morrissey sang Meat Is Murder, The Human League kept the tradition alive with the only protest song ever written about silkworms. [*]

"Listen to the voice of Buddha
Saying stop your sericulture
Little people like your offspring
Boiled alive for someone's stocking
Buddha's watching, Buddha's waiting"

Filthy murderers: that's what you lot are.

Johnny Rotten called them 'trendy hippies' in the NME. He was wrong on both counts, but apart from that, he was completely right. David Bowie called them 'the future of pop music'. (He was just wrong. Sexy girls were the future of pop music. They still are. Eventually, The Human League got some sexy girls, and had some hit records.)

I'm sorry to say Phil Oakey now has a lot less hair. (Less hair than Perfect Virgo for example.) There isn't enough to ask his hairdresser to style it lopsided anymore.

So instead, here's a picture of Angus Young from AC/DC. Angus still appears on stage in his school uniform, even though he's 53.

Parental advisory: lock up your mum.

[*] Unless you count 'Animals Are Cut In Two' by Half-Handed Cloud. But that doesn't mention any species by name. And it's not very good.

The Asteroids Galaxy Tour

This song is soooo retro I feel like I'm fourteen again. ("Here comes Johnny Yen again"). The band are rehearsing in a room that's got an old Wurlitzer organ and some naff furniture in it, like it's a church hall or something.

The bass player looks like Paul Simonon from the Clash, and the guy whacking a tambourine has his jaw clamped shut so tight you know he's deeply pissed off that he's not doing the singer.



In the chorus, there's a synthesised string patch that sounds all slurred and reminds me of being on a dancefloor with some slightly dodgy chemicals beginning to mess my head up. This is a good thing, although strictly speaking, it's not a fourteen-years-old thing. Don't try this at home.

The singer is pretty hot by the way. She's complaining about how she's been dating a Bad Boy, and it's all gone wrong (typical). I think she sings "he leaves my soul on the floor like a dog". Why do hot girls actively seek out men who don't give a damn about the content of their souls? I still don't know.

The band are from Copenhagen. This is their first single. You can buy it in the UK from Monday. They have a MySpace. Check 'em out.

So, for three minutes and forty seconds, I am fourteen again. Only this time, I have a driving licence, and I can get served in pubs.

Bring. It. On.

"Thou shalt not use poetry, art or music
to get into girls’ pants:
use it to get into their heads. "
SCROOBIUS PIP

My Reward

When you're a teenager, things happen that fuck with your head.

And sometimes, you say

"Thank You - I feel much better now."

Julian Cope was one of those things.

Something made by outsiders for outsiders:
a stray word,
a piece of feedback,
a great haircut,
a guitar drone

could suddenly open the door into
a different way of looking at the world

"I was goaded into becoming a rock star by Bill Drummond and the pseudo-intellectual side of me thought it would be quite charming."

Bless my cotton socks
I'm in the news
The king sits on his face
But it's unnassumed
All wrapped up the same
All wrapped up the same
They can't have it
You can't have it
I can't have it too
Til I learn to accept my reward

Policemen stand in queues
they stand accused
We live in solitude like Howard Hughes
All wrapped up the same
All wrapped up the same
Silence has it
Arrogance has it
I can't have it ooh
Until I learn to accept my reward

Suddenly it struck me very clear
Suddenly it struck me very clean
We're all wrapped up the same
All wrapped up the same
They can't have it
You can't have it
I can't have it too
Until I learn to accept my reward

Until I learn to accept my
Until I learn to expect my
Until I learn to accept my reward