I Know You and You Cannot Sing That's Nothing: The List of the Lost by Morrissey

Oh dear....

The recent death of Bowie illustrated how he in common with many iconic stars on the avant garde side of popular culture make a concious choice on their artistic direction.  Bowie trained as a mime and idolised Warhol but although he dabbled throughout his career with acting with widely variable results music was his thing.  Though his last testament - the film to Lazarus demonstrated his lasting mime performing abilities.  Patti Smith (along with her early life companion Mapplethrope) experimented with almost every form of artistic expression before settling on performance poetry which sort of transmuted into alternative rock star with the energy of New York Punk.

I would put Morrissey in that category,  though he sent slight pamphlets out into the world in the 70s on James Dean and the New York Dolls, he emerged almost from a cocoon in the early 80s aided by Marr with a fully formed and completely thought out pop music model with him at the complete centre.  That was his world and his weapons were his lyrics.  There was no foray into acting (a cameo in Brookside off-shoot doesn't count) and no bloody awful display of paintings (Bowie, Lou Reed and Dylan have all fallen victim to that).  So why a novel?  And why now? Why, why, why?  A question you will ask yourself a lot if you ever immerse yourself in the 118 pages of the List of the Lost.

The spark  I suppose must have been the publication of his autobiography in 2013 (Interestingly something Bowie never did).  A great piece of work all round but of particular weight was the first  two hundred pages or so outlining his youth in the grim decay of 1960s/70s inner Manchester amongst the Irish community.  Powerful - it was almost a stream of consciousness output.  Perhaps this gave Moz the taste for the pen and the printed (rather than sung) word.  Perhaps a hiatus from music - although in 2014 he released an incredibly strong album followed by an almost inevitable struggle with the record company- gave him more time on his hands.  Perhaps he was asked to do it.   Whatever the reason though this is a misstep from Moz.  The novel is not his form and one of the worst things for me as a fan is that Morrissey himself didn't see it.

My own theory is that it is an amalgam of all three reasons and Morrissey dusted off something that had been on his shelf for a while - maybe decades - and reworked elements of it on the basis that no-one was allowed near it and it was published as seen.

The setting of 1970s middle America and the personnel of four body beautiful athletes (two Hispanic) suggest that Moz is attempting to run as far away as he can from what the expectation of broader society would be for his literary outpourings.   No gritty Northern re-work of Sillitoe or Shelagh Delaney.  No expose of the 80s music industry.   Although anyone that pays attention to Morrissey's lyrics know he spreads his net widely for subject matter - Mexican Gangs, the Kerouac/Ginsberg entourage, World Politics er Bull fighting.

The foursome are a  Champion relay team in an American Uni with the world at their feet.  Ezra is their leader and in love with Eliza - tenuous aliteration ahoy. They can do what they want without consequence or so they think.   Their encounter an almost feral hobo then and kill him (!) accidentally and all of their lives and ambitions fall apart and end - literally.  So far so sub- sub Dostoevesky but then throw in some zombie like horror scenes - a sub-plot (fairly gratuitous) about child abuse and murder and that is it.

As a sign of how poor this book is that I can summarise it in this way because that is what Moz gets Ezra to do on page 109 - to an incredulous Eliza and helpfully the reader who if they have made it that far will be wondering what the hell just happened.  A summary of the plot by one of the characters is more akin to a bad pot boiler or terrible movie script.  However it shows how tentative Morrissey is with the form of the novel.

That more than anything shocked me about the book was how unsure Morrissey is.  One thing I thought Moz knows is his voice - he has spent his life cultivating and controlling it.  But in his autobiography or in his best songs or even in a curt witty comment thrown away in an interview  he has shown that less is more.   Call it cryptic or enigmatic but Moz seemed to understand the power of suggestion or symbol rather than the sledgehammer.   Not here it doesn't.  In fact at 118 pages I would say this is overwritten and no point is left unmade. Of particular annoyance is his use of compound words to elaborate on pretty obvious ideas "their actual blood-and-guts experience"  "blue-pencilled out of history and her-story" (!) the "mega-gnarly cave dweller" and so on.  No internal edit - this is so frustrating given how well and precisely Moz uses words in other contexts

I wondered if the book was an attempt at one of those well thumbed horror paperbacks that were passed around classrooms 30 or 40 years ago - the Rats by James Herbert, Flowers in the Attic or something by Stephen King.  If it was the question Why ?  would emerge again.

The "voice" of Moz is a problem also in a way that it wasn't in his autobiography.   You could take Becket's point that all fiction is based on the author's reality but Moz's obsessions and valid political points emerge from the mouth of all the characters - in a contradictory and quite confusing way.

Eliza for example as a Young American in post -Watergate America seems to know an inordinate amount of an obscure British politician Margaret Thatcher that has just been elected to the position of leader  of Conservative party!  This however is one of the only references to any form of hinterland from the characters - they are either two (or one ) dimensional or sound like Moz.  

Fictional writers do crowbar their voices and views into their work but this is uncrafted and just reads like a refusal to let the work have its own momentum or direction.  The dialogue runs aground because of this and in some parts is just unreadable : "Your emotional permanence is all that keeps me level"...

There is a fair amount of reference to sex along with the ghosts, zombies and violence which may have been shocking if you can translate the prose at these parts.  For although Moz overwrites everything these parts are pretty impenetrable (pardon the pun).

There is no momentum in this book it shudders to a halt every couple of pages.  I ended up dragging it to the finishing line solely because it was Moz and it (despite itself) had the odd glimpse of wit and righteous anger.   But this is not Morrissey and I hope part of him realises that.  Novels are hard and many people have crashed on the rocks of writing bad ones.I would guarantee that if Moz had submitted this under a pseudonym it would not have passed Go.  At  least Moz has all the other things he has done but not novels, never novels.

No more Morrissey you have so much more to give in other forms.

Give me More and More and More: Future Days - Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany by David Stubbs

At this age you become more aware of the limits of your knowledge - ah for the arrogance of youth.  But every now and then a book like this comes along and shows you there is stuff you didn't know you didn't know.  This is especially enlightening when it is an area that you think you should know about it - the history of pop music, electronica and er post war European politics.

The phrase Krautrock until reading this for me was only really of resonance as a point of reference for other musicians I listened to or as a paradigm of experimentalism.  I knew Julian Cope wrote a book about it. Mark E Smith was heavily influenced by it and sang a song called I am Damo Suzuki - a singer from Krautrock pioneers Can. I also was a bit disconcerted with the vaguely racist 70s Stan Boardman like name itself.  But the actual sounds themiselves ?  I had heard a bit of Kraftwerk but that is as far as it went.

The curse/wonder of music writing now as I have observed before is that every tune or track is now instantly available to anyone with internet access - 40% of the world's population at last count.  It means that a writer does not really have to worry about being wilfully obscure - which is a real possibility in this area. Further the points you make about the music can be pretty specific as the reader can listen to the song almost simultaneously.  

This modern phenomena is ironic in this context as a common theme in the book is the passing around of influential vinyl albums in the 1970s and 80s amongst wannabe musicians and music journos as they were so difficult to find. For example obstructive publishers and poor human relationships meant the albums of Neu! (more on them later) didn't get released in any mass way until the mid 90s.

The downside of this immediate access to source materials is it can lead to lazy writing.  Hey everybody listen to this and this then this isn't it great.  It can have a breathless superficial flavour.  This never happens in the comprehensive and confident writing of David Stubbs who clearly has a deep knowledge and passion to act as a curator.

In fact one of the intriguing aspects of the work is that it actually takes a while to mention music at all but rather explains the political and economic setting of post war and post Nazi Germany.  Most of the leading musicians were born during or in the immediate aftermath of the war - and the peak period for this music was from 1968-76 as they matured.  This context meant that musicians wanted to have a year zero approach - a literally new sound.  Popular music in Germany post war took the form of Schlager - pretty horrific easy listening music which played on Germanic folkloric imagery.

Even British bands - despite the Beatles learning their trade in Hamburg in the early 1960s - received short shrift.  Horrified by this cultural wasteland the musicians wanted to do something completely different.  That also included rejecting the rhythm and blues influenced Anglo- American sound. There were parallels with modern classical music where survivors of the brutal wars of the 20th century like Stockhausen experimented with everything (including primitive electronics) to challenge the traditional structure of the classical form.

What Stubbs does excellently is intertwine the musical developments with the politics, economics and geography of  Germany.  The political analogy is stark with the first bands explored Amon Duul and Amon Duul 2 who emerged from the commune movement in Munich in the 1960s.  To such an extent that to call them a formal band would be pushing it.  However they moved in the same circles and to some extent lived in the same houses as the Baader Meinhoff Group - the RAF.  The link (albeit pretty tenuous) was living in the sub-culture of a re-born capitalist Germany where many older people were coy about their role in the War and the whole history of Nazism was buried.

The Munich communes though were only one of a number of distinct areas that this new unusual music emerged from.  The vast geography of Germany is explained well by Stubbs and the ubiquity of transport being used in Krautrock tracks seems very appropriate.  The way the work is structured it largely focuses on a band per chapter but these were generally based in different places - Can from Cologne, Faust from Hamburg, Kraftwerk and Neu! from Dusseldorf and the electronic isolation of  the  experimental individuals emerging from Berlin. A veritable Bundesliga (the hipster's football league of choice) of bands.

The distinct nature of these bands is reflected in their music which remained stubbornly in the fringes of German popular culture.  They all were struggling to find new sounds but came at it in different ways - whether radical forms of studio recording (Can), state of the art electronic equipment (Kraftwerk - although not initially) having sprawling fun in chaotic settings (Faust).   As you dip into the music  you  see how different all these sounds were- a lengthy task because the musical form for these guys was the long player - not really the 45 single.  Although there were exceptions to this - Can even appeared on Top of the Pops.

One of the worries I had was the relationship with Progressive Rock - not singing about goblins and trolls like in England but lengthy sitar solos etc.  The early material has a bit of an overlap with that - particularly Amon Duul but the focus on musical innovation, collaboration and weird electronic sounds put paid to that as time passed.  Another  original (though some would say ridiculous) aspect is the complete lack of reverence of vocal ability - singers where they float in and out of the music are definitely way down the pecking order.  Much of it is instrumental but all of the bands used vocalists at some point.  I can imagine old Morrissey being aghast at some of the wailings that emerge from the  best Krautrock albums.  However have a listen to Dinger from Neu! for echoes of Rotten's vocals from the Pistols and Pil - Suzuki from Can has obviously been studied not only by Mark E Smith but Shaun Ryder as well.

The cliched phrase I kept saying when I was listening to work mentioned in the book was "this is decades before its time".  To be honest Stubbs makes this point several times as well.  It is not simply because of the electronics - bands like Can and Faust only utilised synthesisers latterly- but the arrangements and the rhythyms which predate 80s dance.  The relationship between German economic development and the electronic equipment used by Kraftwerk and some of the Berlin bands like  Cluster  is interesting, The main protagonists in Kraftwerk came from very wealthy backgrounds that allowed them to buy prohibitively expensive electronic equipment.  A problem that English groups who essentially were initially Kraftwerk tribute bands like the Human League and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark found in their early days even several years later. Bands that couldn't afford it but were heavily influenced tried to replicate the sound in different ways - for example Joy Division.

The ultimate tribute/plagiarism of the experimental thinkers of Krautrock and who indirectly influence modern Western music even more was Bowie  who notoriously set up shop in Berlin in the 1970s and made some of his best work.   A lot of it with  Brian Eno who also had worked directly with a lot of the Berlin School people and Rother from Neu!  I think the claims of direct plagiarism are a bit unfair as Bowie put his own stamp on it - as did Iggy Pop and Lou Reed who were all equally influenced.  But it is a bit shadowy Neu's song Hero recorded a couple of years before Bowie's album and Rother was contacted to work on Bowie's albums and then unceremoniously dumped.

But the wonders of this book for me was the world of sounds it opened me up to that I really didn't have a clue about it.  The silliness of Faust, the breadth and depth of Can's (most of them ex-students of Stockhausen)work, the brilliant electronic work of Cluster and the completely lost albums of Gunther Schickert.

One criticism would be that Stubbs crams in loads of bands  vaguely linked to German  Experimental music - some of which seem pretty weak and don't have much work behind them.  I think there was a desire to provide a completely comprehensive guide but I am not sure this works particularly when some of the work doesn't seem to merit comparison with the others.   This is particularly true of the later material  and the very early 70s stuff.  But this is minor criticism - for me this book was a key to new worlds of music and that don't happen too often!

Music makes the people come together: Yeah, yeah, yeah: The Story of Modern Pop - Bob Stanley.

In the mid eighties I remember hearing John Walters (Peel's legendary producer - also sadly deceased) reviewing the first ever Q magazine and speaking about the quiz within it.  He thought it was a bit sad as it seemed like to complete it you needed O levels in Pop.  An intricate study of any cultural phenomena runs this risk. Rather than appreciate the joy of a comedy routine, a painting, a poem or  even a World cup goal  you are trying to find the strings, the work behind the moment rather than see it and enjoy it for what it is.  Pop music has an immediacy and a reliance on emotional response that means a clumsy approach to analysing  it could either be tedious or ephemeral - the song could just dissipate under the weight of the microscope.

Bob Stanley (Member of St. Etienne and music journo)'s musical history of Pop is certainly intricate - weighing in at 750 pages. It certainly skirts with over the top analysis - a mentioning of a key change in  a Big Fun (not missed at all 80s Stock, Aitken and Waterman glove puppets) track- but pulls back on the whole to offer a sprawling, argumentative, informative work.  Bits of it reminded me of a long afternoon/evening in the pub with mates dissecting music track by track as pound after pound gets stuck in the juke box.

Male friends, maybe?  One criticism could be that this type of book is just an extension of preparing lists or (in the old days, apparently) rearranging your records, tapes, cds in alphabetic order - an aspect of male repressed emotion or something.  Or even worse it could be a mass compendium of Mojo and Record Collector articles or two years worth of Friday night BBC4 documentaries,  a male heavy audience! Caitlin Moran has a pretty damning with faint praise review comparing the book with a London A-Z.  - interestingly on the cover (smacks a bit of a publisher worried about how to market it).

Some of these criticisms may be valid but I say what the hell just accept that and dive in.   Yet another immediate problem is presented by trying to explore the entire history of pop music  - where do I begin (as many pop lyrics have asked) and where to end and er.. also what to leave in and leave out.  Broadly Stanley has gone for a chronological approach - starting with the first ever pop- chart (another list) - with some years because of their significance (good and bad) meriting a whole chapter on their own e.g 1960, 1970, 1985, 1991. Though this means that epoch spanning artists have a chapter (Dylan, Beatles, Bowie) which cuts across times - this can jar a little.  But it makes for some compelling essays the ones on Dylan and the Bee Gees are very good.

But then we get another issue which great minds have grappled with for eons (time and space).  How do you summarise the work of artists who could  - and have been - subject to massive tomes themselves?  It ain't easy (another oft used pop lyric) but Stanley adopts a variety of approaches.  One "interesting" method is to explore the Beatles through one album - the relatively obscure {well compared to the muso greatest lists of all time}: A Hard Days Night and argue that all the tensions, musical skills and potentially revolutionary sounds can be found in that work - which is stretching the point to say the least. But  I like his ambition in attempting it.

Alongside the chronological journey genres of pop are thrown in at the time they appeared or became most significant with chapters of their own.  Again, the problems of limits are here:  when does pop become something else? Country Music has a chapter (set in the 70s period) mainly because he chooses to stick the Eagles in that genre but there is none for (pre-pop) Blues or Jazz.  You can see why because the book would have become something else and it's already bloody 750 pages long (as the writer may respond to critics).

Reading the genre chapters I also became clearly aware that this is in many ways an internet book.  Not because I read it on a Kindle or it has hyperlinks or anything horrific like that.  I dutifully read the hard copy dragging the massive slab of a book around on my various journeys - looking at various locations like a manic street preacher with the bible - note the lower case. But because with an internet connection you have an immediate link to all the music mentioned.  The music writer must now be aware of this - he is a  curator who can highlight various tracks to the reader.  This changes the skill from describing music (or dancing to architecture) to knowing you can find the song yourself - so puts it in context.  The downside for this is that it can lead to play - list itis.  There are a few chapters where there are 7 or 8 songs just mentioned for the reader to discover for themselves.  It is quite fun to do this but made me wonder about the nature of music books now. The downside is you can lose an evening searching for say Pentangle Bsides...

Devoting a chapter to each genre is pretty unforgiving.  Let's say some have not stood the test of time - I'm looking at you skiffle and San Francisco psychedelia.    But at its best Stanley's writing can lighten up a whole style of music that entices you to find out more - early rock and roll and American 60s garage have now become my current obsession due to this.

Another thing which is pretty unforgiving is Stanley's decision making which is controversial but inevitable given the length of the work.  Some artists simply don't make the cut.  This must be down to the writer's own taste but I guess he does this because they are not original enough so just to name 4 there is no significant mention of Japan, Pixies, Blur and er the Eurythmics.  I'm actually serious about that last one - I think the early albums were significant in 80s pop.  But you may be surprised at some of the gaps

He is also very dismissive of bands - which at parts is very funny (his dismantling of the Boomtown Rats, the Britpop Chapter) even where I don't agree with him - his curt description of Carter USM but also could be seen as a nod to his editor who must have been tearing her hair out .    Stanley also takes strong stances on some issues which are arguable but at least he doesn't approach it with a " wow isn't all music wonderful"  Q magazine type style. His favourite Beatle is Paul McCartney, New Wave from 1978-81 is almost completely dismissed as chancers hopping on the back of the lull after the initial surge of punk,  he goes into more detail than in humanly necessary about the Bee Gees back catalogue, New Romantics are stuck in with a movement he calls New Pop. from 1980 -3 which includes Adam Ant, ABC, Dexys, he also completely dismisses Band Aid (with his own aid of a Moz quote) - though I think he could do better than quote Neo- Liberal economist Moyo in defence of this postion.  I like all this because again it equates with a pub/coffee shop/17th Century Salon argument.

So I think I have explored the sprawling magpie (is that possible?) like approach of the work.  But overall it comes together.  He throws up gems of tracks - for example showing how the turn of the decade Kylie singles were her best work and pretty phenomenal pop songs.   He dissects throw away tracks like the Archies' Sugar Sugar - he won me over with that one.  There is a slight tendency a la Paul Morley or Bill Drummond to say a pretty unremarkable track is the best record every made. Morley said Fantasy Island by Tight Fit was better than Led Zep III for example. Stanley does this with a lot of songs - say a couple of Bucks Fizz tracks - notably My Camera Never Lies  - which you can sort of go along with.  The power of this disposable pop is one of the reasons that 80s music is so resiliant in my eyes.  Alongside this he puts forward a case for Public Image by PIL as the most important record ever made.  But he goes too far when he says an early 90s abomination of a  single by Slade(!) with UKIP cultural spokesperson Mike Read is "stellar" - this is it!  I suppose that I feel so strongly about this shows the strength of debate you can have over what is supposedly such a short-term form.

The history is also skewed.  Bob's own preferences shine through.  There is a detailed dissection of almost every element of dance music from 1980 onwards track by track - every element of Detroit techno minutiae to the growth of happy hardcore in Rotterdam(!).  Very informative and in Moran's terms encyclopediac but compare the discussion of 80s indie music over two pages (Morrissey's solo career 25 years old is literally covered in a footnote).  Debatable over which was more influential on pop but not in thie work.  There is an element of student dissertation here - he quite simply seems to run out of space so has to cram a lot in.  The ending is a bit unsatisfactory - the essential conclusion being that nothing new, original or listenable has been made since the turn of the millenium.  I am not clear if that is what he really thinks or if it just a question of time (as Depeche Mode -brief mention in work- said).  It also has a geographic bias - key Scottish and Welsh bands aren't really explored but my god he does a lot in the work.

A book to read, cross reference when searching you tube, spill coffee on and argue about.  Big, all encompassing - probably too much - and flawed.  And much better than 2 years worth of BBC 4 Friday night documentaries.

Dark is the day?

Review of SFA's new work published in Scottish Socialist voice May 1st 2009.

Although it is 13 years since their debut album, Fuzzy Logic, Super Furry Animals are still something of an overlooked gem on the music scene. They also are the only group to appear in the NME reading the seminal Scottish socialist work Imagine, apart from the Pussycat Dolls. That last part was a joke!
Their current album Dark Days/Light Years was revealed with an online concert playing it in full a few weeks ago. For me, in our climate-ly changing world it is already the sound of the (premature) summer.
The last Super Furries’ work Hey Venus was a concept album about a young girl running away to the big city. Although containing a couple of cracking pop songs it was fairly short and had a slight feel to it. Dark Days, however, is a massive smorgasbord of tunes with literally something for everything: glam rock, heavy metal samples and disco all make an appearance.
One of the skills that SFA have showed over their nine albums is using all of pop music’s heritage but presenting in a way that is relentlessly current and original. Partially this is down to Gruff Rhys’ lyrics – sample song titles “The Very Best of Neil Diamond” and “Moped Eyes”.
The musical diversity is reflected in the album’s dialectical title – although there is a happy upbeat feel to many of the tracks they are placed in the context of the “dark days” that the planet is currently experiencing. For example the jumpy song “Inaugural Trams” salutes the wonders of an integrated public transport system (yes really) whilst recognising currently such a thing is unlikely, utopian even. Rhys has also said it is a salute to technology: “It’s a celebration of living with science rather than religion”. It also has a real Kraftwerk vibe, to the extent that a member of Franz Ferdinand raps in German throughout it.
There is a degree of retrospection to this work too there are two lengthy electronic soundscapes – which have a techno feel to them. They are a bit softer than some of the Super Furries earlier dance material but are quite stunning and in “Cardiff in the Sun” they have created a beautiful piece of music. There is also a nod to their Welsh roots, having once released an album of entirely Welsh tracks, with “Lliwiau Llachar” meaning Bright Colours.
Personally I think the stand out is “Mt” which is an inspirational celebration of human society – if you only seek out one track make it this one.
An excellent soundtrack for life at the moment then and the funny thing is the Super Furries make it seem so effortless .
Nick McKerrell

The Fall-en

Finished Xmas pressie book by Guardian journo on tracking down ex-members of the Fall.

Review below:

I enjoyed some of this book - it is a good idea, gives some cracking anecdotes and quotes about MES through the years and is a good accompaniment to appreciating the different eras of the Fall. The way Smith alternately bullies and nurtures different mostly young talent is quite intriguing.
Yet it is flawed - it is a bit circular in its analysis and offers no real conclusions to MES' modus operandi. It also seems very unwilling to concede on whether he is an alcoholic or not. That wouldnt be so bad in and of itself - the bigger problem is the invasive voice of the writer.
At time he looks like he wants to be writing one of those Andrew Collins/Stewart Maconie type books about his upbringing in the North. This feels bolted on and distracts from the main theme.
The worst bit though is towards the end where he outlines the breakup with his long-term partner. This is self-indulgent tosh - I would love to know what his ex feels about him using a book about the Fall to have a go at her and her new partner! The writer also has throw away line about how he was thrown out of school for bullying as if this were the norm. So good content but pretty unlikeable writer by the end - which ironically could confirm MES' attitudes to artists/musicians.

20th century composers...honest!

Finished reading the massive footnoted work that I began in early January - an education in many ways but some flaws. The Rest is Noise see blog and pic - tells the story of 20th century classical music in historical context or vice versa. Made me listen to some cracking music that I wouldnt have done otherwise. Bit musicological in places but not 2 much. Also discovered Moz and Shostakovich link!

See my review below - from Fbook.

A muscular tome - absolutely thorough in its discussion of 20th century classical music. Very enthusiastic in places which rubs off - You tube has taken a pounding with me listening to stuff . He has introduced me to material I would never have heard.
The historical context is also excellent for the most part although the write seems quite hostile to the left which means that there is a weakness to some of the analysis of the whole number of composers who were influenced in this way.
It takes a long time to get through but is a very fulfilling and worthwhile read. Criticisms would be it tends perhaps inevitably to focus on the States. British classical music which I saw 3 hours of documentary on is only told through the prism of Britten in one chapter.
I think it also gets a little rushed in the last couple of chapters - it means you dont have the luxury of examining the history or appreciating the music just a whistle stop thru a number of composers. But a good project to embark upon.