New to NA: English Teacher

The World's Biggest Paving Slab is getting a lot of airplay on the inestimable 6 Music at the moment. Me, I know nothing about the band, English Teacher, other than I don't think that's an especially good name in these days of "what happens if you Google them?" But what do I know? Well, what I do know is that I really rather like this song. And also, check out the excellent lyrics - lots of fun to be had for the indie spotter here, I think, with some of these references.

I am the world’s biggest paving slab
But no one can walk over me
I am the Pendle Witches, John Simm
And I am Lee Ingleby
I am the Bank of Dave, Golden Postbox
And the festival of R&B
I’m not the terrorist of Talbot Street
But I have apocalyptic dreams

You should see my armoury
I am the world’s biggest paving slab
So watch your fucking feet

I am the world’s biggest paving slab
But I sit here quietly
No one ever looks down at the ground
Yeah, no one ever notices me
I wish I were born a stone
And made Wycoller my home
Haunting with Charlotte Bronte
I’m not the terrorist of Talbot street
But I think that ruins have beauty

You should see my armoury
You should walk all over me
I am the world’s biggest paving slab
And the world’s smallest celebrity

Great video too, isn't it?

Under the influence

I love REM, and have a special fondness for the IRS years when you couldn't always make out what Michael was singing about and Peter's Rickenbacker jangle was at its jangliest.

Of course, that is a finite resource. Even in the unlikely event that REM were to reconvene, that 1980s sound is gone forever. It is a relic of a different age. Murmur is over 40 years old, lest we forget.

So how to scratch the itch? Well, a bit of Googling led me to this forum discussion about bands with a similar sound to early REM. It makes for an interesting read, not least because it showcases how many wildly different opinions there must be on what early REM sounded like, given some of the suggestions. Anyway, one band name that kept popping up was The Decemberists, and particularly their album The King Is Dead. So I had a listen, and you know what? On occasion, they do sound a bit like Athens' finest. Turns out that one Peter Buck guests on three of the album tracks, and you can tell which. For me, this is the most REMarkable track:

You see, I hear this and can't help but think of a slightly faster version of this, and not just because of the intro either:

I don't know what my point is. We're all a product of our influences, aren't we, so... what? I guess the key is to be a product of them without being in their thrall. The Decemberists manage this, I think. Good on them.

Now what?

For those of you that expressed an interest last time, here are some more gems from The Connor Brothers that suit my current mood just fine...

Not from where I'm standing

I got to see some art by The Connor Brothers recently. Their impressive back-story involving an escape by twin brothers from a particularly luddite American cult is sadly a work of fiction; rather, they are former art dealers turned print makers Mike Snelle and James Golding, and are perhaps best known for adding subversive or post-modern captions to pulp fiction book covers - you know, this kind of thing:

I loved every print I saw like this, and took loads of pictures, going back to some prints time and again. And I got to thinking - where had I seen this before? Not just something like it, but a piece of art in this exact style, and by The Connor Brothers? And then it came to me.

Not From Where I'm Standing is a compilation of 20 Bond film themes covered by current and former members of Cinerama and The Wedding Present. I wrote more about it back in 2020, when it was released. Anyway, here's a song from it; I need no other excuse for a bit of Such Small Hands.

Meldrew Point

To reach Meldrew Point is to be the same age Richard Wilson was when episode 1 of One Foot In The Grave first aired. I don't believe it, et cetera...

This little clip is from the fourth series, but encapsulates Victor's rage against the dying of the light very well.

New to NA: Marseille

I can't remember how or where I stumbled upon this track by Marseille. I don't know much (anything) about the band either, other than what I can hear, which is that they grew up listening to their parents' Roses, Bluetones and La's albums, and inherited not only those influences but their influences' influences too.

What I can tell you is that I rather like this, and you might too.

From what I can see Marseille have neither a Bandcamp nor Soundcloud presence, but they do have this handy Linktree should you, like me, want to know more.

Europe. It's like a different country or something... V

I haven't done one of these for a very long time. I know it cheapens the blog and, by extension, me, but I was surprised to find multiple slagrooms in a Dutch supermarket, and intrigued by the idea of luxe and royale variants. And I hadn't even got to Amsterdam...

At least you know I'm still here, right? I'll try to be back with a proper post soon...ish.

You're still one illusion that I can't resist

I know very, very little about Deus (or dEUS, as they style themselves), other than that they come from Belgium, started up in the early 90s and have carried on every since. Never huge, their commercial peak came in '99, with the album The Ideal Crash. The band's only continuous members are Tom Barman (vocals, guitars) and Klaas Janzoons (keyboards, violin); for everything else, it's been a revolving door of Belgian musos.

So far, so Wikipedia.

What I do know is that I own one song by them, Magdalena, from the aforementioned Ideal Crash album. I think it was on a Q magazine CD, either a cover-mount or subscriber special (yes, I subscribed for a while, back in the day). Until last weekend I had completely forgotten this track but it seems I thought enough of it at the time to include on a mixtape for someone special. Was it good, or had I just had a four and a half minute gap that needed filling?

Turns out it was quite good, I think. Quite ear-wormy, in places. And quite different too. And as a bonus, I think this might be the first Belgian band to grace these pages... but aside from that, what do you reckon?

Yesterd-AI

I watched Yesterday again recently. It was on late on the Beeb, nothing else remotely watchable was on and, besides, it has a charming if slightly unoriginal premise that makes it worth a look - imagine what would happen if the rest of the world collectvely forgot something monumental, and only you could remember. Hence struggling singer-songwriter Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) is the only person who can remember The Beatles after waking up in an alternate reality where they never existed. Cue lots of cameos from Ed Sheeran (the best of which involves Ed comparing Jack to Mozart and himself to Salieri), lots of songs everyone knows to ramp up the feel-good, some good in-jokes (like Oasis not existing either - "Makes sense," says Jack), and even Lily James as the smalltown love interest. And since the whole thing is a Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis creation, you're in safe, if slightly too safe, hands.

But this isn't a film review. There's a scene two thirds of the way through the film where Jack gets to meet John Lennon. Who is in his seventies, living by the sea, quietly creating art, having had a happy, normal life. Well, here it is.

Which is nice, isn't it? Nice to imagine John's life without the events of December 1980.

Did you recognise who was playing John, in that clip, by the way? Behind the de facto round glasses and under the docker's cap? An uncredited cameo from regular Boyle collaborator Robert Carlyle, but I digress. The point is, I guess it was easy to imagine John looking like that: the glasses, the hat, the jeans. It's how I might have drafted him, given the brief. But how, I wondered, would AI imagine him? Like this, it turns out:

My prompt to the AI engine for this was "John Lennon as a pensioner", rather than "...at 78". But you get the idea. Aside from one side of his glasses being on the wonk, it's quite good. Or is it? I mean, it's well rendered. But does it capture the essence, the spirit of the man? Maybe I should ask a real, human artist to draw John as an old man (any volunteers, C?) and see how it compares.

Given the artifice of AI, it feels like there's only one song to end this post with. And for non-Beatles obsessives, that guitar solo from 49s is George.

Stumble

It's not so long ago, really, that finding somewhere to go after last orders was problematic. Okay, it's 25 years ago, probably more, but it doesn't feel so long since The Man of Cheese and I, plus whatever assortment of others was out that week, would exit a pub a little after closing time and stumble around the provnicial streets of small-town east Kent, in search of a late drink... somewhere.

The thing about stumbling around provincial streets of small towms is that they tend to be pretty quiet, late at night, unlike gaggles of youth post-pub. Often, one of our number would entreat the others to keep it down a bit - we were good eggs, really. But this, in turn, could result in a woozy, beery, giggly rendition of a song from the others in attendance. Verses only, of course; no-one really had the vocal chops for the chorus. I can still hear it now...

I expect some would have seen the title of this blog post and expected some early REM. Well, I don't like to disappoint, so here it is.

God, I love REM, especially the IRS years. But anyway, the song of theirs I should really include if I want to maintain the theme of walking home tipsy after a night out, stumbling around being accidentally noisy, is this. Intentionally or otherwise, it always felt like the perfect song for arriving home, unable to be quiet despite best intentions, the slightly goofy guitar line through the verse a perfect fit for the attempt to get yourself "up the stairs to the landing, up the stairs into the hall..."