ISSUE 23 � JANUARY 2007
"Destruction and loss are nothing to cower from. They're a chance to begin anew" - Lisa Crystal Carver
Well, here we all are in 2007 and, I know it�s a clich�, but the years really DO seem to go by a lot faster the older you get. As Sandy Denny once sang, just before she fell down the stairs, �Who knows where the time goes?� This issue sees the welcome return of Gary Simmons, who�s been sorely missed in recent months. The rest of the zine was written, as usual, by Mark Ritchie. For further adventures online, please visit geocities.com/sniperglue
CRACKS
I�m crawling into the cracks,
trying to shut out all noise,
all light.
Trying to escape from the swimming terror
of faces,
from shape, from form,
from a world where only the cruel survive.
Their poison drip, drip, drips,
never ending and sweet to the taste.
Their deception hides in shadows
and in smiles,
in lollipops and candy-floss
and fairground rides.
There is no safety
except in the dark coolness
of the cracks.
Here, left alone for a while,
my caged bird soul will sing again,
it�s beady red eyes
frozen to the sun.
ARMIES OF GHOSTS
Nighttime's the worst -
that's when armies of ghosts,
carried by the wind,
flood your room with worry and doubt -
that's when the shadows conspire against you,
holding you down,
sweating out the shame,
as the silence builds and builds
into a cacophony of regret.
There's no escape from these terrors -
they gnaw away at you relentlessly,
their bellies never filled.
All you can do is lie there,
staring up at the cracked ceiling,
staring at the mildewed walls, hoping,
praying (if you can)
for the sweet waves of sleep
to lift you up and over,
out of the grasp of clammy hands
that take and take,
squeezing the last drop of blood
from your Tinkerbell soul.
#1
when you drink,
you have to put up with the bad times
if you want to enjoy the good.
one day, i may reach the point of no return,
where the bad times are too much to bear,
where the only sound is that of
camel's backs breaking.
i haven't reached that point with drink yet
but i've reached that point with you.
WEIGHT
There is a weight pressing down
that crushes all the spirit from the world.
There is a weight pressing down
that suffocates all chances, all hopes.
There is a weight pressing down
that is murderous and unending,
sucking everything dry, down to the marrow.
It laughs at love, it laughs at God.
There is a weight pressing down.
Can't you feel it?
WEATHER REPORT, NEW YEAR'S DAY
Sleet flutters down
like falling birds
on these bleak and bare branches.
This is NOT the beginning
of a brave new world,
it's just another day
on a dying planet
where dogs dream,
elephants dance
and people send out messages
to the silence.
All those words pouring
out into nothingness,
into empty space.
Does anybody hear them
or do they melt away
like sleet,
like falling birds?
NOWHERE SLOWLY
the plane ride was beautiful.
still too young to feel fear,
i had yet to grow out of
riding my bike down hills and
leaping down flights of stairs,
so sailing through
that ocean of sky
was nothing, really.
on the ground, the heat hit me
like someone had opened
an oven door
and the air sounded different,
somehow,
as if cicadas were raining down
from invisible clouds.
we were going nowhere slowly
and days of blue-skied freedom
stretched ahead.
gently we eased into our new world
as our new world gently eased into us.
13.5 BILLION YEARS OF HELL:
Selected Dispatches from an Unwilling Player of Gods� Little Game
By Gary Simmons
Dear Mark�
Maybe I am being punished for how I treated M before my eviction? I only wanted to see her weekends and got angry if she was to phone me for no real reason. I guess I was just so into me, me, me that I didn�t think about how SHE felt. But� I HAD got things to do and, because she wasn�t working at that time, she must�ve got bored� I WASN�T bored at all. Was I? Well, SOMETIMES, but it wasn�t as if I really CARED. It was a �funny� bored as opposed to a bored-coz-I�m-depressed. I COULD have done things, like go out, etc. Now, I CAN�T!
Maybe the eviction was meant to be? Maybe I was MEANT to live with M for a year? Maybe she was MEANT to go back to Madrid and her family and dog? Maybe I was MEANT to �meet� YOU?! So many maybes. So many stars in the universe, so many grains of sand on all the beaches in all the world. So much effort and desperation in trying to find out the �Who am I? What am I? Why am I here?� questions.
All I feel I�m left with is HER voice on the phone for half an hour or so at midnight and this pen and paper so I can �talk� to YOU. 47 years. A voice on the phone. A pen and paper. You could write a fuckin� poem or song about it! But who would READ the poem? Who would HEAR the song?
The teen girl �fetish� stands to reason. Nature knows no law or cultural rules. It�s all very Libertine and Sadean. Kids are kinda borderline normality� Look at that old Channel 4 show �Mini-Pops� where pre-teens dressed up as adults with make-up and shit� It confuses the built-in instinct of sexual attraction. You can probably work out the popularity of various �fetishes� by counting the websites dedicated to them. Kids seem to be WELL popular, pretty mainstream. I�m not discussing right or wrong here, just what people are INTO. It�s all a trick, though� You wank over photos and videos, you�re actually wanking over paper and printing ink and phosphorous dots on a cathode ray tube!! It�s to do with shape and form� I used to wank over my, very BAD, drawings of my �ideal woman� when I was at art college (not IN the college, mind!) I�m just trying to look at this sexual attraction thing in a cold and scientific manner� Morals and laws are separate. All this has as much to do with Ian Huntley as Peter Sutcliffe has to do with �fully grown� women. Sex is primarily about reproducing the species, but things don�t work out quite as simply as that. The earth LOOKS flat, the room LOOKS empty, you can�t SEE radio waves. Any same-sex dance of the two-backed beast is NOT gonna make a baby, nor with a girl before she starts ovulating. There are more things in heaven and earth, bla bla bla. Bla. Cut the media-fuelled hysterics, let�s STUDY it! Unless, of course, the laws of the country are broken. I don�t believe �thought crime� should be punishable. I believe Gary Glitter is innocent�
I sit here in �my� room, at my desky, listening to Diamanda warbling away and I think I�m wasting my time by doing nothing. I feel I SHOULD be on a tube train, commuting, that I SHOULD be waiting for some bus, that I SHOULD be doing some pointless task in some dead-end job, in at whatever time, being oh-so grateful if �let out� five minutes early, being really narked if I have to stay behind a minute longer than �going home time�� For �this is the world now, shake a fin and the world turns, sit in a chair and pictures change, see the blind men tapping at the TV screen with their white sticks� (Throbbing Gristle). Between Leytonstone tube station and Leyton tube station, the train goes past a huge graveyard� �What�s the use of worrying, it NEVER was worthwhile�� (�Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag�). I see everyone outside going about their dismal business. What IS the point? 21st century and we know too much. Ignorance is bliss, freedom is slavery, arbeit macht frei. Some people slog their rectums out all their lives, only to end up in shite at the end of it all. Why bother? You can cut out the slogging part and end up in shite after a lifetime of IDLENESS!
�And the world keeps turning�� (Charles Manson)
When I worked in a graphic design studio, the kid who was the window cleaner�s assistant turned up alone. He said the window cleaner had committed suicide coz he felt as if he wasn�t getting anywhere. My boss said �Someone should have told him. There�s nowhere to GET!�
�Love, Gary xxx
GARY�S COMPLETE WASTE OF HIS TIME AND YOURS� PLAY-LIST
DARK STORM � FOUR LU?AN EMPERORS. Cassette (View Byeond (sic) Records. ????)
THE GEROGERIGEGEGE � HER NAME�S ON MY COCK #2. Personal cassette (note from Juntaro Yamanouchi, �Unreleased tracks for GARY!!! ONLY YOU!!!� 1991)
PHILIP JOHNSON � YOUTH IN MOURNING. LP (Namedrop Records. 1982)
SHOUKICHI KINA & CHAMPLOOSE � S/T. CD (Tokuma Japan Communications. 1994)
KYOHFUSHINBUN � (dunno the title coz it�s all in Japanese and I�ve lost touch with all my Japanese contacts. However, the cassette is numbered 030� for those who GIVE a toss!) Cassette, funnily enough. (Integral. Probably 1994)
LIBRARIAN � NEVER BEEN TO BASINGSTOKE (plus extra tracks by Vegetarian Pasta Death and Bass Turds). Cassette (Kaw Tapes. 1991)
MAGGIE PONCE � HELLO GARY. Personal cassette (2002)
MAUTHAUSEN ORCHESTRA � CONFLICT. Cassette (self-released? FUCK knows! Why AM I even bothering� Simon?? 1982-85?)
MEGADETH � RUST IN PEACE. LP (Capitol Records. 1990)
VARIOUS ARTISTS � WATCHING SATAN, THE LEGACY OF CHARLES MANSON. Cassette (Manson covers compilation including: GG Allin, Lord Litter, Anus Presley, er� etc, etc, I suppose. Hypertonia World Enterprises. 1992� so FUCK YOU!)
MUSIC
MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC CO. � FADING TRAILS (SECRETLY CANADIAN)
Sounding a lot less Neil Young-like than on their live album �Trials and Errors� (reviewed in issue 21 of this zine), this is the newest studio release from Jason Molina�s travelling circus of musicians (�Fading Trails� was recorded in no less than four different locations across the USA and, coincidentally, one of Molina�s old albums was birthed in a studio near Glasgow where my old band used to record and rehearse). There is a nice mixture of solo and full band songs here. �Memphis Moon� is dreamy and sublime, �The Old Horizon� is a sparse and eerily affecting piano ballad while tracks like �Montgomery� and �Talk to Me Devil, Again� get the blood pumping with upbeat organs and raging lead guitars.
THE MITCHELL BROTHERS � A BREATH OF FRESH ATTIRE (THE BEATS)
No, this isn�t a CD by those bald tossers off of �EastEnders�, it�s really good UK hip-hop, aided and abetted by Mike Skinner from The Streets (his label released it too). I bought this as a present for someone and had to, er, �test� it first. There are laugh-out-loud funny tracks about signing-on (�G.O.R.G.I.E.�), stuck-up shop assistants (�Harvey Nicks�) and not so hilarious ones about police harassment (�Routine Check�), mates who stab you in the back (�Someone Can�t Look Us in the Eye�) and a whole host of other �gritty� subjects. It�s really refreshing to hear British people singing and rapping in their own accents too, which I suppose is becoming more prevalent now with people like Plan B and Dizzee Rascal, etc.
NICO � DESERTSHORE (REPRISE)
This album is from 1970 (Hiroshima Yeah! is THE place for all the LATEST music reviews, kids) and was taped for me by a most delightful reader. It�s bleak but brilliant, with Nico�s coolly disinterested vocal charms beguiling the listener like a glance from an unrequited lover (and one track, 'Le Petit Chevalier�, has Nico�s young son singing on it). Musically, it�s a world away from her early, poppy singles and the utterly perfect songs she recorded with The Velvet Underground (although John Cale produced and played on it). All swirling soundscapes of icy harmonium, piano and mournful viola (care of Mr Cale), it�s an odd, unnerving and strangely beautiful album, with �Afraid� being a stand-out track which includes the killer line �you are beautiful... and you are alone.� Closing number �All That is My Own� sounds pretty much like all the other songs, but even BETTER, somehow. Now, is there anyone out there willing to send me a copy of �The Marble Index�?
GAVIN BRYARS WITH TOM WAITS � JESUS� BLOOD NEVER FAILED ME YET (POINT MUSIC)
Another tape, from the SAME delightful reader who sent me the Nico album. This is quite extraordinary � it�s about 70 minutes of an old homeless man (unnamed here) singing a single verse of a religious song which is then looped and overdubbed with orchestras and, eventually, the voice of Tom Waits. You�d think that such a long piece would drive the listener mad but it�s actually balmy and hypnotic and somewhat moving (perhaps because the old man sounds like a guy called Ray who used to live in the same building as me, who died in the winter of 1999). When it eventually fades out, it sounds as if Waits and the old man are walking up to Heaven together.
JOANNA NEWSOM � YS (DRAG CITY)
And here�s yet ANOTHER tape, this time courtesy of someone sensible enough NOT to be a regular reader of this zine. Joanna Newsom�s Minnie-Mouse-on-helium voice has calmed down a lot since her debut release from a couple of years back and is now more akin to the whispery grace of Bjork or the highly-strung pre-ball-drop yelps of Conor Oberst. This album is pretty bonkers, containing as it does only five tracks, all of them long, strange and beguiling. The orchestration on certain songs (arranged by Van Dyke Parks) lends them a Disney-esque quality, especially when coupled with the mad imagery of the likes of �Monkey and Bear�, while �Sawdust and Diamonds� is ethereally beautiful, like Leonard Cohen after a sex change, floating through outer space.
MAHLER � GRAND MUSIC
�Haunted by alienation,� says the booklet that accompanies this lovely little disc (�2 from a charity shop in Anniesland), �Mahler said of himself: �I am thrice homeless, as a native of Bohemia in Austria, as an Austrian among Germans and as a Jew throughout the world��. Right fuckin� on! There are some BEAUTIFUL pieces here, not least �Symphony No 5: 4th Movement�, thought to be composed as a declaration of love for Mahler�s new missus. The shorter pieces (one of which is from a song-cycle cheerily entitled �Songs on the Deaths of Children�) have some hauntingly-voiced lines (in German, natch) about stuff I�m not brainy enough to understand and I don�t like these so much, as I�ve always had a problem with anything even vaguely resembling opera. But the instrumental pieces are pretty stunning.
MARK OWEN � FOUR MINUTE WARNING (ISLAND)
Another Anniesland charity shop find (50p this time). Everyone knows that Mark Owen is the NICEST one from Take That (I saw a GREAT quote from Morrissey recently that read �Personally, I think everything about Robbie Williams is fantastic� apart from the voice and the songs�, and that just about sums up the smug cunt. Williams, I mean, NOT Morrissey). This is Mark�s classic pop single from 2003. Honestly, it�s really, really good and brings back memories of long summer days lounging around in pubs, talking shit with people, taking full advantage of the government�s wonderful sickness benefit scheme. Ah, the illusion of memories. But I promise you, this song is a zillion times better than ANYTHING Take That ever did.
VARIOUS � CD86 � 48 TRACKS FROM THE BIRTH OF INDIE POP (SANCTUARY)
Collecting flexi-discs, listening to John Peel and Janice Long on the radio, sending off for fanzines like �Are You Scared to Get Happy?� which inspired me enough to make a zine myself (entitled �Splish! Splash! Splosh!�), taking trips into Glasgow and Edinburgh to stock up on obscure seven-inch singles, being slagged-off at school for wearing a duffel coat adorned with badges, having a bowl haircut or a quiff, forming my first band (we were called The Water Pistols)� these are just SOME of the things I was doing in the mid 1980s. I was sorely tempted to buy this 48 track (!) double CD but luckily didn�t, as my good friend Andrew got me it for Christmas. Equally luckily, I also got a percussion set which means I can shake a tambourine along to the joyous jangles of �Pristine Christine� by The Sea Urchins (surely one of THE great lost bands of the 1980s) and �Velocity Girl� by Primal Scream (back in the days before they thought they were The Rolling Stones and they knew that you didn�t NEED to stretch a song beyond one and a half minutes if you�d already said all you NEEDED to say in that time). This compilation is indie pop HEAVEN for a sad bastard like me, evoking as it does the time when I first got into music that WASN�T mainstream and bland. The 1980s was a SHIT time for music generally but operating below the radar were killer bands like The Chesterfields, Mighty Mighty, The Primitives, Half Man Half Biscuit, The Siddeleys, Talulah Gosh, The Groove Farm and The Shop Assistants, ALL of whom appear here (along with many others greats). There are brilliant, classic songs galore and a scrumptious booklet designed in the style of fanzines of the period, containing photos of bands and record covers and a potted history of the jingle-jangle UK indie scene. Bloody marvellous.
CURRENT 93 � CROOKED CROSSES FOR THE NODDING GOD (UNITED DAIRIES)
The world is full of weird coincidences and here�s one of the latest � I was sent this tape by a regular reader after mentioning in a letter how much I loved the soundtrack to �The Wicker Man� (the ORIGINAL film, not the loathsome remake). Then I found out, via a quick Google search, that this particular album is something to do with Nurse With Wound, a band I�d never heard until later that same week, when a taped copy of their �She and Me Fall Together in Free Death� popped through my letterbox. Spooky coincidence or something else? We may never know. Apparently, NWW�s Steven Stapleton was the main man behind this �reworking� of a previous Current 93 work called �Swastikas for Noddy�. Or so I�m led to believe by the stuff I�ve skimmed online, anyway. The ins and outs don�t really matter, though. Taken at face value, parts of this album are fucking SCARY, with ultra-freaky demonic screams and laughs, but the rest of it is fairly pleasant folky strums and chants augmented by controlled feedback and daft pagan lyrics. However, there�s also a cover of �Since Yesterday� by the polka-dot-wearing-�80s-girl-band Strawberry Switchblade and another track that sounds like the theme tune to a kids� TV show, making me think that this whole album is some sort of elaborate JOKE. Listening to the �scary� parts with this in mind, they actually become laugh-out-loud funny, especially the �a-raping I will go� bit!
FILM
THE U.S. VERSUS JOHN LENNON
The weather was bleak as fuck. After getting some photocopies done in Zen Arcade then walked into town as it had brightened up a bit. Met Kenny outside BHS on Renfield Street at noon and we went over the street to the Chinese buffet place. T was the main topic of chat as we ate our grub. Then we went to see 'The US Vs John Lennon' on the top floor of Cine-World. It wasn't very busy AT ALL and a couple of guys dressed in casual gear got up and left as soon as the film started! It was maybe a BIT long at nearly two hours but I enjoyed it and there was a lot of good footage I hadn't seen before. After that, we went to Failte for a drink (I had a Guinness, Kenny had an OJ) and some more chat till he left to get a bus home at about 4.45pm. I didn't feel like drinking anymore, so went and bought some Koka noodles in a pot which I ate when I got back, at 6.05pm. I read and watched the news reports about the five girls who just got murdered in Ipswich by a serial killer. Horrible. Went to bed at 11.35pm. Slept okay.
BOOK
HARUKI MURAKAMI � DANCE DANCE DANCE (VINTAGE)
I found myself identifying strongly with the main character of this, an unnamed 34 year-old man who spends his time hanging around in bars and caf�s, going to the cinema and saying things like �I�d resolved not to work at all. I couldn�t be bothered.� Sounds EXACTLY like ME! Only, this guy DOES have a job (as a freelance hack writer) and also gets himself involved in bizarre metaphysical adventures involving a psychic 13 year-old girl, an ex-schoolmate-turned-famous-actor, dead prostitutes and a man who dresses as a sheep and appears to live in another dimension. Certain things about this story seemed familiar to me at first, but then I was informed that it�s a kind of sequel to an earlier Murakami novel, �A Wild Sheep Chase�, which I�d previously read (the two books have now been printed in a single volume).
DVD
THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON (TARTAN)
Reviewed this GREAT documentary in a previous issue but it�s nice to finally have it on DVD (a Christmas pressie from my mum). The extras are varied and rather marvelous, containing as they do a half sweet, half toe-curling reunion between Daniel and the unrequited love of his life, Laurie (the subject matter for around a zillion of his songs) and an HILARIOUS little film about a trip to South Africa where we get to see our hero dressed up as King Kong and be interviewed by someone who�s like Sacha Baron Cohen�s camp Euro TV presenter character. There�s also a fantastic radio show segment from 1990, various home movies and other treasures. Even if you�re not a fan of Daniel Johnston, this film should intrigue and engage you on many levels.
UNDER A DARKENING SKY
Throwing all his clothes away was only the start of it. For months, more and more things had been going wrong. First, he lost his job as a door-to-door insurance salesman when his new boss, some hotshot from down south, smelled alcohol on his breath one morning and sacked him on the spot. Not that he liked the job much but it was a regular wage and he wouldn�t be able to claim dole money for six months due to being given the heave-ho. Also, he was at that age where most of his friends were settling down with wives and mortgages and young kids, which meant that his social life had become more or less non-existent. Suddenly being jobless made him feel even MORE of a social pariah than usual and he�d spend most nights sitting in his local pub before going home to a crappy microwave meal for one and a bottle of wine. By ten o�clock, he was usually curled up in bed with a book or watching the news. It wasn�t exactly how he�d planned it. It wasn�t exactly what you�d call much of a LIFE.
So, one dismal and dark afternoon in the middle of December, he decided to have a clear out. He went through his wardrobe and threw everything he didn�t want into black bin bags. The decent stuff was carted off to local charity shops but most of it went straight in the bin. Nobody wanted his threadbare socks and flea-bitten boxer shorts. It felt so good to get rid of all that junk that he made a start on his cupboards too. They were cluttered with so many piles of useless paper, everything from old bills and letters written by people he hadn�t seen in years to ticket stubs from long forgotten evenings out. It ALL had to go, he thought. It became rather addictive after a while, almost as if he was purging himself. The more bin bags that were piled up in the middle of the floor, the better he felt. He put his sad little Christmas tree in the pile, too, along with the five cards he�d been sent.
After a few hours of this, he was exhausted and decided to go to the pub for a couple of drinks. Wrapped up warm against the evening chill, he watched the crowds of people coming back from their day�s shopping, laden down with bags bulging with the over-priced tat they�d worked so hard all year long to buy. What did it all MEAN? Were any of them really happy? There was no way of knowing for certain but they sure as hell didn�t LOOK it. A bus passed with the words �Sorry � this bus is not in service� emblazoned on the front. This suddenly became �Sorry � your whole life is completely meaningless� to his eyes and he allowed a small smile to play on his lips as he swung open the door to Mitchell�s Bar.
The place was unusually quiet considering the time of year. There was still around another week to go before all the pubs filled up with the detritus of the festive season - those upright citizens who never took a drink unless a �special occasion� demanded it. After exchanging a few pleasantries with Carol, the barmaid, he took his usual seat by the cigarette machine and got to work on his Johnnie Walker and Coke. No ice. The usual dreary jukebox music drifted over the room, the usual solemn faces sat in their usual seats, drinking their usual drinks, talking the usual shit. He was sick of this routine, sick to death of it ALL. So sick, in fact, that his head began to feel tight and fuzzy. It was a feeling he�d had before and it was a bad sign. A VERY bad sign. All of a sudden, he downed his whiskey and walked back out into the mayhem of the crowds. Feeling dizzy and hot, he began walking, though he had nowhere to go. He NEVER had anywhere to go these days and perhaps that was part of the problem. Bumping into passers-by, he broke into a run, which made people stare in his direction. Not that he cared. He wanted to get away from all this madness. He wanted to run and run and never stop. But he was in his mid-thirties and hardly ever exercised, so it didn�t take his body long to put a stop to THAT idea. After a few metres, the stitch in his side slowed him down to a brisk walk which soon became an amble. But the feeling in his head refused to go away and this kept him moving, off out into the brightly coloured lights of nighttime.
After walking a couple of miles, he sat down for a breather on a bench outside a huge hotel built on the banks of a river. He could see through the windows of the ground-floor restaurant where there were crowds of people laughing and eating and enjoying the festive season. They all looked so warm, safe and happy, he thought, in their nice clothes, sitting in their nice hotel. About a year ago, his office party had been held in a place like that. He�d got drunk and insulted one of the secretaries, something that caused him great shame for months afterwards. Even thinking about it now brought a flush to his cheeks. All the mistakes he�d made in his life. All the pain he�d caused. It made him feel like jumping into the river, getting to know the used hypodermics and empty cans that were no doubt floating in there. No more money worries, no more Christmases or New Year�s Eves. Just void. Nothing but void.
But instead, he looked in his wallet to check how much cash he had on him. About �130 plus his bank card. More than enough. He knew there was a train station not too far away. Maybe he�d leave town for a while, lose himself in some different scenery. Not forever. He knew he�d probably have to come back sometime. No, not forever, then. Just for now.
He started walking.