This Sniper Glue #5, April 20th, 2004, email me for a real copy of this on PAPER not a fucking computer screen..
it's been a decade since Kurt Cobain did the suicide thing so many of us have dreamt about. i remember at the time i was still living at home, in a wee village, on the dole and drinking myself into oblivion every night of the week. the night it came on the news - a Friday - i was drinking, of course, but my diary from that period is blank as i was too depressed to write in it. i do remember going to see a friends band the next night, drinking Mad Dog 20/20 on the bus and wearing all
black as a tribute to Kurt. i was maybe not as big a Nirvana fan as some people(i only had a couple of singles and the 'Bleach' LP, but i did have taped copies of everything else. i used to listen to 'Nevermind' on the way to college every day when it came out) and i'd missed out on a chance to see them live in Edinburgh 'cos my mate was too tired to drive (to be fair, i'm sure he regrets this a lot more than me, even to this day). but, despite all this, i thought they were a great band, a true breath of fresh air. they brought people together in a way which bands like the Stone Roses had done a year or so before, and this was most welcome, because it meant you'd get less hassle walking down the street than in previous years, when the boundaries between indie fans/heavy metal fans/dance fans were so much more clearly defined. it was sort of nice for all different groups of people
to be listening to the same band, if only for a month or so. but i also remember the frustration when some HM wanker i was sometimes forced to endure the ride to college with started going on about how Nirvana were a metal band and that 'Nevermind' was their debut album. i took great pleasure in letting the prick know that they'd been going for years and that they didn't want twats like him for fans. there are all these 'tributes' to Kurt in the papers and magazines at the moment, which of course we all knew would happen. it's strange to see little kids with Nirvana T shirts on, too, although i don't exactly know why it should
seem strange. i was heavily into the Beatles when i was at school - another band who had long broken up and who were one member 'down', as it were. i think the thing that bugs me about the whole Kurt 'episode' is that he was obviously planning to move in a new direction musically, as you can see from the 'Unplugged' set. he was tired of writing songs which he saw as being all the same formula. as with most suicides and other tragic deaths, the wasted potential is perhaps the saddest thing of all, especially if we don't know the person involved. And even today, the paper mentions that tired old conspiracy theory bullshit
about Kurt being murdered, and it even has a quote from his granddad (who Kurt once described in an interview as a 'redneck motherfucker', if memory serves me right) saying that he would have been unable to pull the trigger due to the amount of heroin in his system. so this guy's an expert on drug addiction now, is he? from what i've read over the years, Kurt often took potentially lethal doses of heroin and other drugs, so who knows whether he'd have been capable of pulling the trigger or not? the fact that he constantly talked about suicide in
interviews and in his lyrics is another thing these conspiracy theorists like to conveniently forget. the same thing is happening right now over the death of Elliott Smith - another favourite of mine - with people speculating that his fatal stab wound may have been murder. to be fair, this is a lot more probable than the Kurt thing, as most people don't choose to top themselves with a single stab wound.
but, again, Elliott talked and sung about suicide a lot, so who knows? right now i'm listening to Nirvana's 'You Know You're Right' and a lot of people go on about how he sings the word 'pain' in the chorus, whereas all i can hear is 'hey'. the point of all this is that people are gonna choose to see and hear what they want to. that's all i know on this overcast, miserable fucking April day.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
�SNIPER GLUE� GETS SOME FAN MAIL
Hello this is Maggie Ponce.
I hope you are Mark Ritchie,otherwise don't read anymore.....See! I knew you would read more!
Fuck it!who cares?I had a horrible day,well,not really,I'm just tired and depressed.
This is not my E-ass-hole-mail-address,I just created it for you Mark(or whoever is reading this)just now,and I will not use it again.Send a TXXXT to Gary Simmons and tell him.Ah!Do you know who I am now?I'm Bear's Paggie,pleased to meet you.
It's nice to write to you from such a lovely place,where?oh,you're too curious.OK,it's a place where they have internet,an internet place,all right?
For if you don't hate me yet,I must say I like your writing,I mean,the things you write with such an special charm.
Love you!running low!buy!oh,bye!xxxxxxxx
REVIEWS
MANIPULATOR ALLIGATOR - THESE ARE BEES (www.purevolume.com/manipulatoralligator)
was dreading playing this after the last CD but, despite the DREADFUL band name and the rather crappy looking Sex Pistols stylee cut n paste artwork and NO FUCKING SONG TITLES AGAIN, i was amazingly and pleasantly surprised by this little gem of a CDR. MA is a one-man band type thing and that man is called Matthew Hoppock, from Kansas. i put this into the CD player and had a big smile on my face less than a minute into the 1st track (and it wasn't just the 2 bottles of cider i'd consumed either!).. BEAUTIFUL singer-songwriter stuff recorded nicely with witty yet poignant lyrics. the voice reminds me of Loudon Wainwright somewhat but that�s no bad thing in my book. i really wasn't expecting this to be any good, let alone THIS good. after a single play, i was planning world domination for this guy with a voice like a friend you've known forever singing words which restore your faith in humanity, lovely acoustic strums you wish could be the soundtrack to your every waking moment. this guy is unknown and David fucking Beckham is on the cover of every paper known to woman. it just ain't fair. i�ve played this CD a few times now and, no, it wasn't the drink that was making me love it - it's Matthew Hoppock! remember the name 'cos you'll all be weeping when he's gone.
A BOY'S DEMOS 2003 (no contact info available)
another fucking demo, but this at least has some song titles. 4 tracks and this was sent to me by someone who thinks this 'boy' sounds like Morrissey which i suppose he does a little bit, in a 'Stars in Their Eyes' kinda way. my correspondent told me that 'someone on SLSK gave me these demos'. that's some sort of posh internet thing, i believe. but my PC is so fucked and old that it doesn't have any sound on it so i can download sweet fuck-all music and i'm GLAD �cos i can just GUESS at the level of shit people are up-loading or whatever the frigging flippity flop you call putting your shite demos on the 'net. OK, so track 1 - 'A New Girl Born' - isn't actually too bad. it DOES sound like Morrissey, vocally, but the backing track is some electronic swirlings and it all sounds a bit festive for some reason and he even nicks one of Moz's new song titles when he sings 'the world is full of crashing bores', so it's obvious that sounding like Moz is part of this guy's whole 'bag'. i bet he's from some non-English speaking European country. you can just tell by his voice. 'The Lonely Rhyme Pair'(whatever the fuck THAT means) has him proclaiming 'how i hate this world' and asking 'will i ever laugh again?' y'know, i can't say i totally hate this or anything, mainly because i used to do stuff not too dissimilar to this when i was a teenager, going so far as to form an actual real band and do the whole Morrissey worship bit live on
stage (most embarassing, i admit), but i grew out of it and i'm sure (i HOPE) this guy will too and find his own identity. this is kinda sweet, actually. track 3 is quite hilarious and has a background voice that says 'oh sod off you fucking student'. in an ENGLISH ACCENT.. maybe this guy is taking the piss. out of Morrissey, out of European music. who knows? I quite like the fact that i don�t know and probably never will. whatever the motivation behind this, it�s not as bad as i was expecting.
AURAL GUERILLA (don't know the name of this or have a contact address)
cheating a bit here 'cos this is a taped copy of what my spies inform me is a double CD by a guy called Jim McDougall, who i've been hearing interesting things about for quite a while (examples: he's part of the whole 'Mad Pride' collective, he's collaborated with Ceramic Hobs, he likes to roll around in public and smash beer cans against his own head, etc - is that interesting enough for ya?) also, someone sent me a poetry booklet of his called 'Heed' which has some rather insightful pieces on the nature of sanity and the lack of it, mental illness, nut wards and the like. so it's with breath-a-bated that i slip this sexily into the tape player at 4.10 on a Friday afternoon. 1st track is a rocky little number with spoken lyrics, drum machine and guitar - recited in a punky kinda voice, words about hate and stuff. a lot like his poetry actually. there are no titles here (that's becoming a common theme, it seems) 'cos there were too many for my lazy �spy� to copy out for me but i'll forgive him just this once. track 2 is much the same - he's going on about smashing a church door in and smoking dope at the
altar - ooh, spooky. he's getting all sacreligious on my ass and i'm scared. not really. he's slagging diana too, wanking off to a pic of her while all baby-oiled up on the altar. then he sets the church on fire. ooh. it's 'mad', baby. track 3 actually has some singing on it, although it sounds much the same as his speaking voice to be honest. he ain't gonna win any karaoke contests, that's for sure, especially not with lyrics like 'you're just a fucking cunt who hasn't a clue'. ha ha! quite good! track 4 sees Jim putting on a 'funny' voice with a story
about an ex-girlfriend and a suicide attempt. this is hilarious and i think it's intended to be! the music is a bit reminiscent of what Dead Kennedys used to do when they got all quiet and readied themselves for one of Jello's rants. the song 'Riot' springs to mind, if that means anything to you. track 6 is another funny one - he's shouting loudly over some feedbacking guitar about being a communist then a nazi, etc, like a better version of that Craig David song '7 Days'. now there�s a rather boring slow instrumental, a poem about a school-girl road accident victim, a drum n bass piece (well, in the sense that the 2 most prominent instruments are drum n bass, i mean) with Hindi sounding lyrics buried deep in the mix, oh, LOADS of other stuff. it�s all getting a bit much � way into the 1st side to be honest. think i�ll go and watch the Hits channel or something, come back to this later. this is definitely good, but in small doses.
SOPHIA - OH MY LOVE (FLOWER SHOP RECORDINGS)
www.theflowershoprecordings.com
picked this up in Virgin today for �2.99. i didn't even know it was out. it's funny but, even with the net and all this posh modern technology, i seem to be even less aware of things like new releases and gigs, etc. maybe i'm paying less attention in my old age or something. anyway, this is a lovely 4 track CD, the title track of which i heard Sophia play live only last week (see review elsewhere). this was the one they described as 'our hit. or the closest we've got to a hit', the one where the chubby bloke came onstage to play some plinky-plonk noises on an Apple Mac laptop. yes, this is very nice indeed. more upbeat than the usual Sophia type stuff, but the 3 other tracks make up for that. there's a truly gorgeous cover of Tom Waits' 'I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You' (which is actually the 2nd track here, although it's listed as track 4). and 2 more Sophia originals which have that breathy, late-night, � down a bottle of whiskey feel to them which makes this band so special. and the pic on the cover is very nice too - a sunny day shot of a river bank with its weeds all overgrown. could be the �before� pic from a gardening make-over show or the scene of a brutal slaying.
xxxxxxxxxxx
just watched a documentary about the growing number of teachers being verbally and physically abused at work by fucking scumbag kids who know their equally scummy parents will sue for millions if anyone dares to raise their voice or their hand to their precious little angels. things have definitely swung too far in this country. everyone's ready to sue at the drop of a hat, even for sometimes trivial reasons. it's yet another example of the UK turning into the 51st state of the USA. sorry
to mention Morrissey yet again, but the song 'the Headmaster Ritual' chronicled his bad treatment at the hands of sadistic teachers and i could always relate to that song. i remember being scared of certain teachers at school, but some of those teachers were the ones who actually taught you the most. the teachers who wanted to be your pal were usually crap at their job. i remember being genuinely terrified of some of my teachers and, while i'm not saying that's right, it meant i didn't mess about in their class. corporal punishment was abolished during the time i was at primary school and i'm sure that's part of the reason a lot of kids now push their teachers so far � because they know they can�t be punished. i know i could be a total little shit at certain points in my school 'career', but i alternated between that and being incredibly shy. i was a bit of a dichotomy, really. anyway, to get back to what i was saying about Morrissey, he recorded a song in 1995 called 'the Teachers are Afraid of the Pupils' which shows that i'm not the only one whose opinions have changed on this subject. maybe it's because a few of my friends are now teachers. i know kids can be absolute pieces of shit a lot of the time, which is why i hated school so much. i wasn't even one of the ones who really got bullied. a few kids on my bus would suffer daily torture from their fellow pupils but they usually left me alone (although i did get daily verbal abuse from kids AT school � not on the bus - which I could handle quite well for some reason). maybe 'cos i was very quiet and they thought i might go crazy if they touched me. maybe 'cos i was one of the 'weirdoes' (which just meant i didn�t dress like a clone and preferred arty subjects to fucking sport and woodwork), but that usually didn't stop people getting abuse. i don't know, really, but i know that school was an awful time for me for the most part, but i got through it OK (and i didn't leave till i was 18 - it got better when all the twats left at 16). sometimes i have dreams where i�m still at school and i�m always really fucking glad when i wake up.
football! isn't it shit! Scotland have just been beaten 2-1 by Romania on my special TV and i think back to the days when i used to care about such things. it was a long time ago. i cared about football right up until my high school PE classes, where certain 'lads' (and i mean teachers as well as pupils) took it SO fucking seriously that my only option was to laugh and try my hardest to be the worst football player EVER. just to piss people off. it worked! i nearly got beaten up many times. when someone passes the ball to you and you deliberately let it bounce off your chest you KNOW you're fucked in that sporty, jock world
and you can never go back. GOOD, 'cos i've never regretted it. All those sporty, popular cunts - i never cared what they thought of me. i don't even care what they're doing now. their entire existence is a bore. i have a passing, pretty much fake, interest in football now but the people i talk to get more wise every day to the fact that i really don't care. you'd be surprised how many people don't care! watching football, to me, is like watching ice-skating or fish swimming in a bowl - it's graceful and peaceful but ultimately means nothing. i just CAN'T get excited about a particular team scoring or not scoring.
and, in the West of Scotland, football is a dangerous hobby 'cos every weekend someone's murdered and they're ALWAYS either a Celtic or a Rangers fan. you see the floral tributes and team colours tied to the lamp posts all over town. it's just bizarre, this violent culture where saying you support a certain team can get you killed. welcome to Glasgow - 'Scotland with style', as the new posters say. yeah, right. i was actually quite good at football when i was a kid. in those golden days when you're young enough to just do things for the sheer joy
rather than as some potential career move. the minute i ditched football, i immersed myself in music to a possibly unhealthy degree and i'm still in that position now. with my ugly beer belly gazing up at me as i listen to Red House Painters at 12.40am. is it 'am'? 12.40 at NIGHT, anyway. Harry was boring me to death in the pub earlier, going on about all the secret codes he used to use when he was in the army and how he could still make a phone call to the war office if he really wanted. i had to leave, i was so bored. but at least he wasn't talking
about football! i was thinking about how i had to sign the Official Secrets Act just to do casual Xmas work with the post office but i didn't mention that, of course, being a polite kinda guy and only on my 4th pint and more scruffily dressed than Harry in his M & S shirt and (one quid from a charity shop) silk tie with a gold 'H' tie-pin on it and his neatly pressed trousers, etc.
and i've just filled a gorgeous, empty cider bottle with my gorgeous, empty piss. saves me going out of the room to use the toilet. this room used to have a sink in it and i used to piss in that too, when I was pissed. glad they replaced it with a lovely formica top, though, as it got a bit gross when you were brushing your teeth in the same sink you pissed in the night before. i'm a changed man now. really! i only piss in empty bottles AND i empty 'em out before i bin 'em. wot a considerate citizen, eh?
only got 2 pots of Koka curry noodles today - my favourite noodles EVER. only found them again - after months of deprivation - at a 'kiosk' in Shawlands Arcade. you have to stand in a Q of Asian skool kids on their lunch break. but they're all v. nice and polite so it's all well worth it. why did i only get 2? i got 4 LAST week and then ended up getting on the wrong bus after the pub and i was wandering about some unknown (to me) area of the city for 2 hours until some angel saved me and helped me on my rightful path. was it the noodles'
fault? or the fact that i was drinking tonnes of lager and cider on an empty stomach? and, by the way, you can't buy snake-bites anymore but you CAN buy a lager and a cider and have a sip of each, thus creating a snake-bite in your stomach. yet another example of 2004's insane laws, my dears. and what's all this shit about banning smoking in public places in Ireland? i don't smoke but it pisses me off, 'cos the next step will be to ban drinking (yes, even in pubs!) smoking doesn't even slightly bother me if i'm in a pub but it does on a bus, etc. i dunno why. maybe 'cos i've always associated pubs with smoke or something.
i just feel it's another nail in the coffin of civil liberty. what's next? and to ban a taxable drug is really hypocritical, surely? only when this government has banned EVERYTHING will they be happy and, even then, their happiness will be sullied by the fact that they're all evil, self-serving, over-paid CUNTS.
90909090909090
so, welcome back all you luddites who didn't see SG when it was a web only zine. that wee experiment lasted a year and no one 'accessed' it and it had no real, true artistry or feeling or soul in it, which is why 'we' are back, all papery and gorgeous as just as ignorable as the web site but maybe not, 'cos we're lying around your dark hovel like the undiscovered shit from an old, infirm pet you forgot to put to sleep, not in some annonymous 'net cafe - we're HERE, until your dog or wife (or are they both the same?) chews us up and pukes us out like the worthless scum that we are. i was SO anti 'net until i actually got a
(free) PC and then i was all smitten, like a kitten, for a year or 2 - 'cos it IS a v. powerful TOOL - matron - but it becomes just as dull as everything else after pro-longed access. there's only so much info you want at any given time, there's only so much porn your naughty bits can handle, etc. EVERYTHING IS BORING, it's officially true and officially official and now Codeine's 'Tom' plays and it's 1.35am and i LOVE this song and i'm signing on at 11.20am and not looking towards it like i'd look forward to a good meal or a good shit. but it could be a lot worse. i could be YOU!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
watched the film 'Man on the Moon' the other night and, y'know, i HATE Jim Carey but he was brilliant in this film. the only other thing i've seen him in which didn't make me wanna repeatedly punch him was 'the Truman Show'. so it got me thinking about how even people you don't like, or even can't stand, can sometimes do something amazing. i mean, i can't stand Ronan Keating but i love that song 'Rollercoaster' (and, yeah, i KNOW he didn't write it) - remember dancing around the living room one morning with Joe to that song for ages while drinking. i don't much care for Motorhead but 'Ace of Spades' is a classic. it's weird, this 'taste' thing. you can argue for someone for hours, and nearly come to blows, over things which there is essentially no right or wrong answer to. i do this with one particular friend quite a lot. i think a song can be a good pop song which is not always the same as being a good song in itself. tonight i was handing out fliers at some rap gig (Obie Trice - i'd never heard of him before - he's some prodigy of Eminem, apparently, but i'm sure YOU knew that) and i found the patter
of some of the punters quite hilarious. giving it all that gangsta talk when you're a casual from Easterhouse. what's not to find funny in that? but i can sort of understand it in a way. it's all about escaping your immediate environment and, what better way to do that than put on a CD where someone's rapping about uzis and drive-bys and sippin' on a 40 down in the hood? it's escapism just like 'Coronation Street' is escapism. i think some rap stuff is great, when you leave out all of the sexist/homophobic elements (which, to be honest, is a lot of it).
but even those dodgy elements can be amusing if you don't take it all SO fucking seriously. Kenny said something about Eminem coming across as being really gay and i totally agree. he's all dragged up in his new video. he wears a skimpy white vest and has cropped, bleached blonde hair. he's constantly slagging off 'faggots'. it's obvious he's a closet case! but his audience and his 'posse' and probably even himself are too fucking dumb to realise it. rap which i think is good is stuff like Public Enemy - who prove you don't have to swear every 2 seconds or talk shit about gunning down entire neighbourhoods to be credible and brilliant. but i can see the attraction in bands like Wu Tang Clan and NWA - it's so extreme, it's FUNNY. whether it's intended to be or not isn't really the point. i'm SORRY, but a line like 'when i'm in your neighbourhood you'd better duck 'cos Ice Cube is crazy as fuck' has me in stitches every time! I know it's childish and kinda silly but, hey, who said i was mature and sensible anyway? Ice T's good as well, although he seems to have a lot more grey matter than a lot of these rappers (not getting himself killed in his mid-20s like Tu-Pac et all kinda proves that, i think). my fave track of his is 'Lethal
Weapon' where he says 'the lethal weapon's the mind' and talks about going down to the library to get some more ammo! genius! it's easy to become blinkered by the things we like. i find myself playing the same CDs over and over, day in, day out. it's refreshing to stick something different on now and again, just to remind yourself that there's a great big world out there and some of it's actually quite nice, despite what you might think.
REVIEWS
GIG
SOPHIA - KING TUT'S WAH WAH HUT, GLASGOW, 8TH APRIL 2004
didn't even know about this gig till i saw it in the Metro a day before it happened. i've liked Sophia for years and i'm now officially obliged to tell you that main Sophia dude Robin Proper-Sheppard, used to be in the God Machine. he even informed us that himself, on taking the stage. well, i thought TGM were �ber-dull, so thank God (machine) he formed Sophia. they kicked off their set with 'So Slow', my v. fave song of theirs, which i'd been singing to myself all day in anticipation. the set unfurled at a nice, even pace - with their 5 piece ensemble expanding to 6 for one song only. Robin looked disturbingly like Sean
Penn with his wee goatee beard and he had ridiculous pointy boots on. but he IS American so we can forgive such transgressions. this was almost as good as seeing Red House Painters live, which may sound like a back-handed compliment but.. oh well, maybe it IS, then! Robin chastised some front-row talkers at one point, prompting one to ask if his mother was in the police force, to which he replied, 'No, she's dead' and then he told us about some epiphany he'd had that morning
about when people are really ill and close to death they are closer to Heaven. if i had been drunker that would have no doubt brought a tear to my eye, but i was WELL done with my 2.50 beer (although i'd had a few before, in various glamourous locations). Sophia ended with 2 rockers - one which i knew and one which i didn't. sadly, the last one was a bit dull - a lot point to end on but bands (even ones who play slow, quiet music) usually do that fast/loud trick to end on. it's a shame. but this was still an awesome gig and good value at 1� hours too. i walked home in steady, constant rain, as people more beautiful
than me were Q-ing up to get into clubs. oh, the support act was quite good too. well, the 3 songs i heard were. 'they' were called Loss Leader and consisted of one guy playing guitar, singing and doing a lot of impassioned off-mic shouting and a DAT with full band type sounds on it.
BOOK
JOE PERNICE - MEAT IS MURDER (CONTINUUM BOOKS)
ostensibly about the classic '85 Smiths LP (incidentally, the 1st one by them i bought - a couple of months after its release), this is really a 'fictional' short novel by song-writing God Joe Pernice. it centres on his teenage obsession with a school friend and several suicides by OTHER skool friends. it's kinda weird to read someone who lives in Boston envying a shit-hole like Manchester. it just goes to show that we all yearn for the greener grass, like i used to wish i'd been born in Yorkshire when i was a teenage Alan Bennett fan. but i wanted to be American more. i don't understand all these Yank Anglo-philes - well, i do in a way 'cos Britain's produced amazing bands like the Smiths, etc. ANYWAY, this book takes about an hour to read and it has lots of words which'll have you rushing towards the dictionary ('cos Joe Pernice went to uni and he's clever as fuck, alright?) but he writes with a really easy style and it's a nice accompaniment to his genius songs, so it's recommended. and thanks to Andrew, who sent me this, 'cos i wouldn't have read it otherwise. maybe this is a good time to mention his zine, 'About Average', the April issue of which plopped on the mat this AM. Andrew is an art teacher and does this zine every month. it's his personal musings and awesome art, so why don't you have a copy, eh? he doesn't want anyone to know where he lives 'cos he's on the run from the FBI, but send a SAE to 'Sniper Glue' if you want some of his wicked knowledge and we'll sort it out, because we love you just as much as your last disinterested blind date.
CDs
K.D. SCHMITZ - WHY NOT OPEN UP YOUR EYES? (SEMPER LOFI) www.semperlofi.com
7� pints down (4 in the Horseshoe with Sam, 3� in my room, flailing around to 'Hatful of Hollow') and i'm ready to stick on the CD i got in the post today from Semper Lofi, a label of true quality from New York. i'm aware of this guy KD's NAME - i may even have heard his 'shit' before too, i just can't remember. the joys of alcohol! OK, here goes.. so, it's a guy with a voice and an acoustic guitar. full marks so far. 1st track is OK � pleasant enough, but it doesn't grab me the way a 1st track SHOULD. track numero deux is more of the same. the guy's voice is nice enough and his playing is nice enough but i'm not experiencing any passionate throbbings. i do like the liner notes on this - nicely done - CD, though. and, of course, i love the home-taper 'scene' and all that. i just wanna make that plain, loud and clear. OK, so track 3, 'She Rips Down Rainbows', is better - it sounds like he MEANS it,
at last. maybe he meant it all along, of course, but here he REALLY sounds like he means it. the slightly off-key vocals are all part of the charm (and, hey, i'm a big Daniel Johnston fan, so i'm not being condescending here. AT ALL) and some of the lyrics are poignant and nice. ooh, track 4, 'Boil & Crush', is nice too, with some groovy finger-lickin' finger-pickin' action. 'Green Light' is the 1st true classic here, however - coming over like some long lost folk song.
actually, it reminds me of the band Calexico but i dunno why. it's really good, anyway, and KD's voice sounds better in this lower register. you can't really reach those high notes, KD. unlike KD Laing. ha ha ho! it says here on the press release that KD's 'normal' releases are 'an interesting mix of experimental music concrete and lofi-folky-blues-pop' but this release is just the latter type material, compiled by Semper Lofi head honcho and fucking top music guy Mike Bowman. so that clears THAT up, kiddies! 'Resist?' is another great song. this is even better than the LAST one i said was great! y'know, i think this
CD will be a grower. it's maybe unfair to review something you're listening to for the 1st time, but i also think that's when you can be most honest - so, apologies to all. i'm sure i'll like this better in a weeks time but i could also be DEAD in a weeks time, so i'm writing this now, nearly 8 pints down and i'm not even slagging this off. Semper Lofi have never sent me anything shit EVER, so it's a shame Mike is killing the label off. another nail in the coffin of home-taping underground music but i don't blame him. it's a thankless task, this stuff. we do it out of love and nothing else and love actually oozes out of this KD CD. i'm in tune with his 'shit' now, 9 � tracks in, and i know this CD will receive many a good spin. it has tunes and passion and what more can you ask?
KRISTIAN THOMSEN � DEMO (contact [email protected])
y'know, i feel kinda bad slagging off a demo but this is dreary stuff. it's just voice and guitar, 17 tracks, but they are all mercifully short. in fact, they sound more like fragments, � finished sketches rather than actual songs. this would sound a lot better if given the full band treatment or even had just one more instrument to break the monotony. it IS just a demo, though. the only track which even slightly quickened the pulse was #3, where Kristian sings 'weird girl, I would like to fuck'. that was a laugh-out-loud moment for me, i must confess. there are no song titles, like it matters, just a polite note from the artist saying he hopes i like it. sorry, but i have to be honest and say that i didn't and i don't. it's OK. not awful, not great. i don't know how old this guy is but it's the kind of stuff you do when you're about 14. i'm sure he�ll do much better stuff in the future. i fucking hope so, anyway.
Please address all correspondence to [email protected]