I don't know what it is about British pop, but it seems there is a very real sense of locality present in every group, in every song. It seems as if their geographical background is secondary only to the name of the group. Once you know that, then you have to know their lead singer's name, their recording label and the ultimate reason for their demise. It makes for a wildly comprehensive understanding of the places these people are singing about and how they interacted with other bands from the same place.

In saying all that, you can never really escape from something like Morrissey's Manchester. It's all so relevant and I wonder why. Is that sense of locality real, in that these singers make a very deliberate attempt to allude to these places? Strangeways Prison? Ancoats? Whalley Range? The Moors? Are their rural accents exaggerated and if so, for what purpose? What is the consequence of Paul Smith singing with a Geordie accent? Or else is the British musical press reinforcing this idea of history, creating a messy, elaborate web of creative relationships, to be mythologised at length for decades to follow?

A part of it is just me, maybe. I like thinking about Freddie and Roger, queening it up on Kensington High Street, the Beatles performing upon the Apple rooftop or the Sex Pistols mucking about at the 100 Club. Maybe it makes it all the more real. If you know about the significance of these places then there is that very remote possibility of pilgrimage. There is that ultimate inevitability, of course, that once you get there, it will be just a street, it will be just a building. You will go to Wardour Street and there won't be "A" bomb there are at all. There is nothing special there so why bother?


The Beatles' Love, in Las Vegas of all places
But there is something special, in some way. It's quite indecipherable. There is an idea that such pop songs, such perfect musical encounters took place in such ordinary places. Council houses, schools, night clubs or electronics shops in the case of the Pet Shop Boys. It is the ordinary nature of it that is so special and it may well touch upon that unspeakable, selfish hope that one day, the ordinary places you frequent could be filled with a similar kind of consequence.

I leave you, my friendlings, with a related C&CM Britpop Podcast. This week's episode is a Triphop manifesto, with bits and pieces from the Bristol scene of the early 1990s. I hope it's to your satisfaction.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Britpop Podcast #19
Hooverphonic - Mad About You
Portishead - Wandering Star
Massive Attack - Safe From Harm
Supreme Beings of Leisure - Never the Same
Moloko - Absent Minded Friends
Jay-Jay Johanson - So Tell the Girls I'm Back in Town
Paul Weller - Wild Wood (Portishead Remix)
The Lightning Seeds - You Showed Me

Download (53.2MB)

Whenever Geocities is mentioned (and let me say that it is rarely mentioned), an odd feeling of comfort and http metatags drifts over me. I am ushered into an era where Sunset Strip is a virtual place and other noobish web designers are vying for a space to call their own. I feel such affection for animated gifs, proclaiming a site is "under construction" (and honestly, was a site ever really finished?), #name tags and guestbooks. It was tacky and amateurish but above all, it was personal.

Long before social networking sites, users constructed personal webpages on Microsoft Frontpage, Netscape Composer and Hotdog. I do stress that word, personal. Not in that they divulged inappropriately private information (or maybe they did, sometimes, you could never really know on a site as vast as Geocities), but the web designer took care of both the content and appearance of the site. Often this would lead to jarring background images that interfered with the text or else bodged up html or midis that would unexpectedly play every time a page opened. It was awkward, silly and naive, but that was us, online in 1998.

It's probably no secret now that I had my own Queen webpage on Geocities. It's all gone now, wiped out by the site's closure in October 2009. It was expansive, yet so very odd. There were bios, lyrics, midis in addition to lyric analyses and Choose Your Own Adventure games. I was thirteen when I started it and throughout my adolescence I added to it. It was as you would expect it to be, personal and excitable with that dab of gleeful eccentricity that seemed all too acceptable in that online realm.


You stole my heart and made me go crazy for a little while there...
I reveled in how personal it was. There seemed to be so much more value in personal expression on Geocities. I would openly speak about how my passion for Queen affected the way I engaged with the girls at school, in addition to how it affected the way I saw myself. My story encouraged others to write and share their stories about how Queen affected them. It was a great thing to receive emails of encouragement or else stunningly enthusiastic comments on my guestbook. I don't think such interactivity really exists anymore.

With Blogger, everything has become streamlined. The template is uniform, the writing style is uniform. MP3 blogs, free of personal commentary are among the most popular blogs on the web. Some days, I feel as if there is no value in recounting personal experience on Blogger, because it's simply not appropriate anymore. When I think of the desires of my end user, I believe that they want something analytical and detached. And downloads. Above all, people want downloads.

So whenever Geocities is mentioned (and I'm usually the one to mention it), I remember another time, an arguably better time. The sites didn't look perfect, I will be the first to acknowledge that, but there was something distinctly beautiful about that form of personal expression. We weren't pandering to the end user, there was no other agenda than to express who we were and what we loved.. and I very much doubt we could ever return to a style of online journalism that is so open in its form or content.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #18
Shakira - She Wolf
Frankmusik - When You're Around
The Klaxons - No Diggity
The Radio Dept - Freddie & The Trojan Horse
Yeasayer - Tightrope
Lady Gaga - Alejandro
Ace of Base - Hypnotized (Hear Me Calling Demo)
Theoretical Girl - It's a Sin

Download (43.9 MB)

In putting together this week's podcast, I've been contemplating what it means to be an authentic punk. Is that label associated with some sort of a sincere engagement with that subculture? What is a sincere engagement? Who determines that, anyway? Are you an authentic punk if you slavishly adhere to the personal iconography of the movement? If you wash your hair with eggs, stick a safety pin through your nose and struggle into a pair of black drainpipe jeans, does that make you an authentic punk? It sure makes you look like other punks. Perhaps the true assessment of punk credibility is your own capacity to elucidate upon the meaning, practices and values of punk. No doubt that would involve the annoying habit of obsessively clarifying and re-clarifying the punk "status" of the same ten bands over and over again. The Jam? The Clash? The Buzzcocks? They weren't punk! The Damned? The Adverts? X-Ray Spex? They were punk!

I've been thinking about these questions in the context of my own musical identity (and the parts of it which still seem to be evolving). As a movement, punk had always intimidated me. Ever since I was five years old and I approached a bunch of third wave punks in a park in Burnham to ask if they liked ballet, I have stayed some distance away from the subculture. I had a superficial impression of what it meant to be a punk and I knew it just didn't appeal to me. Punk was designed to undermine the music of a group who had meant everything to me up to that point. Even from the outset, I knew that punk required an impossibly high level of personal engagement. I knew that I could never do it. I could never wear a swastika in the name of fashionable antagonism or mutilate myself to somehow prove my punk credibility to a rightfully skeptical Radio One DJ. I could never do it then and I could never do it now.


Pretty Vacant
So, how did it happen then? How did I get involved with punk? I can't remember exactly. It's a bit like describing how you got involved with the boy from the sketchy side of town, it's all been a bit of a haze. What I do know is that it's become a part of who I am now, in a way that I hardly feel compelled to describe or defend it. I love so much of it, even its confusing political ideologies that rarely if ever make sense. Of course, I say all this in the knowledge that I can never be an authentic punk. After all, I didn't contribute musical rants to zines like Loaded or Future Days. I didn't gob on my musical heroes at the 100 Club. I didn't harass or intimidate Chelsea pensioners at any point in time. Even if I wash my hair with egg or stick a safety pin through my nose, every attempt to be an authentic punk is thwarted by the fact that I was born half way across the world, seven years after it all officially finished.

At best, I can only ever be described as a part-time punk, an insipid poseur. Someone who plays their records very loud and pogos in their bedroom in front of their mirror (but only when their mum's gone out). It's a sad state of affairs realising you're a part of the problem. That you're a source of pain and aggravation to the righteous puritans of this musical genre. But you know what? I don't really make any apologies for it. I know that I am authentic in how I represent myself and my tastes. It's who I am and what I like and nobody has the authority to dismiss that.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Mod Podcast #17
The Flys - Love and a Molotov Cocktail
The Damned - Love Song
The Nips - Nobody to Love
The Easy Cure - Just Need Myself (Demo)
The Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't Have)
Patrik Fitzgerald - Safety Pin Stuck in My Heart
Various Artists - The Original Mixed Up Kid
Directors - What You Got
The Fuzztones - Bad News Travels Fast
Thee Milkshakes - For She
The Mystery Guests - Take a Look at Yourself

Download (32.1 MB)

It is difficult to define what is so alluring about the cover artwork for Our Favourite Shop by the Style Council. Paul Weller and Mick Talbot, with the assistance of sleeve designer Simon Halfon and photographer Olly Ball, literally recreated their own favourite shop on a set. They filled their imaginary shop with their most treasured cultural artifacts. You are compelled to look closer, to identify the significance of these objects. You can make out a Rickenbacker guitar, a clutch of soul LPs and a poster for A Hard Day's Night. You can make out photos of Brigitte Bardot, Terry-Thomas and David Blaine's portrait of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. I can make out several books that I have in my own house, such as George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and Kenneth Williams' Acid Drops. The visual rhetoric of this cover artwork is clear: we are cultural aficionados and these are the things that matter most to us.


Your Favourite Shop? But That's My Favourite Shop!

Listeners use cover artwork to visually connect with both the music and the artist, to make sense of who they are and what they're about. In many ways, Our Favourite Shop reminds me of the cover artwork to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. To identify figures such as Edgar Allan Poe, Marilyn Monroe or Stuart Sutcliffe among an audience of cardboard cutouts can be an incredibly captivating. If you're very cluey, it's almost possible to positively identify some cultural figures in that artwork, with the possible exception of Adolf Hitler. With some imagination, you can even identify the influence of some figures within the Beatles music itself. But above all, the artwork of Sgt. Pepper makes it clear that the Beatles are fans. At a time when the Beatles had stopped touring and "Beatlemania" was dying down, to return the idea of the Beatles were, themselves, fanatical about other writers, actors or musicians was absolute genius. It is an act of creative humility for successful musicians to brand themselves as a fellow fans. This image effectively says to their fans that they understand what it is to follow, love, collect and connect with the creative output of another.

Now, it is hardly an uncommon thing for a successful musician to market himself as a fellow fan in cover artwork. Occasionally the adulation is a little bit more subtle, taking the form of less-than-obvious symbolism of Oasis' Definitely Maybe. Other times it would be far more blatant, such as Morrissey's treatment of nostalgic screenshots as cover artwork for singles by the Smiths. I still love to see fandom in its many different manifestations, particularly from those who don't need to follow the creative guidance of anyone else. Whenever I see the cover artwork of Jamie T's Panic Prevention or Carbon/Silicon's The Last Post, I am grateful that these musicians are fans, too. They are still enthusiastic about following, loving, collecting and connecting with music.. and although we may never meet or exchange words of any particular consequence, I appreciate that understanding of musical love and enthusiasm will always exist between us.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Britpop Podcast #16
Blur - End of a Century (Live at Hyde Park 3/7/09)
Stone Roses - Love Spreads
Elastica - 2:1
Black Box Recorder - Start As You Mean To Go On
Badly Drawn Boy - Once Around The Block
Space - Neighbourhood
Eggstone - Wrong Heaven
Elle Milano - The Choreographer (2nd Demo)

Download (28.9 MB)

I was 13 when it was brought to my attention that I had particularly "gay" taste in music. We were in Health class at the time, Hannah and I were discussing Freddie Mercury in distressingly minute detail when our teacher overheard us talking. She approached us and openly scoffed, promptly announcing to the class that Queen were a "gay band" and to like them was to "be gay". I was overwrought with such bigotry and with heated cheeks, I spluttered a clumsily-constructed argument: "I love Freddie's songs, I love his voice. I don't see how that makes me gay, how does that make anyone gay? What does musical taste have to do with sexual orientation?" My Health teacher remained incredulous and unconvinced. Even though many years have passed since then, I continue to be intrigued by that confrontation. I am still trying to figure out what relationship, if any, exists between musical taste and sexuality.

Assigning a sexual orientation to song, band or musical movement has always seemed to be offensive to my sensibilities. This became relevant when I developed a particularly intense affinity with synthpop, some ten years ago. I knew that others had associated synthpop with gay subculture, namely due to its heavy reliance upon exaggerated aesthetics, flamboyant imagery and camp extravagance. It was something clearly identifiable in the cross-dressing shenanigans of Erasure's clip Take A Chance On Me. Even still, I didn't see how my love for this genre had any relevance to my being a straight fourteen year old girl. I could listen to songs like Erasure's I Love Saturday, the Pet Shop Boys' Tonight is Forever or Depeche Mode's See You and still strongly identify with the romance of these lyrics. To me, it is the ambiguous treatment of pronouns that makes the lyrics in synthpop so intensely relateable. Particularly in the earlier work of these artists, there is rare mention any gender specifically. There are simply universal notions of sublime love and affection.

This issue takes on a fascinating dimension when purportedly "straight" indie bands borrow from imagery from a gay context. The Smiths, in particular, employed feminine imagery in their live stage show, where Morrissey would sport a woman's blouse and stuff gladioli flowers in his back pocket (if you could ever imagine it). The illusion was further enhanced by Morrissey's aggressively emphatic claims to asexuality in the British musical press. Brett Anderson of Suede would similarly flirt with notions of sexual ambiguity, from the suggestive "have you ever tried it that way?" in Pantomime Horse to the more provocative proclamation "I suppose I'm a bisexual who has never had a homosexual experience". The British musical press, again, sought to obsessively clarify and re-clarify the exact nature of Brett's sexual inclination. They wanted to know exactly what he meant by that, why? Why was it relevant or even necessary to dissect the sexual appetites of Morrissey, Brett Anderson or even David Bowie or Brian Molko? Is this knowledge really necessary in assessing how we engage with their persona? Does it make us feel any differently about their music?

That what we would traditionally label as "indie" continues to have a taste of sexual subversion, but these days it is far more subtle. It is present in the suggestive lyrics of Michael by Franz Ferdinand or in the clip of the Strokes song Juicebox, but such imagery is rarely controversial. Contemporary indie capitalises upon the unacknowledged truth of taste: that the most refined form of sexual attractiveness is the adoption of physical attributes from the opposite sex. Indie musicians adopt feminine attributes in private, they apply eyeliner, put on skinny girls' jeans and use expensive hair straighteners. The feminine influence is far from overt, but it is detectable. Sometimes it even gets to a point where androgyny becomes so latent in a musician's appearance that you begin to think that there isn't the intensely insidious breed of homophobia, that maybe there is no relationship between musical taste and sexuality. But then you see instances of Kele Okereke, having to account for the meaning and sexual intent of every Bloc Party song and then you realise that people still care, people will always care. Because as much as you want to detach musical taste and sexuality, they will always be inextricably linked.


So on that note, I leave you with today's podcast, Electro Podcast #15. I would be interested to hear your views on this topic, so be sure to write me a comment.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #15
Robyn - Cobrastyle
Hot Chip - Arrest Yourself
Frankmusik - Confusion Girl (Don Diablo Loves To Slowdance Mix)
Pet Shop Boys - Email
Erasure - When I Needed You (Melancholic Mix)
New Kids on the Block - Hold On
Milli Vanilli - Is It Love?
Sliimy - Wake Up

Download (31.5MB)

Until recently, I only had a very superficial understanding of what the Yé Yé movement represented. For me, it conjured up images of pretty French teenagers like Françoise Hardy or Sylvie Vartan. They would inevitably sport blunt fringes, baby doll dresses and uncomfortable shoes. Despite my obsession with France Gall's 1966 album Baby Pop, I didn't understand the revolutionary aspect of Yé Yé: it was the first time ever in the history of music where women were at the forefront of a cultural movement. Sure these girls were singing about broken hearts and bruised egos, but it was more than just that. These girls were singing about romantic blackmail and mistreatment and perhaps more pointedly, they were singing about aspirational matters, like how they wish to be treated by men.. and although it was all packaged in a such seemingly innocuous way, I think that's a pretty empowering thing to sing about.


Helpful advice
When you discover that the vast majority of these songs were written, produced and market by men, Yé Yé becomes something of a paradox. You begin to notice that these Yé Yé girls shared a deliberately naïve kind of sexual appeal. There was a great amount of emphasis placed upon the youth of these girls, not only in their personal iconography, but also in the "child-like" instrumentation in the music itself. You begin to notice that these songs were underscored with instruments such flutes and xylophones that you would otherwise expect to hear in the songs of children. You have to wonder why there were so many allusions to youth in this genre.

Yé Yé becomes even more perverse when you consider Les Sucettes, performed here by an 18-year old France Gall and Serge Gainsbourg. Gall thought she was singing an innocent song about a girl's love of aniseed lollipops, but as Gainsbourg would have it, Les Sucettes was filled with smarmy puns and double éntendres. When Gall discovered the true meaning of the song, she refused to perform any of his songs and soon broke up the partnership. Gall later said that she had no idea of the true meaning of Les Sucettes, claiming that she was mortified that Gainsbourg would have preyed upon her innocence in such a way.

The story of Les Sucettes has become inextricably linked with the story of Yé Yé. It is a wildly popular tale of manipulation and erotic subtext in song. But even more than that, it reiterates the idea that we often see in romantic literature of the sexually experienced man being matched with the sexually inexperienced girl. In all historical accounts of the Les Sucettes debacle, Gall is always made to account for her lack of knowledge while Gainsbourg is never made to account for his sexually provocative lyrics. It was just a joke at her expense.

It is unfortunate that Yé Yé doesn't really hold the promise of sexual freedom, but it is still fascinating to consider the scope of its influence. But you have to remember that listeners would have aspired to be just like Françoise Hardy, Sylvie Vartan or France Gall. Listeners would have aspired to have their beauty, sophistication, personal strength and independence. Their songs would have provoked thought and reflection and consequently, they would have changed the way teenage girls think and act. If you forget everything I just told you about the insidious underbelly of the Yé Yé movement, you can really begin to embrace something that is exciting and so very liberating in these songs.. and I encourage you to do so with this week's podcast.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Mod Podcast #14
Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass - Carmen
France Gall - Laisse Tomber Les Filles
Maryrene - Cette Fille N'est Rien Pour Lui
Natacha Snitkine - Le Jeu du Téléphone
Marie Laforêt - Marie Douceur, Marie Colère (cover of the Rolling Stone's Paint It Black)
Danielle Denin - Je Lis Dans Tes Yeux (cover of the Beatles' I'm Looking Through You)
Erick Saint Laurent - Eleonor Rigby (cover of the Beatles' Eleanor Rigby)
Karine et Rebecca - Moi, Je Dors Avec Nounours
La Petite Lily - Je N'aime Pas La Choucroute
Jeanette - Porque Te Vas
Cosette - Les Cheveux Dans Les Yeux
Soeur Sourire - Dominique

Download (31.7 MB)

I think we were both a little startled when I said it: I want all your songs to be about me. In that single moment, everything seemed to be drenched in my own despicable vanity. I revealed my addiction to attention, to yearning, to impossibility and the true extent of my selfishness. I so wanted his heart to be wasted on me, even though we were nothing more than just friends.

I will always admire those who have the ability to faithfully describe someone like that: in so few words that it borders on ineffectual, yet once combined with music, becomes so charmed. It also takes a great deal of bravery to make someone distinguishable from any other. At times, it borders on intrusive to know exactly who these songs are about. You are not invited to impose your own lyrical interpretation, because you understand who is the object of the song. Think of Something, In The Lap of the Gods or Songbird. There's no point contemplating that these songs were about anyone aside from Pattie, Mary or Nicole, respectively.

When I write, I do so in such a way that anyone from my past could think it was about them. I would hope there is enough breadth, warmth and ambiguity present to qualify such an assumption. My writing is never about one person specifically, after all, it is a bunch of ripped up photographs of the people I once loved.. and even though I've revealed the true extent of my selfishness, I would still like it if they were flattered by my regard. As vague and ambiguous as it would sometime seem.


The suggestion is clear
Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Britpop Podcast #13
Arkarna - Rehab
Mood Six - The Voice of Reason
The House of Love - Shine On
Cotton Mather - My Before and After
The Beatles - Free as a Boid
Eugene McGuinness - Monsters Under The Bed
Pulp - Babies
Dogs Die in Hot Cars - Squeeze

Download (29.6 MB)

Quite recently, I found myself completely wrecked, washed ashore, ruined. It was an accident really. The day before my birthday, I had asked my brother Andrew to get the microphone to work on my computer. I had a bunch of people coming around the next night and I had uploaded no less than 139 slop-tastic pop hits onto the freeware program, UltraStar, all in anticipation that we'd all have a bit of a wail. It's a bit like SingStar, except you can upload your own songs. Boney M. East 17. EMF. Whatever!

I came home from work and I was informed of the news: "Ugh. Your computer is broken." How? "I don't know but your operating system is not operating anymore." At the time, I took it on the chin. It was going to be OK. Sure, it meant there would be no howling karaoke shenanigans at my gathering. No Ganggagang. No Roxette. No Interpol. But I could deal with that. I suppose I can talk to my guests, if I really have to.

What followed was a severely long spell of computerlessness. It must have been a month, maybe more. I became aware of my totally crippling and unforgivably geeky addiction to my computer. It was like losing a limb, if a limb were as valuable as my hard disc. It was like my past had been deleted. Everything I loved, everything I was working on.. and perhaps everything I had envisioned myself to be. Pretty deep for a piece of hardware, don't you think?

Yet however grim that last paragraph, all was not lost. The very night of my birthday gathering, Louise carefully prepared a mixed CD simply entitled: Verses & Choruses for Eleanor's Birthday. It had been so long since I'd received a mix. I seem to recall I once found myself wrecked, washed ashore and ruined because of one. Even still, Louise's mix was so infectiously catchy, so heedlessly uplifting and so very carefully crafted. In my month of computerlessness, I listened to it endlessly and it made me feel so much better.

Andrew and my Dad bravely performed many many hours of painstaking surgery on my computer. The shonky sheisters at Microsoft even squeezed another upgrade out of us. But after all their hard work and persistence, my computer was up and running again! The programs were all scrambled, the drives were a little confused, but everything was great. I even had a new C:\ drive! Yes! You heard me! Gillions of more gigabytes to waste on mod revivalist compilations! I'd never been so grateful in all my life!


On an unrelated note: Roger Taylor at Narita Airport, 1975
My first order of business was to rip Louise's mix, Versus & Choruses. It was a breath of fresh air in the otherwise small, dingy, dusty cupboard that is my life. I thought it only appropriate, that after such a story that I would provide a linkie to that compilation. It's also appropriate because I have neither the time nor confidence to do C&CM Britpop Podcast #13. Maybe when self esteem comes in pill form?

Versus & Choruses
1. Psapp - Hi
2. Jens Lekman - Happy Birthday, Dear Friend Lisa
3. Camera Obscura - Teenager
4. Asobi Seksu - Thursday
5. Ariel Pink - The People I'm Not
6. Frida Hyvonen - Enemy Within
7. Kraked Unit - Douala Paris
8. Serge Gainsbourg - Ford Mustang
9. Yelle - A Cause Des Garcons
10. Katerine - Louxor J'adore
11. Inquiet - Middle of the World
12. Chad Vangaalen - Building a Home Like a Bee
13. Diane Cluck - Heat From Every Corner
14. Bon Iver - Blindsided
15. My Favourite - The Suburbs Are Killing Us (Remix)
16. MGMT - Of Moons, Birds & Monsters
17. Camille - Waves
18. Animal Collective - No More Runnin
19. Ladytron - Versus

Download (109 MB)

When I stop talking for a little while, I am usually thinking about London. I am usually thinking about a particular spot in Camden or the fake Roman antiquities in the Victoria and Albert Museum. I am usually thinking about dancing til my legs ache at some random indie club in Soho.. or else I am thinking about the colour of the morning sky on the bus ride back to Seven Sisters.

Sometimes I think about how I rushed about to get a last minute ticket to New Order in Hyde Park. It was where we first met, standing next to each other, watching the Psychedelic Furs. I had asked to see his program. It was very new-fangled in that it was laminated like a backstage pass. You see, I was lost - there were no freely available programs.

We spent the whole day together, walking in a muddied field, engaged in deep conversation. We talked about musical interests that (we believed) precious few shared. I so vividly remember how he described the significance of the Pet Shop Boys' This Must Be The Place I've Waited Years To Leave. I have no doubt in my mind that I told him of my profound love of Erasure's album The Innocents. We laughed and gushed, walking from tent to tent, stage to stage, talking about his musical writing and my radio fumbling. He was very obliging in letting me watch all the bands I'd wished to see that day: Battle, Graham Coxon, Fischerspooner and the Dears.

We were muddied and drenched when New Order started playing, yet it was perfect. I couldn't have imagined a circumstance like it. There were moments in New Order's set, their cadences, drum beats, lyrics and hooks that resonated so strongly. It seemed so terribly apt yet so wholly unexpected when they played Run Wild. I couldn't believe I was there.

We organised to meet up late Monday night, four days later. I remember him waiting outside the fake Marquee Club in Leicester Square. I was late of course. We had originally planned to go to a New Romantic club night in Oxford Circus. However, no real event really eventuated that night. Yet, somehow it was one of the most exciting nights of my life. Andrew, Gaby, He and I sat on the edge of the Piccadilly Circus fountain, sitting, talking and laughing all night long. It must have been one or two o'clock in the morning when we started to walk in circles around the center of London. From Piccadilly Circus to Soho to Oxford Circus, back to Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square to Trafalgar Square... and then back again. I remember the precise moment when I wished for him to hold my hand, he was speaking about London by the Smiths. I don't ever think I'd ever felt as much relief as when he did.

It seems like a totally mythical scenario, in retrospect. It was just like any of the songs we talked about: Tonight is Forever by the Pet Shop Boys, There is a Light That Never Goes Out by the Smiths, But Not Tonight by Depeche Mode. Nowadays, the memory seems to live in that strictly musical realm, that farfetched realm, that thoroughly perfect realm. Sometimes I have to stop talking for a little while longer to wonder if it really happened at all.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #12
Röyksopp - Happy Up Here
Pet Shop Boys - Love etc
Danger - 11h30
Whitest Boy Alive - Gravity
Hercules in NY - Deadweight
Dr Baker - Kaos (from Budbrain Megademo I)
Bitmap Brothers - Gods
Bomb the Bass - Megablast (from Xenon II)

Download (28.5 MB)

I find end-of-year musical countdowns a little bit irksome, to be honest with you. They go hand in hand with songs that celebrate Christmas. At any other time of the year, they would be considered inappropriate and even a little bit stupid. After all, why would you ever want to revisit the top ten songs of 1999? Wasn't it painful enough the first time?


Fads
End-of-year countdowns also remind me of someone I once knew. The ultimate conclusion of this person's countdown was something that was peculiarly stinging. It was something like, the only thing that they had learned from that year was that there was absolutely no merit in the musical past. That they had completely abandoned any inclination to explore "old" music because it was not relevant anymore.

Maybe it wasn't Pitchfork approved? I don't know.

Perhaps the end-of-year countdown seeks to remind us of the very disposability of pop music. Of course, there may be a little cheeky commentary for the end-of-year round up, but what is the point really? Why should you write anything about these songs if they will be ultimately rendered irrelevant and unfashionable? Even so, was there anything in 2008 worth remembering anyway? I think you can draw your own conclusions.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Mod Podcast #11
Loved Ones - The Loved One
Smile - Step On Me
St Louis Union - East Side Story
The Theme from the Patty Duke Show
The Hi-Fi's - I Keep Forgettin'
The Barracudas - Summer Fun
The Easybeats - Sorry
Yachts - Suffice to Say
Elvis Costello - (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea
The Sussed - I've Got Me Parka

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It goes without saying that I have been reveling in the shock and surprise that is Blur's Hyde Park reformation. As well as contemplating how I could possibly come up with the cash to fund such a jaunt, I had been thinking about how the reunion could have come about. After all, I had been long convinced of the tattered relationship between Albarn and Coxon. I had read all about it in magazines, you know. Not to mention in online publications. I thought I had worked out the dynamics of their working relationship and in doing so, I had dismissed the possibility of any reconciliation. Then I was struck by unusual thought. I thought of exactly how much of our engagement with music is derived from our construction of a musician's character. I am fully aware that my prior sentence sounds distinctly like meaningless "Bachelor of Arts" speak, but just bear with me here.

I can recall the days where I would fervently research the character of Steven Patrick Morrissey of the Smiths. In a very doting fashion, I would read all of Morrissey's archived interviews at The Arcane Old Wardrobe. Everything he said was always laced with a very deliberate ambiguity. Morrissey fancied himself a bit of a modern day Oscar Wilde. In retrospect, he came across as Wildean in the true Uncyclopedian sense of the word. I can never take his oblique statements seriously nowadays. They seem too much like flippant non-sequiturs, designed to create lust and intrigue in the hearts and minds of alienated young girls. I came to question his sincerity, really. My perennial issue with Morrissey is how is it that he came to write lyrics that are imbued with such intense feelings of yearning when he claims to be an individual entirely devoid of romantic inclination? What the hell is all that about?

I know that it is not just me. I know that others have carefully studied the personal background of their most admired musicians. I suspect that research is intended to uncover any trace of arrogance, indifference or insincerity on the part of the musician. When I realise that this musician is not "for real" as such, it becomes a real turn off for me. I know in my own interviewing experience, I could never listen to the music of Moving Units, The Departure, Editors, Kings of Leon or Ambulance LTD after I discovered what they were really like. I understand that I possess this hyper-romantic preconception that my musicians must care for music as much as I do. There must be some kind of requited nature in all this, otherwise my love is based on something that is fake and inconsequential.. and I can't have any of that.

So, where does this all leave us really? Must we all face up to the reality that our entaglement with music derives from a hyper-romanticised depiction of a person's character? I suppose so. Much like crush mythology, we should take solace in the understanding that we develop an affinity with the idea of a person, not the person itself. Perhaps I only speak for myself when I admit that I want to find affinity with musicians that have depth, warmth and doleful complexity. With that being said, I want to flesh out as many musical characters as possible so they all have a distinct role in British musical history. I suppose that is how I could understand how the hell Albarn and Coxon could have possibly mended their tattered relationship and play apart of Blur once again.


Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Britpop Podcast #10
The Fakrays - All Day
Elle Milano - Ooo Beyoncé Baby (Demo)
Let's Wrestle - I Won't Lie To You
Oasis - I'm Outta Time
Ocean Colour Scene - Huckleberry Grove
Suede & Pet Shop Boys - Rent (Live)
Mint Royale - Don't Falter
Kill City - Hooligans on E
Not the Nine O'Clock News - I Like Bouncing

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I remember sitting on the front steps of this guy's Art Deco styled, Grey Street apartment. We sat waiting for a taxi together, waiting to get to this party at the Public Offices. I had waited months, years, maybe even decades to be sitting next to this person, waiting for this party. Yet no matter how long I waited, I would still be far too young. Of course, I was in denial of this fact at the time. It only took me two whole years to acknowledge it. Once I did, I dramatically, defiantly and silently declared: if it's because of my age then you're a coward.

When we waited together on these front steps, I was far too anxious to meet his gaze. I would just play with the cuffs of the navy polyester jacket he lent me for the second part of the evening. We were talking about New Order. We would always talk bout New Order. He was kind of ashamed of liking Erasure and he knew very little about Depeche Mode. We wouldn't talk about the Cure a lot - although earlier that evening, I acquired the god-fearing audacity to quote the 13th at him: are you seducing or being seduced? To this day, I emphatically insist that the quote was in context, it must have been in context. He must have been flirting with me for me to say something as provocative as that. Surely I wasn't just dreaming of the attraction and rapport? I must have been out of my mind.


Is it really such a sin? Cause if it is, then I'll give in
We were talking about the Reading 3-16 DVD. I laughed at Barney's teleprompter at the front of the stage. "Surely he's been performing these songs for the best part of 20 years, how could he not remember the lyrics of Blue Monday?" He laughed and said that he always felt that Barney was so out of place on stage. He attributed these thoughts to how Barney came to be singer of the band and how Barney tended to have a real lack of showmanship. "It wasn't the place where he was meant to be - he was meant to be an accountant or an architect or something like that. It seems to be a such a mistake."

I knew he was speaking about himself, in some odd way. I didn't have the nerve or the time to ever ask him what he might of meant by that - our maxi taxi was here. He grabbed my hand as we walked to the van and resumed the rest of our evening.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #9
frYars - Olive Eyes
Piney Gir - Boston
Supersystem - The Lake
Ace of Base - Wave Wet Sand
Erasure - Waiting for the Day
Queen - Action This Day (demo)
Berlin - The Metro
Dr John - New Looks

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What do you do when your favourite publication becomes utter mince? Do you withdraw allegiances immediately? Do you stick with it, in the vain hope that there might be an upturn in quality?

I have been a big fan of Q Magazine for many a year. In fact, a metre-long row of Q Magazines decorates my family room. I remember frequently rewarding myself with a back issue of the magazine after an afternoon of Year 12 study. With this reward, I would slide back into 1990 (or 1992, or 1994, even). I could slide back into a time where there was still great hope in the Stone Roses' sophomore release. A time where Richey Edwards would still be alive (and still somewhat unbalanced).. a time where there would be some truth in Oasis's aggressive proclamations they were, indeed, the best band in the world.

I would completely immerse myself in Q. Of course, I loved a significant proportion of the artists featured, but I also loved how it was written. It was writing that was tweaked with a very wry, knowing type of sarcasm. It presumed that you really knew your music, too. It wasn't a publication that needed to recommended artists, albums, singles, books or films to you. You just knew it. Q presumed that you knew what happened with Morrissey at Finsbury Park in 1992. They presumed that you knew about the Clash "pigeon incident". They presumed that you knew that Depeche Mode's Devotional Tour was a terrible mistake (and probably never should have occurred). Always interesting - never, ever patronising.


Being Boring
So when did Q go downhill? There has been much conjecture about this. Perhaps it coincided with the death knell of Britpop? Or perhaps it was around the 2000 musical drought? Regardless, it happened at some point. You pick up the magazine - just to browse, of course - are you are bombarded with an influx of meaningless lists and countdowns. These same stupid meaningless lists and countdowns would consistently feature the same tiresome adulation for the same three middle-of-the-road artists. There is no critical evaluation of anything, no sarcastic taglines or interesting articles.

But I knew that this was going to happen to Q. Call me a cynic, but I knew that they had to fulfill the needs and the expectations of a younger demographic. That is, a group of people who basically need a monthly list of recommended songs to download. My friend tells me that the writers of Q don't even describe these songs anymore. The writers don't place these songs into any sort of genre or context. It's so fickle, lazy and uninspired.. and don't get me started on the self-congratulatory aspects of the publication.

So what do I do when my favourite publication has become utter mince? I save my pennies. I sit in my family room and I read a back issue. I don't dismiss what it was and I try hard not to dismiss what it has become. I just read and remember why I get excited about this writing and this music in the first place.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Mod Podcast #8
Tommy Sands & Annette Funicello - The Parent Trap
Cat Stevens - The Laughing Apple
The Cake - Rainbow Wood
France Gall - Faut-il que je t'aime
Lou Christie - Trapeze
The Poets - That's the Way It's Got To Be
The Sonics - Have Love, Will Travel
The Lambrettas - Daaaaance
Timebox - Beggin'

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Don't be shocked, seriously, don't be. C&CM is not so Anglocentric that there can't be the odd podcast devoted to Australian music once in a while. But that doesn't mean that C&CM particularly endorses music just because it is local. We're not into tokenistic endorsement around here. It's just not our bag.

These songs are all too reminiscent of an Australian childhood. Front yard cricket, endless games of table tennis in the family room (while listening to The Swing on vinyl), It's a Knockout, Big M commercials, playing with the parachute, the Comedy Company, Whammies, Young Einstein, Triple M and that translucent blue Blue Sky Mining cassette. It was all pretty damn fun.

So, please share your memories of fun times in 1980s Australia and perhaps, their tenuous musical links. Thankies.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: 80s Australian Podcast #7

I deleted your number the other day. It is stupid, really, because I know it off by heart. I had this soul-destroying tendency to sporadically contact you. I would refer you to things that I know you would love. I mean, really love. I don't know if your new lady would indulge you with such referrals, she probably does. Maybe you like something far more pretentious than what you did before.. even though that was never really possible, was it?

When I write to you, I completely omit any tendency to write verbose things. I don't write meaningful things. I give myself a sentence to impart exactly what you need. Sometimes I don't even do that, I just give a link. I don't even write my name. In my heart of hearts, I can't imagine that you would even know my name. That sort of thing is shrouded in sheets of irrational indifference. I can't imagine that you have any perception of me, any impression of what I have become, any idea of what I have done to myself.

I write all this here because this is exactly how I feel about radio. When I speak, it feels like moments collapsing under my feet. Every utterance is made to a phantom, indifferent listener who just doesn't give a damn. That's why every moment is rushed. The meaning and significance of every song is left unexplored. The content of all this is so awkward and sparse. It is because I only give myself a moment to impart exactly what you want. I only give myself a moment because I honestly believe it is all you could really ever tolerate.


La Colère
Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Britpop Podcast #6
The Go! Team - Milk Crisis
Apartment - Fall Into Place
Biff Bang Pow! - A Girl Called Destruction
New Rhodes - A Different Time
The Charlatans - Then
Spiritualized - Anyway That You Want Me
Supergrass - Grace

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My legs ache far too much to write any sort of culturally relevant post about electronic music.. but I will say this: God Bless Italo Disco. I am this close to living exclusively in 1983.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #5
RJD2 - Rules for Common Living
Hercules in NY - Nightlight
Gotye - Thanks For Your Time
Dizzee Rascal - Dance Wiv Me (feat. Chrome & Calvin Harris)
Pharrell, Santogold & Julian Casablancas - My Drive Thru
MARRS - Pump Up the Volume
Click Click - Yakuska (12 inch)

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I had this conversation with somebody once. We were contemplating what we would have been had we existed in 1978. I dimly contributed that I would have liked to have been a mod with great hair. I would have been far too bourgeois to be a respectable punk, far too pussyfooted to be a real rocker.. but the truth of the matter is that I probably would have been a glittered up disco dancer with bad eye make up and a cheap perm.

But after reading this book only just yesterday, I can see now that personal iconography can be quite a malleable thing. Disco dancer one day, convincing punk the next. I always had this impression that you had to bid a very public (and very personal) allegiance to one movement and one movement only. The mod revivalists, in particular, were extremely finite about what means to be a mod.. and arguably, they had an obsessive compulsion to understand and embrace all the prescribed music, books, transport and clothes. It is a movement that continually honours (and rehonours) the past.

Punk is far more of a paradox. Never before had a musical movement been so frequently associated with a single prefix: anti. The term is bandied around so callously: anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian, anti-fashion, antisocial, Antichrist, anti-everything. Jon Savage and particularly Don Letts would have you believe that the movement was never meant to have a cohesive identity. It was not about safety pins or mohawks, it was about individual expression and personal empowerment. Yet that striking visual connotation exists. If you choose to perpetuate that image of the archetypal anarchist, are you being a complete and utter hypocrite? Are you conforming to the norms of a cultural movement which fundamentally abhors conformists? What the hell are you meant to do?

On that note, I leave you with Mod Podcast #4. I know that the extreme mod puritans wouldn't agree with a good many moments of this selection. To them, I say get over yourself.


Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Mod Podcast #4
Pigbag - Pigbag
The Beatles - Wait
Tony Ronald & His Kroners - It Has Been Too Long
The Shivvers - Teen Line
Run 229 - Soho
The Jam - Burning Sky
The Circles - Circles
The 101ers - Keys to Your Heart

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I truly relished the opportunity to collate a bunch of songs purely devoted to British pop. Yet, despite my enthusiasm for this era of music, I feel a bit awkward about concept of Britpop in that the term is traditionally associated with the chart battle between Roll With It and Country House. The term reminds me of this insidious presence of marketing departments in British record companies, purposefully orchestrating a "chart battle" in order to garner more popularity. It just seems so tacky, so unnecessary.

However, Britpop tends to encompass far more than destructive marketing ploys (and token Union Jack imagery).. and far be it from my responsibility to construct any sort of conclusion about what the genre does encompass exactly, I know that it just means so much more to me. These songs remind me of the aspects of myself that I have grown accustomed to: ambiguous bouts of sarcasm, neverending bouts of anxiety and a perverse compulsion to yearn for every other moment but this one. It sounds like a distinct kind of British misery, don't you think?


Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Britpop Podcast #3
Lush - Ladykillers
Sons and Daughters - Gilt Complex
Elastica - Car Song
The Smiths - Girl Afraid
The Popguns - Waiting for the Winter
Yeti - Last Time You Go
Oasis - Songbird
Inspiral Carpets - She Comes in the Fall (accapella)
Blur - Death of a Party (demo)

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I scarcely remember even recording this.. but here it is for your listening, the second in the series of the C&CM podcasts. This week, I present a rapturous half hour of synths, italo disco and eighties electro.


Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Electro Podcast #2
Gang of Four - I Love a Man in Uniform
Depeche Mode - Puppets
Albert One - Turbo Diesel
Beirut - My Night with a Prostitute in Marseilles
Thom Yorke - Harrowdown Hill
Modernaire - Faites Tes Jeux
Pet Shop Boys - Home & Dry
Röyksopp - Remind Me (Someone Else's Radio Mix)

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I think some may call it productivity, others may call it radio announcing against your better judgement. The more objective may call it the Cassettes & Chocolate Milk Podcasts. Regardless of whatever it is, I'll be posting a succession of musical ramblorings showcasing three different musical genres: Mod, Electro and Britpop. Stick to the music you love, or else be a little adventurous and try something different. This week, I wax lyrical about mods and mod revivalists.


Bandwagonesque
Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Mod Podcast #1
The Tremeloes - Here Comes My Baby
The Zombies - She's Not There
The Yardbirds - For Your Love
Direct Hits - Ever Ready Plaything
Direct Hits - My Back Pages
The City Limits - Morse Code Messages
The Squares - No Fear
The Letters - Nobody Loves Me
The Aces - Why Should It Be Mine?
Protex - I Can Only Dream

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