Song for Sunday

Tracey Thorn – Why Does the Wind?

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: Black Box Recorder – Seasons in the Sun

Song for Sunday

Stars – Fixed

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: Black Box Recorder – Seasons in the Sun

Here We Go

Just over one week in, time to look at the World Cup good, the bad and the predictions ...

Good: Slovenia's Charlie Brown shirts, England's failure to get it up on the big stage (twice), Ally McCoist sounding wise and knowledgable alongside the rabidly partisan Martin Tyler, SBS's coverage (it is worth emigrating just to avoid the awful BBC and ITV pundits), German red cards, German penalties being saved, France's blanket for their subs bench, Maradona in a suit and The Guardian's Lego match recreations.

Bad: getting North Korea in the work sweepstakes, the Coca-Cola and Macdonalds adverts every ad-break, Australia's away strip, Australia's home strip, trying to explain the concept of a draw to number one son, Maradona's suit, bad puns about Honda being Japan's engine, Harry Kewell's groin and all the bollocks about watching games in 3D.

Predictions: Still on track for the final (wish I had put money on Argentina).
Group A – France can still qualify, but it looks like Uruguay will accompany Mexico into the knockout stages.
Group B – Again, mathematically Nigeria can still qualify, but at this stage you have to think that it will be Argentina and South Korea.
Group C – I am sticking with England and the USA, but that won't stop me cheering on Slovenia on Wednesday morning.
Group D – Yup, still Germany and Ghana.
Group E – Cameroon and The Netherlands. Check.
Group F – Italy and Paraguay. Check.
Group G – I'd like to see Ivory Coast go through, but suspect that Brazil and Portugal will make it.
Group H – Chile and Switzerland? I just can't see it, I'm afraid. Chile and Spain as predicted.

And the 64 million dollar question: can Australia beat Ghana? I actually think they can. And will. I am still not convinced they can get any points from the Serbia match, but with everyone in the group apart from Australia on three points at the moment who knows what will happen.

Song for Sunday

Rose Elinor Dougall – Find Me Out

See also the excellent Start/Stop/Synchro ...

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: Rose Elinor Dougall – Find Me Out

First time since April 11 that Song of the Week isn't by The National! Even so they still get the overall prize, but for how long?

Black Box Recorder

To be honest, I thought they had broken up years ago. Sometime back in the mid-2000s after the Passionoia album. But no, they were still hanging around, not quite calling it a day in amongst side projects for Sarah Nixey and Luke Haines.

Then two new songs appeared last month and for a moment I thought maybe a new lease of life was on the cards. But then the title of the EP sunk in and after a bit of background checking it is confirmed that Black Box Recorder are no more.

Jude Rogers sums them up much better than I ever could over at The Quietus, but here is a small-scale tribute to commemorate one of the most interesting and incomprehensibly overlooked bands of the last decade and a bit. Enjoy.


Black Box Recorder – England Made Me


Black Box Recorder – The Art of Driving


Black Box Recorder – Seasons in the Sun

World Cup

For the first time in three years I missed taking a punt on the Giro d'Italia final standings, so to make up lets have some ill-informed predictions for the World Cup:

Group A - France and Mexico
Group B - Argentina and Nigeria
Group C - USA and England
Group D - Germany and Ghana
Group E - Cameroon and The Netherlands
Group F - Italy and Paraguay
Group G - Brazil and Portugal
Group H - Spain and Chile

Likely to be fewer upsets in the group stage this time round, but I still reckon that the USA can finish on top of group C and that's not just wishful thinking.

Unfortunately I can't see Australia getting through to the knockout stages this time – the team is lacking in goal-scoring ability and Verbeek is the sort of coach who is too obsessed about not losing to actually win games. I would be delighted to be proven wrong, especially as a second place in the group could set-up the succulent prospect of knocking out England to progress to the quarter finals. Not going to happen, but for another couple of weeks we can at least dream ...

And the final? I think we'll have Argentina v. Spain with the South Americans winning out 3 - 1. (Now where did I put that Argentina shirt from 1986?)

Song for Sunday

The Dø – At Last

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: The National – Afraid of Everyone

Song for Sunday

The Mynabirds – Numbers Don't Lie

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: The National – Afraid of Everyone

Song for Sunday

Besnard Lakes – Albatross

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: The National – Afraid of Everyone

Pre-internet search

I know it is only just over ten years ago, but how did we find out about stuff before Google?

Ironically, even though I searched on Google, I am not sure who the creator of this ingenious spoof was. Thank you whoever you are.

Song for Sunday

The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio

Beautiful. One day I will be able to grow a beard like that.

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio

Funny that!

Song for Sunday

White Hinterland – Amsterdam

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio

Song for Sunday

The Morning Benders – Promises

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio

The People's Train

My views on historical fiction tend to be the opposite of Booker Prize judges, but strangely this goes out the window for anything set in Russia especially around the October Revolution.

Unfortunately The People's Train is the exception that proves the rule.

Sometime last year I chanced across a review that  praised the book and mentioned that it was based on a true story about one of the minor protagonists in the Russian Revolution.  I have never read anything by Thomas Keneally (or Tom as his Australian publishers prefer), but he won the Booker for Schindler's Ark and is undoubtably one of Australia's best regarded and prolific writers so it seemed likely to be something I would enjoy.

The first two-thirds is set in Brisbane and is purportedly the English translation of the memoirs of one Artem Samsurov (Late Hero of the Soviet Revolution) – a protégé of Lenin's who escapes from prison in Tsarist Russia and makes it to Australia by way of Japan and China. The last one-third is billed as Paddy Dykes' Russian Journal and culminates in his account of the storming of the Winter Palace on 27 October 1917.

It is a brilliant idea to swap the perspectives in this way – the Russian exile narrating the Australian section (although with a great deal of back story and plot filling along the way) and the small-town Australian idealist reporting the momentous historical events he witnesses in Russia.

Unfortunately it just doesn't work. The characters are flat and unconvincing, the historical details are correct by don't come to life and the narrative trundles along when it should race toward the obvious conclusion.

At one point Paddy complains that Artem's bride-to-be 'Tasha didn't seem to exist beyond her reputation. She was most alive and was a real presence when she spoke at factories around Kharkov. In the Gubin house she was a bit like a ghost.' Unfortunately this could applied to a great many of the characters in the novel. And on top of this the writing can be clunky and laboured, almost as if he forgot to re-write all the material that his researcher came up with. It's a shame because Artem's story is incredible and I couldn't help feeling that it was short-changed by this book.

Song for Sunday

Casio Kids – Grønt Lys i Alle Ledd

Band/artist of the week: Frightened Rabbit
Song of the week: The National – Afraid of Everyone

Song for Sunday

Venice is Sinking – Okay

How great is this? Venice is Sinking are from Athens GA (same city as R.E.M.) and specialise in a beautiful, lush and languid slightly leftfield-rock which is right up my street. The combination of male and female vocals weaving in and out is something else which I find hard to resist. Anyway, they are the best new band I've found this year (thanks mbvmusic!) and if the video above appeals then I suggest you have a look at their website – plenty of free tunes to download – and start by purchasing their Okay EP from late last year.

Band/artist of the week: Venice is Sinking
Song of the week: Venice is Sinking – Compass

Song for Sunday

White Rabbits – They Done Wrong, We Done Wrong

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio

Song for Sunday

The National – Terrible Love

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio

It's all about one band this week. New album May 11. Put it in your diaries/blackberries/iPhones/whatever. I think it is safe to say that I am probably more excited about High Violet than just about any other album released in the last five years. Watch the clip above, download Bloodbuzz Ohio from the web-site. I think you'll see why.

Song for Sunday

Mogwai – Mogwai Fear Satan

I don't believe in swearing. Much. But I have to say this is fucking amazing. If you are epileptic or suffer from seizures easily be warned: you may need to watch with your eyes shut. But don't worry it will still be worth it.

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: Efterklang – Alike

Election

Fantastic. More Tory campaign posters at mydavidcameron.com ...

Now, is it too late to get my postal vote sorted?

Song for Sunday

Basia Bulat – The Shore

Band/artist of the week: Malcolm Middleton
Song of the week: Efterklang – Alike

Song for Sunday

The Soft Pack – C'mon

Band/artist of the week: Efterklang
Song of the week: Roky Erickson w/ Okkervil River – Goodbye Sweet Dreams

And I hope you are all getting excited about the new Mogwai live CD and movie Burning –

Song for Sunday

Bowerbirds – Northern Lights

Band/artist of the week: Efterklang
Song of the week: Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore – Something, Somewhere, Sometime

Efterklang's new album Magic Chairs was released this week and it is excellent. Hence the large number of plays on Geography of Hope's iPod this week. If you want a preview there is a fantastic live set of four songs here and you can find out more about all the songs on the album here.

Misplaced childhood

My father told lies all his life and, because
I knew no better, I repeated them.

A lie about my father... A son's version of the truth...

John Burnside's memoir about his father is a brilliant, but brutal account of what it was like for him growing-up in the fifties and sixties in Cowdenbeath and Corby. As well as being a liar, his father is a drunk and a bully who is singularly ill-qualified for fatherhood, even by the standards of 1950s Scotland.

A Lie About My Father covers the time from John's birth to his early twenties when his dad dies. It is tough going – his dad burning his teddy bear at six, his mother bundling him out of the bedroon window late at night to avoid drunken beatings, the broken arm from a holiday in Blackpool that goes undiagnosed for three weeks, the teenage obsession with fire-lighting – but not at all gloomy. He seems to cope remarkably well with his lot and there is a complete lack of self-pity or wallowing in his predicament. Like millions of other teenagers he survives with the help of books, music and a complete rejection of his father's principles.

Of course, however, it all takes its toll and as the book ends he is diagnosed with mental illness, hospitalised and losing himself in serious drug abuse from which it takes him a decade to escape.

When they warn you about all that bohemian stuff, they always talk about the seductive properties of alcohol, or drugs, or loose morals, but they never say how seductive falling is, what a great pleasure it is to be lost. Perhaps they don't know. Perhaps only the lost know. Far from home, far from the known, the imagination starts to play beautiful, terrifying tricks on us. Maybe it is the road of excess that leads to the palace of wisdom – which is just another word for a certain kind of crazy. Being lost, being crazy: while I was falling, I knew I was on to something. I knew I wasn't anywhere near there yet, but I also knew that I couldn't get there from where I was.

His recent memoir Waking up in Toytown covers this lost decade and his escape into suburbia of all places. A Lie About My Father ends positively and, although I don't want to spoil the book for anyone, it is safe to say that he isn't going to repeat the mistakes his father made.

P.S. What is the difference between memoir and autobiography? I couldn't really have told you until recently, but according to Diana Athill (in issue number 7 of the consistently interesting Five Dials) the two have diverged recently and autobiography is the official, public version of events while memoir is the private version. Thus the key to memoir is that its success or otherwise depends on how true the account feels to the reader. A Lie About My Father certainly fits this description.

Song for Sunday

The Twilight Sad – I Became a Prostitute (acoustic)

I almost put the official video up late last year, but it is a bit rude and definitely NSFW. (I could just see myself clicking on it by accident and having a bit of explaining to do to the IT police. Not that I would look at my own blog or update it or anything like that at work ...)

Band/artist of the week: Land of Talk
Song of the week: Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore – Something, Somewhere, Sometime
(Click on the link above, download the mp3, enjoy. My pleasure. Don't mention it.)