Guests
by Graeme Thomson, August 29, 2008 9:31 AM
It really has been great fun blogging here this week. Thanks to everyone who has dropped in to read and to those who have taken the time to leave comments. Now, on my final day in the hot seat, I'm going to get somewhat evangelical. Musically, we're living in an age of hugely increased options and unprecedented ease of access. It means more choice, but also a proportional increase in noise pollution. I'm not talking about the ephemeral stuff that forms the soundtrack to our daily existence: the TV themes, background muzak, computer doodles, and endless jingles that we filter out without even registering as "music" — usually with good reason. Over and above all that, and beyond the programmed conformity of radio, we are consistently colliding randomly with huge amounts of music leaking out from the rest of the population. Like most of us, I suspect, I've always regarded this as a nuisance, something to be blocked out. But recently I embarked upon a bold experiment in sound. Instead of succumbing to the knee-jerk hostility with which I traditionally regard the uninvited music assailing me via ring tones, car stereos, headphone leakage and rogue laptops as I go about my business, I decided I was actually going to listen to some of it. And having done so, I'm starting to think there's something to be said for turning off your iPod and instead simply opening your ears as you bustle about. The world turns to a fantastically diverse play-list. First up was "Always" by Bon Jovi, blasting from a parked car outside my open window. I wouldn't ever choose to play Bon Jovi, but I listened to all of it and I didn't break out in boils. A lingering visit to the corner shop brought the whole of "The Scientist" by Coldplay — a song I don't own but one to which I've always been rather partial — and Pink's "Family Portrait," which is unmitigated rubbish. The café around the corner was playing a rotating selection of Jeff Buckley, the James Taylor Quartet, Marvin Gaye, Blur, and Stan Getz. I put down the newspaper and listened — properly listened — for a fairly blissful forty minutes. It could happily have been more. Later, I overheard a snatch of Frank Sinatra and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra playing "Fools Rush In" on a ringtone. Great. I've got that somewhere, but it would take me half an hour to dig it out and the thought probably wouldn't have occurred to me anytime this year. It has now. A car stuck at the light played "Waterfront" by Simple Minds. Fantastic. On the bus, "Apparently Nothin'" by the Young Disciples drifted out of a young girl's headphones. The Ting Tings hissed out of someone else's. On the street, almost impossibly, the KLF's "What Time Is Love?" blasted from a passing car; seconds later, a ringtone blared out Beyonce's "Crazy In Love." And that's just a small selection of the stuff I actually recognised. I also heard a lovely, anonymous Arabic tune spilling out of a window, lots of hip hop I couldn't immediately place, and a bagpipe lament. Now, are you telling me that everything on your iPod is better than every one of those songs? I don't believe you. I could have been listening to my own selections during this time, and probably heard what I'd normally consider to be better songs, but most of it would have been music I already know intimately. If I hear "99 Problems" by Jay-Z, or "White Winter Hymnal" by Fleet Foxes, or "Unsatisfied" by the Replacements on my iPod, I might respond with glee, or misty-eyed nostalgia, or simply tolerate it in the knowledge that another song will be along shortly. In any case, I know the song is there because I put it there. And where's the excitement in that? In an age when most of us store the majority of our music collection on iTunes or an iPod (including songs we haven't heard for years, many of which will, I'm sorry to say, be utter rubbish), listening to music over which we've exercised no choice is the logical extension of the modern ethos of random selection. Because in truth, we don't really want the laborious responsibility of choosing what we're going to hear next. In an industry stripped of most of its mystique, the element of surprise is almost all the music business has got left. On my listening spree, I got to hear stuff I'd never hear on the radio, and a lot of music I don't own, so why shouldn't overheard music be embraced as an opportunity rather than an invasion? After all, the whole world is an iPod these days. The strains of "I Kissed A Girl" heard over the din of traffic, shoppers, or a yacking schoolgirl at the bus stop is, in effect, just the next song on the playlist. Open your ears. Here endeth the lesson. Thanks for listening
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Guests
by Graeme Thomson, August 28, 2008 9:21 AM
Last year, I wrote a blog for the Guardian in which, tongue planted firmly in cheek, I fretted about ways in which I could ensure that my children grew up with the same — how to put this? — absolutely impeccable taste in music that I have. Should I force feed them a diet of the Replacements, the Blue Nile, Funkadelic, and American Music Club until they succumb? Or should I just let them listen to whatever the hell they want — even dross like Akon, for pity's sake — in order to foster an enthusiasm for music that would, eventually, lead them down the path to righteousness? (Yes, of course I already knew the correct answer — it was just a bit of fun). At the time, they were six, three, and one. One minute they'd be listening to the Wiggles; the next, Bob Dylan. Over the past 12 months, however, I've been consistently amazed at the very firm choices they're beginning to make regarding the music they actively want to listen to. It's been great. And a real eye-opener. My eldest girl is now a committed Tom Waits fan, so much so that when I managed to blag a pair of gold-dust tickets to one of his two recent UK shows, she really, really wanted to come with me. I'd have loved to have shared Waits's mesmerising ringmaster act with her, but in the end I had to gently point out that if I didn't take her mother I might never be allowed back in the house. She also loves Abba, The Smiths ("Girl Afraid" is her favourite), Willie Nelson, the Chiffons, Nick Lowe (especially his last album, At My Age), the Sugababes, and The Cure. She has decided she's not too keen on U2, the Waterboys, and Aztec Camera, while I've decided I can live without Girls Aloud and, well, Akon. We don't fight about it often. My four-year-old son, meanwhile, simply becomes fixated with certain songs rather than bands or artists. I've noticed, too, that he really picks up on the lyrics. The first song he truly loved was "Rehab" (here's hoping it's not prophetic), possibly because the hook — "no, no, no" — happens to be his favourite phrase in the whole world. Then he loved "GirlShapedLoveDrug" by Gomez, which he insisted on calling "Wicked Girl." Then, fantastically, it was "High Hopes" by Frank Sinatra, played over and over again on car journeys until I thought my brain would also go KERPLOP. Now, it's "Sunday Girl" by Blondie, which he demands to hear over and over again. In French. I kid myself it's educational. While I was writing I Shot a Man in Reno, he would occasionally drop in and ask why I was listening to all these sad songs: "Why is she dead, Daddy?"; "Has he crashed his car again?" He really loved "Ebony Eyes" by the Everly Brothers, but then, who doesn't? My two-year-old daughter is still besotted with "Puff the Magic Dragon," although she's partial to a bit of David Bowie, which is encouraging. They all, naturally, love "Yellow Submarine." These firm preferences have emerged from the mass of music perpetually playing in the kitchen, or in my office, and especially in the car, whether on the radio or on CD. Discovering the types of music they love and the kinds of voices they gravitate toward has provided a fascinating insight into their distinct personalities. And I've confirmed what I already knew. Saying to a child, "Listen to this, it's great," is a sure-fire turn off. On the other hand, letting them discover things for themselves and then discussing their preferences — and occasionally saying, "Hey, come and listen to this and let me know what you think" — is a brilliant way of giving them the confidence to form their own opinions about what they like and don't like in all walks of life. Of course, I've also learned that there's nothing quite so effective as a child's boundless enthusiasm when it comes to ruining one of your favourite songs. But, hey, it's a small price to pay
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Guests
by Graeme Thomson, August 27, 2008 10:07 AM
I've often contemplated writing a work of rock fiction, but I've always been put off by how few good ones there are, and how easy it appears to be to become mired in the kind of moronic clichés that Spinal Tap lampooned so mercilessly. Which perhaps explains why, in the fifty-something years since Elvis told his mama it was all right, the Great Rock 'n' Roll Novel remains defiantly unwritten. Sure, there are countless examples of novels that use specific musical references as scene dressing or as a cultural compass — few things more effectively establish time and character than dropping a song title into the narrative; and, it allows authors the chance to show off their record collections. And there have been several novels told from a fan's unique perspective, most notably High Fidelity. But I've yet to read a novel that convincingly sums up the experience of making popular music, or that captures the weird, savage compulsion that keeps everyone from Bloc Party to Bob Dylan traipsing around the world, year-in and year-out. There have been some notable contenders: Iain Banks — whose brilliant, bloody, and darkly hilarious novel Crow Road is offered as part of Powell's Indiespensable box in October, alongside a unique mini-edition of I Shot a Man in Reno — did a great job with Espedair Street, a cautionary tale about fictional Scottish prog-rock band Frozen Gold, who form, soar, and — inevitably — combust. What else? Don DeLillo's Great Jones Street? Salman Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Roddy Doyle's The Commitments (Vintage Contemporaries), or Emma Forrest's Namedropper? John Niven's wicked Kill Your Friends created a buzz recently in the UK, but ultimately it felt like too much sub-Easton Ellis style and far precious little substance (although there were plenty of substances). Or what about less high-profile titles such as Alan Arlt's The Carpet Frogs and Michael Turner's Hard Core Logo? Some have been better than others, a few have been excellent, but none have truly convinced. And here's why: • Writing about music is hard enough at the best of times; try writing about music that doesn't exist. The basic, inescapable flaw in every rock novel is the fact that the reader can't hear the music and thus struggles to identify with the artist. Strip away any audible, self-evident sign of talent — the songs, in other words — and most rock stars simply become posturing bores. Hardly the stuff of great fiction. • Good novelists have a tendency to get sloppy when they write about popular music; it sometimes comes over like an exercise in cultural slumming that almost inevitably lends itself to unoriginal plots and indulgent writing, clicking through the tropes of standard rock behaviour with a nod and a self-congratulatory wink. From their names on down — Ormus Cana? Bucky Wunderlick? — the characters rarely ring true, apparently hell-bent on playing out the author's own fantasies rather than attempting to illuminate what the great rock 'n' roll circus actually means. • Rock novels are pitched at an enormously demanding readership. If the atmosphere and language aren't spot on, we turn off. If we don't share the musical tastes of the writer, we struggle to engage. We're so acutely aware of the tiniest rituals of a gig, or the peculiarly nuanced language deployed by musicians, that an author has to avoid a minefield of cliché while still creating something familiar enough to convince — and that's a tough tightrope to walk. Perhaps the future of rock literature lies in a fusion of fact and fiction; something truly original, linguistically daring, and psychologically adventurous that will do for rock 'n' roll novels what David Peace's The Damned United did for sports books. Or am I missing something? Hope so. If so, please enlighten
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Guests
by Graeme Thomson, August 26, 2008 10:27 AM
There's been much talk in the last couple of weeks about Madonna turning 50, but little discussion of what — if anything — it all means. Most of the chatter has concerned the seeming miracle of her physical preservation (though I much preferred the far more natural, ever-so-slightly-potbellied version that first bounced onto the scene way back in 1984) rather than any examination of her artistic progression over the course of the past 25 years. With an icon, of course, it's all about surfaces. Part of the reason I wrote I Shot a Man in Reno is because I'm fascinated by the sight of all these rock and pop stars trooping into middle age and on into their dotage. How do they react to the process of getting older? They can either wrestle with the implications and incorporate their feelings directly into their music — David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, and Richard Thompson spring to mind here — or they can blithely ignore the passing of time and persevere with their tight jeans and improbably youthful haircuts, still singing the songs they wrote in their teens and early twenties without an inch of irony or awkwardness. The latter approach remains the most popular, and the Rolling Stones are a fine example. I talked with Mick Jagger (aged 65-1/2) for the book, and he had some interesting things to say. "In a way we're in a bit of a pioneer area, because pop music doesn't really deal with [death and ageing] as a major topic," he said at one point, in the course of rather tartly conceding that the music of the Rolling Stones might not be, well, very grown up. "You're writing within certain conventions — which you can break, but you're still working with them — and you have to recognise what they are. For years the three-and-a-half minute pop song has been an absurd convention, but we're still in it more or less. That's just one of the conventions and there are many, many others that you tend to follow. And one is that it's not conventional to write about too depressing subjects all of the time." It's a mistake to simply assume that rock stars ever truly grow up. Few do. Unlike the Caesars of old, most of them don't employ someone to whisper "Remember you are mortal" in their ear. Instead, they model themselves on Peter Pan and surround themselves with the lost boys and girls. Jagger knows better than most that pop music is a grand illusion and we are all — artists, audience, journalists — complicit to some degree in keeping it that way. Acknowledging the mortality of our rock heroes means acknowledging and confronting our own mortality, too, and that's something we're increasingly unwilling to do in western society. Of course, middle age hits us all considerably later these days, but standing in a field with thousands of baby-boomers singing along to "Jumpin' Jack Flash" or "My Generation" isn't simply an exercise in nostalgia; it's also a kind of communal incantation, an attempt to keep the vagaries of Old Father Time at bay. But I don't want artists to hold back the tide of time; I want them to embrace the ageing process, or at least to confront it. The truly pioneering musicians, the ones who have found a way of remaining culturally relevant into their old age, have not shirked from addressing issues concerning mortality: Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, even Neil Diamond. Then again, you could argue that these are artists who have always been attracted to the darker side of the human condition. Madonna, on the other hand, is all about creating and indulging a fantasy version of ourselves. But where will Madonna go in the next ten years — will she still be singing "Hung Up" in a pink leotard? I hope not. I hope she has something a little more interesting to say. I'd love to see her become more vulnerable and honest in her music; I'd love to hear about her hopes and fears as a mother as she gets older; love to see her become some kind of truculent old diva, dispensing her womanly wisdom with a take-it-or-leave-it defiance, rather than chasing the youthful zeitgeist with an ever increasing sense of desperation. I notice she's been playing a little more guitar on her current tour; maybe that's her concession to becoming a "mature" artist. Maybe that's all we can
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Guests
by Graeme Thomson, August 25, 2008 10:20 AM
You'll often hear writers say that starting is the hardest part. All that dramatic stuff about wrestling with the tyranny of the blank page, the haunted hours spent waiting for inspiration to strike or simply wishing for a sustained burst of consistent mediocrity to help push you out from dry land into open sea. But, really, it's not true. Starting is relatively easy. I suspect famously fallow writers such as J. D. Salinger have started many, many new books over the years; it's deciding when and where to stop that keeps them silent. In all walks of life, beginnings are usually meticulously planned, brimful of good intentions, and erring on the side of hope and optimism for the journey ahead. Endings, on the other hand, like most goodbyes, are often enforced, clumsy, and just a little unsatisfactory. In fact, it's tempting to imagine that the majority of books aren't definitively finished, and instead are simply abandoned with as much care and consideration as possible: tight deadlines, financial restraints, dwindling inspiration. Each can play their part in rushing a writer to the end long before they have exhausted or articulated every relevant strand of inspiration. At least biographies, of which I've written two, have a natural ending stitched into their DNA. If the subject is alive, you aim to get as close to the present day as possible; if the subject is dead, so much the better: you have your full stop. But with fiction or — in the case of my latest book — musical criticism, there is no such chequered flag telling you when to pull in. Which is one reason why good editors are worth their weight in gold. Writing a book isn't just about reconciling yourself to this nagging sense of incompletion. Getting the final article in your hands can be nerve-wracking, too. I was reminded of all this last week when the finished copies of I Shot a Man in Reno arrived on my doorstep. It should be a moment of sheer elation, but for me and many other writers I know, this event takes the form of a more ambiguous reckoning, usually defined by a gnawing sense of unease deep in the pit of the stomach. Having negotiated the optimistic and energised beginning, the various drafts, the final manuscript, and bound galleys, here is your statement to the world set in stone. Any typos, stray commas, factual errors, or clumsy constructions are there to stay. Likewise, any new and brilliant ideas have missed their departure slot. Little wonder leafing through the finished work for the first time can hardly be described as straightforwardly enjoyable; and little wonder so many writers now love to blog — the internet can be used to construct a supplementary text for your book, a place to explain, elucidate, apologise, or dig deeper. I'm no different: you can usually find me making my excuses here. It's almost exactly four years since I was handed a finished copy of my first book. It happened to be my birthday, which I know, through personal experience, is rarely a good omen. The book looked absolutely wonderful, beautifully bound in hardback with two glossy plate sections. The thrill — and it was a mighty big thrill, let me tell you — lasted around 40 seconds, until, leafing through, I spotted the first typo (one that I had consistently pointed out to my editor and which I'd been promised had been changed. And it had been changed, just not correctly). Immediately, all that elation fizzled into impotent fury. About nine months later, I was sent the paperback copy of the same book, and discovered that the 2,000-word update I had written for the revised edition had been omitted entirely through an act of almost heroic incompetence. Believe me, these are the kinds of things that can spoil forever the anticipation of sending your book out into the world. Happily, I Shot a Man in Reno looks great. Even better, a good six months after finishing the bulk of the work, it remains the closest I've yet come to achieving the goals that were in my head when I first started. That's not to say that there aren't some things I would change (why didn't I discuss Family Snapshot by Peter Gabriel? I mean, really, why?), but in terms of the always imperfect art of writing a book, this time it's something close to a happy
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