Edam Tarquine

What I'm watching - The Chin Review (Two chins with a penchant for cheese and wine)

What I'm listening to - Bright Eyes Christmas album (getting into the festive spirit)

End of year rant

Post-Post-Punk doesn’t have much of a ring to it

We exit the first year of the new decade through a stagnant mist of recession and coalition. Bombarded with questions like “Will the 2.4bn pound behemoth which is the Olympics save us from this great depression?” or “Can Will and Kate’s wedding fix our economical problems?” No is the answer to both of those. But these are elementary matters; the only question on my mind is... who (or what) will save us from our musical decline before we reach total meltdown? I don’t think any of us want the theme of the 2012 apocalypse to be a clone of Joe McElderry singing a re-hash of ‘The Climb’. The end of the world would come as a welcome relief.

Joe McElderry - "My smile hides my lack of personality."

I’d like to start off by saying (in a snide tone of voice) our saviour is not Simon Cowell. From his evil clutches we must strive to reclaim the music industry. The direction has been set with the 2009 “Rage Against the Machine for Xmas No. 1”; a movement which I would’ve counted as a massive step in the right direction if Cowell wasn’t a major stock holder in Sony Music Entertainment (RATM’s record company). Essentially, out of our trying to bring down his Xmas no.1 bid, we gave him the top two spots. Well played sir!

The 60’s had The Beatles, The Stones, Bob Dylan and Hendrix. The 70’s had Led Zep, Bowie and The Clash. The 80’s had The Smiths, The Cure and MJ. The 90s: Nirvana, Radiohead, Oasis. And we close 2010 with the noise of tone deaf, auto-tuned hussies such as Lady Gaga and Cheryl Cole in our ears, feeling we may have to run our housemate through with a bread knife if they don’t cease there incessant playing of Rhianna’s Only Girl (in the World). At any rate this is not what I’m looking for out of the 10’s; a torpid follow-through of the Noughties. As far as my musical thesis goes there needs to be a clear divide. In 40 year’s time we can’t go around referring to these years as the 00s/10s - decades should not be hyphenated or separated by a forward slash.

The ‘ones to watch’ lists are full of bands like The Drums, Delphic and These New Puritans. “What are these bands?” I find myself asking strangers on the street. Are they Post-Kraftwerk electro? The New New-Romantics? Much as I liked Post Punk do we need another revival? Post-Post-Punk doesn’t have such of a ring to it. I’m not against revivals per se; without the Mod revival we wouldn’t have had The Jam, without the Ska revival we wouldn’t have had The Specials, but sometimes a genre just gets wrinkled, frail and ends up selling life insurance.

Like this poor bastard

Like Spice Girls before them, comeback bands have sprouted their wilted heads from their (far too shallow) graves. The best example of this is the money grubbing charlatans Take That who have tricked the nation into buying their records for too long now.

I’ve always wondered how long until music becomes stagnant - until we exhaust every original idea. There are only so many new and creative musical directions you can take before everything becomes contrived and subsequently boring. Every harmony/riff/phrase has been sung/played/written before. There is nothing original left to play. So, in the age of the recyclable - the only conclusion is to recycle our music. I suggest that every ten years a board of musical experts will draw together information about the past fifty years of music and come back with the next direction of music. Including their best half-assed genre hybrids (skiffle-hop and electro-folk would be the obvious next step). Anything to get back to some sort of authenticity we had in the 60s and 70s that touched heart and soul. Something that could combat the cliche’d pretence at expression such as Miss Cole and Lady GaGa, which rely on props and polish. This recycling will happen on repeat until we find another way of titillating our brains through our eardrums – with an electric drill for instance.

So next? We seemed to have recycled the whole of the 80’s over the last five years. Maybe we will just carry on going through decades until we have played through two world wars enough times to eradicate human life and the need for music. I assume the next to be replayed will be the 70’s - if we follow the pattern the 90’s were a paradoxical recycling of themselves and otherwise too shit to revive. This would leave the only step backwards. In five years time we will all be growing our skinheads out to re-live a yet to happen (second) summer of love.

Hooray for LSD

Dr. Congo and the Pool Party

This is my housemate Barney's Uni band.

I drew them (in Biro) because Barney asked me to, and I'm kind. Now I am promoting them because I am also selfless (with a hint of smugness).

http://www.myspace.com/drcongoband