Two albums by Cornershop

Cornershop & The Double 'O' Groove Of
Cornershop Urban Turban - The Singhles Club

Cornershop might just be my favourite band of the last twenty years. They are inventive and playful and they have never had the kind of slide into shite of some other false prophets of the period. And they have kept going too. This may be a surprise to many people who perhaps only know them from when they started (a period when they achieved a surprising amount of notice in the music press) and then their relatively brief period of mainstream success, around the time when 'Brimful of Asha' was number one in the single charts (partly thanks to Norman Cook speeding it up and adding a shuffle beat - it was a more innocent age). Since then they have continued to plug away, releasing some great music that has sadly failed to make much connection with Joe Public.

These two records are Cornershop's most recent albums. The Double O Groove Of (from 2011) sees Cornershop joined by a British Indian woman, Ms Bubbley Kaur. She sings all the songs on this record and may also write all or some of the lyrics. They are mostly in Punjabi (or similar) so to me they are largely incomprehensible. This is not a problem for me as I am not much of a lyrics man. As with most Cornershop records, the album features a collision of South Asian and British/American influences, so you might get a track with hip hop inflections on which the main percussion sounds are coming from tablas. Or something else entirely. While Cornershop are always a bit experimental, they have their sound, and Ms Kaur's guest turn on vocals has not seen this record move away the rambley approach to music that I love from them.


Urban Turban might be a compilation of bits and pieces released on Cornershop's own label. Or maybe it is not. On this one we bid farewell to Bubbley Kaur. But it does not see a return to Tjinder Singh doing all the vocals. Although he does some, there are an army of guests doing the singing on tracks here - Izzy, Celeste, Katie, Rajwant, Kay Kwong, Amar, Lorraine, among others. I have no idea who these people are. It would be nice to think that Cornershop did not either, that they were just randomers who showed up in the studio when the album was being recorded (didn't Brian Eno recently do an album on this basis?) though they seem a bit too talented for that to be the case.

In broad terms this record still follows the broad Cornershop template, though that still means the music you get here is as varied as on a compilation album. A couple of tracks stand out. The opener, 'What Did The Hippy Have In His Bag?' sees Singh joined on vocals by a load of primary school children. It does not go all Langley Schools Music Project on us - the little angels seem mainly to just laugh at Singh's funny stories and lend enthusiastic backing vocals on the chorus. 'Who's Gonna Lite It Up?', with lead vocals by Izzy, is a monster of a strung out rock tune, something I could imagine being covered by Oneida, if they did covers. And 'Something Makes You Feel' (with vocals by SoKo) has almost the platonic ideal of the patent Cornershop chug-a-lug stoner groove. And 'Dedicated' (with vocals from Lorraine) is a wonderful disco-influenced electronic confection.

I have said more here about Urban Turban, and I suppose it would be correct that I like it the more of these two records. That is not really to knock The Double O or Bubbley Kaur's contribution, but if there was a competition between these records Urban Turban would shave it. But, hey, there should be room in everyone's life for both. They work very well together.


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"The Raid"

This is a film some heavily armed policemen who go on a raid. Some sinister crime lord lives at the top of an apartment building full of armed badasses and the cops go in to take him out. Initially things seem unproblematic - the crime lord's underlings seem at first to be people who failed the Imperial Stormtrooper entrance exam - but then things go badly wrong and the cops are soon fighting not to capture the crime-lord but to get out of the building alive. As well as blasting away at each other with machine guns, the cops and the criminals are all martial artists and so also spend a lot of the film beating the shite out of each other in a rather intense manner. It is all very relentless and has the high adrenaline feel of an action-oriented computer game, barely slowing down from the moment things start going wrong for the cops. It is probably the best action film I will see this year.

One odd feature of this film is that it is directed by a British (Welsh) director but features all Indonesian actors and is in the Indonesian language (according to the IMDB; I was a bit surprised to learn that there is a single Indonesian language). I gather an English language US remake is on the way, where they will presumably edit out the strength the main cop character gets from his Muslim faith.

Image source (and Guardian review)

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The March of Progress III: Are You A Parasite?

This guy called David Lowery wrote a piece ("Letter to Emily White", on the Wordpress blog Trichordist) about music downloading (by which I mean downloading music and not paying for it) and file sharing and stuff like that. It was a response to a piece on an NPR blog by an intern called Emily White who said that they never bought CDs and never paid for downloads but loved music and listened to it all the time. The piece was then widely read and triggered a lot of discussion about the ethics of downloading and all that. Lowery constructs a strong argument that free downloaders and file-sharers are leeching off the creative efforts of others and are contributing to the impoverishment of artists.

It is a good piece, though like most things it has its flaws. He mentions two artists who topped themselves, blaming financial concerns, but I thought this was an over-egging of the argument. The musicians he mentions had mental health issues and would hardly have been the first musicians to meet untimely ends. And if financial problems really were such a problem for them then even without downloading they were in the wrong career, as niche music has never guaranteed a secure income for its makers. He also seems implicitly to tag the file sharing and downloading as some unique vice of the current generation of young folk. I do not agree with this. People have always liked free stuff, and the current young folk are just lucky in that there is plenty of it available to them. I think my generation would have availed itself of free music if it had been available, and plenty of my age cohort have switched to free music once downloading became an option (where they have retained an interest in music).

But the overall point is clear and it is one with which I am broadly in agreement. People who download and file share may say they like music, but their behaviour is parasitic on those creating what they purport to love. I cannot tell people how to live their lives, but downloaders should examine the moral consequences of their actions.

You can read David Lowery's letter here. And here is the original post by Emily White, with a link off to a piece on the controversy triggered by the article, which mentions that David Lowery was a the songwriter in Camper Van Beethoven. I suppose everyone else knew this already.

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The March of Progress II: "The Word"

A magazine I read occasionally has folded: Mark Ellen edited music periodical The Word. I did not buy it too often, but I had a certain admiration for it. What was particularly impressive about it was its managing to break out of the Reviews and Interviews straitjacket that dominates such publications. As illustrations, consider the great on the squatting scene and its contribution to Britain's musical world in the last issue. Or a previous issue's insightful piece on the world of the session musician (a world that, like most interesting things, is now vanishing as the rise of cheapskate downloaders and their non-payment for music combined with the emergence of dirt-cheap synthesisers means that there is no longer the need nor the money for top-notch session musicians). There was also a bizarre article in an earlier issue on the feud that has split the world of air guitar competitions in two. And another one talked about the rise and possible future fall of merchandise as a money-spinner for musicians who can no longer earn a crust selling records.

I also liked the pieces they did on pop culture counterfactuals, where they imagined how things might have turned out if something had gone the other way, as it easily might have done. One of these was imagining the results of the mechanical shark in Jaws working properly. Because it did not work, Spielberg had to avoid showing the shark and so had to make the film a triumph of tension as people were stalked and killed by a hidden monster. But if the mechanical shark could be shown throughout the film then it would have been. The picture becomes just another run-of-the-mill monster flick and not an epoch-defining blockbuster. Possibly stretching it a bit, they see this as leading to the non-emergence of the summer blockbuster as a genre, with the likes of Star Wars being moderately successful but spawning no sequels. I think this then means that 70s cinema goes on forever, which counts as a result.

Another of their counterfactuals was to imagine the consequences of the record companies failing to agree a CD standard, resulting in the format failing to establish itself. Things then plod along, with the main result being that "Home Taping Is Killing Music" labels continue to appear on records.

There were lots of other good things. So farewell Word, you will be missed. At least by me.

image source

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The March of Progress I: All Tomorrow's Parties

Could we soon be bidding farewell to the All Tomorrow's Parties festival? Late last year we had the unedifying spectacle of the Jeff Mangum curated ATP being postponed at almost the last minute with no explanation being offered. That event went ahead in March (and was greatly enjoyed by me, as previously noted) but was not that packed out. Then there was the sudden moving of next December's ATP (to be curated by The National) from Minehead to the much smaller Pontins in Camber Sands. And then there was the news that the ATP organisation was being wound up for non-payment of tax and stuff but then was rising from the ashes as some new organisation mysteriously controlled by the same people. And an American ATP festival was moved at short notice from New Jersey to New York.

None of this really augurs well and I would not be too surprised if the whole enterprise disappears this year or next. And this would be a shame. I know people like to scoff at All Tomorrow's Parties, but I have had a lot of fun at their festivals. The recent ones have been particularly enjoyable, so it is not like the events themselves were sliding into shite (creatively). So I hope they pull through their current difficulties and continue their heroic efforts.

The Magic of ATP

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Man Takes Off Clothes

The world has been astonished to learn that a man has taken off his clothes. The disrobing occurred in a hotel room, when the man was in the company of some young women. It is understood that at least one of the women also removed her clothes. A game of "strip billiards" may have led to the naturist outbreak.

It is too early to discover what ramifications this shocking incident of private nudity will have for the man's career and position in society.

For more on this important story see any newspaper or online news source.

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"Rockism swept through Munster and south Leinster between 1821 and 1824"

Rockism is generally thought of as a modern phenomenon, particularly beloved of those who decry the shallowness of pop music and feel that real music is on real instruments by musicians who have paid their dues and worked on their chops. But the Irish Times reports that Rockism seems to have originated in 19th century Ireland. Under the leadership of the semi-mythical Captain Rock, the Catholic Rockists of rural Ireland engaged in a campaign of terrifying violence against their richer Protestant fellows, who were accused of liking disco and other inauthentic forms of music. The Rockists also believed that the End Times were about to arrive and with them God would deal out terrifying punishment to the heretical adherents of the Protestant faith.

The authorities were only able to suppress the Rockists by the most violent means - suspending civil liberties and carrying out mass executions. But the cancer of Rockism was never fully eradicated, reappearing in the later 20th century. By then it had lost its millennial Catholic overtones and could appeal to people of all religions who love music made with real craft and hate manufactured pop.

The attached image is a threatening letter sent by Captain Rock in 1842 to the then Chief Surveyor of Ireland.

More on 19th century Rockism in Ireland

More on modern Rockism

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Popical Island All-Dayer

Popical Island is a local record label. Somewhat unusually for Dublin, they specialise in indie-pop music, something there had never really been much demand for here. As well as releasing records and stuff they also do occasional all-day musical events, like this one (which was on in the unappealing upstairs venue in Whelans). And I went to it, with my beloved and visiting Englishman Matt B (his name abbreviated to give the false impression that Matt Berry is our friend), as much because it was free and because we could not think of anything better to do than out of any real enthusiasm. And we actually drifted along quite late in the day too, as we did not know any of the bands playing and so had nothing particularly pressing to bring us along earlier. One annoying result from this was that we just missed Tieranniesaur, Popical's star band and an outfit who have a strong live reputation. They had not been publicised as playing and if I had known they were on the bill I would have raced down to see them.

The first actual band we saw were called Groom. Their main guy is apparently one of the main movers behind the whole Popical business. They turned out to be not unpleasant. They were appealingly melodic and had nice songs that referenced now long forgotten British comics from when I was small, so they are obviously one of the best things ever. They also had a song called 'Don't Listen To The Voices', words of wisdom we should all heed.

Next up was… eh, not sure, actually. I thought I had noted these important details, obviously not. This band were somewhat punky. I quite liked them but my beloved thought they were total rubbish. They did have somewhat poncey haircuts, something increasingly hairless me has increasingly little tolerance for.

And then there was Grand Pocket Orchestra. They may have had something going for them musically, maybe, but their really big problem for me was their lead singer, who liked himself a lot more than I did. Mine might however be a minority view, as there seemed to be quite a few people in the audience, especially young ladies, whose fondness for the singer was only slightly less than his own self-regard. But it was still enough to put me off the band completely. Apparently there is actual footage of them playing at this event. I would like to think that the camera pans through the mostly adoring crowd and then briefly alights on me looking old and unimpressed at the back.

At this point we realised that each band we had seen had been less interesting than the one before it, and that there were still more to come, so we cut our losses and left. I did pick up a copy of the second Popical Island compilation. It is now available for free on the Internet, as are the first and third, so you can download it for yourself if you want (I will not link to it as I want delay for as long as possible the Grand Pocket Orchestra people finding this blog and then getting Popical on my arse, but it should be eas). I think this would be worth doing, if only to hear the wonderful track 'Here Be Monsters' by Tieranniesaur. It is stylistically very different from its peers, having a kind of groove and vague resemblance to tracks like Fleetwood Mac's 'Sisters of the Moon' that puts it on a different level to the other indiepop tunes on the compilation.

The other tracks are not unentertaining, though I must admit that I have not listened to them that closely yet. That said, there is at least another entertaining one - 'Popicalia', by the wonderfully named Retarded Cop. It has a perky beat and lyrics about the singer's ineffectual attempts to cop off with some young lady (sample lyric 'If I'd known you were a vegetarian / I wouldn't have served you pork"). As the song goes on he brings her to a Popical Island event, but unfortunately things still go horribly wrong ("If I'd known you were a fucking lunatic / I mightn't have asked you out"). On a first listen I suspect the Hired Hands track might also repay further listening.

I wonder if it was just coincidence that this all-dayer took place while the Indietracks festival was on in darkest Derbyshire? If I was one of the people who ran Indietracks, I would be looking at the Popical Islands roster for bands to play at next year's event. As with Indietracks, even if the music of the Popical Islanders is largely not for me, I am glad it exists.

Pandical Island

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Man Goes To Restaurant

The BBC news website reports that owners of the Veer Dhara restaurant in St. Albans were astonished when a group of ten people came to the restaurant after phoning ahead to make a reservation. Among the group was a well-known actor, to whom the restaurant had apparently been recommended. It is reported that he wished to enjoy a relaxing evening out with his family. The actor drank sparkling mineral water and ordered spicy food, saying that he particularly wanted to try chicken tikka masala and something with lobster.

More on this important story.

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MARCH OF THE CORGIS

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