k-punk comments box
Comments: OK I'LL BITE
October 8th 2003.
Marcello Carlin: Actually British Sea Power are OK
(and that new single of theirs would have fitted very nicely on "Lamb
Lies Down..." or
either of the first two Edgar Broughton Band albums). Actually much of the "regressive
rock" of C86
vintage was OK as well. But I do feel that us bloggers need to engage in
a lot more "nowness" because otherwise if we're just going to sit
around and talk about 30-year-old prog rock records/artists, then what's
the qualitative
difference between the blogosphere and, say, Mojo or Hornby - or for that
matter Jazz Journal, still thinking it's 1945 and Peanuts Hucko is where
it's at?
I don't mean to be mean...it's just that, as a punter/reader, the blogosphere
these days is bearing an increasing resemblance to the Bob Harris Message Board.
CoM was teetering on the brink of becoming that as well, which was one of the
subsidiary reasons why I decided to stop doing it.
It's just that, if someone googled any of these blogs right now, they'd find
animated discussions about Genesis and the Groundhogs. And whatever residue
of '76 is left in me feels that this was somehow not the point (or, worse,
you'd
get our friend Anon banging on boringly about "boring old hippie hackssszzzzz"....).
Although one could argue that Trevor Horn's work on the astonishing new Belle & Sebastian
album (or should that "astonishing" apply to Trevor Horn?) has,
in some senses, united all of these musical/aesthetic strands together, and
more
subtly than you'd initially imagine.
Still, I see that Meme has labelled CoM (reluctantly) as the Nick Drake of
prog blogs, which I suppose is historically and aesthetically correct. I
would sneakily
kind of prefer Roy Harper, but not to the point, you understand, where I'd
have to go out and kiss a sheep and contact hepatitis...
Posted by Marcello Carlin at October 9, 2003 09:12 AM
Me: Not gonna rake over the past-vs-present thing. Can't
for the life of me understand why the two considered mutually exclusive.
As for this harking after 1976, well the only meaningful watershed of that
era from the perspective of today is PIL, not The Sex Pistols.
And what was Johnny Rotten listening to? Hammill, Coyne, Can, Captain Beefheart,
Dr.Alimantado.
Also getting a wee bit bored of this all this criticism of the blogs. Marcello
in danger of becoming our Margaret Thatcher; "Mr Major, Mr Hague, Mr Duncan-Smith,
it was all so much more invigorating in my day."
And this to other naysayers: If you(s) don't like em don't read em, and if
you(s) think you can do better have a crack. Do something creative! It's a
level playing
field.
The wars which rage in Mark's comments box!
Posted by Matthew at October 9, 2003 11:52 AM
Matthew, perhaps if you could stop talking like a Dalek or a 1986 NME letters
page editor for a while, then we might get somewhere. In any case, the Sex
Pistols existed in 1976 and PiL did not. So that meaningful perspective is
actually,
when you look at it, meaningless. I didn't say I was harking after 1976 nor
that past and present could not mutually coexist. Read my comments again and
pay particular
attention to the fourth paragraph.
And another thing, Matthew; cool it with the arrogance trip. Your blog is an
entertaining blog and you are a decent enough writer but there are many other
writers and bloggers on the internet who are equal to and better than you.
You're not as great as you evidently consider yourself to be.
Personally I'm rather bored with the kneejerk if-you-don't-like-it-read-it-or-do-better-yourself
reaction. And I think, Matthew, that you're capable of better than this.
Posted by Marcello Carlin at October 9, 2003 12:07 PM
I'm no writer, and I don't think my sentiments are arrogant either.
I don't see why you're so keen to slag off what people are doing. My comment
the other day about the phenomenon entering the seventies was A JOKE.
"
Dalek", seeing as this is the k-punk comments box i'll take that as a
compliment.
Posted by Matthew at October 9, 2003 01:56 PM
No disrespect to Marcello intended. I've said the same
thing before: "When
I get my coat I won't be slagging the whole thing off." http://www.hollowearth.org/blog_0203.html
I'll admit to being doubly puzzled as I can think of no-one who has turned
this form into such a triumphant success. Why pack up like this? The same thing
applied
to "It's all in my mind", who finished(?) by writing off everyone's
efforts.
Posted by Matthew. at October 9, 2003 03:06 PM
Mark Fisher: I'm not sure I get where you are coming from, Marcello. It's not
as if the whole blogmos has devoted itself forever, and in its entirety,
to
talking
about
prog
or indeed the past. Prog has only come up as a topic of discussion in the last
few days, and, correct if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the
discussion has been undertaken in a humorous spirit. I don't know whose blog
is entirely or even predominantly past-focused. None that are on the k-punk
links bar. And that, naturally, includes CoM: the idea that it was in any way
in danger
of becoming the 'Bob Harris message board' is inaccurate to the point of perversity.
Quite the opposite: in common with many of the blogs, its strength, in fact,
was the way it provided a new context for old records, (and vice versa). Those
blogs which don't do that, incidentally, are the ones - like Heronbone and
Tufluv - which are entirely now-focused.
Where else, apart from in places like Deuce, is there a sustained discussion
of Grime? (The Guardian blog piece was surely right about DR's hike in critical
status being due in no small part to the blogs). And what of another blog cause
celebre, the Junior Boys, who are absolutely pop, absolutely now, and who have
been discussed hereabouts for months now --- and their debut record has only
just been released this week.
In any case, there's nothing wrong with talking about the past. Pretending
that the present is new just because it is now; that's the danger. No-one in
our tiny
corner of the blogmos is making that mistake. After all, Mojo and Hornby aren't
the problem, really. NME is. It's NME, not the blogs, that is like a trad jazz
journal. I'm stunned whenever I look at the cover, amazed at how it manages
to repermutate the same few retro rockists apparently infinitely. At a certain
point
- and C86 remains the Fall from Grace as far as I am concerned - the modernist
impulse in white rock slackened into a tolerance for retroism. At least prog
was modernist, which makes me prefer it to regressive rock which, as far as
I am concerned, and of course I speak only for myself and not from the assumed
objectivity of some olympian heights, was 'actually' not 'OK', but one of the
most depressing, empty and draining Pop trends ever. Ditto British Sea Power,
whose only saving grace is a vocalist silly enough to give their inept, arythmic
guitar plod a tinge of absurdity.
Is it worse to talk about The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, or to make, in 2003,
a single that would happily fit onto it? I know what I think.
Posted by mark k-punk at October 9, 2003 03:31 PM
Matthew you know full well why CoM stopped; you've
been told enough times, on-site and off. And nobody is writing off anybody's
efforts, but why should
anyone's
writing in a public forum be immunised or protected against criticism? We can
all become better writers (even if you claim not to be a "writer," that
is how you are perceived by the blog community, if there is such a thing. Communities,
as Tom says, are defined by whom they let in as much as those who aim to be
let in). And it's a truism - and not said maliciously, bear in mind - that
those
who can't take criticism shouldn't be writing in public. You are going to get
it wherever you write, Matthew, I'm afraid, whether it's in TWANBOC or the
Wire or the Guardian. It comes with the territory. If some bloggers cease to
find
other blogs interesting - or, of course, if they don't like them to begin with
- then they will generally say so.
My suggestion - as a reader - is perhaps talk about other things. Talk about
how Trevor Horn has magically squared the circle between C86 and the Art of
Noise on the new Belle & Sebastian album. Or talk about why the Pitman
album is 200 times sharper and better than the Dizzee Rascal album, even though
there's
not a note on it which couldn't have been recorded in 1987. I've retired now;
I don't see why it should always be my responsibility to write something interesting
about a subject in order to read something interesting about a subject.
Or perhaps think about why Spizzazzz and War Against Silence are on CoM's lists
of links and you are not...what are they doing, where are they reaching, that
TWANBOC isn't?
Posted by Marcello Carlin at October 9, 2003 03:38 PM
Or, Mark, perhaps talk about why, if "regressive rock" was so "depressing,
empty and draining" a "Pop trend," how come it helped begat
Nirvana?
Posted by Marcello Carlin at October 9, 2003 03:48 PM
With the greatest of respect Marcello I aint about to
(take) tips on who or what I talk about from anyone. I may write like a donkey
but I sure as hell don't
need fashion
tips.
It's not criticism of me I object to. I'm no untouchable 'oly cow. I get
pilloried ALL THE TIME. It's the kneejerk slagging off of "the community" that
irks me.
Posted by Matthew at October 9, 2003 04:28 PM
Or, Mark, perhaps talk about why, if "regressive rock" was so "depressing,
empty and draining" a "Pop trend," how come it helped begat
Nirvana?
This is a rhetorical question, right?
What are you suggesting: that depression, emptiness and the feeling of being
drained are wholly foreign to Nirvana? What separates out Nirvana from their
alleged reg rock forebears is their rage about their predicament; where reg
rock was ahistorical, for Nirvana, history was an affliction, a terrible weight
that
they knew they could neither carry nor shift, still less ignore. Where reg
rock simply was depressing, Nirvana, in thematizing their depression, in auto-immolating
the barely-animate zombie remains of rock, made of their discontent something
exhilerating, something dramatic. They tried, and failed, to live with the
awareness
that rock was over, that they were living in its No-Future afterburn - I must
go on, I can't go on, I'll shoot myself in the head.
But I wrote about this eight years ago.
Posted by {mark k-punk} at October 9, 2003 04:58 PM
Or perhaps think about why Spizzazzz and War Against Silence are on CoM's lists
of links and you are not...what are they doing, where are they reaching, that
TWANBOC isn't?
Bad vibes!
Posted by Matthew at October 9, 2003 05:15 PM
It's all in my mind Comments Box:
Thursday, September 25, 2003
Brendan:
The Blog
Is Dead
Because it started out as a bright hope for a cleaner, healthier future.
Because it was to be democratic, personal, political. (and when you're
tied to your
mother's apron, no-one talks about castra-a-ation)
See. I'm competing with Philip to drop in as many references to the Smiths
and Morrissey as possible.
Has it really come to this??
Blogs talking about other blogs talking about themselves.
And we don't even write anymore, because we all have jobs that keep us from
staying up all night.
I say: kill the blog. Spill its blood. And do it now, before it's too late.
Well I've come to the same conclusion - there is nothing more I can add to
the Church of Me; its story has ended happily. Have to write differently now
because I'm living in a different world. Embrace life, not blog...
Submitted by: Marcello Carlin [email] [web]
2003-09-26 05:14:35
Marcello Carlin From a group email announcing the end of COM.
Sunday October 5th, 2003.
As most of you will have gathered by now, CoM has come to a natural end.
I
don't have anything else to add to it - its story has been told - and
feel
that the time is right to pull out as it teeters on the verge of diving
into
an abyss of self-parody. Certainly agree with Matthew that the blogosphere
seems to be entering its prog rock phase, and whatever the virtues of
blogs,
there doesn't seem to be much in the way of fun or mischief - or, Lord
help
us, sex - to enjoy in them, especially mine, whatever their other virtues.
The McLaren/Lydon of bloggers is awaited.
etc.