The Filter^

The Best Orchestra in the World?

Perhaps not, but definetly the most exhilarating: a few minutes of the Simon Bolivar National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, playing Bernstein with their Principal Conductor, Gustavo Dudamel. Enjoy!

From BBC Proms 2007 - click here

Polyphony in a Cathedral

Polyphony in a Cathedral

Music curls
In the stone shells
Of the arches, and rings
Their stone bells.

Music lips
Each cold groove
Of parabolas’ laced
Warp and woof,
And lingers round nodes
Of the ribbed roof.

Chords open
Their flowers among
The stone flowers; blossom;
Stalkless hang.

Another chanced-upon scrap of biography:

The local Organists and Choirmasters’ Association, whose president is Mr Lloyd Moore, announces a series of lectures by Mr. H. W. Griffiths (‘The Gramaphone’), Mr. G. A. Tessimond (‘The influence of poetry on the development of modern music’), Mr. Walter Bridson (‘Liszt’), and Mr. W. A. Roberts (‘Modern French Organ Music’).

                   The Musical Times, October 1st 1921

This mention of the poet’s father in a round-up of musical events from Liverpool offers an intriguing insight into the poet’s background. George Tessimond worked as honorary treasurer for the Liverpool Church Choir Association until its close in April 1930. Founded in 1900 by Ralph H. Baker, the Association held a series of fifteen festivals of Church music in the city’s St. George’s Hall and by 1924, once building work had progressed enough, continued them within the unfinished Liverpool Cathedral. The role that this organisation must have played within the city’s musical life at this time cannot be underestimated; it provided the choir when Edward VII laid the foundation stone for the new Cathedral in 1904, and again when George V opened the Gladstone Dock in 1913. The Association ceased work between 1914 and 1921 due to the war and its aftermath, but its highpoint seems to have been the transition of the festivals between the secular St. George’s Hall and the Cathedral:

The experiences of the first Choral Festival in the new Cathedral should hold an incentive to improve on the next occasion. The organ accompaniments, played by Mr. H. Goss Custard, were models of restraint. Of course he was not able to use the Great organ diapasons, which are not yet sounding; but at the next Festival we shall no doubt hear them, as well as the heavy-pressure tubas which are to excel in tone anything previously associated with the master-hand of Willis. To the conductor, Mr. Branscombe, and to the choirmasters concerned, due acknowledgement should be rendered, as also to the Cathedral authorities for the arrangements made for the carrying out of the most imposing and notable choral service yet held at Liverpool.

                   The Musical Times, November 1st 1924

It must have seemed an exciting time for the Association. Within the city grew a huge building which was to be their home, with an impressive organ at their disposal. As it turned out, Harry Goss Custard was to play at only three more such festivals. It seems somewhat sad that as the Cathedral grew, interest in the Church Choir Association seems to have waned. The 1928 festival was to be their last; cancelled at a late stage after the music books had been printed and learned by the choirs involved. It appears that the Association never really recovered from the toll that the war had taken on it, and the increased burden involved in building the new cathedral meant that the Church could not offer them as much financial support.

That Tessimond's father was actively involved in this world is an interesting fact. That his lecture in 1921 should be titled: ‘The influence of poetry on the development of modern music’, is even more so.

We can see that Tessimond’s poetry is influenced by music in the titles alone: ‘Polyphony in a Cathedral’, ‘Music’, ‘Quickstep’, ‘Song in a Saloon Bar’, ‘Dance Band’, ‘Black Monday Lovesong’, ‘Invitation to the Dance’, ‘Skaters Waltz’, ‘Two Men in a Dance Hall’, ‘Symphony in Red’, ‘The Conductor (Concert Study)’, and so on. The range of this influence is vast, stretching from the popular (poems about the Charleston and Edith Piaf), to sacred and classical works. He is said to have introduced the painter Ceri Richards to Debussy, Ravel and other modern French composers*; and music appears to have been as much a part of the son’s life as it was for his father:

On listening to a piece of music by Purcell

I cast no slur upon the worth
Of modern men and modern ways,
And our no whit declining days –
On modern heaven and modern earth;
Yet in your muse I seem to find
Something our later muse has lost –
A note more sure, less trouble-tossed,
A carelessness and ease of mind –

Relic of times when History’s ink
Had scrawled less wantonly the page,
When man had had less time to think,
Less circumspectly flowed his blood:
Trace of a prelapsarian age,
Echo of days before the flood.

‘Less circumspectly flowed his blood’ is a great line; it echoes what seems to be Tessimond’s belief that once there was a time when life was easier for Mankind, but here temporary hope is offered through music’s ability to transport the listener back to that point. In his poetry, music is something that transcends time and that it brings about dance – ‘rituals as old as springtime’ (from the poem ‘Dancing’) – is proof of this. As we will see more closely tomorrow, it is perhaps language that prevents human communication, but music ‘This shape without space, / This pattern without stuff,’ (‘Music’) allows it to happen.

*Ceri Richards Exhibition Catalogue, (London, Tate: 1981) p.23

The Filter Baroquefest

The Filter Review is about to explode with a veritable feast of baroque music. We have gained access to London's upcoming Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music - one of the most intriguing of the city's many music festivals, and one which consistently lures fascinating performers to the capital (and also uses local talent) for performances at St John's Smith Square and Westminster Abbey. This year's festival, the last programmed by outgoing Artistic Director Kate Bolton, focuses on music from baroque Spain - a rich and exquisite musical co-ordinate which has been touched on on The Filter before. We'll be at three concerts in the festival which starts on 5 May, so stand by for reviews. My grateful thanks are due to the Festival for accommodating The Filter Review; you can find more details on the festival and its progamme from the website here.

If you can't wait that long then the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra were in town last week performing Handel's Giulio Cesare and there's a review just posted which can be accessed here. 

A Cultural Tradition Finnished

Tom Service was talking to a pre-pubescent male pupil at a Finnish comprehensive school on this week's Music Matters, with the boy touching on why he prefers Rautavaara to Sibelius and musing on his playing the drums in a band, singing in a choir and and playing the violin in an orchestra; quite extraordinary. It's 50 years since the death of Sibelius and the Radio 3 show marked the anniversary this weekend with an episode from Finland (their broadast from Bergen in Norway in November was so engaging that two weeks later I was there).

It's all too easy when writing about Finnish music to rely on the 'old chestnuts': eveyone in Finland is inherently musical; Sibelius wrote music that so readily captures the essence of the country; Finns enjoy the likes of Sibelius and Lordi concurrently as they could in no other contemporary culture; and new 'classical' music in the country thrives. But Service's Voxae Populii (is that the plural?) on the streets of Helsinki seemed to suggest that this isn't so much the Romantic notion of Sibelius-loving Brits, but rather, quite true. The music curriculum and educational infrastructure is extraordinarily comprehensive and democratic (though, as touched upon, it still needs to be fought for).

I don't suppose you can compare Great Britain with Finland. We have an economy which relies on immigration and a culture that has benefitted from it. As we desperately scramble to retrieve the flotsam and jetsam of 'Britishness', we need to recognise that for us, times have changed: there's no one set of cultural ideals that calls the tunes (not even that catch-all 'multi-culturalism' thing), and when looking at our behaviour as a nation in the past, that's no bad thing. But the notion of stopping Finns on the street of their capital and finding that they're mostly familiar with the works of Sibelius, that one in three takes part in musical performance of some sort and that music is so important a part of the political agenda, is nonetheless an enchanting one. If we're 'the land without music', then the Finnish are our antithesis (though most of their major instrumental and conducting talents can thankfully be heard in UK concerts). I for one hope that on a cultural and therefore sociological level, music continues to play such an important role in Finnish life, because it can enrich all of us as Europeans (and indeed as humans) if we choose to allow it to. As Tom Service discovered though, there are some who are worried it won't. As for Music Matters, the show, it's consistently brilliant these days, and you can listen again online for up to a week afterwards.

Schumann, Shostakovich...and Child

The 'big three' composer anniversaries this year - those of Mozart (born 1756), Schumann (died 1856) and Shostakovich (born 1906) - have proved the perfect opportunity to understand and appreciate these composers more through a year-long association; a concert or disc here, a feature or review there, and thus a relationship nurtured.

But allow me to introduce another compositional birthday boy - William Child. Born either in 1606 or 1607 in Bristol, Child sung at the city's cathedral before moving to Windsor to work at St George's Chapel where he famously feuded with the Organist Matthew Green. Not many details of Child's life are known, but a 1668 shouting match between Child and Green in the Windsor organ loft creeps into most biographical summaries; indeed, the specter of personal dispute seems to have haunted Child throughout his career. From Windsor Child went on to work at the Chapel Royal, meeting Henry Purcell and John Blow.

Child's output consists mainly of sacred music, catches, and music for winds (he was for some years Master of the King's Wind Music - nice work if you can get it). Some of the music is very good, of that there's no doubt. It's harmonically rich and inventive, and came during a period of cross-fertilisation of European styles (particularly at the Chapel Royal - were composers were funded jointly by the Court and the Secret Service to travel overseas to other chapels royal for 'study') which proved the midwife for a freer style in vocal church music which paved the way for the baroque.

In late 2008 you'll be able to hear some Child on disc, when chamber choir LSC (Liverpool Schola Cantorum) releases a disc of Chapel Royal music featuring three works from Child's pen, including his Magnificat in E Minor, Nunc Dimittis in E Minor, and anthem O Lord Grant the King a Long Life (other featured composers include Humfrey, Morley and Purcell).

But before that, LSC will perform a concert in Bristol - A Child of Bristol - provisionally scheduled for Saturday 24 February 2007 at the Lord Mayor's Chapel in the shadow of Bristol Cathedral where the composer began his career. Further details will soon be posted on LSC's website: www.lsc-online.org. In the meantime, let us delight in the fact that William Child is being considered, thought about, and performed four hundred years after his birth. I doubt he'd have expected it, but am pretty sure he'd be delighted if he knew.

Sting does Dowland

Yep - I was hanging out with Sting and his friend Russell Crowe last week (apparently that guy's a film star but he sang something too) at a rehearsal for Sting's record-related performance of music by the Tudor composer John Dowland. This is an interesting project - click on the Review (left hand column) for one take on it.

Steve Reich at the Proms

Steve Reich is 70, and was recognised by the BBC Proms last night - click here for more on The Filter REVIEW. 

The Muffins

"We discovered The Muffins, and our lives were changed forever."

I'm still meaning to write on The Muffins at some point Thomas, I've not forgotton. You actually prompted me to put on their latest album ‘Bandwidth’ with your last post which I had previously dismissed (it was in fact put away beneath the coal scuttle in the cupboard) and whilst it is by no means as exciting as the seminal 'Manna/Mirage' or as playful as 'Chronometers' or even '<185>' which I still feel is a little patchy... it is by no means *bad*.

The ninth track on it, ‘Out of the Boat’ opens with much of the spirit of 'Chronometers'; that hammy B movie tone, with synth guitars, hellish moans. It’s camp, trashy, but intelligently so. So much is demanded of you when you listen to them, absurd contrarhythms compete for your attention, sounds not immediately identifiable as instruments (and sometimes not so) come at different directions from the speakers, as if this were a band messing about with stereo because it was fun.

You see, Thomas, writing about this kind of experimentation is somewhat difficult. I’m never really sure what’s going on with them. I couldn’t begin to say why the track ‘Monkey with the Golden Eyes’ holds me quite in the way it does. Why a tune largely composed of different instruments picking up the same phrase Rat-a-tat-tat should be in anyway magical. But it is.

And yet for all this difficulty there is something very immediate about these tracks, something fun, a bit silly. Though they are structured with such terse plotting, they are at their heart utterly frothy in their concerns. The album ‘Chronometers’ has repeated refrains from The Wizard of Oz or rather members of the band giving poor screeching impressions from the film. It’s the juxtaposition of the high-minded rhythms against the light-heartedness of a band pretending to be the Wicked Witch of the West. It reminds me of The Abominable Dr. Phibes, cheap gaudy horror paired with Hebrew scripture. It’s daft, but it’s not stupid, and that’s what makes it so cheering to listen to. In some ways it owes something to the music of Hermeto Pascoal, and his use of radio recordings in his music is perhaps hinted at in the ‘Chronometers’ track ‘Three days that won’t soon fade’, which takes the narrative of a radio spy drama above a rhythmic snare, the voices of the characters seemingly played out with muted trumpets and other unintelligible sounds; again it is the paring of the apparently ephemeral (the penny-dreadful radio drama) with the most spectacular rhythms beneath it that makes it work.

And listening to it now Thomas, I can actually see that ‘Bandwidth’ the latest album is doing much the same thing. They’ve been away a long time, their reference points have slightly altered, but track 10 ‘East of Diamond’, sounds immediately like the sax backing track to a mid nineties soft porn film. It’s schmaltzy, it’s not what you expect of The Muffins, and then about three minutes in the building raptures of the sax get too much, it fails, there is the sound of scraping metal, machinery perhaps. The sound of a distant Hammond organ. It’s all still there, and you can’t tell after a while whether this is indeed scraping metal or a clarinet being taken beyond the edge of despair. After a minute and a half of this, almost as if nothing happened, the saxaphone and piano resumes. It’s rather brilliant.

So, yes. I will write about The Muffins for you Thomas. I’m just not entirely sure how to.

The Social Music Revolution?

Or just another over-hyped search engine? From last week's Guardian Guide:

Last.fm is an interesting way to discover new tunes. Load up their software and it'll start building a profile of your music taste depending on what you play. You can then listen to a radio station based on similar artists or tune into music people with a similar taste to you are listening to.

Basically, you either chose a series of 'tags' (genre descriptions added by other users), or type in a list of bands or artists and let it 'scrobble' for you. It will then stream a series of tunes by these and related artists for your listening pleasure, complete with a bit of blurb and biography about each artist. It's not the first such site though, the Pandora site does a similar thing, though only for US citizens last time I visited it. Last.fm seems to be attempting to bring this technology to a much bigger market, and so far so good. I'll give you an example of what Last.fm might throw up for you.

First I typed in 'Mogwai' and the search engine brought up, among others: Sigur Ros, A Silver Mount Zion, Explosions in the Sky, Sonic Youth, Do Make Say Think, Tortoise.

I then tried 'Coldplay' and I got: Radiohead, The Killers, Muse, Keane, The Beatles, U2, Pink Floyd, David Gray, plus some others.

Now, I'm no fan of Coldplay, but I do like Mogwai, and the related bands were all similarly interesting. Many of their tracks already graced the dustless shelves of my iTunes library. A problem: isn't this all a bit boring? Do I really want to listen to music by very similar bands playing music that sounds rather alike all day without interuptions from something different? Is it perhaps, maybe, more than a little narcisistic? 'My music', 'me' x 1000, all day, with no surprises. I'm reminded of the character from Nathan Barley who plays his own horrid techno 24/7 under a glaring blown-up image of his own face. This might sound overly critical, but hang on, the site is claiming to be a 'revolution' - what exactly is revolutionary about the similar? (Sorry for all the rhetorical questions, and the brackets)?

When I first moved to Liverpool I discovered the wonderful Probe Records (above); a small independent rock and pop specialist with rather eclectic stock. James (Bainbridge - fellow filterer) and I would frequent the shop and buy a CD by someone we'd never heard of as often as possible - using the staff's own small written descriptions as guides. We discovered The Muffins (below), and our lives were changed forever. I discovered records by Red Stars Theory, Autechre, Godspeed! You Black Emporer and Owls. Of course, all of these artists are available through last.fm, but you'd already have to be aquainted with them, or very similar groups, to find them. You would be unlikely to stumble on something by accident.

I also used to enjoy listening to John Peel's Radio 1 show, for the simple reason that it was always surprising. I'll never forget a piece of electronic music that sounded like tiny fireworks bursting over the sound of a hoover. Then there'd be an old music hall song or a scratchy blues record, not what you'd be expecting. Of course, you could have this combination with last.fm, but only if you'd decided to have it beforehand.

Interesetingly, in the same issue of The Guide quoted above, was an extended piece about London's Resonance FM (above); a small pioneering station that broadcasts a wide range of music, noise and chatter:

Its oldest presenter is a 73-year-old ex-bank robber, its youngest a 15-year-old school boy. Its programmes span the outer reaches of music, sound art, polemic and comedy...Recently I tuned in, and was greeted by a sound that was really just noise...Obviously preferable to James Blunt.

So, out of a station that plays music just like that in your record collection and that you're therefore destined to like, or a station that broadcasts music and noise the likes of which you've probably never come across; which would you describe as a 'revolution'? Last.fm might be an interesting use of new technology, but as for interesting music I know which one I'd choose.

Possibly the best thing ever...

Uniqlo once had a branch on Speke Retail Park, but I don't think it exists anymore. Shame. When I lived in Japan there were Uniqlos everywhere, and they had really great things for very few yen. I didn't buy much though. Shame.

Anyway, now Uniqlo have had the best idea ever! They seem to have teamed up with German Jazz label ECM (who have the most beautiful range of CD covers) for a line of printed T-shirts - the perfect antidote for those who are getting tired of their HAVIN' ITs and ROONEYs. They are also a pinch, at £9.99, or £14.99 for 2. I'm literally excited by this.

(cover image from Keith Jarrat's 'The Melody at Night, With You')

The only problem is that they don't have any stores outside of London, and you can't buy them online (yet). Shame. I'm considering a trip to the capital just to get one though.

www.uniqlo.co.uk

"the melodies and the rhythms of the gulag"

An article in The Moscow Times  introduces a new album called "Gulag Tunes":

Taking traditional songs tinged with rebellion and prison experiences -- the genre known in Russian as blatniye pesni -- Antipov gives them the surf treatment, adding energetic guitars, percussion and keyboards to create music reminiscent of a Quentin Tarantino soundtrack.

The Problem with Richard Strauss

The Big Brother re-run lost out to Richard Strauss' Metamorophosen this morning in the pre-work entertainment stakes. A no-brainer? Sadly not in an age when even the most respected intelects are considered frumpy if they don't admit to snatching a slice of cultural tripe in between their Ezra Pound and their Tennessee Williams (those Sezer comments on your Oxenholme piece weren't lost on me James).

So what's the problem with Richard Strauss? Well, there isn't one really, but The Problem with Richard Strauss is a better title than just Richard Strauss isn't it? Some people do say there's a problem with him, and accuse him of being a Nazi collaborator. In truth, Strauss just got on with his life under the Nazis, and as that life progressed, felt horrified and deeply sadenned that he had done just that. Many others did it too - emotionally tortured by their lack of defiance and seeming ignorance. I began to wonder what I would have done in 1940s Germany - but at that point the toast popped up so thankfully I didn't have to pursue that one.

There was one staggeringly effective moment of defiance from Strauss. Metamorphosen - A Study for Strings was the composer's elegy for the country he once loved and that he saw being torn apart by Nazism. Nice of him isn't it? 'Never mind what you're doing to all those jews, but for God's sake don't shut the opera house'. Well, that's the shortsighted view. In reality, if you really want to know how tragic Strauss viewed the progression of Nazism, you only have to listen to Metamorphosen. It's a work that shows the deepest pain and the deepest sense of humanity. It's a gesture of compact humility from perhaps the greatest large-scale orchestrator who has ever lived. It's a monumental struggle - which life itself is. Especially when you realise you've run out of milk and will have to wait until you get to work for that cup of tea.

LSC in Greenwich

Choral group LSC - which the Filter^ kindly supported last summer during its tour to Latvia - is making its first appearance in London this weekend. LSC was founded in Liverpool in 2001 by me and some other musicians who were hanging around in the city at the time - since then we've picked up some more musicians from various parts of the UK and I'd like to think we're on the way to being recognised as a decent group which has done a thing or two provoke thought about the way art music is performed and presented, and therefore concieved. Our performance on Saturday celebrates the output of one of Britain's greatest artistic talents, Thomas Tallis (1505-1585).

LSC presents Thomas Tallis: A Retrospective

Saturday 29 April 7.30pm | St Alfege Church, Greenwich | Admission £4 on the door

Music by Thomas Tallis, Orlando Gibbons, Thomas Morley, Adrian Batten and Gregorio Allegri, performed in the church where Tallis was buried in 1585. Liverpool Schola Cantorum is conducted by Andrew Mellor with Anne Kan, soprano. 'A veritable lesson in the art of singing...quite staggering' Evening Herald.

Visit LSC's website here.

Alonso Lobo and Will Self

I'm not sure if Will Self has ever heard of Alonso Lobo. But, the two greats joined me on holiday last week in paperback and CD form respectively. Alonso Lobo (1555-1617) is a very exciting discovery. I first came accross him via the Virgin Megastore in Toulouse and a disc by the Monteverdi Choir (Santiago a Capella) which includes a ravishing recording of his Lamentations, discovered some twenty years ago in manuscript form in Seville. Lobo's music is indulgent, expressive and direct; it's the real deal - for once making Tallis seem the over-polite English genius that he probably was but which his own Lamentations and Spem in Alium attempted to betray. If you're interested, have a listen to the Monteverdi Choir disc mentioned above and also this disc by David Trendell and his KCL choir (if you can bear the hideous cover design) which includes the Lamentations and a couple of really special mass settings.

Will Self's world, in the words of Martin Amis, is all his own. Like Lobo, I wonder why Self hasn't collected more accolades and isn't regarded more highly. Maybe his stature is higher than my bleary-eyed and naive admiration is affording him. The handful of novels I've read by him are all very pleasing, but last week it was his fictional debut The Quantity Theory of Insanity that, like a deranged mental patient impotently brandishing the horn of an NHS fire extinguisher, formed the verbal accompaniment to Lobo's genuis. Now I'm no Martin Amis, but I'm convinced that this collection of stories is a work of supreme talent and a must-read for those Filter^ contributors and readers who are slipping so enviably into the world of academia. Like an obsessive leitmotif, Self's character Zack Busner, who's central to the novel Great Apes, appears delightfully throughout the delicately related stories in this set. By the end you're almost tempted to enter him into the 'phonebook' on your mobile. Self's work may bear no relation whatsoever to that by Lobo, but both men are astute and uplifting craftsmen - why shouldn't their worlds collide?

The Pet Shop Boys, bubbling under the radar

Following Thomas' theme of LUKEWARM, I'd like to make one quick point about the Pet Shop Boys: they are master innovators.

Back in 1993 the release of Very demonstrated an important realisation that the music industry was changing. The advent of digital music has redefined the architecture of a typical album, and bands are forced to look at innovative ways to replace the old formula. Very tampered with the hardware - the CD case itself is plastic, bright orange, and textures - whilst the 2003 album PopArt took on the software. Although billed as a "Best Of" it rearranges many tracks from the previous "best of" (the classic Discography) into a new arrangment split between traditional "pop" and experimental "art", added to with brand new songs. This appetite for  re-issuing old songs in new compilations isn't a crass moneyspinner, but a creative project that contextualises their history.

Nowadays we all deal with individual songs and upload them into our own playlists. The Pet Shop Boys ensure longevity and artistic validity by pre-empting this earthquake in music publishing.

They actively take part in the reappraisal of their own output, offering interesting playlists of their vast discography. Albums are must-have not only for their innovative designs and aesthetic beauty (the artwork for Release was breathtaking), but the attention given to ordering and context. In short, they offer a service that cannot be replicated by digital downloading.

Indeed they often pioneer technology and methods to disseminate content. Last night Channel 4 premiered the video for new single "I'm With Stupid", and it's now available to download: realvideo.mp3, windows media.mp3. It stars David Williams and Matt Lucas, and is typically self-referentially brilliant.

The Pet Shop Boys are true entrepreneurs, engaging in multiple and diverse projects such as Closer to Heaven (a West End musical now playing in Brisbane, click here.pdf for an interview) and Battlestar Potemkin  (a soundtrack for the classic film, perfomed in Trafalgar Square September 2004).

The Pet Shop Boys are political but in a non-pretentious way. I'm With Stupid (like I Get Along before it) is about Tony Blair, but the undercurrent of relevent commentary sits nicely within a humerous delivery. I'll be buying (rather than downloading) Fundamental on May 22nd because in so many ways The Pet Shop Boys are one of the most productive, imaginative, and accomplished creative acts in Britain today.

Norway's 'Cultural Prodigy'

Ketil Bjornstad played Manchester's RNCM last week. But should he have?

http://thefilter.blogs.com/the_filter_review/

In Bloom

From the Guardian's Culture Vulture blog:

British summertime is coming and so, in theory at least, is spring. Accordingly, next week's playlist will be songs about plant life: trees, shrubs, grass, flowers and so on.

I posted a link to this blog, and so they should pick up our suggetions. I thought that maybe we could compile a playlist to rival theirs. So far my suggestions are:

Sunflower, by Low
Sun Drums And Soil, by Fourtet
If You Are To Bloom, by Hum

Can people post further suggestions? Ta, Thomas.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/culturevulture/

Loose Fur

It's difficult these days to recommend anything for friends or family to listen to. The market is saturated with music: interesting, dull, annoying, retro, futuristic, folky, beatles-influenced, post-modern, ear-splitting. The internet has made music even more available, and hence, less desirable. I find it difficult to forge personal bonds with anything too popular. I don't like to share with too many people, it seems to dilute the effect. I tend to base my new purchases on a combination of factors, and we could here draw parallels between them, and Antonio Gramsci's analysis of 'legitimate' political power. First of all, Gramsci maintains, we tend to dislike change, prefering to grant legitimacy to what has gone before without a real and thorough critique of it. In my case this would mean going back to my current CD collection and choosing a new album by an existing artist, or one on the same record label. An artist or label endorsed by a current favourite artist would also suffice here. Secondly, Gramsci asserts that there are certain sources of information whose opinion we lend huge weight, again without a real or thorough critique. In short we believe what the media tell us, the fools that we are. For me, this would mean the unquestioning following of certain publications, namely The Wire and Plan B magazines, and the subsequent purchasing of anything that they might endorse.
How I have fallen prey to both of these false sources of power, how weak my mind, how soiled my soul. Anyway, through a combination of both of these sources i came across the new Loose Fur album, Born Again in the USA, and its my current recommendation to friends and family alike. Even Gramsci would have enjoyed its playful anarchy. Jim O'Rourke, of Jim o'Rourke and Gastra Del Sol fame, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco fame, and Glenn Kotche also of Wilco fame, play a willfully messy and lyrically silly country type rocky pop thing that brings together the best elements of their other projects. Here's a small sample:

Christ is on his way across town,
He was getting tired of hanging around.
He's back Jack, smoking crack, find him if you wanna get down.

For more: http://www.dragcity.com/bands/loosefur.html

Life in a Scotch Sitting Room

The poet and musician Ivor Cutler has died from a stroke at the age of 83. It is one of those odd coincidences that I had begun thinking about, and listening to Cutler a lot in just the past couple of weeks. Several of his songs are at present on my iPod and I have made my journey into work listening to Get Away from the Wall. So though it was perhaps not surprising that the old man should have died (I remember reading an interview with him some years ago in which he seemed quite reconciled to the prospect of his approaching death) the announcement still shocked me in quite a significant way.

It seems a fitting response.

'Old man dies', is not a headline that seems destined to surprise a listener to the radio, but it was surprise that Cutler revelled in; he took the everyday, the ordinary seeming, and stunned one with the most outrageous, trivial absurdities. No matter how often one listened, he remained unpredictable. Somehow, the lugubrious, Glaswegian voice fooled one into trusting there to be normality at the heart of his writing, as with his song ‘Where the River Bends’ the absurdity of scores of blind men falling into a river at this one point, still surprises me when it has been heard countless times:

Where the river bends,
The blind men fall in.
Where the river bends,
The blind men fall in.
Where do they come from?
(The blind men.)
Why do they all fall in?
I don’t know.
And neither do they.

Though Jim O’Rourke’s cover of ‘Women of the World’ is undeniably beautiful, it is Cutler’s original that I return to. I think Cutler believes it. The end of the world never seems too far away from him, and always a disappointing, tedious event; the battery of the little black buzzer on which the world’s most important message is to be tapped out, runs out after it has only reported the fact that its operator has a cold bum. There is never enough said, and one always wanted more from him even if he didn’t always want to give it, as his poem ‘No I won’t’ demonstrated:

I'll leave you with this thought.
No, I won't. It would not be fair.

Ivor Cutler, 15th January 1923 – 3rd March 2006

The Sage Gateshead and Northern Sinfonia

I'm looking forward to hearing what Matthew has to say about The Sage Gateshead - a simply brilliant new three-auditoria complex and the new home of the Northern Sinfonia, which played some Adams, Bernstein and Copland on Thursday evening. For more see here for a write-up on The Filter^ REVIEW. What I didn't say on the the review is that you can listen to this concert online until Friday on BBC Radio 3, where any concert on Performance on Three (and any other show) can be heard up to seven days thereafter.

New Review

The Orchestra of the Age of Englightenment is 'the UK's leading period instrument ensemble'. They offered an initial celebration of Mozart's 250th birthday on Tuesday, joined by Harvard Professor Robert 'Bob' Levin and British period-practice pioneer Sir Roger Norrington.

There's a review on The Filter REVIEW^ site here.

Remembering Shostakovich

People may be banging on about Mozart's 250th anniversary this year, but for me (and I feel, for The Filter^ readers), there's an even more significant milestone in the form of 100 years since the birth of Dimitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) - one of the greatest artistic figures of the 20th century.

As you may know, Stravinsky and Prokofiev saw the dictatorial writing on the wall in the early 1900s and fled from Russia to Europe and America. But Shostakovich couldn't go - instead he stayed in Russia and persistently attacked the regime through his music, suffering gagging orders, constant risk of execution, the withdrawl and destruction of many of his works, and the indignity of forced formal appearances and the like. Works like the 'Leningrad' Symphony (No 7) and the Symphony Nos 5 and 10 represent more than utterly remarkable use of an orchestra, they are testimonies to the horror of the time - grandiosity and joy often only coming in the form of forced celebration. But at the same time these and other works seem so joyous and fun - the wit of a total genius filtered through the mind of a man who was, for his entire life, both terrified and depressed.

Testimony, the memoirs of Dimitri Shostakovich is published by Faber and Faber. It's not only a page-turner, but also a superb insight into the Russia and Russians Shostakovich knew - a very dark read though. But listening to Shostakovich's music is a delight - one of life's pleasures. I would recommend currently the Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and Strings Op 35 - I am addicted to this piece currently - it's hilarious, uplifting and simply brilliant.

For live performances, this weekend sees the apex of Manchester's homage to Shostakovich (interestingly Manchester is twinned with the composer's native city of St Petersburg). Further details from the website: www.shostakovichmanchester.co.uk.

Rewind 2005

This month The Wire (Adventures in Modern Music) look back at the best music of 2005.

But its probably unlikely to be recommending Coldplay or The Kaiser Chiefs. You can listen to what went on last year, but failed to make it onto Channel 4's "Popworld".

Mr. Beast

What with the invasion of Iraq and Charles Kennedy's recent resignation, the question on everyone's lips must be 'What have Mogwai been up to recently?'

It's a fair question, and can now be answered. A new album 'Mr. Beast' will be released on 6th March, preceded by a single 'Friend of the Night' on 30th January. A small joy for me, and perhaps for a few others. Alan McGee, founder of Creation Records: "probably the greatest art rock record that I've been involved in since My Bloody Valentine's Loveless", and "possibly better than Loveless."

You can listen to the new single here: www.myspace.com/therealmogwai

For more: www.mogwai.co.uk

Review

Billy Budd at ENO was pretty devastating, and there's a write-up on the Review site (click the button on the left). This is an opera by Benjamin Britten about an execution on board a naval ship in the late 1700s - there's no cross dressing, no jumping out of wardrobes, and everyone is not reunited with their lover at the end. The central issue is whether or not the Captain felt he could reprieve the accused (the framed Billy Budd), which seems to have some resonance this week with the events in California.

Pandora

The Music Genome Project has created a website called Pandora. Type in the name of a band or song, and they'll pluck out and play similar tracks. Very nicely designed, although they misrepresent the simplicity of S Club 7. There is, after all, a difference between pop and pap.

I know what you're thinking...

Yes I do. You're thinking, 'I wonder what Das Rheingold was like at the new opera house in Copenhagen....'

Visit The Filter^ REVIEW (there's a button on the left) for one angle.

Andrew

Simon, Arc, Melua: A triptych

Recently I gave up listening to music on short journeys, particularly while walking to places. I read an article in The Guardian about i-pods, and in it a professor claimed that the current trend of filling every moment with music  was distracting us from from what we should be engaged in: deep reflective thought. I agreed, partly, though I enjoy listening to music enormously, and time spent on buses and trains seems like the perfect place to do it. I gave up. I made my regular walk from my flat through the leafy streets of south Manchester to the University Campus deeply entrenched in thought, occasionally tripping over a squirrel or slipping on wet leaves. I enjoyed myself, I chatted amiably with me, I concocted and lived many fantasy lives in my head. I learned not to walk underneath horse-chestnut trees in late September without a hard-hat, found puddles immensely engaging.

I gave up. This time I gave up not listening to music whilst walking, and my brief spell of abstention left me refreshed and eager for new listenings. I popped 'The Best of Simon and Garfunkel' into my tragically archaic "mini-disc" Walkman and walked, ignorant of squirrels and puddles alike.

I heard again:

All my songs come back to me

In shades of mediocrity,

Like emptiness and harmony.

I need someone to comfort me.

Now, previously I had heard this punctuated as above, with a full stop after harmony, the last line being on its own. Thus the meaning being that his songs are mediocre and consist of emptiness and harmony; because of this he needs someone to comfort him. This is of course rather critical of the song lyric itself, the song has melodic harmony but is empty, it has no meaning or soul, perhaps the words are just superficial. It becomes cleverly self-critical, the lyrics say that lyrics have no meaning, but of course these lyrics do have meaning, they convey their own meaninglessness. Crikey. Harmony, music, is no comfort either, it has no value without meaningful words and the only escape is the thought of another person, some human contact. The last line alone sounds desperate and disillusioned.

This time though, the break came after mediocrity, and the quatrain was split into equal halves. This time he clearly said "Like emptiness and harmony, i need someone to comfort me". The implication is very different now. There is no reference to the emptiness of lyrics, harmony is someting that comforts just like a person can. It now suggests the benevolent, soothing power of music that can quell the despondent spirit.  I think i like it better this way, thanks professor.

The point is that listening can be an active process that induces a deep, reflective thought process. It's not just a lazy, passive pastime akin to playing 'I-spy' on long car journeys. The lyrics in pop music often present us with dazzling layers of meaning, word-play, humour, imagery and the like, they're not all emptiness. Sometimes they can relate, playfully to the music. Take these lines from a song by Chicago band Joan of Arc:

we fall into patterns quickly

we fall in patterns too quickly

The syntax alters slightly, retaining the same word sounds but altering the literal meaning; just as the rhythm shifts slightly and forms a new pattern using the same melody. The meaning of the sentences reflects this process too, the lines and music become a pattern as they are repeated several times. Sentence structure and musical structure reflect literal meaning of words and vice-versa. Its very playful, very modern, and I think provocative of much thought. I like it a lot.

Unfortunately this playfulness and imaginative word use has not fully permeated the ultra-mainstream yet, as is clearly illustrated by Katie Melua's recent song "9 Million Bicycles". I believe that this song has already provoked a backlash from academia, claiming certain vague estimates to be "facts" when they are arguably not. i guess this is poetic licence though. i can't stand the song myself, i find its lyrical content rather trite and superficial. But, there might be something going on below the surface that we don't at first notice. Let's take the following lines:

There are 9 million bicycles in Beijing, that's a fact

Like the fact that i will love you till i die

Now, the bicycle image is of course indicative of mass poverty in china's capital. The equation of 'love' with the notion of 'fact' seems to suggest a poverty of spirit or of soul, and the whole enterprise itself is steeped in an ingrained poverty of imagination. Good so far. These 'facts' are of course very wittily played off against the 'fact' that Katie will never have to go anywhere near real poverty due to the fortune she makes from the hit song. She's bloody brainy for a girl.

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant

Hello there, Andrew Mellor here. Not sure what the etiquette is now, but I've just posted a review of ENO's ravishing premiere staging of The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant by Gerald Barry on The Filter^ REVIEW (should I have posted it here?), so click on the review button on the left if you fancy a read. Or even better, go and see it yourself at the London Coliseum.

Joan of Arc - So much staying alive and lovelessness - 2003

				On a Bedsheet in the Breeze
	Joan of Arc’s output over the past five years has been deliberately off putting, with a studio album entitled “Live in Chicago” and an EP “How can something so little be any more”; they clearly enjoy word-play, a well crafted joke, musical gags. But their titles are not all that have put both critics and listeners off their output. They haven’t really seemed eager to please; their previous album “The Gap” being a cut and paste affair, stumbling over itself, stopping when you want it to go, and going where you wish it wouldn’t; lyrically abstract and often obtuse. People have called them pretentious, pointless and vacuous; existing purely as a post-ironic joke, a bunch of clever kids with no real rock and roll soul. Because isn’t that what rock music is about; about bravado, swaggering tight-trousered cool and big venue Marshall Cabinet soul? Well, perhaps. But not, one feels, for Joan of Arc. The bands latest offering is a relatively subdued affair, there are no explosions, no logic defying breaks in rhythm, no skwals or beeps, no messing. That said, this is no Indie Guitar Rock album to lend to your younger brother (though he should be exposed to it), there are complexities and obstructions for any listener, and confusions a-plenty. Joan of Arc’s appeal oscillates between the real and the abstract, and one of the bands greatest talents is achieving the latter via the former. Where as many artists, particularly in the field of electronic music (I’m thinking Susumu Yokota, Boards of Canada et al) achieve a sense of the abstract by blurring boundaries, hiding distinct tones and rhythms in a fog of sound, repeating motives to dispel the finite, JOA manage to get a similar effect with clarity. Every sound on the record seems magnified, guitars and drums are miked closely, slips of fingers, crackles, buzz are all audible, the vocals often inconsistent in tone. The whole process recalls what the modernists referred to as “foregrounding”, bringing the working method into view and making this what the thing is about, rather than just method as tool. The record seems to want to give up the secrets of its process through the spaciousness of its sounds, its transparency, clarity. The guitars all sound like glass, but the phrasing is always organic, the guitar break in “Olivia Lost” is messy, but real, its staccato piano riff just skewed enough to reveal the hand playing it. The album’s cover  is a photograph of a seated figure with a large red dot covering the face, possibly a porno joke, possibly a comment on the difficulties of revealing the human behind the work. The overall effect of all this extreme close up is not to show precision, but to expose the roughness of the surface. At this distance the thing is focus become abstract, like the pattern of skin under a microscope. What we are looking at in more real, but it seems less. It recalls what Milan Kundera says about the feeling of vertigo: It can be caused by proximity to an object, as well as by distance from it. The same goes for abstraction. Lyrically the record can be obtuse to the point of annoyance, seeming overly clever or deliberately odd so as to be contrived. I can’t be bothered to untangle, ”And now is bitter somehow better than being not even a little lost or looking” or  “The slow bounce of the heat will still rent the open”. Besides these example though,  there is some wonderful imagery at work: “2 black eyes, like symmetrical eels across her cheekbones” and “Undone slow and elk nude in an afternoon bath” both read and sound beautifully, poetic and musical, a rare thing in rock music. This language, complex, image-full, pretty, works well with the lovely booklet that accompanies the CD. I also feel that it provides an excellent analogy for Joan of Arc’s music: a range of vibrantly coloured interior and landscape shots, some in perfect focus, others blurred to the point of abstraction, but all luminous and pleasing to the eye. www.jadetree.com www.epitonic.com

LUKEWARM

My contention is that the press is only concerned with three things:

1. the achingly new (killers, chiefs, parks et al)

2.the achingly old (bands that are never really as good as you think you remember them being, like The Clash[not that I remember them, being pre-conceived until approximately 22nd June 1980{though this doesn't impinge on my right to be cynical about them}])

3.using lots of brackets

So, i propose a revolutionary new field for review, the 'Lukewarm'. Essentially these are albums and shows that are neither all that new nor all that old, and for which no one really cared that much anyway. It's essentially a re-appraisal, a chance to show appreciation for the lesser known achievements of pop, to dig out the obscure and the obtuse and give them to the world. James, a study of the Muffins would be wonderful here. Steve, tell us about Lou Barlow and his Sentridoh and Anthony, for God's sake tell us about The Pet Shop Boys. This notion is also closely tied to the fact that I haven't bought any new Cd's for several months, or attended a gig. Here goes...

Why I Love John Adams

You know what it's like when you return to a book/film/work that you knew some time ago, and get the chance to reaquaint yourself with it. One of two things can happen in my experience - you either sheepishly move that CD to the periphary of your CD shelf in the hope that guests won't spot it and ask 'Oh, what made you buy that?', or, with the benefit of maturity and renewed self-importance, you feel you can justly declare it a total maserpiece and write an article about it for your mate's website that's frequented by people who tend to like good things. So, here goes.

The American composer John Adams has had his fair share of colour-supplement features and TV profiles (both rare for contemporary composers), and one of my good friends in the classical music business down here has long been attempting to coerce me into his unique brand of rather laid-back Adams-worship. But I'm afraid it was a leaky roof in the classical department at HMV on Oxford Street, and a resulting stock-change, that led me to buy a copy of the only recording (how can that be?) of Adams' first opera Nixon in China, on the Nonesuch label, for just £9.99. Thanks for putting it in the bargain bin chaps - appreciated.

Now for the line that I've been trying out tentatively on a few friends recently. 'I think that Nixon in China is the greatest operatic masterpiece of the twentieth century, and I would rate it alongside The Rite of Spring for its musical significance'. Phew, got that out of the way and sorry if your 'comment' facility gets jammed Anthony (well, maybe you'll be OK). I don't know if anyone else feels the same, but sometimes I can hear the jarring of gears when I try and reconcile good art with what I like - though I guess it's something I experience a little less than Richard and Judy. One of the greatest musical experiences, for me (but for very few others no doubt) is hearing Anglican cathedral choirs sing the psalms - somthing that I'm pretty sure has limited artistic value in the 21st century, and not a lot of integrity when I think how deeply it moves me and yet my more than tenous affinity with the words, beautiful as they are. Does this practise say something new and important about the world we are living in? Not hugely. Though I think it has some relevance and the opportunity to move people - but where's the importance in that?

What's so significant about Nixon in China is that it seems to finally answer the huge problem that classical music faced in the twentieth century after the dawn of modernism and atonalism. As classical music got more wierd (and richer for it in many ways, I think), music became a mainstream commercial commodity, that ensured 'music for the masses' would never be the same again. Musicologists argued each other to death about the nuts and bolts of putting together a 'serious' work and maintaining integrity and popularity at the same time (though most didn't attach too much importance to the latter, and some went ot of their way to write music that was less popular than George Bush at the Tony Benn Fan Club AGM).

No matter how much I love an opera, and it's a medium that is very important in my life, there are always moments where I just don't think a particular element works, and which I know that some of my non-music friends would find simply laughable. But there's something about Nixon which is so immediately convincing on every level. Adam's style of writing is of course influenced by popular music, but in Nixon he creates a soundscape in which 20th century America, along with all it's cultural facets, is expressed by opera singers and an orchestra in a way which seems not only natural but artistically nourishing without necessarily posing a challenge (though I should put a health warning on that comment given that I can sit on my sofa with a plate of brie and crackers, and happily listen to the whole of Berg's Lulu without once checking to see if I'm missing You've Been Framed). In Adams' Nixon there are the 'moments' you get in Puccini and Strauss, there's the maths of Mozart and the freedom of Ellington, the Wagnerian churn and the Britten-esque throwaway gesture. Nixon works so well in what is a troubled medium, and whatever definition or pre-requisites you or Charles Saachi want to attach to 'art', it satisfies them - and that's not an Arts Council box-ticking brownie point, its just a measure of how stimulating this work is. More than this, it's a work like Nixon in China which really could dispell the myths about opera as an art form, doing the opera world no end of good - and I'm talking about a revival of a work that's well over twenty years old here, not a new medium designed for a new audience!

I didn't think I'd post this in the Review because it's not really an appraisal; just a re-discovery that I thought I'd share. If there's anyone out there who finds opera a little difficult (for musical reasons, not because you can't stand the thoughts of sharing an auditorium with a load of dreadful tory bigots who are only at the opera house because it's the only place in town where they can get a glass of champagne for over ten pounds - I can understand that as a reason for never going to an opera), then have a look at Nixon in China. As always with opera, someone will ask you the plot. Well, there's this guy and he's quite powerful, and he goes over to China to visit Chariman Mao. Chariman Mao thinks that he's the page boy in disguise, and so hides in the wardrobe to try and trick him into... hang on a minute, I think I got a little confused for a moment there...Well, you'll work the plot out in the end, and if you can't just have a look at a history book that covers 1976.

Adam's music should go down in history as some of the most significant of the last century - he's penned some other good stuff too, and thankfully is still very active today. All the best John, and thank you.

Andrew Mellor

Barlinnie Nine

Osmo Tapio Raihala, a Finnish composer, has written an opera about Everton center forward Duncan Ferguson. The piece focuses on

Duncan’s spell inside the notorious Scottish prison Barlinnie, and according to Raihala:

It takes into account the contradictions in him: he has an aggressive side but there is a lyrical undertone to him, as the fact that he keeps pigeons shows

Evertonians are split as to whether Big Dunc is a legend, and I am unashamedly obsessed. The man is my hero. One massive factor in the enigmatic swagger behind him is his lack of publicity. He never, ever, speaks to the press, and that silence can foster malicious rumour.

To some, the aggression and raw heartbeat with which he plays the game restores faith that football’s not been lost to the suits. To others, he’s a mercenary bleeding dry the club’s hopes of building for the future.

In the mid 90s he played on throughout injury to score the goals that saved us from relegation, but as captain some blame him for not doing more.

He’s the first to leave the pitch after a match, but the last to leave training – ambiguity abounds.

I can understand those who see him as a talent squandered, but I don’t think he owes us anything – his wages may have strangled the club but his goals have saved us. Granted, off the pitch he’s prone to the good stuff but it’s wrong to believe that his lifestyle leads to his injury record. If anything, it’s the other way around – but regardless, the fact that he never realized his full potential ("an apotheosis for underachieving"), is down to the fact that he lacked a main partner, and a decent supply. With Kanchelskis (and Hinchcliffe before that), Big Dunc was the best striker in Britain.

A wonderful irony is that on the night that the

Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra premiered the work, this happened.

"It was like an alcoholic hitting the bottle again… there I was describing Duncan as a failure in Finland, and thousands of miles away at Everton he rises like a phoenix from the ashes to score against Manchester United.

The rest of the article in The Scotsman goes on to discuss the fusion of opera and football, and perhaps the only surprise of this story should be the rarity with which it happens. There can be no doubt that Duncan Ferguson is a unique giant of modern football – an anachronism that modernity can’t control – and a fitting protagonist for an operatic exploit.

Also, check out David Moyes speaking about Ferguson to the League Managers Association:

At first we had disagreements with that, but one thing I'll say about Duncan is he's as straight a footballer as I've ever known, he'll stand up and be counted and tell you, which I really like a lot.

Good bye, Delgados

Sad to tell, from a press release sent to the mail list of the Delgados' website:

The Delgados, influential figures in Glasgow's independent music scene for over 10 years, have announced that they are to amicably disband. The reason has been put down to the departure of their bass player Stewart Henderson who informed the band in the New Year that he did not wish to make another album. The Delgados have always been known as uniquely collaborative songwriters and as such, it was decided that the band could not continue without all of its original members.

I am lucky enough to have witnessed the band at their peak during the "Great Eastern" tour. For a taste of the band I suggest you should try Peloton.

Magical Mystery Story

According to an account here, a pre-released version of A Day in the Life was discovered, and then disappeard, in Memphis back in the 1960s.

John Peel's Festive 50s

http://www.rocklist.net/festive50.htm.

John Peel, 1939-2004.

PLAN B

After the sad demise of carelesstalkcostslives, a new publication is set to rise, phoenix-like, from the pulp. Again this is the work of the prolific Everett True, who was largely responsible for the growth and Popularisation of alternative rock music in the early 90's. He is generally regarded as the man who introduced Nirvana to the UK. Whether this was a good or bad thing, there is no doubting that he has increased the flow of passionate, intelligent musical expression to the same extent that MTV has staunched it, and this is a good thing. His last venture, with photographer Steve Gullick, was a publication rich in vibrant images and provocative prose. Which was a good thing. I read about a few bands and musicians in there that i have since bought and enjoyed the music of, what more should a magazine about music do? Anyway, the point is...

Plan B is the new music and culture magazine from the pen of Careless Talk Costs Lives. There's a one-off special planned for mid-June featuring Chicks On Speed, Lightning Bolt, Kaito, Von Bondies, Gravy Train!!!, Erase Errata, Baby Dayliner, cLOUDDEAD, Spektrum, plus an extended media section covering comics, film, books, games, online media... but in the meantime you can look for regular updates at our brand new website, http://www.planbmag.com.

Have a look, have a read, get into some new music, something twisted and odd. That's what i'm going to do.

The Modern Prometheus

Has anyone else been hoping that Sunny Day Real Estate would reform over the passed few years. Well, three former members of SDRE have just released an album under the name The Fire Theft. It's really quite good.

Have a look at their website

Fame, Fame, Fatal Fame

The popularity of the iPod has made Apple a household name, again.

With its newfound fame comes unwanted publicity - there are trashy UK columnists, like Dominic Mohan, who proclaimed to be a part of the "iPod brotherhood". There are also complaints regarding the iPod's rechargeable battery, as voiced by the Neistat brothers.

Now, the politicians in the UK are gettting involved with the issue of the "non-replaceable" iPod battery. An Early Door Motion on 19 Jan states:

[T]his House notes with concern the difficulty people are having in replacing batteries for iPods, the new pocket sized walkmans...and calls on the supplier, Apple, to ensure that replacement batteries are plentiful in supply and priced at a reasonable level.

Also, as noted by Southport MP John Pugh, the press seems to have exaggerated the problem - John Naughton writes in the Observer:

...there is the small matter of the shock endured by proud early-adopters of the iPod when they discovered that the battery no longer worked after 18 months and that a replacement cost almost as much as a whole new iPod....There is an even more interesting question: why should replacing a battery be a warranty operation at all?...But with the iPod, it has to go back to Apple.

MPs, you shouldn't worry too much. Apple and third-parties have offered battery-replacement programmes, priced ranging from US$50 to US$100 - they can be easily found on Google.

John, I agree that rechargeable batteries are scandalously over-priced, but what the public needs is not an investigation on pricing, but be encouraged to find more information on how to maintain their rechargeable batteries.

Also, an iPod battery usually lasts for longer than 18 months, unless it is played continuously and recharged repeatedly. Once again, it's a matter of understanding the nature of lithium ion batteries (which, I admit, might sound scary...)

Finally, all hard drive-based MP3 players use internal non-user-replacable batteries (apart from Creative's Zen, I think) - it's not an exclusively Apple issue.

Check out iPod Battery FAQ, it is a great place for anxious iPod and to-be-iPod users.

I Have it, Gorky

Two great bands will be playing in a venue near you in the UK - Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Yo La Tengo are going to co-headline a tour in the beginning of March. The dates are listed at Gorky's website.

Don't miss it!