Hours Of Darkness

I’m writing this at 4.20am. I woke up about an hour ago from dehydration due to an altercation with alcohol that has been going on for a few days. Rather than lie festering in bed I decided to get up and do some work for my day job; however software issues and a moment of clarity meant I soon binned that out and decided to listen to the Hatton fight and piss about on the net.

We recorded the Christmas Podcast about 10 hours ago and I think it went pretty well, apart from a rambling last section where even I was getting bored (now edited down to an almost sense making 4 minutes - Dancer) and the usual side-track into death and blowjobs. Afterwards we got to talking about posts we were "planning" (I use that term very loosely) and I claimed I was going to do something on "credible love-songs", kind of a Magic FM for indie kids. But not today.

Aside - Tom Jones has just sung God Save The Queen before the fight. It was truly magnificent. Now the Hatton fans are booing The Star Spangled Banner which has got to be a bad move on US soil. Guantanamo is going to be full of chavs tonight.

In a post from a little while ago Tiny Dancer mentioned the fact that I’d once had a successful shopping experience on Amazon Japan. This pretty much consisted of me cutting and pasting things into an on-line translator. It could have been messy; I could have ended up with some Japanese techno. Or a Moby album (Debris is threatening a Moby post just to annoy me).

What I got was Absolute Classic Masterpieces Volume 2, the second Felt best of which I believe was only released in Japan. The first Volume opened the world of Felt to me but only covered the first half of their career so the second became a must have. When it arrived I discovered a beautiful booklet inside, but was soon gutted to realise that whilst the lyrics are in English, the sleeve notes, written by one Hidetsugu Ito, are only in Japanese.

Now, this was particularly disappointing to me as I’m something of a connoisseur of sleeve notes and Absolute Classic Masterpieces Volume 1 is a great example of the genre. If you haven’t read them then it’s essentially just a long interview with Nick Gilbert who was a founder member of the band but left after a couple of years. The interview is hilarious with some really great insights and brilliant turns of phrase. I think my favourite being

Tony Race, the temporary drummer, got kicked out. His curly hair was definitely against him

or

Me and Maurice would gang up on him a bit and play these heavy guitar riffs saying "This is really good." He’d be going "Fuck off, this is heavy metal." He was so obsessed that nothing could sound like heavy metal, which was fine. I was exactly the same but it was just to wind him up

The best thing about it though is that Gilbert seems to have taken very little interest in the band after he left so he mentions things and then generally confesses a lack of knowledge about it. So Maurice Deebank’s solo record is dealt with in the following way:

He made his own L.P. in the end. I’ve got a copy but I’ve never bothered playing it

For some reason I’ve got two copies and I can tell you it’s brilliant. However I don’t think it’s ever been released on cd so you may need to do a bit of work to get it.

Another great example of classic sleeve notes is from Where’d You Learn To Kiss That Way?, which is a collection of songs by The Field Mice. I won’t go into too much detail here as I think I might go back to bed as Hatton got a hiding and I’m starting to feel a bit sick but it’s written by someone who used to work for the record company and who dated a member of the band and it’s an excellent overview of The Field Mice and the indie scene in the eighties in general. I sold the record as I couldn’t really get into the music but I photocopied the notes first.

In these downloading days it looks like sleeve notes will disappear so we should treasure the ones we have. If you’ve got some favourites let me know in a comment below or if you’re shy you can email me by clicking on the picture of the genius Chris Waddle at the top. Also if anyone has Absolute Classic Masterpieces Volume 2 and in the spirit of the festive season can give me an English translation of the notes I’d be full of teary eyed gratitude. If you haven’t got it, get it. From here.

Here are some songs by Felt from ACM V2.



Felt – Ballad Of The Band

Felt – I Didn’t Mean To Hurt You

Felt – I Will Die With My Head In Flames


Ballad Of The Band is probably my favourite; anyone who has ever tried to lead a group of men in a general direction should be able to sympathise with Lawrence’s slagging off of each of his band members in turn. The other songs are great as well; God I love this band.

If you want to hear more then ACM V1 is a great place to start for the early stuff (get it here) and then get Poem Of The River (from here) and Forever Breathes The Lonely Word (from here) which are two of my favourite albums ever.

Stardust must sleep now.


Ricky Stardust


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