ATMs and that

The Japanese don’t like change. They’re terrified of it. You can see it in their eyes when someone suggests a new teaching plan or stops wearing a tie to work (both me). Japan is still running things like they did in the 1950s; a half century of Happy Days reruns without the happy part. The hierarchy of offices is still based around who has worked there the longest, with no attempt to rearrange the pecking order for the young rookie with a headful of new ideas. In order to be the boss, one must simply wait it out, until the superiors have died or retired, and then and ONLY then will you be able to pitch that proposal. And, if it is even the slightest bit radical, it wills probably we rejected anyway.

Gender relations are also firmly cemented in another decade. Japanese offices are extremely male-centric. Women employees get less holiday, don’t get paid for overtime and at the age of 30, receive sizeable pay cut in their salary. This is because of the unwritten fact that women are supposed to be at home making the babies by their third decade, and those at work obviously don’t need to be earning the big bucks to support the family. By contrast, 30 year old men receive a pay rise for the same reason; to keep the wee wife and kids happy. Women were not allowed to vote until 1945; half a century after New Zealand. An Equal Employment Opportunity Law was created in 1985 (twenty years after the rest of the world), but there are still less Japanese women in legislative positions than most Muslim countries.

Apparently most female college graduates stay out of the corporate world, and instead aim for jobs as air stewardesses. Even these are incredibly hard to get, with over 50 applicants applying for each job. This is supposedly the ‘glamorous’ lifestyle for a Japanese woman, much like a model or actress would be in the western world. If Sex & the City was set in Japan, Samantha would be an air stewardess. So would Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte.

The Japanese also refuse to partake in daylight saving. A when they tried to introduce it in the 1950s, the population freaked out and thought that it was some new age scheme to make them work longer hours. As a result, the night descends upon Hokkaido around 3.30pm during the winter, and I die a little inside.

However, my main qualm and issue with the Japanese conservatism (for the moment) is their inability to move beyond a cash based society. If you have a credit card in Japan, it is probably gathering dust. They are not used. Ever. Even worse is the matter of debit cards, or lack thereof. Japan does not believe allowing money to change hands electronically, and thus, any attempt at shopping, fine dining or in fact any good old fashioned consumerism must be done through the medium of cold, hard cash. However, my favourite part about the whole system is the ATMs; the only medium for getting money from the account in the hand. ATMs are scare, and can be found in the occasional convenience store, if you live in a city. Small towns such as mine, have one or two, and they are usually hidden away down a dark alley behind the post office.

Last Saturday, a friend and I were sipping beer and sharing travel tips, gearing up for a fun night out on the town with the other gaijin. Stupidly, we were so involved with our conversation that we lost track of the time, and at 6.30pm, decided to get out some cash for the evening ahead. This is where we learnt our first lesson about Japanese cash flow; ATMs close at 6pm during the weekend and that, as they say, is that. There is no way of getting cash until the next morning through any medium. Any attempt to use a credit card at a bar will result in an ‘are you fucking serious’ expression and a shake of the head. And so, we were forced to scrape together the last of our coins, convince the barman to let us put our drinks on a tab and went home at 9pm with our tails between our legs.

And so begins the obligatory list of hypothetical situations; what if you knock over a wine display at the liquor store on your way to your friend’s birthday, with the shop keeper demanding all the cash in your wallet, which was meant to take care of the present, the subway and of course the alcohol now lying in pieces on the floor? What if it’s your round at the bar and after all your friends have left at 3am, you realize you’re apartment is on the other side of the city and you haven’t got enough taxi money? Or suppose you need an emergency operation on your foot to remove a tumour and have to pay for it with the money for the next morning’s train? The latter is a real life situation which happened to me two weeks ago, and I was only saved by the generosity of my neighbouring JET.

The alternative of course, is to forgo the banks altogether. After all, their 0.5% interest rate, the logical situation seems to be to stuff your money into a hole in your mattress. For the country with the world’s second biggest economy, there’s definitely something missing.

Collecting suicidal skylarks and other Animals

Here at Bombay & Elaine, we believe in keeping our engine running through hard and tryingly lacklustre times with assorted leaps into the various worlds of high culture.

ON THE IPOD:

SUICIDE—Suicide (1977): The best description of this album is some sort of a cross between The Doors and The Modern Lovers, cross pollinated with Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. However, that doesn’t do it any sense of justice. Minimal synths, "Let Down"-worthy tinkly bits and some of the the most fascinating vocals ever turned in, courtesy of Alan Vega, my new hero. It’s completely different to anything I’ve ever heard and I love it. The opening ‘Ghost Rider’ is a dead ringer for ‘State Trooper’; the best track off Nebraska, and just as chilling. But then amidst all the tales of blue collar tragedy (including the epic ‘Johnny Teardrop’ which is what Jim Morrison was trying to do with ‘The End’ but isn't shit) there’s ‘Cheree’, and it’s so sweet you’d think it was Frankie Valli.

The news is that Suicide are playing Suicide live at All Tomorrow’s Parties in New York in September. Keen for a trip anyone?


ANGELO BADALAMENTI-Music from Twin Peaks (1991): Pure escapism. And about as close as I’ll ever get to a heroin trip. Has there ever been a better musical score for anything?


XTC—Skylarking (1986): I always thought the XTC were one of those new wave bands who were too cool to drinking beer and hated the sun. But this album is some sort of psychedelic summer dreamscape with crickets in the backgrounds and lyrics about sacrificial bonfires and dancing trees. I think it’s one of those ‘Acid Albums’ like The Zombies' incredible Odyssey & Oracle but, you know, from the Eighties. What the fuck? I’m not sure if they’re taking the piss but I think I really like it. Unfortunately, it is cursed with one of the worst album covers of all-time.


ANIMAL COLLECTIVE—Merriweather Post Pavillion (2009): Probably the only really good album to come out in a long, long time (and ironically, with one of the best album covers of alltime). I always thought I hated Animal Collective. I used to say that they were ‘stressful’ and that listening to them was like being stuck on a runaway merry-go-round like in Strangers on a Train. But MPP is a beautiful, ridiculously listenable album whose sound gets richer with every listen. And after a few days, you realize that MPP isn’t just good; it isn’t just the best Animal Collective album (I assume) or even just the album of the year. What Animal Collective have done here is to create a sound which no one in musical history has done before, not even them. Perhaps it is the fact that its release sees the end of year which—Fleet Foxes and M83 aside—has been the most barren stretch of musical desert in decades.

I read a review was compared listening to MPP to pressing the light speed button in the Millennium Falcon. Fleet Foxes’ debut and M83’s Saturdays = youth are both outstanding albums, but they both centre around recapturing genres of music long past. MPP is a jump forward; technologically, creatively and musically. It is the most important album since Kid A, and probably the best.

And perhaps it is the Obama phenomenon (cringe) but MPP is a completely optimistic album in every sense. Animal Collective make songs about being happy and loving life and it’s surprisingly refreshing. The age of grim Anit-American albums is over (and there were a LOT on that bandwagon; Radiohead, LCD Soundsystem, M.I.A., Rufus Wainwright and Arcade Fire to name but a few), at least for now. Optimism is in. And it’s about time.


I just marked a student’s journal that included the phrases “I wash pork in the bath” and “I love a small midget.” I don’t really want to know.

Being for the Benefit of Mr. M

It is time to dedicate some time to my favourite high school teacher, to whom I shall assign the veiled alias of ‘Mr. M.’ In a staffroom filled with bizarre Japanese creations, Mr M. takes the bizzaro rice cake. To picture him, imagine a young man—Japanese of course—maybe 30 (is that young?), with a haircut that closely resembles that of Sebastian Love; the mincing Prime minister’s bitch on Little Britain. Indeed, he employs the same habit of brushing his locks out of his eyes with a flick of his hand and a semi-head toss. He has a pennant for plain ties and nautical tie pins and wears the same suit every day. He never smiles and his expression suggests haughtiness and the fact that he might cry at any moment. His nails are long and elegant, or at least I’m sure he thinks so.

When I first arrived off the plane in Hokkaido wearing a full suit, carrying three bags and half terrified out of my mind, it was Mr. M who had been sent to collect me. You must understand the mindset that I was in at this moment. I had just spend three days in Tokyo, meeting ALTs of all nationalities and discovering a much needed sense of comradery with both ALTs from my home countries as well as ALTs from my future prefecture. I had taken an afternoon off from the seminars to wander around Tokyo in the sweltering heat listening to the Lost in Translation soundtrack. All the Hokkaido ALTs had got wasted at a Nomi Hodi and at least a few tentative friendships had been formed. Things were looking peachy.

And then, as we arrived off the plane at Chitose airport, we all waved our goodbyes and scoured the entrance nervously for our respective town representatives. It was at this moment that I saw Mr. M standing at the back, holding a little A4 piece of paper with ‘Telford Mills’ on it. I took a deep breath and strode over to him, introducing myself and attempted to shake his hand. He was so nervous that he could hardly speak. As he held out his hand, it shook so much that I was afraid I might snap it off. After a few seconds, he cleared his throat twice and told me his name in slow, regulated syllables and then pointed to the car park and walked off. I followed with my bags, sweating like a dog in a Chinese restaurant and utterly bewildered.

It became obvious on our three hour drive back to the place I now call ‘home’, that Mr. M was the most nervous man I have ever met. Despite the fact that he was one of the main English teachers at the High School, he spoke the language as if it might leap back into his mouth and attack him if he didn’t use it correctly. Any attempt at conversation saw him start to tremble and swallow, terrified several times before he answered. Occasionally, a drop of sweat would roll down his face, although he never seemed to notice. It was on this drive that I would also discover his fondness for the robotic-sounding ‘mmmmmmm’ which he employed when thinking for words he didn’t know. A typical example of our road trip conversation is as follows:

(Please imagine that prior to this, there has been 20 minutes of silence and a sinking feeling in my stomach as the landscape around us has slowly dwindled from lush green forests and shopping malls to brown shrubs and run down shacks. In an attempt to make the situation a little less dire, I decide to attempt some small talk.)

Me: So, is this normal weather for summer in Japan?

MR. M: (Startled looks at me terrified, swallows several times) I’m sorry, but ah...mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......

Me: The weather; is it usually this hot? In summer? The sun is very hot today. (point to the sun)

MR. M: mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....the sun?

Me: Yes, the sun; is it usually this hot in Hokkaido? (ridiculous hand gestures that don’t help anything)

MR M: (starts trembling; a drop of sweat makes its way down his cheek) I think that...mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...yes. (Suddenly relieved, as if he’s won a game of Russian roulette)

Silence for another twenty minutes.

Upon arriving at my town, amid the squalid plaster houses and sagging telephone wires, the beach appeared. Not much of a beach, but nonetheless, a combination of sand, gravel, seaweed and saltwater that was quite obviously the only attractive thing in the entire area. I pointed at it, and said, perhaps a little too much ecstatically: “The sea! I love the sea! It’s so beautiful! It must be nice to swim in it in the summer.”

Mr. M turned to me slowly and carefully said: “You cannot swim in there. Ever. because.......mmmmmmmmmmm.....you will die.” He turned back to the road. I undid my top button and knew that my spirit had been at least temporarily crushed.

At school, Mr. M keeps a quiet profile. He sips tea at his desk and hardly ever talks to anyone. He was not invited to join in the traditional exam time basketball match between the other male teachers and myself. He sometimes answers the staffroom phone but it is never for him. He has lived in our small town his entire life, which gives his personality an undercurrent of Norman Bates, although he lacks the tentative good looks.

I teach an English class with him several times a week, along with another, more normal teacher (let’s call him Mr. Y). At the end of the class, the three of us stand up the front and farewell the students with things like, “have a good afternoon” or “See you next week” or “Bye bye, everyone.” Mr. M gets so nervous during this ritual that he will often falter halfway through his farewell, ending up with: “see you next...” which the students will repeat in confusion.

I am apprehensive about his English teaching skills in general. Last week, in the class-theme of “what do you like better; A or B, and why?” Mr. M had to give an example of Summer vs Winter. Here is his conclusion:

“ I like winter better than summer because....mmmmmmm....I don’t like skiing. I like to drink hot alcohol.”

No one understood what he was talking about and Mr. M was banished to the back of the class by the Mr. Y, who was a newborn son and no time for crap from anyone. Mr. M flicked back his hair and sat with his legs crossed. He pouted.

My theory on Mr. M is that he an example of a homosexual repressed by Japanese society. This is not only the result of his pouty expression, manicured nails and his Sebastian-themed hair style. During another class of his—this time freed from the supervision of Mr. Y—he attempted to spread the joys of English by getting his students to memorise the lyrics to an Oliva Newton-John song. The song was called ‘Have you Never been Mellow’ and is probably the most atrocious song I have ever heard in my life. Mr. M played seven times in a row from her greatest hits CD. The students eventually gave up work and began watching Mr. M mouth the lyrics quietly to himself with his hands emotionally clenched into fists.

However, my favourite Mr. M story (so far) takes place during my welcome party many months ago. For my benefit, all thirty of the teachers had to stand up and introduce themselves and their subjects, and I assume some witty anecdote; none of which I got because it was all in Japanese. When it was Mr. M’s turn, he nervously stated his name and the Japanese word for ‘English Teacher’ and then turned to me and in dead seriousness, concluded:

“I’ve been to paradise, but.....mmmmmmmmm....... I’ve never been to me.”

Later, when we were all at karaoke, I made him sing it and he pretty much smiled with happiness. Perhaps I will get him a copy of Priscilla Queen of the Desert for his birthday, if he has one.

(ps. I just changed the blog settings so that anyone can leave a comment now, you don't have to be an elite member to be cool. Although it does always help, of course.)

Hey Mr. Ambulance Driver

This country continues to perplex me.

Last Tuesday, I went to the Death Hospital across the road from apartment to sort out a lump that’s developed on the sole of my foot. I’ve never been into the hospital before, although I have cursed it many a time when an ambulance comes blaring down the street at 3am. The ambulances here don’t just do the siren thing, but a few blocks from the hospital, in a blatant residential area, they will get on the loud (LOUD!) speaker and yell things over and over again in a shrill voice. I have no idea what this achieves.

For one, the siren is piercing enough scatter the cars to the side of the road, and at 3am (actually anytime after 8pm), there ARE no cars on the road. When I first arrived in my town, I was convinced that the loud speakers were an urgent way to alert the doctors that they were arriving with some sort of Grey’s Anatomy-worthy freak case of a guy swallowing an umbrella. But as the nights went one and the loud speakers stayed constant, I began to realize that the patients must fit more into the dull domestic sphere of accidents; broken hips and the like. Surely there is some kind of ambulance intercom or a cellphone they could use instead of waking three apartment blocks of sleeping citizens??

To be fair, with my limited knowledge of Japanese and speaker distortion, I have no idea what they are actually yelling so frantically about for five minutes. I often wonder if it a detailed description of what’s happened to the patient, complete with a passive aggressive warning about cutting down on red meat or not running with scissors.

Either way, this almost nightly ritual has become a nightmare in itself, with my apartment about ten meters from the hospital’s coveted ambulance entrance. One night there was an ambulance influx, with five arriving within a four hour dead-of-night time frame. After the third one, I got up at downed two shots of tequila which knocked me out, until the next one came groaning along at 4 am.

Anyway, the visit inside this building was somewhat of an anticlimax. I expected to see teams of ethnic surgeons rushing around performing miracle surgeries and having hot affairs. Not so. Everyone who is sick (or doesn’t wish to get sick) in Japan must wear a paper surgeon’s mask to prevent germs, and so the hospital waiting rooms looks like a SARs evacuation area. (These masks are also work by teachers at school, which often makes it rather tricky to catch the words at the back of the class. They do have other purposes as well; one of my students pulled down her mask to show me the three lip piercings she’d got secretly over the weekend.)

However, it was the bathrooms that really got me. Of the three that I went into on different floors (the first for emptying my bladder and the following two to make sure I wasn’t imagining things), not one had any kind of hand drying device. Paper towels? Nah. Some kind of hot air? I wish. And so, all these people with colds and flu’s are going around with damp hands, spreading more germs than if they didn’t wash them in the first place. Either way, it’s rather a disconcerting prospect. Perhaps this explains the plethora of ambulances; the masks obviously just aren’t cutting it.

My faith in the Japanese health system been shaky at the best of times. A fellow ALT went to the doctor to get her cold sorted and was given a pap smear. Another was told that his sore throat was a result of tonsillitis, despite the fact that his tonsils were removed several years earlier. After a week on antibiotics, the lump on my foot is still painfully in residence. Clearly ANOTHER visit to the hospital is in order in the next few days; I’ll keep my readers updated. I must admit, the whole thing is very bizarre and makes for a good blogging. But I still can’t walk.

My other discovery of the week was that the inside shoes/outside shoes rule is applicable even to those who can’t walk. The boy with cerebral palsy now uses a wheelchair (perhaps a result of being made to run a ten kilometre race through the hills last year so that he wouldn’t fail P.E.) and when he leaves school, he has to change from his inside wheelchair (which is blue) to his outside wheelchair (which is red). This was in addition to him changing his shoes as well. A few days later at another school, I waited around the entrance to witness the same wheelchair changeover with the paraplegic student, shoes and all.

I don’t really get it. You’d think that if someone can’t walk you could cut them a bit of slack on the shoes front. And how much do wheelchairs cost? But then I guess with all the snow on the ground, it makes some sort of sense. I can no longer fathom the wearing of outdoor shoes inside, especially in the depths of a drizzly winter. That’s the thing about Japan; it gets under your skin. I swear that there’s logic to it all, somewhere.

Are you... local?

With my tendency towards cynicism, there are moments where I feel that I have been too hard on my small town. True, it has about as much character as a stale piece of toast, and the majority of the buildings are sprawling complexes or run down shacks. The population of the entire coast has been steadily decreasing over the past two decades, as people move to the cities and no one moves in to take their places. One of the schools I teach at only has a fifth of the students it had a decade ago, so most of the classrooms are empty, full of dust and cobwebs. It makes me wonder what my town will be if I come back in twenty years (not that I ever would, life being too short and all that). I am envisaging that town out of What’s Eaten Gilbert Grape; a wee nothing in the middle of nowhere with a couple of Seicomarts and the odd intrepid German tourist. When I came to Japan, I was expecting Lost in Translation; what I got was The League of Gentlemen.

In the summer, things are much better. One can go for a run along the shoreline and if you go at the right time, the sunset in pretty stunning. Still, I can see why the population is draining away. Aside from the aesthetic unpleasantness, there really is nothing to do here. If you want to go out on Saturday night, you can do karaoke, or you can do karaoke.

Take last Saturday for example. My ALT buddy and his girlfriend and I were attending a dinner with some members of the English class we teach and planned to follow this with ‘a night on the town.’ For the first time, the ridiculousness of this phrase occurred to me. People use it to describe getting dressed up and having a blast courtesy of the bars and nightclubs on offer; something which can never actually be achieved IN a town but really only in a city. How I miss the going out on the town in the city. A paradox of amazement.

At dinner, my ALT buddies, being English and Australian, began the inevitable accent taunting. Now, I admit a certain amusement at the accent game. The odd mispronounced vowel can make quite the punch line after a few wines. However, this was something else. For two hours, I was made to perform for the table’s amusement. Oh, the laughs they had. The difference between ‘ten’ and ‘tin’ proved a highlight, as I was made to repeat each word over and over again to see if the bewildered Japanese diners could tell the difference. Any attempt to change the conversation would only result in another gleeful imitation of the New Zealand brogue. By the end of the meal, the table was in hysterics as I stumbled my way through ‘batter, better, bitter, butter’ and tried not to channel Patrick Bateman.

This was followed by a visit to a karaoke box. It was hardly a suprise given that in my town, there is not a single bar without a karaoke machine lurking in the corner. This is all you can do, no matter where you go, and after six months of it, the novelty has long since worn off. My favourite part is when you are lobbed a hefty 400 page encyclopaedia of songs, only to find the English songs buried in a six page appendix at the back.

Still sore at being the party’s court jester, I was made to suffer through the unavoidable set list of brown* anthems, including The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, U2, The Killers and my personal insufferable favourite; Queen’s ‘We are the Champions.’ The key to a good karaoke IS the songs and there are only so many times you can listen to someone singing ‘Mr Brightside’ with their eyes closed before you want to kill yourself. I got so bored that I ended up requesting ‘Que Sera Sera’ (after having watched Heathers the night before) although I don’t think anyone got the joke. At least the Japanese songs were fun.

Still not drunk, we decided to spend a couple of hours getting wasted at another bar, also karaoke-themed. The accent mocking continued, as well as the odd dig at my somewhat eccentric behaviour. We ordered a bevy of different drinks and the only ones that didn’t take were, ironically, the gin and tonics, which my fellow ALTs took a few sips of and then ordered another vodka orange.

Stupidly, whilst on the subject of Australian film, I brought up Bad Boy Bubby, and, after relaying the plot, was given one of those ‘well, I’ll stay well clear of that one’ looks of disgust which I have become used to but am rather sick of. I downed my drink and cried out in my best non-New Zeland accent: "Go on then, take the precious things of the shop! Burn down our home! Rape our dead mouths!" I got the look again, but this time it pleased me.

As the evening progressed, one of the Japanese girls from the English class began some rather unsubtle flirting after I stupidly admitted that I did not have a girlfriend (but didn’t follow it up with why). I felt sorry for the poor girl, who is lovely, but it got a bit awkward in the drive home, when she began seductively playing with my hair and then asked if she could sleep over at my house. I freaked out and made some excuse about needing to be dropped off at a Seicomart to buy some milk and ended up walking the rest of the way home; finally smoking the cigarette I was deprived of all evening with dull lectures on lung cancer.

This is about as exciting as my town gets. I think the smart thing to do would be to sit in next week with a bottle of whiskey and the Luis Bunuel back catalogue and get wasted on obscure cinematic goodness. It seems to be the less traumatic option.

*It must be noted for those who don’t know that ‘Brown’ is not used here in the racial sense. It is a term coined by my university chums to describe people or things of a certain dull and clichéd nature. Although I am frequently told that I cannot describe it accurately, some examples of brown traits include: drinking bourbon and coke; watching Anchorman; quoting Borat; Bryan Adams’ ‘Summer of 69’; playing drinking games such as ‘Lock in’ and ‘Hundy Club’; The Da Vinci Code; doing a yard glass at your 21st, Bon Jovi’s ‘Living on a Prayer’; Pirate and Ninjas themed parties; Marc Ellis; taking herbals. I actually paused for a good ten minutes to think of a word to replace it with, but there is none. If anyone has a better, simpler description, I would be most grateful.

Those Dreamhouse Heartaches

Taking inspiration from the great Kiran, I am inclined to let me obsession with music spill over into this interweb document; thoughts and lists and all the things the separate those who read Pitchfork from those who don’t. Or, as Kiran so articulately puts it, “Bitchdork.”

A word about Pitchfork then. Pitchfork is like smoking. You pick it up in your late teens because it makes you look and because (shhh don’t tell anyone) you find you actually quite like it. Those art-wank reviews of the latest Fiery Furnaces EP? The pop ups for obscure festivals headlines by bands you’ve never heard of? Brilliant,right? Eventually, most indie kids, at least partly weaned on Pitchfork’s diet of Godspeed! your Black Emperor and Pavement (and no doubt acquired some cred and a girlfriend or two in the process) decide to cut the apron strings. This brings up to the inevitable anti-Pitchfork stage, which appears to be mandatory for every Mighty Mighty-inhabiting, stovepipe-wearing so and so. Kids suddenly begin to sneer at the pretentious reviews, the endless Bowie references. They adopt a sudden vengeance against The Arcade Fire ask with a sneer if anyone remembers when they thought The Strokes were cool.

This is where I sigh and try to offer an explanation. These kids, with their ego boosts and their Camel cigarettes have NOT successfully renounced Pitchfork. Instead, they have BECOME Pitchfork, for it is only when one is so drunk on a diet of themselves and overpriced vinyl that they think they can truly believe that their music taste surpasses that everything that has got them there in the first place.

I am not saying that Pitchfork is gospel; far from it. It is unashamedly ostentatious (although, ironically, anyone who uses that word probably is), and you can argue till the gazelles come home whether album X should have been placed a few places higher on the top 50. But the bottom line is this; If one disowns Pitchfork, where are they going for their next musical fix? Not Rolling Stone, stuck in the Seventies and constantly on the lookout for the next AC/DC. Not Q Magazine, who tend to give five stars to the album FOLLOWING a classic and in the last decade, have named both Coldplay and Keane as band of the year, TWICE. And surely not NME, which, once a respectably eclectic publication, has pissed its credible pants in order to keep the spirit of working class British Rock alive, and helped launch the inane careers of The Libertines, The Arctic Monkeys and all those that slid down the pile after them.

Pitchfork needs to be taken with a few tablespoons of salt and god knows I disagree with a lot of their musical de jours. As much as I’ve tried, I hate Pavement. I can’t stand Sonic Youth, Fiery Furnaces, Modest Mouse, or Broken Social Scene and am bored to tears by TV on the Radio. But that won’t stop me trawling through their top 100 albums of the Seventies every few weeks and picking a few to try on. If it wasn’t for Pitchfork, I doubt I would know about Godspeed! your Black Emperor or Panda Bear. People still care about which album Pitchfork puts as number one, because, although it may not be the best, it might just be the most interesting. And most importantly, I think Pitchfork shows you that when their top five singles for a year has Kelly Clarkson and Justin Timberlake rubbing shoulders with Animal Collective and Joanna Newsom, that they really don’t give shit who’s cool or who you think is cool. They have no pretensions. If they think an American Idol contestant has a great tune, they’ll shout about it; fuck the indie kids.

This is my favourite thing about Pitchfork. It taught me not to be ashamed of what I have on my ipod, and that Britney Spears and Gang of Four can happily co-exist in the same hemisphere, if you want them to.

I think more self-confessed musos need to learn that.

So anyway, musical thoughts. Well, at least one.


Roxy Music: For your Pleasure (1973)



Is Bryan Ferry for real? Roxy Music, with their glam-tastic saxophones and Eno's shimmering synths are a lot sexier than any band with two members called Brian (at this point anyway) deserves to be. Listening to For your Pleasure is like having the best sex of your life, and partway through they pull out a gimp mask. It turns you on in all the wrong places. ‘The Bogus Man’ is a gloriously spooky nine minute Zappa-esque prog anthem with pervy lyrics whispered too close to the microphone. ‘Grey Lagoons’ slides effortlessly between a gorgeous gospel piece (and quite clearly the inspiration for entire Antony & the Johnson franchise) and a piece of air guitar-worthy cock’n’roll. ‘Editions of You’ is Franz Ferdinand if they knew how to pout and had more sex.

But it’s ‘In Every Dream home A Heartache’ that keeps me coming back. Somehow, Ferry has a taken an ode to a blow up doll and turned it into a sexy, claustrophobic masterpiece. It must be the most fucked up love song ever written. And yet after three minutes of teasing, when he purrs “I blew up your body...and you blew my mind!” and that guitar comes in, you realize what life is really all about. The only way I can describe it is as a cross between Led Zeppelin and Eyes Wide Shut.

A dream album then, and a perfect antidote to the new ‘sexy’ era U2. Shudder.