The Orwells

An old fashioned view

I try not to be too much of a dinosaur, despite the fossilised feeling my bones give me most mornings. There's one thing I can't shake off, that I cling onto. That's wanting to listen to music created by, performed by people with a passion for music, and with a particular bias towards anyone willing to push the envelope, to experiment, to come up with something new, or a new combination or direction. I can't lose the marrow-deep conviction that the output of those with a passion for commerce, for manufactured, lowest common denominator success in terms of pounds, shilling and pence is absolutely worthless, and that those people should butt out, leave music alone, and go and do something they're better cut out for, like sitting in front of multi-screen spreadsheets all day shouting down the phone, in a suit.

Equally, I don't like anyone guilty by association. Like playlist radio deejays, terrestrial television's obsession with reality shows and singing trainee pharmacists from Purley. Ant and Dec. I can't stand Ant and Dec. Or Dec and Ant. Whichever is whatever. I don't like the one with the odd forehead, the dodgy eyebrows, or the general look of one of those computer-distorted facial images. I don't like the other one, either. The one that looks like one of those mega-shortarsed irritants. They could get one of those Lego figures and save an absolute fortune.

I don't suppose that there's anything actually evil about Madonna, or Take That, or the solo rubbish put out by rogue members of Take That. Just that I don't see why that, and only that to the exclusion of anything worth a listen, should be played in preference. When's the last time the radio played the Decemberists? Number one album in America not so long ago. Or, for example, anything by the Pogues that isn't Fairytale of New York? I wonder if Chris Moyles or whoever the latest plastic pretend lad is has ever heard A Pair of Brown Eyes.

The Universe Versus Alex Woods

There's bit of a trend in fiction, for first-person narratives written from the point of view of narrators on the outskirts of society, and, or on the borders of sanity.

Alex Woods was the About a Boy boy, hippy, fortune teller mother (there's a beginners' guide to tarot card reading included, for free), until he was hit on the head by a meteorite (or bit of one, anyway), and woke up from brain surgery with meteor impact-induced epilepsy.

That led to his research of astronomy, and the solar system in particular.

Now, and I've no idea how far through the book I am, due to the vagaries of Kobo Arc page numbering and progress-recording, he's about to embark on a second mission: the books of Kurt Vonnegut. A long story, involving making an escape from a gang of bullies, damage to a greenhose, and hiding in a shed belonging to a ageing, lame, Vietnam veteran widower, and Kurt Vonnegut fan.

The Orwells – Disgraceland

Every now and then, everyone needs some dirty guitar band music. It can't always be Exile on Main Street, and therefore that need, every now and again, is for some new dirty guitar band music.

The Orwells, and I've only just come across them, deliver. Even the album title's irreverently funny. From the very first chords of Southern Comfort, it's clear that the albums going to deliver a dose of exactly what's called for. There's even a song called Let it Burn. Imagine The Blue Oyster Cult with a pomp-ectomy and an injection of post-punk energy. There's no tender love songs. There's not one that would be introduced, live, with a mumbled “we're gonna take it down a bit right now”. There's just upbeat, straightforward, dirty guitar band rock 'n' roll, and, every now and again, that's exactly what you need.