Issue #55 - Noverber 7th - 13thLost with Sister Janice
Be a Hero- wear a hat
Music, Marriage and Masturbation-An Interview With Richard Colburn of B&S
Before the Fall
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Lost with Sister JaniceSister Janice is the Friends Of The Heroes agony aunt. She used to be a nun, but after becoming involved in an accident at her convent involving a papal emissary; the mother superior; the convent dog and a bottle of 'citrus fresh' bleach, she decided it was time to find herself a new career. These days she travels through the galaxies in a converted garden shed. Write to Sister Janice Slejj care of Friends of the Heroes. She will answer your problems and questions with the insight unique to a disco-loving alternative-gardening defrocked clergy member and cosmic adventurer...
Everybody's free-
EVERYBODY'S FREE- Hell, it aint the musical era I'd choose, but it'll do. A hundred thousand gyrating bodies all around me, the air is thick with the smell of aromatic oils - the sort they burn here specially, that give energy, that keep you dancing all night, and that stop you smelling all the sweaty sorts around you. Oh, Hello there, my little lightbeams of lusciousness, don't mind me, just go with the flow.. The music doesn't just come towards us. They've built some clever electronic system here that means it goes right into your body, and rushes all the way through it. Not just through your brain, but your whole being. Every tissue, muscle, cell within you pulsates to the beat and you're able to achieve - Nothing. It isn't about achieving... Its just about enjoying where you are, right now.
Above us, the sky is full of spacecraft, flashing lights of electric blue, neon pink....iridiscent rainbows that fling themselves from one horizon to the other, purely for our fascination. A great star of some fluorescent shade of black I've never seen before hovvers above us, ready to explode into a million spectra.
There's a woman directly in front of me, shimmering red from head to foot, a huge orange light where her stomach might be which pulsates in time with the music. Behind me, a group of space-octopii, high on Venusian love potions undulate slowly towards and away from one another. They hardly even know the rest of us are here. Apparently, there's a party here from Earth tonight. They're playing songs in their honour. I'm a little glad of this... even with the help of a sophisticated Plutonian rave sound-system, it can be difficult to dance to what some beings around me would consider music.
Hang on...what am I saying? Lend my Grace Jones records? That's the sort of mania this place breeds. We're all happy, we all love the music and, by extension, one another. A few flesh-eating Uranians smiled at me as I stepped (well, fell, actually, but we'll come to that later) out of The Space Shed, wishing me a happy holiday here. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
thump I can feel the drums as they run through my blood like bullets, every part of me alive and simultaneously at one with every other part, within me, without me flying into the atmosphere, out to the edges of my energy field, where it mingles with those around me and becomes part of the universal flow. There I go again. This place can be dangerous. You have to watch how long you stay here. Some people have literally danced themselves out of existence. It aint a bad way to go, but I've got things to do. Now...what were they again?
I didn't mean to end up here. I swear I didn't. I'd set the controls perfectly for the belt of Orion, pushed a few buttons, pulled the odd lever, got frustrated when it didn't work, and was in the middle of pouring myself a nice, soothing rocket-fuel cocktail when I suddenly felt the ground rush up to meet me. I left the shed without a second's thought. I wish I knew where I had left it. And the music soars off again, and I'm about to follow it when I'm approached.. Two men, and a woman, in some strange silver get-up that makes it look like they stepped straight out of some bad 50's B-Movie. Her skin is orange, the men - if that's what they are - are green. 'The guv'nor wants to talk to you'. I'm sitting in an oak-pannelled waiting room. There's a pile of magazines on the table... Plutonian Periodical Of Pill-Popping; Andromedan Today, Good Housekeeping... and to my left, an empty water cooler. There's a woman in the room, coughing as if she's got a small country stuck in her throat and a receptionist sitting behind the desk, looking aggressive and unhelpful. My guides sit me down and, start to walk away... 'WAIT!' 'Who...wa....why am I here?'
She smiles.
And they're off. Back to the rave, presumably, leaving me stuck here in a bloody waiting room. I'm a bit wary of this. I don't like appointments with mysterious people, whether or not they've got some bird in a shimmery silver suit doing their bidding. I contemplate leaving to find the Space Shed, but I really have no idea where I am. I can't even hear the music from here, and I thought you could hear that everywhere on Pluto. Best not to think about that. Don't think about anything. Empty your mind. Not yet. I do have things to do, though. Thank heavens for my Advice Dispensees. Here's this week's letter:
'Dear Sister Janice, You know, thinking about this, things went weird ever since I woke up in The Space Shed, alone, one morning, to find Roger, my travelling-companion, had gone out to watch dancing girls. I do wish I hadn't flown off without him. I have a feeling I wouldn't be in this situation if I'd remembered to check he was there. It can't all be a dream. Dreams feel different, somehow. And yet... 'the rose coloured light in my magical lighthouse has gone out'... Perhaps it was the oils they pumped out at the rave - something hallucinogenic within them? This bird's clearly been on them... A talking lighthouse. How preposterous. That's about as likely as... ...finding myself transported from the middle of an interplanetary rave, by an orange-skinned alien female, to wait for an appointment with a person known only as 'the boss' in what appears, to all intents and purposes, to be a doctor's waiting room.... so... the lavender lighthouse... okay then.. Dear Desdemona,
Have you tried popping down B&Q and asking for a rose-coloured lighthouse bulb? I hear they're all the rage these days. Yuppie flats are springing up all over the places with thousand-watt lights in their attics, and of course nobody just wants a white light any more. Oh, sod it, she isn't going to buy that. May as well confront it head-on. Dear Desdemona, Problem one....your lighthouse is TALKING to you.
Problem two...your lighthouse is TALKING to you. Problem three... the light has gone out, and a rabbit has stolen your ideas and you're worried you won't be able to simultaneously fence and remove the clothes of a Hollywood Film Star. See 'problem one'.
Failing that, if you really, REALLY like living in a talking building, I suggest you learn to love a lavender coloured lighthouse beacon. That's something very unique you've got there, and I'm sure it will entice Johnny Depp and his shipmates to come visiting. So, get practicing your swordswomanship because you'll need far more esoteric moves than the ones you've mentioned to remove his kit without him noticing. Actually, stick a cup of Ovaltine on for me, while you're at it. I'll be with you just as soon as I've escaped from the Mysterious Doctors Of Pluto, found my space-travelling companion, rescued him from a dancing girl, got him to mend my flying garden shed and got this space-rave-smoke out of my system. Suddenly, you don't seem quite so odd after all. I'll bring a rose-coloured light-bulb. Yours I'm sitting, and thinking that I COULD just walk out of here, that I've escaped from other places and just because I'm probably marooned in space doesn't mean that freedom is impossible, given the right set of circumstances and that anyway nobody said I HAD to stay and they might not mind if I walk away...... when the receptionist calls: 'SLEJJ, JANICE!' 'y...yes?' 'Room one, up the corridor, to your right'. The corridor appears before me as she says it. Have a reassuring week, my little mother-ships of mysteriousness. I hope I shall be writing to you soon. xx
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Be a Hero - Wear a HatChairman: [of the Very Big Corporation of America]... Item 6 on the Agenda, the Meaning of Life... Now Harry, you've had some thoughts on this... Harry: That's right, yeah. I've had a team working on this over the past few weeks, and what we've come up with can be reduced to two fundamental concepts... One... people are not wearing enough hats. Two... matter is energy; in the Universe there are many energy fields which we cannot normally perceive. Some energies have a spiritual source which act upon a person's soul. However, this soul does not exist *ab inito*, as orthodox Christianity teaches; it has to be brought into existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this is rarely achieved owing to man's unique ability to be distracted from spiritual matters by everyday trivia. [Pause.] Max: What was that about hats again? (FROM: Monty Python's The Meaning of Life) Yes, what indeed about hats? And is a concern with hats really no more than the sort of "everyday trivia" that serve to distract people? I would suggest not. Let me out myself immediately - I'm a hat-person through and through, so what is to follow should probably be read with that firmly in mind. One might say that it was private school and straw-bashers that done it, but one would be wrong were one to. Wearing a stupid hat because you're forced to is precisely the wrong way to wear a hat. but I'll come back to that later. My first real hat was classical and Western: a Stetson shaped in dark-brown felt, with a sober plaited leather band. Possibly dodgy connotations, I realize, but it does wonders under the African sun, and adds a certain ruggedy je ne sais qua to boring office-wear. That disappeared into the wardrobe of a play I did once though, and currently I am the proud owner of a grey felt Fedora I picked up in a second-hand shop in the Netherlands, decided I liked, and then bought. Wearing it I shoot for Humphrey Bogart - usually I get Inspector Clouseau instead. It's also great for putting a lid on any bad hair-day. But none of that is very important. A useful hat is quite nice and all that, to be sure, but utility is not the THING about hats. The THING about hats - and that goes for just about any life-style accessory, but especially for hats - is that they are more than just life-style accessories. They are a life-style in themselves, and a whole value-system, one of those very fine little points where aesthetics approach, meet, touch and embrace. It's a commonplace that of all a person's features, their hair will tell us most about them at first glance, since it's the most easily manipulable. Well, hats are like that, just more so, because we use them, we interact with (and through) them - and we project ourselves through them. Of course, it's not immediately obvious that hair and hats are in the strictest sense commensurable. After all, hair belongs to us - we only wear hats. And yet, anyone who has ever someone wear with confidence exactly the right hat, will know how - at the same time - it belongs to them far more than any mere piece of clothing, or even a bad hair-cut, can. Compare Truman Capote avec chapeau, et sans. Humphrey Bogart (and especially when he wants to become Phillip Marlowe). Reni. And that is the first point - one is not born a hat-wearer, one becomes one. Unlike one's hair, one both decides which hat to wear, and whether to wear one in the first place. And that is quite a decision, because doing it properly entails not merely plonking it down on your head, but committing yourself to wearing it, to living it. One decides each day to wear the hat or not - whether to match it with your clothes, or use it contrapuntally. You wear it squarely and solidly perched - the straight-up, blue-eyed frontiersman (think Indiana Jones, any number of cowboys except Clint Eastwood); you push it debonairly backwards like a member of some belle époque boating-party (or - heaven forfend! - Jason Donovan); you angle it rakishly forward, inclining waspishly towards an eye-brow that is, by implication, always archly raised. You buy into the working-class, or the outdoors-type, gangsters or a '40's flick, a picnic on a summer-lawn crossed with croquet-mallets, the moneyed set, the arty set - anything you want, they all have their hats. The options are endless. With lack of application, or through carelessness, you become Madonna. Madonna is a case in point. She jumps from hat to hat almost as fast as some people change socks. But hats cannot be worn like that, or at least, not in any pleasing sense. There is nothing worse than a bad hat, badly worn. The multitude of hats, in her case, point to nothing more than the hollowness beneath. Perhaps each person has only one or two great hats in them, and Madonna has not yet found her hat. You can tell, because once she's found it, she will never change again. The right hat is like a soulmate - you know it when you've find it. But then all of this is secondary still - though a mildly interesting element in the semiotics of someone's identity, this still is not the THING with hats. Because once we've found our hats - and let's assume for the moment we have - we don't just wear them, we wear them. We use them. Or better, to really wear a hat is to know how to use it too. And that is the THING with hats. I realized this watching other people try on my hat, and then swanning around, thinking that they're wearing it - and they don't have a clue! Now you have to realize that my hat is gorgeous, and just about everyone looks good in it - that's not it. The problem is: you don't just pop on a hat one day, and there you are - you have to work at it without cease. For to really wear a hat is to be continually aware of your circumstances - the people around you, and where you are. It is only that the hat will manifest itself in all its many facets. The most important part of wearing a hat is knowing when to take it off. Now, this is somewhat relative to the particular hat you're wearing but also - and much more importantly - the wearing of a hat is the barometer par excellence of social interaction and of position. It's all very complex, I'm afraid. Let's take it slowly, to give you some idea. You are walking down the street, wearing your hat. You are put in the situation of having to greet one. It is now your hat comes into play. Your handling of the hat is a crucial part in your prospective interaction, and will provide the key to your interpretation of this scene. To tip or not to tip? To doff or not to? There are no hard and fast rules, but a lot of things to bear in mind. At the very least you need to touch finger to the brim - but raising it might be seen as ostentatious. unless you haven't seen the person in a while and. See, it all becomes dreadfully complex. For instance, should you want to stop and chat, a good way to indicate this would be to sweep the hat off and carry it in your hand as you rush across the street (all the while being wary of oncoming traffic!). Once you are face-to-face, the next difficulty will be to decide when to put it on again. The sliding-scale of possibilities are infinite - and each subtle gradation of behaviour along it presents a unique interpretation of the situation based on degrees of familiarity, relative social standing, age, the intensity of interaction desired and a myriad other things which are communicated intricately through the mere brandishing of your headgear. Some useful tips: a hug should always be given or received with hat in hand - in fact, when giving or receiving anything, whether it be money or a gift or a mere word of thanks, it is always to accompanied by the removal of the hat, until the transaction has been completed. Of course, sometimes one needs both hands free fro this kind of thing - even then a cursory lifting of the hat is obligatory. It may then be stored temporarily on top of the head, in order to free both hands - but never as normally worn! It should be perched precariously on top - carried, not worn. Similarly, of course, a request is not entirely to be taken seriously if it emanates from under the cocky shadows of a hat-brim. Again, these are only to be regarded as guidelines, and each situation requires its own spontaneous interpretation, intuitively grounded in the manipulation of the hat. In short, the use of a hat is both the recognition and the interpretation of one's relation to those around you - and as such requires a constant weighing-up of what goes on around you and constant attention to those around you: the hat as instrument of ethics! But it is also a recognition of place, of the space you find yourself in. Hats are not to be worn inside, of course, but in- and outside are not always as clearly defined as one might like. What status to accord to a mall, for instance? In fact, one's treatment of the prickly issue of the hat often describes one's intuitive response to the space you find yourself in. It points up the difference between being inside, or outside, or merely passing through. It is a statement of place, and a statement of intent. And what it all comes down to, is a statement of respect - respect for other people, for the world you find yourself in at any given moment, for your relationship to both these, and ultimately for yourself. It takes self-confidence, and self-respect - the hallmarks of a heroic disposition - to pull off a hat. This is perhaps the key to the old-fashioned connotations hats often have - they were in their heyday in a culture where respect itself was respected. A culture of respect breeds a culture of the hat, a culture where hats are not only worn, but worn. In a flippant culture, Justin Timberlake can wear a hat just like Bogey's, but he cannot wear it quite as convincingly, and he cannot command our respect in quite the same way, because wearing a hat properly is the stuff of heroes, and yes - people are not wearing not enough hats, but this is not the sort of everyday trivia that distracts from spiritual development - but the very symptom of the lack of that development! So, go on - respect yourself: be a hero - wear a hat!
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Music, Marriage and Masturbation-An Interview With Richard ColburnOn October 27th, what is probably the premier Indie-Pop band, Belle and Sebastian, played a show in Durham, NC. Now this in itself is a bit odd: on their East Coast tours over the past few years, the band has skipped over most of the Southeast US, hopping up to Washington, DC from Atlanta. Odder still was the fact they agreed to an interview. From me. On the off chance someone, somewhere might do an interview, I wrote to their label, Rough Trade, introducing myself as an DJ and staff member of WXDU-FM, the local independent radio station. To my surprise, I got a terse email back telling me to be at the venue, the Carolina Theater, at 2 pm the day of the show. Fair Enough. I showed up that day with Keith Artin, another 'XDU DJ and the operator of our portable minidisk recording device, and Miss Laura Llew, that East Coast Hipster social gadfly. After watching the crew set up for a while, the label press agent introduced us to Richard Colburn, the band's drummer, and took us into an unused dressing room. Richard was slightly disheveled: it seems he had just been roused by the PA. Secretly, we wondered if he had gotten Richard because he was the slowest to run from the dread-locked agent. After two minutes, we doubted it. Richard was extremely entertaining and informative. We couldn't have asked for a better person to talk with. We opened up with some preliminary talk - "Gee, the weather is nicer here than in Glasgow" and "Do you think you could help me stow this Conversation Pit in the bus, then?" - and started the interview proper. What you see below is a direct transcript of the interview as recorded. JE is me, Jay, the interviewer, RC is Richard, KA is Keith and LL is Miss Llew. This interview is currently airing on WXDU (You can listen to the station at www.wxdu.org/listen) radio in a (very) edited form. Anything enclosed in brackets for one reason or another has been removed from the on-air version. Lucky for you, the removed stuff is much more entertaining. For the full interview effect, though, you have to understand that while Richard was off fetching coffee, Chris Geddes (the band's primary keyboard player) walked in silently and got into a staring contest with Laura. He lost. The rest of the interview, as we were talking, he'd poke his head in the door behind Laura and glare at her back. So. Sit back. Read. Enjoy. This is the Interview I did with Richard Colburn. JE: Actually, I do have one question for you. Have you seen the on-line petition for you guys to record the song "Rhoda"? RC: Yeah, actually. I saw it a few weeks ago. And there has been talk occasionally over the last few years, before tours, of maybe resurrecting the song itself, but it's never really happened. I don't know why: there's sort of other songs that are probably the same age as that song that have been resurrected. So I'm not really sure what'll happen with that. But I really like the song, so maybe hopefully we'll do something with it. JE: You have -not necessarily "Rhoda" but other songs -- that you typically only do live, like "Pocketbook Angel", which I don't think you're planning on recording. So what's your attitude towards about songs you only do live? RC: Well, it kind of works in a way, because sometimes when you've been doing a song so long and not recorded it, it's difficult to have the reaction to it the same way as when you hear a new song you react to it by playing it in a certain way. But if you keep playing it and keep playing it and keeping playing it, it becomes… ugh, I don't know how to explain this cause I've just woken up. Sorry. It's sort of… all the natural things have been taken away from it, because you've done it so many times, you're so used to it. So there's not any room to try anything new because as soon as you have played a song quite a lot, you stick to that part cause it's in your brain so there's no way to try to do something new with it. Usually when we record new songs, we will record them before we play them live for that very reason. The first time you hear it, you react to it straight away and you're right in it. It's quite inspirational and stuff; the longer you play it, the less chance that'll happen. JE: So is it more to record something like "Lord Anthony" or "The Loneliness of the Middle-Distance Runner" after you've been performing it or is it easier? RC: "Lord Anthony" wasn't so bad because we hadn't played it in so many years it was almost like it was a new song for the first time again. "Loneliness" was different because we'd had about four attempts at recording it, and after the fourth attempt it was like, "This isn't happening."
[ JE: To completely change tracks, one of the criticisms I saw for your new album was that it has no masturbation references in it. Is that intentional? LL: audibly chokes on tape RC: *laughs JE: Uhhh. We may have to edit that out.
RC: It's the same way in the studio, actually. ] JE: So you're on tour right now and you have another pretty substantial tour on the books for next year, right? A World Tour? RC: Right. After we've been in the States, we're going to tour around the UK till maybe a week before Christmas, then take a few weeks off and then go to Japan in January. Then Europe, February and March. And we're looking at Argentina, Brazil, Mexico right up to the Cochella Festival, and then part of California. And after that, we'll see what happens. There are other places we haven't played in a while that have to be considered as well, but that will come after those ones. And, you know, we'll probably record something new after that. JE: And again, like with the writing question, I'm not sure this is the best person to ask, but: You've got a single coming out, soon, "Step Into My Office Baby". It's the first single with an album track on it… RC: That's right. JE: Is that your decision or is that something the [new] label is gonna do? RC: It was kind of our decision… Yeah… Cause in the past, obviously, we've gone for a more non-commercial way of working, and when we signed to Rough Trade, the first thing they sort of said was "You could probably kind of help yourselves a little more by doing certain things that most bands kind of do." Well that's fair enough, I suppose. Without totally playing the game, there are certain things are obvious that will help you. And the fact we're using Trevor Horne, it's like a new start, lots of new thing, new album. The band line-up's different again: Isobel's left, Stuart David's left, Bob Kildea's in now and other stuff. There's so many different things, we thought, "Oh what the hell, we'll try things a different way for this album, and if it works, it works and if not, maybe for the next album, we'll just revert back to what we've always done." JE: Oh well. Well, you've pretty much pre-guessed the next question I was going to ask. People come, people leave; stuff goes and new stuff comes. Not many bands could stand losing or gaining a new member and still be relatively successful. Yeah… I guess that's my comment. RC: Yeah. Depends on how you lose the member. JE: That's true.
RC: No… JE: Oh, okay. Right. There was another interview I read, I don't remember where, and…Oh! That was the other question I forgot earlier! Yay!… that] someone asked you if you thought you were more successful here in the State or in the UK or in the rest of the world. So, what do you think about that? RC: Ummm… It's a hard one because obviously the US is so much bigger than the UK, so it's relative. There's sort of a ration of so many people to so many people in the UK. But I think the attitude in America is a little better. Certainly in Japan and Europe the attitude towards music is better than in the UK. I find that a little… I find that sometimes I don't really like the attitude of journalists in general, of people who work in the record industry.
KA: We're not journalists, we're DJs. JE: Hey! RC: DJs are the best!]
JE: I was going to say, as part of my research, I came across the Sinister Mailing List… RC: Oh yes, yes. JE: …and it seemed extremely international to me. Do you keep tabs on that? I mean, people starting relationships - boyfriends, girlfriends - people getting married off the list. What sort of reaction do you guys have to that? RC: It's amazing. It's like a big international cult, almost. It really is. It's nuts. We've had people come up to us - or at least email us - before we've been in a city for a show and a guy will say, "I'm gonna propose to my girlfriend, will you let us come up onstage and do it and play a song for us? We'd really be indebted." Yeah, okay. Cool. And that's happened several times. And lots of different things. You know, quite a lot of people have meet-ups and picnics and stuff, so if you people here in the States or in Europe or in Britain or Australia or whatever… Plus, if one group in one area wants to come across and hear us play in another area, then they hook up with people in the West. It's a big community, a big club.
[ JE: So, going on those last two questions, I know that there's a tendency to believe that whatever the fan situations, with music or a TV show or something like that, that Americans tend to be more over the top, more overly into something than they should be. Do you find there's any degree of truth to that, to the people you've met over here? RC: Errr. I'm not… No. I don't know… There's people like that everywhere. I think it comes down to a more personal thing than a nation. You get enthusiastic people and people who are not. Maybe because there's more to do over here, more to get excited about or more to get over the top about than there is in Britain.] JE: Part of the stuff I saw getting ready for this, some publicity stuff was a story in the New York Times the gist of which was "Laura Bush would really like this band!" Did you see that, have any reaction to it? RC: No. No, I didn't. JE: It was right when they album came out, and it talked about the band in general and the Times sort of described it as bland, inoffensive music that a spinster librarian might sort of enjoy, since that's sort of the image of Laura Bush… RC: Oh yeah… JE: Well, it was sort of flattering. Anyway, it leads me to the next question. Do you think there's any sort of dichotomy before… Uh. Sorry. I just stumbled because I used a big word. But you think there's a difference between the perceived image of a Belle and Sebastian fan the reality? Like of someone who's tragically twee versus… RC: Yeah, yeah. I think the stereotypical fan, there's not a lot of difference between the image and what they actually are. But then again, there's so many descriptions of that and prejudices as well - just as in music. We're seen as a fey, twee band. Fair enough. But we're not personally really like that. But because the image was put across early in the band's career, it stuck.. And that probably goes for people who are in the band, as well. It's part and parcel of the whole scene. But then again, I don't really mind either way, cause people are happy to be either way, happy to whatever. Fine. JE: Yeah, you pretty much hit the next question as I was going to ask about the band and the music. [ So. One last question, and this is from my own research -- Steven Pastel as the new Doctor Who: Yes or No? RC: I never… That's a brilliant concept. I never thought of that. Geez. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Good call. ] JE: Thank you. That's all the stuff I've got. Is there anything you want to add? RC: We've got a new DVD coming out, actually. Pretty soon. I don't know if it's out, here actually. [ JE: Not yet. Soon. I think. RC: I should actually know this. KA: Yeah… Tomorrow. JE: Yeah, it should actually be tomorrow. Stuff is released on Tuesdays here. And it's tomorrow. RC: Oh right. Good-oh.] But if you the chance, you should check it out. It's pretty interesting. On one hand, it might not help the image we have, but on the other it might. JE: So is everything ready for tonight, I guess? RC: Yeah, we're going to soundcheck quite soon and last night was the first show so it's always a bit nerve-wracking to do the first show and get it out of the way. Any technical problems there will have been smoothed out today. I think so. The more you do it, the easier it gets. JE: So you've got new stuff, stuff from the new album to be the high-light? RC: Yeah, we're slowly but surely introducing it into the set cause we did quite a lot of rehearsals. Last night, we played four, five songs off the new album. And we're playing a lot more older songs we've never played before, so it's like new-old songs, shall we say. So this set is almost completely different to the last two years. JE: Great! RC: 'Cause it gets, not tedious, but if you play the same sets for two years it gets… there's only so much you can do with them. KA: What have you been enjoying playing? RC: "Expectations" from Tigermilk has been a lot of fun. And quite a lot of songs of the new album, cause they're fresh and new, and it's fun to do. "Slow Graffiti" has been fun as well. [ JE: You gonna do that one tonight? RC: It's on the core list of songs, so whether it's tonight or tomorrow night, it's always a possibility. KA: This is… This is… I probably shouldn't do this, but my wife will kill me if I don't ask. My *everybody laughs KA: My wife's birthday is tomorrow and she loves "This Is Just a Modern Rock Song". And I don't know if it's on the list of songs you guys play… RC: Unfortunately… We do get this quite a lot and I don't know why we haven't done it. I think … KA: Sorry to ask. Now I'm off the hook. RC: Fair play.
JE: Your wife wasn't the one who got the vinyl copy of it over at Radio Free was she? KA: Nah… JE: There was the best local record store close down, and it had all this stuff on vinyl everybody wanted, and I waited till the last day to go get it. RC: That's always the way when record stores close. You always say "Do I go in now or do I go tomorrow…" It's a tough one. JE: Well, that's all the stuff I've got. RC: Oh. Thanks very much then. LL: You played "This Is Just A Modern Rock Song" last year in Atlanta as an encore. RC: We did?! LL: Yes, you did. It was fantastic. RC: I don't even remember. LL: Yeah, it made the show. Everyone was silent. RC: I really have the worst memory… There were certain bits of Atlanta I'd forgotten and when I got [back] there, I was like "Ahhhh. Riight!"
LL: I'd rather hear "Slow Graffiti!" RC: We'll see if we can do both. LL: I've never seen you do it live. I'd be so excited. RC: We didn't play it last night, so hopefully tonight we will. It's on one of those core lists that we've got. But Stuart's actually got a little infection at the moment and his throat's not holding out so well at the moment, so he went to get his voice checked out. It's okay, it held out last night and it was good and stuff. But the set list is really dependent on what he can put out. But we'll see what we can do. JE: And if you have a request, you can call the station at…]
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