New York Times Critic Notebook on Belle & Sebastian:
A Quiet Band Worth Fighting Loudly About Makes Some More Noise

As I said to unbridled, I like the way it talks about the Belle & Sebastian that we loved- the Belle & Sebastian of the 90s, basically. It was the stories and the mythology that got me so wrapped up in them. An escape to a world both beautiful and sad. Sound familiar?

The band's story begins with a limited-edition 1996 album called "Tigermilk." The album, now available on CD from Matador, includes a biographical essay that begins like a fairy tale: "Sebastian met Isabelle outside the Hillhead Underground Station, in Glasgow."

Those names, Sebastian and Belle, came from a French novel about a boy and his dog. But listeners were free to imagine that Mr. Murdoch was Sebastian, and that the band's other main singer, Isobel Campbell, was Belle. Myth and mystery were part of the group's appeal. The members declined interviews, declined to include singles on their albums, declined to print songwriting credits. And they made lovely and sometimes perfect music: fragile songs hung on sturdy melodies; lyrics streaked with love and spite.

"Every song I ever wrote was written for you."
- -Belle & Sebastian, "Dog On Wheels"

"I've written pages, upon pages, trying to rid you from my bones."
- -The Decemberists, "The Engine Driver"

*

Got any?

Mr. Cassidy was an Englishman who stayed, once a month, at the Strathearn, the hotel where I worked in Scotland. For a few of his visits, we found ourselves talking for several hours at the bar of the Wishart Suite once my shift was over. He told me, in the midst of one of these conversations, that he wasn’t surprised that I had Irish blood in me. Half-Irish himself, he had spent a lot of time in the country, and he saw that, culturally, they cherished melancholia—considering it a state worth experiencing on the level of other so-called “positive” emotions.

I’m not sure what led him to say that, to see that in me. I don’t recall having said anything particularly melancholic that evening. One of the last things I remember doing before he said that was musing about the moon or something. Perhaps, in that, he saw wistfulness and nostalgia, which tend to emerge when I muse, no matter what I’m musing about.

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"That's the gayest song ever, and you have a serious problem."
- -Dylan, upon hearing Jennifer Saunders' cover of "Holding Out For A Hero" and realising I have it play on a loop on my iPod

I've been thinking a lot my and my age group's position on the generational cusp. Thinking- I've been kind of obsessed. Lately I relate so much in my life to the exact years I grew up and in particular what pop culture I remember.

It started this summer, but the spark was planted when I entered Antioch over 3 years ago. I was talking to a fellow student, one day my senior, about how I was finding how little I could relate to the other 1st years, 3 years my junior. I said that maybe it was the just-out-of-high-school thing, but it seemed more that than- after all, I'd related to just-out-of-high-school kids at City Year for the past 2 years- they who were 1 and 2 years younger than me. This gap seemed to specifically be with people born in or after 1984.

The fellow student said that the generational shift occured in 1984, that kids born that year technically came from the generation after us. These '84 babies (strange irony of "1984" intended or not, I don't know, but it can hardly be ignored) were the children of '80s yuppies or faux-hippies, and grew up with the Internet much more than me (I got online in '95, when I was 14, and that was early for kids my age). She said that she felt that bridge with the '84 babies more than with other younger students herself. I always meant to look more into it but never did. I kind of got used to it, being the older one, when in most other places I was (and still am) the baby.

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It's things like The Decemberists that sometimes makes me think that perhaps I was not born in the wrong era after all.

I'm interested in how people get into music, film, TV, theatre, books, etc. Often (especially if it's obscure) there is a story behind it, or a memory, or a string of other things.

For example, lately I've been listening to Rip Rig & Panic a lot (one of Neneh Cherry's pre-solo groups). I first heard them in an episode of "The Young Ones"; it was one of the two performances of the show that I really dug (the other being Amazulu).
...I got into "The Young Ones" as a natural progression in my path towards British comedy dorkdom- I'd been hearing about the show for a long-ass time until finally my good friend littlemidget lent me (for what turned into a lot of years) the box-set.
...I got into British comedy first through "Absolutely Fabulous". When I got cable in 1998, I watched Comedy Central constantly, that was when the channel aired three episodes of "AbFab" every Saturday (or was it Sunday?) from 4-6pm.
...How I got into comedy... that I'll have to think about.

Tell me one of yours, please! :)

Saw Guy Davis tonight as part of the AACW Blues Fest held at Antioch's amphitheatre. The last time I saw him was also the first time, at the last Blues Fest I was at, which was also the first one, in 2002. I wasn't in town for the other two, and was consistently bummed.

He said: "What I love about my music is that it's homegrown. Anyone can do what I do, it's just that I've been doing it longer than most people."

I liked that. It's what I love about his music, too. And I like the idea of the accessibility of art, the simplicity of it. It's empowering to experience art that is so "DIY" you know you could make some, too. In its simplicity is beauty and the belief that everyone has something to contribute creatively to the world. In its simplicity is a connection you have with it, a connection so raw and basic and human it can't really be described, except as unequivocally There.

Reminds me of something Henry Rollins said about the origins of punk in an episode of "Henry's Film Corner" on IFC. I wish I could find the exact quote, but it was something along the lines of: What often made up for lack of skill was total dedication and passion for the music. (Please note I am not saying Guy Davis does not have skill! On the contrary!) That idea has always evoked in me such a sense of authenticity.

The search for authenticity... the topic for another post entirely.

Help! I can't stop! I've had "Holding Out For A Hero" by Jennifer Saunders (bonus track from "Shrek 2" soundtrack) playing on a loop for over an hour now with no end in sight.

Lord, this woman makes my innards quiver.

ETA (8/5):

Wearing what I'm pretty sure was the last Decemberists shirt of this particular type. Ordered it from their web site, got it in the mail today, got my mom to take a camera phone photo like the nerd I am. (Background: behind my mom's flat in Queens.)



It's a great shirt. American Apparel. Who I like only that they need a little lesson in feminism and, maybe a bit more specifically, ecofeminism. Their questionably objectifying advertising aside, the shirt I'm wearing there is an extra large. In women's. Let me repeat: a women's extra large. Perhaps you can't tell in the photo and if you don't know me, but I am certainly not an extra large- medium at best- and yet that shirt fits me quite well. (And it will shrink.) Sketchy...

ETA (7/29): New information has led me to denounce American Apparel completely. Namely, this discussion in feminist.

It’s kind of sad that music can make you feel more than real life can sometimes.

Sometimes, I am completely numb, and only music can stir something in me emotionally.

I’m in one of those periods.

Colin Meloy is the frontman of The Decemberists.

He writes these amazing fanciful lyrics that I don’t always understand, but they are beautiful words and beautiful sounds when he sings them in his beautiful sad voice, and I can dig what he’s saying, even if I don’t really get it intellectually, and it feels like he’s saying it to me, that he’s written it for me, that he’s singing to me, and I close my eyes, and I know he’s sitting over there, just where the speakers were when my eyes were open just now, and he’s singing to me, hoping to crack past that numbness that has recently taken over me, and he’s succeeding, he’s succeeding, and every time he succeeds, he inches closer, he digs deeper, until I am finally feeling something, I’m feeling everything, it’s an avalanche, and I’m an emotional wreck, weeping at his feet, begging for more.

He says, “Oh what a rush of ripe elan.”

That’s why Colin Meloy is my boyfriend.

Though maybe I should rework this and call it, Colin Meloy’s Voice Is My Boyfriend.

Someone's playing "Four Seasons" really loudly to drown out the bells of the South Church, which go crazy every Thursday between noon and one.

Reminds me of San Francisco, where we heard classical being played loudly, a refreshing break from the hip hop and Latino music we were so used to.

Acting has never been something I felt very comfortable with or good at, for a number of reasons, mainly because I'm such an introvert, and have little concept of myself, socially. But my desire to perform comedy seems to be overriding that hesitation, as well as my discovery that one doesn't need to be a classically trained and talent actor to necessarily be a good performer. But of course, it will be easier me to perform if I have more confidence in my ability to act.

And I have been putting myself out there more, which has led me to another discovery: I don't get stage fright! At all! Amazing. It must be a sign. How can I not try to get out there more with that knowledge? In addition, my performing experience has helped me tremendously in discovering my aforementioned concept of social self- two things which support each other in a grand upward spiral.

I am reminded of Janis Joplin, who, in high school, was a painter. She was very shy and introverted. It was only when she began to sing that she started being more open and social. Her theory was that as a painter, she kept to herself because it was a much more personal art; she saw being a singer as an art form that was much more "turned outward", which led her to come out of her shell more.

In her own words: "I was a painter, and a sort of a recluse in high school. I've changed." [Interviewer: "What happened?"] "I got liberated! I don't know, I just started to sing and singing makes you want to come out because painting, I feel, keeps you inside, you know? And once you start singing you just sort of want too talk to people more and go out more and, you know, your lifestyle's becomes more a come-out, flow-out thing instead of a hold-it-and-be-quiet type."

Similarly, as a life-long writer, I've always kept to myself. (Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I couldn't tell ya.) I am more and more coming out of my own shell, and I know that is due largely (if not entirely) to my recent interest and experience in performing.