NEW TOWN DISASTER
The Dead 60s
The Dead 60s 2005
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BREAK MY HEART
Malcolm Middleton
Into the Woods 2005
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BLACK AND WHITE TOWN
Doves
Some Cities 2005
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FAR FROM THE CROWD
The Coral
The Invisible Invasion 2005
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MILES END
Gomez
In Our Gun 2002
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With the exception of Mr. Middleton, I'm trying not to stray too far from home. Aside from a quick jaunt down the M62, today puts us firmly in my beloved Liverpool town. While it's been some time since I lived there, and despite all that it may have witnessed since my last visit, it will always remain frozen in 1999 when I locked that door one final time.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not about to romanticize it. It was a hard life, for the most part, grafting and toeing the line between its ill-fitting entrepreneurs and the seedy underbelly. Both were equally doused in Tennent's Special Brew (24 oz. cans) and enough curry to drown a small ocean liner, and the things I lived through were enough to make me who I am.
The one story I'll never forget involves a kid I used to know. S.B., if yr out there, this one is high on the all-time list of "Unbelievable Fucken Things I ever Heard/Saw/Lived Through."
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He was arrested one day coming home from school. Seems fairly benign, but his mother was the one who called them. That day, a man was walking down Queens Drive (Mossley Hill), not entirely sure of where he was. It was around that point that a brick landed on his head and knocked him to the floor. There was no construction site for miles around, and needless to say, the event caught him off-guard.
My friend, S.B., knew exactly where this brick had come from, as he had watched it fall, dropping from his outstretched hand while perched in a tree some fifteen feet off the ground. Once it landed, S.B. instinctively leapt from his verdant perch, landing at the man's side. It was a quiet autumn afternoon, and no cars flashed past while he tended to the supine figure bleeding on the pavement.
He loosened the man's shirt to give him more breathing space, and relieved his wrists of the tight gold jewellery so that he could maneuver him with more ease. He also relieved the man of his designer jacket, his leather shoes, his wallet, his watch, and his matching designer trousers.
Upon arriving home, his mother was certain that something was amiss, as he strolled in the door wearing his new-found outfit. With no job, no discernible source of income, and no real fashion sense to speak of, the police were soon called and one by one, the dots of the afternoon's events were slowly connected.
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Liverpool is not always like this, but it has its moments. Aside from being a tough town, it breeds one of the more vibrant music scenes in the UK, something I always enjoyed from my own early music-playing days (rhythm guitar, Bileena Pill -- to this day I never found out what our name meant). The Zutons, the Coral, the Dead 60s, the Crescent to name but four. Casting the seed slightly further afield, Salford's (just outside of Manchester) Doves do an excellent job on the indie/mood tilt, and Southport, Merseyside's Gomez have been flying the eclectic folk/blues/rock flag in the US for some time now.
Malcolm Middleton graduated from perhaps the world's most depressing band ever (also named after a type of cock ring), Arab Strap, to foist a brand of Scottish-lilted strumathons in Into the Woods. It's not bad; this track opens the album with a bang, but after repeated listens, I'm trying to find the meat underneath the skin. This song, however, makes it hard not to keep trying.
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Tomorrow
British Week continues with Day III: Electronica and Hip-Hop from the Motherland. See you then.
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