Wow

Just very, very quickly - I'm so sorry. I can't quite believe that I haven't posted since November. November! If nothing else, a chap that I'll just call LSC has happened since then. This is an apology - and it's a double apology. because what's prompted me to write this post is anger. Anger. Anger with someone that I loved like a younger brother that you hoped would grow out of it...

Holy Buggering Christ

Seriously. This can't be real. It just can't be.

If you love Christmas...

Yep - it's 35 days 'til Christmas, which is basically no time at all. I'm already getting excited, because I'm going to be skiing over Christmas, and then in Norway for the New Year, which means I'm essentially going to be having the most Christmassy Christmas ever, and that it's going to be AMAZING. So I'm writing about Christmas music, because... Well, because it's not all shite. And not everyone seems to know that.

First and foremost, the greatest Christmas song of all time - Fairytale of New York. It's got hope, it's got despair, it's got bitterness and bile, it's got the lyric "You cheap lousy faggot, merry Christmas yer arse - I pray God it's your last" - it's everything that's good and bad about Christmas wrapped up in a big drunk bow, and that's a wonderful thing.

Greatest Christmas album? Phil Spector's "A Christmas Gift For You" - the wall of sound has never sounded sparklier. Genuine Motown legends making Christmas glamorous and spectacular. It sounds like Christmas would sound in Back To The Future, which is two AMAZING things combined.

Or, if your taste is slightly more bourbon, then you can't beat "Christmas With The Rat Pack" - the sonic equivalent of hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows in front of an open fire. Santa's coming, and he's bringing you old-fashioned toys made of wood.

If you're looking for a quirky Christmas, you can't go wrong with Sufjan Stevens' "Songs For Christmas". Every December since 2001 he's recorded a short CD of Christmassy tracks (traditional and of his own composition) for his nearest and dearest, and last year he put them in a box and let us buy them, which was very nice of him. They're lovely.

And then, of course, there's the Christmas tracks that you love to hate/hate to love: Paul McCartney, who in having 'A Wonderful Christmas Time' ironically ruins everyone else's, year in, year out; Slade, who quite rightly point out that 'It's Christmas' every year when it is, indeed, Christmas; Wizzard, who do that song that I can't remember but which is clearly bloody awful; and Cliff Richard, who despite banging on about God at every possible opportunity, when it comes to Jesus's birthday chooses instead to carp on about mistletoe and booze.

At the forefront of the seasonal travesty brigade though has to be Ronan "The Pretty One From Boyzone" Keating's re-imagining of 'Fairytale...', where he chooses to replace the aforementioned lyric with 'you're cheap and you're haggard', which is nothing short of blasphemy. If Shane MacGowan weren't too drunk to notice, I'm pretty sure he'd have gone round and sorted him out.

I would have linked to videos of the travesties, but I didn't want to. Deal with it.

This is, incidentally, a post for people who actually like Christmas - the 'Soundtrack To A Snowy Festival Of Hate And Bile' will be coming soon.

The X Factor Is Starting To Upset Me

Simon Cowell, for once speaking for a nation

Somebody just informed the world, in a middle of another one of the homogenised 'tear-jerking' VTs that tonight, they would be 'wearing their heart on their sleeves and singing from the depths of their soul'. In 20 years time they'll announce that everyone involved in the show is an actor, and it's all been an extended episode of Beadle's About. And then they'll kill them all.

Does anyone know anyone who's been to a recording? I'd say it's pantomime, but when I last went to a pantomime they threw Curly Wurlies at the audience, whereas at the X Factor they just throw turds. The best thing you can say about this programme is that it looks like a Welshman's going to win it this year, but he's an utter tit so even that's out.

I'd finish by saying that this stuff is the opposite of music, but you already knew that. Watch this instead.

Bonfire Night At Ally Pally

Now whilst at first glance a post about fireworks might seem a little bit incongruous on what is to all intents and purposes a music blog (if it's anything), but it's not. Honest. (It is, though, going to be more of a random collection of thoughts and observations than is perhaps my norm.)

First off, Ally Pally is a great venue . If you haven't been, you should.

Secondly - and this is the crux of the matter - it is no longer possible to watch fireworks without a soundtrack. The key point here is that fireworks are AMAZING. They're as close to dragons as we're ever going to get, and that's something you can't say about many forms of entertainment. Whoever decided that they weren't exciting enough, and that they would really benefit from the addition of the Gladiator soundtrack or the music from the sodding X Factor is an utter tit.

The very nature of this blog should demonstrate pretty quickly that I'm not averse to music (Snow Patrol is not music, and never will be) - rather I firmly believe that life is better with a soundtrack. But fireworks already have a soundtrack - excited people going 'ooh' and 'aaah' to the backing of a series of explosions. What they don't need is Robert Elms talking for TWO HOURS BEFOREHAND about how we were about to witness 'London's biggest and brightest fireworks display' (a lovely turn of phrase from one of London's biggest and dimmest tits), and demonstrating an almost preternatural inability to say 'ladies' without saying 'LAYDEEZ'. I tended to think of him as the sand that ends up in your swimming costume when you go to the beach, or the insects you have to put up with if you want to enjoy a picnic. Well, I actually spent most of the time working out whether it would be possible to kill him using his own voice. Grr.

(I should point out at this point that I'm not 100% certain that it was Robert Elms - he could have been another generic radio buffoon, so apologies if I'm unfairly maligning him on this occasion. He's still an arse though.)

The other thing I noticed was a disturbing lack of sparklers - instead, kids were waving glowsticks around above their heads, as if they'd got mashed up on smarties some kind of kindergarten rave. Again, I shouldn't have to say this, but sparklers are brilliant, and they should be compulsory. COI advertising from the 80s means that I know absolutely that if I'm not responsible with them, they will melt my hands and my face, and that just makes them all the more exciting. You can force me to listen to BLOODY Nessun Dorma if you like, but you can't take away my molten sparkling stick of fun, so don't bother trying.

That was a little bit of a ramble-rant. Apologies.

Charlatans at the Empire

It was down to Shepherds Bush on Tuesday to see the Charlatans. Now, this is obviously a band that peaked in the mid-90s, but that's absolutely fine - they're still fucking good live. They played some new songs, and nobody really cared, but then they played 'North Country Boy', 'One To Another' and 'Sproston Green', and they ripped the roof off the place. Tim Burgess has particularly curious hair, and he can still look a little bit like a slightly fatter Ian Brown from certain angles, but the boy can sing, and he's written some damn good tunes.

Essentially, going to see the Charlatans is a bit like going home to your mum's on the weekend - it's comfortable, it's predictable, and the Sunday roast fucking rocks. I'm not sure if that simile really works, but I like it. Oh, and this time Ben didn't have anything stolen, which if anything just serves to strengthen the simile.

The Maccabees at The Roundhouse

Julie Andrews told us that we should start at the very beginning; it is, by all accounts, a very good place to start. But I’m going to fly in the face of Maria, and start at the end, because that was when my friend Ben realised he’d been robbed, which was the only low point of a fucking awesome night.

There are few things more agonising than watching a band in a relatively small venue and realising that you’re probably never going to get that chance again. Some people might take pleasure in going to an arena gig and telling folk how they first encountered the band in a grotty underground bar in Camden; I don’t. I want these special bands to stay in the grotty underground bar where they can just be mine – where I don’t have to hit redial every 2 seconds at 9am on a Friday to stand a chance of seeing them.

If you can judge a band by their support, then the Maccabees are shit. If you can judge a band by their name, then the Maccabees are shit. If you can judge a band by their album art, then… Well, you can guess where I’m going. Fortunately, I’m not that superficial (when it comes to music at least) – and the Macabees, shit name, support and album art aside, are joyous.

It’s quickly going to become very clear that I’m no music journalist. I couldn’t tell you the setlist, nor even what they started with. I know they ended with Happy Faces, but I don’t know why I know that. My head’s a funny place. I can, though, tell you that I started the gig standing at the back, planning on a quiet one, and that I ended it at the front throwing sweaty seventeen year olds over the barrier, all the time resisting the urge to steal one of their shoes. The Maccabees are just that type of band. While Orlando Weeks sings as if he’s lost in (a) every word he’s singing and (b) his own Ian Curtis tribute, Hugo White leans out from the front of the stage as if he’s looking for his best mate amongst the crowd – and dammit if he doesn’t end up making everyone in the crowd feel like they’re the one he’s looking for.

He shouldn’t be allowed to sing lead though. He’s rubbish.

The Maccabees swing wildly between songs about fuck all (Latchmere) and songs about everything (First Love) but they make you care about each and every one of them the same. They’re lyrically smart, and melodically hummable, but so much more than that they care – Weeks doesn’t so much sing as bleed his lyrics for everyone to see. And they fucking love it. There are few things more frustrating than watching a band having more fun than you are, but with these guys it’s hard to draw a line between where they end and you begin. And that’s a lovely place to be. There’s a sincerity to them that makes everything ok.

High points? Toothpaste Kisses is so simplistically beautiful it makes me want to cry. And I may cry easily, but not normally at songs with a whistled bridge (Walk Like An Egyptian aside, obviously); About Your Dress is one of those pathetic, everyman kind of tunes that everyone wishes they couldn’t identify with and then sings along; and, with all due apologies, Ben admonishing the 19 year old who’d lost his phone before realising that he’d had both phone and wallet pinched was pretty fucking funny.

I’ve criticised the album before for not being as vital as the live show, but I’d like to shamelessly backtrack here – buy it, listen to it, wallow in its adolescent introspections, and then next chance you get go and see them and dance like a motherfucker.

I don’t want the Maccabees to be the next big thing. I want to keep them. So please don’t tell your friends.