For some fans, the hurt runs deep

Point: DOCTOR WHO WILL LAST FOREVER! by Timothy Twigwidge

It’s Doctor Who’s 50th Anniversary and things have never been better! Fifty glorious years of everyone’s favourite time-travelling Time Lord! Half a century of travels through Space and Time, to the distant past and the far future and the current present, with Doctor Who and his brave friends, battling evil and injustice throughout the five dimensions! We’ve seen him defeat the deadly Daleks many times, though they still continue to return to menace him and will surely return as the main menace in the 50th Anniversary year! Cybermen, Ice Warriors, Sontarans, Yeti, and more latterly Weeping Angles and Adipose, have all fallen before the might of the all-powerful Last of the Time Lords! Ancient Rome, far future Xeros, and modern-day Cardiff all have cause to thank the time-travelling space hero Doctor Who from saving them from certain and utter annihilation! And Brigadier Alastair Stewart (RIP sob), Lady River Song and Kamelion can all count the Doctor as the bestest of friends! Not to mention the long string of faithful companions from Susan through Katerina (RIP sob) and Dildo to sexy Jo Grant and the greatest of them all, Sarah Jane Smith (RIP sob), to the more modern day ones like Ace and Rose and Martha (who was black!) and Amy in her sexy short skirt. All knew the joy of travelling with the Doctor! Except Adric, who died (RIP sob). But let’s not be sad! Let’s celebrate! Doctor Who is 50 and we can safely expect 50 years more – and why? Well, one, the format of Doctor Who is SO wide it can go anything be anywhere do anywhat – comedy, drama, farce, Westerns, Film Noir, fantasy, father/daughter rape porn – NOTHING is beyond the scope of Doctor Who! Just think what more there is to discover! And, two, the viewing figures are, as the Ninth Doctor would say, FANTASTIC and getting better and better! EVERYONE loves Doctor Who, it is the most popular and BEST programme in the WORLD and it’s going to go on FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER! HUZZAH!

Cunterpoint: DOCTOR WHO IS DEAD by Maurice Maundergrave

Doctor Who is fucked. We’ve had fifty years of, frankly, variable entertainment ranging from the dire (the RTD era, the 80’s, now, take your pick) to the glorious (anything between 1974 and 1979) and surely that’s enough. We should be satisfied with that, rather than demanding more and more from a programme that’s giving us less and less. Matt Smith is a Doctor designed by committee (his costume is basically a parody of Troughton’s) and portrayed with more irritating quirk than Jim Carrey’s entire cinematic output. The stories are now tired, lame and repetitive, resorting to ridiculous ‘timey-wimey’ plots and bringing back old monsters (the Cybermen, the Silurians) only to ruin them. And the logo’s shit. It’s like the 80’s all over again! Doctor Who is now so caught up in its own mythology that we are supposed to applaud the return of a character so catastrophically pointless as River Song, and be sad when the worst companions of all time finally leave. Doctor Who now has nothing new to say and nowhere new to go. Don’t give me all that crapola about the infinite diversity of its format, most stories still take place on present-day Earth or well-worn eras of history. Anyone who thought The God Complex was bold and innovative has obviously never seen The Mind Robber. As for The Name of the Doctor, I’m with Mad Larry and his arse. Yawn, yawn, nothing new to see here! Viewing figures? Yes, they’re healthy enough, but popularity is no indicator of quality. Millions of people read The Sun, and it’s shit. Millions watch The X Factor, and it’s shit. Millions supported Hitler, and we all know what happened there. What law? Fuck off, I’m writing. And millions watch Doctor Who, and it’s shit. The BBC know this, and after the inevitable 50th Anniversary wank-fest (which will be shit. John Hurt? Not as much as my fucking brain does) will quietly cancel the programme. People may moan, but soon forget. We’ve had 50 years, the dead horse has been flogged to dust, enough is enough. Doctor Who is dead. End of.

David Bowie, Guy Ghadwick and Terry Bickers of the House of Love, Suede, and Robyn Hitchcock (auditioning for the part of the next Doctor Who)

Spring is here! Time to review four recent albums made by middle aged white old men.

DAVID BOWIE: The Next Day

I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry. This does nothing for me. Apart from one or two good tracks, this sounds as much of a clattery, confused mess as Reality. Seems I still haven’t recovered from the sheer embarrassment of Never Let Me Down (oh the irony), even after a quarter of a century, and it seems that I never will. Oh well. Some wounds run deep.

SUEDE: Bloodsports

This is an excellently produced and arranged album, lovingly packaged and presented, sounding punchy and meaty blasting from my KEF Q35 floor-standers. Problem is – where’s the tunes? Nothing here with the infectiousness of The Beautiful Ones or even the pure simple pop blast of Film Star, and nothing here with the forlorn majesty of The Wild Ones or even Saturday Night. I’ve had this on a loop for a week and still can’t recall a single note. Shame, cos I really wanted to like it. I put on Head Music, their much-derided 1999 album, immediately after, and how much more refreshing and inventive it sounded. I’d forgotten tracks like She’s In Fashion – a stunning swoon of a tune! Oh well. Again.

ROBYN HITCHCOCK: Love From London

I almost fell off the planet when I realised that Luxor, Hitchcock’s sublime 50^th birthday acoustic album, was TEN YEARS OLD this year. Wow, that decade went by with banana skins under it. Robyn is 60 now, and looks great, with a lustrous mane of white hair and heart-achingly handsome features unblemished by time. “Rock and roll is an old man’s game and I’m determined to stay in it”, he said in a recent interview. Relieved to hear it, Robyn, especially on this showing. A departure from previous band albums with the Venus 3 and solo acoustic outings, this is a fully-rounded, satisfying album, oddly tempered by strangely 80’s-sounding production in places. Lyrically, the usual themes are there – love, sex, death, fish, vegetables etc. There’s a bit of politics creeping in which is welcome. If you’re new to Robyn this is a fine place to start.

THE HOUSE OF LOVE: She Paints Words In Red

The surprisingly garish cover and sleeve of this album – all ethnic art and masks etc – give some hint to the contents. This is a marked departure from the usual HOL sound, and appears to be a homage to their roots: it’s a straight-head Sixties pop album, with Terry Bickers’ searing guitar histrionics (description circa NME 1988) remarkably (and perhaps regrettably) reined in. Compared to HOL material of old, it can seem disappointing, but taken on its own, it is a wonderfully warm, personable, cosy, reassuring album and sometimes that is just what you need (this album saw me through a difficult time personally and will therefore always hold a special place in my heart). I saw them live in support of this album and they are still, in their mid-fifties, a fantastic live band. And yes, they did the old ones – Love In Car, Christine, Shine on et al – and they all sounded as fresh as a daisy. The House of Love, then – one of our most under-rated bands.

Loveless was pinky… this is bluey

Yes I know it’s been out for ages… I have a bit of a backlog of records reviews. Cobblers to a 2012 round-up, that’s ancient history now!

Anyway, the new My Bloody Valentine album. Remember that? February this year. Seems like aaages ago…

Short review: Not as good as Loveless, but if you like the band you will like this.

Long review: Kevin Shields has said that m b v is more of a ‘linear’ album than Loveless (where the tracks on either side of the record mirror each other) and this is borne out when you realise that this album’s nine tracks are split neatly into three distinct phases – 1, a coda to Loveless; 2, interlude and evolution; and 3, the next phase (if there is ever another My Bloody Valentine album). Phase 1 starts with She Found Now, a slow, lovely, flickering thing rather like Loomer or Sometimes. Instantly recognisable, it’s a reassuring opener which features a lovely intricately woozy guitar figure that cuts sharply through the fuzz. Next up are two tracks (titles? Never mind, all MBV song titles are totally meaningless) which are virtually interchangeable, and form one 12-minute droning trudge of ugly, atonal, clumpy music, like Loveless with lead boots on. Listened to at volume this stuff causes toothache. It’s really striking how these tracks entirely lack the beauty of Loveless. Brave? Suicidal? Or does Shields just not give a shit? I expect the latter. Shades of “we make music we like and if anybody else likes it then that’s a bonus.” The spirit of old skool indie lives on.

Then onto the second phase, and the last track of the Side 1 record (4^th on the CD or download) is a surprising Stereolab-esque curiousity, all churchy organs and blippy bleeps. Bilinda Butcher takes on lead vocals and already the album becomes more soothing. No more toothache. The second phase continues with Track 1 of Side 2 (or Track 5), If I Am. Another Bilinda vocal and a very familiar sounding woozy melody which nicks its chord changes from at least 3 tracks from Loveless. Nice, though. Next up is New You, a surprisingly poppy track with a funky (for MBV) bassline and How Soon Is Now? guitar and a great tune. Now wave goodbye to tunes, cos here comes Phase 3 of the album, and this separates the men from the boys. After many listens, I’m not too sure which I am… It kicks off with In Another Way, which is truly insane, like 3 songs all playing at once, two of them backwards. Exhilarating, and I could take a whole album of this stuff. But then comes Nothing Is, pointless filler on an album that could do without. It sounds like 2 seconds of a tape loop off Beavis and Butthead going “Da-dah! Da-dah!” whilst trapped inside a spindryer on full spin with some broken breeze blocks. Oh I’ve made it sound better than it is! Whilst initially fun, it becomes boring, as NOTHING CHANGES throughout the whole song – it’s like water torture.

Now as a Fall fan I am of course a huge fan of repetition, but there needs to be minimal variation in the repetition to counterpoint it, to make the repetition stand out, if you see what I mean. Repetitive songs must build and evolve, if only fractionally  – just listen to this and you’ll see what I mean. Basically the same all the way through, but the variations in bass, and the guitar riff at the end, bring satisfying closure. Nothing Is, though, is nothing, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it was some sort of studio accident or the same 2 seconds deliberately repeated for 4 minutes. Ooh these pesky indie kids… of 50 years old and counting… The last track, Wonder 2, is better, and a decent pointer of where the band could take their sound next – into the stratosphere! It’s got this cool jet-plane noise all over it (see what I did there?), and there’s drums, guitar, and a tune, somewhere. But this phase seems disconnected from, well, everything, as if Shields wants to do a whole album of atonal psych-rock but just can’t bring himself to do it, so he’s sugared the pill with the call-backs to Loveless.  Am I being too down on m b v? Not really, it’s a good enough album, but like the fourth Indiana Jones film, maybe too little too late. Still, the short review I wrote at the top of this still stands: Not as good as Loveless, but if you like the band you will like this.

I know I’ll never
See you again
Not for ever
Not even when
The sun itself dies
And time shuts its eyes
Oh I hear their cries -
Monday Geese

You left your coffee
Hardly drunk
And took your toffee
Every chunk
I’m sitting here trying
I’m sitting here crying
There is no denying
Monday Geese

I might go out
For a walk or two
I sometime doubt
The existence of you
Memories remain but they can cheat
Like a cake I cannot have or eat
Their honking signals my defeat
Monday Geese

Monday Geese
Please fly away
And leave me in my lake of gloom

Monday Geese
The horizon calls
And towards it you must zoom

Monday Geese
The shadow of your wings
Is a harbinger of doom

Oh Monday Geese
I need release
Monday Geese
I need some peace
Monday Geese
I need to cease
Thinking of her
(Honk honk)

Of her
(Honk honk)

Her
(Honk Honk)

Her….

 

 

 

(Honk. HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!)

Cheer up, other people liked it

Right, hoping to be more on the ball with my album reviews in  2013. I have loads pending from last year, which I’ll post shortly, but this year I plan not to let them pile up!

OK first up is a dud. Sorry chaps. Sky At Night was a beautiful album. This, though, is dull, ugly and plodding, a thumping Northern bore. These have gone the tried and trad way of Elbow, Doves et al. Sincere, honest, ball-achingly tedious Hovis-rock. The only point of interest (for me) is that the singer sounds, at times, a bit like Robyn Hitchcock, and looks like a shrunken Bill Oddie.

Never mind! 2013 is the year of amazing and unexpected comebacks: Suede, Bowie, House of Love, even bloody My Bloody Valentine. Who next – Prefab Sprout? Man 2 Man meets Man Parrish?! I’ve just downloaded the MBV album, but want to wait for the CD and vinyl so I can listen to it properly first – so it’ll be a while before I review that mother.

In the meantime I’ll post those reviews from last year…

2012 has been a mixed year… Mum and Dad moved to Aberystwyth in June, leaving me the only Walters in the village. They seem to have settled in OK though, in no small part due to my sister Caroline also living there! Talking of whom, Nigel proposed on Xmas Day (after 10 years) so there is a wedding to look forward to in 2013!

RIP Pebble, my parents’ cat, who died in March, and my uncle and Godfather Vic Boulton who died on 16 January and whose funeral it was today.

Personally, I started a new job doing admin at Windmill Hill City Farm in June, a job I really like and an organisation I feel proud of belonging… to. It’s not megabucks but I am enjoying job satisfaction for the first ever time!

So, resolutions for 2013? Hmmm… prefer to call them plans. So:

WRITE more (not as if I have nothing to write… tons… TONS!… just need to get on).

CYCLE more (have already agreed to take part in a Land’s End to John O Groats charity ride in July – but only one 50 mile section of it! )

EXERCISE more

DRINK less (alcohol obv)

EAT better

PLAY The Fall every single day

FINALLY SORT my garden out

Yeah that’ll do…. shit look at the time… PUB!

This was my third BristolCon (I’d been at the relatively tiny launch event in 2009, the much larger 2010 one, but missed last year’s due to holiday commitments) and the biggest and best so far!

I don’t do many conventions but always enjoy the ones I do attend – especially if I am a guest, and get to go on panels, and show off. Such was the case here – my fifteen minutes of fame still paying off after all these years!

I arrived, after an extremely dodgy curry the night before, just in time to miss the opening ceremonies but in time to catch the panel on colonising the solar system (conclusion: never happen, cost too much). I then wandered around meeting old and new frenz and saying Hi to Danie Ware at the Verboten Planet stall. I bought a copy of her novel Ecko Rising and am looking forward to reading it – I’m not a huge fantasy fan, and this promises to be a cyberpunk twist on the genre that should be right up my street.

I then attended a panel on collaborative working which was of interest as I had written my first novel Dry Pilgrimage with Paul Leonard and was keen to know what others thought of the process. Seems there is a dichotomy between the “artist in the garret” view of the writer and the modern, twittering, social media butterfly collaborator view. Fair enough but a lot of writing IS solo hard work (ooer) and I don’t think any social media will change that.

Then it was my first programme item – Toilets in Space! – which I shared with fellow Who writer Mark Clapham, Bristol SF author Michael Dollin, Alex Dally McFarlane and Jaine Fenn (who moderated). I think it’s fair to say that I ruled this panel – the others may be brainier, but none of them have my scatological mind or know thee depths to which it can descend (depths that were barely even touched here). I also have no shame, which helps, in situations like these. I got the biggest laughs and also convinced everyone that teleports are the answer to everything. Job done!

By this time it was lunch, so Sue Winter and I walked to the Coliseum only to find they had stopped serving at 1300. Food Fail #1. We had ghastly sandwiches sitting on a bench in the gardens of St Mary Redcliffe Church instead.

On returning to the con I sat in the bar with my netbook finessing the quiz. I’d already done a lot of work on this but there were a few questions I thought weren’t up to scratch – too easy in one case, too obscure in another. I availed myself of the free wifi and coffee courtesy of the Ramada, for which, much thanks!

At 1500 I was part of The Battle of the Books panel – something for which I had not prepared at all. I’d told Cheryl, the moderator, that my book would be Chris Priest’s The Prestige, but on the panel I changed my mind and plucked a book out of the air. I was going to choose Doctor Who and the Dalek Invasion of Earth by Terrance Dicks, but thankfully chose Brian Aldiss’s Hothouse instead. (And thus avoided being punched in the face by Paul Graham Raven). Such is the greatness of this book that it won despite an incoherent presentation from me; in fact, two of the other panelists supported it and I hardly needed to say a word ! Goes to show, stick to the classics and you can’t go wrong! (The other books were Gaimin’s Neverwhere defended by Heather Ashley, Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters defended by Janet Edwards, and Bruce Sterling’s Schismatrix defended by Paul Graham Raven.) Paul was convincing enough to make me want to read Schizmatrix, despite shamefully having never heard of it or its author. Goes to show how big the SF genre is; I consider myself fairly well-read but am still discovering new things. Or perhaps I’m not well-read at all!

After that glorious victory I attended a panel on apocalypses in SF during which, I shamefully admit, I had a nice snooze, but caught most of it – and inadvertantly gave away a quiz answer in the discussion. D’oh!

I was then invited to record a podcast by a very nice young man called Calum from a fan group whose name escapes me, I’m sorry. This took place in a closed-off Media Room and I was asked about my time writing Doctor Who (which I hope is not over yet!) and about the plethora of Who stories available in  a wide range of media today. Nice to be asked, thanks Calum!

The next panel I was involved in was the Ghost of Honour panel in memory of Colin Harvey, who died tragically young last year. Although this was difficult at times, it was overall a celebration of Colin’s work and a testament to his undeniable talent. I managed to stumble my way through my talk on his anthologies but my reading of the first couple of pages of my story in the Colinthology (the tribute ebook to Colin) went down OK. I wish I had got to know him better, but hindsight is easy. He will be Ghost of Honour at every BristolCon now and will never be forgotten.

Then it was teatime. Off to Don Giovanni’s! But – they were  booked out. Food Fail #2. We ended up back at the hotel where I paid 12 quid for a steak and kidney pie and veg. (To be fair, it was a bloody nice meal).

Then it was the closing ceremony and the launch of BristolCon 2013 – oh yes, no rest for the wicked! – then an hour of blissful folk music from Talis Kimberley.

Then it was quiz-time, where I asseredt my authority over teams of quivering geeks, watching their little faces crumple in abject horror as questions of cloistral obscurity are hurled at them. Ha! The quiz was well-attended and enjoyed by all; perhaps, in retrospect, some of the questions were a tad too hard -  but I was put under a lot of pressure from the reputation of the quiz being particulaly difficult. Next year I will collaborate on the quiz with Dolly Garland who is sure to reign me in!

The convention ended at about 2340 as the fire alarms went off and at least 3 fire engines hurtled screaming to the scene. As I walked through the bar on my way out people were still sat there, so I shouted, “What’s the matter with you? Wanna burn to death? FUCKIN’ LEGGIT!”  And they did! Mint. It was like Towering Inferno, only not so tall. (Turned out there was a small electrical fire in the hotel, no-one was hurt, move along now, nothing to see here).

What a way for BristolCon to end!

 

This should be good. I didn’t go last year as I was in the States but the 2010 one was pretty massive, after a tiny start in 2009.

I’ll be on 2 panels (one about Space Toilets – typical! – and a Battle of the Books) and giving a talk about the anthologies edited by Colin Harvey, who died last year, and is our Ghost of Honour.

And I’ll be hosting the pub quiz in the evening, which has got a reputation as the “highlight” of the convention (according to the last issue of SFX!) No pressure!

I have come up with some fiendish questions but it’s a fun quiz ALL about Science Fiction and Fantasy, The picture round is “Arses in SF+F” and I can’t believe how much work this took me to research…

More details here.

See you there space chipmunks!

I’ve bought a netbook (mainly to use as a back-up and to do writing on) and to my joy (but not my liver’s) the thing has wi-fi and there is a free connection available in the Bush (my local pub!)

I’m there now having a quick pint whilst the curry cooks.

I am insanely thrilled by this (and the curry) though it must seem like old hat to most people, it’s like magic to me! I’ve always been a late adopter (=luddite) but the possibilities of not being shackled to my desk to use the computer are opening wonderful and terrifying new vistas to me,

So do bear with me young ‘uns. I remember when it were all fields round ‘ere when I were a lad, etc. Etc.

Like us, our album is a complete mess.

I’ve given this every chance, but, sorry, it’s shite. Totally without tune or direction, it flips and flops about like a goldfish tipped out onto the carpet before coming to a spluttering pathetic end. They’ve got an unreleased batch of songs they considered worse than THIS?! Holy crap. Only one track – the cute, spiky Guggenheim – escapes. The rest is totally forgettable.  This is both a shame and a mystery, as their first album, We Started Nothing, is fantastic; dumb music made by clever people, full of hooks and massive choruses and top tunes. Great DJ alone is worth 1500000000000 of this album. So what went wrong? I dunno. Perhaps they only had that one album in them. Perhaps they bottled it. Perhaps they genuinely think this is good. Whatever, this is failpop, a new genre I have just invented. Time to release those unreleased gems or perhaps call it a day, Tings?