been thinking recently about the breakdown of the generation gap, of the patricidal impulse as a generator of the New within music / culture....

i mean, what do you do, if you're a young person growing into music and thinking about making some yourself, if your parents are... cool? what if they have really good, hip, broadminded / edgy taste in music? makes no sense to reject all that great old music, and it'd be hard not to be influenced by being exposed to it from an early age (example: Maria Minerva's dad, who's a well-known Estonian music critic / TV personality (the Paul Morley of Estonia, someone said!), played her things like The Marble Index at a tender age... and then I think of some of my younger blogworld friends, who growing up heard stuff like the Cure or Japan because their parents were into bands like that

in such circumstances the only actual generational rebellion is to have zero interest in music, or minimal investment in music (opting not to see it as anything more than background enhancement to other activities, a tool for socialisation/decor for life, certainly not any kind of grand project or zone for identity formation / emancipation)... to look elsewhere altogether for things around which identity formation can take place...

but going back to the problem of having cool parents who turn you onto great music... or, worse, a dad or mum who continue to take an interest in current music, cutting edge music... who might want to go to gigs with you... or take you to a festival in the summer, the family sharing a tent...

reading this Quietus piece about hot new band S.C.U.M. this line leaped out at me:

"Between shows, the Quietus managed to net [S.C.U.M.] keyboard player and sound specialist Sam Kilcoyne, son of Add N to X's Barry 7"

say waaaaaa? Add N To X was so long ago such that the children are now of an age to form bands?!?!?

weirdly S.C.U.M. are signed to Add N To X's label Mute

Kilcoyne Jnr says "When we were making Again Into Eyes I asked dad if he wanted to produce it, but he wanted me to do it by myself. He was there for a lot of it, and gave his advice when he thought something wasn't working, but essentially he wanted me to do this on my own. I think if you take away Tom's vocals and listen to the synths, we really do sound similar to my dad."

unfortunately it appears they also sound quite a bit like My Bloody Valentine and Suede and Echo & the Bunnymen... seemingly mediated by (the horror! the horror!) The Horrors

just the thought that bands are coming through influenced by the Horrors (Kilcoyne: "I'd never listened to My Bloody Valentine until after the Horrors' second record Primary Colours came out")

anyway here's a song by S.C.U.M.



and here's another one



and another one



that one's alright - dank and brutish. bit like Bauhaus meets Dr Mix and the Remix (J&MC's heroes/template) meets Red Lorry Yellow Lorry

the more buried the vocals, the better