Dream on

Last week, I found it very hard to get down to the work I was supposed to be doing. Writing about music felt trivial, absurd.  That feeling has passed - for now at least. Not because the trauma and dread has receded. But protecting the mental space to be excited and obsessed and amused by music, ideas, art, etc - life's essential inessentials - feels like something worth doing. Allowing one's consciousness to be completely monopolized, fixed in a flinch - that really would be defeat. 

So here's something I wrote a few weeks before the election: a cover story for The Wire on A.R. Kane.  As is the magazine's wise way, it's a print-only piece, so hie thee thither to the newsagent's or record shop. 

I think this is the fifth time I have interviewed Rudy Tambala - and still there were so many new things I learned about the A.R. Kane story.  

Also interviewed: sister Maggie Tambala, backing vocalist back in the day but now the newly active (concerts,  recordings) group's lead singer; Stephen "Budgie" Benjamin, whose clarinet flickered through the grotto of 69's "The Sun Falls Into The Sea" and who's now a fixture of the group's line-up;  Amos Childs and Jas Butt of Jabu, the excellent Bristol outfit (check out their just-out album) with whom A.R. Kane are collaborating on an EP; and Vinita Joshi of Rocket Girl, who put out A.R. Kive last year and the recent Up Home Collected. 

There are also some "ghost quotes" from Alex Ayuli, taken from unpublished parts of an interview I did with the Kane boys in 1989.  

laughing gas - but this is no laughing matter

Kieran Press-Reynolds with a fascinating story  for GQ about Galaxy Gas, a flavored nitrous oxide product that's all the rage and whose cute packaging recalls Alco-Pops in its kiddy appeal

Oooh and talking about giddy pop thrills - quick update, they come so thick and so fast these days, here's another KPR piece, a tribute / memorial to the "lost promise of hyperpop". For Pitchfork.

where the post title comes from, but you knew that, right?

Texassquake

Had a blast chatting with Paul Leary and King Coffey of Butthole Surfers for Pitchfork about their latest batch o' reissues: Cream Corn from the Socket of Davis, Locust Abortion Technician, Hairway to Steven. 

The chaos-capturing pix are by my old friend Pat Blashill (author of Lone Star punkscene photohistory Texas Is The Reason), reuniting us on the same page for possibly the first time since Melody Maker days.

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Had a really interesting chat with Greek journalist Angelos Kletsikas about Futuromania -  touching on subjects like retro culture, AI, politics + pop, form versus content, and the imperishable appeal of raves.