It’s the first month of a new year, perfect for me to make a new resolution about being more creative – I’m sure every year I resolve to try to thrive in a creative field of my choice. One simple year, I joined Instagram and decided I should try to take one photo a day, this would have been broken on about day three. I know that I have more than once resolved to make more than one website a month for a year – but there’s no need.
January was a bit of a dire start to the year – early disappointments and the death of a man who may have secretly defined part of my youth, David Bowie. One of the first CDs (yes, compact disc era) I requested for Christmas from Michelle was an early David Bowie compilation album. I remember hearing Space Oddity on BBC Radio Six when I was working in Subway (late bloomer, I know) and falling in love with the melancholy, as well as other worldness, of the song, and of Bowie.
January is all about new beginnings as well, and as I sit here on the tenth day of February writing a memoir of the month, I realise in five months there will be a new beginning for me. I don’t think this new beginning is as big of a beginning as it may be for my wife-to-be, but marriage is a big beginning even if nothing is physically changing for you. I guess I’ll be wearing a ring which will be different…
Weddings are not for the men, or that’s how they’re perceived. In the early days of this year we had a meeting with our wedding coordinator, and his joke was testing if I knew the day I was getting married. I’m sure it’s tried and testing with previous grooms, but I just did not find it all that funny – it’s my special day too. I get to dress up, and while yes, this won’t be as flamboyantly as Michelle, I’ll still feel dapper and important.
I now realise what a mistake writing about January in February is – everything I am excited to type about has happened very recently.
Michelle & I went to look at flowers early on in January, and the man in the shop seemed slightly disgruntled that we’d be looking at flowers eight weeks or so before the big day, or maybe that we just wanted to buy as sprigs rather than pay hundreds to have them beautifully arranged into bouquets and button holes and table placements. Mention wedding with anything and the price will jump up a thousand fold, maybe that’s an exaggeration but that is how I feel.
New music in January found itself a bit sparse, with me only adding two albums (digitally) to my repertoire.
The first of these albums came in the form of David Bowie’s Blackstar, which came out on his 69th birthday, and unfortunately two days before his death.
Blackstar does sound like a goodbye letter, but at the same time sees Bowie, ever evolving and growing, embracing more modern structure to music. The opening song, after which the album is named, is a sprawling ten minute epic, which diverges from its singular path leading us into previously unknown territories. The word ‘opus’ springs to mind, more in the Latin meaning of the word - ‘the end crowns the work’, although as the word is often used to describe compositions I’ll let myself use it for the modern meaning too.
Bowie’s voice is transcendent of age, and sometime also of gender, as Bowie - through Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, The Thin White Duke – always has.
Though lyrically a goodbye, vocally and musically we seem to be welcoming a new age of Bowie, this is evident on the second song on this seven song album, ‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore, all insane, whaling (in a good way) trumpets. Unconstrained would be the choice word for this song.
Lazarus is undoubtedly the song even the casual music listener would have heard, on their morning commute or sat in a café. It’s bleak, and it’s bleakness is emphasised merely by the fact that it follows from the prior track. As albums often flow song to song – something missed for the iPod, eat once and dispense crowd. More on them at some point in the future – possibly in this month’s ramble.
“Look up here, I’m in heaven, I’ve got scars that can’t be seen”
That line alone can sum up this song, from the very opening line we know. Everyone knows, this is really goodbye.
Sue (Or in a Season of Crime) returns us to ‘Tis a Pity…’s slightly unhinged, less than calm speed, battling vocals and instruments you can only expect Bowie to pull off with such finesse.
Girl Loves Me opens with an unfamiliar, haunting beat, syllable per beat, which holds throughout the song, even when Bowie is battling against his own reverb, and multiple voices.
Dollar Days gives us a reflective Bowie, calmer brass than we have encountered so far on this album, and also calmer Bowie dancing on the notes of the song.
I Can’t Give Everything Away closes out the album, piggy backing of the last few seconds of Dollar Days, What is the ‘everything’ that Bowie can’t give away? Is he still a façade, something left to our imaginations? Do we colour in within the lines and build our own pictures of how we perceive Bowie?
This is the most beautiful goodbye letter that I will ever bear witness to, and I am grateful that Bowie got to be part of my, of our, lives. Where’d we be without him?
I’m going to give you a quick respite from me breaking down albums track by track, because I was not born a music critic. I’m not here to criticize music, as I’m about as musically talented as a gnat. Or whatever fitting saying would work here.
This month we had our boiler replaced, something that we needed to do since getting this house – it was a forced necessity, thankfully, but something we had planned to do. It’ll save us money in the long run and just makes long term issues less likely.
We have a new beginning for our boiler.
The only other new album that I listened to from this month was Daughter’s sophomore album, How to Disappear.
I recently read somewhere that a band’s debut, no matter who, is likely to be the best of all their output as it’s contains the songs that have been fermenting, morphing, growing in their heads since they ever even contemplated being a musician. Possibly since they first remember hearing and distinguishing a note that they like.
Daughter have a lot to live up to, their debut album is one of the most beautiful, serene, sad albums I have ever heard. I love it, Michelle loved it and it’s one of the very few bands we have seen live together.
How to Disappear sees Elena more confident, louder in the mix.
**Jalapeno and Cheddar Scones
****Oh dear, that’s an actual title and nobody will really notice because of my erratic nature with using bigger fonts and bolding to draw attention.**
I really enjoy making these, and they're so simple to pull together in a minimal amount of time. Plus, they go down a treat.
**Ingredients **
1/2 cup butter
2 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
100g cheddar, diced
Jalapeno
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
Line a baking tray or slightly grease if you have no baking paper.
In a large bowl, combine 2 1/2 cups of plain flour with a tablespoon of baking powder and a teaspoon of salt.
Prepare jalapenos (however spicy you want!) and about 100g of cheddar, cut into blocks.
Add 1/2 a cup of butter to the flour mix (just break into chunks), and squish in, but don't make it smooth. Add in all the jalapeno, cheddar, 2 eggs and 1/2 a cup of milk and mix up with your hands. It'll be sticky - so maybe flour the table before, or have a spare pair of hands to help with the flouring.
Dump the dough on a floured table top, shape into a disc about an inch or two thick, and cut into triangles.
Place these triangles on the baking tray, brush with beaten egg and dust with salt and pepper.
Place in the oven at 200C for about 25 minutes.
Brolin somehow sneak released his debut album towards the end of 2015, and I missed it. Probably not haunting twitter enough to keep up with releases.
Brolin is a trip-hop writer/ producer, creating beautifully haunting tracks. I first heard him about 3 years ago on his debut 7”, New York. I have an affinity and love for New York like nothing I’ve ever felt for a place.
The Delta sees his expanding his horizons, while keeping us safely within his grip.
The design of the 12” record is nothing too special, which is fine as the contents are more than special, containing song after song of Brolin’s unique musical vision.
Other things I intended to listen to
Night Thoughts by Suede
Leave Me Alone by Hinds
I read the whole of Geoff Johns JSA Omnibus v1, v2, v3 and Hawkman Omnibus, 90s-00s DC Comics at their best.
JSA are some legacy heroes, they were the heroes that fought during World War II, and this series sees the originals return to mentor some of the new heroes in the world.
Johns has a strong character driven story here, which will later see him become a very powerful writing force behind DC. It’s the quieter moments in the books that make the 4,000+ page series well worth the read, and when he teams up with painter extraordinaire Alex Ross to close of his run, we are treated to a spectacular that seems to have been years in the making.
The most difficult thing I find about writing – in fact, about life – is that in your head you can have the most intellectual, non-rambling idea that is so hard to put onto page. I find this all the time.
You can have the most interesting, verbose comments on any given subject matter, but when it comes to time to say them they are unable to leave your brain, and instead come out as jibberish.
The only time these words happen to fall are when they are words you do not want anyone to hear – in the heat of an argument for example.
Best of last year lists are a staple of any start of year. Time to reflect, and look ahead at the same time.
This year I was introduced to Wavves thanks to their release alongside Cloud Nothings. Cloud Nothings are angry, but with catchiness in them, and Wavves seem to be very likeminded. Michelle always thinks I’m in a mood when listening to them.
The Libertines released their third album after far too long, and I have not even really bothered to enjoy it. The Libertines were my favourite band, I would follow Pete Doherty’s every move and back him to the full. I’ve just grown tired, but it did not stop me from putting For Lovers by Peter Doherty and Wolfman forward as a suggestion for our first dance.
Sufjan Stevens released a soft, acoustic album Carrie & Lowell in tribute to his mother and father. My favourite acoustic album of the year, with possibly the saddest, funny lyric I’ve heard; “You checked your texts while I masturbated”.
Jamie XX released In Colour, which tries to translate how he hears music into music. You’ll just have to listen to understand, it’s not restrained by conventions of music.
Ryan Adams had quite a quiet year release rise for him, but very prolific thanks to covering the whole of Taylor Swifts 1989. An already brilliant album, we now get the opportunity to listen to it in the intended pop stylings, as well as Adams’ sad voice.
So please, please, please
Let me, let me, let me
Let me get what I want, this time
Haven’t had a good dream in a long time
See, the life I’ve had can make a good man bad
So for once in my life, let me get what I want
Lord knows, it would be the first time.
@davidmcclisterphotography: The photo session that started my professional career as a photographer (both literally and figuratively) […] This is the actual hand cut and handwritten mock that ryan created for the cd package (I have copies of all the handwritten lyrics as well). I’ll be posting other out takes over the next few days, and will prob post all of them in a special gallery on my new website, set to launch within the next 2 weeks.
A concerned citizen enquired after my well being the other day, I am glad to announce that I am still alive. Maybe I'll try to update here every so often.
jacobvanloon
