BEATS OF LOVE 

166. N'Né Menika by Kassiry

MY MOTHER always took great delight in labelling me as a pseudo intellectual. 

She was damn right, of course, as I just read a lot and combined what I'd read with what folk told me in the pub or club. And coz I was drunk, I'd be loud about it too. Of course there's a pattern to this self-deception as I only ever finished solving my Rubik's cube by peeling away the stickers. 

Understandably then, OU study was a bit of a shaming exercise as I comprehended less and less. Going quieter and quieter the more I learned. One of the last conversations I had with my mother ended with her announcing that the state had failed me. It was touching and explains the massiv support and now feels poignant as what was an ordeal almost ended could now be just beginning. Since studying I read a lot and listen to what folk don't say. It's why my MP's office losing its tongue is concerning. Suggesting it supports moving the goalposts on people's lives. Lives that clearly meant more to them in opposition. 

The tragedy is that in Starmer we have a leader who thinks a problem of state is a Rubik's cube and that it will fascinate the public watching him solve it. Sadly, it isn't, the problems he faces are infinite by comparison and require political conviction, not logic. As he tediously solves one problem; he creates another which betrays folks' trust. Folk, who, like us, are often at its mercy. Next year I will try to plan for a positive outcome in the UK whilst simultaneously readying myself for more venturous change overseas.

As I became smarter, my mother stopped labelling me a pseudo intellectual, preferring instead the term odd bod. 

SONGS THEY NEVER PLAY ON THE RADIO

24. My Bloody Valentine : Dare, somewhere 

PART 1

I WAS going to big up an over researched book, Andrew Perer's Turn My Head into Sound: A History of Kevin Shields and My Bloody Valentine. However, reading it reminded me of how big a part they've played in my life and how little studios interest me.

Encapsulated by what would've been a far more engrossing chapter about Colm O'Ciosoig's misfortunes during the Loveless sessions being reduced to a short paragraph. It omits the human to make a point about Shields being superhuman and is obsessed with his studio gadgetry and not the fact he answered the door with a hammer when Belinda got threatened by an ex. The folk who lent an ear to his project weren't the main players, but were studio staff. 

MBV seemed adult compared to all my other fixations. Adult, as in sex. It's why their pre-Bilinda incarnation didn't work for me. Shields may well be the genius, but the overall image the band cultivated after 1987 was captivating. Coupled with music unique in its sensuousness, it simulating my idea of sex, even. Something truly felt.

An idea for over a decade until finally cocooned under the covers in my good mate Jeff's cold back bedroom with a lovely, full-lipped woman whose supple voluptuous curves I had never encountered before. Experiencing one of my best Sundays, period. Cliche' for sure, but Isn't Anything enraptured us, I guess. She gave me her number, but I was flying over to Rome to meet what I assumed to be my girlfriend, Joss, so tossed it away. When I got to Rome, Joss met me, two days later than planned, informing me she'd met someone new. I was as sad about tossing away that number as I was about receiving the news. Imagining how enraptured by Loveless we could've been. 

Sometime later in the same room I was spinning (Please) Lose Yourself In Me, the hypnotic closer on their Ecstasy LP to get it aired at an upcoming Doves gig, but Jeff inexplicably called it dated. Absolute bollocks! Only Spector and the Reid brothers have created a comparable wall of sound with nowhere near as much unsettling fizzy warmth. Their last Lazy masterpiece, the Strawberry Wine EP, contains three tracks, all different but all brilliant. It almost eclipses early Mary Chain with its immediacy. It's that good. I first played these retrospectively in 1988 after they signed to Creation. When they became everyone's favourite band.

I only ever recall hearing You Made Me Realise out in the Hangout that year. The interplay between the ethereal and the concrete is much subtler on Isn't Anything. Voices and instrumentation mesh, detune, and crystallise, creating something transcendental and unheard before. The bulk of this bedroom bound pre-shoe-gaze brilliance shone with an aforementioned sensuousness bordering on the abstract and all done on budget. Sleep deprivation was key to achieving these distinctive sounds, or what Shields calls a hypnagogic state. I could only achieve walking into walls and crying to strangers on buses in the same state. Hats off!

PART 2

FUMBLING HIS way in tranced out states to test out the studio like a low budget Brian Wilson is how Shields sold his experimentation to Mike McGonigal, but Perer attests to him being much braver than that. Irreversibly erasing what Dave Anderson describes in Perer's book as "all the guitars, the dry elements- to leave only the processed reverse signal." A process that was unique. To pick a favourite from this period is nigh on impossible, as the records all play like dreams. Yes, occasionally even wet ones. 

Uni gig 

After catching them at the dimly lit Uni and being surprised by their power and volume and by my intolerance to micro-dots, it devastated me missing them at the Reading Festival when my head was more together. They were on Friday afternoon and my coach was late.

Loveless, the fruits of Shield's labour and a test of everyone else's patience were one of those rare triumphs in life when the game changes. Ed Simons was in awe of it, as were other less renowned clubland faces. It's so groundbreaking a book has been written about it. Albeit, a pocketbook. 

Jeff (again) nipped out at lunch to declare boldly upon his return he'd claimed my ordered copy from Musicworld, leading to a proper Basil moment in the work canteen. Course he hadn't. These excessive, embarrassing outbursts punctuate my life. Exerting no great effort and resembling a sleepy bear Shields pissed far more people off, creating his magnum opus than I've ever managed in a lifetime. 

Still under the illusion of the band dynamic in my head, I felt gutted to discover it was all Shields. He undertook all duties; his infamous glide guitar technique (google it), reverse reverb, fuzz and distortion, sampling and layering rendered everyone other than the most trusted studio staff superfluous. Again, it's impossible to pick a favourite. His groundbreaking effects, sounding much more textural and organic and woozy than anyone else's records, put MBV at the very top of the tree.  

Obviously, I was over expectant at the Ritz in 91, expecting Loveless's elements to be at the fore with a fancy Dan light show, but what I got was another sensory assault minus the microdot. Unbeknownst, the band had only learned how to play the songs after their completion. I had probably gone to wave about and shuffle in a constricted, baggy manner but found the burning intensity, volume and sheer energy unsettling. Had I left the house expecting something akin to the Uni gig, I would probably have loved it, but with all Shields talk of hip-hop and samplers I was expecting a club feeling, so I merely enjoyed it. 

They made more sense to me at Spike Island when Weatherall's remix sounded subversive as it wafted through the air in distorted anticipation of the Roses. Or in clubs surrendering to Soon with a trainee nurse from Crumpsall, who I was smitten with for traversing the line between goth and indie brilliantly. Then later, in mid-nineties shindigs, when the remix was perfect accompaniment for spilling drinks to in revelry. 

I'm enjoying super cheap analog represses of masterpieces, and fallen in love with m b v, an album that was a tad disappointing when it first surfaced after an endless wait. Again I was over expectant. The missus just doesn't dig my guitar based superheroes so curled up in a foetal position is how I like to listen to these now. They mesh well with my mirtazapine medicine and remind me why music is my life support and not sex.  

Despite Perer trying to convince me otherwise, and a loss of libido, I still see MBV as a four-piece. And still see them at the very top of the tree.

BEATS OF LOVE

165. Make No Mistake by Keith Richards 

MY MATE, Jeff proclaimed after a few weeks of me moving in that he expected Keith Richards and got John Major. My persona met with reality.

I concur that I'm risk averse and I'm paying a heavy price for it. I met the missus in the first week in January in 2012 and had we married prior to August that year, we would've fallen outside hostile environment policies. Granting us settlement. As it was despite marrying in 2013, once I was sure a marriage could last, it subjected us to the full force of law changes in 2014. By full force, I mean full force. 

Finally, our MP helped resolve matters in 2016 and they placed the missus in writing on a ten-year partner route to settlement, not until I was three hours away from flying her out of the country. In 2018, she had one chance to switch routes to save time but was told the rules would have to be met in full on subsequent visas or face a reset. Brow-beaten, we decided it was safer to pay extra and wait longer for peace of mind. Now, knowing we met the rules to settle earlier, we're devastated to learn that the political party we supported and who supported us now proposes to overhaul our settlement terms. Placing us once again in limbo.

Shabana Mahmood is going too far for many, but not far enough for others. Effectively making nobody happy. Me and the missus were in our local when some unhappy soul was in Nazi saluting after sighting us both. Mahmood's sorry blue labour rhetoric apologises for it. She understands why mixed race couples can make people feel so incensed; I guess. 

I now recognise myself in the fictional comedy character and his alter-ego, brought to life in John Sullivan's brilliant Dear John. Beginning this ordeal like Kirk St Moritz, an online lothario and ending it as Eric Morris, a neurotic letter writer. Jeff was dead right about me.

BEATS OF LOVE 

164. Up the Youth Club: Illuminating a Hidden History by Emma Warren

I APPRECIATE Emma's optimistic viewpoint as she provides a definitive account of this subject. Ending her subtly groundbreaking book abruptly before the 70% cut to youth services took effect. 

I only ever recall going to youth club discos aged 11, where I learned that my musical snobbery sat well with my more generalised snobbery. Too immune to the sounds of 2-Tone, which seemed to attract kids from the council houses and uniform dancing, the only records me and my mate Dave made any effort to dance to were New Romantic. 

We perfected a sneering disdain for most things because of this, even forming a nameless band. Inserting the lyrics 'Dance with the intercom, Speak into a plane' over a Landscape B side and some Casio keyboard action, intending to play it at the youth club channelling the full Blitz Kid aesthetic via our mother's wardrobes. We never found the bravery to leave our houses.

As with the brilliant Dance your Way Home, sparingly but brilliantly, she extracts history from a personal footprint. You learn lots about our societal loss without a cerebral approach, which again feels refreshing. It's by exploring these deeper connections with fertile ideas the book comes alive and you realise the importance of what was simply tossed away in the name of austerity.

Understanding that for many youth clubs were a lifeline and not simply some place to form an identity. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

163. Biko by Robert Wyatt

AFTER WATCHING in awe and wonder, Beverly Glenn-Copeland spellbinding his audience, by splashing colour and hope, it inspired me to reflect on politics and the personal. 

Then I heard this while exploring some Afrobeat online. The prolific Man Power turned me onto Robert Wyatt a few years ago. A voice I was once resistant to suddenly mesmerised me by its rough fragility. Paradoxically abrasive and tender at the same time. 

Whether it is simply the voice or the subtly penetrative Adrian Sherwood production that makes the stripped down anti-apartheid anthem sound less tiring here than on Peter Gabriel's longer, more intense original, I can't say. Maybe it's not hearing bagpipes but a haunting, austere minimalism. Another case of less is more.  

The effect is more disarming as we get slowly hypnotised by the warmth of the simple electric organ before having to face some harsh truth about reality. Steve Biko's brutal torture and murder was brazen and harrowing, with many arguing that South Africa's collective consciousness still hasn't recovered from. It explains why the system of injustice and brutality survives at the end of apartheid.

That Wyatt can splash some colour, and hope is possibly down to his musical genius. Or just maybe Biko's spirit is still alive and well. A symbol of resistance.

BEATS OF LOVE 

162. This Is What She's Like by Dexys Midnight Runners

THE CONFERENCE season finished with Theos think tank's annual lecture, delivered in compromising tones by Andy Burnham. Who lacked the conviction necessary to fully explain his Third Way of doing politics. 

Prophetically concluding his post lecture Q and A by saying we should 'prepare for a very dark road ahead.' Very defeatist, from someone with more than a modicum of political power. Akin to losing at musical chairs by sitting down before the music even starts.

Luckily, as an antidote to such resigned political pessimism, here, the optimistic music never stops. I'm reading Kevin Rowland's disturbingly candid autobiography and spinning Don't Stand Me Down a lot. Starting with a song of greatness. The Occasional Flicker exuding the uncompromising confidence that comes with having a great but muted dress style and the musical talent to reach beyond oneself. That this exhilarating even more original effort eclipses it epitomises the valiance at its heart.  

To start the greatest ever twelve minute song with a rich accented conversation about the elusive topic of love is absolute genius. To then weave said voices into a musically uncompromising vocally harmonic Pièce de résistance, whilst not forgetting the violinist or to mock the English upper classes, is as insane as inspired. It's both as catchy as hell and utterly opaque. Fully expressing a third way of doing popular music. 

If any song proclaims 'we should prepare for a very sunny road ahead', it is this.

BEATS OF LOVE 

161. Penetration by Iggy and the Stooges 

WHAT'S STRIKING about Farage's polling is that only a third of his own supporters think he's racist and will abolish our NHS.

Two-thirds must be very gullible. Predictably, his week started with a humongous lie about what we'll save addressing the Boriswave by attacking legal migrants and nothing about what we'll lose, namely our collective soul. 

His own vanity and fear of Boris Johnson has led to another droll Trumpian flagship announcement. Assuming we'll want a system that's no kinder to us Brits, but far, far harsher to everybody else. So harsh that we'll just let folk die outside hospitals so we won't have to queue as long. So harsh that we'll happily work alongside folk who see no future, just the prospect of deportation. 

Farage, ever the political charlatan, now shares some semblance of punk rock's ideology in that he seeks to destroy things. Where punk sought to expose truths, he seeks to conceal them. Seeking to destroy integration to conceal the truth that there is more that unites us than divides. Seeking to destroy our human rights to conceal the truth that they protect us more than threaten. And seeking to destroy our NHS to conceal the truth that we need it more than it needs us.

It's ironic that many old punk rockers see Farage's phoney rebellion as authentic and somehow anti-establishment, ironic, and deeply troubling. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

160. When Will it End by Honey Cone

LAYING OFF 500 people one day and inciting nearly 150,000 protesters to act in defence of their country, the next, takes a special psycho. A country not under attack and not even his. 

Elon Musk, that special psycho loves choreographing the very folk, his politics have laid to waste. A logical move for folk was to turn toward a party intent on redistributing wealth, but polarizing social media has eroded our shared reality. 

In this age, with its overemphasis on societal irony, social media doesn't challenge opinion. Its algorithms instead create echo chambers which simply reinforce existing belief. Conditioning users who are now adept at rebuking Corbyn while failing to explain what Thatcher ever did for the traditional working class. They are armed with simple, repetitive quotes to defend the billionaires, but can't explain how less inequality creates happier societies. They have also adapted to deflect criticism, dismissing comparisons to Nazi Germany, but cannot explain away their ever rising anger. 

An anger that strips folk of their individuality, which has its roots in aggressive violence and not victimhood. It's more pitiful still watching labour politicians too scared of losing votes to extol the many virtues found in multi-racial, multi-faith Britain. Instead, giving legitimacy to wholly unremarkable figures like Tommy Robinson. Instead, apologists for this huge, ever growing loveless grievance narrative that stokes this rising anger. 

A narrative that reads like the bleakest of slogans. A narrative manufactured and bankrolled by psychopaths who think nothing of laying 500 people off. Absolutely nothing.

BEATS OF LOVE 

159. Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' by Michael Jackson

IT'S EASY to clap when your political beliefs aren't being challenged. Such was the case last night when Jeremy Corbyn came into town. Outlining the vision of his future party as yet unnamed.

Likening himself in this moment to Keir Hardie, who had to break away from the liberals, added a touch of gravitas to an otherwise confusing political pitch. How, with no name, no leadership personnel, no trade union support and no print press interest, the animated man beside me expects Corbyn to win the 2029 election is anyone's guess. 

Everyday Farage's reform party is pulling away in the polls with anti-immigration spin. Yet more people now see capitalism as sacrificial economics, and it's no surprise to see a very confident former hedge fund manager faking salt of the earth appeal to distract from the fact. Demanding that people turn away from economic truth to explain loss by insisting that immigration has failed society and not this sacrificial economics. And turn away from social reality to explain justice by insisting we are inherently different when the opposite is true. These stories radicalise the dreamer, who is typically an impoverished, white, working-class individual. 

Outside the hall were small-town activists, labelling such dreamers fascist with an air of self righteousness, but Corbyn, if he's to become a political threat, will have to find some charm and wake them up. Convincing them they're the victims of manipulation. 

Sadly, it will probably take a demonstration of Farage's chicanery in power to accomplish that. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

158. Patron Saint Of Elsewhere LP by Sewell & the Gong

NOT SURE how this talented duo was going to translate over a long-play listen after a mighty impressive twelve, but they've locked into one hell of a mood and groove with a confidence which is highly addictive. A tad weightier but still spangled with enough air to take all the heavy chocolate in your life away.

I’d intended to heap high praise on the coming together of kosmische precision and pastoral reverie, but Dr Rob beat me to it. * And far more eloquently descriptive. Even citing the sound within to be evocative of a drug free Spacemen 3. I've never dared imagine a drug free Spacemen 3. Surely it's like imagining the Beatles without George Harrison. 

The pressing is flawless too, which helps when drifting off deep. So deep that I stubbed my little toe on my swivel chair's foot while surrendering to it. The most pain I've felt in ages which is odd considering how many heavy pallets I've mishandled of late. So much so that I actually put on a pair of socks to lie down and finish my listen. 

If this was a dish, it would be paella. Best shared. I miss communal listening. Whilst not as intense, it is great sharing the energy and space with someone appreciative. Loving the print too with its soft sherbert hues that nailed what I was imagining my flyers would be like when an illustrator friend helped me out until they came back. Nothing like this, of course. 

Only this time I actually bought their work for the colourful psychedelia of the music in its entirety. Beguiling drones and all. 

* https://banbantonton.com/2025/07/31/sewell-the-gong-patron-saint-of-elsewhere-dsppr/