this week’s column
is written in free
verse
this is a horror to format
requiring the use of many paragraph

breaks

you can’t see them
but in real life
behind the red velvet curtains
of the internet
and even though
red curtains
put one in mind
of album titles
by ladysingersongwriters
who write songs
with fountain pens
filled with
That Sort Of Red,
in haitch tee em ell
they look like
this:

< brrrrrrrrrrr >

yeah
i read
some books

Single of the Week!

Connan Mockasin - ‘Forever Dolphin Love’ EP (Phantasy)

in case you were wondering
and even if you were not
i love connan mockasin

he wears satin shirts
made from the bedsheets
of aged playboys

and makes records
fashioned from jazz
about falling in love with
women
who just happen to be dolphins

inconvenient.

it’s probably about sex
most things are.

Jamie Woon - ‘Lady Luck’ (Candent / Polydor)

if ever a name
were ripe for verse
it is jamie woon

one could write a paragraph
dripping in vowels
like double humbert
from that book
about wrongsex
with underageds.

that is my favourite book
and ‘lady luck’ is my favourite song

‘it ain’t something you can synthesise’
‘and it ain’t something you can buy’
he’s right, you know.

what an
absolutely xxxxxxxxtraordinary
song
it sounds like all your
christBASSes
come at once
doyousee
dog it’s good
dog he’s clever

he also
has the fulsome cheeks
of a cherub
were he my boyfriend
i would trill his name

wooooooooooooooooon
wooooooooooooooooon

how embarrassing

he’s not my boyfriend.

one addenda,
jamie
so-called
woooon:

it's about your mousse-tarsh.

how can something that wrong
look
so right?


Colourmusic - ‘You For Leaving Me’ (Memphis Industries)

colourmusic
not to be confused with
colours
below

made that one that went
put in a little gas
last year
do you remember it
I do

Here it is

‘you for leaving me’
is not about gasoline
or euphemisms
for putting things
in your mouth
that make you jolty

it does however
have a video
set in an industrial kitchen
where colourmusic
alloneword
put teddies on carving blocks
and lop their heads orf
in slo
motion
blood comes out

it’s a bit like masterchef
but i hope it’s not
really about
vegetarianism

‘would you eat cows
if they had faces
like teddies?’

i would.


Colours - ‘Playground’ from ‘Bildungsroman’ EP (Sleep All Day / Marshall Teller)

colours
know the german for

‘novel in which our hero or heroine learns stuff over a period of time’

and i hope this isn’t like the time
i read on a press release
that a band took Kerouac on the tour bus

not literally

but it definitely made them

literary

and definitely doesn’t mean
they spent five minutes
‘fore a rack in fopp
or hmv
pondering cut-price
loss-leading
palahniuk, vonnegut, salinger

[shut up
i don’t need an ‘and’
because this is
free verse

man

also
because it is poetry
i use ‘fore’
instead of
‘before’]

where was i

oh yes
this band
‘fore a rack in fopp’
deciding which Great Writer
summed up their
definitely interesting
definitely unique
definitely existential

MAN CRISIS

which was
definitely unlike
any crisis
that happened before
to any other humans

'Kerouac
speaks to me man'
'Playground'
on the other hand
does not
it skims over a person
like unwashed paintbrushes
made of fog

i want colours
if that really is
their real name
to hoick

hoick is a great word
don’t you find

i want colours
to hoick up
their collective waistband

and get a
ruddy
job.


Emika - ‘Count Backwards’ (Ninja Tune)

Emika wrote to me
once
and said she had read
what I had written
about her songs
and would I
write something about
her album
to send
to other
idiot journalists

stranger things have happened
to me
as a music writer
but the sharp tang
of realization
which wasn't proustian
i ruddy hate
Proust
like most fronch ponces
he is too
full of hisself

anyway,
back to me,
when I had that tang
i told you about
and was suddenly aware
that some bands
may actually read
the things
i write about them

Terrifying.

Emika thought i was a man
because my reviews were blue
she was all charm
like her single
which is about counting

a metronome
that scores a groove
marking each beat
of your love affair
as well as
each beat
of its inevitable
demise

Ooooooooooooo.

Joan As Police Woman - ‘Nervous’ (PIAS)

joan is not a police woman
BUT A HUMAN BEING
get a load of those capitalz
everyone

she makes pop songs
all of which should
get her arrested for being
too bloody good
at writing pop songs
here is another
it's called
'Nervous'
it’s bloody good.


Deerhunter – ‘Memory Boy’ (4AD)

once i tried to be clever
and play out deerhunter
in a fancy bar
on white vinyl
the booth
such as it was
was under some stairs
under a wee-coloured light bulb
i couldn’t see the grooves

i slammed it in
as if my name were tabitha
or mairead
“they don’t even play the records properly”

sorry messrs Cox, Archuleta, Fauver, and Pundt
your names are poetry
but my djing was not
this is a shame
because your songs are heaven
if a little easy to enjoy

‘bands this easy to like
are easy to go off’

mean, yes
and assuredly fickle
but sort of true
as well.

Angel Sized - ‘Angel Sized’ from ‘The Listed Building’ EP (Armellodie)


angel sized
has something of the
stereolabs
about it

except that
these labs
are run by students
unqualified pop scientists

but not dis-
qualified
because they are still
learning
so are allowed
to make
mistakes
just
like
me.

all in all:
far from perfect
but fuzzy
naïve
skuzzy
and other words
that look good on a white page
and essentially
mean the same thing
which is:
promising.


Slam Donahue - ‘Where Were We On The Weekend’ (Too Pure)

when you write in free verse
slight things are given
undue
import
so that
even when
you are saying
diddly squat
it doesn’t look
like it

so it is
with

slam
donahue

who sound like they should play b ball
but who in fact
play jolly pop songs

small in concept
but big on giddy

wwwotw sounds like
twee pop
that has not lost
a single hairslide
to the perilous straightness
of its hair

‘I don’t know why I keep buying them’
my mum used to say.

wwwotw is twee pop voiced
by him out of management
or em gee em tee
as they will insist
on being known

Historians Look Back On 2011
And Conclude:
vwls r fr sqrs

it’s not a headline
or a haiku

maybe next week.











Wendy is on Twitter, here. If you think this is bad, imagine the fucking diary.