30 decimal points I would like to make about Simon Bookish

[imomus]

1/The Dewey Decimal System is a system for classifying books.

2/Today, however, I would like to classify the English singer Simon Bookish, who has a new album out next week, his third, "Everything/Everything" (Tomlab), "a big band song cycle about science and information".

3/The Devo-ish sleeve (which is very good) is by Anthony Stephinson.

4/Before Bookish released Everything/Everything he released Unfair/Funfair (2006) and Trainwreck/Raincheck (2007). Generic titles containing consistently quirky punctuation are good.

5/Simon Bookish is the stage name of Leo Chadburn. Leo/Simon (as I expect he would enjoy being called) is very tall and always looks more interesting than anyone else in the room.

6/Pitchfork called him "the long-lost son of Jarvis Cocker".

7/Other people (I still love you, powpowpow!) have said "he thinks he's Momus" and "but Simon Bookish is quite a bit better than anything he's done in years". Grrr!

8/Tracks on the Simon Bookish Myspace page make it seem as if this new album -- played by a fifteen piece band rather than Bookish's usual digital synths -- is a great leap forward, a coming-of-age.

9/It is therefore time to say some things about Simon Bookish.

10/But first, let's watch him performing a song called Interview, from his previous album.

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11/ I like the way the backing track is almost Brian Eno's Golden Hours, which is probably my favourite Brian Eno song ever.

12/ The repeated refrain "Queen Victoria", and Bookish's outlandish garb, make me think of him as a futuristic "New Victorian Dandy" type.

13/A typical Bookish lyric: "the royal meteorologist's expression is pained". This is refreshing as a break from "let's hump and grind one more time", but not refreshing if you set your watch by Divine Comedy lyrics.

14/Reviewing Ocky Milk, Simon Bookish SLASH Leo Chadburn kindly called me "one of the most ingenious, pranksterishly self-aware musicians around". He criticized my Jamaican accent (correctly), though, and thought some of my friendly songs were mawkish.

15/If I might be allowed to criticize back, I would say that I find something emotionally attenuated (not mawkish enough) in Simon Bookish songs. Where, gentlemen, is the soul?

16/If Interview has the sound of Golden Hours, it certainly doesn't have the soulfulness of the Eno song.

17/People Simon Bookish has been compared to in reviews: Pulp, The Divine Comedy, Momus, Steve Reich, Marc Almond, David Bowie, Laurie Anderson.

18/People I would compare him to: David Cunningham, Wire, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, The Books, Dickon Edwards, Idle Tigers.

19/Artists I would not compare him to, but might compare to each other (because they're all out of control, dark, subconscious, soulful and fascinating to me): PiL, Tricky, No Bra.

20/No Bra's Susanne Oberbeck might be the only person in the room more extraordinary-looking than Simon Bookish, if a room were to exist where they both were.

21/I don't know why, but No Bra songs like She Was A Butcher and Doherfuckher touch me in a way Simon Bookish songs don't. Perhaps because, as Susanne says, "for me music is about relating emotion". There's something vulnerable and dangerous there. No Bra songs are "bad", but in a good way.

22/Boomkat classifies the new Simon Bookish album as "laptop folk / americana", which is completely weird, especially since the American empire has this week officially fallen. Laptop folk / Americana is the category my Folktronic belongs in, but not his Everything/Everything.

23/Simon Bookish asked John Talaga -- Fashion Flesh -- to do a remix for him for a single called Leo Being Simon Bookish.

24/Simon attended the Guildhall School of Drama and Music in the Barbican.

25/In 2004 Simon presented Fear of Music, a deconstruction of the work of Talking Heads at Limehouse Town Hall.

26/David Byrne played a track from Everything/Everything on his podcast recently.

27/Not Wanting To Say Anything About John Cage is an art piece Simon Bookish has presented.

28/He has also made a new score for Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk CIrcle at the National Theatre, and appeared in the production as The Singer.

29/I would like to inform you that I approve of Simon Bookish's new Tomlab release wholemindedly.

30/But perhaps not, alas, wholeheartedly.

Comments

Re: ha!

[(Anonymous)]

As soon as you quoted someone comparing Momus unfavourably to Bookish, I already knew what your response to him was going to be: damning with faint praise. You\'re so predictable! He\'s got no soul? What an absurdly rockist thing to say, particularly coming from you, Momus. To my ears, he is indeed better than you have been over the past few years. I think it\'s partly to do with something you have no control over, namely age. There\'s a tremendous freshness and energy to his material. Whereas there\'s a certain weariness to yours, a weariness with the whole genre of pop music which pushes you to an academic concern with experimentation for experimentation\'s sake.

Re: ha!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I don't say that soul has to be authentic, but I do personally want music to move me and to have some edge of vulnerability and doubt. Surely you can see the difference between Eno's Golden Hours and Interview? "Several times I've seen the evening fade away, watching the signs taking over from the fading day..." There's something very soulful about the Eno song, something haunting.

Although that seems to be absent from the Bookish songs, I do think some of his arrangements are doing some of the work, though, when they estrange the rather-too-poised and knowing lyrics. And -- for what it's worth -- I think the songs Eno is making now have rather too much soul. He's become a bit mawkish, and is working with mawkish bands, too.

Re: ha!

[(Anonymous)]

Was not aware of this Bookish gentleman before, but now that it has been brought to my attention, maybe a few trite remarks : Firstly 'Golden Hours' being 'I Am The Fly' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcrkMT135jg&feature=related), this discussion is located firmly in the field of inverse ratios. Secondly, the cover? 'Another Country' (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086904/) rather than Devo, note the blotting out of American and Russian land masses behind Mr. Bookish and red & black plastic garb. If one thought (as a mere flight of fancy) to recast 'Another Country' with the current protagonists in the main roles, then I suggest that Simon Bookish could fill the shoes of Wharton, the 'fag' of Fowler. Momus being harder to place, not Guy Bennett (aka Burgess), rakish Bing Selfish (http://www.bingselfish.com/ideals.html) for that role, tho himself being more Bates (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2urvufPJMU) than Everett. Tommy Judd? (the toff with a chocolate bust of Lenin) on first reflection no, but thinking about the composite nature of his character (bits of Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Tony Blunt) then perhaps it's fitting. Alternatively just create Kim Don Blunt (no drug pun of course intended)... OK, I don't know where this is leading, but somewhere...

Re: ha!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I don't quite see what connection you're making between Golden Hours and I Am The Fly? And what do you mean, "this discussion is located firmly in the field of inverse ratios"?

Also, I haven't seen Another Country, so that bit of slash fiction is lost on me too.

I do think it's possible that generation does play a part here, though. I think I fail to "get" some elements of Bookish because I wasn't part of the demographic smitten by Rupert Everett, Brideshead, Withnail and Another Country. I mean, I could have been -- Michael Bracewell managed to be, and he's older than me -- but something in me (probably the fact that I'm Scottish and rather leftish and maybe also because I'm straight and have problems with my own culture) balked. It just looked like toffs swanning around in boaters and white suits. There was some element of class hate there. And when I heard The Divine Comedy for the first time, I disliked that part of it quite intensely. That -- in his case -- Protestant Irish love of English toffs. This is also what marks my distance from the so-called "new dandyism". Aristocrats are not my role models, for very specific political reasons, and also for visceral ones.

Re: ha!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

In this regard, I will say that there are too many references to royalty in Bookish's lyrics. It smacks of monarchism, and my instincts are republican.

Re: ha!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

(Of course, after singing so much about Queen Victoria being his idol, he tells us he's lying. She isn't. Plus, of course, being a queen has a specific gay meaning. Nevertheless, the aristocratic signifiers keep coming up. And they do say there's no smoke without a fire at Versailles.)

(Oh, and I feel the same way about Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette. Mapping monarchy to shopping-and-fucking! Yuk, yuk, yuk! And I mean that politically.)

Re: ha!

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Aristocrats are not my role models, for very specific political reasons, and also for visceral ones.

You're the most temperamentally aristocratic person I know, Nick, even moreso than the real aristocrats I've met.

Re: ha!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, you know what they say: big country estate, small dick!

Re: ha!

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Ah. (http://imomus.com/thought100301.html)

Re: ha!

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Of course, self-serving arrogance, chauvinism, entitlement and snobbery come in many forms, (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/oct/01/us.literature.insular.nobel) not just in white suits. (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/lord_whimsy/Whimsy/DSCN8669.sm.jpg)

Re: ha!

[drywbach.livejournal.com]

Wow, those shoes are impressive!

Re: ha!

[bokmala.livejournal.com]

There is a difference between arrogance due to perceived birthrights and arrogance as the result of studies within a field. Would you deny that American literature is terrible right now? (This is not necessarily an indictment of America as a whole; they have had truly great writers. The current crop simply fails to produce anything of interest (to me, at least) partly because of a tendency towards either laughable convolution (Pynchon) or superfluous cultural referencing)

Re: ha!

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Would you deny that American literature is terrible right now?

ALL American literature? You may be able to make generalizations like that about a country of nine million, but not one of over 300 million. Writers who live here can't keep up with what's going on, let alone some dryasdust in Oslo. That's why such broad statements are seen by Americans as incredibly silly and presumptuous.

There is a difference between arrogance due to perceived birthrights and arrogance as the result of studies within a field.

Yes, there is: The second is even more intransigent when it is wrong. Infallibility is not something one can acquire in a subjective field of study like literature. One only acquires opinions, however qualified they may be.

Re: ha!

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

But isn't the point that the American literary scene is being accused of arrogance here and is ignoring or denying that accusation?

Re: ha!

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

When voiced, this line of thinking always sounds like some needy, jilted girlfriend. If Americans were so artistically insignificant, why would the Europeans in the epicenter of all things worthwhile give a damn? The answer of course is that it isn't true.

Re: ha!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Whereas there\'s a certain weariness to yours, a weariness with the whole genre of pop music which pushes you to an academic concern with experimentation for experimentation\'s sake.

This is a crucial point -- the weariness of the medium of pop music comes from people failing to be wearied enough by its repetitions, its tail-chasing, its perpetual reference back to "classic timeless masterpieces". To be bored with your own habits, and the reflexes of the medium, is crucial. We don't experiment "for experiment's sake" or because we're "academic", but because the very survival of the medium as something vital and relevant depends on it finding new forms, and new excitements.

Re: ha!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

(And this is how pop music is like the novel: it must be both universal and novel, both ring true and ring in the new.)

Re: ha!

[(Anonymous)]

the very survival of the medium as something vital and relevant depends on it finding new forms, and new excitements.

This is in itself a very "situated" response, that of someone brought up at the tail-end of modernism, for whom modernism remains some kind of touchstone. I'm not so sure this ideology is so appropriate for the generation that wasn't even born when post-punk - arguably modernism's last gasp - was happening. The drive to the "new" can also become a cliché, can also become "old". One response to this dilemma is postmodernism, although we're now a generation on from Warhol, so perhaps even that is "old". Another response might be to accept genre rather than continually want to break it, and to try and find an interesting space within genre. When genre writers or movie-makers do something genuinely interesting, they are often treated as if they have gone "beyond" genre - Hitchcock becomes an "auteur", John Le Carré becomes "literary" etc., when in fact perhaps what they've done is the opposite: they've delved even deeper into the genre, brought out the interesting tensions in it, etc.

Re: ha!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The fundamental problem is that when you work within established genres you are bound to invite comparison with -- and be overshadowed by -- the people who mastered them in the past.

Also, unless you're very, very careful you become a pastiche artist like Noel Gallagher.

I don't think film or the novel would have got very far if Le Carré and Hitchcock were their standard-bearers. I even think the French New Wave's championing of John Ford is a slippery slope to recidivism.

Re: ha!

[(Anonymous)]

Well, French New Wave was the new thing that happened in the early sixties, and it's interesting that it's so rooted in commercial Hollywood moviemaking, rather than surrealism or primitivism or something. That its heroes are Ford and Hitchcock, not Bunuel or Eisenstein. That's what's new about it!

Re: ha!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

But you absolutely can't say the French New Wave is some kind of genre play -- it may draw some energy from Hollywood, just as Fassbinder drew something from Douglas Sirk. But it adds a hell of a lot of totally new content. And for me, personally, Breathless is a lot less interesting than La Chinoise. Breathless is Godard's Noel Gallagher film (and it's the one Oasis fans are still likely to prefer, if they watch any Godard at all). After that he breaks away from pastiche and does something to establish a new genre rather than feed off an old one. He made sure that future Hollywood whizz kids like Tarantino would be in his shadow, rather than he in theirs.

Re: ha!

[(Anonymous)]

Well Breathless remains Godard's best known film. Yes, Godard then went off on a tangent but I'm not sure you can't say the others weren't "genre". Truffaut in particular is a 40s Hollywood director manqué. But anyway, I think it's interesting that even today France's cinéphile intelligentsia is probably more interested in obscure films noirs from the 40s than art cinema from Asia or whatever.

At one point you used to bang on about how there is no space outside society, it's an illusion. Well, I think something similar applies to genre. There's no real space outside genre, or convention, because it is the conventions that create the meaning. Playing off or against a convention is just playing the same game, albeit negatively.

Re: ha!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I don't mind you saying genre is inevitable and universal, but that's not a reason to leave existing genres untouched and unchanged. Their survival, in fact, depends on their being stretched and spliced and messed around. You're not "breaking" genre because you're messing around with it. And you're not obliged to do pastiche of old work just because genre exists. But sure, the limitations of genre can be productive.

By the way, who are you? You have a somewhat professorial tone! (I'm impressed by the correctness of the french accents!)

Re: ha!

[(Anonymous)]

You may call me Noël Galles-à-Guerre...

The messing around with the genre is just part of the dialectic that makes up the ur-genre, though. The other part of the dialectic is the "getting back to the essence of the genre" - the two need each other to exist.

Re: ha!

[(Anonymous)]

I wholeheartedly disagree, my favorite Momus' albums are the last few he has put out and I am amazed at how well he has avoided the typical blandness many musicians start to fall into with old age.