2005-11-22 - 11:16 a.m.
Ever felt like someone is pointing the finger?
Last week I was at a lot of travel industry guff as I droned on about in the last few entries. One recurring question was �how did you get into what you do?� and I always feel a bit embarrassed, not because I kidnapped an editor�s family and held them to ransom until they gave me a commission, or slept my way to the bottom (though a chance would have been a fine thing), but because I don�t really know.
One week I was a slack office temp doing HORRIBLE music reviews for a crappy free magazine, the next I was a slack office temp occasionally getting to go on press trips to nice places. Music journalism�s gain, and it is a big gain let me assure you, is travel journalism�s loss, or at least travel journalism�s slight inconvenience to be tolerated.
I was taking a few, well let�s just call them �files�, off my old pc the other night and I stumbled upon a collection of my CD reviews from about 1998, or something. After I had finished gagging, I decided to keep them so that future generations may avoid prose that could turn milk at thirty paces.
The one curio, that I will share with you here YOU LUCKY PEOPLE is a review of a band called The Karelia who, and this is the only reason I bring it up, were fronted by a boy called Alex, who grew up to be the lead singer of�Franz Ferdinand. Needless to say, my finger was on the pulse so hard my fingerprints had worn away, and I predicted great things. Well, things, at least.
The Karelia -Divorce at High Noon
Vaunted by certain sections of the music press as The Divine Comedy meets Noel Coward, though surely this isn�t the greatest of characteristic divides to surmount. I would throw a high-camp version of The Ukrainians in there too. Nevertheless, their suave, smoking-jacketed disaffection is set to sneeringly sleazy meanderings which seem to creep from just about every decade since the 1920�s. The opening �Divorce At High Noon� sets out their decidedly nonchalant stall, with its rallying call to a lethargic break up � �I feel quite bored now that we�ve shared / Every secret, every thought , every fear and every fault��. Confirmed arch-cynics will warm to �Love�s A Clich� and the faux Middle Class aspirations of �Life in a Barrat Garrett� (�I want a bath robe in which to lay my stools / I want some offspring to send to private schools�). Driven by quiet disgust which spews forth in cutting finisher �Garavurghty Butes�, the Karelia prove suave rockabillies with a nice line in suits and vitriol to spare. Ones to watch.
Yeah, sorry about that. I promise not to force my juvenilia on you again.
