The central topic that Harvey approaches in Rebel Cities concerns the question of the right to the city, and to whom this belongs. He takes in Henri Lefebvre’s idea of the right to the city, Garrett Hardin’s work on the commons, and Hausmann’s redesign of Paris, in order to assess how so many of us have come to reside in what he describes as ‘the disgusting mess of a globalizing, urbanizing capital run amok’. His target, as we might expect of a Marxist scholar, is capitalism; specifically, the way that it is manifest in urban areas.
The review can be read in its entirety here.
As a music writer, I’m in the habit of receiving copies of albums before their release date, so that I can have a review written before the record is out. The underlying expectation here is that the reading public will be able to access opinions of new music before it is available to buy, and that these opinions will inform whether or not they purchase an album on its release.
But of course, that’s not how things actually work. It’s not only music writers who have access to new music before it comes out: practically every album leaks at some point before its release date, and becomes available for unofficial download. Many artists and record companies have sought to dissuade people from using such channels by streaming new albums online a couple of weeks ahead of their release. I don’t get review copies of every new album I want to hear, but the prevalence of advance streams means that I’m able to listen to any new album.
Recently, however, I’ve been thwarted in this respect. Sigur Ros’ new album Valtari (which I will hopefully be receiving a review copy of) was streamed ahead of its 28 May release, but the stream was less accessible than most. Sigur Ros (or their label) came up with the idea of ‘Valtari Hour’, whereby it would be possible to listen to the album online at 7.00pm on 17 May. After this time, the stream expired.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to tune in to the stream at that time – I was out doing the very music writerly thing of reviewing a gig – so I missed my chance. But I wasn’t going to miss my chance of hearing Valtari so (without going into the perhaps obvious details of how I did so) I acquired a digital copy of the album, which I’m now able to enjoy.
‘Valtari Hour’ raises some interesting questions about how we consume music nowadays. The inevitability of advance leaks means that the actual release date of a record has far less relevance than it once did: fans no longer have to visit a record store to secure their first listen to a new album, nor do they even have to wait for the official day when they can download it. ‘Valtari Hour’ reintroduces the dying phenomenon of the release date for the streaming generation.
But the obvious limitation of the one-off stream can easily result in adverse reactions. If I can stream other albums at any time in a two week period before their release, then why can’t I do that with the new Sigur Ros? And so the temptation to download through illegitimate channels arises: if you can’t stream then you have to download. When I get my review copy of Valtari it will replace the copy that currently resides in my hard drive. But most listeners won’t receive review copies, and the copies they might currently have in their hard drives may not be replaced by official ones.
]]>My talk will be about Harry Beck’s iconic London Underground map and the art it has inspired – for a taster of what this will entail you can read an article on the same subject that I wrote last year.
I’m particularly excited about this event, as I’ve been put on the same panel as Will Self. Although the fact that he’s likely to be sitting next to me as I’m speaking is somewhat nerve-wracking, it’s flattering that my work is considered to be covering roughly the same territory as his.
]]>Alabama 3 @ The Camden Crawl – 5 May
Fanzine @ The Camden Crawl – 6 May
]]>It always began with the moment immediately after the Teletubbies had finished watching a few minutes of video from a screen mounted in one of their bellies. After the picture faded they would invariably cry out the ominous words ‘Again! Again!’ and the whole horrible little episode – usually a quasi-documentary about facile toddlers engaging in low-budget craft activities under the supervision of gormless minders – would be replayed in toto.
Of course, the vitriol I’ve expressed here is unfounded. Repetition is invaluable succour to small children, and rather than directing my rage at the educational requirements of the Teletubbies’ target audience, I should be laying into my own peculiar adolescent pleasure at watching four primary coloured, pasty faced creatures frolicking around a sterile looking meadow. But repetition – at least the basic, immediate repetition of this nature – provide no nourishment to older children and adults. To offer grown human beings such a thing would be akin to bottle-feeding them.
Which leads me to wonder why almost all TV documentaries use so much repetition. The fact that the worst offenders seem to be cooking shows and programmes about people who are politely referred ‘extraordinary’ suggests that it’s not employed for its great rhetorical power. OK, it’s easy enough to determine the purpose it serves: it means that the programmes cheaper to make, because less actual footage is required to make a complete show. But it’s an insult to the viewers’ intelligence regardless.
When you’re taught how to write an essay or give a presentation, the standard spiel is ‘Say what you’re going to say, then say it, then say how you’ve said it’. This is sound advice when you’re attempting to convey a complex argument in continuous prose, but doesn’t hold nearly up as well when applied to the Hairy Bikers’ Bakeation. And when the additional pressures of commercial TV are factored in things go from bad to worse.
We might as well be watching primetime TV through a screen in Tinky Winky’s stomach.
The typical method of constructing a televisual narrative employed by a Channel 4 documentary maker is as follows: ‘Say what you’re going to say, then say what you’re going to say in the first part, then say it, then say how you’ve said it, then cut to a commercial, then say what you’ve said so far, then say what you’re going to say for the remainder of the show, then say what you’re going to say in this part, then say something, then say what you’ve said in this part, then say what you’ve said so far, then cut to another commercial…’ and so on and so on until the fact that you’ve watched the same handful of ten second loops of footage nine times apiece in the space of an hour drives you insane. Three minutes of repetition per episode of the Teletubbies was nothing compared to this.
]]>However, the faction of noise polluters that aggrieve me that most are those who apparently have the decency to keep their music to themselves by channelling it directly into their ears, but who use earbuds of such appalling quality that they might as well be playing it through the speakers of their mobiles. Specifically, I’m referring to the uncomfortable white earphones that some as standard with iPods. Apple have created a product that has become so iconic that the white cables draped around its consumers’ necks are practically fashion statements; as such, they ought to be ashamed of themselves for producing earphones so poor that they direct more sound away from the ear than into it.
I’ve abandoned the standard Apple product in favour of Sennheiser CX300s. No other earphone will do. I’m not snobbish about the way I transmit music from MP3 player to ear. In their own way, they’re as poorly made as the Apple earbuds; they never last as long as a year, but I keep buying more, pleased with the quality of their sound, and proud that I’m not subjecting anyone else to my choice of music.
But there’s much more to this than just your brand of earphones. I’m a headphones user at home, too: I don’t particularly like playing my music out loud in my own flat, even when I’m at home by myself. From my living room, I can hear footsteps in the corridor outside, and people climbing the stairs of my building. By this reasoning, those people climbing the stairs can hear the music I’m listening to inside. And I don’t want them to hear my music, because what I’m listening to is personal to me.
I can boil this down to there being three types of listener. There is the public listener – the individual so proud of their taste in music (invariably R’n’B of the shittiest kind) that they will lower their car windows even in the depths of winter so that the pedestrians they cruise past have to suffer it. Then there is the private listener – the person like myself, with noise-isolating Sennheisers plugged into their ears, aggravated that the public listener’s R’n’B is capable of penetrating beyond their noise-isolating properties. And finally there is the ordinary listener, who will continue to use those terrible white Apple earphones for evermore.
]]>It’s a bold move to centre a book on any living figure, but when that figure is a writer, and a clear influence on the novel in which he is invoked, then it becomes an even more daring ploy. So is The Quiddity of Will Self a successful display of intertextual dexterity, or is it an awkwardly intellectual piece of fan fiction?
My review of The Quiddity of Will Self by Sam Mills has just recently appeared over at PopMatters. The full review can be found here.
]]>The traditional confectionary of the season is of course the chocolate egg, said to be a celebration of new life and a marking of the end of Lent. But there are many more chocolate objects competing for our attention, ranging from humble bars of Dairy Milk and tins of Quality Street to more specialised products for those who like to combine religious faith with capitalist kitsch. The middleground in all this candy, however, is occupied by chocolate animals; commonly rabbits or chicks, though other beasts are available.
I don’t like eating chocolate animals. I don’t like having to bite their legs off and smash their little faces in so that I can consume all the chocolatey goodness. However, I don’t mind eating actual animals; in fact, I’m very fond of it. I’m not a vegetarian; I can’t see the point of being a vegetarian if you don’t go all the way and become a vegan, and, as someone who was raised on meat, I can’t see myself ever being able to break my habits so completely.
In common with most carnivores, the meat I buy and eat has been prepared and processed to the point that it no longer bears any resemblance to the creature it was once part of. Factory-produced burgers and the like are the prime example of this phenomenon whereby meat-eaters are not required to ever visualise the animals they consume; but even if you buy organic free range meat, the chops and joints hardly resemble sheep or cows, in spite of their obvious fleshliness.
But I’m more than happy to eat meat that looks like a bit of animal – and I’m not just talking about turkey dinosaurs. A piece of bone sticking out of a slab of meat doesn’t put me off, and I’m not at all squeamish about offal. I have, on at least one occasion, bought a jointed rabbit that I could easily piece back together into a roughly rabbit-shaped three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. As it happens, the luggage I’m currently carrying (I’m writing this on a train) contains a whole rabbit (albeit skinned and jointed).
LEFT: Good to eat; RIGHT: Not good
A chocolate rabbit, though, is a step too far. Although I think serving meat that recognisably began its existence as part of a living beast is something that should be encouraged, I find it odd that anyone would want to make something animal-shaped out of a foodstuff that isn’t animal. (Admittedly, chocolate is an animal product, but bearing its origins in mind, surely a cow would be a more appropriate shape than a rabbit?) Eating rabbit-shaped chocolate disassembles the associations we ought to have between animals and meat, and trivialises that consumption of animals. Eating a rabbit-shaped rabbit, on the other hand, makes us aware of what we are doing when we eat meat.
]]>Trailer Trash Tracys – Ester
The first couple of times I listened to this I found it a bit wishy-washy, but it’s grown on me to the point that it gets to be on this list.
Prinzhorn Dance School - Clay Class
If I have to pick a favourite from these ten, then it’s this: it develops the sound of Prinzhorn Dance School’s awkward debut album to something remarkable.
Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas
Maybe a bit of an obvious choice, but it has style, substance and humour, so it has to be included.
Shearwater - Animal Joy
Proof that a band which begins as a side project can grow into something much bigger; Shearwater reach new heights here.
Perfume Genius - Put Your Back N 2 It
This immediately strikes you a sparse, bleak record, but after a while it starts to haunt you, and you realise that there is far more to it than is apparent at first.
Simian Ghost – Youth
Essentially, this is a conventional pop album, but the songwriting and arrangements are just so good that it ends up being more than the sum of its parts.
Dirty Three – Towards The Low Sun
Equally post-punk and jazz, this instrumental album achieves something unique in that combination.
Andrew Bird - Break It Yourself
Simply a really beautiful album: Andrew Bird remains full of surprises, but everything hangs together more smoothly than anything else of his I’ve heard.
Bruce Springsteen - Wrecking Ball
To be honest, this is the first Springsteen album I’ve listened to with any significant amount of attention. Unashamedly brash, but nonetheless great.
Pinkunoizu - Free Time!
An album that seems pretty pretentious at first, but which draws you in with its peculiar yet wonderful songs.
]]>However, one thing I did need to purchase was a pair of running shoes. I was tempted to use my default procedure for buying most things and get them online, but figured I’d need to try them on. It’s a shame you can’t just download a pair of shoes to try out, and then beam them back if they don’t fit. In the real world though, I imagine the best place to buy these is in some kind of specialist running shop. But I chickened out of tracking down such a place, fearful that if I set foot in one I would immediately be accosted by some gym-fresh action man who would convince me to buy a pair that costs as much as a small car. He’d probably encourage me to try on all sorts of lycra apparel as well.
My other option seemed to be Sports Direct. This wasn’t an appealing prospect either, and I wasn’t sure whether I would actually find a pair of running shoes there. Sports Direct struck me as a place where people who wear sportswear all the time buy their clothes; I didn’t think their stock was actually suitable for wearing while doing anything that resembles sport. But I decided to risk it.
The shop was like a bizarre polyester-themed nightclub, an industrial unit tightly packed with rails of clothing. Every single item seemed to be on sale at a great reduction, so each of these rails was bedecked with huge fluorescent signs proclaiming the extent of the discount. I imagine that there was pumping music playing as well, but my noise-cancelling earphones were channelling Melvyn Bragg talking about Wordsworth, so I managed to avoid hearing it. My soundtrack was the absolute antithesis of the environment; I’m sure I was the only person ever to browse the aisles of Sports Direct while listening to the In Our Time podcast.
But I managed to come out of there with a pair of running shoes, and I got them at a discount too, though it seems it’s impossible not to in that shop. The running itself is going well – I’ve only been out twice, but there seemed to be a pretty substantial improvement by my second attempt. No need to write much more about that though, as it’s probably less interesting than the search for running shoes.
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