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| Singing in
the rain…. Laptop album launch October 10th |
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| The Laptop
show went off alright. I arrived around three o'clock in the
afternoon after an excruciating drive through central London.
London is the worst city I know for driving into. It also has
crap rail connections – sure you can get anywhere you want to
go but it takes ages because the trains stop at places like Wivelsfield.
When you finally get there you can't get back without spending
half the night on the station because you missed the last train
by staying for the last number, and then you have to pay the
same again (like double fare) as a punishment for not honouring
the conditions of a day return. Still, the government are sorting
it all out by putting up fuel prices, raising parking fines by
fifty percent, and ensuring that insignificant little gits like
me have to pay eight quid for the privilege of parking in shitty
Camden Town for three hours because we've got an amplifier and
guitar to carry. Anyway…. the Underworld is underneath the Worlds End pub, hence the name – I bet they were thrilled to bits when they thought of that one. The World's End is horrible. Horrible is the word that describes it. A giant post theme pub with lots of nooks, crannies and places to put drinks on and maybe lean on, littered with fruit machines, wrought iron, and sporting three bars, two drinking, one snack. It looks like the kind of pub that the middle aged cardigan and fleece brigade go to on Sundays – the only difference is that the World's End doesn't appear to have a Carvery. And this is where young trendy Camden hangs out. How fucking boring. As always, the first problem when you arrive at a place like this is how to get into the venue. I walked into the pub and ask the barman how to get into the Underworld and he told me it was closed. So I explained and he gave me some vague directions which sent me on a tour of the nether regions of the pub. Then I found two jolly staff members having a late lunch at the snack bar, so I asked them (I knew they were staff because of the t shirts by the way). They patiently explained to me that the place would be open at eight o'clock. I explained to them that I knew that and normally had better things to do than hang around in pubs like this during the day, and eventually we reached an understanding whereby they showed me the way into the Underworld, which was through the back of the snack bar of course. And so I arrived just in time for the soundcheck and met Laptop who is really Jesse Hartman from New York with the aid of a technical wizard called Ed who was actually working on a laptop when I got there. I was a little apprehensive because I'd never met them and only talked with Jesse on the phone for the first time a couple of days before, and the only thing I'd heard was the cover of Whole Wide World. So I was taking a risk and so were they. Their label boss looked me up on the web and found lots of references to my drunken past so she was the most apprehensive of all of us. |
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| We were joined
by a delightful French girl whose name alludes me but who did
the spoken bits on the record and was about to do the same in
a live context. Being a film actress in everyday life she was
a bit nervous about being in a big rock group and told me before
we went on that this would most definitely be the first and last
time. Afterwards she couldn't wait to have another go. Most of
the soundcheck was spent in finding a way of making her spoken "whole-wide-world" audible.
In the event she was fine. I suppose you're all dying to know what I thought about it all. I think Jesse has a way to go. He's got something – I was genuinely entertained, but I found it all somewhat derivative, a sort of Bowie/Depeche Mode hybrid with a bit of Beck thrown in, and not enough real Jesse Hartman. The set lacked pace and tension, and he has to learn to work with and for the audience. But that's just me being a hyper-critical bastard. I wish them all the luck in the world, and I know it'll all work out. Laptop'll be huge in about three albums time – I'm proud to be associated with it all. |
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| What else is going on |
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| We went to
see DJ Cool Herc at the Concorde in Brighton the night after
Laptop. Cool Herc was a sound systems pioneer, the first to extend
the exciting breaks in records by alternating two copies on separate
turntables. He works mostly with seven inch singles a lot of
which are scratched beyond belief. He may be "just a DJ" (as
opposed to a "real musician"), working with other peoples records,
but what comes through is pure Cool Herc. The man is a true original
and stands alongside Africa Bambaata. It was pissing rain outside
and there were only about fifty people in contrast to the sell-out
when he came over earlier this year. Afterwards he shook our
hands and thanked us for coming. Recording work is still going
on in the heart of the Southern Domestic Facility but as I'm
doing most of the work myself progress is as ever Very Slow.
But it's starting to happen…. |
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| One half
of Two Lone Swordsmen is Andrew Weatherall of Loaded/Trainspotting/Primal
Scream fame. The other half is obviously somebody else but I
don't know who or I'd tell you. Before I clock off and get back to pumping out funky keyboard bass lines, would anybody like to tell me how they'd prefer to hear my new tracks – 12" vinyl, 7" vinyl, CD, Mp3 ????? The Stiff catalogue has just been licensed to a company called Union Square who specialise in quality re-releases. Something should be coming out from them early next year. I think it'll be worth the wait. |
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© Eric
Goulden, October 18th, 2000
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| LAPTOPIA
- guest appearance with Laptop
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| On Tuesday October
10th (tomorrow unfortunately – so much for advance notice!) Eric
will make a guest appearance at the Laptop album launch at the
Underworld in London's bustling Camden Town. The plan is to do
a version of the Laptop version of Whole Wide World which was a
huge hit on the Fierce Panda label a year or so ago. Apart from that it's all recording recording recording at the Southern Domestic Facility. The Ian Dury tribute release, "Brand New Boots & Panties" has been put back to next year owing, as far as we can make out, to a lack of sufficient famous people willing to make a contractual commitment. Meanwhile Eric has done a remix for the Lo Fidelity Allstars which should manifest itself in some format in November. We'll believe it when we see it. No live dates are scheduled for Eric/Southern Domestic at present due to extreme disinterest on the part of the music industry. Anybody who would like to help rectify this appalling situation is should make themselves known to us. The good news is that the Stiff catalogue has been licensed to a UK label called Union Square who specialise in quality re-releases. They are working with Eric on repackaging large parts of his Stiff records output. Eric would like to thank everybody for their supportive emails and apologises for any delays in replying (as usual).
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© Eric Goulden, October 9th, 2000
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