Since there’s a thing going around about this, and in the interests of keeping the door open, I’m on Mastodon in a sparsely active capacity here: mastodon.social/@ianfmartin
Would probably be there more if there were more music people and people who post funny stuff there.

Wasn’t cheap, mind.

Can now confirm that the Wire album/EP-with-extras is good. I like Wire when they break form and do really long songs.

I like the idea of this but couldn't handle having to make and receive telephone calls in order to have friendships again.

It’s one of only two Japanese films that gets the feeling of the music scene completely right (the other one is Linda Linda Linda).

Very happy for the opportunity to get reacquainted with Dome, though.

Deadline met with two days to spare. Left This Heat till last because I just couldn't find an angle on them, and in the end just sort of let it gush out. No idea what I was on about and it'll probably look like nonsense to me by tomorrow but too late now.

This is super. For me it's the way the bass sort of broods over those kind of spacious, quite restrained drums as much as O'Neil's guitar. Really nice.

I was also thinking about America, which I think didn’t really start it’s 90s until 1992 (Britain’s started, or started starting, in 1987). But the 90s was over by 99 for sure.

JOIN US!

I'm saving listening to it until I've finished these short pieces about This Heat, Dome and, um, The Smiths that I still have to do, but I think it'll be an interesting one. At least the story of its origin and evolution is an interesting one for me, especially with the Iain Sinclair connection.

The Gulf War did not take place.

The most 90s years of the 90s were, in order:

1. 1994
2. 1997
3. 1992
4. 1993
5. 1996
6. 1995
7. 1998
8. 1991
9. 1990
10. 1999

Wait, no, this was 1997, which was in fact only the second-most 90s year of the 90s.

Perfect 90s nexus of era-specific guitar sound, juxtaposition of gloomy lyrics w/ ironically jaunty pub piano motif, and songwriting craft that's obviously there but never got famous enough to transcend the year of its release (1994, which was also the most 90s year).
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok56...

That run of albums she made with Chakra are something...

Noel still loves Tony Blair too, which is almost worse than the vax stuff.

On Manchester's side, Johnny Marr seems OK and I think Vini Reilly's probably still fine. Weirdly, Liam Gallagher seems to be more or less politically normal. Somehow.

What's Lydon's connection? I thought his background was London-Irish.

My guess is that it looks something like Distributism. The end of LotR makes it clear that The Shire is a society ill suited to industrialisation and collectivism, and I feel like the Distributist worldview was quite popular with a lot of Catholics around that time (Chesterton certainly).

Inspired to share this nugget of wisdom by having written about about Joy Division and Echo And The Bunnymen back-to-back this afternoon.

Ian Curtis famously voted tory, while Ian McCulloch's only public politics seem to be "Ian McCulloch is the greatest musician, songwriter and artist in history."

I, too, feel happy when I imagine Ché Guevara fomenting socialist revolution in The Shire.

I think it's interesting you return to The Great Escape so often. I've made my peace with Parklife but TGE came out at such a key time for me growing up in the UK I can't approach it without the weight from so many things pressing down on it. It's interesting seeing it through your eyes, I suppose.

Liverpool is better than Manchester because Liverpool musicians are historically less likely to develop weird, reactionary politics.

There's a lot of good actual advice in the comments here, all of it better than what I actually do, which is wait until either I feel like it or the third panicked/frustrated/angry email from my editor kicks something loose — whichever comes first (it's always the latter).

I’m definitely buying records faster than Comet Gain are making them, but I suppose as long a they’re making them roughly as fast as I’m randomly encountering them in my record trances, the balance of our relationship is in a state of perfect equilibrium.

I mentioned them because they’re a an emblematic “me shopping” band, who I never actively seek out but always buy if I see one in the wild. Though the one I just got was a new one from last year that I didn’t know existed, so as long as they keep making them…

Just enjoyed watching the popular Disney science fiction adventure film Predator: Badlands. It was helpful how it kept telling me through the dialogue what the meanings of things I’d just seen or was just about to see were. Also liked how it had the ideal amount of Fannings in it (two, both Elle).

Either you’re a Catholic or the Pope is a post-structuralist.