on romance, heat rash and starvation

MY LIFE STORY

I went without food for this. Last week of the first term, I’d already stocked up on the essentials (read: no actual food); I decided to go a little more hungry than a starving student usually would, I spent my last monies on Los Campesinos!’ ‘Heat Rash’. And today, at last, my hunger has been satisfied and I can almost not remember picking up dirtied breadcrumbs off of my carpet in order to garnish a midnight snack one late night in December.

‘ZINE

If anyone read Alexei of Johnny Foreigner’s righteous rant aimed towards a deluded NME journalist (read here if you didn’t), then you’ll see that Heat Rash is irrefutable proof that Alexei was right. The small tangible things, utterly meaningless to most, cement the strongest ties between bands and fans. As the editorial opening the smooth-paged ‘zine asks ‘isn’t this collection of paper and staples, that you’re currently muddying, a sight more romantic than .pdfs and blog posts?’. I certainly think so.

‘Team Campesinos!’ combine wonderfully to meditate upon the theme of ‘romance’, each member making their own contribution. I did feel slightly disappointed at the lack of ‘chalkboard feature’; the harrowing feelings succinctly portrayed by Kim Campesinos! in ‘This Isn’t Love. Nor Romance.’ magnificently capture the same sense of loss and desperation inspired by a defeat on penalties in a play-off semi-final. Perhaps though, as the majority of the band support Manchester United, the feelings inspired by football aren’t as forlorn as those inspired by romance.

Continuing with football as a linking manoeuvre, Rob Campesinos! (crucially a Newcastle United fan) could quite easily be portraying the inevitable building of expectations on Tyneside; the false hope inspired by countless ‘messiahs’ and the inevitable disappointment when they flounce off in a huff, in his wonderful humour-laden comic strip ‘Spirit of St Louis’. The artwork (including the cover), the cutting wit and general angst-filled proverbial sigh of disappointment exuded by the entire thing, is brilliant. A tip for Micheal; creating a brochure listing your musical tastes and general strengths would’ve been effective. I mean, it worked for your almost namesake Mr Owen and he ended up at Manchester United (where they actually win things), so you should’ve given that a try.

Enough about the ‘zine. If you haven’t already positioned yourself on a bridge, ready to throw yourself off; you can learn how to woo using tried and tested techniques; make French-ish food for the special person you’ve wooed; increase your aesthetic appeal by covering yourself with love hearts to keep hold of them; pick up Nick Drake lyrics to appropriate and steal as your own heartfelt thoughts and be comforted by Ellen’s message that even though none of this really succeeded, deep-seated psychological issues about love and trust are ingrained into the general mentality. Overall, a self-contained guide to romance, it does what it says on the tin.

MUSIC

First and foremost, Los Campesinos! are a band. Bands make music. Heat Rash came with some music (a 7" vinyl with some wonderful artwork). Brief thoughts below:

Light Leaves, Dark Sees:

Begins and continues with a ripping melody that hooks you in and won’t let you go, only letting you leave on its terms, giving way to a calmer, quieter, more heartfelt close.

“It’s like my hand in your hair was just meant to be,

You are my angel now come sit atop of me”

The typical light-hearted Campesinos! frankness is retained and finds its way into honest playful lyrics, constantly drawing upon clichés (a hundred puppies as an expression of a burgeoning love, anyone?) but is immensely self-aware, which allows the expressed sentiment to remain sincere. Simple but effective, this one will definitely be a crowd-pleaser.

Four Seasons:

Different to ‘Light Leaves, Dark Sees’, starting as a soft ballad giving way to manic fury; the song has a more sinister take on what it means ‘to love’.

"Only dirt is washed away, cos all the bad lays far more deep

Please, I don’t wanna talk about it.“

The paranoia inspired by fear of loss and potential pain, causing the most dreadful of outcomes. There’s a difference between ‘I’d buy you a thousand puppies’ and ‘I’d kill for you’, especially when both of these sentiments are expressed naturally, genuinely, sincerely. Hauntingly identifiable is the other uglier, but nonetheless necessary side of love. Romantic? Perhaps not.

These two tracks are different; honest fun on one hand, with the subconscious psychotic residing on the other, but they both are expressions of the same thing. Plus they’re both rewarding listens. It’s exciting that Los Campesinos! can afford to dispense with tracks like this (even if they were written for this purpose alone) whilst producing a new album. Unlike romance, perhaps, this is a high expectation that won’t leave me feeling let down.

PITIFUL CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

So there we have it, Heat Rash; a physical memento that acknowledges and preserves the sanctity of the band/fan relationship in a sincere honest fashion. Some good tunes, some good reads and something to file in a box somewhere to look back upon, it’ll be far more meaningful than some mp3s and a .pdf lost somewhere on an antiquated digital media storage device.

the ethics of indirect stealing

I was mugged yesterday. It was quite distressing. Or at least, would’ve been if the ‘mugging’ had been direct; if a switchblade had coaxed the money from my pocket, or even if the producer of a particularly menacing stare had demanded it from me. I was robbed in the least emotion-stirring way I can think of, by a woman and her young child, via a photobooth. I was aggrieved nonetheless, but can I claim that the woman and her child were morally reprehensible for their actions?

There I was, wanting some passport photos, £5 in coins in hand, slowly entering them into the machine slot one by one. The last coin didn’t register. The machine has no capacity for giving change. I’m alone, no one to look after the machine for me. No more change in my pocket. Stripped of freedom, I have to get another pound, take that small hit, but be able to get the passport photos I required. Two minutes later, I return, woman and child outside my booth, printing their commemorative Royal Wedding photos. They could’ve at least got something decent.

Now, can it be said that they directly caused my ‘pain’? If they did, it’s clear that they are morally reprehensible. Let’s analyse this in terms of counterfactuals; if they had not used my photo credit, then my photo credit would have remained intact… wait, that doesn’t work at all. It’s quite possible that had they not used my credit, someone else may have. So there’s no direct causal link between their use of my credit and my pain, it’s quite possible that my pain would be intact, even if they had not used my credit. Someone else could’ve used my credit. They’re not directly responsible. Then who is?

We can pick out two direct causal factors, we can either blame the machine, or we can blame ‘everyone’ (for permitting such actions in general). If the machine had not been faulty, then my photo credit would have not only remained intact, but would have been completed. The whole issue would never have arisen. On the other hand, mechanical failure is inevitable, plus I want someone to be morally accountable for my pain (this is surely not unreasonable). Crucially, had no one used my photo credit, then my photo credit would have remained intact. The individual is not directly responsible for my ‘pain’, but ‘everyone’ is. How can we draw a sensible conclusion from this?

‘Everyone’ is identifiable with the general culture the majority promote. If the general culture prohibited indirect leeching off of others, then problems such as this would not arise. As no individual is necessarily reprehensible (exceptions are accepted, this woman and child may well have had their lives at stake and required commemorative Royal Wedding photos to save themselves, who am I to stop them?), the general culture is to blame. If no one took advantage of fortune (when it is clear that this fortune is balanced by the misfortune of others) in such a way, then ‘pain’ would not be created in this way.

This same conclusion, if not a stronger one, can be drawn for illegal downloading of music. I find it unfair to pick out individuals – everyone can justify themselves to some extent on an individual level, but only because the general culture does not actively prohibit downloading. It doesn’t matter if the artist receives a miniscule amount of the profits, that the record labels receive a lion’s share; that you can’t afford to buy music as vociferously as you consume it. On an individual level, these aren’t morally reprehensible in themselves, but the culture that justifies such excuses really is. If anything, the individual can be held more reprehensible than the woman and child who thieved from me, as downloaders are acutely aware of the fact that they are short-changing their favourite artists when they indirectly steal their music. Just because there isn’t an active real process of stealing, in either the case of photobooths or when acquiring music online, it does not mean that the culture of allowing such things to occur is acceptable.

The general culture and attitudes held need to change in order to facilitate fair reimbursement for music artists. However, such a task won’t be easy. If I found a fiver on the floor, I’d keep it. Wouldn’t you? And there lies the problem…

nature, not nurture

I was going to write a short tactical analysis of Spurs vs Real Madrid, then I realised there are people who are infinitely more experienced and qualified than me who’ll do a better job of it than I ever would. I did, in the few moments that occupied the intersection between the period of time in which I was watching the game and the period of time in which I was still entertaining this ludicrous idea, notice the attacking responsibility thrust upon Gareth Bale by the countless long cross-field balls barely finding their way into his path. With the media hyperbole and early one-dimensional (though fairly effective) tactics from Tottenham, one might think that Gareth Bale is a world-class player. Surely not? And if he is anywhere close to being so, can Harry Redknapp take any of the credit?

Years ago, even months ago, I was publically ridiculed for claiming that ‘Gareth Bale will be world-class one day’, not exclusively by non-Spurs fans either. I do, however, recall one person tentatively backing the various cases I made, most of them blaming Harry Redknapp for his lack of progress thus far. This was the same person I phoned at half-time of Inter vs Tottenham, when they were 4-0 down, to poke fun at and sarcastically comfort with ‘it’s alright though, Bale’s on the pitch, he’ll save you’. The night before, we’d been sat together watching Arsenal vs Shakhtar, where I’d been putting forward the claim that Bale is a little bit special to a Leeds fan and a Swindon fan, both of whom quickly concluded that I was talking nonsense. Thing is, I was right. Almost, at least, I wouldn’t get too carried away with the media hyperbole. However, Bale did score a hat-trick at the San Siro; he has become the main threat of a side who battled their way in the Champions League quarter-finals and is collectively feared amongst right-backs across Europe. Give me some credit at least.

I feel an examination of my past footballing claims is required, before deciding whether Harry Redknapp can take any credit for Bale’s metoric rise. It’s perhaps these claims that lead to little credence being given to my protestations that Bale would stand out at the highest level. The level of truth in a particular claim I’ll examine is irrelevant to me, the claim is one I’ll defend even now, its very root is the making of the football fan I am today.

Bored of listening to the endless boasts of how brilliant then Manchester United player Cristiano Ronaldo was, I decided to be rather controversial; to make a claim so clearly absurd, but passionately defensible. ‘Matt Le Tissier was better than Cristiano Ronaldo is’. At the time, Ronaldo hadn’t yet hit his stratospheric heights and was competing with the likes of Frank Lampard for the greatest goal tally, rather than competing with other-worldly talents like Lionel Messi. It wasn’t the most ridiculous claim, not if (as a young impressionable child) you were starved of football in a household with terrestrial and nothing other than a gifted Matt Le Tissier Unbelievable VHS to satiate your insatiable appetite for football. No one else I knew had seen it. They couldn’t identify where I was coming from, watching Manchester United win on TV every week is numbing to the realities of football. Whereas watching Southampton struggle for survival [or my hometown team lingering in the lower leagues] (Marian Pahars needs a mention, albeit a brief one) far too often, with wins rare and good wins even more so; watching Unbelievable naturally led to Le God worship. The fact that my peers couldn’t understand meant that my eye for talent was questioned, but I’d been brought up on Le Tissier; I knew talent when I saw it.

The masterful play of a precocious 17 year old left-back, acting as playmaker for a side reaching the Championship play-offs isn’t something you quickly forget. Despite the misleading tag as ‘set-piece specialist’ he quickly acquired, a brief moment watching him play quickly showed that there was much more to him than that. I don’t even need to say too much; Bale ran the show in the most enjoyable season for a Southampton fan since reaching the FA Cup final. He was entirely crucial to everything Southampton did that season; his and Kenwyne Jones’ tactical targeting by Billy Davies in the play-off semi-final first leg prevented him from making waves with Saints in the Premier League. Davies’ brutish Derby side quickly dispatched the fulcrum of Southampton’s attacking power, yet they still only managed to squeeze through the the play-off final, a task that likely would have proved impossible if not for Jones’ replacement Leon Best’s best efforts for the Rams.

With Southampton’s promotion charge thoroughly thwarted, it was clear Bale was moving on, to Spurs he went for a sizeable fee. He made an impressive start, but progress was quickly halted by injuries and an unfortunate 24 game streak of appearances in which he didn’t taste league victory didn’t help his case either. It can’t have helped his confidence, nor could the fact that Harry Redknapp was almost ready to ship him out to Nottingham Forest on loan before injuries took their toll and Bale was required for first team duty. He played well. He continued playing well. He’s still playing well. Playing in a confident creative side playing attacking football for a sustained period of time helped Bale; Harry Redknapp’s man-management of him up until that point clearly did not, if it weren’t for injuries, he’d have been on the scrapheap as David Bentley and Giovani Dos Santos find themselves now.

Redknapp can take credit for the environment in which Bale has flourished, but Bale’s flourishing in it is accidental, a stroke of luck caused by injuries rather than an orchestrated masterplan by the Tottenham manager. That’s as much as he can rightfully take credit for; the rest goes to Bale’s natural talent, evident from his time at Southampton. A talent like Bale, a talent like Le Tissier, they could make it anywhere (and so I’ve argued many times), such talents given the right environment (could this apply to Fernando Torres?) will always prosper and succeed. And it takes talent to spot such a talent… and with my overuse of the word ‘talent’ throughout this, I’ll argue that’s one talent I possess (with creative writing probably not being an element of the set of ‘my talents’).