The Ecstacy of Gold - Volume one
The same cannot easily be said for
Mark Lightcap's
The Ecstacy of Gold project, a raw, jammy instrumental affair that seldom harks back to his more measured playing of Rob's beloved
Acetone. Former sticksmith of the same group,
Steve Hadley not only contributes to this release but also found the time to share his own instrumental grooves under the
Bee Pieces moniker....
In late February 2020 the frontman of DIIV's support at their Glasgow QMU gig – unusual in itself as Rob couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a band with a singer who just 'fronted' and nothing else – took to shouting, “your country's sick!” at one point and Rob recalls thinking 'yep, Covid-19 sick'.... How right he was – within 4 weeks he was wandering Glasgow City Centre all alone, a (supposed) 'key working' Omega Man, not a (sensible) soul to be seen, concerts and touring (and life) as we knew it having come to and abrupt (and for some, final) end....
Then in July 2022 it was time to embrace nightlife once again,
Glasgow now the sort of lawless zone that makes
Fury Road look like
Sesame Street to catch
Nadja (sort of supported by himself as, er,
Bismuth) at
Audio, a suitably primitive setting for bathing in vast, all encompassing washes of shimmering guitar effects. Then, come September, there was a triple rush of gigs,
Rose City Band beefing up their sound – jazzy keyboards and pedal steel, mmm! - to space out
Broadcast, while
Crippled Black Phoenix decimated
Classic Grand with their ever-ambitious/inventive post-metal dynamics before
GY!BE raised the roof at
The Barrowlands, propping it up with great slabs of sound, building and building to an almighty climax. By comparison
Mogwai's December show at the same, where they were capably supported by Brit-
DIIVs
bdrmm, was a trifle underwhelming, the stripped back staging, wobbly sound and so-so setlist –
Ratts of the Capital and
Mogwai Fear Satan saved the night – making it impossible for them to go 'one louder' and match the Canadian's supreme spectacle....
Fading seamlessly from music into books there's no doubt Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run was the absolute 'Boss' of this year's clutch of (auto)biographies (which also included works by comedian Mel Brooks and musicians Lol Tolhurst and Wilko Johnson). Unlike most his memoir transcended his music – which admittedly Rob more admires as he's so far been unable to wholly steep himself in it – and becomes an engrossing account of what it means to be an (Italian) American, of what it means to have a calling, the struggle to create, the will to succeed and to finally find your voice (and to have it chime with so many millions of others the world over) and so much more besides....
Simon Spence covered another (quite different type of) E-street band in his double double good Happy Mondays biography Excess All Areas. By separating out the music from the cartoonish drug hoover personas of Shaun and Bez, he shines a groovy light on the startling talents of the more unsung musical members of the band - rest in peace Paul 'Big Arm' Ryder – while placing them right at the heart of '88's seismic second 'Summer of Love'. The sounds, the drugs, the clubs, the clobber – God might have created Manchester, but there's no doubt the Mondays were wholly responsible for MADchester - they were a mobile cultural big bang, totally twisting melons everywhere they went. It certainly proves that The Stone Roses themselves were mere charlatans trailing in their influential wake, their studied cool being just that, as evidenced by the shapeless and sluggish retro slop of their limp Second Coming – it's not half bad, but it's not half good either....
Equally fascinating – thank you,
Chuck Klosterman – was
Michael Azerrad's
Come As You Are: The (authorized) Story of Nirvana, culled from hours of interviews with
Kurt (and
Kris.... and
Dave) and released just before
In Utero hit the shelves and
Kurt hit the skids. If anything
Cobain mostly trashes himself throughout – he doesn't honestly come across as a terribly nice guy – while exonerating (sorry, haters)
Courtney Love at the same time. What cannot be denied is how savage the press were at the time, particularly in their portrayal of the happy couple, and how there's little doubt that was a massive contributing factor to
Kurt's eventual downfall*
*see Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty for '00's details....
That said, perhaps the best read of the year was I, Partridge, a pitch perfect piss-take of those mid-career C-list ghost-written cash grabs that truly belong remaindered on the shelves of Poundlands everywhere. Just think, Chris Evans and Peter Andre have written 2 ½ each while Katie Price/Jordan has already squeezed out 6 with a 7th on the way. Eff eff ess....
Rob's well documented Dudley Moore obsession reached its zenith/nadir in the aptly compact form of Douglas Thompson's Dudley Moore On The Couch, a more salacious 'sex thimble' account of his life and (many) loves in the form of a sort of biographical interview. Aside from a grab bag of insightful quotes and the jaw-dropping bevy of Hollywood beauties he bedded – Jane Fonda, Faye Dunaway, Raquel Welch, Julie Christie, Bo Derek – there's little to really recommend in it's tabloid leanings. Still, it packs some late emotional heft as Dudley's fame wanes and his personal life truly begins to unwind, ending on a sudden sad note as Moore reflects on being fired from The Mirror Has Two Faces for forgetting his lines – he puts this down to chaos at home (as opposed to the off-the-next-page diagnosis that would curtail his talents and ultimately end his life). With an 'Intimate Portrait', an 'Authorised Biography' and 'An Audience With...' yet to come it's likely that 'Cuddly Dudley' will feature again in 2023's round up....
Speaking of
'an (oft repeated) audience with...' Billy Connolly's autobiography
Windswept & Interesting breezed by in a typically singular and anarchic fashion. Whilst not nearly as concise as some of the other books listed here, its sheer
joie de vivre and playfulness made it utterly irresistible, and the perfect companion piece to his wonderful
Billy Connolly Does... television series. If anything its love of life and sheer warmth has prompted
Agent Rob to try and look on the bright(er) side of life in 2023 and
#be more Billy!
2022's stand out novel was Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time, a fantastic epic of enviable world-building and accessible high-concept science fiction, a book that easily fits the tag 'masterwork' (surpassing many ingrained classics on the way). How can the sequel Children of Ruin – on 2023's must read list – possibly compare? Other books with an SF tinge included The Strugatsky's curious The Inhabited Island, the despairing dystopia of Children of Men by PD James, the (almost) PKD strangeness of China Mieville's The City and The City, the multiversal Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, the satisfying sequel of Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, the thought provoking and surprisingly tender The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break by Steven Sherrill, the scope and splendour of Neil Gaimen's ambitious American Gods and Michael Moorcock's gargantuan A Cornelius Calendar, a beautifully written, but ultimately confounding omnibus – maybe some of his finest, most considered writing is therein, displaying an outstanding grasp of global politics and machinations – only for it to feel as if it fits (as it indeed does) into a much larger tale that lingers just out of reach....
Delving into 'straight' fiction brought its own rewards as, all bets off, The Hustler and its sequel The Color of Money provided a brilliant one-two punch – no apt pool based terminology springs to Rob's mind, sorry – with the second book perhaps edging the original as we catch up with an ageing and somewhat aimless 'fast' Eddie Felson, chasing that feeling of his youth. A real twin treat!
Rob continued his 'deep dive' into the mighty ouevre of Stephen King in 2022, cherry-picking his way through books such as The Stand (uncut) – trimmed for good reason perhaps? - and the supernaturally claustrophobic scares offered up by The Shining, identifying with the very fatherly failings and fears that haunt Jack Torrance as well as marvelling at King's confident and canny expansion of that universe for the sequel Dr. Sleep, a book that very slowly finds its feet before you're off and running (for your life)....
No doubt that Moorcock nails the quote(s) of the year, with 2022's stand outs both from The Entropy Tango, "His eyes, wasted by a thousand indulgences, moved like worms in his skull." and secondly, "The room was full of heavy metal. In one corner about 15 old hippies were wondering where it had all gone, while in the opposite corner 15 punks were wondering where it was all going."
Comics-wise the only tome on the range was a
Reno-based run-through of
Jeff Smith's whopping
Bone, one of those very special works of singular comics vision (akin to
Rob's dearly beloved
Bacchus) that is so well paced and so well told – it helps that
Smith has a clean but expressive fine line that straddles both the realistic and the cartoonish and displays a mastery of shadows. Of course, ever the purist,
Rob couldn't help but hanker after the original black and white artwork as opposed to
Scholastic's (understandably) color mass market volumes....
Sadly 2022 saw two true titans of the UK/world comics scene depart for the 'great convention in the sky'. First was Alan 'Strontium Dog, Judge Anderson, Sam Slade, ACE Trucking Co., Judge Dredd, Batman, this-list-is-not-exhaustive' Grant, writer and (just as notable) editor, a man whose contribution to the industry in both roles from the grassroots right up to the very top tip is near impossible to quantify. Speaking of, ahem, 'grass roots', it was thanks to Alan (via Jamie Grant's Glasgow-based Hope Street Studios) that Agent Rob got his first foothold in the industry proper when he brought him into the 'Wasted Comic' fold, trusting him to oversee the day-to-day running of the deviously dopey title. It wasn't the easiest of times, but Alan's patience, sense, savvy, trust, generosity (and, y'know occasional very gracious 'forgive and forgetness') made for a memorable learning (often on!) the ropes publishing experience (that ultimately sparked the whole Braw Books endeavour)....
Who alone would have thought that
Rob would ever meet, let alone work alongside, the man who wrote the very first
2000AD story he was to set eyes upon as a near-eleven-year-old-nipper? Yep, there it is kicking off
Prog 490,
Strontium Dog's striking
'Incident on Mayjer Minor'. Thank you,
Alan....
