Bitter Sweet
I haven't posted in a while. Mostly this is because the house has been in turmoil: we've had new windows and doors fitted, so for days the house was full of tea drinking bearded men, wobbling huge panes of glass around in 60 mph winds, and treading shit and brick-dust into the carpets. Prior to that we had to move everything to allow them access to the house and subsequently we've had to move everything back again. Susan's parents are arriving over from England for their traditional pre-Christmas visit, so there are arrangements to be made there too. And I bought sixties Sci Fi show "The Outer Limits" on DVD as well, so I've been watching a lot of that.
But also...I'm falling out of love with social media. I post less frequently now and my status updates are shorter. I liken it to the career trajectory of Bryan Ferry. He started out strident and arch, banging away at his upright piano and spitting out screeds of sexy, sassy satire, the entire dressing up box of his made up lifestyle. I'm sure Bryan and the boys rarely dined at Quaglino's at the start of their career; its a textbook example of faking it till you make it. As time went on the satire and all the name-checks and references - his pop art collages - fell away, and he honed his craft. He became the last troubadour: immaculate and romantic and always unlucky in love, because nobody wants to listen to Bryan Ferry singing about how chipper he's feeling. The songs became tidier, better tailored: classic, beautifully proportioned things, crafted with precision, and he was handsome and doomed singing them.
Lately Bryan's voice has become hazy and intangible. He sounds like the ghost of himself, haunting his old songbook. Its a different kind of Bryan Ferry voice; wraith-like and drifting through fog. The songs are relentless and mechanical, bright and tasteful funk workouts, and improbable vehicles for this fragile human thing: Bryan is a ghost in the machine. Maybe it shouldn't work but I like it. I like pop stars getting older. I like them dealing with things that the idea of pop was never meant to deal with. There's something strange and ritualistic about Bryan Ferry making another record - who is it for? What is it for? He goes into his studio and makes a Bryan Ferry record because that's what Bryan Ferry does. Even the photo on the cover hasn't changed in thirty years.
What has that got to do with me? Well, I took to Facebook with stylish aplomb back in the day - it was another way to show off after all - and I used to post all the time. Great big long posts they could be too, flecked with wit and style and peppered with me, me, me. It rubs people - some people - up the wrong way, of course. They don't like it when you get out of your box. And eventually my posts got shorter. Why was I trying to entertain people who didn't want to be entertained by me and would enjoy saying so? I'm still surprised by a message left on a writer's obituary that someone shared to Facebook. In amongst all the heartfelt messages a woman had landed, scrawled "Never heard of him lol" and fucked off again. Nowadays I just post about bus journeys and what I'm watching on NVTV. Its damage limitation.
Also, I'm writing a book of short stories and the stuff I would ordinarily post on Facebook is all going in there. Expect stories about the films of Elisabeth Sellars and photos of my dinner.
My colleague, J Nawaz, bought me a copy of Bryan's latest album, "Bitter Sweet" as a delightful gift. Its like the Hot Club de Paris revisiting some fairly obscure corners of his back catalogue. Bryan drifts around the studio like someone recorded a breeze. It's a long way from "For Your Pleasure", a point that's not lost on his legion of illiterate fans who are queuing up to say how rubbish it is. To be famous now is to be cursed by your fans. I wonder about these fans. What do they want from him? It is the nature of Bryan Ferry to like jazz, and to want to re-investigate his work. He has been telling you these things for fifty years. Was "remake/remodel" lost on you? That was an early loud one - you liked that one! Bryan Ferry is about style, elegance, loss, and a yearning for something that has past; heartbreak and design classics. What the fans seem to want are glam bangers, as though Roxy were the same as Mud or The Sweet.
The people who claim to like your work are the curse of the modern age. Its not yet something I'm unduly troubled with.
Oh, and the record is great.
But also...I'm falling out of love with social media. I post less frequently now and my status updates are shorter. I liken it to the career trajectory of Bryan Ferry. He started out strident and arch, banging away at his upright piano and spitting out screeds of sexy, sassy satire, the entire dressing up box of his made up lifestyle. I'm sure Bryan and the boys rarely dined at Quaglino's at the start of their career; its a textbook example of faking it till you make it. As time went on the satire and all the name-checks and references - his pop art collages - fell away, and he honed his craft. He became the last troubadour: immaculate and romantic and always unlucky in love, because nobody wants to listen to Bryan Ferry singing about how chipper he's feeling. The songs became tidier, better tailored: classic, beautifully proportioned things, crafted with precision, and he was handsome and doomed singing them.
Lately Bryan's voice has become hazy and intangible. He sounds like the ghost of himself, haunting his old songbook. Its a different kind of Bryan Ferry voice; wraith-like and drifting through fog. The songs are relentless and mechanical, bright and tasteful funk workouts, and improbable vehicles for this fragile human thing: Bryan is a ghost in the machine. Maybe it shouldn't work but I like it. I like pop stars getting older. I like them dealing with things that the idea of pop was never meant to deal with. There's something strange and ritualistic about Bryan Ferry making another record - who is it for? What is it for? He goes into his studio and makes a Bryan Ferry record because that's what Bryan Ferry does. Even the photo on the cover hasn't changed in thirty years.
What has that got to do with me? Well, I took to Facebook with stylish aplomb back in the day - it was another way to show off after all - and I used to post all the time. Great big long posts they could be too, flecked with wit and style and peppered with me, me, me. It rubs people - some people - up the wrong way, of course. They don't like it when you get out of your box. And eventually my posts got shorter. Why was I trying to entertain people who didn't want to be entertained by me and would enjoy saying so? I'm still surprised by a message left on a writer's obituary that someone shared to Facebook. In amongst all the heartfelt messages a woman had landed, scrawled "Never heard of him lol" and fucked off again. Nowadays I just post about bus journeys and what I'm watching on NVTV. Its damage limitation.
Also, I'm writing a book of short stories and the stuff I would ordinarily post on Facebook is all going in there. Expect stories about the films of Elisabeth Sellars and photos of my dinner.
My colleague, J Nawaz, bought me a copy of Bryan's latest album, "Bitter Sweet" as a delightful gift. Its like the Hot Club de Paris revisiting some fairly obscure corners of his back catalogue. Bryan drifts around the studio like someone recorded a breeze. It's a long way from "For Your Pleasure", a point that's not lost on his legion of illiterate fans who are queuing up to say how rubbish it is. To be famous now is to be cursed by your fans. I wonder about these fans. What do they want from him? It is the nature of Bryan Ferry to like jazz, and to want to re-investigate his work. He has been telling you these things for fifty years. Was "remake/remodel" lost on you? That was an early loud one - you liked that one! Bryan Ferry is about style, elegance, loss, and a yearning for something that has past; heartbreak and design classics. What the fans seem to want are glam bangers, as though Roxy were the same as Mud or The Sweet.
The people who claim to like your work are the curse of the modern age. Its not yet something I'm unduly troubled with.
Oh, and the record is great.
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