The Abyss of Sinfully Good Fun
Oct. 1st, 2004 12:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexsarllClubs are not works of art. As a rule, a good club is based on a simple idea. Many start from the truth so memorably stated by Andrew WK: "We want fun and we wanna get wasted". Earlier this week, the second sign that a new club (which shall remain nameless) would be unutterably dreadful came when the PR insisted on sending me a full press release because "I imagine you get loads of clubs coming through, and we don't want this to go over your head, so this is to help you understand what it's about"*.
At the other end of the scale you have Club Popular. Everything they play was a UK Number 1 single. Simple, yet dazzlingly effective.
The thing that hits hardest is the sheer number of Number Ones. That I can recall, there was no Stock/Aitken/Waterman or Spice Girls last night, and I keep thinking of other Number Ones which didn't get an airing. Yet the hits just kept coming. The guest DJs had so many tracks they wanted to get out there that they kept fading them out after a couple of minutes - MoreFasterNow**.
'Doctorin' the TARDIS' was played, and rightly so, because that inspired The Manual: How To Have A Number One The Easy Way. In that book, the KLF claim that all Number 1s share more features with each other than they do with their supposed genre. I'm not sure if last night proved that theory or not, because the sheer mass of Pop slightly fused my critical circuits. I feel a bit like Green Lantern at the close of DC One Million: I've looked into the face of God and found it strangely familiar.
Though I am slightly annoyed that I have now cut a dash to 'Dirrty' on two consecutive nights and *still* not pulled Christina Aguilera. What else do I have to do?
The Chapel is a bit expensive, but a fine venue; it lives up to its name by having the DJ booth in a pulpit. But it is located in a tributary of Islington I've never encountered before, a numinously frightful land Arthur Machen would recognise and from which the building above Angel Tube is suddenly revealed as a Masonic nightmare. Fortunately, the only time this sinister genius loci infiltrates Club Popular is when the DJ who, to my eyes at least, looks remarkably reminiscent of David Blunkett takes to the decks just as 'Ghost Town' plays out...
Wodehouse: A Life by Robert McCrum
P.G. Wodehouse’s creations, especially Jeeves and Wooster, are among the immortals of British comedy, but in the sheer number of his books (the bibliography here lists over a hundred) lies a clue to the main problem with this biography. For most of his life, Wodehouse wrote. Some writers write and fight, or drink, or romance. When Wodehouse took a break it was usually to play with his beloved Pekineses or watch his old school's sports team. This book is well-written and thoroughly researched, but even so it is hard pressed to compellingly narrate such a routine life. Oscar Wilde said that he had put his genius into his life and only his talent into his work; Wodehouse reserved both genius and talent exclusively for the work. McCrum attempts to enliven the story by psychoanalysing Wodehouse, deducing a supposedly traumatic upbringing from the novels, but these are among the book's least satisfactory passages and he is forced to concede that such details "always will be tantalisingly opaque".
The main exception to this routine came with Wodehouse's capture and internment by the Germans during the Second World War, during which he made the broadcasts from Berlin which led to accusations of collaboration or even treason. McCrum convincingly argues that they were neither, simply a "disastrous blunder". Wodehouse's life and work are a tribute to unflappability in lunatic situations; this is amusing when that situation is an imbroglio involving butlers and aunts, but less so where the lunatics in question are the Third Reich. The broadcasts come across as nothing more or less than a massive error of judgment. And even in internment, Wodehouse buckled down and kept writing.
This is as fine a Life of Wodehouse as we are likely to see; the question is whether any Life of Wodehouse is necessary.
"she was "living in a plastic box" and that her life would be "dominated by pain and suffering": is this the world's youngest Manics fan?
Incidentally, I'm taking Monday off again.
*The first sign that it would be dreadful is that they have the James Taylor Quartet and two of Atomic Kitten playing the opening night.
**Though this does make it even more of a puzzle as to why the Outhere Brothers got played twice...
At the other end of the scale you have Club Popular. Everything they play was a UK Number 1 single. Simple, yet dazzlingly effective.
The thing that hits hardest is the sheer number of Number Ones. That I can recall, there was no Stock/Aitken/Waterman or Spice Girls last night, and I keep thinking of other Number Ones which didn't get an airing. Yet the hits just kept coming. The guest DJs had so many tracks they wanted to get out there that they kept fading them out after a couple of minutes - MoreFasterNow**.
'Doctorin' the TARDIS' was played, and rightly so, because that inspired The Manual: How To Have A Number One The Easy Way. In that book, the KLF claim that all Number 1s share more features with each other than they do with their supposed genre. I'm not sure if last night proved that theory or not, because the sheer mass of Pop slightly fused my critical circuits. I feel a bit like Green Lantern at the close of DC One Million: I've looked into the face of God and found it strangely familiar.
Though I am slightly annoyed that I have now cut a dash to 'Dirrty' on two consecutive nights and *still* not pulled Christina Aguilera. What else do I have to do?
The Chapel is a bit expensive, but a fine venue; it lives up to its name by having the DJ booth in a pulpit. But it is located in a tributary of Islington I've never encountered before, a numinously frightful land Arthur Machen would recognise and from which the building above Angel Tube is suddenly revealed as a Masonic nightmare. Fortunately, the only time this sinister genius loci infiltrates Club Popular is when the DJ who, to my eyes at least, looks remarkably reminiscent of David Blunkett takes to the decks just as 'Ghost Town' plays out...
Wodehouse: A Life by Robert McCrum
P.G. Wodehouse’s creations, especially Jeeves and Wooster, are among the immortals of British comedy, but in the sheer number of his books (the bibliography here lists over a hundred) lies a clue to the main problem with this biography. For most of his life, Wodehouse wrote. Some writers write and fight, or drink, or romance. When Wodehouse took a break it was usually to play with his beloved Pekineses or watch his old school's sports team. This book is well-written and thoroughly researched, but even so it is hard pressed to compellingly narrate such a routine life. Oscar Wilde said that he had put his genius into his life and only his talent into his work; Wodehouse reserved both genius and talent exclusively for the work. McCrum attempts to enliven the story by psychoanalysing Wodehouse, deducing a supposedly traumatic upbringing from the novels, but these are among the book's least satisfactory passages and he is forced to concede that such details "always will be tantalisingly opaque".
The main exception to this routine came with Wodehouse's capture and internment by the Germans during the Second World War, during which he made the broadcasts from Berlin which led to accusations of collaboration or even treason. McCrum convincingly argues that they were neither, simply a "disastrous blunder". Wodehouse's life and work are a tribute to unflappability in lunatic situations; this is amusing when that situation is an imbroglio involving butlers and aunts, but less so where the lunatics in question are the Third Reich. The broadcasts come across as nothing more or less than a massive error of judgment. And even in internment, Wodehouse buckled down and kept writing.
This is as fine a Life of Wodehouse as we are likely to see; the question is whether any Life of Wodehouse is necessary.
"she was "living in a plastic box" and that her life would be "dominated by pain and suffering": is this the world's youngest Manics fan?
Incidentally, I'm taking Monday off again.
*The first sign that it would be dreadful is that they have the James Taylor Quartet and two of Atomic Kitten playing the opening night.
**Though this does make it even more of a puzzle as to why the Outhere Brothers got played twice...
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 04:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 04:12 am (UTC)(Yes, I danced to 'Turtle Power'. What of it?)
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Date: 2004-10-01 04:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 04:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 06:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 06:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 06:29 am (UTC)I'm hoping Club Pop might go "up west" soon. I think the time has come...
Will do, sir! Club FT a lot of fun as well - you nailed it with the Andrew WK reference BTW - that's been the unofficial Club FT anthem for years now :)
no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 06:36 am (UTC)And any club which doesn't take Andrew WK as a standard bearer is probably doing something wrong, frankly.
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Date: 2004-10-01 05:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2004-10-01 04:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 04:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 04:22 am (UTC)PLEASE
Date: 2004-10-01 04:23 am (UTC)Re: PLEASE
Date: 2004-10-01 04:25 am (UTC)Who would you be, anyway?
Re: PLEASE
Date: 2004-10-01 04:32 am (UTC)Re: PLEASE
Date: 2004-10-01 04:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 04:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 04:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 05:00 am (UTC)-x-
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Date: 2004-10-01 05:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 04:29 am (UTC)Did they play Whigfield*? That ended Wet Wet Wet's near-record breaking run of 15 weeks - alas deleted by the label before they could trample on Bryan Adam's Head Very Hard. And what was No1 before Wet Wet Wet? You all know of course. It was the Manchester United Squad with Come On You Reds, ably written by Status Quo. Lovely. Now, fact fans: guess which two out of the three I own!
*Last seen on a Trisha makeover show propositioning some poor geek lad.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 04:41 am (UTC)You're quite right
Date: 2004-10-01 05:05 am (UTC)Certainly not compared to Graham Greene - cor blimey!
Robin
Re: You're quite right
Date: 2004-10-01 05:11 am (UTC)Re: You're quite right
Date: 2004-10-01 05:23 am (UTC)Classic.
Robin
Re: You're quite right
Date: 2004-10-01 05:32 am (UTC)Re: You're quite right
Date: 2004-10-01 05:40 am (UTC)Robin
Re: You're quite right
Date: 2004-10-01 05:28 am (UTC)Re: You're quite right
Date: 2004-10-01 05:34 am (UTC)Re: You're quite right
Date: 2004-10-01 05:55 am (UTC)Anyway, there's a doc about the Third Man, and another one about Greene in general. They'll probably turn up on BBC2 soonish.
Re: You're quite right
Date: 2004-10-01 05:58 am (UTC)PJ Harvey has really returned to form lately, hasn't she? I wasn't going to bother with the new album but a friend burnt it for me this week and I'm smitten.
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Date: 2004-10-01 05:10 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2004-10-01 05:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 05:43 am (UTC)