I wish I could be that happy

I was obliged to get the Piccadilly Line in again today, and while simmering to myself I was further outraged to learn that Bill Nighy is a massive Hemingway fan. As such, yesterday's poll results are heartening, both in their demonstration that my homicidal fantasies are quite normal and in their proof that thermaland and publicansdecoy are a pair of hippies.

There were meant to be four bands playing last night, but the two makeweights were clearly nobbled by the witches of Mousseron so we were left with A Celebration Of The Music Of serious_k. I suggested she bulk out the programme with a brief solo set; she heroically resisted the temptation to hit me. It felt strange seeing Butterfly Stitch with enough room to swing a cat, and I'm not sure how they went down with the Scarlet's Well fans, but as far as I'm concerned they're definitely ready for bigger and better things, and they have the deceptively mainstream pop songs to take them there while they quietly break the hearts of the people who actually listen.
(During Butterfly Stitch's set, I am asked if I am Bid, by a man who claims to have seen the Monochrome Set. This puzzles me somewhat, but is still a vast improvement on the slanderous Nick Berry comparisons doing the rounds since my haircut.)
The Scarlet's Well audience summarised in one word: Livejournallers. I exaggerate slightly; the last of the Diaryland rebels is also present. It saddens me that we don't also have the international media, the ligerati and the Pope in because this is how pop music should be, and that message needs to be spread. The saudade that has been afflicting me all day can finally be put into words as I realise I want to live in Mousseron, the heartland of their songs. Given Mousseron only exists inside Bid's head, I fear this might be impractical and uncomfortable. I fear I am still at something of a loss as to how to describe their majesty to the uninitiated; suffice to say, my friends have the taste to be in some very good bands but I think this is probably the best. Although I must confess that when dickon_edwards sings in German, it does feel a little like the Earth-Ponce counterpart of 'Tomorrow Belongs To Me'. That's a compliment, by the way.

If someone would make me an icon of Bill Savage and his shooter which also flashes up the words "VOLGS OUT!", I would be very grateful.

Even speaking as a geek, I find this tragic: http://www.secretspidermanmovie.com/ Whereas this is tragic in another sense entirely: The last Pimbury.

Notes towards a theory of why I like Scarlet's Well so much

In a comment elsewhere, a member of Scarlet's Well confessed that he didn't know what the songs were about, and suspected the rest of the band felt the same way. To which my immediate response was "Pirates! Old gods! Strange English villages! It's Malpertuis filmed by Powell and Pressburger."

I'm aware that to many people that probably doesn't mean much. But if it does, you will very probably love Scarlet's Well. And I think I love them because the world their songs describe is one I so dearly want to live in.
Any pop star of any importance creates a world. For instance, Suede's is gayanimalsex, drugs and London streets. Nick Cave's is full of mad preachers and murdered women in wells. Tindersticks' swirls with cheap whisky and faded urban glamour. At the most mainstream you have a thousand rappers constructing variant fantasias out of thugs, b1tches, guns and bling. Until Scarlet's Well, out of all these pop worlds the one I most wanted to live in was Roxy Music's endless embassy party, draped in degenerate debutantes. Finally, they've a rival in my affections, because Bryan Ferry never once mentioned the Necronomicon, and most of the people who did were growling in a most unbecoming manner.