Dirt Off Your Shoulder

Dear Daniel,

I've finally got around to listening to something which - when I heard about it 2 or 3 months back - got me pretty excited. I'm sure you'll remember back in late '95 when I used to repeat-play Sparklehorse's wonderfully-titled debut Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot? You don't? Well, you were all "Life" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water" at the time.

I bought it because Jennifer Nine in the Melody Maker said "Rainmaker" sounded like an heir to Big Star's "Ballad of El Goodo", which you must remember me repeat playing. I remember getting the album home and being surprised at how remarkably dissimilar the tracks were...






Anyway, I saw Sparklehorse play in France a year later, Mark Linkous wheelchair-bound because, apparently, he fell asleep for 13 hours in the crouching position either after a particularly heavy night or because he was ill - depending on who you hear the story from.

Over the following years my relationship with the band dwindled, but then came Nina Persson - years after "Life" - to collaborate on a solo record of hers under the name A Camp with songs written by Mark Linkous. I can only imagine she worked with him to add a pleasingly circular quality to this tale.

And here she is with him again, this time adding vocals to a track on Linkous' album with Gnarls Barkley-bloke Danger Mouse, who created the super "Grey Album" by mixing Jay-Z's Black Album with The Beatles' White Album.

The new album also features Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne, The Strokes' Julian Casablancas (whose forthcoming solo album sounds bizarrely like Vangelis...), Vic Chestnut, Iggy Pop, etc. etc. and is itself a multimedia collaboration with David Lynch.

But, months after it was "released" as a blank disc with the advice "For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will", you still shouldn't really be allowed to ever hear it.



Dear James,

At the risk of sounding precious, I remember it was you who was all "Life" in 1995, I carried on the Cardigan Torch for the Atlanta Olympics in 96 and there on in. And Sparklehorse's hugely original sound (you're right, nothing like Ballad of El Goodo) probably flew right over my head because I mixed them up with Seahorses, that band by the chap who used to be in a better band, and by your insistence on wasting your fancy Jersey States student grant on 2,761 CDs in 95-96 by bands that sounded like The Charlatans doing Crashin' In.



You'd already conned me into buying the Whiteout album so the pretty girl at Virgin Megastore (Hagar?) would notice me, and that was shit, so I drew the line at further jangly guiter US pop bands after that and snuggled up with Paul and Artie and my yellow wig. I'm pleased to report that my cats ripped the spine of the Whiteout album to fuck in the days when I had my albums arranged in alphabetical order, with the S-Z section dangerously low (My Bridge Over Troubled Water! How will I replace you?) and in a cruel twist of fate, now that I've reordered my vinyl by year of release, it's the 1986-1998 section at the bottom which gets the scratching. Which may fuck up half my Queen collection, but if it brings Whiteout more pain, it's a risk I'm willing to take.

And you didn't even tell us anything about the Grey Album, surely the most exciting song on this post? I was going to post Whiteout's "Jackie's Racing", but there's no whiff of Whiteout on youtube and they told me to post Jackie Wilson's "Lonely Teardrops" instead. No one reads this far down anyway.

At Last

Dear Daniel,

At last it is so very very sunny here. Yesterday I walked to the shops and back and as I put my key into the door, I could feel the sweat on my back and at the sides of my nose and I was reminded of the humidity in Buenos Aires and how I would feel the same way this March when I arrived back to your apartment from a half day spent walking around the city.

I remember one such walk through the park near Plaza Italia when I made my way along Ave Dorrego back to the Palermo tube and the Cardigans album Life popped onto the iPod. I hadn't heard it in years and I had forgotten what a great soundtrack it is to sunshine. On many occasions during that super spring/summer of 1996, I would wake up hearing Rise and Shine shimmering from somewhere beyond the ceiling of my room.

I loved Nina Persson's voice. And here we are in 2009 and I'm walking in the sunshine and The Do come on the iPod and it makes me feel the same way. From time to time, Olivia B. Marilahti's vocals crackle down my spine, sounding a bit like a yawning dolphin, and breaking my heart in the heat.

Dear James,

It amuses me how people get so excited about heat in England. I suppose it's like people here getting excited about snow. It only snows every 70 years, so that's about right.

Good to see a surprise appearance from Jeff Lynne there at 3.19, and good to see a French band that sounds like a Swedish band. The theme of the video appears to be the search for one's "half-orange", a particularly annoying Spanish phrase that the French seem to be familiar with. What if you're a half-apple and you find your half-orange? Do you go on searching until you give up until you meet a half-banana, settle down and make a limited fruit salad?