A return for Music Monday, the much-loved feature that never gets a single comment, presumably because you are all in so much awe of it that you can find no words to say. And a very special Music Monday it is too, celebrating the reprieve of BBC6 Music from the champing jaws of BBC cuts. It is indeed a joyful day for thirtysomething Guardian-reading music snobs everywhere. Thirtysomething Guardian-reading music snobs like me. Hurrah!
I've noticed lately that everywhere I go and everything I do I am so in the middle of my demographic that I may as well sport a giant hat with the word AVERAGE on it, only that would actually make me not average. I doubt that anybody at any of the music events I attend doesn't read the Guardian or have an iPhone. I run into friends of mine wherever I go, from Jose Gonzales at the Festival Hall (he was pure genius, and I ran into my friend the literary agent there) to the Hay festival (everyone from primary school friend, the children's book author, to the co-godparent of my documentary-maker friend's baby - I put in the jobs here so you can see how smug and middle class boho it all is.) Even where I don't know people, everyone looks like they could be a friend of mine, if only I actually knew them. A while ago I went to see an avant-garde music event in a condemned warehouse in Kings Cross and took some pictures of the cellist on my iPhone. Last week I was doing a literary event with the writer Tim Coates, whom I'd never met before, and it turned out the cellist was his son. On Saturday night I went to Kenwood House to see Rufus Wainwright. King and Queen posh boho, Tim Burton and Helena Bonham-Carter were in attendance. I used to serve them when I worked at Daunt Books; H B-C went to my school. Afterwards, I told my parents how brilliant Rufus was, and they said they already knew - they'd been performed to by him at the American Embassy, at a private reception with 150 guests. I am so far from the cutting edge I have fallen off the handle.
Perhaps I should be depressed at being so very predictable, but I'm quite happy really. I've found the bit of life that I like, the bit which makes me feel like I'm hip without actually having to hang out with teenagers. Guess which festival I'm going to this summer. Go on, guess. That's right. Latitude. OK, so I'm either turning into Helena Bonham-Carter or into my mum - probably just depends on which haircut I get. Either way I'm quite contended. And now even my perfect radio station has been preserved for my listening pleasure. Could it be that I have found my niche, and that niche is marked "self-consciously cool but ultimately safe author in early middle age"? Who on earth thought there'd be so many of us?
Whatever. Here's some Rufus Wainwright.
Employee gets laid off due to extreme body odor: ‘I genuinely felt bad for
him. He had only just started the job and hadn’t really had the chance to
show what he could contribute. You could tell he felt embarrassed and
ashamed’
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To pass the smell test
I felt really identified with this story because I've had to deal with this
issue multiple times in my life. I don't mean with my bo...
2 hours ago
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9 comments:
As you said yourself, being different is over-rated and being happy is under-rated...
If you are going to Latitude with any yummy mummies, please advise them to bring little Hugo and Freya along to the Stripes Publishing/Little Tiger Press tent in the children's area, where they will be entertained by fabulous authors and encouraged to fulfil their own creative destinies.
Feel free to pop by yourself and say hello!
Brilliant post Marie!
Karen, they even have Scrabble at Latitude! It's the mothership, calling me home.
I need to pack and I loathe packing so while procrastinating, I clicked on your Music Monday link. You have comments in every post. Whatcha going on about?
I've tried to like Rufus Wainwright. While I find quite a few tracks in his Release the Stars album quite listenable, on the whole, his nasally voice rather puts me off. But then, I only liked a few songs by his mum and aunt, for much the same reason. Guess I'm not posh boho.
Really? Comments on all of them? I didn't check but I thought it was an unpopular feature. I must just be feeling paranoid. That's not unusual. Apols all.
I used to hate nasal singers too - couldn't abide Bob Dylan, for example - and then suddenly, a few years ago, I got over it. Maybe all that gig going has crushed my hearing to the extent that the nasal frequency has become muted. I love Dylan now.
I echo your hurrah re 6music, but I insist that I am not a fellow thirtysomething Guardian reader. I only buy it on Sundays, so I am a thirtysomething Observer reader and therefore totally different and non-average.
Also I went to see Rufus Wainwright a couple of months ago expecting to love him, only to be totally turned off by the experience. He insisted that the audience remain silent for the first half while he played his entire new album, which seemed to defeat the point of going to a gig: if you're going to ask the audience to pretend they're not there, why let them fork out forty quid to attend?
He does wear nice shirts though.
He didn't do that at Kenwood. Maybe he took a look at us all tucking into our sandwiches and knew the game was up.
Ha ha! Well I love Rufus, especially Want 1 and Want 2, and did chuckle about you telling your parents how brilliant he was only to have them be ahead of the game. Its not as far south as you are based (otherwise I'd be at Latitude possibly) but I can recommend Summer Sundae -- not as boho as Lat, but very sweet and manageable and city centre based so utterly NO NEED TO CAMP. I'm with Lucy Mangan about camping...
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