Tales From The Crypt - Friday 27th August 2021

The last working day of the week, and so that dominated the day, until the early evening, when in and around taking son #1 and his gf to the station (town being incredibly quiet, despite the festival), I found time to listen (at last) to the Quietus' Low Culture podcast from June.

The June podcast which featured an interview with Colin Newman of Wire talking about one of his favourite albums, Todd Rundgren's 'A Wizard A True Star', which is one of the albums I'd take to a desert island, should I crash-land there (I carry it with me at all times along with a copy of 'Finnegans Wake', just in case).  As I'm sure you all know, Wire are a band that came to prominence during the punk era, with their debut 'Pink Flag' being released in 1977. Colin Newman is a founder member of the band, who are still making excellent new music and pushing boundaries some 40 years later.

Apart from his love of 'AWATS', Colin also said that Todd's preceding album, 'Something/Anything?' and the follow-up to 'AWATS', 'Todd' are amongst his favourite albums. Given Wire's punk/post-punk credentials this was both surprising and enjoyable to hear.  Apart from what he had to say about 'AWATS', he also said some really interesting things about music in general, which were so good and in tune (ha!) with my approach to music, that I have to quote them here, verbatim.

On punk, and the music that preceded it, Colin said: "All those people that thought punk was year zero...I mean...what rubbish", he carried on, "...I never for one second thought the world had been recreated by The Ramones...I have very, very little time for people of that period who thought that everything before punk was rubbish...utter nonsense!"

On music in general, "I never stopped liking the things I like, I'm just interested to kind of extend those... I also don't really get on very well with people who've been around a while who still listen to the music they listened when they were like, 17...", "I can still listen to the music I listened to when I was 17, but I also want to hear what came out last week..."  A man after my own heart: I couldn't agree more. 

Our house probably needs revolving doors, like a hotel, as there seems to be a constant flow of people in and out and I don't just mean the carers. Son #3 and his gf are off out to a party, so there's only three of us for dinner. We watch another 'Inside No. 9' (a particularly dark episode, series 5 episode 2, with Jenna Coleman) and then I retire upstairs.

Wire / 'Diamonds in Cups' / 'Silver/Lead'



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