Bookish

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 15:38:01 GMT

In some kind of coincidental prep for my forthcoming trip to New York I unearthed a book ‘New York Calling’ by Marshall Berman & Brian Berger.
I was daydreaming in the bookshop and New York called and I answered. Or more specifically, I read and a piece by Brandon Stosuy ‘Death and Transfiguration in New York Rock’ and got tripped by a quote that twists fruitfully in my mind:

“New York is a place of vast wealth, and between the whores and the business men there are the artists and the patrons of said art. Maybe waking up everyday and seeing all the seemingly unfathomable wealth, born of patronage, nepotism, skill, complicated criminality, luck and even talent and effort is too much, to embrace chaos is more attractive than to pursue a laid out pattern of how to dress for the job you want instead of the job you have. Who wants beauty when you can make the ugly?”.
Elisa Ambrogio, Magik Markers

I’m thinking about New York but in my digging I dig a universal – Elisa’s words grab my head as I’m sat here in this London dilapidated, kooky, knackered but fiercely independent bookshop. This particular bookshop waves its tattered flag into the fast, faster wind of gentrification. It’s tweeking in a bland swipe of buy-ups and go-ups. All the art students are long gone. The only graffiti is on the Foxtons Estate Agents convertible minis. The only music is piped, is the aural equivalent of a paper cupped, gone cold, chai-latte.

Re-reading Elisa’s last line in this quote I visualise her shaking her guitar until its neck fell off at one of the best shows I have ever been at. It was her band Majik Markers (supporting James Chance) at Highbury Garage. It was something like summer 2005? There could only have been fifteen of us including the Majik Markers. It blew me apart, drums hum-rumbling and pinned under the demolition raining down on them. We, fifteen of us, were in IT, we were dragged right in and under. You don’t climb back out of that thing so easy.
I don’t do lists. Can never do ‘My top five bands of all time’. I don’t have such a capacity. Maybe I don’t have that foucus, maybe I’m too lost in the ‘now’. I don’t know but in my ‘Top five’ that I don’t do, Majik Markers are in there forevs.

Okay, so I talk a lot about Sleeping States, but I don’t care, I just released the album. This does not happen every day of my week. Anyway, here is your soundtrack to this blog entry: ‘A Trip to New York’ by Sleeping States. This is London calling New York calling back.
Click here and select 'Trip to NYC' from the player.

Oh yeah, Majik Markers have new album out right now. It's called Boss and is out on Ecstatic Peace.

MSN Music Blog: The Insider: Books

Bookish