From the depths of my external hard drive: Tall Dwarfs

Nothing's Going to Happen

"Maybe all the children in small rooms will fall silent at a wall or window
And forget to breathe for just one minute
Because of some beauty that has not been altered, damned or pointed out
By the clumsy dark oafs that train them
Nothing's going to happen."

Maybe

"Maybe you know who you are
Maybe you like what you do
Maybe you're getting clearer
Maybe the fear is leaving you"

Think Small

"Let's all close our eyes
Let's all close our minds
Like life is nothing at all
We will think small
'Till life is nothing at all
We will think small"

Winter storytelling

The BBC National Short Story Award is apparently "the largest award for a single short story in the world." The largest in prize-money because in terms of fame I can't say I even heard of it before I chanced upon their website the other day. Now book prizes have been known to succeed in emptying your pockets faster than you can say "manbookerprize", but I was surprised to see that the BBC NSSA website is offering - for free - not only all the winning stories from the previous years for your reading pleasure (which, granted, aren't that many since the award was inaugurated in 2006), but also all the competing short stories from those years. The great thing is you can download them all as Word documents (or pdfs) and decide for yourself whether the stories deserved to win or not, whether there was a better short story out there that was neglected. I found the 2008 winner, Clare Wigfalls' "Numbers" fully deserving of the prize - the short story had an almost Alice Munro'-esque power of creating atmosphere. The chairwoman of the judges' panel commented that "Clare’s evocation of superstition and frustrated lives on a remote Scottish island is an act of historical ventriloquism. She shows just what the short story can achieve, conjuring up a whole world through a microcosm." Read the story for yourself here, or find out more about the award here. (to get to the stories you will have to click on the individual pages for each year e.g. "Find out more about the 2007 Award")

This year the shortlisted books will be announced on Friday, the 27th of November and even better, they will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 every day from the 30th November until the 4th December. What better way to spend those forthcoming cold winter afternoons?

Some songs for our musically-starved readers

Band of the week at LHNA: The Pines (the UK ones; there are 3 bands with the same name!)
Download: "Please Don't Get Married (Without Asking Me)"
                "Darling, Don't You Think?"
                "A Rainy Day"

Illustration: Valérie Parizeault

Departures

"There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go."

Lights Shone Brighter. My Delicate Sun is My Sparklin' Sun.

You Are the Sun, Your Eyes Are the Sun

* taken from A Lily's "Wake:Sleep" (2006) *

From the depths of my external hard drive: Patience & Prudence

from Wikipedia: "Patience and Prudence (last name McIntyre, but not used professionally) were two sisters who were a young singing act in the 1950s. Their father, Mark McIntyre, was an orchestra leader, pianist, and songwriter, who accompanied Frank Sinatra on piano during the 1940s^. In the summer of 1956, he brought his daughters, 11-year-old Prudence and 14-year-old Patience, into the Liberty Records studio in Los Angeles, California. They made a demonstration recording of the song "Tonight You Belong to Me," which had been a hit for Gene Austin in 1927, and was written by Billy Rose and Lee David. Not only did Liberty sign them, but it immediately released a recording of the girls singing the song as a commercial single, (with the B-side, "A Smile and a Ribbon," a composition with music by Mark McIntyre) and by September the song reached #4 on the Billboard charts and #28 in the UK Singles Chart, and was the biggest selling record put out by Liberty for two years. It sold over one million copies and reached gold record status."

a. Tonight You Belong to Me

b. A Smile and a Ribbon

Lifted or The Story Is in the Attic

Ah yes, this was the week of the Nobel that shouldn't, and the Boy that didn't. And, whether it turns out to be a hoax or not, I quite like the image of a small boy floating up and through the air, followed by fighter jets, helicopters and a worried nation.

And what a story he would have been able to tell!

Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen, we are floating in space
The Pains of being Pure at Heart - Higher than the Stars

Jonathan Richman - A higher Power

Caesars - It's not the fall that hurts

The Radio Dept - Lost and Found
Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek

art: Katrine K

"What is this hybrid?" you say! It's the amazing supergalactic Idlewild Whale!

 So I've been listening to Idlewild's new album "Post Electric Blues", whose title by the way I love. First impressions: Idlewild seem to have left behind the murkier, grungier sound of their alt-rock, indie-rock, Scottish-rock, en fin whatever-you-want-to-call-it rock past and turned to the greener, sweeter pastures of folk pop. During so many of the songs, four words kept popping into my head: Noah and the Whale. The sound, the female vocals, the instruments, the soft melodic chords, the sweetness of it all. Now I know Idlewild have had songs like this in the past, but they were the exception on an album rather than the rule. The band never quite seemed to embrace the Shins and Fanfarlo side of pop as much as the Weezer  & Ash side of pop. (And make no mistake, they're on different sides!) That's not to say that they've lost their identity. Songs like "Post Electric Blues", "No Wiser", and "All Over Town" sound like old Idlewild. But much of the album is surprisingly distortion-free. As much as I'm revelling in the absence of amplifiers and find this a welcome change - after all, if they had put out another 100 Broken Windows everyone would have accused them of repeating themselves - I do miss the stronger drum beats, power chords and addictive guitar riffs on older songs like "I Don't Have the Map", "El Capitan" and "Roseability". So I'm torn between loving that they chose to do something new and, well, still liking the old songs better. One thing is certain: the chances are there's a reason they've been left here, and I'm not disappointed.

(The Night Will) Bring You Back to Life (Post Electric Blues)

Take Me Back to the Islands (Post Electric Blues)

I Don't Have the Map (100 Broken Windows)

Roseability (100 Broken Windows)

All artwork in this post created by SW▲MPY

In other news: Wes Anderson turns Roald Dahl's "Fantastic Mr. Fox" into a stop motion animation. If I was prone to exaggerations, I'd say I'm extremely incredibly painfully fucking excited. Good thing I know how to keep my cool.

 See more illustrations by SW▲MPY here.

Video of the Week: Grizzly Bear - Foreground (live on Pitchfork.tv)

go here for more

The week I decided I want to get an update of the movies Colin Meloy watched this month. Every month.

Some time last week I happened to find myself on Soft Hearted Scientists' official site where, YES!, I finally found what I wish every band I love, like or even consider mildly entertaining would have on their websites: a "Likes and Dislikes" section. Why doesn't every band on the planet do this? Don't they think their fans care enough to see a film they recommend? Or eat at a restaurant they rave about? I know I read "Story of the Eye" just because it's mentioned in The Past is a Grotesque Animal and, though it was pretty shit, at least now I know what Kevin Barnes is talking about. You understand the band better - their influences, the meaning behind their lyrics, the references, the sound. I mean how can you find The Divine Comedy's "The Booklovers" - a genius of a song by the way - great or funny or anything if you haven't read any of the authors? You won't get the jokes. Which is why I love it when bands have references to movies or historical characters, or literature or politicians, or anything in real-life that you can grab and hold on to.  It gives the music an extra layer of meaning. But most bands don't directly quote their influences in their songs - hence the necessity for a "Likes and Dislikes" section! It's perfect. The artist feels good because hey: you, as a musician, are single-handedly creating a spike in DVD sales of your favourite Takeshi Kitano movie. The fans feel good because hey: you can now brag to your friends that you understand The Rakes better than they do and thus you are the only "true" fan. (if you take a peak at the comments on songmeanings.net you'll see what I mean: people are bending over backwards to prove that they understand the band better than you do.) And even the journalists and bloggers feel better because their Soft Hearted Scientists' interview will not be full of generic questions anymore. You can now casually ask "I saw on your blog that you dislike Irvine Welsh. Why? Have you read Filth?" etcetera. Or start the conversation  by chatting about Dexter (which you now know they like) for a while instead of staring awkwardly at your coffee mug. Plus, it would be good for the music industry (and the book-film-food-magazine-comic industries respectively, depending on what the bands want to include) because everything will be finally integrated and co-dependent. Modest Mouse are suddenly extremely famous? Bukowski books start selling like mad because they mention him in that song. Charlie and the Chocolate factory is a box-office hit? Britney Spears decides to name her baby Char...oh wait that's already happened. But you get the gist of it. Look at the way the clever people that deal with the LOST merchandise took advantage of many a LOST fan's obsession with reading all the books mentioned on the show and gave us the amazing "Lost Book Club". So here is the bottom line: we at Letters Have No Arms demand that all bands issue a monthly publication registering their likes and dislikes for that period. They can include anything from their favourite dog breeds to a list of the worst sex scenes they've ever seen in a movie. I will subscribe to the Of Montreal, Magnetic Fields, The National, Los Campesinos!, The Decemberists and Hello Saferide publications when they are made available. Thank you.

Oh, and I forgot that this post was originally supposed to be about Soft Hearted Scientists' last album (Scarecrow Smile), which I've only just discovered and which, for some odd reason nobody seems to have posted about because I can't find any mp3s anywhere. You can listen to the full album on Spotify though - which is great for us Europeans. As for the USA, you can download it legally from Amazon. Oh, and to get you more excited read the review of Scarecrow Smile from Drowned in Sound, where it is awarded a rating of 8 out of 10.

 "Start reading."

The Booklovers

"An older one from Soft Hearted Scientists it is then" 

Brother, Sister

"I'm not usually fond of instrumentals but here's one I quite like"

Tumbleweed

"This mash-up should NOT be missing from Hype Machine, goddamn it."

Give It to My Boy From School

New Strokes album on the way!

Plenty of news on (the) The Strokes front lately; first analog circuit-loving mensch maschine Julian releases his beep bleep beep new track, Eleventh Dimension (+an upcoming album), and now our Monday morning is brightened by the news of a new Strokes album proper! Julian Casablancas announced to UK radio station XFM that it'll sound like a "super-tight late 70-s rock band but with a-ha moments, if that makes sense". Methinks he's referring to President (long-forgotten late-eighties soft pop/rock band ed.).

The Strokes - Modern Age (Is This It, 2001)

The Strokes - The End has no End (Room on Fire, 2003)

The Strokes - Juicebox (First Impressions of Earth, 2006) 

Julian Casablancas - Eleventh Dimension (Phrazes for the Young, 2009)

Saturday night: We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

 

Come stretch your skinny jeans, billow your hoop skirts and dance away those post-election blues(or greens) to the sound of the very best brand spanking new fuzz pop, noise pop, beach hop, chamber pop, bubblegum pop, noise rock, crisp rock, bounce top, booty rock, room rock, electro box, electro ping, electro boom, and electro muff !

Your hosts for the night: Steven & DJ Sevek

 

A Letters have no Arms extravaganza!

Featuring: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Kings of Convenience, HEALTH, Liars, Phoenix, Horrors, Of Montreal, Friendly Fires, Black Lips, Fanfarlo, Metric, Los Campesinos, Grizzly Bear, La Roux, Discovery, Bat for Lashes, M.I.A, Vivian Girls, Dan Deacon, Wavves, Passion Pit, Bon Iver, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Dodos, Girls, The Postmarks, The National, Bloc Party, Camera Obscura, Woods, Julian Casablancas, Times New Viking, No Age, Lady Gaga, Patrick Wolf, Kap Bambino, MGMT, Atlas Sound, Animal Collective, and many more

Kap Bambino - Save

BBU - CHI DOnt Dance
Robin Skouteris - I Kissed Aliki! (Aliki Vougiouklaki VS Katy Perry)
M.I.A. - Jimmy (DJDT remixxx)
Don Diablo vs Phoenix vs Jay-Z - 99 Fences

 Info:     

Saturday, October 10. From 22:00

Nouvelle Decadence

Emmanouil Benaki 87

Athens, Greece

"It's not as good as the previous one" whispered the girl with the headphones, afraid of sounding cliché.

Why? - Even the Good Wood Gone

Why? - Berkeley by Hearseback

Okay, so it's not Alopecia. What did you expect?

As soothing as tea

Five songs as soothing as tea:

The Brunettes - Holding Hands, Feeding Ducks

The Sunny Street - Cyclists

 Secret Owl Society - If Only They Could Turn Around

The Library - TomKat

The Pastels / Tenniscoats - Vivid Youth

Song lyrics of the week:

There's a delightful little illustration of how ...children feel space. A child on his first airplane flight said - as...as they took off and...... they climbed higher and higher - said:
"Daddy, when do we start to get small?"

Phillip Seymour Hoffman - Roads and Paper Routes

Looking back: OFF Festival 2009

When: August 6 - 9
Where: Myslowice, Poland

 
OFF was a big unknown for us, we really had no idea what to expect. It wasn't only a new festival for us but a new COUNTRY. Anyway, we spent the week before the festival in Krakow and loved it. Loved it so much in fact we ended up returning to the city after the festival.
 

As for OFF:   

- The campsite. Yes, this surely is how all festival campsites should be. Trees, grass, quiet, SPACE. Perfect. The actual festival area was equally beautiful.

- Cheap beer

- Casiotone for the Painfully Alone

- The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. They went on in the late afternoon, playing to quite a small crowd (apparently this 'whole indie thing' is pretty new in Poland).

- The National (yep, there's a reason Eliza picked Matt Berninger as one of 'The top 5 people I would marry if they asked me today' on a recent Facebook quiz.)

- Karl Blau (Staged one of the best crowd sing-alongs of my summer)

- The Thermals

- crossing the train tracks on the way to the festival area
- Price of the festival tickets (approx €40.00 for two days)

- Just BEING in Poland!

- The campsite was located at a good 20-25 minute walk from the festival site. We (and a few hundred other people) quickly discovered a rather amazing short-cut over some train tracks though.

- The woman selling sandwiches. She was mean. Possibly. Our Polish wasn't good enough to be entirely sure.

- The fact that you couldn't take a beer (or any type of food for that matter) from the bar and food area to the stages. Apparently this is quite normal in Poland as nobody seemed to care/notice all that much. Surely one of the best things at a festival (or any gig for that matter) is to stand and watch your favourite bands with a beer in your hand?

- The ridiculous rule they had for cameras: cameras over 3.2 MP (do they still exist?) weren't allowed to be taken onto the festival grounds... I managed to devise a clever deceptive strategy to bypass this one, involving my belt and groin area, and the pictures you see here are proof of that.
 

 All in all I think the organizers have done an incredible job, setting up this truly special festival and bringing bands to OFF that had never even played in Poland before (notable exception: Handsome Furs, who told us it was something like their 14th time in the country this year), bands with barely (if any) a fan base in Poland. The entire project takes guts, and the festival is clearly a labour of love for the organizers. For this we salute them!

 

The Thermals

Handsome Furs

  

 The National

 

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone
 

Spiritualized

 

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

 

 

Karl Blau

 

on the train to OFF

 

Myslowice town

  Myslowice town

 

  Myslowice train station

 

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - New Year's Kiss (Daytrotter session)

The Thermals - I can't let go (Daytrotter session)

HEALTH - We are Water (Daytrotter session)

And finally, a song from a band that didn't actually play at OFF, but whose song Karl Blau rather wonderfully covered.

Your Heart Breaks - Bad Company

 OFF preview 

More photos

Sometimes the bass from my speakers makes my house vibrate

 

 

Civil Civic - Less Unless

Times New Viking - Move to California 

Fuck Buttons - Surf Solar (7" edit)

The Adverts - One Chord Wonders

Girls - Morning Light