Saturday 23 May 2020

Gecarcoidea natalis

I wrote the below in August 2019 and entirely forgot to upload it to this nearly-forgotten blog. It's all about Ben Baker's then-new book "Death Death Death Stereo Stereo Stereo", which you can now find under the revised name "Death by Stereo" (kindle, lulu). I am deathly, deathly, deathly sorry that I am way, am way, am way too late for this to be of any promotional use.

My internet chum Ben Baker has written a glorious new compendium of interesting music trivia. I really admire the investment of effort that's gone into this publication - probably featuring the most sustained piece of writing about TISM ever written outside Australia or New Zealand. Sure, the TISM piece is about 3% of the entire book but my favourite Australian band also lends the book its title...



So, what will you find in Death Death Death Stereo Stereo Stereo?

There's nothing quite like a healthy obsession with the contents of your own bookshelves. Building a library of music or movies or books or comics, trying to understand what led to their creation, but equally knowing that what they mean to you is far more important.


Ben has written up a series of essays on matters which would once have seemed all-important to teenagers in 1998. Why didn't Kenickie's second album go anywhere? What hit bands never charted above #11? Just how many ways can a best-of compilation album betray its artist? I mean, these are still issues I think about, standing on public transport, zoned out, accidentally staring into your eyes.


Ben likes a lot of what I like. So I enjoy his take on those things. He likes a lot of stuff I've never heard of, so that's a potential opener into new horizons. He also likes stuff I either don't like, or am pretty sure I'm not interested in. This is where a lot of the magic of Death Death Death Stereo Stereo Stereo lies. Sometimes it's a pleasure to observe someone's admiration of the unadmirable.


In reading this book I looked up an old Feeder video so I could see Ben's hands waving around. I spent a lot of time revisiting the lost art of planning physical single releases through a worldwide album campaign (being a Garbage fan was a hassle, I recall). Thought a bit about the almost hilarious story of the inappropriate introduction an ill-prepared funeral celebrant gave to the CD my family chose to play at my dad's service. Basically, Ben's stories of music facts are all backed up with his personal tales of a life lived through music minutiae, so I was writing my own versions of each chapter in my head as I went along:

  • Like Ben, my hands appear in a music video (Saint Etienne's I've Got Your Music - in which I briefly hold up TISM's I'm Interested in Apathy 12" and two They Might Be Giants 12"s, while the video cuts before I display Alexei Sayle's 'Ullo John Gotta New Motor, Max Tundra's Children at Play, or New Order's Perfect Kiss). I obviously didn't pay attention to the submission guidelines as I am about the only person who doesn't show their face. 
  • My first single was Slice of Heaven by Dave Dobbyn, a song and video I was truly obsessed with at age eight. I remember pausing my way through the cassette I got for Christmas so I could write down all the lyrics I misheard (note to younger self: Black humour does not make you "kick your boobs"). I have never quite been able to escape this song, which in 1987 was the theme song to the edgy children's(?) cartoon film of the Footrot Flats comic strip, but throughout the 90s and 00s was used to advertise New Zealand tourism to Australians. (Giving rise to a memorable moment on Get This, when Tony Martin reacted to Ed Kavalee's retelling of some embarrassing New Zealand news story by ironically trumpeting YAA-DAA-DAA)
  • I'm grateful to Ben for pointing me in the direction of Scrap Saturday, the compilation CD of which I have now unearthed for peanuts in Melbourne, abandoned by Irish backpackers of yore. Still mulling over whether to spend $2 on the Podge and Rodge DVD.

  • The "What's In A Name?" chapter makes me want to contribute the sad story of the proposed late September 2001 release of Gerling's album "When Young Terrorists Chase The Sun". Further explanation is probably not necessary, but the Australian release of what was probably my favourite album of 2001 was too far down the track to be halted. The album cover even included an explosion in a skyscraper. All promotion immediately started referring to the album as WYTCTS, then on release it arrived in a cardboard sleeve which removed the title and cover art altogether. Japanese and UK releases followed in '02 under the album name "Headzcleaner", with revised cover art and with jaunty album track "High Jackers Manual" also renamed "The Manual" (though it still soundtracked Channel 10's summer promos that year).
  • Mention of weird NME compilation tape "Sgt Pepper Knew My Father" reminded me that I found this for 20p when I lived in Brighton, and I would sometimes listen to it on my lunch break as I walked around Preston Park with a Walkman I had unbelievably found in working order (this was as late as 2007 or so; I was basically one step up from a gramophone). It was around this time I got a phone that could play MP3s, and discovered the work of Ben Baker himself. I can still remember exactly where I was when I heard his parody of a Chris Barrie audiobook, laughed out loud and thought: I must keep listening to this guy. (It was on the pavement at BN1 4ZE).
  • And of course there is another discovery - the acknowledgements credit Steve from "Off the Charts" on Mad Wasp Radio, which is a very lovely coincidence as it was the mixtape below that Steve sent me 21 years ago that started me off on my own music obsessions. I won it from Steve's website by claiming to have seen a music video with the most swearwords in it (it screened precisely once on 'rage') and the tape turned up with detailed liner notes including all sorts of things, like catalogue numbers for the 7" records the songs came from, which I had never previously considered were important. 
2020 update: couldn't find a picture of the Alternative Car Park Christmas mixtape, so here's a copy of the Pet Shop Boys' Behaviour Steve also sent me in 1998 or so, with all the B-sides carefully catalogued and appended:

So there you have it: if you spent part of your younger days avidly monitoring how your bands were crawling up or down the charts, this will inspire a lot of parallel memories and give an insight into what that might have been like if you were from the North of England. The following link should take you to a page with links to the book and free samples. 

https://benbakerbooks.org/2019/08/01/new-book-death-x3-stereo-x3/


If you are also interested in ropey old comedy books - and who didn't have a copy of Bachelor Boys or The A to Z of Behaving Badly hidden in your shelves where mum couldn't find it - I strongly recommend Ben's earlier book, The Comedy Cash-In Book Book.