higherpowermoment.com

More Wayne’s World quotes, more Spotify catching up on music I was too wasted to notice the first time around.

I chose this Pavement track rather lazily because it references a well known corporate entity. I’ve been thinking that it’s better to put out loads of brief posts rather than nothing for weeks because I can’t think of anything sparkling and exotic to say about the programme. But of course coming back to post it I realise that there’s a 12 step reference there too. Like much of recovery, my relationship with my sponsor has been something of a journey. Obviously, being a perfectionist maniac I had to have the best sponsor in the whole of my fellowship. And my Step 5 was going to be the most mind-blowing one of all eternity. And then everything he said was obviously going to be the purest wisdom in the world. So why not put him on a big pedestal? Turned out he was a normal, nice guy, with all the qualities and defects of all other normal nice guys. Ha. I should call him more often. Here’s Pavement’s “Date With Ikea”.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Pavement - Date With Ikea

Well, I’ve bought a new car. It’s frankly ridiculous, it’s so big it has its own gravitational field. A massive old Merc. But I love it, no matter what everyone else says. It’s one of those “beyond your wildest dreams” things, I would have never have considered driving an old fart’s car like this when I was a hyper aggressive arsey mad dry drunk phase. But I sit there in double glazed splendour, tootling along at 70 (I can’t afford the petrol to go much faster) and lapping up tunes on the amazing stereo that the millionaire who bought this car in 1996 selected. There’s no iPod connection, I’m not sure whether to put one in, but for the moment it’s CD’s. And you get to listen to CD’s over and over again on big trips, as the changer is in the boot (or “trunk”, for our North American readers). The signature CD for this car appears to be Levy’s 2005 debut Rotten Love. What can I tell you about Levy, fact-fans? Not a lot. It appears to be the working name of James Levy. He used to work in a Jewish cemetery. He’s from Brooklyn. ANOTHER great musician from Brooklyn! I can’t now remember where I heard this track, but I couldn’t find the mp3 to steal anywhere, bought the CD, and the whole thing is great. It’s pretty breezy, pretty slick, some big sky sounds, dare I compare it to, hum, Coldplay? Well, maybe there are hints there, but there’s some Smiths in there too and it’s sufficiently quirky and dreamy and intelligent and knowing and assorted not to be too hideous. And I really should confess to having a soft spot for “Yellow”. Anyway, enough confessions. Here’s the title track.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Levy - Rotten Love

OK… First I’ll access the secret military spy satellite that is in geosynchronous orbit over the Midwest. Then I’ll ID the limo by the vanity plate “MR. BIGGG” and get his approximate position. Then I’ll reposition the transmission dish on the remote truck to 17.32 degrees east, hit WESTAR 4 over the Atlantic, bounce the signal back into the aerosphere up to COMSAT 6, beam it back to SATCOM 2 transmitter number 137 and down on the dish on the back of Mr. Big’s limo… It’s almost too easy.

Today was a bit like that until I simplified it. Unfortunately it means I miss out on a really amazing sounding gig, but fortunately it means I also miss out on a whole load of unmanageability.

I lost my record collection by bits and bobs during my drinking days in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The nice thing about Spotify is that I’m rediscovering it. Today has been “The Cure” day :). I totally forgot about this brilliant track on 1985’s “The Head on the Door”. How about that for an intro? Don’tcha love the way everyone piles in and gives it all a good kicking? What a song. Push.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The Cure - Push

Yes, it’s more Wayne’s World quotes.

As our regular reader(s) will be aware, higherpowermoment.com is of course on the interweb’s top trend spotting cutting edge music blogs, responsible for making or breaking bands, setting the agenda, and defining the zeitgeist.

Longtime higherpowermoment.com faves are Spanish electro pop with indie guitar sensibilities band Delorean. See here and here. Now some obscure American outfit called Pitchfork has belatedly hitched on our bandwagon, seen which way the wind has been blowing, and given their latest E.P., brilliantly entitled “Ayrton Senna”, 8.4.

All I can say is welcome to the party, Pitchfork, higherpowermoment.com was here yonks before you, and we give this 11.0.

Please note the original Spanish 12″ artwork, not the pants they are flogging in the States. Wooo! We are so special and different! We were there first! I have this record. But no record player.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Delorean - Seasun

Well, in order to kick-start this blog after a few months in the doldrums, I thought I’d work through some non-AA (or other 12 step fellowship) approved literature. So I’m going to be choosing as topics quotes from one of my favourite films, the childish, immature, facile but nonetheless completely brilliant “Wayne’s World”.

Well, I hope this is going to work.

My concert going is not quite at the level of absolute mania it was last year, but looking back at the list of stuff in my last.fm diary there’s been some good ones recently, and one of those was the Indietracks festival at the Midlands Railway, Butterley in Derbyshire. This is a completely charming festival where you park up, wander on to a railway platform, get on a real live steam train, and sit in a Formica bar drinking lukewarm pop as you chug through a leafy cutting to a railway yard stuffed full of old engines, carriages, railway buildings, and twee indie pop bands. With the main stage sponsored by Madrid’s Elefant Records there was a healthy contingent of Spanish bands and Spanish people, who always seem to be the friendliest people I ever meet at festivals. So, to kick off the totally amazing, excellent discovery of the Indietracks festival, here’s Cooper, a Spanish band who had heard before but didn’t really *get* until I saw them there supporting the Teenage Fanclub set. Whilst not likely to win any awards for innovation, they were nonetheless a charming, competent and heart warming outfit, who even apologised for singing in Spanish and threw in some English covers to make up for it. Here’s a picture I took of Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub enjoying the entirety of the Cooper Set.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Cooper - En El Sofa

The sharp-eyed amongst you might have noticed that this post has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with 12 step recovery. Well, I thought I’d try to ease back into that, the way I’m easing back into meetings (2 this week, an improvement). I really don’t feel like forcing it, I am sure I will think of something to say when I get the inspiration.

Yes, I know I promised you a post on “Have I ever done anything I could have been arrested for if only I were caught? What have those things been?”.

Yes, I know this isn’t the topic.

Yes, I know it’s been over a month since my last post.

No, it’s not true that the reason I haven’t posted it is because I don’t want to answer the question “Have I ever done anything I could have been arrested for if only I were caught? What have those things been?”. Although I don’t really want to answer that question.

In fact, the programme and I have not been getting on very well recently. I’ve been going to meetings and thinking, well, I’m hating this, why am I here? And I’ve not been talking to people in the fellowship, or using my sponsor, or really doing anything of the stuff that’s suggested. And it felt, well, pretty hypocritical to be writing about the 12 step programme when I’m not working it.

The good news, for me, for today, if anyone is interested, is that whatever low-level malaise that was affecting me over the past few months seems to be lifting. Tonight a Daniel Johnston song came on Spotify (don’t you just love Spotify?), and for the first time in a long while I got the kind of spiritual lift that sometimes it seems that music can give me. Here’s the song. I can’t talk any more as I have a meeting to get to.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Daniel Johnston - Life in Vain

Next topic: we’ll deal with that tomorrow.

Dear Reader. I think you know the answer to this one.

The point, more generally, is how the unmanageability that results from our addiction causes us to engage in extreme acts of behaviour, and to encounter the consequences of that behaviour, without actually setting out for that to happen. We didn’t want to end up in police cells, divorce courts, prisons and the like. We just wanted to take the edge off. But our powerlessness results in unmanageability, and unmanageability takes us to places where the authorities end up trying to manage us for us.

More concert reviews. I’m not really sure how I got into the business of concert reviews. Maybe because I haven’t been to many concerts for a while, and now I’m going bonkers again, and it’s concert, concert, concert. Unmanageability, you see. And one of my two readers asked for concert reviews.

The chronology is completely shot too. Rewinding a week or so from Primavera Sound, I went to see St. Etienne in London. I’m afraid I didn’t like St. Etienne much, and in fact only lasted 2 songs, but to be fair to them, they had a hard act to follow: Birmingham’s Go Kart Mozart. Go Kart Mozart is the vehicle of former Felt and Denim vocalist, Lawrence. I write like I’m a staffer on the NME, but to be honest I knew nothing about any of these bands or people until I rocked up at London’s Bloomsbury Ballroom. My only ammunition was that I thought “Go Kart Mozart” was a cool name, and a friend said that I would be crazy to miss this concert in Glasgow. Lawrence is a doggedly eccentric individual, who was attired in a baseball cap with a clear plastic peak, a leather jacket with the word “KILL” spelled out in studs, a rainbow coloured knitted tank top, and a courier bag. The guitarist was dressed like 1950’s vet. And the keyboard player was like an over animated Mike Read. The effect was amazing, and, for me, rather took the wind out of St. Etienne’s sails, not only visually but musically as well. For me their polished lounge pop didn’t stand a chance against the eccentric bubblegum glam synth rock (yes really) we had previously been treated to. Here’s a snap I took, and a song about criminal acts down the docks.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Go Kart Mozart - Sailor Boy

Next topic: Have I ever done anything I could have been arrested for if only I were caught? What have those things been?

Something like…. when every waking hour is spent in the unthinking pursuit of various addictions to the exclusion of all other activity.

Life has been a bit like that recently, and I rocked up at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound last week in something of a state of exhaustion. By day 3 I was so tired I became ill, and missed a whole chunk of the festival. I’ve since been torturing myself by reading about the acts I missed, things I could have seen. But, whilst it is undoubtedly true that if unmanageability wasn’t raging in me at the moment, I’d get a lot more stuff done, I also should be wary about this “woulda coulda shoulda” thinking. The goal is progress, not perfection, and it’s one day at a time.

That’s not to say that Primavera Sound wasn’t completely amazing. I really have nothing to whinge about. I saw some dear friends, made some new ones, and had experiences that really were beyond my wildest dreams. So, that’s not so bad, is it? One of those experiences was the privilege of meeting My Bloody Valentine, and watching them play their open-air gig from the side of the stage, right next to the main speaker. I had my posh earplugs, but even so, it was like being strapped to a jumbo jet engine whilst it flew through an active volcano, with the noise being monitored and replayed x11. It was wonderful. I have completely fallen in love with this band. Here’s a pic I took and “I Only Said”.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

My Bloody Valentine - I Only Said

Next topic: Have I ever been arrested or had legal trouble as a result of my addiction?

Step 1 is of the 12 steps of the Narcotics Anonymous programme is:

We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable.

Step 1 of other 12 step programmes is identical, save that the word “addiction” is sometimes substituted with another. So Step 1 of Alcoholics Anonymous is:

We admitted we were powerless over our alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.

AA was the first 12 step programme I came into. Admitting powerlessness over alcohol was pretty straightforward - at the time of first meeting, it was pretty plain to me that if I had one drink I couldn’t guarantee the results. But admitting unmanageability was a different matter. Apart from the alcohol, my life was still pretty sorted, right?

As we discover with the forthcoming questions in the Narcotics Anonymous “Steps Working Guides”, the answer to that, if you’re an addict, is no, and the reason is that addiction is a condition that runs through your whole being. Taking away one particular drug isn’t going to fix the problem.

Admitting that our lives have become unmanageable is a pretty bitter pill to swallow when addicts can be incredibly stubbon, determined and self-willed people. It took a long time for me to reach the point where I was prepared to do so, and I’m frequently retracting that admission, and letting my self-will back in. If it sounds like a tough call, then the best advice is to go to meetings, be quiet, listen, and keep an open mind.

Which (really cheesily) brings me on to the final part of my incredibly delayed review of the Darvel Homecoming music festival - The Attic Lights. Previously, I had one of those “play on repeat all night” obsessions (maybe only I get them) about the Lights’ track “Never Get Sick of the Sea”. Sometimes when I’m working late, playing the same song over and over again can help me shut out distractions and get things done. But the rest of their album, “Friday Night Lights”, had left me cold, and I wasn’t really that excited about seeing them. However, attendance at hundreds of 12 step fellowship meetings no doubt has had some effect, because I was open-minded enough to appreciate that they were, in fact, a really fucking amazing band.

Here’s a photo I took with my own fair hands (and a Canon) and “Never Get Sick of the Sea”.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Attic Lights - Never Get Sick of the Sea

Next topic: What does unmanageability mean to me?

Hmmm, sensitive subject, as for a little while now some of my addictive behaviours have been raging, and I and other people have been paying the price, as I’ve been tired, full of self-loathing, and generally foul tempered. I made it to a meeting the other night and saw a stranger who I suspect is my sponsor. Some steps in the right direction.

The wider point (trying to move away from this navel-gazing) from this question in the Narcotics Anonymous “Steps Working Guides” is that our powerlessness means that pain inflicted on ourselves and others isn’t enough to get us to stop. Pain isn’t enough. Over the next few posts I’ll going through the questions in the Guides relating to unmanageability, and then I’ll be looking at surrender, which is where Step 1 really begins to kick in.

I’ve written before about The Primary 5, the vehicle of former Teenage Fanclub drummer Paul Quinn. When we last left The Primary 5, Paul had announced that he was folding the band and quitting the music business. He obviously meant it - I subsequently read that he was selling off items of musical equipment. But then, he came back. And he came back to Darvel, Ayrshire. On after Dropkick, The Primary 5’s youthful line was augmented by Gordon Keen (formerly of the BMX Bandits, Captain America and Eugenius). For the track “High 5″ they were joined by Duglas T. Stewart of the BMX Bandits. The final song was the joyous “Make Believe” from 2007’s “Go”.

I’ve struggled to connect the topic from the “Steps Working Guides” with the concert - I’ve got a lot of concerts to get through and I’m way behind schedule. All I can say is that my addiction has immense potential to cause me and others harm, and is often happily doing so. By contrast my recovery has really has brought me things beyond my wildest dreams - I certainly never thought I’d be sitting behind a trestle table in Darvel, drinking Diet Irn Bru, and seeing a band where several of the members have become friends. It’s a pretty good feeling. Here’s a photo I took of Duglas, and “Make Believe”.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The Primary 5 - Make Believe

Next topic: Unmanageability