Had the pleasure of The Bedsit Tapeson the return journey from Oxford last night.
What an extraordinary collection of songs this is, sinfully overlooked and underestimated. There's Joy Division in there, lots of Human League (and I hitherto have accused Oakey et al of picking up on Soft Cell's lead...sorry guys) and of course Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire etc. But with a unique mix of both industrial bleeps and general weirdness and some foot-tapping Northern Soul melodies and infuriatingly catchy rhythms. Dave Ball will surely go down as one of the unsung musicians of the 80s until its too late.
Almond's lyrics are a little naive in places, but then at the same time excruciatingly honest and often frighteningly bleak and disturbing. Bearing in mind some of the tracks were written to accompany bizarre works of performance art (Excretory Eat Anorexia Nervosa, Cleansing Obsessive) its no surprise they sound a little disjointed when listened to in isolation.
Industrial and minimal is the order of the day
I tell you bleak is my cliché
A masterpiece. Need to read the parts of Tainted Life again that describe this period. I know Almond knew Peter Chrispherson very early on. This stuff must have come from the same sessions as DoA at the very least.
Local crime.
Worsening.
Everywhere I know, and now its coming to St Denys.
Last weekend there was a public meeting at the church centre to discuss this, particulalry the local nutter-on-the-loose peering in at windows, exposing himself and occasionally 'gaining entry' to houses and assaulting women. really is the talk of the town. The police advised us all to report 'anything suspicious' in our gardens (his preferred route for getting around) like moved flower pots or disturbed things in sheds etc.
So Mat & C did precisely that on Friday when on of the fence panels mysteriously disappeared from the side of their garden!
The police were spectacularly unimpressed - and not really much more so when Mat reported the theft of THREE bikes from his garden shed the next evening. Side gate forced open, shed door ripped off.
Ironically I found this out tonight when I took round the new panier set he had asked for by way of compensation for his bike being nicked while on loan to me. The humour wasn't lost and he was in good sprits about it.
The forced entry and presence of people in your garden is more sinister than the theft of the bikes, which are easily replaced. And of course the lack of concern shown by the same police station that asked for precisely this information just a week ago.
My name has been brought up at a recent meeting to approach PCC members for the vacant post of Church Warden in April. I'm not ready yet for that job, but have already felt it is something I could perhaps take on in a year or more's time when I have matured spiritually a little more. But Moores and I have similar skills, so replacing Gill (an 80 yr old woman) with me wouldn't work at the moment anyway.
Once I do move into that role (two more years I reckon) then its a position I would like to stay in for some time and really build on. Flatteriing though, to think I am even being considered.