Macro Micro

Sub-editor's Note

Should have been posted yesterday, but I was sidetracked.

Some more links relating to Microdisney:

Andrew Mueller's sleeve notes to the Microdisney's compilation album, 'Daunt Square To Elsewhere'. (No, I hadn't heard of it either.)

Being a proper journo-type, Mueller has the skewed compare and contrast off-pat:

. . . " a decent approximation of what might have resulted had Jonathan Swift ever joined The Beach Boys, Bertholt Brecht co-written with Steely Dan, Ambrose Bierce displaced Hal David by the piano of Burt Bacharach."

Pisses all over my "Walter Becker on a lost weekend" quip.

Over at Julian Cope's website, Head Heritage, somebody going by the nome de plume of 'Valve' has done a track by track retrospective review of 'Crooked Mile' (For half a minute, I thought it was Copey who had done the review. I'm a tad disappointed that it wasn't him.)

The 'Valve' blokewas a fan from the start, and draws an early musical comparison with Band of Holy Joy and the Young Marble Giants. Not two bands I know a lot about.

Valve throws a barb Phil Daniels way - "“See you then” I shout after him (meaning: “They’d be wasted on you yer talentless mockney twat. . . actually I quite liked you in Quadrophenia”)." - which is unworthy, if only for Mike Leigh's 'Meantime', but he redeems himself by being on the same page as myself with the view that the final track on 'Crooked Mile', 'People Just Want To Dream', is the bona fide classic track on the album. I loved that track so much that I put it on the 'The Secret Melody of the Class Struggle' mixed CD. There's no greater compliment in my mixing pop and politics book.

The other snippet from the review that has to be mentioned on the blog is the quote from Roddy Doyle's 'The Commitments' that opens the piece:

"“—We’ll ask Jimmy, said Outspan.—Jimmy’ll know.

Jimmy Rabbitte knew his music. He knew his stuff alright. You’d never see Jimmy coming home from town without a new album or a 12-inch or at least a 7-inch single. Jimmy ate Melody Maker and the NME every week and Hot Press every two weeks. He listened to Dave Fanning and John Peel. He even read his sisters’ Jackie when there was no one looking. So Jimmy knew his stuff.

The last time Outspan had flicked through Jimmy’s records he’d seen names like Microdisney, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Otis Redding, The Screaming Blue Messiahs, Scraping Foetus off the Wheel (—Foetus, said Outspan. —That’s the little young fella inside the woman, isn’t it?

—Yeah, said Jimmy.”

—Aah, that’s fuckin’ horrible, tha’ is.)"

First Lenny Kaye, and now Roddy Doyle's 'Barrytown Trilogy'? What else does Kara want before she finally embraces Microdisney?

Some random Microdisney (and post-Microdisney) links:

Excellent Microdisney fansite

Microdisney page in The Irish Punk & New Wave Discography

Microdisney MySpace Page

Fatima Mansions MySpace Page

The High Llamas MySpace Page

And, feck it, some samples of Microdisney at their best.

Best track off of Everybody is Fantastic:

'Come On Over And Cry' mp3

Best track off of The Clock Comes Down The Stairs:

'And' mp3

The best track off of the Crooked Mile:

'People Just Want To Dream' mp3

Best non-album track. B-side to 'Singer's Hampstead Home'

'She Only Gave In To Her Anger' mp3