The Field Mice: Cl*ss*c Or D*d

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Yeah, I saw that in his latest mailout. A new fascination?

― Thy Lethal Zen Ned (Ned), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 12:28 (twenty years ago) link

I'd never really thought about the sleeves before but... well... not up to much, are they? "Skywriting" is probably the best of the bunch, and only because it rips off someone else's style (Mondrian? Oh, I can't remember, I'm not that cultured).

At least the ASD sleeves had some enigmatic photos on 'em, and "Rebellion" is probably one of my fave sleeves ever (and I'm not just saying that to make Harvey happy, I remember seeing it in Replay in 1994 and thinking "That looks so cool, I've got to buy it on vinyl too").

― Rob M (Rob M), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 12:32 (twenty years ago) link

harvey - is there any chance whatsoever of London Weekend being repressed? or am i more likely to sprout spontaneous wings?

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 12:50 (twenty years ago) link

esoj- Pete Hahndorf from Tweenet has asked me if he can license it, with nicer packaging, maybe a few demos & stuff, which I may take him up on. It's probably just a case of asking Matt; it's not as if he doesn't let go of the masters (there have been 14 Iced Bears, Wake, Secret Shine, St Christopher(?) comps recently on other labels). It's really a matter of how small the market is. If it's just one person (hello!), email me off board & I'll do you a CDr.

Alternatively, I reckon London Weekend, Rebellion & California would all fit quite snugly on a single CD, which is quite appealing, if ultimately pointless.

― harveyw (harveyw), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 13:57 (twenty years ago) link

Hi Harvey! "Anorak City" is my favorite Sarah single!

If the comp is truly "worth" that much, I might make a copy for myself and sell it. (Who knows, by the time I get back from Europe, perhaps it will have been repressed.) Although mine's beaten up just a bit, as a result of the bad packaging that Gareth describes.

― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 14:18 (twenty years ago) link

i like the sarah reissue controversy as it gives one something fun to argue about, a real artistic dilemma outside of a museum. but i wouldn't mind even as we speak and blueboy singles compilations, either.

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 15:39 (twenty years ago) link

Yikes! It always surprises me when relatively recent things command such high prices. This little piece of the Amazon "new and used" page for that compilation made me laugh (I hope I cut/pasted the source right...):

List Price: $19.98

Used
from
$150.00
http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/offerings/low-price.gif

― Ernest P. (ernestp), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 22:00 (twenty years ago) link

Cor blimey, what have I done? Sorry...

― Ernest P. (ernestp), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 22:01 (twenty years ago) link

All better?

― Ernest P. (ernestp), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 22:07 (twenty years ago) link

*Whew*

― Ernest P. (ernestp), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 22:07 (twenty years ago) link

i like that baby blue frame. looks like a field mice cover in fact.

― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 22:14 (twenty years ago) link

i always thought the comp was still available just without a sleeve. why doesn't he repeat every other line anymore? the last tbs record was the best thing he's ever done, it should have been number two on the billboard chart. it was certainly his most factory-esque record or maybe just his most goth record.

― keith (keithmcl), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 23:41 (twenty years ago) link

every time i think the latest Bob track is his worst ever, it grows on me and i end up loving it as much as the rest

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Thursday, 21 August 2003 00:05 (twenty years ago) link

i haven't bought the new one because i thought broken by whispers was painfully dull.

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Thursday, 21 August 2003 04:20 (twenty years ago) link

"it was certainly his most factory-esque record or maybe just his most goth record."

Yes. The second track of the last album WAS The Cure. It even had one of those wiggly bass breaks before the guitars come crashing back in...

― flowersdie (flowersdie), Thursday, 21 August 2003 12:08 (twenty years ago) link

six months pass...

has anyone got the lyrics of sensitive? i only get parts of them by listening and they seem to be nowhere on the web.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Sunday, 22 February 2004 14:10 (twenty years ago) link

See here, alex.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 22 February 2004 14:28 (twenty years ago) link

thank you, nick. they are gorgeous.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Sunday, 22 February 2004 15:04 (twenty years ago) link

They're self-centred and delusional!

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 22 February 2004 15:09 (twenty years ago) link

They don't go anywhere! So yeah he's SENSITIVE, who isn't

― Silly Sailor (Andrew Thames), Sunday, 22 February 2004 15:12 (twenty years ago) link

the self-centredness is what is so great about them. because they are true. the following is pure wisdom:

my feelings are hurt so easily
that is the price that i pay
the price that i do pay
to appreciate
the beauty they're killing

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Sunday, 22 February 2004 15:25 (twenty years ago) link

It's arrogant too.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 22 February 2004 15:28 (twenty years ago) link

so he's arrogant. who isn't.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Sunday, 22 February 2004 15:37 (twenty years ago) link

Lots of people. But the song makes out like he's one of the good guys who gets trampled. Listening to someone sing that is kind of embarrassing.

I love the Field Mice, generally, but that song is too much even for me.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 22 February 2004 16:06 (twenty years ago) link

would you like it more without the lyrics? i think it is one of the best pop songs of all time. the way they employ noisy guitars to make the tune even more irresistible is genius. the only problem is the end. it doesn't have one. the abrupt cut-off always hurts my heart.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Sunday, 22 February 2004 16:56 (twenty years ago) link

Yeah, I like the music.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 22 February 2004 17:20 (twenty years ago) link

ha ha - it's taken 2 years but at last a reply to my admittedly naive question - i can see exactly why people think the lyrics to "sensitive" are arrogant, but by the same token i think they are just honest and brave.

btw a number of people are still telling me it's a song about vegetarianism ?

― kieron, Sunday, 22 February 2004 21:20 (twenty years ago) link

i wrote a wee bit on them in my blog.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Sunday, 22 February 2004 21:57 (twenty years ago) link

You should have linked to this thread too, alex!

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 22 February 2004 21:58 (twenty years ago) link

every time i think the latest Bob track is his worst ever, it grows on me and i end up loving it as much as the rest

this continues with the latest LP, thought it was booooring at first and now i think it's ace.

― the surface noise (electricsound), Sunday, 22 February 2004 22:23 (twenty years ago) link

but i did, nick! which one you mean, esj? the comp?

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Sunday, 22 February 2004 22:33 (twenty years ago) link

nah, "alive to every smile"

― the surface noise (electricsound), Sunday, 22 February 2004 22:38 (twenty years ago) link

Oops, Alex - missed it!

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 22 February 2004 22:40 (twenty years ago) link

this song and others seem like they are a determined answer to people who have trouble with overearnest music

i don't have trouble with it, but this stuff seems like parody to me, whether intentional or not

― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 22 February 2004 23:09 (twenty years ago) link

Yeah, that's an interesting analysis. It's a bit like How Soon Is Now? is deliberately crass and impolite because Morrissey has reached the end of the road with charm and ingratiation.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 22 February 2004 23:14 (twenty years ago) link

i don't feel right being complimented for an 'analysis' of about ten words but thank you just the same

― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 22 February 2004 23:19 (twenty years ago) link

I have a very short attention span - 10 word analyses are my favourites.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 22 February 2004 23:23 (twenty years ago) link

do you really think robert wratten is parodizing himself, amateurist? somehow i doubt it. most of his songs are about this kind of straight feelings.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Monday, 23 February 2004 07:13 (twenty years ago) link

no i don't think he is necessarily parodying himself but his songs often seem like a kind of caricature of earnest songwriting--a kind of extreme

i find it hard to take

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 23 February 2004 10:13 (twenty years ago) link

i agree, but find it easy to take. if it is the case that they were always earnestly meant that'd a disappointment, but it won't stop my reading/hearing of the songs

― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Monday, 23 February 2004 10:14 (twenty years ago) link

I think Broken by Whispers is 'almost' a concept album about trying to get over someone and moving on. It's true that you really have to be be 'in the mood' for most of Wrattens songs (more so then ever for Trembling Blue Stars records), but when you're in that particular situation they can really work for you. It's great! (Er, blub etc)

― flowersdie (flowersdie), Monday, 23 February 2004 16:53 (twenty years ago) link

awww....

― zappi (joni), Monday, 23 February 2004 16:58 (twenty years ago) link

one month passes...

I can't stop listening to 'willow', 'a wrong turn and raindrops' and 'emma's house'.

― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 30 March 2004 16:52 (twenty years ago) link

I watched a documentary the other night ('the boy whose skin fell off') which was very funny and touching and, in two instances, impossibly sad: i. the man the doc was about had to have his dressings changed weekly, they showed this slow sticky process and at one point his mum (I was nothing but impressed by her, she seemed a phenomenal person) accidentally pulled too quickly on the bandage and he gave out a wrenching sob (I was thinking about this scene walking down gt. western road today, spring finally having flourished on glasgow) all the more sad for the way he sat, crooked, bent over the whole time, staring down, he said something like 'o mum, leave it' : ( ii. he asked his brother - grown man, late 30s, seemed the hard of north england's boys - if he would speak a little at his funeral and his brother couldn't speak, on the edge of tears. the pinefox has talked about culture as weather: I have been revisiting some old climate recently (hefner, b&s etc): some british weather system lost: I'm not entirely sure of a point, perhaps you are: I just want to note this sadness and maybe one day come back and relate how the field mice work in here.

― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 30 March 2004 17:01 (twenty years ago) link

sorry.

the two are in some connected together in my mind.

I remember gareth said something about how hood's 'the cold house' reminded him of leeds but 'the leeds of robbie keane.' and I think this in someway relates but I can't get to grips with explaining why nor how.

this may be another folk method vs. pop method dichotomy, at the level of instinct rather than purpose.

― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 30 March 2004 17:03 (twenty years ago) link

anyway, yeah, sorry, I really only wanted to say I love the field mice and to ask if anyone else saw that documentary.

― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 30 March 2004 17:09 (twenty years ago) link

i cant imagine that i would have said that about cold house, leeds, and robbie keane. are sure it was me?

― gareth (gareth), Tuesday, 30 March 2004 17:20 (twenty years ago) link

sorry, you're spot on, it was robin.

― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 30 March 2004 17:26 (twenty years ago) link

two weeks pass...

"Triangle" came on shuffle last week & I thought it was Quique-era Seefeel.

(v.late reply to ESOJ - they both wouldn't exist without acid house, & I discovered them both through tom's top 100 singles of the nineties)

― etc, Monday, 19 April 2004 00:18 (twenty years ago) link

"Sarah Records, the last enclave of the cutie tribe, are always good for a cheap laugh.
The exception that proves the rule, the saving grace, is, of course, The Field Mice, sex gods among their castrated labelmates. "Death and my cock are the world," intones the lead singer, before plunging headfirst into priapic odyssey to the limits of experience that is "September's Not So Far Away". Monsterously engorged and enflamed, "September" proves once again that the Field Mice are one of the few groups to grapple with the new technology, yet reinvoke rock's Dionystic primitivism.

Young Gods, watch out, the Field Mice are behind you and they're signalling to overtake!"
- simon reynolds in melody maker circa 1991!

― etc, Monday, 19 April 2004 00:31 (twenty years ago) link

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