Search And Destroy: Belle And Sebastian

I like more late period B&S than most, but for me they went wrong when they moved out of the church and into the studio.

A lot of the early sessions - including Lazy Line Painter Jane iirc - were recorded in a church hall that stewpot was janitor of, I seem to remember.

The book IN THE ALL NIGHT CAFÉ talks about early recordings. I don't seem to remember it talking about recording in a church, but it's been 6 years (since reading). I thought that for TIGERMILK, Stow College (which I see closed in 2013) was the key place.

xp Exactly, yes, and even when they were recording in the studio they (don't know how consciously) reproduced the sound of that rehearsal space, until around TBWTAS/FYHCYWLAP they kind of gradually stopped. I like what Trevor Horn did with them later but the lack of that echo is one of the many reasons I don't care for FYHCYWLAP, I'm Waking Up To Us, Jonathan David, etc.

Do I need to read IN THE ALL NIGHT CAFÉ?

I don't know if you like B&S.

People who like B&S might like to read it.

Oh I definitely liked that first run of records and still do. Saw them once in NYC way back when and then some of the members a few days later downtown in the audience at a Matador showcase I think. Maybe I even used to frequent a certain now-defunct record store whose number one best seller of all time was If You’re Feeling Sinister.

I may even remember reading Alasdair Gray’s Lanark: A Life in Four Books whilst sitting listening to B&S in the day café. No Irn-Bru was present though.

Is the implication that you don’t want to vouch for the overall quality of the book but there is still some information of interest to fans?

If go a little further than that: it was well-written and fun, and I can still remember a bunch of the anecdotes even though I read it 7 years ago.
But if you're not already invested in the first incarnation of the band, it might not resonate too much.

Would I be here if I wasn’t invested in that?

I think poster enochroot is correct to say that it's a book for people interested in B&S history, not other people.

I don't suppose it's a very well written book. I don't think the author is particularly talented.

If you do like B&S, then yes, the book is of interest for historical facts and stories.

Oddly I *can't* remember the anecdotes, though I did write about the book at the time.

(xp)
But let me listen to Tigermilk again to be sure. (Just listened to Sinister and the first half of Push Barman.)

How does it compare to that one Pogues memoir, Here Comes Everybody?

Woah, Stuart David has published five novels?

The first was when he was in the group. I like his writing style, can understand why it would rub some people up the wrong way though.

I wonder how long it will be before he appears on a certain thread of mine.

Okay, I see. Stuart M needed a place to live and fortuitiously the caretaker’s apartment and job became available at his church.

Not only did they rehearse in that church, the studio where they recorded, CaVa, had been built in the basement of a converted church. But the rehearsal church seems to be the defining factor.

Heh, our old friend Momus and his marital issues makes an appearance.

Okay, seems like this book is for me after all.

When it came my own turn to meet Vanessa, I found out she had worked with Momus in the past. Before moving to Jeepster, she’d been working for the publisher of Momus’ songs, and she said she knew him quite well. I tried to keep her on that subject, but Mark was only interested in talking about Belle and Sebastian – and while Vanessa enthused about what an exceptional talent Stuart was, Mark explained to me how everything would be fine when the band were making Stuart’s songs sound more like Radiohead.
‘Make sure this album sounds like The Bends,’ he told me – then one of the bar staff mercifully shouted to us to start moving out of the venue. I tried to shift the conversation back onto Momus, and somehow, before Vanessa disappeared, she had given me a phone number and an address where I could contact Momus if I wanted.

One thing I noticed listening through the discography for the poll last year was that all the opaque religious references which I had thought were about sexuality are actually just opaque religious references, Stuart didn't want to be thought of as a Christian rock musician but it's important to him. "The Ghost of Rockschool" on Write About Love is the first time he's non-coy about this. So the Church Hall Caretaker thing isn't just a coincidence.

Interesting. I got off the bus before that, so I never heard it. Right before that, in fact, with The Life Pursuit. Which I liked but somehow felt or knew that I really didn’t want to hear anymore.

Hmm, The BBC Sessions seem to be in my sweet spot.

BBC Sessions version of “Lazy Line Painter Jane” okay but lacks something without the vocal of Marcy MaysMonica Queen. And hey, it seems like the original version of that was recorded in the church.

So Piedie Gimbel otm about everything.

BBC Sessions version of I Could Be Dreaming fades out before the best bit.

Now having a dim memory of when Xgau mistyped Stuart M’s last name.

Heh, no mention of Stuart MUSGROVE on his page for them but still persists in a few other places.
https://www.villagevoice.com/1998/04/21/consumer-guide-4/
https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?id=897

Thin Lizzy cover seems promising.

I'm certainly not an expert on the latter stuff, but I'm still struggling to parse the argument that B&S, the band who wrote Lazy Line Painter Jane and Stars of Track and Field and Dirty Dream No.2, and latterly wrote Nobody's Empire and Play for Today, moved from obvious realism to abstraction. Hasn't Murdoch always played with place and character, dream and fantasy?

I've probably caricatured poster pinefox's point there a bit, but I think the point stands?

The early stuff was grounded in reality, in time and place. Even if there was some element of fantasy or invention, you felt like it was someone in that time and place doing the inventing. Whereas with later stuff it just became unmoored.

Interesting. I got off the bus before that, so I never heard it. Right before that, in fact, with The Life Pursuit. Which I liked but somehow felt or knew that I really didn’t want to hear anymore.

Up until about 2010 they evolved and changed a lot. Band members came and went, increased budgets, growing success, access to different studios and producers etc. It's probably not a very popular opinion but mid period is the best - Storytelling, Dear Catastrophe Waitress and The Life Pursuit are three really good albums. After that the line-up remained absolutely static and there's nothing fresh on any of the new albums.

I don't understand 'the ghost of rockschool'.

I know they went to a 'school of rock' but the song doesn't seem to be about that.

(xp)
I can see that, although I never really got into Storytelling myself.

Chinaski:

I'm certainly not an expert on the latter stuff, but I'm still struggling to parse the argument that B&S, the band who wrote Lazy Line Painter Jane and Stars of Track and Field and Dirty Dream No.2, and latterly wrote Nobody's Empire and Play for Today, moved from obvious realism to abstraction. Hasn't Murdoch always played with place and character, dream and fantasy?

I'm afraid I can't follow your logic here. The first 2-3 songs you mention seem to be very clear, specific, concrete, whereas the last 2 seem to be obscure and more abstract. And as I say, even if they weren't, lots of other later songs do seem to be. So from my POV you rather confirm my original thought.

At the risk of being challopsy, those earlier tunes were kind of a refreshing update of 50s/60s Angry Young Man/Kitchen Sink drama filtered through The Smiths and applied to 90s Glasgow in a way that felt both familiar and new whereas the later songs, well I can’t comment on those particular ones since I never heard them but the ones I did hear didn’t sound like anything much at all.

The decline came later than people thought at the time. “Fold Your Hands Child” includes some of their best songs.

Genuinely think FYHCYWLAP might be their worst LP, it has 2-3 genuinely great songs, but also some of their worst (know we had this discussion before in the poll of course) - their last 3 LPs are a mixture of a few great songs ("I Didn't See It Coming" / "Play for Today") and the rest is pretty mediocre, which I can live with a bit more.

Dear Catastrophe Waitress / The Life Pursuit still stand up though imo

LP1 of The Life Pursuit is so fucking ace. Those glam stompers! “Another Sunny Day” murdered me every time.

You're probably right, pinefox, though I do think the point is overstated. Early Murdoch songs use local detail to make universal points; the latter songs have just removed the scaffolding a bit. I suspect it's because he exhausted his subject matter and outgrew his surroundings with success.

Taking 'Play for Today' as an example of the latter Murdoch, this could be from any album, no?

I read a play written today about a boy
Who hides in attics when the sun is up
Everyone is at work
What will I do? Where will I go?
Show me the way
The truth, the anger, show me rules of thumb
Show the way to grow old

I'm puzzled by the admiration being expressed for 'play for today' - a song that sadly does very little for me.

I think I prefer the much older Cure song of that name.

I think it's a masterpiece, fwiw.

First 4.5 minutes are solid 7/10, last three minutes are absolute masterpiece

B&S started out as music specifically about young-people things: the uncertainty of fitting in, being bohemian and somewhat carefree (except for the pain of social awkwardness), etc. My hipster acquaintances in Glasgow say that Stuart Murdoch managed to be deeply connected to and accepted by young people there into his late thirties, which I think was quite a feat, but it obviously couldn’t last forever.

My personal dividing line is God Help the Girl: suddenly these songs were less poignant observations by a peer, and more a now-old man writing about what he merely thinks young people are like. Subsequent songs about his kids (ugh) and marital contentment only widened the breach.

God forbid someone write about what's meaningful to them.

Melomane 🎯

Don’t think it’s that per se, it’s just- what is it?- a different subject might require a different approach, and vice versa. Some people are good at one thing but not the other.