Search And Destroy: Belle And Sebastian

It's mostly people in the B+S age range who seemed most exercised about this particular issue.

TERF acronym is only accurate for a minority faction within the gender fascist coalition the rest are mostly TELFs or TEs but TERF is what stuck to describe this movement and it seems to upset the right people

the presumed apathy about social issues feels similar to the pitchfork thing about normative whiteness in indie the reaction to which demonstrated its point and revealed the deep investment in white supremacy from these putatively apolitical aging indie kids

I don't know where you are but the terf war is uniquely dominant in britain/scotland- repressive forces elsewhere are only just picking up on its effectiveness as a rhetorical and political strategy

I might be out of the age range so I'm more interested in terfism and the spaces that reproduce it than in B&S or indie in general but I'm hardly surprised that the cultural milieu that took 40 years to cancel morrissey is a fertile breeding ground for this stuff

Morrisey's playing a 10,000 seat venue here this weekend. It's close to sold out and the cheapest tickets are $100. I think he's doing just fine.

I overestimate britain sometimes

wait where's here. I overestimated whatever place that is

Toronto.

still the british empire then

just out of curiosity what is the B&S age range for ilx posters? (presumably english or scottish if they have defined this)

yeah there MIGHT be a 'Glasgow' record label who are terfed out of their nut

I think Morrissey's show at the Castro Theater in SF is actually selling relatively well; it's not a huge space, and it's not sold out, but I honestly assumed no one was going to buy these tickets at all. Beats me.

there are still, believe it or not, many people who frankly know nothing about his controversial stances. and of course there are those who just don't care.

How is it that so many threads on ILM in 2022 eventually end up complaining about "TERFs"? I don’t see this on other extent music fora, often discussing the same bands.

because an unfortunate number of prominent uk musicians have gone off the deep-end becoming obsessively transphobic, or have at least indicated some sort of sympathies there and it's not great when musicians you're a fan of turn out to be politically opposed to your existence. this is because in the uk aggressive transphobia is a fairly acceptable bigotry for middle-class liberals who think of themselves as "progressive", unlike most of the english-speaking world where it's largely the domain of the religious right. yes, the 'terf' label is not really accurate for most and i don't see the need to use it over 'transphobe' except when talking about those truly coming at it from an old-school radfem background, which is pretty much none of them these days.

was not previously aware of fat cops and anyone who's had any involvement with them whatsoever should be deeply embarrassed.

hard to really care about murdoch on twitter just coming across as a bit naive but overall well-meaning, i don't really expect much more than that from public figures generally.

"and it's not great when musicians you're a fan of turn out to be politically opposed to your existence"

So the reason is that ILM has more transpeople (or at least more transpeople who post criticism of public figures) than other music fora? But if so, then why is that?

I think ILM has more trans-friendly posters because we are mostly educated, and most of us know some trans people in real life (some of them also posters). ILX on the whole has had some random conservatives, some of whom have been a real pain in the ass, others were alright; but I dont' recall much, if any, homophobia or anti-trans sentiment from people here.

well there was that "we're not like those right wing homophobes so it's actually cool and funny and ironic when we casually throw around slurs" phase for that lasted a decade or so

i'm just speaking personally. i think people here are generally left-leaning enough to seriously dislike it when musicians they like turn out to be frothing bigots endorsing very right-wing political positions. if it turned out they had similarly terrible views about some other minority there would likely be a similar backlash, probably louder & broader if anything.

I dont' recall much, if any, homophobia or anti-trans sentiment from people here.

there's been some issues in the past but it's pretty decent these days

it's not necessarily perceived as right wing to be a trans exterminationist in britain and it's as hard to get people to see that it is right wing as it would be to explain that it isn't to your average american liberal. transphobes will still call themselves leftists or liberals even as they change all their public political positions to line up with mainstream conservatism

as far as "trans representation" here vs elsewhere I don't think it's too out of step with the general population- but trans people tend to find each other (even/esp if they hate each other). there's also a big thing that terfs are right about that many trans people don't want you to know - we actually do turn people trans. we make more of us all the time

i guess another thing is that this sort of stuff is usually not prominent enough to get any wider attention. like morrissey's racism is pretty well known these days because he's been at it for decades and has regularly said inflammatory shit in interviews, but far fewer know how transphobic one of the guys from teenage fanclub is without having seen his twitter when he was at his worst

Possibly this has been posted before but regardless, this has got to be one of the best fan made videos of all time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB-1BFWWkcU

Agree. Only a pity it's not a very good song.

disagree, it's a great song

After all these years, I'm still not sure if "The Blues are Still Blue" is a Stuart song or a Stevie song.

Me neither

"Yeah there MIGHT be a 'Glasgow' record label who are terfed out of their nut"

I imagine it's the same one I've heard about (from a reliable source), but obviously I can't say anything publicly. But at least the word is getting round.

Point taken on TERF as a term. Aware it's not particularly accurate, but it seems to have stuck as shorthand.

Anyway, don't want to derail this too much! Murdoch might be a bit melty, but he seems sound on this stuff.

can someone please translate the term 'melt' for me

Think it means something like “wimp” but I’m a septic so what do I know.

Found this

it's a supposedly left-wing or at least centre-left person who is happy to be progressive in a purely performative manner (Euro/Ukraine flags, posting a black square for BLM, mental health awareness, etc.) but who balks at actively supporting important causes and actually opposes any systemic change (in a UK context this is generally about whether they supported Corbyn's leadership of the Labour party)

the love island definition is related but different

Melts may or may not be TERFs, you don't find out because they will make sure never to express an opinion on the issue.

obviously I can't say anything publicly.

not even a little clue?

I love missing a reactivated thread for a few days, then coming back to find it's gone off in a totally unexpected direction.

You never expect the terfish inquisition.

Current B&S tour is suspended, dates postponed for health reasons.

Having already been postponed for 9 months!

every codger get together becomes this eventually

They have an official Complete Belle and Sebastian playlist that contains every album, in reverse chronological order.

R.I.P. Seymour Stein, incidentally.

He won't be coming to dinner.

But he will be at the after party.

New track out, collaboration with Suki Waterhouse. It’s… not good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYoqECwdh48

Belle and Sebastian news tends to be posted with greater delay these days, even though this message board in large part goes back to the B&S fan community. Is that a sign that we’re all starting to lose interest in this band?

yeah she isn't a good fit and it's not much more than a failed sketch of a song.

mostly these days I'm just glad I don't have to keep reshuffling my 2CD best of B&S tracklisting.

Actually I heard this song last week on Release Radar and my ears pricked up – was quite excited to find it was by them. I think her voice works well and it's the best song of theirs I've heard since Fickle Season (possibly I've missed an album, reinforcing Melomane's point)

I find 'When the Cynics Stare Back from the Wall' from the last LP weirdly affecting.

what's not to like abt the Suki Waterhouse collab? nice little song

the sgt peppers bridge is fun

I return to HOW TO SOLVE OUR HUMAN PROBLEMS after 5 years.

I admire the boldness of starting with 'sweet dew lee', but Jackson's vocals are so dire, so wonky, that it makes a poor start. Then Murdoch comes in and sings better on a bridge, and Jackson's verse never returns. A mysterious structure.

'we were beautiful' seems one of the most substantial and original late B&S songs.

'fickle season' - I didn't know it was called this - is sung atrociously, again, by Martin. 20 + years in and long-term members are ruining songs with poor vocals!

I am thus now surprised to see Alba, above, say that 'fickle season' was the last best B&S song.

Do you think you would like the song if the vocals were different, pinefox?

It's a good question, Alba.

The song doesn't seem appealing to me anyway. But it does at least have a melody.

One thing I noticed this time was how much the flute (?) instrumental near the end sounded like something from FOLD YOUR HANDS (maybe 'family tree'). For a while I was thinking 'this is like early B&S', then remembered that FOLD YOUR HANDS isn't really early B&S, except that numerically it is.

I still haven't heard a note of LATE DEVELOPERS!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Developers