Paul Schiernecker

Category: Reviews

Here’s Looking At You – an almost review.

In what they considered to be a joke at my expense my good fiends Terri and Sarah bought me the chick-flickiest book they could find as a Christmas present. They made me swear I would review it. Here is that review.

Here’s Looking At You is good in the way any vacuous post-millennial, heavily-abbreviated for the kidz literature can be. It’s about a girl who is fat and finds out that if she is thin men will do outrageously over-the-top gestures for her fair hand and fairer mound.

Anna was bullied at school, for being the textbook kind of unappealing that children prey upon as though it were a weakness. She eventually breaks free of this to become unrecognisably and acceptably hot. At this point, failing to make any of her Internet dates work out she runs into the bastard James Fraser from school. He’s so handsome and cruel and I bet she can’t change him by page 431. Oh wait.

Through a tenuous back story involving apps and Theodora they are forced into a working relationship. It gives Anna the chance to get back at the boy but instead she starts to fall for him like a shmuck. They fight. He pays for her sister’s wedding dress when she gets into a lot of debt in a lovely attempt at character development and social commentary and then they end up together.
The lesson here is that you can buy your way out of anything and that you need to be thin to snare a man.
It’s cut and paste stuff, but it’s done well.

I quite liked the cat.

January 29, 2014
2013: In Review

…and so concludes another year, arguably my best to date. When I first sat down to consider my year I struggled to piece anything together, to draw memories out from my temple with the tip of my Phoenix feather cored Holly wand and place them into the Pensieve. I struggled to recall exactly what had happened this year. Once I started joining the dots however I realised this year has been rather fantastic.
I wrote. I stood. I flew. I gigged. I joined. I rode. I fought. I bled. I ate. I drank. I puked. I smoked. I ran. I walked. I crawled. I competed. I attended. I submitted. I blogged.
Here is my review of 2013:

January
I started the year with a rather ambitious set of resolutions. I refuse to suffer the poison of fools who do not subscribe to the ‘new year, new you’ philosophy. Whilst I agree that if you really wanted to do something you would have done it already, the first step is a good mental attitude and if you can’t even bring that together then you’re not going to manage to achieve anything.
My resolutions for 2013 were:
Get Published.
Finish first draft of Hold On
Finish first draft of Six
Raise £1,000 for The Prince’s Trust
Get fit before October
Save money
Record an EP
Blog less
Enjoy my life

I’ve tried my hardest to get published. It is a lot trickier than I possibly gave credit. To date I have submitted the first three chapters along with cover letters, synopses and bios of three different novels; Situation 1, Visions Of Violet and The Stamp Collective. I’ve had small victories in the form of submissions taking months to be returned rather than days, and even received a hand-written note from an agency head which I took away as a complete win. I’m still waiting on a number back for The Stamp Collective which I only sent off in early December.
Those attempts aside I did manage to self-publish a book of short stories; Where Did All The Money Go? Doing this offered up opportunities that I would not have had otherwise. People were very fucking cool about it, very supportive and I need to once again thank the people who read it along the way (Stacy, Kate, Ben, Adam, Sam, Emily) and I am still indebted to Adam Gardner for his cover design. He’s become my artist of choice this year and it doesn’t matter if I still owe him a bottle of Metropolis and the biggest box of Tick Tock I can find he will continue to get first refusal on everything I do.
I have a first draft of Hold On although the title has completely changed. It became one of the two books I wrote during NaNoWriMo, but there will be more on that later.
Getting a first draft of Six together in the form of which I intended has not happened. This year Ben and I who are ‘Six’ in human form took on an entirely separate beast altogether and I’m so proud of it and I’m excited to see where we go in 2014.
I keep receiving emails from JustGiving to advise me my page is about to close. The final amount raised for The Prince’s Trust for my Sahara Trek was £1,115.00. I owe so many people a thank you for that. It is an incredible amount of money and I love everyone who sponsored me this year.
How subjective is the idea of getting fit. I managed it to an extent. I continued to run. I started going out for hikes in practice before the Sahara trek. I was in a better shape than a year ago so that’s a win again.
I’ve managed to save myself from a tailspin of wasting money through a number of ways and have managed to put some money away for my future.
In February I recorded the Birthday EP, an acoustic seven track acoustic set of recordings I did at The Broom Cupboard in Rayleigh. It was an amazing experience and one I am hoping to replicate soon in some way, shape or form.
Once I got to a year of blogging I did start to blog less. I blogged every day for a year. It was excessive. I wrote just for the sake of it. I still write something every day but I try to limit my blog to the things that really matter, to make it an event when I update the world on what I’m doing rather than just spilling my daily beans. It was an excellent way of opening up my mind in regard to the way I write and considering my work. I’ve recommended starting a blog to so many people this year and I’ve noticed a couple starting to pop up which I am very proud of and enjoy reading.
Again, how do you measure an enjoyment of life. There have been a number of occasions when I have looked around myself or considered where I have managed to get myself to and thanked myself or whatever external forces were responsible for getting me there. I was stood in Studio 2 at Abbey Road studio. I was stood on a sand dune in the Sahara desert watching a sunrise. I was onstage performing. I visited the Van Gogh museum with the girl I love. I saw The Rolling Stones perform on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury. I love my life. It affords me the most incredible memories.
I’m in the process of writing another set of resolutions to drag me through 2014. They’ll be just as out there as the ones I set this year. I’m proud of the things I have done, the opportunities I have been afforded, the people I’ve been able to do all of those things with. I’m a very privileged and fortunate young man.

January also signifies the anniversary. In 2013 the two year anniversary of the relationship I thank myself for being a half of every day. It’s hard to think of a time when we weren’t together and I reality check my happiness all of the time. She gets me. I dig her. We went to see Matilda up in the West End and had lunch in Jamie Oliver’s Italian. It was a lovely day out and one I still catch myself thing about.

I also continued my excellent working relationship with the film website Screen Geek. Under the guidance of their editor I was sent to a number of specialist press screenings for the widest and best selection of films.

February
For me the second month of the year is purely for my birthday. The whole month orbits around it, specifically because it falls smack bang in the middle. I was treated like a little prince, and got a wide selection of books, films and experiences. Kate and I went on the Harry Potter Studio Tour where I spent a ridiculous amount of money in the gift shop and we relived our teen dreams of being students of Hogwarts.

On my birthday I went into the studio and recorded seven songs acoustically. I had been listening to a lot of Dylan and it seemed the best way to go about things. I love those songs in the way I love every song I have written, and every story I have written. They become my children, and my family is always growing. I would love to do the same thing again this year. I’ll have to see what happens though.

Another highlight was attending the London Comedy Film Festival. It taught me the joy of saying “Yeah, I’m Paul Schiernecker, I’m on the guest list”. What an incredible sentence to be able to utter. I took my sweet Jocasta with me to see Wizard’s Way and Klovn, which were both incredible. I saw a special screening of Wreck It Ralph with Mex which included a Q&A with Sarah Silverman and the director. I also saw Graham Chapman’s A Liar’s Autobiography which was introduced by Terry Gilliam. I breathed the air of an actual Python.

I also headed to Brighton for a weekend with Kate and her Les Mis loving pals to spend a little time pretending I was a student again. I miss that part of my life but I’m glad to see the back of it.

It was also the month I bought out my own domain. It means that I can Google myself to my heart’s content and always be in the top spot. It’s provided a good platform for my work as well as connecting me to a past I thought was long gone.

March
I was offered one of the most exciting articles I have ever been a party to, the chance to visit Abbey Road studios for a talk on recording techniques, focusing primarily on the studio’s most famous recordings, those of The Beatles. It takes a lot to amaze me. Being in that room did just that. I was unable to get any additional places so went it alone. I didn’t speak to anyone for a couple of hours and then had the most amazing conversation with the security guard as I was on my way out.
He confessed to me that when he’s doing his rounds of the building, on patrol as it were, he sticks his head in the door and belts out a note just to be able to say he has sung in the same room that the Beatles did.

It was also the month when the second of my two godsons was born. Little Conor. He’s such a well-behaved and aware kid. Reminds me of how I was when I was little. No trouble. I’m so lucky to have those little guys to kick about with and thankful that their parents were able to forgive my hedonistic past to allow me the honour of being their Overlord.

I also got to visit the Royal Albert Hall to see Russell Brand and Noel Fielding aka The Goth Detectives in their Teenage Cancer Trust gig along with Tony Law and Shaun Walsh. I haven’t had much chance to hang out with my friend James this year but that was one of those nights when I really understood what it was we had spotted in one another those few years ago in a lift in Southend that brought about our friendship.

April
I was contacted by an old university friend who told me a friend of hers had recently self-published a book and she knew I had intentions on doing the same. This is how I met Joe Gardner. Since then we have met a couple of times but for the most part our correspondence has been via Facebook comments and messages. It’s nice to meet someone who is on the same trajectory. I’m surrounded by beautiful, bright, artistic people but Joe is one of a few who seems to really put himself out there in order to eventually hit that goal. It was very coincidental that we were even made aware of each other. I read his excellent first book; The Life And Loves Of Jet Tea and wrote a review on my blog. When I self-published in May he returned the favour. As much as people like to joke about what the life of a modern day writer might be like there is a real camaraderie in finding someone who is living it at the same time as you.

During April I received the proof copy of my book, and excitedly revealed it in a YouTube video. Holding that book filled me with a kind of pride that I can’t begin to explain. It makes all of the hours sat editing, and all of the rejection and the shitty comments from people who are supposed to be friends worth it. To hold something so tangible in my hands blew my mind. It was incredible.

It was also the month when I gave up two-thirds of my wardrobe having found the brilliant Project 333 blog promoted by The Minimalists. The project involves reducing your wardrobe down to just thirty-three items for three months. People thought I was crazy. James even called me to show me around his ridiculously opulent wardrobe and the additional wardrobe he stores in his sister’s room via FaceTime. No man needs that many scarves. He think he’s Keith Richards. Taking part in Project 333 taught me the value of the things I wear. It taught me about my habits. Since then I haven’t really returned. Every other month I find myself throwing things out and not replacing them. I’ve never been one for brands but I now find that I am developing a PS costume, which I prefer to wear variations of on a daily basis. I recommend it completely.

Kate and I went to the V&A Museum for the David Bowie Is… exhibit. I thought I was a fan before but being given such exclusive access to a man I have wanted to be since I was about three years old was something else entirely. He just doesn’t rest. He’s an inspiration.

May
After a night out with one of the characters featured within I sent out my book into the wild wide world. It was six in the morning. I was buzzing. I couldn’t sleep so I gave it one last read and then submitted for publishing. It was up and available on Amazon within the day. I sold 50 copies in the first month. People would order it and send me their confirmation email screens or selfies with the book itself. The Alex in Southend recommended it. People left five star reviews on Amazon and told others to buy it.
Through a special promotion code I was able to get the book listed as free to download on the Kindle for five days. In those five days it rose into the Top 20 for Free Kindle Books > Humour. Every time I mentioned it people were smiles and likes and support. It was so fantastically well received and it was such an amazing thing to be able to share with people.

May is also the month of birthdays for a lot of those around me. Both of my brothers, my old man and my girlfriend have birthdays within a fortnight of one another. It’s a wonderfully expensive time. We tried and failed to throw a surprise party for my youngest brother who turned 21. I drunk myself into a stupor and ended up vomiting for two hours.
For Kate’s birthday we returned to Rococo, one of our favourite restaurants in Leigh for dinner. I also revealed the fact we were heading to Amsterdam for a couple of days.

June
Kate and I flew out to Amsterdam. I read Joe Gardner’s collection of short stories, Oh Vienna! on the way.
We ate very well. We drunk a lot of beer. Kate got freaked out and couldn’t find the sink, hated the curtains and made me promise to smoke the rest of the weed to save her from herself. I am a good boyfriend.
We rode on canal boats, stood outside Anne Frank’s house, visited the Van Gogh museum, posed with a seven foot cock in a sex museum, got lost in the Vondelpark and really enjoyed some tropical juice and chocolate biscuits.

It was also the month for another bit of escapism as I headed to Worthy Farm with the alumni of SEEVIC college to drink warm cider, watch people gurn and try and run between stages to combat the many clashes that make up Glastonbury festival. I got to see The Rolling Stones, Rodriguez, Palma Violets, Villagers, Vampire Weekend, Haim, Swim Deep and many more. I drunk Zombies in Shangri La, I saw the sun rise while trying to make a fire against someone else’s tent. At no stage was I suffering the worst. It was good.

July
I got my second novel prepared for submission. Rather than the silly drunken adventures of my first novel Situation One (an elaborate piece that fed into WDATMG) Visions Of Violet is a love story. It’s the most commercially viable thing I’ve ever written, and that was by no means intentional. I just wanted to pen something as far from the debauchery and ‘laddish’ S1 as I could and found myself writing as a teenage girl in the nineties. It cost me nearly thirty pounds in stamps to be rejected by ten different agents.

I was asked to give my first public reading of part of my book as part of Old Trunk’s Tales & Ales event. It was fantastic as an experience and gave me the chance to get to know Sarah and Sadie better, who later in the year would push me into putting on a musical. I sold an additional five copies off the back of the event and it gave me the deluded sense I could stand up in front of a crowd and be funny.

August
With my trek across the Sahara just two months away I decided it was about time I invested in some training. I started heading out into Hockley Woods at weekends to hike for ten to twelve miles with a weighted backpack. I knew it wouldn’t compare to the desert but I had to start doing something.

I attended Joe’s book launch for Jet Tea. I got to meet the friends of his that had become characters and enjoyed a couple of pints before having to run back to Liverpool Street in order to make it home. It put a bee in my bonnet about hosting my own event.

Having decided that I was born to be an adventurer I signed up for yet another ridiculous trek before I had even discovered if I was capable of doing the first one. In October 2014 I will be heading to Peru to trek for three days up to Machu Picchu. I didn’t know anyone else who was going when I signed up.

September
I grew a pair and gave my first ever attempt at stand up comedy at The Alex. It was absolutely phenomenal. The feeling I had beforehand however was not. I always get nervous before I perform in any capacity but the friends who had come to support me said they had never seen me look so bad. Once I was up and safe in the knowledge I did know all of the words I had written it was fine, and when I finished the rush I got was like nothing else. I wanted to curl up in a ball and die, in a good way. Do you remember that bit in Trainspotting where they inject one of their girlfriend’s for the first time and she says “Aye, that’s better than any cock in the world”… that is how I felt coming offstage.

I also spent a week in Devon with Kate, her brother Joe and his girlfriend Stacy. We had a brilliant time with no Wi-Fi and no phone signal, just reading and walking and eating. I only got slightly ill due to the lack of Twitter and it was good practice for the Sahara. I also watched the Bourne films for the first time and realised I had been missing out.

October
The entire month seemed to be occupied by just one thing, a big sandy thing that I had to walk across. I found myself unable to focus on anything. I had no idea what the experience would be like and so my mind was a complete void.
It was, as I said at the time, the single most incredible experience of my life, so far. I’ve already written about it comprehensively, both on my blog and as part of NaNoWriMo so I won’t repeat details but it was enlightening. I met some amazing people, it changed my perspective and it was beautiful.

I also managed to finish The Stamp Collective, a novel I converted over from a script I had been trying to work on for a number of years. In the space of two months I finished it, wanting it out of the way before I started in on NaNoWriMo.

November
With the Sahara out of the way I struggled to return to life. It wasn’t until I realised that Ben and I were supposed to be putting on a show that I pulled my head out of the sand and got on with things. Ben and I have been writing together for ten years but Unkie Joe was the first thing we were in a position to show people. It still had a beautiful unfinished quality to it.
We were amazed with the turn out and will take Six Presents in new directions in 2014.

While this was being sorted I was also attempting to write a book and grow a moustache. It turns out I am a lot better at writing books than I am at growing moustaches. By the end of the month I had written over a hundred thousand words, across two different books. I had grown about three hairs on my top lip.
I wrote Yallah! about my travels and Sue Key, a fantasy novel which I was calling ‘Hold On’ at the start of the year. It’s the first in a three-part idea I have had for the last five years and it was good to get it down on paper, even if it has completely changed in that time, and continued to do so as the month wore on.
It was during National Novel Writing Month and our meetings at The Alex in Southend that I met Hollie who invited me and a number of other local writers to begin contributing towards WUWO. I had been looking for something new to get my teeth into since the work for Screen Geek had fallen by the wayside and told her so. She called it the ‘law of attraction’ and I have since started spinning out as many articles as I can for their website and am formulating things for the first issue which is due in late February/early March. It’s a great project to be a part of, especially knowing that KC is onboard as well.

Kate and I went on a tour of St Paul’s. Considering our agnostic leanings it was interesting how enthralled we were, especially when we got up into the dome and could see London spread out before us.

I also attended a record number of gigs considering my hatred of people and crowds. In the space of a week I saw Arcade Fire, The Darkness and Peter Doherty.

It was also the month when my beautiful Jocasta Devillenerve quit her lousy job to join me in London for easier access to salt beef sandwiches.

December
Our guide from the Sahara, Saaid, arrived in London for a week’s holiday. We met up with him and went for drinks. It was so odd to see him outside of the desert setting I associated him with most.

Kate and I went to see Placebo in Brixton where we mutually fell in love with Brian Molko.

I submitted my third novel The Stamp Collective to agents, specifically aiming for a Young Adult market. To date I have only had one rejection back and am hopeful that the fruits of my labour will come to something incredible in the new year.
If it doesn’t happen then it doesn’t happen and I would be proud to market the book as my first novel as a self-published writer. I have absolute faith in it and like the idea of hosting a launch party in a pub.

I went to see Russell Brand perform at The Cliffs Pavilion. Regardless of press opinion I think the man is a great comedian, an incredible social commentator and quite possibly the new messiah so it was brilliant to see him in my home town when I had previously had to jog up to Camden or the Royal Albert Hall to see him. He was as brilliant, witty, manic and insightful as ever.

I was invited to read something as part of another Old Trunk event, this time it was Winter Tales & Ales. I wrote a poem called How Paul Schiernecker Ruined Christmas which was the final piece of the night. I love readings, especially when there are so many other great writers involved. I met some cool people who I look forward to hearing more from in the coming months.

…and that brings us onto Christmas and the last week. I was spoilt by Kate who is taking me to Jamie Oliver’s Barbecoa next month. I also got a stack of films and books to work my way through. My brother bought a little synth/keyboard for me to annoy him with through our paper thin walls and Mum got us tickets to a Bowie tribute gig in February. I did very well.

In the confusing no man’s land between Christmas and New Year when everyone just wanders around trying to work out where the hell to put all of their stuff Kate and I have decided we are obsessed with the TV show Dexter. This is to see us through until New Year’s Day when the third series of Sherlock starts. It took all of six minutes of the first episode to convince us this was something special and we haven’t thought of much else since.

But here’s to 2014. It will be the year when I step it up yet again, when I bring the noise and when I live my dreams.

December 31, 2013
The Revolution Will Be Staged

Last night I was lucky enough to get tickets to see Russell Brand’s new stand up tour Messiah Complex. I’ve been a fan of Brand since I was introduced to his 6 Music show years ago by a friend and I’ve followed through the trials and tribulations as he rose to become the significant figure he is now. What a lot of people seem to forget is that he isn’t some joker in the pack, although he plays that role very well, he is a very articulate and astute comic, writer and commentator and his stand up is beginning to be streamlined more towards his thoughts on the world around him more than simply an excuse to try and maintain his perceived status.
I first saw Brand live at The Roundhouse in 2007 where he commented on the fact The Doors had played on that stage and talked about the inevitabilities of ‘nut-brush’ when conducting a FMM threesome.
Of course he hasn’t completely separated himself from the ‘Shagger Of The Year’ he was awarded by The Sun newspaper for two years running but his thoughts have become a lot more focused. The bizarre antics of his past are material, and he has honed his craft into a captivating show.
You leave wondering exactly why it is you trust a man to run your country when he can’t even perform a suitably upright thumbs up. According to Brand it’s because he “ain’t good at sex”, to which he added a lovely mime of George Osborne licking the PM’s bumhole. It was a lot more like political satire and less like playground antics than it sounds, really.
The stage is his natural platform and he controls it completely. When walking out into the audience his approach is met like that of the messiah, women expose flesh and men reach out for a grasp of the man like he can cure their ills. Russell Brand is a figure in himself, he’s dressed himself up as being both a prophet and a jester and it works. You want to believe that the world can change but he isn’t the one who will nobly step forward to bring it about. Instead he is just pointing out all of the wrongs in the world. We are all more than aware of the majority of them but the way Brand takes apart the most recognisable of consumerist mascots, symbols and slogans is as cutting as it is whimsical.
The real question is where he can go from here. How long will it be before his rank as the town cryer of injustice is slayed by the press as the result of him fucking it all up again. He has a self confessed self-destructive streak and the concern is that all of his talk and all of his showmanship and bravado will amount to nought if he were to implode once more. We need Brand more than ever, and he knows it.

December 5, 2013
Arcade Fire @ The Roundhouse

There is a lot to be said about a stadium-sized band taking on the intimate venue that is The Roundhouse, and when I use the term ‘stadium-sized band’ I’m not just referring to the high number of personnel. Last night I got swept up in the glitz of The Reflektors whistlestop tour, the front Arcade Fire have chosen to adopt in order to get through some intimate gigs before plowing on with the World tour they will no doubt carry out early next year.
For them it was a special event, and not just because one of their favourite British bands took to the same stage in 1976. It’s a chance to dress up and to make more of a celebration than is possible when your songs are getting caught on the wind and dragged out across Hyde Park for slack-jawed cider-drunks in straw porkpie hats to churn back at you in off-key retorts. The joy of going to see The Reflektors is that it wasn’t a gig. It was an event.
As my lucky date and I got out of the queue and onto the red carpet we knew we were in for something a little different. In the entrance stood a six piece mariachi band playing cover songs. The walls were lined in glitter. The fans were lined in glitter, with strips of black across their eyes. Designated facepainters were on hand and everywhere dripped with the vibration of contact.
We headed in and got a gin. There was still an hour before the band were due onstage. Standing to the left of the shielded stage we could make out the glittering mirrored backdrop and the lights of roadies performing a soundcheck. The stage was supposed to be covered by a black cape which had ‘The Reflektors’ on it in lights.
Slowly the room filled. The queues of people waiting from the door all the way back to the petrol station by the Proud galleries took over the space. Leaning against the wall was a man in a hood and a skeleton mask who turned out to be Win Butler. He watched us all and then went out into the lobby to sing a cover of Reflektor with the mariachi band.
DJ Don Letts continued to play dragged out mixes of Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley and The Clash until the band took to the stage and the crowd erupted. The cape dropped to the floor and there they were, coated in their own designs and with mirrorballs overhead the band burst into the opening of the seven minutes that is Reflektor.
‘We are The Reflektors from Canada. The one place you finally get to suck it to to French!’ said Win.
From then on I was lost to the trance of Flashbulb Eyes complete with steel drum accompaniment to match the mood adopted by the band for their new album. This slowly dropped into the intro of PowerOut. When the song finally dropped fully the crowd went wild and red lights bounced across painted faces. From then on it was very Reflektor heavy; Joan Of Arc, You Already Know, We Exist, It’s Never Over (Hey Orpehus) and the intro of Porno which bled into Afterlife. The band then composed themselves and played Haiti, taking it back to Funeral once more before the powerful Normal Person.
Win put his papier-mâché head on and Will sung Bored Of The USA, a song they dedicated to Don Letts. I was in awe. The pure joy of seeing Arcade Fire cover The Clash live was lost on most people but I punched the air and sang along. This was followed by Here Comes The Nighttime complete with silver confetti. This was the moment when the gonks took out their iPhones en masse to try and capture it. Bobbing and weaving between the light from the screens I watched the band I love salute, wave and walk off in a hail of feedback.
They returned for Sprawl II and Supersymmetry, the former played live without a sequencer for the first time thanks to the ten person band on stage. If you’re not able to perform your own song live without ten people then you’re doing something right.

I’m glad I got to see them in such an intimate venue and I am even happier I got to share it with her.

November 13, 2013
Reflektor – an almost review.

For Arcade Fire fans this is the fourth coming. Win, Regine, Will, Richard, Jeremy and Tim have pushed aside the boulder that was their own tomb once more to reveal the shiny and beautiful Reflektor LP. With more extras than the scene in Life Of Brian where Brian’s mum reveals him not to be the messiah but instead a very naughty boy it promises a lot. From the seven minute opening and titular track which caused a mild hashtagging hysteria on 9/9 with its simultaneous (and if you were in the UK overpriced) release around the globe, it delivers and it does so in droves. Gone are the self-reflective tones of The Suburbs and in place are the Haitian grooves and voodoo beats brought about by Win and Regine’s visits to her home country.
Win Butler has said that lyrically a lot of the material for the album was taken from 50’s film Black Orpheus which is a personal favourite. Its themes of isolation and death are not anything new for Arcade Fire. Who else could release a first album called Funeral? We Exist strikes to the heart of that isolation with tumbling and distorted bass lines underpinning everything else. It’s funky in the way taking to an abandoned castle in Jamaica to record when your church in Montreal collapses in on itself can. Flashbulb Eyes is remarkably short, half the length of any other song on the first half of the double album – the average length of the tracks across the board is over five minutes, a clear departure from the radio-worthy Wake Up or Ready To Start on their previous efforts. Reflektor feels more like an album being made by a band who want to make an album, not under any pressure, and completely ignorant of any expectations. By freeing themselves up in this way they’ve provided something entirely different to the rest of their body of work but it’s still undisputedly Arcade Fire.
Here Comes The Night Time features the near steel drum sound piano part that has resonated through their confusing and visceral videos in the last two months. The change in tempo within the song is compelling and a signature move of the band who will no doubt rip the whole thing apart live. Normal Person starts out with a near Velvet Underground basement club level of distortion before the honky-tonk piano and guitar parts and suitably croaking intro. Inexplicably the next song You Already Know is introduced by Jonathan Ross, or at least a sample of his 2007 show where the band’s performance was interrupted by Win smashing up a camera with his mandolin. Sonically, the track sounds not entirely removed from The Smiths’Rusholme Ruffians, the bouncing bass guitar twirling around an introductory Marr-esque guitar before all Arcade Fire breaks loose. The track closes with Ross laughing and confirming the name of the band. Disc one is concluded with Joan Of Arc which would be perfect for a bedroom rave (pay close attention KC).

Like all great double albums there is a clear difference in mood and temperament. The second disc begins with Here Comes The Night Time II which hints at the grandeur of the track it is linked to but simultaneously has a drawn out and orchestral feel like Sprawl II on The Suburbs. While somber in lyrical content the first disc is composed of celebratory tracks and if the footage from their recent small-venued gigs as ‘The Reflektors’ are anything to go by their live performances are made up of such. The second half of the album is more restrained, it’s calmer, reflective. This is where the album art begins to make sense. Contained within a black circle is an image of Auguste Rodin’s sculpture ‘Orpheus and Eurydice’ which forms the title of two of the tracks – Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice) and It’s Never Over (Hey Orpheus). This is where the truly atmospheric and spiritual side of Arcade Fire’s songs takes hold. Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice) is angelic and blissful, doused in dragging loops and sounds fit for The Flaming Lips. It’s Never Over (Hey Orpheus) picks up the other side of the AF mantle, it delivers the group shouts and catch chorus that turned the public eye on Arcade Fire in the first place. Whilst on their own the last three songs on Reflektor are incredible, thrown together in the way they are means that they jar slightly. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with them and I pick this because I can’t write a whole article waxing lyrical about anyone, not even the mighty Arcade Fire. Porno, whilst inducing a childish titter rides high on the steel drum high levels of piano as featured on Here Comes The Night Time but with waves of synthesisers undercutting it. The following track Afterlife sounds too close musically and perhaps this is the reason it’s the only hair to be pulled from this work. The album closer Supersymmetry matches this same mood, the drawn out aspect of arriving at a point after all of the dancing is done. It’s the moment of clarity.

Reflektor is not what you would expect. It doesn’t continue down the line cast out by the last two albums. There’s progression but it’s eschewed. There’s Arcade Fire but in giant papier-mâché heads, twirling around on the beach with boomboxes in their hands. It’s the assistance of James Murphy (of LCD Soundsystem) who produced that this sounds as dynamic and enchanting as it does. Arcade Fire could have written a stadium rock album. They could have followed down the same vein as so many other bands with a Grammy wedged in their back pockets but they changed tact, they saw something that was different and they embraced it and that is what makes them such an engaging force.

November 4, 2013
Yo, we’re up to date bitch!

This week represents the return of Breaking Bad for the latter half of its fifth and final series. Breaking Bad is the brainchild of Vince Gilligan and follows the story of high school chemistry teacher Walter White (Brian Cranston) as he discovers he has months to live and reconnects with one of his lost flock to start cooking methamphetamine to build a nest egg for his family.

I first got into Breaking Bad because the concept seemed so incredibly bizarre it had to be good. I knew of Cranston as the hapless father in Malcolm In The Middle and the idea of him ‘breaking bad’ was just as ridiculous to me as it was to Jesse Pinkman. What happened is that I discovered one of the most intense and brilliant television shows of the last decade. After getting the first season on DVD I borrowed the second and watched the third and forth on LoveFilm and Netflix at the time the fifth series was being aired. It was exciting to know there was so much content to get through, so many places it could go, so many drug lords to be toppled and misadventures for Walt and Jesse. What happens to Walt and what happens to the series as a whole is that it continues to draw darker, like an approaching dusk. The deaths in the first series, particularly the acid bath have a near humour to them, like a Laurel & Hardy sketch, with corpses but as Walt bumbles his way into things you can’t help but be drawn to what he does, after all it is essentially good. Is it wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family? Is it wrong to cook meth to cover your family in the event of your death?

Walt does break bad and he just gets badder. He is the one who knocks. He is the danger.
What is executed so well is how believable this change in his character is, after all this is a development we have seen over four and a half series. The shy and retiring Walter White, high school teacher and cancer patient is not the same as the W.W. who gets things done. He seems so calculated and malicious and yet we are all still there for him, on his side and waiting to see how it played out after the incredible cliffhanger of Walt’s DEA agent brother-in-law Hank having a eureka moment on the toilet and realising the great Heisenberg he had been chasing was sat outside eating BBQ.

The new episode did not disappoint. There are already clues to what could happen to Walt and his family as the sun sets on one of the most stunning and fantastically written series I’ve ever seen. At one point Walt even muttered the immortal line ‘to be continued’, practically to camera and we know where it’s going and can’t wait to see that showdown. The flashforwards continue to drip information like a crack in a dam but we will get there.
The only disappointing thing at this stage is we are sat waiting for Sunday, for the next episode. There is no backlog for the majority of people anymore. Much like the product of the desert-bound RV, we are hooked.

August 15, 2013
The Cornetto Trilogy.

The works of Messrs Pegg, Frost and Wright will always hold a special place in my heart. The first time I saw Spaced properly was at university. After a night out I was offered the first series by a friend who had suitably brilliant taste in all the things that mattered. I got back to my flat at around three, and was still up watching the adventures of Tim, Daisy, Mike, Twist, Marsha, Brian and Colin when the sun came up. I quickly and completely fell in love with it. I still rate it as one of the finest sitcoms I have ever laid my eyes upon. The way they drew upon references was achieved with such tenderness and affection for the material was infectious and I have lost count of the amount of films I have watched as a result of them being referenced in Spaced.

From there I branched out to anything else they had touched; Big Train, Black Books, Danger! 50,000 Volts, and then the films they had begun to make. It was during this time I made my first leap into attempted sitcom writing, and penned the brilliant cult classic Six with my best friend. To this day nobody has seen Six, but it is still very much our love child and an endless source of our amusement. Maybe that’s part of the reason I think of Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz as being so precious to me, because I cherished the leap from the small to the big screen. It felt like it was a big deal for British comedy actors to do, and it didn’t fall flat like so many others attempts have before and since.

Tonight I got to experience the big three in one sitting, or three sittings depending on how picky you want to be on your definition of sitting. I did go outside for air, Cornettos and coffee in the twenty minute gaps between the films but other than that I was true, and stuck to the screen. The fact is six hours sat in the dark watching the japes and gore of the Cornetto Trilogy is six hours very well spent, especially when the company is so fine.
They key difference is I rarely make it through any film in the outside world without something distracting me from the task, be it food, company or Twitter so watching Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz was whole and more absorbing than I could ever remember it being. Nothing plagues the brain like the surround-sound effects of a zombie invasion on North London, nothing fills the ears like the amplified screech of tyre tracks and gunshots. It was an experience.

This of course brings me on to the final in the trilogy, the finish line, Jerry’s Final Thought. To say anything about the film’s content would essentially ruin it for a would be audience. I can confirm it made me laugh and it didn’t go where I expected it to. All parties onscreen were well cast and the cameos and appearances were as always a geeky highlight. I will say this though, how many other British writing and directing partnerships could pull me to spend over six hours in the concentration camp that is Lakeside? Not many, if any at all.

July 19, 2013
Murakami logic.

I have just finished reading Kafka On The Shore by Haruki Murakami. Rather than just give a straight review of the book, which was excellent, I thought I would explain what it is about his work I find so compelling.
I first picked up Norwegian Wood as the result of a recommendation by someone with an excellent opinion on things that matter. She told me it reminded her of me or at least that she imagined it to be the kind of book I would enjoy. This was almost a decade ago. Since then I have also found comfort in Hard Boiled Wonderland, Sputnik Sweetheart, Dance, Dance, Dance and his most recent work 1Q84. Each and every time I take the move to get lost in his world for four or five hundred pages I find myself falling in love with the power of the written word all over again.

The incredible thing about Murakami’s work lies in his ability to force you to accept. In order to enjoy the beautifully-crafted worlds he describes you need to leave your logic at the door. There’s something joyous and childlike about doing so. To read Murakami’s work is to accept things for the simple reasons and explanations provided in the way children when running through the phase of asking why everything and anything happens will be given the briefest of insights. That’s what his writing brings back.
Without this acceptance there is nothing to be gained.
It teaches you to fill in the blanks. My understanding of what took place between Kafka Tamura, Nakata and the others is my own. There is no trite explanation, no big reveal, it’s all open to insight, philosophy and spin.

His work is some of the most beautiful and poetic I have seen, and given, I imagine some of this is lost in translation from the original Japanese manuscript, it is a real feat. His understanding of characters, of consciousness, of kindness and selfishness, of sex and longing, is so close to a revealing diary entry it makes for pages that turn themselves.

Each time I invest in Haruki Murakami, I know I am in.

July 10, 2013
Oh, Vienna! – a review

If you prefer your writers to be prolific young go-getters, may I recommend the new book of short stories by Joe Gardner. Not only is it packed with the kind of stories that make you chuckle to yourself on an international flight to the extent your girlfriend tuts at you in disgust, it was also released within months of his first novel The Life and Loves of Jet Tea which I previously reviewed.
There’s a lovely overlap of characters and content in Oh, Vienna! as well as the explanation of some outsiders, contemplations on the greatest detective series of all time and new stories altogether.

The collection begins with Oh, Vienna! which sees Gardner’s title character from his novel and Hayden head for the Austrian capital to piss off travelling bands, locals and tourists in their quest to get drunk in another city. It culminates in a drunken fight any serious drinker should be envious of and disgusted by simultaneously.

For Gillian, in La Rochelle is possibly my favourite story of the collection, and not just because it opens with a lyric by Beirut. It introduces the character of Walter Zane, who was absent from Jet Tea, but is part of the same group of friends. The story follows his chance encounter with a Canadian girl, in London for one night, who refuses to give him any of her personal details so once they pass (like the romantic ships in the night) he is left to wonder what happened to her, and where she got to, and if she ever downloaded his EP as she had promised to.

The Regular Customer and The Exploding Detective are Gardner’s extensions of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series. He begins by explaining the characters and the stories are now public property and his affection for the original stories comes across as Holmes and Watson venture into a pub to solve a mystery as quickly as downing a pint, and in a last outting old boy attempt to take down Moriarty. Once you’re into the stories, it’s hard to think of it as fan fiction which I suppose it would fall under the umbrella of. Gardner is a master of matching the temperament of the stories and ensuring his versions fit as a further puzzle piece you didn’t realise was even absent.

My Holiday In Depravity displays what Gardner does best, exploring and explaining the drunken mind, the mysterious logic of it all, and the depths we can sink into in our twenties when it all seems like such a laugh. What’s On Your Mind? meanwhile is a satirical and poignant look at the way social networking has become the norm, and filters a lot of the real feeling from the world. It’s like reading a suicide note too late.

Coppervid Dafield is Gardner’s abridged autobiography, explaining just what pushed him into the writing he now freely exhibits and the birth of it all. Remembrance feels like a grudge being beautifully exorcised. It touches upon a number of social and political points while maintaining what is becoming Gardner’s signature writing style. I was instantly reminded of Iggy Sutcliff, a character of my own creation I used to perform very much the same task.

The collection finishes with From Nightmares, seven short stories intended for reading under the covers with held breath. It’s an incredible thing to be able to compartmentalise a book of short stories in such a fashion, and feels as though one has completely departed from the drunken antics in Embankment and headed somewhere far more sinister. The most compelling I found to be ‘When Can You Start?’ provided as the first chapter of what Gardner intends to be his next novel. It’s stark and clever and recognisable. I won’t say anymore. I don’t want to detract from the first reading.

The impressive thing about the collection is it feels solid. It was a matter of months ago Joe Gardner dropped Jet Tea on the world, having spent four years writing and researching his friend’s drinking habits, for the good of the book you understand. As a result of our similar gun it to 88 attitude I feel I have found a kindred spirit in Joe, and I always look forward to reading more of what he has to offer. He’s driven, headed and destined.

July 7, 2013
Macbeth.

Last night I went to see ‘the Scottish play’ at Trafalgar Studios.
I’m not the biggest Shakespeare fan. I respect his body of work, and his creation of words, and his wordplay therein, and I like the amount of death that seems inherent in his tragedies. That’s quite a lot of things. Maybe I do like Shakespeare.
The reason I was so keen to see this production was the same reason the majority of the audience were drawn in to see this production, James McAvoy.
I don’t know what it says about me, that I was pulled along on a string by the possibility of a Hollywood star spitting on me, maybe I could get Dominic Cooper to watch.

I have been lucky to have seen productions of Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing (thanks Adam) at The Globe but last night was a different creature entirely.
I’m going to assume everyone is aware of the story of Macbeth to a passing degree so will avoid the opening gambit.
The whole thing was established as though it were taking place in a grim post-apocalyptic Scotland, or it might have just been Scotland. The three witches carried workmen’s torches and wore masks, everything was broken and rusting and dripping and decrepit and then in came McAvoy, sliding about on his knees like a child at a wedding, and I was hooked.
In the past I have struggled to ‘get’ McAvoy as a brutal leading man, his performance in Wanted left something to be admired, and I always assumed him to be somewhat foppish. This could be the fault of his excellent portrayal of Brian in Starter For Ten.
As Macbeth however, he was stunning. Bearded and pacing and cut and heaving, he held dominion in the ways Macbeth should. The venom and aggression with which he delivered were incredible. You could have heard a grenade pin drop in the theatre, people were utterly spellbound.

Given how the aim of the Monday night showings in the tiny theatre is to open people to the power of Shakespeare and the theatre, they did a fantastic job. The crowd were full of the kind of people you wouldn’t usually associate with enjoying the work of the great bard.

While I don’t want to just write a piece about how beautiful James McAvoy’s beautiful eyes are (they are beautiful), it was the main draw and the main attraction. The supporting cast were equally spellbinding but people, myself included, love the cult of celebrity.
Jamie Ballard really came into his own in the second act as Macduff and Claire Foy was suitably manipulative and enticing as Lady Macbeth.
Props go to Jamie Lloyd for his production of the play which was visually and audibly one of the greatest things I have seen committed to the stage. The horrorshow violence was fitting to the bleak world created and the minimalist set helped to hone the attention.

I would say go see it, but I know it has completely sold out, and for good reason.

April 23, 2013