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Based in Glasgow, belonging nowhere. That's what the
press release says. Why bother to even argue. With influences
ranging everywhere from the Velvet Underground to Prefab
Sprout, the Go Betweens and Judy Garland, this melancholy
pop ensemble with their tenderly aching sadness and
their wilfully tragic sense of estrangement have released
an album of such sterling, prodigious beauty that the
very rings around my eyes have turned red and started
to flake.
 By
the band's own admission, the songs on Surely Tomorrow
You'll Feel Blue hint at a life lived on the margins
of the world, called up and seen through a kaleidoscope
of loneliness - a loneliness that pervades every man
- a loneliness that pervades our very condition. One
look at the band's website and you get the impression
they'd extend the metaphor at the drop of the hat. A
characteristically faultless quotation from Australian
writer, Luke Davies's novel 'Candy' welcomes you in
to their dislocate world:
"When I stare at things or hear things, I think there
might be some kind of beauty to them. I mean the little
things, the way we make it through the day, experiencing
pleasure. Trees in the streets or a small bird fluttering
around the garden, paint flaking from the kitchen window
pane, dust motes in the sunlight, the wind through poplars,
the tram bell signalling departure. I'm alert; you might
say, to the beauty of these things, the local nuances
that bring life alive. But all there is, is sadness…I
am so far removed from everything, that I can't even
cry."
With a meticulous Zen-like approach to the little nuances
of living that bring the whole thing alive, Biff Smith
and his world-weary throng of circus travellers walk
a gossamer tightrope of tender harmonies and existential
ruminations. Asked if there was ever a deliberate attempt
to chart the perverse pleasure most people take in 'fondling
disaster' on the album, Biff is as cheerfully fatalistic
as can be expected from a man who has penned such chiming,
negative pearls as 'The future as horror is nothing
new/I have seen the past and it was murder too'
- "I think we all have the potential for self-destruction.
I personally am a part-time alcoholic: a man needs a
hobby." Was this almost too painful to bear experience
of life inspired by Davies's novel? " I loved the novel
and that passage in particular has always stayed with
me. There's a brilliant chapter at the end about throwing
a Frisbee."
Why it was brilliant, and what it was about the Frisbee
- perhaps we'll never know, but it's a brave statement
and no less brave an album in the face of continuing
punk rock posturing elsewhere in indie-heaven at the
moment with the aggressive new climate of traditional
rock pastiches like Andrew WK, The Hives and the Strokes.
Was Biff conscious that he was moving out of step with
the current fashion when making the album? "I've been
conscious of being out of step with fashion since leaving
the womb," confesses Biff.
Not so out of keeping with fashion, however is the album's
indebtedness to cinema, illustrated as it is by both
lyrical and musical references to popular movie narratives,
to musicals and to such durable iconic starlets as Judy
Garland and Sylvia Sydney. Keen 'Empire' readers or
was Biff exploring the idea still further of lives lived
less than honestly: that we all wilfully courted some
kind of 'cinematic' disaster in our lives? Quoting the
none too fashionable line from the Rocky Horror Picture
Show, Don't Dream It. Be It. I asked Biff
if the album was designed to fall naturally into two
distinct parts: the first dealing with our conventionally
'dramatic' or 'filmic' take on life, and the second
- a plaintive request for people to emote more honestly
and to stop dreaming:
"Cinema, novels, music etc help us to see the drama
and beauty in our own lives. Some people can't recognise
art unless it has a frame around it but the raw material
in everyday life is often found in the most unfashionable
of places. I'm reminded of the Greil Marcus quote 'Punk
rock is where you find it'.
Part of the album's believability, or it's integrity,
however is that much of it's thoughtful ruminations
on life are based in tangible real-life memories and
in the minutiae of daily events. 'Glorious Technicolor',
the album's audacious opening track, tells the story
of Biff's own Grandmother, Effie:
"Effie was my Grandmother. She came from Springburn,
a fairly rough area in the North of Glasgow but she
dressed and acted as though she was Lana Turner. The
lyrics in 'Glorious Technicolor' are about how she and
my Granddad lived their lives as though they were movie
stars. She did a lovely version of 'I wonder who's kissing
her now' at parties."
From a casual read of the above statement anybody would
think the album is pitched somewhere between Dennis
Potter and Strictly Ballroom. Not that sexuality
isn't an issue on the album; in fact it's more significant
by it's absence - not so much asexual as transsexual.
Pitched in both camps certainly. The same could basically
be said of Stephin Merritt's 69 Love Songs. Was
the album in any way shape or form a 'closet instigator'
as reads a title of one of the songs? One of the grittier,
sexier songs, that is. Biff is understandably
cagey:
"Could be."
So what did in fact turn him on during the making of
the album? "I remember in the film Wish You Were
Here seeing Emily Lloyd baring her arse at her gossipy,
snooty neighbours and shouting 'Up your bum!' That turned
me on." admits Biff. So individuality is a turn on?
Was this the case? "Everyone is, understandably, afraid
of being laughed at by others and so as a result we
all end up living, looking and dressing the same way.
Those who do have the courage to follow their eccentricities
through into everyday life are often ridiculed and I've
always hated that: it's the enemy of imagination. I
suppose you need to cultivate the attitude that 'If
you don't like it - fuck you' but that requires a level
of bravery not all of us are capable of."
Whether the man himself is capable or not, the album
is certainly able to. Tuneful but always tragic, plaintive
but never whimsical, "Surely Tomorrow You'll Feel Blue"
is an exceptional album by any standards, as relevant
to those of us who worship the likes of Lou Reed as
to those of us who tap our toes to the evergreen tunes
of Burt Bacharach and to all those little autumn songs
in between. Rather like an intimate TV dinner for two
filmed in glorious cinemascope. Nothing really happens,
but for that it's quite remarkable.
Hypercool will be released on Monday 11 March
on Stereotone
The album Surely Tomorrow You'll Feel Blue is
out now
Relevant site:
www.starlets.co.uk
Alan Sargeant for Crud Magazine© 2002
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