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Julian again
Sat there last night & read the thing for the first time (I haven'tbought a copy, 'cos I had it all already, on 7" & 10 quid for a fanzine seemed a bit steep, but maybe I will), and saw one of the posters I didamongst those inside, and got terribly sad & nostalgic for the days when I used to care enough about bands to be foolish & desperate enough to organise gigs for them, and the lines about watching the trains from the window of the Swinging Sporran (which always will forever remind me of Sarah bands) as they go overhead. . . (the Julian mentioned is the one from Stoke, not me, but . . .).

It's only really hit me now that it's all over, isn't it? I mean I know there are bands out there (Comet Gain, Bis, Secret Goldfish) but . . .I remember the excitement of clutching the latest new Sarah 7", esp. If it was a new band, and walking through the street reading the words inside.

Towards the end, it felt more like duty, only Blueboy quite as inspiring as what came before (just my opinion, just how I felt, not an absolute fact), and somehow the words they wrote never matched either, and as the notes slid from 2 sides to a few lines at the bottom, it somehow felt that they didn't care either (OK, I know it's not totally true, they weren't exploting us, but if they'd cared like before, they couldn't have helped write a fanzine to explain why Blueboy were genius, why 'Atta Girl' was the best punk disco anthem ever, and why the view across Bristol on a frosty winters evening, slipping drukenly down steps is also damn heavenly too).

But somehow last night it all fell back into place, I forgot about the Harvey 10" & remembered the Another Sunny Day singles, but most importantly

The series of moments, hitching to Bristol & London, seeing kids buying records the next day after you'd put on a gig, and how it could all seem PART of something bigger, rather than just a gig you'd been to, a 7" record packaged with no information except a note about what other releases the label has to SELL. Maybe they betrayed all that idealism, but at least they had it to betray.

by Julian Lawton for the indiepop-list in October 1995

Last updated: 1-Sep-1995 © 1994-2024 TweeNet Creative Commons License