The Bears Grrr

When I went to Berlin on holiday in June, I went to a party in a small flat and met a really cool band. The band is called 'The Bears Grrr'. They're 5 guys with the Big Bear on vocals. And I'm not only writing about them 'cause they liked my flyer I made for a friend's club; http://myspace.com/tweehouse. I'm writing about them 'cause I really like their music and I think more people should discover them.

So here you go, their myspace; http://www.myspace.com/thebearsgrrr

"Yes, they're locals"

Dear 'working in a legend'-reader,

we're now located in Glasgow. And from today you can buy some copies of our zine at Mono. So hurry there to pick one up for only 2 pounds.

And for your information; Mono is like the coolest place ever and the recordshop is to die for (38 Notting Hill Gate is still forever in our heart). One day soon we have to try the vegan food (yes they're vegan!) from the café/bar and Glasgow is the most lovely city ever.

You can find more information about Mono here; http://www.monocafebar.com/

It's a good day for flying

Dear friends,

we're alive! Interviews, texts and new ideas for the next issue are in progress. So don't worry. We're just on holiday and travelling around and soon we're moving up to Glasgow. So the theme for this post will of course be;

Diana's top 5 travel-songs:

1. Belle & Sebastian - Seymour Stein

Every time I'm about to take the plane somewhere I'm always listening to this song. It helps me to relax a bit, since I'm terrible afraid of flying. To hear Stevie Jackson's calm voice about something he's missing and that he's on his way somewhere and the fact he is singing "it's a good day for flying" just make this song my obviously number 1 travel song.

2. Håkan Hellström - En vän med en bil (translated "a friend with a car")

Håkan Hellström is a swedish singer and one of my old times heroes. He followed me through my teenaged period and have since then not been able to leave me alone. Or me not been able to let him go. "A friend with a car" is the second song from his first album, "Känns ingen sorg för mig Göteborg" ( translated "Don't feel sad for me Gothenburg"). This song contains everything between freedom, on the way somewhere, you and your friends, happiness, neverending summer nights and music festivals. The perfect first song on your festival mix tape. To play loud and singing along in the car on the way to the freedom-feeling.

3. Beirut - Postcards from Italy

Postcard to a lover from someone far away. When you're missing something/someone you left at home. That's the feeling and the back side of being away.

4. The Pastels - Truck train tractor

When you're listening to this song is like you're on a train together with The Pastels. The sound of a train and Stephen's and the others 't-t-t-t-t-t'. There's so many things in the songs that just make you wanna be on the road, dancing and smiling.

5. Talulah Gosh - Steaming train

"I'm on a steaming train and I'm driving into your heart".

I guess that's all I can say about this song. I mean, even if the sound is so typical up-tempo-twee-talulah, the lyrics is in the same time quite sad.

It reminds me a bit of a friend that went out in Europe for an interrail one summer and before she left a guy she been dating for a while asked if they were a couple. Guess he wanted to be sure they were feeling the same and that she wouldn't meet other boys out in Europe. You see my point about it?

By Fanny Valentin

Diana Malone Moves Home

Dooooom. Dressed In Pink.

Imagine a monster. Imagine Giorgio Moroder in a Rick Wakeman crisis with a Bontempi home studio. Imagine the Epicus Doomicus Metallicus of Candlemass influenced by Star Wars instead of every Heroic Fantasy tales with some laryngitic Attila Csihar on vocal. Imagine some quite vulgar glam women choir for the chorus.

Well, those things really happens. Not only in the mind of outter-the-extreme-limits-of-Good-Taste fan (yes, I genuinely like John Maus, Esquilax and Hans Edler).

Someone in Germany, in 1982, really recorded all these things. Together. In the same time. On the same record. In the same songs. Yes, a real band really sounded like that. And get signed. And recorded two albums. And even had a minor hit. Their name: Warning. And you should be. (And I should apologised for this one).

Since I download this, 2 months ago, I just spend my time try to get my "out-the-limits" friends into it. Kind of "I saw the bottom of bad deviant horrible taste and I want you to fall into it". This record blow my mind away. Because it's not amateur like The Shaggs, not weird pre-Lo Fi like Joe Meek or the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, it's not a music mokery like LAFMS, it's not challenging like Whitehouse or Prurient. No. It's professional. It's a real record truely, genuinely made to be pop. Even the great Lennon/McCartney Tijuana Style on Music For Pleasure (a easy listening instrumental cover album between the BBQ ambiance and the 70's porn soundtrack) is not that bad. Warning is the bottom, the worse of the worse; the "you can fail that much" record.

Even the cover got a great Turkish Star War feeling: some pink and blue halo in a stair where 2 sub-Imperial Guard stand.

Spoooooky. Yeah not really.

I said earlier they had a minor hit. Even the title got a cheap surrealism spirit: Why Can The Bodies Fly. Yeeeeees. That's good.

Honestly, it's certainly the only song from the album sounding more or less like a single . Well less than more, but still more than the rest of the album. A disco-glam sound on a sub-Sabbath riff, a Gary Glitter inspired-rhythm and some good guttural voice somewhere between Lordi and Rob Zombie. And a sub-Yes keyboard solo as well.

Yummy yummy yummy...

You understand now that the real question is not "how someone could have done that " but "how this thing could have been a hit " (even minor, it's still a hit).

YM

Pastel Time (Again)

After the mid-july 3 day heatwave, it's raining over London. Well, perfect weather for staying at home, eating homemade raisins bread with exotic jam and diving deep inside the music folder of my Portable Mighty Memory Machine. And I found that:

(yep it's a bad cap from my screen, couldn't find anywhere the original)

That is (drum roll)Entertaining Edwards, a bootleg cassette-only of demo and live and other rarities of The Pastels from 81/82. So, a poorly-recorded, not-so-well played (and of course not authorised) cassette of The Best Band In The World So Far. Yes, you want that. Well, I also dream every night of having that thing close to my C-86 cassette.

What's inside? The two first demos, a song from their first live ever, some great "Poor Me Boo Boo" 20-second track of Stephen and his guitar, their best song or so "I Like Painting" and even some truly innocent and naive and cute noise experimentations sounding like Delia Derbyshire remixing Le Forte Four. And some live introduction with the sexiest accent ever. Glasgow, my love.

Obvisously not the beginner stuff but perfect for a nerdy stupidly crazy fan like me. ("Oooh a test pressing of "I Am Alright With You" in a blank cover with the original Creation ad stick on for only £10").

By this time, The Pastels didn't had that much songs, and did like every band when it's come to make up their lake of creativity: COVERS. Yeah!

Lots of them: Modern Lovers ("Roadrunner" and its immortal punchline "Bye, Bye/Not Really") , Buzzcocks (a medley of two of them: Boredom and a really noisy I Love You, Big Dummy) , TV Personnalities (Part Time Punk with new lyrics), Troggs (Wild Thing), and among lots of VU cover, something I believe being of a cover of Sister Ray (unfortunatly less good than the live cover of Subway Sect/The Slits, but at least far better than the Joy Division one)

Yes, Sister Ray and Wild Thing. Yes, The Pastels was a really baaaaaadaaaaaass band.

Errhm well..

All that singing with the cutest childish duck voice ever.

And... And the Shangri-Las' Past Present Future. The best Shangri Las song singing by the best amateur band, that's something. That's the peak of this cassette. Incredibly... beyond I don't know what, but definitly beyond. (well I just notice than Tea Time Song is actually a semi-cover of Past Present Future)

Well actually, the real peak is another song. And I can't tell if it's a original or a cover: (Alone In The) Painbox.

Ok, I explain: on one side, we've got a almost perfect melody, obviously too perfect for the Pastels of this period. 2 verse, 2 chorus and... 1 bridge!

Do you imagine The Pastels putting a bridge in their song? No, I can't really. Or maybe around 85 or 86. Not in 82. 82 is the year of Song For Children. Heaven's Above and Tea Time Song. Not exactly the kind of with-a-bridge song.

But... On the other hand, the lyrics: "I am alone in the painbox/I wish you paint with me" and after, some great rhymes with "together" and "love forever" and some "pastels shades". Who else can dare to sing that except Stephen Pastel?

YM