pretty much every time. Go on, try it. âThe Magic Fluteâ v. Middlemarch? Middlemarch in six. âThe Last Supperâ v. Crime and Punishment ? Fyodor on points. See? I mean, I donât know how scientific this is, but it feels like the novels are walking it. You might get the occasional exceptionâ Blonde on Blonde might mash up The Old Curiosity Shop , say, and I wouldnât give much for Pale Fire âs chances against Citizen Kane . And every now and again youâd get a shock, because that happens in sport, so Back to the Future III might land a lucky punch on Rabbit, Run ; but Iâm still backing literature twenty-nine times out of thirty. Even if you love movies and music as much as you do books, itâs still, in any given four-week period, way, way more likely youâll find a great book you havenât read than a great movie you havenât seen, or a great album you havenât heard: the assiduous consumer will eventually exhaust movies and music. Sure, there will always be gaps and blind spots, but Iâve been watching and listening for a long time, and Iâll never again have the feeling everyone has with literature: that we canât get through the good novels published in the last six months, let alone those published since publishing began. This month, however, the cultural highlight of the month was a rock and roll showâtwo shows, actually, one of which took place in a pub called the Fiddlerâs Elbow in Kentish Town, North London. The Fiddlerâs Elbow is not somewhere you would normally expect to find your most memorable drink of the month, let alone your most memorable spiritual moment, but there you go: God really is everywhere. Anyway, against all the odds, and even though they were fighting above their weight, these shows punched the books to the floor. And they were good books, too.
Five or six years ago, a friend in Philly introduced me to a local band called Marah. Their first album had just come out, on an indie label, and it sounded great to me, like the Pogues reimagined by the E Street Band, full of fire andtunes and soul and banjos. There was a buzz about it, and they got picked up by Steve Earleâs label E-Squared; their next album got noticed by Greil Marcus and Stephen King (who proudly wore a Marah T-shirt in a photo-shoot) and Springsteen himself, and it looked like they were off and away. Writing this down, I can suddenly see the reason why it didnât happen for them, or at least, why it hasnât happened yet. Steve Earle, Stephen King, Greil Marcus, Bruce, me⦠none of us is under a hundred years old. The band is young, but their referents, the music they love, is getting on a bit, and in an attempt to address this problem, they attempted to alienate their ancient fans with a noisy modern rock album. They succeeded in the alienation, but not in finding a new audience, so they have been forced to retreat and retrench and rethink. At the end of the Fiddlerâs Elbow show they passed a hat around, which gives you some indication of the level of retrenchment going on. Theyâll be OK. Their next album will be spectacular, and theyâll sell out Madison Square Garden, and youâll all be boasting that you read a column by a guy who saw them in the Fiddlerâs Elbow.
Anyway, the two shows I saw that week were spectacular, as good as anything Iâve seen with the possible exception of the Clash in â79, Prince in â85, and Springsteen on the River tour. Dave and Serge, the two brothers who are to Marah what the Gallaghers are to Oasis, played the Fiddlerâs Elbow as if it were Giants Stadium, and even though it was acoustic, they just about blew the place up. They were standing on chairs and lying on the floor, they were funny, they charmed everyone in the pub apart from an old drunk sitting next to the drum kit (a drummer turned up halfway through the evening with his own set, having played a
Five or six years ago, a friend in Philly introduced me to a local band called Marah. Their first album had just come out, on an indie label, and it sounded great to me, like the Pogues reimagined by the E Street Band, full of fire andtunes and soul and banjos. There was a buzz about it, and they got picked up by Steve Earleâs label E-Squared; their next album got noticed by Greil Marcus and Stephen King (who proudly wore a Marah T-shirt in a photo-shoot) and Springsteen himself, and it looked like they were off and away. Writing this down, I can suddenly see the reason why it didnât happen for them, or at least, why it hasnât happened yet. Steve Earle, Stephen King, Greil Marcus, Bruce, me⦠none of us is under a hundred years old. The band is young, but their referents, the music they love, is getting on a bit, and in an attempt to address this problem, they attempted to alienate their ancient fans with a noisy modern rock album. They succeeded in the alienation, but not in finding a new audience, so they have been forced to retreat and retrench and rethink. At the end of the Fiddlerâs Elbow show they passed a hat around, which gives you some indication of the level of retrenchment going on. Theyâll be OK. Their next album will be spectacular, and theyâll sell out Madison Square Garden, and youâll all be boasting that you read a column by a guy who saw them in the Fiddlerâs Elbow.
Anyway, the two shows I saw that week were spectacular, as good as anything Iâve seen with the possible exception of the Clash in â79, Prince in â85, and Springsteen on the River tour. Dave and Serge, the two brothers who are to Marah what the Gallaghers are to Oasis, played the Fiddlerâs Elbow as if it were Giants Stadium, and even though it was acoustic, they just about blew the place up. They were standing on chairs and lying on the floor, they were funny, they charmed everyone in the pub apart from an old drunk sitting next to the drum kit (a drummer turned up halfway through the evening with his own set, having played a
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