SOUNDTRACK: BELLE AND SEBASTIAN-Live at KEXP, April 13, 2006 (2006).
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his four song set samples a broad swath of Belle & Sebastian’s career. It takes place after The Life Pursuit‘s release, but they only play one song from it “To Be Myself Completely” (with Stevie on vocals).
It’s amazing how quiet and shy the band seems i the interviews (or is that bored and petulant) especially after being through the mad swings of success. Indeed, the interviews are almost embarrassing how unresponsive the band is (but not rude unresponsive, just unresponsive). Like “where did the soul influence on this album come from?” “Probably black America.” “Did the new producer have any influence on the soulfulness?” “Not really.”
But they do let the music speak for them. And they don’t just do the horn songs or the strings songs. They play “She’s Losing It” from Tigermilk (with lots of horns–it sounds great), they play “A Century of Fakers” with strings (although the female vocals seem a little too subdued on this track). They also play a rollicking cover of Badfinger’s “No Matter What.” It’s a delightfully poppy song which I didn’t know but which Sarah did (and I thought was the Beatles, and the DJ guessed Paul McCartney wrote it–he didn’t). It’s when discussing this song that the band finally gets animated, perhaps they just don’t want to talk about themselves.
[READ: October 15, 2012] Five Dials #25
The issue is all about the short story. Five stories from Lydia Davis, a short story contest from Zsuzsi Gardner, and a couple longer stories as well. But there’s also some poetry and an essay. And I fear I have to say I didn’t enjoy this issue as much as some of the other ones. I love short stories, but I didn’t really love these very much. And, the essay at the end was a lot of fury about very little. I have to assume Part Two will simply kick ass.
CRAIG TAYLOR-A Letter from the Editors: On Orphans and Cork
Taylor name-checks the Cork International Short-Story Festival and mentions how this issue is a sort of tie in to the festival (and just how many writers wanted to be in this Cork issue). Taylor says that many readers wanted more short stories in the Five Dials issues, and that Noel O’Regan, short story editor says that the short story is always alive–witness the great success of the Cork Festival. Writers flock to it (and a hefty prize is given). This issue is only Part I of the fiction issue because they simply had to break it into two parts. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 