"My buzz has magically transformed into a headache the size of a wainscotting. This requires an emergency singalong lest sorrow also settle in."

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Illustration from South African Visual Art Gallery

mu[sic]
a column by Else Teischer

Life is too darned short not to live in the past...

The societal slipped disc induced by the weight of the vainglorious but failed dot-com machine has finally sent pain shooting all the way down to the very tail bone itself: record store employees. Woe is me, a forced paid vacation. Between sending out hundreds of resumes to future hated bosses and concocting brilliant schemes to avoid ever working again, I realise I am now faced with an awesome possibility: I finally have time to listen to my massive backlog of new music (and read unread books, and watch unwatched television, and work on reducing the size of my unreduced ass... alack, I fear my A.D.D. will allow for the partial completion of only one of the above).

Now, it must be understood that the number of records I've acquired in the last 2 months alone would make any self-respecting employed person a fine and complete collection and possibly cause the foundation of a lesser dwelling to give out. No matter...I've got time, I've lit candles, slipped into something comfortable (unemployed people are not given to wear very much) and have mixed an arsenal of cape cods. My sifting duties begin with a motivational record to set the mood: The Buzzcocks "Singles Going Steady." This one goes to the grave with me, which I may be digging even now. No one has ever made whining more empowering than lead singer Pete Shelley, and bugger all would-be modern power poppers: the song writing and music here is a perfect weave of melody and punk energy.

Sure, "Orgasm Addict," and "Ever Fallen In Love" are instant classics even to the neophyte, but the real magic of the Buzzcocks is how they can turn a simplistic and potentially vapid song like "Everybody's Happy Nowadays" into a aerobic workout for the mind. Like Magnetic Fields, sometimes fags just do it better! This propells the shuffling of records along with a brute force and drunken enthusiasm. I begin dealing the records around the floor like poker hands. Hmmm, I got A Gyorgy Ligeti (Avant garde Hungarian composer and humorist), Acid Mothers Temple (Japanese post-psychedelia), and Thomas Brinkmann ( latter day minimalist kraut funk). Dealer opts for a hit from a specially marked deck in the other room. Yet another indispensible moment appears while I try to sort out this mess of lousy hands.

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