Self-Loathing Friday #6: A Shocking Waste of DNA

No, I haven't run out of famous Berties just yet... but it suddenly occurred to me that it's been nearly two years since we had a proper wallow in self-loathing, and what else are Fridays for?

Today we shine a spotlight of Richard "Dickon" Edwards: self-styled fop, dandy, and brother of Adam Ant's guitarist Tom Edwards. Dickon played guitars himself in Spearmint for a little while, and was also part of the band Orlando, but his major musical work came as the lead singer and songwriter of Fosca, a band who delighted in deeply sardonic song titles such as...

Fosca - On Earth To Make The Numbers Up

Fosca - Come Down from the Cross (Someone Else Needs the Wood)

...and...

Fosca - I Know I Have Been Happier

Today though, we focus on Dickon's anthem to self-loathing, Oh Well, There's Always Reincarnation, in which he describes himself as a "shocking waste of DNA". 

Have a nice Friday. 

Self-Loathing Friday #5: A Plumber's Handkerchief

I look like ten miles of bad road

And I smell like a plumber's handkerchief 

This is Otis Gibbs, an Americana singer who might well have a serious inferiority complex...

I got a stiff leg and a slow walk

I'm as graceful as a tank of shit

Well, I know how you feel, Otis.

Despite, or perhaps because of, his self-image problems, Otis has a lot going for him. He's made some great records and hosts his own thoughtful and entertaining podcast about rock history and songwriting. His songs tell some amazing and often heartbreaking stories, like the one about the vagrant murdered for $3.65, the one about the legendary black boxer who fought against segregation,  and the one about the man who builds his own Harley Davidson out of spare parts. But is that enough to make a living for a jobbing musician these days? 

I was hanging with fans and shaking hands

At the merch table after the show

Trying to raise enough cash to buy a tank of gas

So I could make it through to Buffalo

It's hard to sell a CD when they can stream it for free

I might need a new line of work

You might think it's a blast, but you know you wouldn't last

Ten minutes on this tour

After I heard that one, I went straight to Otis's website and ordered a couple of his CDs. He posted them himself, from the States, with a thank you note.

Self-Loathing Friday #4: The Bells!

Thia is Howell Dawdy, one of many artists I've discovered via my Celebrity Jukebox research, although I did mistakenly call him Howell Dandy in that post (now corrected), because what kind of surname is Dawdy? Anyway, Howell's a very talented musician, and a very funny guy to boot. I've been enjoying his most recent album, Smells Like Love, a lot over the past few months. I like it so much, I want to buy a physical copy... except Howell appears to be one of these new age hipster types who doesn't believe in wasting plastic, so his music is only available digitally. What is the world coming to?

Anyway, this is one of my favourite tunes from Smells Like Love, and it seemed like an appropriate one to revive Self-Loathing Friday with, if only for one week. Product Placement will probably return next week. This is a song about knowing you don't look good... in fact, Howell repeatedly compares himself to a walking corpse (in comparison to his partner who looks like an angel). This is my favourite verse though...

Never takes you long to get ready
And no matter what I do I look like hell
You look like the bell of the ball and I look like
I weathered a fall from the tower where I swing under the bells

Smells Like Love is available (digitally only!) from Bandcamp. Only 8 tracks, but every one's a winner...

Self-Loathing Friday #3: I Don't Fit In

I wrote a particularly self-loathing screed the other day about how, even after almost 16 years on the blogosphere, I still don’t feel like I fit in. I scrapped it in the end because such posts always end up sounding like desperate comment-bait, like I’m begging people to say, “Don’t be silly, Rol, your blog is great!” or some such, which really wasn’t the point of writing it. 

When you’re a teenager, not fitting in is just part of life. High school movies always teach us that the kids who do fit in (the cheerleaders, the jocks) are actually evil and will go on to become either high-flying scumbags or faded losers. See Biff Tannen in the Back To The Future movies – he becomes both. The cool kids, the ones with real potential to make a positive difference and change the world, they’re the outcasts, the freaks and the geeks. I wonder if that’s because the majority of high school movies are written by one-time social lepers who have since blossomed into successful butterflies, albeit butterflies with baggage: chips on shoulders, ghosts to exorcise, point to prove.

But what about when you’re 50 and you still feel like you don’t fit in? Some caterpillars go past the point of metamorphosis and just have to learn to live with being caterpillars.

Gee, if this is the post I wrote instead of the one I scrapped, just imagine what a pity party that one was!

Paul Collins recently featured in Namesakes where his band The Beat was roundly trounced by the bathroom vanity guys. No wonder he feels like he doesn’t fit in…

It doesn’t matter what town I’m in
I’m always on the outside, lookin’ in
Oh what, someday everything’s gonna change?
Well, I wanna know when

 

Self-Loathing Friday #2: Spanish Love Songs

I had to text Louise the other day to tell her I had a doctor’s appointment. Suddenly, I got all hung up on whether to put an apostrophe in “docs”.  It wasn’t possessive (as in doc’s appointment) but should I use the apostrophe of abbreviation? Surely doc is such an accepted abbreviation for doctor that it’s not necessary to identify it as such anymore. A lot of apostrophes get dropped from common abbreviations these days, and I’m all right with it. Then again, a lot of apostrophes get dropped from pronoun abbreviations too, but I fervently disagree with that and will fight for I’ll and They’re till my dying day. But do you see how something as simple as sending a quick message can take much longer than it needs to when you’re an English teacher a neurotic pedant? I should have just written doctors and had done with it. Abbreviations are supposed to save time!

Ben recommended today’s Self-Loathing Song. In case you were wondering: yes, Ben is still around. I just felt people were getting a bit bored of our rambling bull sessions, and besides, all we seem to talk about these days is comics and horror films. 

Spanish Love Songs are not from Spain and don't write love songs. They describe their sound as “Grouchrock”, which immediately endeared them to me. Ben said they write “emo for men in their 30s”, which is fine for him, I guess, but 20 years too young for me. He clarified, “not having a breakdown because a girl doesn’t like you, but more existential issues”. Existential angst? Sign me up…

My dad says that I'd probably have more fans
If I could learn to sing about some happier shit
Instead of wallowing in my shortcomings
My gross insecurities, be less narcissistic
Maybe show some humility

My mom sighs "wow" from under her breath
She wonders how the hell I can live like this
My shelf life, it expired months ago
But I keep tricking the ones
I claim to love into these situations

Well, I want to wake up and maybe be better
I want to come through and not be second guessed
I want to find the money to fix my nose
And learn to breathe without pacing
I don't want to be depressed
I want to find a haircut that fits me
That hasn't been co-opted by Nazis
I'll settle for some rest, I want to move on
I want to feel more important
I'm trying to be fine
I swear I'm trying to be my best

Self-Loathing Friday #1: Coach Party

On the first day back after Half Term, I went to the staff toilet and found a dead spider on the floor. It was one of those huge spiders that invade homes during the Autumn. The internet tells me they’re called Giant House Spiders. It was a dead as a cartoon dog, on its back with its legs in the air, so I picked it up in a piece of toilet paper and dropped it in the loo. 

But the damned thing would not flush! I tried covering it in more toilet paper then flushing again, but somehow the toilet paper went down but the spider remained. Worse still, the movement of water from the refilling toilet was making the spider look as though it had come back to life and was synchronised swimming round the bowl. I couldn’t really leave it like that for the next person to find. So I had to reach in, scrunch it up in some more toilet paper, and throw the whole sodden mess in the bin.

Welcome to Self-Loathing Friday. A new feature which might run and run or never appear again. Really, who cares?

Coach Party are from the Isle of Wight, which must surely be the most fertile areas of the UK for growing new bands at the moment. Wet Leg (best new British band of the last ten years) are also caulkheads. Anyway, even though they're much younger than me and probably employ butlers to fish dead spiders out of their toilet, Coach Party appear to have got self-loathing down to a fine art. Admirable, really.

I'm sad, I'm 23
I've not learned my lesson
I'm not any different
My head is killing me
From all my self-doubting
There's no friends around me
I'm not who I wanted to be
I wish I had your face
And your fucking personality
Everybody hates me
I'm boring and unhappy
I really lack affection
I'm jealous and controlling