Lincoln Cathedral

Lincoln Cathedral doesn't evoke The Boss for me at all, its not rootsy, there's no driving rhythm, its too spacy.It does capture those wide open spaces though that mean you can see the spire from 15 miles away.

Why does "lovable little hairdressers on fire" make me want to smack you? Is it because its in the plural?

I don't know anything about Deacon Blue (but have no sense of loss). However the GLE claims your link is a Red Herring.

Please Don't Get Married is the one for me (from me?)

Pinefox in knocked-out 3-min doodle steals important accolade shocker. I can't even remember when we did this - somewhere between the first weekend of Pines recording and the start of the Annika EP. "Her Last Polo" was done the same day - maybe we even did one or the other of "The Hard Shoulder" MD sessions that day too.

You should hear it in 'blizzard' form. Ally C doesn't like it.

I'm not able to listen to any of this stuff at the mo', due to a sudden shortage of 4-way plug extensions - blame STYLUS (TONIGHT, BLUE POSTS).

stylus invites you over for an evening of
chatting, chewing, drinking, hip-shaking,
celebrating, nudging, cavorting, slobbering

thrill to the live musical loveliness of pipas
ogle their fine new platter on matinee recordings
toe-tap to minidiscalicious sounds from keith and pam
wonder which free t-shirt decal you’ll go home with tonight

saturday 16 february • 7-10.30 pm
upstairs at the blue posts
corner of newman and eastcastle streets - TCR tube
£2 entry • everyone welcome

Sorry, can't do centring yet.

Lincoln *Castle*, I recall, is where BBC North made a programme about some kind of battle re-enactment in 1985 called "Distracted Tymes", where some "traditional" craftsman or other is at work with Dire Straits' "Money For Nothing" (hence "I want my MTV", of course) playing on the radio, thereby exposing the self-destroying paradox at the heart of Thatcherism at least 10 years, and possibly more like 15, before anyone really understood it. An inspiration, Reynard?

This isn't meant as an insult either.

Much calmer today because of the excitement of having seen The Visitors last night with Tim Hopkins on top performing form.

Is Nebraska as flat as Lincolnshire?

"glitterboot" = "starryspangledboot" shurely? (titter)

PF - why didn't you tell me you were playing - I'd move heaven and earth to hear you play,(well catch a train anyway) especially in the vicinity of Berwick St.

If the GLE doesn't mind me answering in his place, outside of parties in Greenwich, Rotherhithe and Old Street, and a south coast beach, I think he's played solo at the Betsey Trotwood (Farringdon Rd) and the basement of the Poetry Cafe (Betterton St). He's played unsolo at the aforementioned, plus St Alfege's Church Hall (SE10), Undersolo (Camden), Bull & Gate (Kentish Town), The Chapel Bar (Islington), The Blue Posts (Newman St - but not this weekend) and probably somewhere in Norfolk.

Upcoming? Nowt. The man has fifteen books to write and five hundred to teach.

'Lincold Cathedral' is wonderful, but I [heart] 'October Gin Again'.

1. Whilst in the company of N. Dastoor on saturday, I proposed the notion that the three greatest songwriters of the nineties were Merrit, Murdoch and Pinefox. Naturally, I was laughed out of town.

2. Lincoln Cathedral. Interesting. That's as far as I'll go. LC In A Blizzard: Mike is correct.

3. I am missing recordings of a few of those gigs. Poor for a supposed #1 fan. Perhaps I shall remedy this at a later date.

4. Her Last Polo. Should be re-recorded. Blanketed, unfairly, in mist.

5. No, the Pinefox hasn't played since last year.

More later. I assume. Got to rush.

I thought Dicky Knee liked The Magnetic Fields? How odd. I actually agree with you, Ally - though I don't claim to know much about songs or songwriting nor, indeed, can I demonstrate that I've really been paying attention to developments in the form of late.

2. Lincoln Cathedral. Interesting. That's as far as I'll go.

I think it's LC that forms part of "SE7 Montage", which I'm sure is floating around the Pinefox Information Exchange somewhere.

3. I am missing recordings of a few of those gigs. Poor for a supposed #1 fan. Perhaps I shall remedy this at a later date.

That no recording exists (as far as I know) of the St Alfege's show is both a crime and a blessing.

4. Her Last Polo. Should be re-recorded. Blanketed, unfairly, in mist.

We didn't know what we were doing. Or I didn't. Electricity was involved.

It's entirely environmental. How about a complete Pinefoxography?

Erk, I've got a stand-up argument with a benefits agency clerk in Dulwich to attend - will try to come up with something later...

I have the beginnings of one at home. Maybe I could post it later.

Would the scarcity of most of the material not drive the fans wild, though?

Panic on the streets of Birmingham, Al

I must listen to 'Lincoln Cathedral' in Lincoln Cathedral!

The Complete Pinefox (i.e. songs I have heard, there are more of course).

Solo recordings:

1994-95: Diamonds, Location, Cod Fiction, Bitter, Wolves, Stone Street, Oscar Bravo, Spacing, Toby Jug, Lashes, Anonymous, Penny Arcades, Beside Myself, Then Again, Storms In May, Trifles, Training, Sunday's Children, The Rumour Is, Friday Didn't Happen, Estuary English, Happy Days, Always Never, Candles.

1998-99: Out To Pasture, Just About, Hovercraft, Pop Kids, Infants, Goodbyes, Screen Test, Jailbait, Blue Tidings Surprisingly, My Last September, Early Doors, Airtime, Don’t Walk, Green Exit Scenario, Blue And Orange, Glory Hole, An Unlikely Candidate, Some Doors Down, What I Heard, Faith In The City, Ithaca, On The Ferry.

2000?: Satellites, Afters, His Last Good Year, London In Reverse, Awful, Orchard Street, Times Square, Utah, How To Read.

Solo Albums:

April Dreams England (2000)

1. Chocolate Snow 2. They’ve Repainted The Railings 3. Her Last Polo 4. Pylons And Inactivity 5. Day Of Release 6. You Made A Wave Of Sound 7. Petal Affinity 8. Service Station 9. Till The Dawn 10. Do You Have To Stop Writing To Start Living? 11. We’ll Never Be Cool 12. Good Friday 13. Being A Child 14. A Night With You In Wooly Things 15. More To Life 16. Billboard Storm 17. Train From Wycombe 18. When We’re Old 19. Catch My Drift 20. Second Hand

Hometown Traffic (2001)

1. The First Tube 2. The Times 3. Downriver 4. Push And Run 5. Stone Lions 6. West June Triangle 7. In Future 8. Go To Waste 9. Wetter Than July 10. Burger Express 11. Victoria 12. Oil Fires 13. !Croydon Easter¡ 14. Union Flag 15. I Told You So 16. On The City 17. Buy Me A Ring 18. Minesweepers 19. Japanese Embassy 20. Elsewhere

True Love Waits (2001)

1. I See Stars 2. You Don’t Say 3. Incurable 4. A Rainy Day 5. M.G.M. 6. Ungrammatical 7. Anita O’Day 8. Marie Claire 9. Familiar 10. The Rest

The Hard Shoulder (2001)

1. AII 2. On The Hoof 3. I Let The Bottle Down 4. She Threw It All Away 5. Sober As A Drunk 6. Drinking Kind Of Girl 7. Hurricane Alison 8. United States Postal Service 9. Long Island 10. Route 52164

I Think You Dropped A Moonbeam (2001)

1. I Loved You Once 2. Let’s Just Go Out 3. Turn Up In My Head 4. Let’s Just Be Reasonable About This 5. I Can’t Believe It’s The Same World 6. Waiting For A Boy Like You 7. Falling In Love For The Summer 8. Fire Engines 9. Pole Star 10. Oh, My

With Pamela Berry as The Pines:

Baby You’ll Do (From Papercuts Fanzine, 2000)

Dieppe Won’t You, A Hundred Doors, Seven Clubs (Single, 2000)

Chalet, Miracles, High Street (From ‘In Time For Christmas Day’, 2000)

Fields In Spain* (From ‘The Way Things Change’ split single, 2001)

Static (From split single with Simpatico, 2001)

Please Don’t Get Married (Without Asking Me), October Gin Again, Own The Moon, Forget Me Nots (Single, 2001)

Kisses And Fog*, Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln Cathedral In A Blizzard, But I’m Different Now^, Milk Bar, Some Slow Afternoon.

*Possibly Berry Songs or collaborations, not sure.

^I know little about this song. Is it a Pinefox original?

With Stephen Trousseì as The Foxgloves:

Daystar (From Papercuts Fanzine, 2000).

Other Pines and Foxgloves songs have been played/recorded from the solo albums/songs. I’ve tried to put things in the place that seems best. Only songs written by The Pinefox have been included in this recording history, except where queried.

145 songs by my reckoning. Phew. Sorry, am I boring people?

W O W

For the record, "I'm Different Now" is originally by The Jam. "Lincoln Cathedral" is not, strictly speaking, anything to do with The Pines. The first half of True Love Waits is soon to be a 3" CD EP by The Pines on TeleRAN records (if they like what they get). "Kisses and Fog" will pop up on a Chickfactor comp CD soon.

I'm staggered by how much material outside the 70 songs I've recorded I've simply not heard. The 1994-95 stuff in particular... you actually have some/all of these songs on tape, Ally?

I'd love to hear this stuff.

Papercuts 1 - World Cup Commentary (or was it Euro 2000?)

Papercuts 2 - Lloyd Cole

Papercuts 3 - The Park out of Blow-Up

The Message - Pop and Poetry Essay

There must be more...

- Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken, about Rosemary Squires (one of my favourite things I've published so far this year and nobody's read it grrr)

- A write-up of "Goodbye" by the Sundays for the 2nd Birthday Special (soon to be reprinted)

He's offered to do a Lloyd Cole one too - did I ever reply I wonder. The answer's "Yes please".

The danger here is where to stop. I did once print out three months' worth of PF contributions to Sinister (long after I'd unsubbed)... I think it was the best thing I read that year.

I have a terrible feeling the great man is reading this thread... and is appalled.

Milk Bar, Some Slow Afternoon, Say It Isn't So [Irving Berlin] and Satellites form a 7" EP available soon on Annika Records of Spain.

"The danger here is where to stop" - I shall forbear from copying all of the P F 's e-mails to me in here, then :)
I could scan the postcards, though ...

Mike, did that 3 months include the fragment of the Eastern European novel? I loved that.

Apparently up to last night the GLE had only skimmed this thread. I suspect he would be proud of it.

www.Pinefox.co.uk would go up if there was sufficient request, possibly.

"April Dreams England" and "Hometown Traffic" = 80s indie England, redolent of old Janice Long shows, evoking a less hedonistic and less globalised environment than these places have generally become, and possibly sub-Clientele. The other Pinefoxmusic mentioned on this thread = sub-Stephin Merritt.

Am I getting warm?

Eeek! I'm going to bump into Youn here :) Sorry!

That's okay, David. I'll just go to the back again and try to look aloof.

From the press kit. April Dreams England is a concept album about provincial England. Hometown Traffic is a concept album about London. He once introduced 'Her Last Polo' from April Dreams England like this: "This song is about sweets and playgrounds and set somewhere out west..."

The first two albums seem more sprawling and intimate than the last three. The last two are remarkably polished. The transition is evident in the third. True Love Waits is about what the title says. The Hard Shoulder is his take on country and western. I Think You Dropped A Moonbeam is very retro, I mean 50s and 60s retro. I have a soft spot for Hometown Traffic, although that's the album that he seems to like the least.

His collaboration with Pam Berry in the Pines is fantastic for the vocal harmonies. I haven't heard most of the songs under 'solo recordings'.

Now the rest of the panel will just have to set you straight...

Mr. Moore: glad to have had a sedative effect.

!!!

I'm not much cop at actually giving opinions or describing, sorry. but I like all that I'm familiar with. and most that I'm not.

1. Details. What there isn't enough of in pop music. Things you see but don't notice, things that don't matter ordinarily. Stocked to the rafters with them. Cataloguing the hum-drum. Making it special. 'I kept the receipt of her last burger'.

2. Jeepers, creepers: Everything grows all over you. It can take days, weeks, months, before all coming together and smacking you between the eyes. And it does its best not to get dull, but then it does, but then it's back a week later, fresh as the orange juice you just squeezed.

3. Tunes. The hardest thing of all. Where does he find them? Listen to 'Daystar' and marvel!

4. Songs. 'Baby You'll Do' might be the best song ever written about being in a relationship. 'Airtime' might be the best song ever written about the end of one. 'Popkids' explains why a community like IL* can be wonderful. 'Let's Just Go Out' makes me think about my best friend. 'Hurricane Alison' really does sound like the sky is coming down.

5. Descriptions. Words. You'd expect nothing less from a teacher of the English language. There has never been anyone so effortlessly meticulous in the history of songwriting, perhaps (here's the Joycian influence, fans!). The way words fit together, similies and metaphors to die for. 'On a cinnamon morning as bright as cartoon shows/In a town where the Pepsi rains and the ice-cream flows'.

6. Intimacy. They could all have been written for you, or you. Almost anything you want to know about the man is in one of those songs, somewhere. You won't find it anywhere else. A highway to the heart. Warm humour; honesty and fear. Pieces of the jigsaw. Oh, and perhaps my favourite line of all, which I hope I have right. 'Throw away inverted commas/Heaven knows where that leaves me'. Which seems as good a place as any to end.

Like Richard, I'm not very good at explaining things. And this isn't very well explained. I liked what Youn wrote. Maybe you'll get the gist. Honour the spire indeed.

HONOUR THE SPIRE indeed. A good slogan for the T shirts of the emerging Pinefox Fan Club.
I See Stars ... or maybe they are just snowflakes swirling in front of a picture of Lincoln Cathedral.

Ally talked of intimacy & said:"'Baby You'll Do' might be the best song ever written about being in a relationship. " & he is of course correct because it seems to sum up my feelings about my own perfectly!

There's something about emotional truth & power to be remarked upon here also. 'The Rest' is one of only two pieces of music that have made me cry in the last few years.

With Peter (are we talking again now? I do hope so) on the power of the TUNE!s as well. They're fucking great. And Joe says they're the easiest part of writing a song (!)

Srry for the uneveness of this - hard to think & write clearly with one eye looking over one's shoulder all the time.

That was a bloody good go, sunshine. You couldn't be more OTM if you married a Greek and had two birthdays.

The new issue of Careless Talk Costs A Quid More Than Last Month features a Demo section, in which there's a favourable write-up of... The Foxgloves. However, as much as the description might fit PF'n'Edna (quiet acoustic pop), it doesn't really match with any of their 'proper' recordings and, furthermore, the address given is in Wales. Another Foxgloves?

Let's hear it for seductive & overpowering as well.

I haven't listened to much Pinefox music for a while (bloody cheek to even comment on it, really) but there's a reason for that. If I listen to some, I want to hear it all. And I don't want to listen to anything else. So I have to protect myself otherwise no other music in my possession would get a look in.

I'll get in touch off-board.

Anyone who wants PF stuff should mail me at the address below with, if poss, their home address.

Please note: I can't promise super-quick turnaround on this as I have to clear it with The Boss (heh) and he could be anywhere - Iceland, The Philippines, or, or... *this* place...

Its frustrating for me to listen to because it was the first time I'd ever used the MD & the new battery hadn't been fully charged. Therefore a lot of the good performances later in the night in the living room weren't preserved for posterity. Those Smiths & Beatles covers are are just a memory .... the clearest of which being Edna's marvellous rendition of The Swallow On My Neck, all the while sliding slowly to one side as some mysterious force tilted Chalet 646's wall.

Confession: I think PF should adopt a 'poofy' indie voice or smoke loads of fags to sound like Rod Stewart.

LOVE HATE LOVE HATE LOVE HATE LOVE HATE

Ally, I like what you wrote, too, esp. under 'Jeepers, creepers'.

If you can't be arsed, he said:
'I See Stars'; 'Incurable'; 'MGM'; 'Anita O'Day'; 'The Rest'; 'I Loved You Once'; 'Fire Engines'; 'Pole Star'; 'Oh My'; 'A11'; 'She Threw It All Away'; 'Sober As A Drunk'; 'United States Postal Service'; 'Route 52164'.

2
They’ve Repainted The Railings

We’ve been standing here a good while / I think we’re turning into lamp-posts
Locals come and lean against us / Ticking down the list of almosts
If the cinema is open / Could you nip into the buffet?
It’s a bus we won’t be missing / Cos it never comes on Thursday

But they’re making changes round here that I know you won’t believe
I’ve been staring at the bingo hall, and honestly

They’ve repainted the railings / The colour of her hair
And it won’t be the same for me / Hanging round the square
They’ve repainted the railings / In shades she used to wear
And if it’s true it’s changed for you around here

It’s been quiet here a good while / But I could be hard of hearing
See, they’ve opened up the garden / And those lads have got the beer in
Witnessing some generations / Passing down the street, and never getting further
She wasn’t my imagination: I kept the receipt of her final burger

But they’re making changes round here that you never will believe
I’ve been gazing hours on end towards the lavatories - and

They’ve repainted the railings / The colour of her hair
And it won’t be the same for me / Hanging round the square
They’ve repainted the railings / In shades she used to wear
And if it’s true it’s changed for you around here

Until they start to vandalize / The only trace of her lost eyes
Until it starts to fade away / And someone pulls them down someday

To return to the beginning of this thread - Hurricane Alison is The Boss, though I don't know enough about The Bruce to say which Boss it most closely resembles. United States Postal Service plays now. Today reminiscent of Billy Bragg somehow, or maybe Bragg being Guthrie.

The hail falls in the sunlight outside, the cat miaows soundlessly outside the french windows, the scum thickens on the cold stewed cup of tea next to the kettle in the kitchen but the list must be completed, tweaked & tinkered with.

THE HORROR

Cheeky little sod!