John Walker's Electronic House

An anxiety update.

The story so far: After six years of anxiety attacks, constant lunacy and a general plateau of wobbly nervousness, John finally decided to do something about it. Dragged to the doctor by his hair and teeth, John was diagnosed with Anxiety Disorder – something that only the very most handsome, intelligent and inordinately cute people can suffer from. The correct form of treatment for this sort of thing is Cognative Behavioural Therapy, or CBT. John was worried about the stigma of “Therapy”, and decided he would only tell a couple of people. Then as he was writing an Anxiety Update on his blog he realised that he was just about to tell everyone, most of them strangers. He considered this for a moment, and then decided to go ahead, driven by a combination of wanting to write about it, along with the hope that someone might recognise something and maybe get themself some help too. He was also aware that the lovely people who read his blog wouldn’t make a stupid fuss about it.

I’ve started seeing someone at my local doctor’s surgery, which was promoted as Cognative Behavioural Therapy itself, but turns out to be rubbish. The lady is lovely and all, but she isn’t a CBTist and as such fails in meeting the requirement of being a CBTist. I hope I’m not being too harsh here.

But she has reinforced something I often claim – everyone will end up telling me their problems, no matter how weird or inappropriate the circumstances. Strangers on public transport appear to be able to read some flashing neon sign above my head reading, “MOBILE COUNSELLING SERVICE”. Friends of friends, and this happened last year, will tell me all their problems for hours on end when I phone to speak to the friend who is out, and the phone is answered by the relative stranger. And indeed the not-quite CBT lady at the doctor’s spent ten minutes of our half hour telling me about the educational difficulties her six year old was having. I’d be cross about her lack of professionalism, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m sure it’s some sort of hormone I exude that causes people to do this.

But despite the unhelpfulness, working through some of the literature I’ve been given about Anxiety Disorder, I’ve been fascinated to learn that lots of parts of my personality aren’t quite as normal as I’d thought, and are in fact symptoms of my mentalness. This is a positive thing.

For instance, I hate driving. I also like driving. I’d much prefer to be driving than to be driven. But I still have grown to loathe the journey from Bath to Bristol – one I traverse regularly, and during the worst hours imaginable due to needing to get to college. On these journeys I tend to fill my car with some of Bath’s finest, and indeed Bristol’s for latter legs, who are then treated to the delights of my moderate driving temperament. I’m not exactly calm when behind the wheel.

It’s not that I’m a crazed driver – I’m sure others will leap in to say otherwise if I’m wrong, but I think I’m a reasonably good driver, and mostly sensible. But I just cannot bear that everyone else on the road is A CRETIN. Here’s a thing you might not know: When traffic lights turn green, THAT MEANS YOU CAN GO. Here’s another thing: When waiting at traffic lights, their eventually turning green is SOMETHING TO BE EXPECTED. It makes me want to claw my eyes from their sockets as I sit and watch lines and lines of drivers before me looking up, noticing the lights have changed, wondering what that might mean to them, remembering where they are, looking for the gearstick, wondering which one’s the clutch, having a sandwich, and then maybe, JUST MAYBE, edging slightly forward but not so fast as to cross the junction before they are red again. CAR AFTER CAR AFTER CAR. And it drives me around the bend… no, wait, it doesn’t, does it? It leave me sat staring at the bend, screaming, never actually reaching it.

So it has come to pass that people in the car have commented on this. Foolish people. People accepting my kind all-free taxi service. Ungrateful people. And people with a reasonable point.

I’ve always found these comments a bit hurtful, because, as far as I’m concerned, I’m not doing anything abnormal. There is a situation in front of me, a situation in which selfish people are driving selfishly, slowing everyone down, and making a crappy journey utterly miserable. I react to that selfishness by being upset, and I let that upset out my moaning or shouting at my windscreen. That makes sense, because it really, really, REALLY upsets me. And so when someone tells me off for that, it also upsets me. What I’m beginning to realise (and understand that such realisations are of course painfully obvious to the outside observer, but almost imperceivable to the person inside) is that my getting so upset is not at all normal, and the responses of those in my car are quite sensible. And hence their comments are not hurtful at all, but not wanting to admit that I’m being the weirdo, I perceive them to be.

It’s all very well recognising this… And I’m not claiming that getting annoyed with idiot drivers is abnormal. But the extremity of my reaction is. And of course, this is an example amongst many of my beginning to notice that parts of my behaviour are not just “me”, but things that don’t give me a great deal of happiness… but that’s only the beginning of figuring it all out.

So the solution: A combination of my recognising that I am behaving out of anxiety and not normality, and my friends recognising that I am behaving oddly because I’m a mental, and to be patient with that. (Which they already are, I should add). Maybe that’s where the phrase “mental patient” comes from.

So, despite everything, it seems to be beginning to work. Which is nice.

Oh, and if you’re not one of the people fortunate enough to attend viewings of the John Driving Extravaganza, you could also help by NOT DRIVING LIKE A CRETIN.

Tonight I finished watching series two of Press Gang.

It was thanks to the splendid Rev. Stuart Campbell that I learned it was available on DVD, and by his enthusiastic commentary while watching them that I was filled with the burning need to revisit this hugely favourite part of my childhood. And also a large part due to Play.com’s putting the DVDs in their sale.

For once, and I was fairly confident that this would be the case, it was a programme that survived the flimsy protection of nostalgia. It’s actually pretty good. There’s certainly some ropey acting in places, and Dexter Fletcher’s American accent requires some forgiveness, but it still holds itself together as a series. (And there’s to be none of this retrospective anti-Fletcher attitude about Press Gang. Sure, he’s unbearable now, but he wasn’t back then and it’s not fair to hate the younger version). What are most impressive are Steven Moffat’s scripts, with some extremely sharp gag-writing. I’ve only seen one episode of his current show, Coupling, which was very cleverly constructed, if low on laughs. But I’m now more tempted than I’ve been previously (ie. not in the least) to watch it. The man can write good jokes.

I hate this current fad for pretending things are good because they’re from the past. People haven’t decided that Pol Pot was really cute and funny because they remember him from off the telly in their childhood, so why do they do it for Bagpuss? Button Moon was absolutely awful in 1980. It’s just that you were three, and therefore like all three year olds, you were incredibly stupid. That’s why when you watch Button Moon today, on your £5.99 from HMV DVD that you got from your friend because you bought the t-shirt in the summer and the two of you talked for ages about how great it was and how you liked the song and whether it was the one with Mooncat or if that was something else and do you remember the advert with the ducks, it is absolutely awful. And you remain incredibly stupid.

So fearing I was somehow taking part in this LOOK AT MY RAINBOW PENCIL CASE I’M SO RETRO-IRONIC hideousy, I showed some episodes to a couple of friends a few years younger than me, and hence too young to have seen it before. They both (see, more than one sample – proper science) recognised that while my enthusiasm may be fuelled by memories, the programme was independently of a high quality. Which was a relief. It’s actually impressively driven in places, and while Serious Issues of the Day episodes like the glue-sniffing story now seem dated, the child abuse two-parter remains moving and horrific in its honesty, and still immensly powerful in its appeal to young people in such circumstances to seek help. This was a programme on at 3.45 on Children’s ITV. It seems impossible now.

I’m very surprised by the strength of the evocative memories that re-emerged when watching. And not just rediscovering my pre-pubescent/very-pubescent love for Lynda Day during its run from 1989 to 1994 (which isn’t as troubling to still feel now as at first thought – Julia Swahahala was 21 when she started filming). It’s more the power of my memory of Lynda and Spike’s relationship. Watching the break-up episode in series 2 it was like seeing memories of a break-up experienced by myself. I’m left somewhat confused about whether something similar happened to me in my teenage years, or if I cared so much about these two characters that my memory thought to store the pain felt when watching.

Which leads me to conclude that I’m very glad I’m not a teenager any more. Despite it being the last time I appeared to have any success with girls, the speed at which relationships worked was too terrifyingly fast, catalysed by the turbo-charged hormones that apparently had complete control. The ability to meet someone, discover an attraction between you, start going out, fall in love, have a bad argument, realise something is wrong, and get dumped, during the morning break, is something I think I can live without.

Press Gang, however, is not. Series 3, please come out soon.

Perhaps the curse has been lifted.

Anyone who has ever had the misfortune to be near me during a time of computer crisis (these times are indicated by the computer’s being switched to “on”) will know that I am particularly plagued by the most peculiar and perplexing problems. And I still maintain that it’s not through any fault of my own.

I find it particularly unfair, for instance, when I’m installing a new graphics card and the plastic of my monitor starts melting, or upgrading my soundcard drivers and a volcano erupts on my motherboard getting lava in the memory card slots, and the response from the individual to whom I turn for help is to say, “That would only happen to you, John.” And then laugh.

People on tech support lines, after realising that I’m reasonably aux fait with the insides of the machine (and hence am not using my PC as a hostess trolley for dinner parties, or desperately confused about why my floppy discs keep breaking the DVD drive) then take on a strange tone of sad confusion when I explain the error.

“I’m sorry sir, but it’s not possible for the screen to turn red and start bleeding from the front.”

Today was spent building a new PC from harvested parts, giving me something more up-to-date for this modern games reviewing lark (3200+ Athlon 64, 1GB RAM, GF FX 5900, DVDR/W, geek readers). Well, it was spent by my lovely housemate Jonty building it, while I drew on the case with permanent black marker pen. My PC now has a large, smoking explosion on the side. By my work, not Jonty’s.

However, the entire time he was at the machine (containing only the memory of the previous, and nothing else the same), he was alternating between chuckling at the impossible things that were going wrong, and swearing at the impossible things that were going wrong. Heroically, he saw it through, and I’ve spent the rest of the day (apart from jaunts in town with the ever lovely Hannah and Jo) emptying small hard drives onto large, and installing PCI card drivers. What a treat.

But. But but but. It all seems to be working fine. Maybe it was enough. Maybe it was writing “THIS CASE IS CURSED” in large block letters on the top of the case that humiliated it into trying harder. Maybe it was just my turn for happiness.

Of course, such positive thoughts mean I fear the inevitable explosive loss of life and damage deposit. But I write “but” too often in the face of fear, and claim it anyway. The curse is lifted! My machine is new and good! Tonight. But there was something a bit weird with Winamp earlier. And this green smoke probably isn’t meant to make me feel this dizzy.

I’m sorry to report that leisure centre male changing rooms are still the same as ever.

I don’t frequent such places with any regularity, since about a decade ago when one of my more potent complexes developed enough power to prevent my swimming in public. Without swimming there is rarely a need to use the male changing room, and it’s a good thing too.

Today, however, I played badminton with Chrissy. This is something we used to do regularly, and have just begun doing again, but previously the weather was appropriate for arriving at the centre in the clothes we’d play in. Today it was minus eight thousand degrees celsius and so wearing shorts for the walk down would have resulted in the loss of both legs. It meant WEARING DIFFERENT CLOTHES THAN THOSE WORN FOR PLAYING IN. Yes, it meant: Using The Changing Room.

So it is now my belief that the old grey man and the late 30’s man who stand naked in the middle of the communal changing area, scrubbing at their (own) dangly bits with a large off-pink towel, are employed by the leisure centre. They are ever present. They were there when I was a small boy going swimming, when I was a teenager going to those slide-improved swimming pools, and on any infrequent occasion I should have happened to stumble into one since. And indeed they were there today.

What possesses these people, when there are walls of empty changing cubicles lining the walls of the room, to make their genital drying a public performance? Are they inexplicably proud of their parts, wanting to ensure that all passing can be wowed by their decreasingly damp loinage? Are they terrible claustrophobes, unable to cope with the confined space of the cubical? Or are they, as I suspect, dads?

I believe it is something that occurs upon the birth of your first child. Something snaps inside. Some part of the male brain that had previously served to prevent public nudity entirely shuts down, turning a previously normal man into a serial naturist.

Perhaps it’s a pride thing. “Look! This thing works! It flipping works! All survey my fully functioning phallus.” Or perhaps, and I think this is my most likely solution, they are there to ensure that men are sure they have walked into the correct changing room. The thought of accidentily going into the girls’ room while it’s not busy, entering a cubical and getting changed into your swimming gear, and then walking out to be met with shrieks and lawsuits, is too terrible to contemplate. Were the naked old man and the naked man in his late 30s not there, the ambiguity of location would be too much, sending any rational male into a crazed search for the back-up solution – the inappropriately placed urinals. (For those who are less familiar with men’s changing rooms at pools (I think they’re called ‘girls’), for some bizarre and enormously disturbing reason, the urinals are always just placed against one back wall of the changing room, barely divided from the rest of the area, meaning that anyone peeing there is doing so for the eyes of the rest of the room. Is there no way these places could be made worse?).

I do not know if women’s changing rooms have an old lady and a mum in her late 30s with large off-pink towels. I shall wait to be informed.

Of course, the generational element is easily explained. People are hired as soon as they become dads, and then work for a leisure centre until they die. But it’s not so simple as just standing there endlessly scratching your scrotum with a beach towel – there are techniques, methods, unique skills. So each new arrival is paired up with an older, more experienced expert, who shows him the ropes (snigger).

It is solved. But it remains so very wrong.

Dear the BBC,

I wish to complain in the strongest possible tone about the next blasphemous, abhorent and evil programme you intend to televise at some point in the future. I am furious that you consider whatever it may be to be suitable for our televisions, and demand that you remove it from your schedules immediately.

I would also like to call for the resignation of whomever should be in charge of the channel at the time of the planned broadcast, as clearly he or she has no concept of morality and is unsuitable to have a position of responsibility at our Queen’s televisual station.

The damage that will be done by whatever it might be will be incalculable, especially to the innocent and fragile minds of babies, children and the mental. It makes me enter a corybantic rage to think that the BBC believes this depraved, despicable and horrific filth is appropriate for our eyeballs and brains, especially when we live in a country in which so many poor, stupid or foreign people have easy access to your broadcasts.

Obviously I shall be destroying my TV License when the replacement copy arrives, and I shall be encouraging others to do the same, as soon as such a time should occur when you show this programme, whenever that might be.

You disgust me, and you reduce the name of our Good Lord Jesus Christ, Lord and Mighty Saviour of MANkind to a swear word! It is quite clear that your corporation is infested with gays and blacks, and I weep for your souls on the day the Mighty God of the Universe crushes you slowly to death under His Holy Heels, popping your eyeballs from your sockets as your fragile, limp carcasses collapse pathetically, before you are cast into the eternal torment of a firey Hell.

With the love of Our Lord Jesus,
General Brigadier Second Lieutenant Gerald Harralfmanster, OBE.

Oh deary me, looks like I’m in a pickle. Although I do need to grow a pointy moustache.

Following the ludicrous furore over Jerry Springer The Musical, led by right-wing Christian organisations who don’t even have the balls to expressly state that they are Christians, I have reached the point where I can no longer sit still while these hateful, cruel and foul-faced bigots represent the faith that means so much to me. They are a wretched minority, screaming their bullshit so loud that no one else can be heard.

So I’m going to do something about it. Plans made, manifesto written, cogs beginning to whirr.

Watch out for Christians Who Think.

Much like the fragrant Victoria Hiley, I’ve had to switch on tsukkomi moderation as I’m being spammed like the clappers.

I won’t edit or change or filter comments, so anything sent will get posted. Unless you want to advertise your poker business or offer a mortgage.

My teeth only go wrong on public holidays.

I’m not sure how people whose parents aren’t dentists manage. Although I would still far rather the explosions in my gums would take place during my dad’s normal work hours, and not make me feel all guilty for having him glove up on his day off.

Over the weekend a twinging feeling in my gum became worse and worse, until Monday lunchtime when the increasingly regular pulses of purest agony were propelling me backward in my chair, and making it impossible to concentrate on anything. I was due to travel down on Tuesday to have it poked at, but a phonecall to ask for tips to make the pain go away concluded in my driving the two hours to Guildford on a bank holiday.

My dad’s ace. He hates treating me because my mouth is so utterly rubbish. I think I’ve written about my teeth’s inability to go numb before, but it’s so odd it merits repetition. For some reason, inexplicable by medicine, the teeth at the front of my mouth (ie, everything but the molars) appear to be able to deny the numbing abilities of anaesthetic and deliver perfect sensory feedback for every moment of every drill, grinder, scrapy pokey thing, and even blast of water. It’s like having a hot metal spike driven through the top of my skull which somehow splits at my waist and slices down the centre of each leg. I don’t want to overplay the amount of pain it causes me because I fear someday getting some truly hideous disease like shingles and then realising that I didn’t know what real pain was. But still, in my experience so far, it’s a pain unlike anything I have ever known. And my poor dad, being the person at the other end of the torturing instruments, hates it even more than I do. I think we’ve both ended up crying.

However, I’m joyous to report that this insanity doesn’t extend to my molars or wisdom teeth. I, as is probably quite predictable, was entirely to blame for my situation. Ages ago, months back, a bit of tooth broke off as I was eating. The sensation of biting down on a bit of tooth is remarkable, and I fished it out, looked at it, and thought, “Oh bugger, a bit of my tooth has fallen out. This presumably must hurt. Well, it must be about to hurt. I’m sure it will hurt in a bit. It doesn’t hurt yet. Oh look, time to go out.” And the tooth was forgotten, stupidly failing to send me into convorting twists of hideous agony.

It is of course only months later, after the tooth has been given enough time to rot and die, that the diseased corpse finds its way to stabbing screwdrivers into the nerve ending. And of course it’s only then, when it’s completely disabling me, that I’ll do anything about it. I am an idiot, and the wisdom tooth had to come out.

Having a tooth out when it’s very dead is not a simple thing. It cracked into four or five pieces as the pulling began, meaning that the extraction took quite a while, involving about five different clamps and pliers to be wedged into the increasingly deep hole. The noises were incredible, and I’m delighted to say there was not even a glimmer of feeling, let alone pain. I chuckled at one point as I heard a tremendous scrunching sound. “What’s that noise?” I asked. Well, of course what I said was, “Aahh’s aah oiise?” (I still used the apostrophe. The inability to make consonant sounds is no excuse for sloppy grammar). My dad replied, “That’s you creaking.” Excellent.

So now I have a bruised cheek and a hole where a tooth used to be. If I’d had it checked when it broke, I’d have a filling and a tooth.

This is a cautionary tale. Go to your dentist, you stupid idiots.

For the sake of the most pedantic man ever born, here is a special notice for the hard of understanding:

The films included are based on their official release date in the UK, and not their first release anywhere in the world. This is how Lost In Translation is included, seeing as it was officially released in the UK on the 9th Jan 2004, despite being a 2003 film in the States, and even getting a one-off showing at a film festival in London in October. However, I thought I’d base the list on when films were released in the cinemas here, which, I don’t know, seemed to make sense. Apparently not. And Stuart Campbell is a weehead.

FILMS

2004 will not be heralded as a Golden Era of Cinema. A pretty dismal year means that most top 10 lists around are made up of the only ten films worth mentioning, rather than the results of tough choices. This is no different. However, each deserves to be mentioned.

11) A Tale of Two Sisters – Ji-woon Kim

Despite arguments to the contrary only this evening, this is the scariest film I’ve seen in a very long time. I’m tempted to say ever. Managing to be so much more than a series of shocks or slow-drawn tension, this Korean horror uses the unveiling of understanding to a remarkably sinister effect. And then adds shocks and slow-drawn tension. The performances from Su-jeong Lim andGeun-yeong Mun as the eponymous sisters are something Hollywood appears unable to generate. Scenes with the two girls crying together, their eyes and noses running in absolute terror, are heart-breaking and weirdly honest. We normally allow actors to do the Looking Like I’m Scared Face and ignore that it never occurs outside of cinema. To see the reality of fear on the screen is a ghastly shock. The film also possesses a tenderness that the more famous Japanese horrors fail to generate, making this well worth seeking out.

10) Super Size Me – Morgan Spurlock

Morgan Spurlock’s documentary was the final shove that convinced me to stop fannying about and stop buying fast food. Having not eaten at MacDonalds for five years, it was getting a bit stupid to then happily stuff Burger King into my face. Despite the film’s focussing on MacDs, its broader eye highlighted the word “hypocrit” across my forehead, and I haven’t eaten chainstore fast food since. What makes Super Size Me stand out and above the more famous Fahrenheit 9/11 is Spurlock’s ability to present information without needing to shout his comments over the top. Allowing a voice from all sides of the argument, and never telling you what to conclude, his displayed balance made this a far more effective film than Moore now appears capable of making.

9) Spider-Man 2 – Sam Raimi

Sam Raimi remembered that he is good. Thank goodness. Perhaps suffering stage fright with the first of the franchise, he was clearly much more at home for the sequel, pulling out all his trademark camera work, a delight for silliness, and the brains to not dismiss the superhero genre as needing to be either deadpan or tongue in cheek. Instead it lives between the two, and even delves into his more familiar territory of horror with the surprisingly dark hospital scene.

8) Lost In Translation – Sofia Coppola

Barely 2004, but just, Coppola Jr’s second film understood how to use Bill Murray effectively – meander whimsically. Hopefully Wes Anderson’s ‘The Life Aquatic’ will manage the same. It’s an odd film, almost enchanting with its gentle pace, and entirely fulfilling in its first viewing. So much so that I’ve had no urge to see it again since. Once was lovely, and enough.

7) Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events – Brad Silberling

Despite being far too choppy for the first half, and suffering from trying to pack in four acts due to needing a big finish, it still manages to hold itself together. Cleverly adapting the strongest parts of the books, while boldly leaving out the parts that would suffer from being on film, Silberling ends up with a far more effective vision than even Daniel Handler’s books. Borrowing heavily from Tim Burton, his gothic realisation of the world Handler created is much more evocative than the sketchy outlines provided in the text. Blending technologies from the last one hundred years, and decorating scenes with brilliantly spooky imagery, this allows the imagination of the novels to be given a new life, rather than the more usual book-to-film dampening effect. It’s the opening chapter to a series that should make fans of the oft-compared rubbish books about a wizard look embarrassed.

6) American Splendor – Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini

Again barely scraping into 2004, this conversion of Harvey Pekar’s comic books does the meta thing better than you could hope. Combining fictionalised accounts of the events in Pekar’s life played out by the cast with those being portrayed analysing their character in the film, and then later literally combining them, the perfect cleverness made me want to cheer. It was just such an awesome pleasure to watch.

5) The Corporation – Jennifer Abbott, Mark Achbar

Making a balanced film about the evils of Capitalism would be a fairly stupid thing. Making a film from an intelligently biased perspective as a response to the opposite bias that’s given 24 hour coverage on America’s news channels is a very clever thing to do. Never pretending to be anything other than an information dump and call to action, The Corporation presents the facts as it sees them, with one hell of a lot of evidence to back itself up. At 145 minutes it throws an incredible amount at you, entwining investigative journalism with talking-head interviews, and then asks you to do something about it. Reviews of documentaries are now by law required to mention Michael Moore, which is here made easier by his appearance within it. In his few short moments he manages to say more, and to say those things more effectively, than in the whole of F9/11. I recommend having a notebook with you when you watch, and I do recommend that you watch.

4) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – Michel Gondry

Not much needs saying. Kaufman’s scripts and Gondry’s direction are things that should be combined far more often, and Kate Winslet looks amazing with blue hair. It was all about the viewing, and that’s something I loved doing.

3) The Incredibles – Brad Bird

Everyone likes to say how Pixar have yet to make a bad film. What people don’t tend to mention is that they have made forgettable films. Monsters Inc. barely gets a mention now, with Toy Story and A Bugs Life more heavily placed in long-term consciousness. I believe that Finding Nemo will suffer a similar fading, its very narrow narrative and lack of memorable scenes not supporting longevity. The Incredibles will not. Obviously aimed at an older audience than Nemo or Monsters Inc., it demonstrates that their skills are only increasing as they progress. Possibly most outstanding is the creation of the most realistic family I can remember seeing on film, despite the fact that they’re both cartoons and superheroes. It’s an astonishing piece of cinema, funny, real and full of love.

2) Before Sunset – Richard Linklater

I’m very aware of the thoughts of friends who disliked, even hated Linklater’s sequel to the wonderful Before Sunrise. However, repeated viewings gave their comments no support, and it remains one of my favourite films of the year. Where Before Sunrise was about a moment in a place, Before Sunset is about two people and nothing else. Despite being set in the automatically scene-setting Paris, Linklater makes no attempt to have his location be a character (as Vienna very much was in the first). This is reflected by his repeating a trick from the ending of the former – the empty shots of significant locations – this time at the very beginning. Dialogue dominated, the first half is an exercise in denial, with the second half slamming truth into their conversation, all bolstered by the ever-present shadow of their brief time together. And if you thought Sunrise’s listening booth scene was tense, it’s nothing compared to the walking up the stairs scene here.

There’s no number 1.

Back from the Christmas break, and because of little other than peer pressure, I’m putting together Top Stuff from 2004.

I’m not ideally suited to compiling such lists since my memory appears only capable of recalling from which year something came if it is less than three months old. After that and it could be a decade old for all I can work out. Also, this year saw the loss of 35Gb of music from my machine with the death of a hard drive, and so I’ve spent more energy trying to get back albums I once had than discovering new. I’ve hated that – my normal habit of discovering one or two new bands a week has entirely fallen aside in 2004. So all I can muster are lists of my favourite stuff that in no way reflect the merits or lack of for everything unmentioned.

ALBUMS

1) The Mountain Goats – We Shall All Be Healed

2004 is the year I fell in love with the Mountain Goats, discovering them/him, and finding the decade or so of albums making up probably a third of all my listening from the last six months. From the earliest tape-hiss 4 track rawness to the last couple of slickly produced 4AD releases, John Darnielle’s storytelling has accompanied my walks, soundtracked my review writing, and been in the background whenever anyone’s come ’round. (Asking who it is and expressing a liking makes you best). This second album with 4AD and cohort Peter Hughes, produced by John Vanderslice, manages once more to be loyal to the bedroom-simplicity of his earliest albums, and yet slip in strings and sound effects, without ever distracting from the storytelling. ‘Your Belgian Things’ is the stand-out (yet entirely reserved) track, never quite explaining what it is that has happened to require the collection of someone’s Belgian things from the house, and yet expressing a sense of aching loss that dredges up the bruises of a relationship’s end. However, this ability to remind you of a distant sense of loss is most evocative in ‘Cotton’. “This song is for the people / who tell their families that they’re sorry / for things they can’t and won’t feel sorry for / And once there was a desk / and now it’s in a storage locker somewhere / and this song is for the stick pins and the cottons / I left in the top drawer / Let ’em all go / Let ’em all go.”

2) Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus

Holding more of my shelf space than any other artist, Nick Cave with or without the Bad Seeds is, in my accurate opinion, the best musician alive. And this year, after a brief period of mucking about, he’s proven it again. I really like Nocturama, and it was always intended to be an experiment, but it does now sit as an aside. After the enormous calming down of the beautiful The Boatman’s Call, and then the phenomenal flourish of And No More Shall We Part, this double-album release is possibly the only ideal direction in which he could have headed. Maintaining the piano-driven composure of his recent years, it manages to work back in the perpetual crescendo (you’ll understand the paradox if you ever listened) of the Bad Seeds’ post Birthday Party frenzy. Growling tales of hope within failure are sssspat and ssssnarled by Cave’s doom-ridden voice, and this time with gospel. It’s the only album I made a special trip to the shops to buy on the day of release, because it’s the only album I knew would be worth it.

3) Modest Mouse – Good News For People Who Like Bad News

It’s frustrating to say that a band becomes more accomplished when they become more controlled, but in this case it appears true. Modest Mouse have always generated excellent albums, but Good News… seems to introduce a combination of moderation and melody that now can be realised as lacking. Tracks like ‘Dance Hall’ and ‘Bury Me With It’ still collapse into the sort of drunken ranting that might get sampled in a God Speed track, but now with a foundation that keeps it all in check. But it’s the astonishing four tracks that close the album that make this quite so remarkable. ‘Blame It on the Tetons’ broken-voiced vocals, begging for a cold one, lead into ‘Black Cadillacs’ micro-funk, containing the perfect pop moment: all stops, and, “We named our children after towns, that we’d never been to…”. Then it’s the awesome ‘One Chance’, and finishing in the deceptive bonus-track-like opening of ‘The Good Times Are Killing Us, which then develops into one of the strongest tracks they’ve produced.

4) Iron & Wine – Our Endless Numbered Days

Following a similar path to the Mountain Goats, Iron & Wine’s first album two years ago was a tape-hiss enhanced 4 track production, and it was utterly beautiful. Our Endless Numbered Days, this time produced in a proper studio and everything, allows the melancholic whimsy a lease of freshness that his woodwind voice deserves. Its position is bolstered by containing my favourite track of the year, ‘Naked As We Came’ – possibly the most romantic song about what to do with one’s partner’s ashes ever made. “One of us will die inside these arms / eyes wide open / naked as we came / one will spread our / ashes ’round the yard.” As with the rest of the album, careful guitar and his breathy voice seem to lessen the effects of gravity and allow you to float.

5) The Fiery Furnaces – Blueberry Boat

Completely bonkers, and completely competent, the rolling madness of each track careers between genres like a drunk in HMV. Despite containing none of the elements of a summer album, playing it makes it be summer inside. Summed up best by: Like Of Montreal at the fairground.

6) Ratatat – Ratatat

My surprise favourite live band of the year surprises me further by being one of my favourite albums of the year. An LP of instrumental mid-hop infused with what someone called “post-metal” guitar, it occupies the middle-ground between chilled and bouncy, and impressively manages to create feelings of both at once. A chilled bounce is a splendid thing.

7) The Streets – A Grand Don’t Come For Free

Mike Skinner has the remarkable ability to make cliches acceptable again. No one could have predicted that the phrase “plenty more fish in the sea” could ever be used without destroying all around it, and yet it manages to be the hook of the best pop song this year. Putting a narrative into his second album was either going to be a horrible gimmick, or the secret of its success. That it was so effectively the latter took everyone by surprise. Dry Your Eyes hurt enough as a single, but in its context, and surrounded by so many other keen insights, it’s enough to break you.

8) Green Day – American Idiot

Thank goodness people are noticing that Green Day aren’t shit again. Drowning in the popularity of Basket Case for a decade now, few bother listening before dismissing them into the same bin as the mucky mess of nu-punk. American Idiot’s zeitgeist-surfing lyrics allowed it just enough attention for people to shut up and use their ears. While not as clever as NOFX’s (also ignored) War Against Errorism, it’s a much better album, containing a meandering attitude they’ve previously left unexplored.

9) The Go! Team – Thunder, Lightning, Strike

Six months late, I was. I blame Kieron for not making me listen to them half a year ago, but this summer’s summer album has been my winter blues-buster. I don’t think I can describe them better than in a conversation with a friend recently: “Remember Mint Royale? Like them, but if they were good.”

10) Secret Machines – Now Here Is Nowhere

Deserving of a place in any Top 14 for the opening drum and guitar moment, the whole album goes on to be worthy of recognition. A bit Porcupine Tree in its prog-influence, but not in a rubbish way. Using 80s influences in a helpful way, unlike everyone else just now.

11) The Concretes – The Concretes

Hooray for girls and singing and stuff. Azure Ray didn’t make an album this year, so The Concretes’ slightly faster whistful melodies filled in nicely.

12) Dogs Die In Hot Cars – Please Describe Yourself

Yes, it’s all daft, but who cares. Songs about not having to go to school nor tidy your room are required every now and then. More happy than should be allowed, and inexplicably getting away with ripping off vocal ticks from The Jam, it’s the guilty favourite.

13) cLOUDDEAD – Ten

I’m scared of cLOUDDEAD. If lots of slightly sinister clowns were to form a band (no, not Slipknot), this is how it would sound. They’re the Fiery Furnaces through a glass darkly. The album’s production is absolutely perfect, with the trip-hop and hip-hop sounds requiring a new, more ridiculous term than ever before. Trip-hop-hip-hop. Yes.

14) Of Montreal – Satanic Panic in the Attic

This is the reason why you don’t need to listen to the spoiled version of Smile. Beach Boys influenced gibberish with enough plinky plonky sounds to keep everybody happy.