80 Blocks From Tiffany's in The Guardian

My feature on Gary Weis' superb film 80 Blocks From Tiffany's is in today's Guardian. You can read the piece here and then by the DVD here

Sex And The City

In a departure from my normal subject matter, I was commissioned by Stylist to write an opinion piece on Miranda from Sex And The City. Cue Houellebecq quotes, references to American Psycho and a woman having her brain eaten by her own genitals.

Anvil in Arena

The current edition of Arena is out this week and includes my lengthy article on Anvil! The Story of Anvil, Sacha Gervasi's superb documentary about the early Eighties Canadian heavy metal legends. Ultimately, the film - and the article – are a celebration of the little man.

"Watching these two men, bound together by nothing more than a childhood pact to always rock together you realise that failure doesn’t have to be – and wasn’t always – something to be mocked or despised. Historically there was always a tension between creative and commercial success in the arts. It’s only relatively recently that the market has become so dominant that even self-style ‘indie’ bands will happily sell out to any commercial enterprise going and art only has a worth if it can be measured in sterling. Watching This Is Anvil you see that failure, when realised so completely and when still allied to an unshakeable belief in the righteousness of your own cause, can be truly noble."

Here they are proving my point at the Tokyo Rock Festival in 1984:

Some rare live Joy Division

Joy Division are such a fucking lazy reference point for bands/journalists that it's easy to forget how incredible they were. Basically, when any band nowadays get compared to them, what they or the writer means is 'the singer wears a tie and does a stupid version of that jerky dance.' That's it.What's almost certain is that any band who genuinely did sound like them nowadays wouldn't even get a record deal.

Bah. Anyway, press screenings start tonight of Control, Anton Corbijn's biopic of Ian Curtis which had very favourable reviews from Cannes. I'm too late to catch tonight's screening, but will report back as soon as I've got a review.

In the meantime, enjoy this excellent Super-8-with-sound footage of them tearing through a couple of tracks in an Altrincham pub in 1979. Nice to see something other than the so-so clip of them on Somethin' Else that gets endlessly recycled…

P.S. You can also check Scott King's excellent artistic tribute to Joy Division here. It's a bit like Stella Vine - if she wasn't a talentless cunt and if she ever stopped sucking up to famous people and using obvious symbolism.

Lost Film Classics: Radio On

Chris Petit's early Eighties road movie, Radio On is now available on DVD. There's a very good review of it here at the new Brithack film reviews site. I think the author's a little harsh on the film, but it's definitely worth checking. Superb use of Bowie and Kraftwerk throughout it.