tom hannan #3
By: Thomas Hannan
So that was January. And in retrospect, it was one of the better months of my life, though as usual I was too sleepy / drunk / full of junk food to notice it at the time.
So what made my month? Why, music! First, records - The Good The Bad & The Queen's debut LP sounded like someone had covered 'Modern Life Is Rubbish' in a beautiful haze of London smog, Gruff Rhys made 'Candylion' which was better than I've heard the Super Furries be in yonks, The Blood Brothers allowed me to no longer miss At The Drive-In quite so much (though bear in mind I once over enthusiastically said the same thing about, erm, Billy Tallent... try honesty, try honesty!), The Decemberists freaked me out by going prog and Bloc Party and the Klaxons bucked the trend of Brits not being able to live up to expectations by delivering remarkably strong records. Oh, and then I heard Deerhoof - the first actually perfect record of the year.
In amongst listening to all that, I managed to have a birthday. And being the selfish 22 year old I am, one party wasn't enough. The second one involved my flatmate and girlfriend filling my bedroom, to my total surprise, with eight hundred balloons after a trip to the pub. Think of eight hundred balloons. Now add a few more, because whatever you're thinking isn't quite enough. Check the picture, there are a few of them. Anyhow, the first celebration some of you were there for yourselves - The Basement Club, and t'were one of my favourites. With Thomas Truax running past you making dog noises - that's how to turn 22, that is. Check the report, have a look at Truax's exhibition whilst you're at it, and pant with excitement about next month.
These photo exhibitions I'm rather liking, (what with the Eagles of Death Metal one up as well), but perhaps my favourite piece recently was Tom Hocknell's assessment of the relationship between music and imagery in an increasingly download-centric world of record buying, not least because it spawned a follow up article from Miss Spens on a book documenting underground art (a tome I recommend you hunt down - to Fopp with you!). What with that and Matt Tomiak finding out that he'd shared nightmarish experiences in a Worcester nightclub with the Guillemots, there's much fun to be had on the rfb-dot-com at the minute.
The atmosphere in this office is excellent at present, boosted of course by the fact that the incredible third album by the Shins, 'Wincing the Night Away' is out on our sister label Transgressive Records this week, and by all reports is doing rather well. And so it should be - it's a daring, romantic, haunting and beautiful record, and you're going to keel over when you hear it.
Wait for seven and a half hours and it'll be February. I'm excited about it.