critter underworld by Simon Aulman

obviously something that was going to be a long bitty thing, but all the tracks are quite ambient, and while it still held this identity it seemed better to zap it out now, before the struggle to make it more "interesting", which in all areas always fails

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Well I did my rock'n'roll duty two nights in a row - last night I was over at Heartbreakers to see System Exclusive. I and my two companions were exactly half of the total audience. They'd come all the way from America, this was their first show, and we all felt very embarrassed and apologetic for them and we all tried our hardest, and I think did rather well. If in hundreds of years this gig becomes a culty bootleg (and it should) then it might sound like there were ooooooh twenty-five people in the crowd.

I thought they were brilliant. Just two of them. He's on the drums and is mesmerising and even though she is much better-looking than he is it was him I mainly looked at. Couldn't help it. She's on guitar and she sings. Perhaps she was a little swamped by him. Although it's a bit like when ABC released Alphabet City and "everyone" (ie me) said that the lushness of their previous album had been damaged by now putting the pounding drums too far forward - and it took a decade or two for me to realise that having the drums so much in my ears was utterly beautiful too.

In the are-they-better-or-worse-live-than-on-album question, have to admit that they are better live. Last night they sounded like a cross between Mazzy Star and early Siouxsie & The Banshees. That's not a bad thing to sound like. She was the only one to talk between the songs, and she did mercifully little of that, and even-better she has very little personality - at least in front of a mic. And from me that is certainly not a criticism.

I am tired of personality and have always been secretly relieved that I have so little of it myself. I always agree with whoever I'm with, I always let them do as much talking as they want, all of it if that's how it goes. Perhaps I felt a little guilty when I was young about contributing so little to the Great Human Party. But alongside all the other benefits of age I've found that I no longer feel any pressure whatsoever to have any personality whatsoever. I think this a valuable feeling to pass on to the young and the depressed - it is possible to actually revel in not having anything interesting to say, just as it is possible to revel in being positively unpopular - in these brief intense musical jags I sleep so much better for knowing that I am completely unpopular and have nothing interesting to contribute. No pressure.

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recorded over the past few days, cover painting by me