Saturday September 23rd 2000

I’ve decided to make a New School Year Resolution. No more being nasty to other bands. Partly because when I was interviewed recently, my unkind thoughts on other groups dominated the interview, when really I would have much rather talked about, well, Fosca. Partly also because there’s a wonderful website / online diary in existence called I Hate Music which does it so much better than me.

This is possibly as its writer, Tanya Headon, doesn’t have my somewhat mitigating status of being a Frustrated Rock Star to taint the credence of her relentless vitriol. She is not personally envious of the airplay, TV play, press space, chart space and shop space being taken up by whichever undeserving whelks feature on this week’s dartboard. Quite simply, she hates everything musical ever. Unfortunately for her, she actually knows an awful lot about music, thanks to having dated record collectors in the past and picked it up by osmosis, whether she wanted to or not. When one breaks up with a normal person, there’s often a particular record or two that can never be enjoyed again. If said former beau (and they are always male) is a record collector with wide tastes, whole reams of musical genres may become indelibly despised for the rest of time. It’s the other side of the High Fidelity coin. Read her separate article on the plight of “vinyl widows” here, and weep.

I wouldn’t see myself as an intentional record collector: my room is only crammed with large amounts of CDs and LPs because I simply can’t bear to throw anything away. I don’t like most of them. I do however, confess to making compilation tapes for others (the Spearmint tour bus, in particular) out of some kind of innate territorial grasping, and pathetic attempts at aligning those I’d like to be better acquainted with to my own ridiculous taste. I’ll never learn. It’s a cry for help!