Another Fosca album review, this time in Croatia:
http://terapija.net/mjuzik.asp?ID=4333
Kristijan from the site writes:
The album is absolutelly stellar and it got 9/10… It’s in croatian but it’ll get translated to english in the next couple of days so i’ll send you the link to that one as well… Fosca (and you) have our full support!
Here’s an interview I did for them, in English:
http://terapija.net/interwju.asp?ID=4335
Though I mention there’s not much planned for Fosca in the future, I should have pointed out the new songs we’re recording.
The Magnetic Fields-y song is now called ‘My Diogenes Heart’. As in the grumpy philosopher who lived in the tub; the original cynic. Though I’m very much against being cynical all the time, I think a certain wariness of the world is no bad thing at times, particularly if you’re feeling a bit removed from it all. And of course some people are brought together by shared estrangements as much as shared likes. ‘You can’t stand asparagus? How funny, neither can I! Let’s get married.’ Hence the song.
It started out being called ‘I Won’t Put You On Hold’: a song about being in love with someone who’s already in love with their mobile phone. But apart from the limitations of the premise (and it’s not really my style to do something that blunt), I think more people would sympathise with a phone addict than with a phone-less admirer trying to get a word in edgewise. It shows the lyricist up as the odd one out trying to pass himself off as an everyman.
A stand-up comedian circa 1992 might have said ‘Aren’t people with mobile phones a bunch of poseurs?’Â (I dimly recall the music press once took the mickey out of Wedding Present singer David Gedge when he brandished a mobile phone backstage at a festival – this would be ’92 or so). But try that today and the comedian would be the odd one out in the room. Actually, that’s an idea for a character: the stand-up comedian whose observations are all jarringly out of date. Probably been done. In fact, I think I’ve seen one or two like that in real life. ‘Those Tamagotchis – what’s going on there, eh?’
***
I do an awful lot of wasting time on the Internet. Here’s three more noble uses of this urge, which I’m happy to pass on:
Online petition 1: Stand with Tibet – Support the Dalai Lama:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/tibet_end_the_violence/98.php/?cl_tf_sign=1
Petition 2: Stop the UK Govt deporting those who may be executed for being gay:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Stopdeportinggay/
Related BBC news story for the above:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7294908.stm
Finally (if you’re not already aware of it), play the FreeRice vocabulary game and help the UN’s World Food Program:
http://www.freerice.com/
***
From now till Sunday it’s all Fosca, Fosca, Fosca. Here’s what’s happening.
Tomorrow we rehearse in Camden from noon till 6pm. We’ve got two new songs to arrange, plus an acoustic session to practice, as well as rehearsing the live set proper. I’ve also got three phone interviews to do, one of which will have to be carried out halfway through the rehearsal.
We leave from London City Airport on Wednesday morning. Then it’s Stockholm for an acoustic TV session, then TWO interviews, then the gig.
On Thursday it’s off to Karlstad to record these two new songs – possibly a third if we have the time (an acoustic version of a rare song, perhaps). Then we’re onstage at 11.30pm. Friday is dominated by a – gulp – SEVEN hour drive to Lund. Saturday is Gothenburg: four hours in the van followed by an acoustic performance at a record shop. Then one more gig.
Sunday sees a welcome lie-in, then we catch a mid-afternoon plane back to Stansted.
There’s playing gigs for the love of playing, and there’s the point where it becomes work. But it’s a nicer kind of work.
First phone interview at 9am. To bed, then.
