September 2010
51 posts
Play
Listen
A 90-minute conversation between Momus and Alan Bangs broadcast in November 1987 on his legendary show Nightflight on BFBS Cologne.
Play
After an Observer feature imagining what John Lennon would have made of Twitter and Blur, someone called Stewpot wrote:
This kind of article is very useful to me, otherwise I wouldn’t know what someone thought that a famous person might have thought about something which the famous person didn’t actually see, because the famous person is actually dead.
But what I think would make this even more useful is one of those “What would George Orwell have thought?” articles on this. For example, “What would George Orwell have thought about John Lennon’s opinions about Twitter?”. Taking this a stage further, we could also pose the question “What would Michael Jackson say about George Orwell’s opinions about John Lennon’s opinions about Twitter?”
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize that there is a goldmine of potential articles here, a galaxy of dead people who can be surreptitiously resurrected to give pseudo-opinions. “What would Napoleon Bonaparte have thought about Adolf Hitler?”, “What would Sam Cooke have thought about Kanye West’s outbursts?”, “What would Saddam Hussein have thought about the rise of Facebook?” etc. etc.
It’s satire, of course, but there’s something in it. I’d like to read Adorno’s view of Montaigne’s take on Gandhi’s opinion of the “like button”.
Listen
Momus interviewed in 1988 over a trans-Atlantic satellite line (London to Montreal) by CBC’s Brent Bambury for his Brave New Waves show.
Momus interviewed in 1988 over a trans-Atlantic satellite line (London to Montreal) by CBC’s Brent Bambury for his Brave New Waves show.
Listen
People must think I’m obsessed with the past, but it’s just that I’m presently processing a ton of boxed stuff before moving to Japan, where I won’t have access to it. That includes grabbing audio off cassettes. Here’s the second compilation of Momus demos from the 1990s, comprising Personality Test, Pure Selfishness, Virtual Reality, Peek A Boo, Kick, Thank You Party People, Conquistador, Spacewalk, and (from a bit later in the decade) The Most Important Man Alive.
Listen
When I was 9 and living in Edinburgh, this Paul Klee image hung on my wall. Ten years later, I heard an extraordinary BBC Radio 3 documentary about Klee, and was drawn into a world in which visual art could be evoked by sound. The programme was written by Edward Lucie-Smith, music is by Malcolm Clarke of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and the producer is Judith Bumpus, who died earlier this year.
The recording I have is in mono, copied from a cassette. I’ve reprocessed it to add a bit more depth, but it still falls short of the amazing stereo depth of the original transmission.
Listen
Here are some demos of unknown Momus songs from the early 1990s. In order of appearance: Someone, Nasty Child, Fabulous Times, Repetition, Timelords, Things You Never Did, Who Was That Man? Song of the Traffic Crossing, Sea Battle Between the Genji and Heike (Imperial Boat on Fire), The President of Love, Moonlight Fantasia, Let It Die, Babylon Alphaville
Link
Play
Listen
One hour of postpunk music from the John Peel programme, 1980 and 1978.
Play
