Rubbish Recommendations #1 – An Introduction

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When anyone asks me what I do for a living, I tell them that I criticise people for what I can’t do myself. I can’t write or perform music and I can’t play Rugby League. But yet I write on both these subjects, and criticising people for doing these things infinitely better than I could myself is my way of paying the rent. Call me a professional hypocrite…

Getting paid to write about music sounds ludicrous in itself, John Peel once wrote about being on the radio, “I’ll laughingly call this ‘my career’”, because the concept of simply playing music and being paid to do it was (and still is), quite frankly, too good to be true. Peel couldn’t even do it well most of the time, playing the wrong tracks at the wrong speeds. And it’s the same with writing about music and (just about) keeping the wolves from the door – there are probably a million worse ways to get by in life.

What Peel could do that I can’t though, is have any sort of affiliation with what people like. Peel introduced me to some of my favourite artists: Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Shitmat, Bearsuit. I’ve introduced people to probably nothing. When I put on gigs (increasingly rarely), I put on people I think will be a massive draw because I love them, then they turn out to only be attended by supportive and slightly pitying friends. When I talk to people who know much more about music than I do and discuss what we’re listening to they say ‘Rat-who?’ or simply, ‘you think the Dent May album was the best of last year? You’re fucking insane.’

Both these statements have been made to me by people I respect in the last week or so, and playing an experimental electronic library and Middle Eastern DJ set at New Year when all people wanted to dance to was Echo & the Bunnymen and Joy Division records was extremely depressing. Nobody seems to like the records I love, and music fans are becoming wise to the lack of taste of the humble music critic (thank you very much free downloading and Spotify).

It works both ways. Personally, I hate LCD Soundsystem’s Sound of Silver, it’s by far my most detested record of, well, pretty much my entire life. And I simply don’t understand the incredible love and affection given to Fuck Buttons’ Tarot Sport or The XX. These records are neither original nor interesting – all have been done before, and infinitely better.

But what do I know? The increasingly redundant music scribe… You can all go to Spotify and see that I’m (probably) wrong, and that the Dent May record is just a warbling nonce with a ukulele, and that the best music in the world isn’t made by Adam & Joe. I’m just a simple man, with exceptionally simple tastes… I like something that makes me smile more than something that a muso says is ‘atmospheric’ or worthy of the term ‘soundscape’, and I like the idea of a six foot something white man from Swindon ‘doing hip-hop’ in squats more than the latest ‘cool’ band on the scene in Shoreditch.

So asking my opinion on anything is probably slightly worthless. Nonetheless, I’ve been asked to write this column to talk about forgotten gems, and amazing independent record labels, and music I love.

It’s always a tough one, and the question ‘who are you listening to at the moment?’ usually gets a bit of a shrug and a mumbled ‘Ratface’. As he’s the only person who I’ve ever felt has been criminally overlooked. He does hip-hop, but it is punk. He’s an absolute phenomenon live and now, after about three years of DIY releases, he’s started to get some attention from small indies. He featured on the awesome Brainlove Records compilation Fear of a Wack Planet at the end of last year, and I think (read: hope) they might be doing something with his new material this year.

Entirely home produced, he’s probably the best producer barely known outside of Bristol at the moment. I’m kind of fed up with his music now after having it on loop for so long, but I always forget that nobody knows who he is, and they should, even if they hate him.

Myspace.com/ratfacemuzak

Record to buy in February: Maria & the Mirrors – ‘Omar’ (single on download and 7”, released on Parlour Records on 8 Feb.)