Since Sufjan Stevens became the poster boy for a certain kind of American indie fan, there’s been no little speculation about what grand project he’s going to embark on next: which State might be worked over so fastidiously; whether the album about birds might ever come to fruition.
It’d be nice to claim that I had an infallible eye for spotting a future superstar, but watching the ascent of the Gossip over the past two or three years, I’m reminded that there was a band I could’ve never have imagined becoming big. When I first saw them play in, what, 2002 maybe, I thought they were terrific. But they also seemed to be so tightly embedded in a post-riot grrl scene of fanzine elitists that, for all the strengths of Beth Ditto’s personality and pipes, they’d surely be more or less unintelligible to the mainstream.
A strange moment of the stars aligning, possibly by accident, towards the end of last week, when the remastered My Bloody Valentine reissues turned up in the Uncut office in the same post as Kevin Shields’ collaboration with Patti Smith, “The Coral Sea”. You wait x amount of years for one dreamrock charabanc to arrive, then three arrive, and so on. . .
As you might imagine, a fair amount of excitement round these parts at the prospect of a six-hour Neil Young gig tonight. I'll report back first thing tomorrow; it's going to be interesting to see how much the show resembles the one Damien saw in Edinburgh. Please keep filing your reviews of the shows, too - I'm fascinated to know how - or if - the spectacle will evolve as the month progresses. Maybe "No Hidden Path" will just get longer and longer?
