Woo! Woo! On come The Telescopes who launch into "Precious Little" with a little abandon. It sounds the better for it and the sound is HUGE for the glorious "Treasure". They've also written some new songs. One of them sounds like the Mission but apart from this unfortunate mis-hap, the rest are, like, proper songs! This meteoric development, being more than welcome, improves their live set no end and putting Richard Formby on keyboards to make lots of swishy atmospheric noises was also a good idea.
They remain a fascinating subject. Some people I know don't like them because of their (so they say) unoriginality sound wise- y'know, all those Bloody Valentine, Loop, Mary Chain, etc comparisons, but I don't think they should be dealt with in this way, analysing musical roots and stuff- I don't really care. The Telescopes don't belong to this world. They belong... elsewhere... In a world created by the imagination- though there is some cross over between imagination and reality... The images they conjure up, of all things dark- fear, anger, suicide, obsession, death, all exist in this world but don't often surface too much.
The Telescopes sound (don't worry, I'm not going to start going on about throbbing guitars and tragic violins- you know what they sound like) is the perfect backing for Stephen's twisted imagination. I'll admit, I think Stephen's probably a fascinating bloke- a genuinely creative person with ideas. He went to art college, but later abandoned art as a form of self-expression (art is as corrupt as anything else- it has rules about how you should do things, conventions, traditions, commerciality- only some of it's about free therapeutic self-expression) and took up writing (ie lyrics) and music.
In a recent interview on 'Transmission' Stephen said that everyone has a darker side (Mother Teresa used to have erotic dreams, you know) and indeed, the Telescopes appeal to my darker side, the side which as a child used to go for walks in graveyards, invent the most horrific stories and still does... Have you ever been totally freaked out by your imagination?.... I recently managed to convince myself that I was going to get murdered. Y'see, some people don't need drugs to have strange experiences. Some people look at Dali's paintings and read about how he was in a hysterical semi-mad state while he painted them and they say "he must have been on drugs". Quite narrowminded, that. Stephen, talking about 'Violence' in the Melody Maker, was asked "What were you on?" to which he replied "I was on nothing! Just fear." Fear, it seems, is a highly creative frame of mind to be in, like depression and confusion (look at Van Gogh for example). Out of negative emotions, great things can grow.
But down there, towards the front of the Dial when the Telescopes are playing, I feel no fear at all. (Maybe it's because I know I'm not alone) I could walk out of the building and fall into a black hole and it would be fun... I'm not scared of the dark anymore.. It's as near to losing control as I get. Flailing in a crowd of sweaty bodies, almost wanting to come out covered in bruises. The Telescopes are a form of escapism- losing control, like in 'Sadness Pale' "You can have your celebrations, no one cares until you die" and 'There Is No Floor' "A hurricane of innocence is carved along the wall". I suppose it might be a bit of a contradiction... but it's almost sadistic.. As the ancient Greeks or Romans, whatever it was, watched Christians being eaten by lions, as people these days watch splatter movies- I like to go down to the Dial to watch Stephen being tortured. He screams and twists and dives to the floor. He vents his anguish and his fears.. he crucifies himself.... Bleed, Stephen, BLEED