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| Christmas dinner at the Dickens' |
During our recent trip to London, my girlfriend and I visited the Charles Dickens museum in the writer's old house on Doughty Street. Visitors to the museum can get an idea of daily living in Victorian England as well as an insight into the personality of the writer: the Anglo-centric world traveller, the bon viveur, and the one he hid deep inside: the 11 year old child working in the factory to free his father from debtors' prison. London still reminds you of Dickens' stories when you least expect it: a shop here, a pub there, a row of chimneys out of "Oliver Twist". As it turns out, Dickensian references can even be found at the bottom of a crate labelled 3CD's-for-£1 at a used books-and-records store in Stoke Newington. Chancing upon a CD called "The Oliver Twist Manifesto" I immediately put it aside on the "interesting" pile. I had never heard of its existence but I knew Luke Haines makes good albums: I have an LP and a few CD's by his bands The Auteurs and Baader-Meinhof. His version of Oliver Twist sings "Get off your knees you grovelling bastards/This is Oliver Twist pissing over Britannia...There was this gang who I used to run with/Swindlers, knaves, urchins scum, spivs/Looking good comes in handy/When you're dipping from the pockets of a dandy". Doesn't sound much like the well-mannered boy whose most famous phrase is “Please, sir, I want some more”. At best, he sounds like his pal the Artful Dodger. On the cover the singer poses, dressed like mr. Dickens himself, with a bunch of modern-day "street" kids, holding banners with the albums' alternative title "What's Wrong with Popular Culture". And who better to explain it than the notoriously rancorous Luke Haines? His lyrics are full of bile, carefully making sure to insult everybody from pop icons and the entertainment industry to obscure sculptors and (naturally) the English press, mocking every notion of Englishness and religion in the bargain. He makes his intentions clear from the opening verses "This is not entertainment/Don't expect me to entertain you/any more than you could entertain me...Run away if you don't like it/You don't need to worry your pretty head about it/Don't beg for mercy, you'll get none, now it's war/This is Rock 'N' Roll Communique No.1". Musically, though, it's curiously light: Pop melodies, soaring strings both real and synthesized, and electronic disco rhythms are employed to produce one of his most accessible offerings, closer to the chamber pop of Divine Comedy than the angular new wave of The Auteurs. "Oliver Twist" and the "Oliver Twist Manifesto" masterfully blends dramatic strings and electronic bleeps while "Discomania" evokes an unholy union of Pulp, ABBA and Ennio Morricone. On "Christ" he mixes religious imagery with self-mythologizing while combining seemingly random words with the name Christ. "England VS America" is a slow tune full of a very English brand of self-loathing and "Never work" a lovely ballad referencing a Guy Debord slogan from May '68 "Ne travaillez jamais...We'll call a general strike/For the right to never work". Great sentiment and beautiful album. If only he had followed "Oliver Twist" with his version of "A Christmas Carol" I'd have the perfect alternative blog entry for the holidays...
**** for Rock 'N' Roll Communique No.1, Oliver Twist, Discomania, The Oliver Twist Manifesto
*** for Death Of Sarah Lucas, Never Work, Mr. & Mrs. Solanas, What Happens When We Die, Christ, The Spook Manifesto
** for England VS America
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