Why Everett True is wrong

Written for Collapse Board

“Mostly only art created by women has any validity. The male experience has been created and recreated so often” – Everett True, 1992

That is such bulls***. It’s like saying that only Tuvan throat singing/rock hybrids have any validity because you don’t get much of that, either. (And, f***, it’s good stuff.)  I don’t flip the sleeve over to check the gender before I’ll listen to the record, any more than I’d think too much about whether they were, say, Turkish. And, yes, a Turkish act does bring a certain flavour to the mix that you rarely get with non-Turkish acts. It’s informed and shaped by its Turkishness but not wholly defined by it because it’s more than that and to reduce it to that is to insult it.

Take Aylin Aslim, for example. I don’t know who she is, but I love her. I don’t have the slightest clue what she’s singing about (though Google translate tells me it’s called “ghoul”). There’s definitely a Turkishness to what she does, but I don’t set out to listen to Turkish folk. I just like this one – her – because she has such a don’t-give-a-f*** attitude and playful energy that makes her an absolute joy to listen to.

#musicmonday – Cardiacs (various tracks)

Lucy Cage’s superb review of the new William D Drake album was such that it inspired veteran Cardiacs-hater Everett True to give them another listen. It certainly inspired me to spend some time listening to Cardiacs this afternoon, and picking just one song isn’t merely impossible, it’s plain wrong!

It’s so easy to find people who say “I don’t like Cardiacs”, but after over 30 years of making music, that’s a lot like saying “I don’t like David Bowie”. Sure, there’s certain recogniseable common elements that you can associate with “the Cardiacs sound”, but their music is so varied that even if you think you hate them, you’ll love at least one of these.