A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion.
Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Revaluation (A Warm Feeling)
My responses was Saint Etienne's revaluation of late 90s/ early 00s pop into their 2021 album I've Been Trying To Tell You (with Jane Weaver on board on remix duties) and Taking Heads way back in 1978 with New Feeling.
The Bagging Area community came up with these: Walter with The Beastie Boys and Paul's Boutique; Ernie with Van Morrison's Warm Feeling; Rol and The Smith's Paint A Vulgar Picture; Al G and The Avalanches; Chris with Killing Joke; and Ardliz with a twenty minute Julian Cope extravaganza, Planetary Sit In, that you should know if you don't already...
This weeks' card says this- Make a blank valuable by putting it in an exquisite frame
This is the first time I've turned an Oblique Strategy card over and felt that maybe Mr Eno and Herr Schmidt are taking the piss a little.
Maybe it's time for this...
Half Man Half Biscuit back in 1997 on their voyage to the bottom of their road.
'Brian's not at home, he's at the North Pole but if you'd like to leave a weird noise'
Going back to the card and the suggestion that I make a blank valuable by putting it in an exquisite frame made me think about sleeves and artwork, pop music presented as high art- the Pet Shop Boys have been doing that since the mid- 80s but I wouldn't call their music blank, defitnely not the imperial phase they went through from '87 to '92.
Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat...
I wondered about bad music in good sleeves and, I suppose, the idea that Eno and Schmidt are hinting at; re- framing nothingness as a masterpiece.
Talking Heads (them again) final album Naked came in a sleeve that played with this idea, a painting of a chimpanzee holding a flower with a heavy gilt frame around it, as if taken off the wall of a gallery. I don't think making Naked was a particularly happy experience for the band, they all knew they were splitting up. Guest stars abound- Mory Kante, Wally Badarou, Kirsty McColl and Johnny Marr among a cast of dozens. On (Nothing But) Flowers Marr plays genuinely brilliant, inventive African hi- life guitar, freed from straitjacket of The Smiths to do whatever he wanted. Meanwhile David Byrne sings about nature reclaiming the cities, a Pizza Hut all covered in daisies...
In 1971 Bob Dylan presented his masterpiece, a song that first appeared on an album by The Band, Cahoots, and then on the second volume of his Greatest Hits (a very odd selection of songs sequenced strangely too in a will this do? sleeve).
It's a typically laid back early 70s Dylan song, something quite ordinary in a way- ordinary for him I mean, it's not what I'd describe as blank but equally it's not the match of the songs from his 1964- 1966 purple patch and it's not a Blood On The Tracks song either. Having said that it's vivid and fully realised and streets ahead of some of the stuff he put out on Self Portrait.
It was a song that Dylan discarded and then went back to, reappearing in his Never Ending tour setlists. When asked about it in an interview in 2020 Dylan said this-
'It's grown on me... I think this song has something to do with the classical world, something that's out of reach. Someplace you'd like to be beyond your experience. Something that is so supreme and first-rate that you could never come back down from the mountain. That you've achieved the unthinkable. That's what the song tries to say, and you'd have to put it in that context. In saying that, though, even if you do paint your masterpiece, what will you do then? Well, obviously you have to paint another masterpiece'.
Feel free to put your own responses to Make a blank valuable by putting it in an exquisite frame in the comment box.
3 comments:
When I think of this card, I’m reminded of cover versions that, through a fresh interpretation, gain in quality or give the song a new identity. One example I’d mention is the Cowboy Junkies’ version from their first LP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa9nN3G2CSg
I thought instrumentals - lyrically blank but sounds lovely. Because I know you're a fan I'll suggest "Bryter Layter" by Nick Drake as an example.
The 'Sound of young Scotland', epitomised by the Postcard label in the early eighties, was really a product of the creative imaginations of a rag tag of nascent wee fellas kicking against the concrete brutalism of Thatcher's Britain for Conservatives... No small feat if you grew up in the urban sprawl of East Kilbride.
In this context, it makes perfect sense that America, and the romantic rebellion it embodied as the home of rock n roll, would provide the vision underpinning the plan of a select few to escape the silently oppressive tenement blocks of their youth with little more than a guitar and some attitude.
From early on, it was obvious Roddy Frame and his mates would be going on to bigger and better things, leaving behind the drudgery from which they were spawn. In this way, it can be said they wrapped a new frame, and an exquisite one at that, around the tales of their humble beginnings.
This section from a 2014 Quietus interview picks up the theme...
TQ: Bands like Orange Juice and Aztec Camera always had ambition. The Postcard slogan ‘The Sound of Young Scotland’ echoing Motown – why has there always been that connection with Scottish bands and American soul?
RF: I grew up in East Kilbride and Tamla Motown was what people listened to all the time. Barry White was huge. There was always a big country & western and soul thing, particularly in Glasgow.
TQ: What was it like growing up in East Kilbride?
RF: I liked it. Jesus And Mary Chain come from there, and (Rangers boss) Ally McCoist. East Kilbride was a new town, a bit like Basildon. Built for what was charmingly termed ‘the Glasgow overspill’. My friend said, ‘We’re not Glaswegians, we’re a social experiment.’ It was all new and modern. Quite concrete. That’s all right, concrete’s not always bad. There were strips of grass and football pitches and a youth club. My parents didn’t like it because they came from Glasgow and they missed the sense of community, the warmth of the tenements. But then my Dad would remind my Mum, ‘Remember when you were pacing the block waiting for me to come home because there was a rat in the room.’
TQ: You were only 16 when you signed to Postcard. What did you remember from that era?
RF: It was brilliant. A real scene. I owe Alan Horne a huge debt. He imbued me with confidence and a healthy cynicism. I picked up some of his contrariness. When I was 13 I’d read NME from cover to cover. Alan was like my Andy Warhol and Julie Burchill rolled into one. He was very cynical, very stylish. Postcard was the perfect apprenticeship. So years later when a manager was on the phone saying, ‘Where’s the record? The record company want a new record, a new cover, a blurb…’ I’d say, ‘Fuck off.’
TQ: It was obviously a formative period, and you made strong friendships?
RF: Edwyn and I are still muckers after all these years. Edwyn’s been on a hell of a journey. Why did we gel? I was 16 and he was 20. That was a huge gap. He was just ahead of me, doing it like an older brother. He made a record before me, he was on the front cover of NME before me. He was on the path in front of me… so obviously I was very determined to be seen as separate from that.
TQ: Orange Juice were quite sophisticated, they had that jangly American Modern Lovers thing. Josef K were more into the Stooges and the Velvets and Berlin-period Bowie. Then we came along last and were a bit of both. We were seen as a bit gauche because we were very working class. I was still learning. I wore my influences on my sleeve. If I heard something like Wes Montgomery that would be on the record. Or The Clash. I was finding my way on the guitar. That’s why so many chords and lyrics are flowery and abstract. I wanted to write like Howard DeVoto.
Quite the story. So, here's their second single, first given airtime by Peel way back when...
https://youtu.be/5jtzu8RdicQ?is=5bJuSnsy19aDfZeS
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