I haven’t posted anything in a long time. I’m writing a book. I’m meant to be avoiding the internet. Which doesn’t mean I’m not watching endless TED videos and reading author interviews on the Paris Review website, it just means I’m not reposting any of them here. So, I’m half avoiding the internet. I shall return. Love you all xxx
I have interviewed Jay Kay from Jamiroquai many, many times. I interviewed him again recently for the cover feature of the Mail On Sunday’s Live Magazine colour supplement. I will add it to the interview/journalism page soon. In the meantime you can read it on the Mail’s website here. Don’t believe everything you read in the papers (unless I wrote it); he’s charming, funny, always entertaining and one of the few interesting people in music – I wouldn’t keep interviewing him if he wasn’t. Music could do with more like him. Gawd bless you sir. A true gent and a scholar.
I am now officially to be found on RocksBackpages.com.
For those who don’t know RocksBackpages.com is the biggest and most prestigious archieve of music journalism to be found anywhere on the internet. Which means that I’m now sharing server space with some of the finest words from the likes of Lester Bangs, Nick Kent, Danny Baker, Felix Dennis, Nick Logan, Nick Hornby, Neil Tennant – yes, that Neil Tennant – Toby Young, Will Self, John Robb, Charles Shaar Murray, Andrew Mueller, Stuart Maconie, Dorian Lynskey, Paul Morley, Steven ‘Swells’ Wells, Phil Sutcliffe, Paolo Hewitt and saucy Loyd Grossman. Distinguished company I’m sure you’ll agree, although I like to think I hold my own.
Over the coming months my features, interviews and reviews will be added to the RocksBackpages.com library, making it the most exhaustive record of my journalism online and as if that wasn’t reason enough to pay the site a visit and sign-up for a reasonably priced subscription, I’ll also be posting witty, insightful and well argued music related pieces on my RocksBackpages.com writer’s blog – or more likely rambling semi-coherently about the twin and not completley incompatible joys of pop and downtempom cinematic jazz.
How could you even think of missing it?
The results are in for the Story140 contest on Twitter, organised by Twitter micro-novelist Nick Warren, and I’m suitably pleased to announce that I came joint second, out of 20, with @mikebreed. Apparently were both just two votes behind the winner, @leeporter. To read Lee’s winning story, which I bagged as the winner as soon as I read it, and all the other 140 character stories click here.
I wrote 10 stories for the competition, before choosing this one as my entry:
“Small skinny decaf latté?” repeated the girl behind the counter. Samantha nodded. “Small skinny decaf latté? Do you even like coffee?”
The other nine were…
They told her that he’d been killed instantaneously. What did they know. She’d gone to great lengths to ensure he hadn’t.
The carpark was empty. He heard the footsteps behind him, but as usual, when he turned, there was no one. Always the same disappointment.
The barman poured him another drink, ‘on the house’. “Thanks,” he said. “Hey Dirk, old buddy, anytime.” Who Dirk was he had no idea.
The lift doors closed. He had 4 floors to decide, but knew it wasn’t enough. The deli counter was a minefield for the indecisive executive.
The newsreader stumbled, then broke into a sweat. He wasn’t sure, but he might just have called the Prime Minister Darling.
Every word, every character was beautifully crafted. Now all that was missing was the one thing which had eluded him all his life, a point.
“But I like money,” said Andrews, confused by the suggestion that there’s more to life. “I mean, you can’t eat spirituality.”
“To solve teen pregnancy we must instil in the young a sense of ambition,” the politician said. The student nodded, “Like wanting a PS3?”
Divorce wasn’t an option. Too expensive, too messy, too depressing. But sudden, violent death? It had its benefits. Like keeping the car.
I’ve been invited to write a 140 character story for the Story 140 competition being run by Twitter’s very own micro-novelist Nick Warren. A daunting task. If you haven’t read any of Nick’s stories on Twitter I suggest you stop reading this and go and follow him now. The drama, intrigue and humour he can find in 140 characters (including spaces) is staggering. My particular favourite being his story of Jan 19 2009, the eve of President Obama’s inauguration:
Welcome Mr President, we’ve been looking forward to meeting you. Agent Owen and I are with Alien Liaison sir, perhaps you’d better sit down.
Don’t know if I can match Nick’s pithy prose – as he puts it, a novel is a marriage, a short story an affair, the twitter story is a kiss – but I’m having a damn good go. Have written 10 possible contenders so far. I can only enter one, not sure how I’m going to pick, but so the other nine don’t go to waste, I’ll post them here after Nick has announced the winner of the competition.
Feel free to follow me on Twitter. Click here or go to www.twitter.com/dangennoe. I’m quite entertaining. The operative word there though is quite.
Ah, the eternal question: What is cool?
Always followed by: And why have some people/places/things got it while others haven’t?
Are cool and style the same thing?
Are all stylish things cool?
Does something have to be fashionable to be cool? Or is cool about doing your own thing?
Is cool the same as the other indefinable quality we call x-factor? Or can you have that special star something and still be naff?
Is cool passion, authenticity, confidence, lack of effort or all of the above?
How do you know when you’ve got it? How do you know when it’s gone?
Is it something you’re born with?
Can you acquire it?
Can you buy it?
Can you sell it?
Is it something you can learn to be or does trying result in instant disqualification?
What’s your definition of cool?
Would it be the same as mine?
If it really is indefinable, then how come we all seem to know that those pictured above – Barack Obama, Steve McQueen, Apple’s iPhone, New York, Philippe Stark’s Juicer, Keith Richards, Miles Davis, James Dean, Adidas Shell Toes – all have it. Or maybe you don’t agree that they do.
How important is it anyway?
All my life I’ve been fascinated by the concept of ‘cool’, something you can’t see or touch yet we all instantly recognise, and react favourably to. Cool people/places/things are always popular, always respected, usually successful, invariably admired. Why? What have they got? What do they know? Can they themselves define it?
That’s what I’m intending to find out with The Definition Of Cool, my own personal journey in search of that magic formula. But first I need your help. I need to know your definition of cool. Who are the people, places and things that you think have it? And how would you put it into words? Don’t be too clever. I’m trying to get together a solid cast of characters I can go and interview – or in the case of products, places and dead people, those who know/knew them well. So don’t be afraid to be too obvious – obscure may be cool, but for our purposes it won’t get us very far. Pick people, places and things which are widely known and recognised, and tell me why you think they’re cool, along with your own definition, in the comments. Once I’ve got a sufficiently cool long list, I’ll be running a series of polls here on the blog to narrow it down to a short list of interviews for the book so don’t forget to sign-up to the mailing list here or subscribe to the RSS feed here, so you won’t miss your chance to vote.
In an effort to make things look cheerier (and prove that I really am a journalist) I’ve added page scans to all the articles in the journalism section. You’re welcome.
If you’ve been to www.dangennoe.net before (as in, in the last year), you’ll notice there have been a few changes. This blog bit is new for a start, and we’ve had the decorators in. There are lots of new features as well, Twitter updates, a Flickr photostream, a tag cloud… Yes, I know, all very web 2.0.
It’s still not finished so don’t expect miracles just yet, but hopefully you’ll like and have reason to come back – there’s a mailing list link and an RSS feed sign-up on the right, so you can stay up-to-date. Before it was all very informative, but a bit dull. Not much happened. Seen it once, you’d seen it a hundred times. Not now. Now it’s new and exciting and up to the minute. If you’re worried about what you might have missed though, www.dangennoe.net used to look like this…