Taxes and hoaxes: that's all I got

Because I’m not entirely sure of where to take TLGIR this week I reckoned I’d delve back into memory lane with an old treat from the past. I also must confess that I was a bit of a sad case this weekend and stayed in on Saturday night to do my taxes. Hell, when you’re stuck in the American suburbs, what the hell else am I supposed to do with myself? Apologies for the arcane financial terminology here, but the last few years of taxes have been easy: the pecuniary state of my existence as a Tefl teacher meant that I wasn’t even making enough money to warrant filing a tax return at all. But 2008, and especially 2009, is a bit of a nightmare thanks to my fetish and addiction to day-trading. All those niggly little short-term gains (and a handful of losses, naturally) have to be recorded in minute detail, and seeing as I’m unofficially my sister’s financial ‘adviser’, I’ve got to do the same for her. Hence the thrilling weekend I planned for myself.

And despite not even making enough money to reach the poverty line, I still owed the swines some money!

(But hey, good news: just 3 weeks left of teaching till I’m free! And I’m outta here on a one-way ticket far, far away.)

But onto the fun stuff. Not long ago I was reading a bit about Jean Shepherd, who is probably most famous for being the narrator and co-writer of ‘A Christmas Story’, arguably the greatest Christmas film ever made (strangely, this is where my more American side would appear to surface: I’ve found this film to be somewhat unpopular – or unheard of – amongst non-American audiences. Anyone care to prove me wrong?).

In perusing his biography, I discovered that Shepherd, a regular on-air prankster, perpetrated one of the funnier artistic hoaxes of the 20th century. In 1956, as a New York radio DJ, Shepherd told his listeners about a brilliant new book entitled I, Libertine by Frederick R Ewing. He encouraged his listeners to go to every bookshop and ask for this title, which they duly did in droves. Suddenly the book became an imaginary literary sensation, made all the more so due to the extreme difficulty in acquiring the book. Everywhere people were claiming to have read it, attempting to impress dates or acquaintances at dinner parties. One college student even managed to pull off a B+ on a term paper about I, Libertine.

This reminded of my school journalism days. When I arrived back in England for the start of 11th grade, I decided to join the school newspaper, The Lancer Ledger. I was assigned to work with my good buddy Drew on the music page. For the most part, our only real weekly task was to call Andy’s Records in Bury St Edmunds to get the weekly top 10 music charts. Amazing that back in those days – this was 1992 mind – we had to phone up a local record shop in order to get chart information. This was also a time when the chart really mattered, when Top of the Pops was must-see television and the top 40 countdown was a must-listen every Sunday afternoon. That was also a time when I was a massive music geek, something which has only subsided slightly over the past few years.

After some time we got a bit lazy and started making up our own charts, inserting our favourite bands and current songs. Hardly anyone noticed. We also started branching off a bit and discovered our creative juices, writing album and gig reviews. Though I had a minimal hand in this at first, I always appreciated what Drew and other staff writers (Ray C--------- comes to mind) had to contribute.

Now, I was aware that we were fabricating the charts. I was unaware, however, that they were making up most of the reviews as well. I always thought Cro-Magnon Man was an odd name for a band, but I was immediately taken in by phenoms Plam Poom. If memory serves me correctly they were described thus:

‘Plam Poom have totally affected the art of tonality…for a band who plays only isolated monorhythms on the minor ninth, these guys are awfully damn good…’

I was sold! And they were due to play in Brandon, just down the road from the school in Lakenheath. I had no idea that Brandon had any live music venues, but I was definitely excited about this upcoming gig. And so was Drew, Ray and a couple of others, who kept me going for as long as they possibly could until they broke down and couldn’t keep the secret any longer. I naturally felt pretty foolish: what a blow to my musical credibility.

Anyway, I got over that episode pretty quickly and moved on. Soon we were pulling off all sorts of literary shenanigans, not only inventing music charts, but adding in subtle drug references, like putting Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds at number 1. Some time later, during my final year of school as editor-in-chief of the paper, I was soon in the soup for changing the by-line on one of my articles, after it had failed to be bowdlerised by our journalism advisor, to Hugh G Reckshin. This created a minor uproar, especially as it had been noticed first by the father of one of the school’s students, who just so happened to be a colonel on the air base. Word immediately got to the principal and I was suspended from my editorial duties, though I continued operating as editor clandestinely, later changing the credits after official copies had gone to the presses.

Though we had to tone it down after this incident, we got ridiculous and juvenile. We did silly things like change the name of Charles and Eddie – famous for ‘Would I Lie to You?’ - to Chuck and Ed and Meatloaf’s ‘Bat Out of Hell Two: Back Into Hell’ to ‘Bat Out of Heck Two: Back Into Heck’. If we were going to be censored, then we were going to be puerile and immature about it, taking it to the extreme.

(At university, after I had explained this story to my first-year constitutional law professor, she tried to encourage me to sue the school board, the military officials and whomever else I could go after. She kept pestering me to find out the statute of limitations on overseas military bases, even offering to act as counsel. I politely, and repeatedly, declined.)

Fast forward some 4+ years later, to the waning days of my college career. After 4 years of writing for the Tufts Observer (only 1 semester) and then music and sport for the Tufts Daily, I wanted to go out with a flourish. I had to cap my college journalism ‘career’ with a special piece, one that would not only mean a lot to me, but would have special meaning to my legions of loyal fans. Believe it or not, I did have a fair few fans, and would often receive emails – not all of them pleasant – after my album and gig reviews. I even got skewered a bit in print on the letters page when I wrote a scathing article about American music – talk about generalizations! – where I lambasted the likes of Bush and Dave Matthews. You could say I ruffled a few feathers from time to time.

I reckoned what better way to cap it all off than to go back to where it all began: Plam Poom. These guys definitely deserved to be hyped to the extreme. They really were that brilliant.

Needless to say, after the article went to press, I had friends approaching me to tell me what a great band Plam Poom were and how they couldn’t wait to see them live. That’s when I realised that many of my readers were nothing but a bunch of frauds, and that they’d probably barely bothered to read anything I’d written. Then again, I can hardly complain about them being frauds after the stunt I pulled.

The review appears below, entirely in its original form. The headline was lame, I know, but headlines were always my weakness.


Plam Poom: probably the world’s greatest band

For a band that plays only in monosynthesized isorhythms on the minor ninth, these guys are awfully damn good. They’ve managed to perfect the total essence of dance, the energy of rock, the emotions that come with old school soul, and the excitability of rap into one beautiful product. They’ve been hailed by one music magazine as, “One of this year’s most exciting new talents chock full of wicked pissa” and NME even ventured to say of them, “Clearly one of the most innovative talents in years, they give Happy Mondays a run for their money.” Who else but Brandon, England phenom Plam Poom, another in the fine, long-standing tradition of British bands set to take the world by storm.

Although they formed in early 1994, Plam Poom have been delayed considerably by lack of press and genuinely bad reviews. Most of that stems from their bad reputation, especially that of lead vocalist Andrew Uram, formerly of London based Cro-Magnon Man. Numerous financial and creative instability led Uram to quit the band, forming the brand-new lineup consisting today of guitarist Joanna Yorke, bassist Yasi Leclair, keyboardist Toshi Briem, and drummer Simone Sebags. Their new sound has been compared to that of quirky pop moguls Lightning Seeds, as well as psychedelic stylesters Jesus and Mary Chain. Until now, with their brilliant first album This is Plam Poom, their biggest claim to fame was guitarist Yorke’s early childhood relationship with Thom Yorke of Radiohead. The romance ended so tragically that she decided to adopt his last name as her own, despite threats of a lawsuit from his management. But thankfully now we can concentrate on their gorgeous pop treats.

Soap operas aside, however, and into the introspective gargantuan beauty that is Plam Poom. Their sound is nothing short of mystical, eerie, and sensual. Combined with vocals of heartbreaking anguish, they have a sound reminiscent of early Cure style stuff. In “Forlorn Frog Tales of Sorrow,” Uram sings, “Life, gone so quickly/I never had the chance to say good-bye/Slowly, slowly sliding/Oblivion forever and ever.” And in perhaps the greatest display of raw affection in his long-lost search for love, “Dagger Strikes,” Uram chants, “Over for you, perhaps/Not over for me/Leaving me leaves me lost in leaves/Jumping in the leaves leaves me sad now.” Much of the inspiration for their music comes in Uram’s true-to-life experiences of relationship rejection. His most painful tale, the album’s final track and one which Melody Maker has called, “the most despair-driven track since Joy Division’s Atmosphere,” is “Margie:” “Babe, we had it so good once/But opium dens and dreary hens since then/Hanging, grasping for sweet, stagnant air/Gasping without breath, with no metaphors in sight.” Ironically enough, plenty of metaphors abound in Plam Poom’s music. Ranging from the absurd to the senseless, Plam Poom have perfected the art of combining story with melody in ways that artists such as Savage Garden, the Wallflowers, and Puff Daddy can only dream of. Unfortunately for us, however, and bewildering to this author is the fact that bands as lousy as these ones remain at the forefront of the music world in terms of popularity, while bands like Plam Poom, Lo-Fidelity All-Stars and Rialto toil away in the depths of murky solitude, despite their superior musical talents.

From the early depths of oblivion into a current realm of absolute psychedelia, Plam Poom have overcome severe obstacles to get where they are today. Problems from the outset of their inception may have plagued them and slowed them down, but they are ready to overwhelm us with their delicious array of catchy pop potpourri, a sound Select has called “the cutest thing since Super Furry Animals,” and Vox has called “only what we’ve been waiting for for an oblivion, reminiscent of early Bowie and Pulp.”

In conversation with Uram last summer, where I had the great fortune of meeting the band at the V97 music festival in Chelmsford, England, where they were support for Primal Scream, I learnt a great many things about the band’s philosophy. “Having philosophy, direction, and meaning behind our songs is what we’re all about,” says Uram. “Passion, intensity, and fire drives us, makes us who we are. That’s what sets us apart from shite like Dave Matthews and Phish, whose music, to me, is just a load of meaningless bollocks.” Understandably, there is a sentiment of anger in their voices, as all the band member’s expressed their desire for greater popularity. The video for their debut single, “Fetishes of Love and Leather,” is set to take American MTV by storm, as it has already hit top ten playlists in Asia and South America. Before we know it, Plam Poom just may have the fortune to be as successfully commercially as other bands. Wouldn’t that be just grand? You can bet your life on that.



One-half of the keyboardist, on tour in Yerevan


Happier times for guitarist Yorke

On tour at 3am in Berlin: from left to right: lead singer Drew, loyal groupie Jenn, author