Chris Knox has suffered a stroke. In fact, he did so two months ago, but I didn’t read about it until recently. Chris, it seems, lost all of his body functions but his sense of humour and the recovery process will therefore be a long one; friends and family are regularly posting updates on a blog dedicated to Chris’s health, while befriended artists like Martin Phillipps, Yo La Tengo and The Mountain Goats are covering some of his songs for a tribute album, appropriately called Stroke.

I should send him a postcard. After all, Chris is one half of Tall Dwarfs, whose song gave this blog its name more than seven years ago (almost ten if you include the time when it existed solely in my head). And while, contrary to what that might suggest, I am not a fan of everything they recorded, some of their more poppy songs are really good. And so are some of Chris’s solo recordings, such as Not Given Lightly, written two decades ago for the woman who is still his wife and one of the most honest love songs I know.

I should revive this blog, too.

A few nights ago, in one of those moments where the mind refuses to do anything that is even remotely useful, I was searching the internet for people I’ve been working with. People whom I have been in contact with recently —mostly through email, sometimes on the phone— while dealing with the technical side of a seller-customer relationship. I was surprised to find that several of them at least five years my junior, five years younger than 18-year-old me. Of course, it has been a dozen years since I actually was 18, but it does not always feel that was and the reality of being 30 sometimes takes me a few seconds to grasp.

At the same time, I am probably more 30 than I’ve ever been 29 or 28. Like I have been (and still am) very busy with work. Not the kind of busyness as an easy excuse for ignoring a full inbox, but really busy: making long days with little to no breaks and then spending at least an hour in the evening working too.

I am not complaining though: the busyness has mostly been self-imposed and work is interesting, challenging and rewarding. In fact, it is quite fun. Yet I do regret it does not always give me enough time to digest things; to realise where I am now and to reflect on how unlikely this had looked a few years ago, when life had turned into a self-imposed misery. And if that has not become implicitly clear, I should be eternally grateful to Dimitra, for keeping me sane while staying sane herself, especially at times when that seemed impossible and unhealthy respectively.

If one could write a story about a war in a clear, straightforward way, then that war would not have been there in the first place.

More than any war, ever, the one in former Yugoslavia felt close to me. Because it happened when I was just old enough to understand what the war was about; or perhaps old enough to understand that some things about it weren’t to be understood. Because it happened closer to me than any war that took place during my life. Because I have met Dutch soldiers who had served there as UN peace keepers; or peace-could-not-keepers, rather. Because in secondary school I had befriended two girls from Bosnia, who had fled their country during the war. Yet, when reading SaÅ¡a StaniÅ¡ić’s How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone, I realise how it seems to have taken place in a universe parallel to the safe and friendly one in which I grew up.

I was a bit hesitant about starting this book, worried that it would paint a grim and dark picture. Indeed, many parts of the book are grim and dark, yet that is not the point the book is making. This is a book about telling stories: stories about happy and sad things; stories about small details; stories to remember; stories to survive. It took me well over a hundred pages to get into the book —which isn’t entirely chronologically, while some bits, even in the context of the book, are fictional— but then I could hardly put it down. I wanted to help Alexander, the book’s main character and presumably StaniÅ¡ić’s alter ego, make sense of past and present, understand what had happened during that night in 1992 and tell stories like his late granddad had told him to do.

Stanišić, who like Alexander fled to Germany in 1992 and writes in the language of his adopted country, is here to tell us many more stories.

On midsummer night in 2003, I attended the small Wellerlo-fi festival; the name being a pun on the village of Wellerlooi, home to Club Diana singer Marcel, in whose back garden the festival took place. I may have bemoaned the Dutch scene, or the lack thereof, many times but there have always been exceptions and this was an important one among these. About a dozen bands played a short set each, often borrowing each other’s members, but as important was the barbecue and the mere feeling of being together in enjoying the importance of smallness.

Club Diana, of course, played too. I had followed the band from around the time of their first demo, when I helped some American put together a compilation-cassette with Dutch and Belgian bands. They were from near Nijmegen and I first saw them live shortly after I had moved there, supporting the then-big Posies; then as now I thought it was cool to go to a gig and to care more about the support act. I saw them several other times over the following years and they were one of my favourite Dutch live bands. Their records weren’t bad either, but I always liked them better live than on cd. Somewhat clumsily, I wrote this in a review once; hence when Marcel recognised me at Wellerlo-fi he said “ah, so it was you of that shit review!” He was, of course, joking and was as good a host to me as to any other guest, yet showed to care even more about his wife and two young children.

Marcel Brand died last Sunday, aged 43. Circumstances such as the birth of Marcel’s third child and my own wedding got in the way of me attending another Wellerlo-fi, but I’ve been thinking a lot this week about that night in 2003 and how good it was. If everyone organised a pop festival in their back garden once a year, the world would certainly be a better place. Thankyou, Marcel.

At the beginning of 2008, I set myself the goal to read at least one book a week. When the year ended, I was reading three books that would have counted as my 40th book. Not too bad a score, if only because the number of 52 books was as arbitrary as it was ridiculous. The resolution wasn’t even made because of a love for prose; merely, it stemmed from a strong feeling of having to make up. Make up for all those years I spent getting older without growing up, walking fast without getting further and experiencing without becoming more experienced; reading novels, which I never did enough, had become something of a metaphor for those lost years.

My goals for 2009 include to read as many good books as possible, without the number becoming a goal in itself. Other, and slightly more important, goals include growing up, getting further and becoming more experienced. In just about any aspect of life. If continuing to read books will help with that in any kind of way, then that’s only a good thing.

But I do love prose in itself and I might have loved it —and poetry, too— in 2008 more than ever. I was attempting to compile a top 10 of the books I read, but gave up after 15 titles that absolutely had to be included, which shows how many good books I read. Here, however, is an incomplete overview of some books that really mattered.

My ten favourite artists in 2008, according to statistically biased yet interesting last.fm:
  1. The Lucksmiths
  2. Would-Be-Goods
  3. The Softies
  4. Professor Pez
  5. France Gall
  6. The Cannanes
  7. Stereolab
    . Les Calamités
  9. Blossom Dearie
10. Saint Etienne

The Lucksmiths had a new album out in 2008, which we possess and which I’ve heard many times (it is really good), but I don’t think I’ve played it once through last.fm. Would-Be-Goods had new album too, but I haven’t heard more off that than the two songs Indie MP3 posted. (Back when that was still the place to download tracks of a band two months before you realised you had discovered them.) The Softies broke up half a decade ago. Professor Pez had a new album out —I think—, but. Etcetera. If I did listen to some new music this year —which, honestly, I did— than mostly to loose songs, downloaded from the various MP3 blogs that populate my RSS reader.

The best thing that happened to me music-wise in the past year were countless of moments of falling in love with songs, old or new, that for ten minutes turned out to be the best thing ever recorded. Shared second best were visiting Indietracks and arrival of the boxes of my CDs two months ago. Regarding the latter, one of my blog-related new year’s resolutions is to post some of these songs here, with a little story to reveal a bit of my past and, of course, to show off my indiepop-knowledge. (The other, since you ask, is to write more in general, to write more honestly and open about myself. Which —thanks, Dennis— can be a bit terrifying.)

Happy new year, by the way.

I might play some Christmas tunes — Where It’s At Is Where You Are has some fine tunes for download — and I will definitely play some Maison Neuve. The French band have been on my playlist for some months now, ever since Stéphane sent me their Victor Victor EP. A combination of being busy and lazy had got in my way of writing about them, which is somewhat unfair because I really like the band. The play a grim kind of pop; the kind of one you hear in underground venues and that, at least for me, is associated with the continent. My favourite song is the pumping New Rap Conversation (unfortunately, it’s not on Theirspace), which appears to make a proper effort at making me go through these dark and cold final days of the year.

So, Exeter Goes Pop! Tonight, that is, at the usual time (8pm to 11pm) and the usual place (Tigga’s Bar. It will be free as usual.

You think it’s easy, but you’re wrong; I am not one half of the problem. Zurich is stained and it’s not my fault; just hold me back or let me run.

It was the spring of 1994 when I discovered Pavement. I had yet to turn sixteen, but I was digging into ‘alternative’ music with an urgency as if I had two months left to live. The band, who had just released Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, was regularly played during the evening shows on national radio. I think I liked them from the beginning and I prefer to think that was because, unlike almost any other ‘alternative’ band I knew, they songs ren’t loud, aggressive, depressive and heavy on drugs. Pavement seemed to be normal lads like me, who wrote simple yet slightly edgy pop songs with somewhat nonsensical lyrics. The 1994 version of me was really into nonsensical lyrics.

So I got all nostalgic when Orlando showed us the poster for the next Exeter Goes Pop!, which is based on the band’s 1991 debut Slanted & Enchanted. It was that album that I first discovered —they had a copy at the local library— and played hundreds of times; that I bought on CD when my financial circumstances didn’t really afford me to buy CDs that I had on tape already; that I bought the unnecessary double-CD reissue of almost a decade later.

I’m not sure if we’ll play Pavement during the next club night. Orlando might, but I will make sure to take my copy of the record. Do expect to hear some Pocketbooks and something of the new Lucksmiths from the decks though. That night, by the way, is tomorrow, from 8pm to 11pm at Tigga’s Bar. It is free as usual and we’ll even have a band play some songs.

If you happen to be in Exeter on Saturday, which unfortunately we won’t be, make sure you’ll go to Tigga’s Bar again for Phil Wilson and his band will play some songs. Phil, as you may know, used to be in the June Brides several presidents ago and now lives kind of round the corner in Devon. It starts at 8pm and it’s free. If you aren’t in Exeter because you are in, say, Nottingham, which unfortunately we won’t be, make sure you’ll attend the Indiepop all-dayer on Sunday, where Phil will play with the likes of Pocketbooks, MJ Hibbett, Milky Wimpshake and Pete Green.

YouTube ‘still’ of Pavement’s Zurich is Stained.

It was 29 months ago when I put my CDs into boxes. I didn’t really know when I would take them out again —I didn’t really know much at that time— but I didn’t think it would take 29 months. I can’t say I missed them very much though. After all, it is very easy to find the actual music online and those aluminium discs, well, weren’t they mostly relics of a sad life once led, when I didn’t do much but buying records?

The boxes with CDs, those that I had decided to keep, finally arrived this week. It meant more to me than I would have thought. Much as they are just aluminium discs, some of these discs actually contain really good music. And more importantly, they contain quite a few memories too.

So I rediscovered B’ehl. They were from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada and released two records in 1997 and 2001, the first of which (Only a Paper Moon) was among the first things I ever ordered from the US. It was before my record buying got really out of hand so I did have the time to listen to it. Memories of feeling that I was the only one on earth who liked this kind of thing come back; of spending long Sundays on my own and putting bands like B’ehl on mixtapes that I then only listened to myself. It didn’t seem to matter very much back then: the realisation of my sadness did not come until much later. I was happy that bands like B’ehl were there to brighten up my days and make me feel different than anyone else. And if it wasn’t for their music, I’d have loved them for their cute little name.

B’ehl went on to release a second album, the almost equally good Bright Eyes, after which they split up and some members went on in the band Paper Moon, but I never really got into them. It doesn’t really matter; it is good to think of B’ehl again, to listen to their albums again, and to be happy for the mere fact bands like B’ehl existed.

B’ehl have put all their songs on last.fm to listen to in their entirity. Like all bands should do, really. If you’re into the softer side of indiepop and the likes of Heavenly, Gaze and Glo-Worm I’m sure you’ll enjoy them too. Start with Tag, for that has always been my favourite song.