In the process of moving, I stumbled upon a box of cassettes, chief among them were Belle and Sebastian-related items-- live sets from 1997 and 1998, BBC sessions, The Black Sessions, Tigermilk recorded at a time when the record's proper distribution was limited to 1,000 vinyl copies. Cassettes-- it all seemed so quaint. What's more, B&S; were perhaps the last UK indie act that listeners engaged with through the late 70s/80s model of John Peel plays, weekly mag coverage, BBC sessions, 7"'s. It made sense: Many early converts were lapsed indie listeners or former P!O!P! kids who gave up on insularity and constructing worlds around their musical obsessions; people who couldn't imagine wearing badges like medals, passing their fandom around like a secret handshake, having a devotion to an artist serve as a conversation icebreaker.
The band did itself no shortage of favors constructing its own myth, quickly refusing to speak to the music press and hatching phony liner-note tales. On record, they also created their own sense of mystique via the self-referential metapop of "Belle & Sebastian", a hidden, unnamed track at the end 3...6...9 that addressed their press-shy behaviour, and the in-jokes and self-deprecation that plays over the churning, Velvets-y second act of "This Is Just a Modern Rock Song".
Among Belle & Sebastian's many throwback habits were valuing the single and the EP as a separate entity from the album. Push Barman to Open Old Wounds collects this non-LP output, originally spread over seven EPs released between 1997 and 2001. This set compiles all of B&S;' Jeepster-era singles tracks save an extended version of the instrumental "Judy Is a Dick Slap", which appeared on the "Legal Man" 12". The first half is the three four-track EPs clumsily packaged as the Lazy Line Painter Jane set-- that box's title EP plus Dog on Wheels and 3...6...9 Seconds of Light, all released in 1997. The second half features their four EPs released from 1998-2001: This Is Just a Modern Rock Song, Legal Man, Jonathan David, and I'm Waking Up to Us.
The 1997 EPs kicked off with Dog on Wheels, which featured three 1996 demos plus "String Bean Jean". In all, the tracks romanticized childhood, wrung happy memories out of post-university poverty, and lamented the fleeting nature of happiness. 3...6...9 and Lazy Line Painter Jane increasingly took advantage of the collective swelling in ranks, adding lush strings and increasingly highlghting Mick Cooke's trumpet playing. On the whole, the three carried echoes of the whitewashed soul and puritanism of Orange Juice and Scot indiekid fave Vic Godard is evident in the band's quaint, fey, self-deprecating lyrics.
Collected as a whole, these dozen tracks are probably the quintessential Belle and Sebastian album, and "The State That I'm In" (included here is a demo version) and "A Century of Fakers" are still arguably their best songs. On the surface the EPs created an idealized world of childhood memories, books, crushes, bicycle rides, and faded photos. But no mere shrinking violet, Stuart Murdoch traded in "la-la-la"'s and also spent time threatening that "if you ever go lardy or go lame, I will drop you straightaway", and wondering how to "tell [one's] folks about a dose of thrush."
Kicking off the second disc are the This Is Just a Modern Rock Song and Legal Man EPs, which, at the time, seemed like the band's first real distress signals. As on 1998's The Boy With the Arab Strap, Murdoch ceded some of the songwriting duties to his bandmates (to Isobel Campbell on this set's nadir, "The Gate", to the recently departed Stuart David with the inclusion of "Winter Wooskie", and to the band itself with raveups "Legal Man" and "Judy Is a Dick Slap") and includes his own B&S; MK. 1 low, "I Know Where the Summer Goes". Murdoch's one moment of true inspiration, Wildean heartbreaker "Slow Graffiti", was commissioned for the film version of Irvine Welsh's The Acid House, suggesting that perhaps his internal muse was fleeting.
With hindsight, Murdoch possibly did need a break but tracks that seemed anomalous or out-of-place at the time are far more compelling now. "TIJAMRS" and "Legal Man" still may be more cute than clever but both exude buckets of charm and display the band's emerging sense of ambition and willingness to create rather than playact. "Wooskie" and "Judy" are each a bit more by-the-numbers, but no less engaging for it and deserve to be more than the career footnotes they currently seem to be.
More revealing are the two EPs that followed the disappointing Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant album and which close out this set. The move away from Murdoch's personal voice to a process of true collaboration and democritization not only initiated a sharing of songwriting duties but richer sonics and an emphasis on common touchstones, which resulted in the band favoring lush throwbacks to Northern Soul and 1960s baroque pop and sonically or lyrically referencing artists such as Love, the Beach Boys, and Motown where they once namechecked tracks and albums from more private obsessions such as Felt, Josef K, and the Pastels.
The Biblical metaphor and Stevie Jackson vocals on "Jonathan David" aren't the post-FYH gut-punch they once were-- and the song's bridge, piano fill, and harmonies are glorious. The final A-side included here, "I'm Waking Up to Us", is even better. Murdoch's stilted Arthur Lee impersonation seems appropriate for the on-the-heels lyric, a constipated delivery for a track with a protagonist trying and failing to mask his pain and maintain dignity and pride while his romantic world crumbles. The baroque sophistipop arrangement is exquisite craft without sacrificing emotion for polish; listening it to it now makes it clear how unsurprising it should have been that the band would later hook up with producer Trevor Horn.
Of their B-sides, the most notable is the belated release of a version of "The Loneliness of the Middle-Distance Runner", a longtime live favorite once tipped to follow the TIJAMRS EP as an A-side. The studio version is inferior to earlier arrangements but it's still retains a graceful, slippery beauty. The others are uniformly excellent, highlighted by the narrator of "Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It" says "boo to the business world" but only after outlasting the more soul-crushing demands of adulthood and the return to introverted bookishness of "Marx and Engels".
The most beloved indie pop band since the Smiths, Belle and Sebastian are also probably the best. This collection would work like their own Hatful of Hollow and Louder Than Bombs were the first half not sadly missing their early BBC Sessions, and the second forced to omit their Dear Catastrophe Waitress singles and Peel Session tracks. As it stands, the first is a testament to the power and pull of one the most singular and instantly lovable pop bands of our time; the second is a gentle suggestion that they took the correct post-mainstream fame steps after all, avoiding self-parody (see: Morrissey) and finding a way to be playful without becoming too precious (see: Lawrence in his post-Felt years). In combination, it's a perfect way into the world of Belle and Sebastian, even if the band spends the second half of the disc trying to redecorate that space.
