Cats on Fire Our Temperance Movement. When last I wrote about Cats on Fire I was hysterical with praise. I am aged these days. I don't get hysterical, not any more. I am cynical and unfeeling and nearly dead. All these years piling up under my skin. Cats on Fire have fermented as well and somehow they're much older even than I am now. This is mature and docile and dutifully pleasant and really rather good. At first, a few months ago, when I was young, I dismissed it as dull and dull. It isn't dull dull dull, no, he's still Morrissey on a budget. He's still stylish. They still look fabulous but they've turned pensive and reflective and they luxuriate in the middle ground, the home of nuance and delights that escape notice of the frivolous. They are still Finnish. They are miles better than the Harry Hunks. Is he still a pop star? Indeterminate. That was a great deal of the appeal of the first record, there was flash and verve in his performance that overcome some of the perfunctoriness of the music. He's still a star. I think so. I find him splashy and debonair. He could be a host on HGTV even. How different the HGTV experience becomes when you are a prospective homeowner. I close on my home this Friday erm....Tuesday. I am trying to decide between Wildflower Honey and Amber Sun for the kitchen. I barely have any furniture. I am counting on my tax credit to furnish my spaces. Empty spaces could be temptingly inspiring, I could lie down in an empty room and inhale the history that has permeated the walls. It is 51 years old. Not that old, not nearly as old as Cats on Fire, but there must have been a fair amount of heartache and melancholy that has lowered the ceiling height by a few millimeters in that time. Rad-on teen experiences in the dark corners of the basement. Second song was just brilliant. Third song is just brilliant! He is keen on enunciating. We can can understand all of the words and they arrive understated and modest. Much unlike the aura that he radiates bashfully before entering a room. Do the girls swoon for Cats on Fire singer? Surely. But is he a sacrificial lamb for the muse of pop perfection? It is a romantic notion, foregoing the sustenance of mere mortals suckling instead on the nectar flowing from the trumpet vines strewn down from heaven above, those that long ago bypassed Stuart Murdoch and Richard Davies and Alasdair Maclean and heralded a brilliant return to form for the geriatrics in Cats on Fire. I don't much appreciate the fact that they mainly belong to the indiepop sorts, the Cloudberry sorts, the indiemp3 sorts, but I can share. I get a stomach rumbling from most of the bands listed on indiemp3 these days, they'll even rep for vivian Girls you know. Payola? Does Slumbrland have deep pockets or a killer depp research team to uncover the secrets lurking behind the gneric description factory on the thames. No idea if they are on the Thames. I've recently finished the Ghost Map which recalls the Cholera outbreak of the mid-19th century just near Soho and John Snow's heroics in uncovering its cause. Putrefaction of the Thames was once broadcast widely as evidence of the ineffable progress of science. It carried the bad air out to sea, to France Messionier's midgets and horses. This song is quiet, hollow drum mixed lowly, his voice elegantly restrained. The entire record is admirably soft spoken, it reminds of the bold underachievement of say The Boy With the Arab Strap, really, not that it sounds anything at all like that. This one is very Swedish, very Seashells, very Radio Khartoum, very North of No South. I mentioned the Bats before but it also reminds of Sneaky Feelings. They were also very old,truly frail, almost infertile men in boy's sweaters and trainers. Small shoulders are so indiepop. New Zealand had its niche because it was approximately 10 years behind the rest of the world fashionwise. Is it still? Unlikely. Now they're all mad for Kanye and My Chemical Romance and Julie Chen. Now they eat in cramped booths and wear unedifying footwear. Just the same as everyone else. And now when Cats on Fire have elements of the Bats in their songs or elements of Sneaky Feelings in their whimpers it's no big deal, globalization is a fine thing in this case. Of course it is evil in all other aspects. Let us forget the unprecedented gains in global wealth as a result, a nasty side effect, what about Global Warming after all! Next song, more jangle, more goodness. His style seems to accentuate his being, too often people who have overbearing style are making up for the fact that their level of compelling biography is limited by the lack of punctuation in air quotes. Remember the last Cats on Fire record? It was terribly exicitng. This one isn't. But it's a different level of profound, sad mopeys singing the lament of youth and despair. Nice. I am watching HGTV with a jaundiced eye these days, I watch House Hunters and all I think is "ooooo, my house is nicer than theirs!". It is so nice. I was lucky. I looked at 13 houses before and it was frigthening. Bad taste is so universal. Were you aware of this? Do not walk into other people's homes! You will not feel comforted, cheery or kind! Look at my witty post-modern reference. Oh I am a card. Next two days I have to attend sales training that I am coordinating. I sit in a room with loads of salesmen who don't want to be sitting in a room with me and their glances cast in my direction only at lunch time. I met a strange man today. I was waiting at the baggage carousel to pick up a visiting VIP and a man cme up to me and knew my place of work, it was on my shirt, and begged me off and then boasted about how he had created the logo on our corporate credit card. He was fantastically, terrifically proud. I smiled! I pulled out my corporate credit card for a reminder and I was disappointingly unimpressed by his handiwork. He spent hours on grass, lengths of his life on a lawn. Pah. I could design credit cards! He works for a bank, perhaps his right brain is locked in some safety deposit box. Perhaps he was delinquent on his payments, foreclosed on. I am overloading on exclamations, I don't feel exclamatory, I apologize for my profligacy. Some song is playing. Remember we are meant to be speaking of Cats on Fire. I like his style. If I was brave and kind and talented and people were willing to overlook my lack of those qualities then I would dress like him. My brother used to have hair like his, except he had whitewall sides because he was very pale and ghostly, small shoulders, but he was not indiepop. My shoulders are imposingly un-indiepop. My curse. I was looking at my new hardwood floors, this is me boasting, I may need to refinish them soon. Is this somethign I can do myself? I remember when we had hardwood floors when I was a kid. We covered them with carpet and then with carpet tiles, we were part of the hordes of ill manered assailants of good taste. We had copper jello forms on the wall, dinner plates on plate hangers and wallpaper with schooners on the kitchen wall. Garden Lights just now. Thankfully it does not sound like the Puddle. Fire Escape Talking is all about the Puddle. Why is this? They have a few unbelievably calssic songs including one that rips off the theme from Doogie Howser and loads of drivel. I was in a Dunedin McDonalds when George Henderson and his coterie of young female companions entered and shared a burger over dreamy stares and his frakly disturbing lack of hygiene. It was late at night. I was reading about Joseph Gordon Leavitt. I didn't think a Kiwi Burger was a wise choice, I've no idea what George ordered that evening, perhaps if I had joined them I could have been roped into a life in the Puddle cloud cult fantasist conglomeration and I would be as fond of GH as Fire Escape Talking seems to be. This is a brilliant song. He does have a lot of Morrissey. He seems proud of this. He is singing, proud enough to sing, proud enough to perform and sell his soul as a drama rather than a meidtative monologue. Most musicians are dreadful lyricists. Why is this? Why don't more bands have one person to write the music and one person to write the lyrics. Midnight Oil worked under this model, they were dreadful. Rush also employed this division of labour, they were brilliant. Hard to say what would happen if say the drummer here decided to write the lyrics. Is it the drummer from Cats on Fire that is in Aboa Sleeping? That's a terrifically dreary record but I dont remember if the lyrics are profound. I would venture they are not. The lyrics for Le Future Pompiste are not magnificent. When is it that they will release something new? Worldwide acclaim for Burning Hearts shold not delay a second Le Future Pompiste record, please no. The Borders of this Land is on now, it is in that delightful midtempo sweet spot, where you are convinced they really aren't as clever as this seems. But they are, really, it is just that you, me, in this case, are not. The awful truth, call Irene Dunne. Next song, perhaps the only dud. It's very slow and ponderous and it should have probably been a b-side. But we forgive them their indulgences. Vampires are all over television. Soul destroying vampires. Words should have fangs, words should be vampires, words should bleed, but I am listening to vampires speaking now and it is banal and flat and anemic. A vampire's kiss would be fatal. Our Days in the Sun, not for vampires then perhaps for daytrippers and medical students high on oxycontin. It is not exciting. It is almost over. It is an examination of lethargy. No powder kegs between the legs. Last track, Fabric. Before I move I need to clean the keys on my keyboard. I have dirty fingertips seemingly. Are your fingertips as dirty and unkept as mine are? I hope not. The last song is another mid tempo strummer. Oooo! the new Crayon Fields has appeared. It is unaccompanied by band photograph, a triumph, they sound a great deal like Cardinal. Cats on Fire do not. Some female voice joining his high, pointed voice, he has subtle urges in his breathing, there's a charged electricity to his being, there must be dozens of Cats on Fire appreciation societies only a beard or three away from obsessive status. To beard or not to beard. Such a difficult decision. Beautiful, beautiful.