I noticed that the Sarah Records documentary "My Secret World" is now on youtube. I watched it. Hmm...I wonder if perhaps I should not have. It was interesting to see all of these bands that I loved so dearly, once upon a time, and realize that perhaps the reason that Sarah didn't conquer the world is because these were always part-timers. Perhaps, aside from Bob Wratten, it was laways just ahobby. Bob W doesn't appear, strangely, perhaps his schedule wouldn't allow it? Or his publicist never gave him the message? I mean part-timers in that the entire documentary was a devotional filled with love, timidity(I am fond of this word just now) and a complete lack of ambition. Even during the requisite talk about how experimental the Field Mice were because they wrote boring dirges like 'Triangle" and when an ex-member of the Drums claimed the Wake did New Order better than New Order did you can sense that no one was really convinced, least of all the people who were spouting this nonsense because there was such a lack of passion from all involved parties. Maybe if they had included the sorts of people who hoarded their most venomous bile for Sarah Records reviews there might have been passion but these are people like me. Do we want pop stars like me? God no. Maybe it is because they are all old now, just as i am, and they have kids and they are sensible and proper but it was all so dull and I can't imagine anyone who isn't already a devotee being moved to sing from the hymnal. The records were a dream. It was a revelation for an introspective, stars in his eyes, romantic like myself but it represented a tiny sliver of a subset of the culture(surely filed under incel today) of outcasts that, pre-tumbler, who formed a silent non-entity that ebbed away with a whimper. My theory is because these were all middle class sorts, and then it moved futher up the income scale in the 90s and early 2000s with trusties like Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Alvvays and the aformentioned Drums. One slight annoyance to comment on, but the Drums person that appeared in this video was in elementary school when Sarah passed from the scene and yet he was presented as a representative of what Sarah meant to a kid in America. The fact that he surely had used his parent's substantial wealth to acquire the records on ebay at exorbitant mark-up is strangely left out. Maybe if Steven Wells had still been alive he might have provided a counterweight to ALexis Petridis, who is outed as a closeted cutie here, but dream timelines rarely intersect. Amelia Fletcher comes out best, as always. Julian Knowles doughty and perched in his "studio" seems the silliest. Did anyone really believe Even As We Speak were destined for greatness even as we all unreservedly love "Feral Pop Frenzy" with all our heart. I didn't make the film, I too lack ambition, but if I had I might have had less of Matt and Clare, because they are a dreary bunch, and I would have, instead, attempted to track down archival footage of the artists being interviewed(even I, hardly the enterprising sleuth have a cassette with the first ever Field Miece interview with Bob, Michael and some girl named Nina, was Shaun Brennan not available?), at the time, I would have ignored Action Painting altogether and not spent eleven seconds on the Hit Parade and finally I would sought out thousands more of the fans who delighted in the music and could offer a ray of light to help undo the unceasing drab. Update: Also, no love for the Rosaries?