The 2006 Cultural Awards

Midnight Bell and spiked contributor ANNA TRAVIS devised the format for this end-of-year review. If there is anyone out there who'd like to make their own contribution, get in touch. In alphabetical order....

ANNA BARKER-TRAVIS

Musical newcomers: Mew (A-ha meets Shudder to Think), Band of Horses: as epic, intense and full of galloping drama as the name suggests.

Musical Rediscovery: King Missile – In particular ‘Jesus was way cool’, laconic-infantile comic-nonsense genius. Krameresque soundscapes (Wayne not Seinfeld).

Reissue/blast from the past: Bill Fay – how did this guy go unnoticed in the 70’s! Quaint, British, Ray Davies whimsy with yearning melancholy: ‘Don’t, don’t let my Marigolds die!’

Top Gig: Sufjan Stevens- Barbican, Spoon- All Tomorrows Parties – A tight, polished Guided By Voices, fronted by blonde beauty

Best Read: The Burrow by Franz Kafka – manic musings of a mole. Is his underground labyrinth a cosy heaven or lethal hell? Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse-Self-loathing philosopher implodes in a sea of imagined social mediocrity.

Favourite Flicks: Grizzly Man – Werner Herzog. Terrifying idiot wants Disney-fied nature but the Grizzly Adams fantasy turns nasty. Dead Man’s Shoes: Brother enacts unhinged revenge on behalf of his ‘simple’ sibling. Paddy Consadine does understated, slow burning, smalltown sociopaths like no other.

Comedy: The Mighty Boosh: Indescribable universe populated with an endless array of monstrous/harmless beasts and the adventures of hapless Hoxtonite Vince Noir and aspiring poetic soul Howard Moon. Nathan Barley revisited on DVD: Chris Morris takes on London magazine/fashion/PR goons with his usual chilling accuracy and linguistic exactitude. Russell Brand, particularly in Big Brother’s Big Mouth. Initially found him a narcissistic bore, grew to love his audacious flirtation, crowd control and random flights of fancy straight from the ID.

Tipple: Chateau Neuf De Pap RED/Perrin’s Reserve (Not sprout wine from Grot)

TV Heaven: Grey Gardens (1975) Documentary: Mesmerizing, creepy look at Jackie Onassis' aunt and cousin. Crazy passive/aggressive double act who live through their memories of faded glamour in a crumbling, overgrown mansion.

Political Culture lowpoint/highpoint: Lowpoint: Predictable onslaught of anti-drinking as next step for behaviour politics. Highpoint: Battle of Ideas festival – in particular ‘Reassessing Liberty’ debate.

2006 Cultural Highlights – DAVID BARKER

Musical newcomers: Wilderness – epic, dream-rock straight outta Baltimore reminiscent of John Lydon (circa Metal Box) fronting Explosions in the Sky.
The Ponys – fantastic garage rock from Chicago’s coolest kids - recently signed to Matador – 2007 could be their year. Band of Horses – came from nowhere at the start of the year to deliver the first classic album of 2006 – Neil Young fans should check them out and fall in love all over again.

Musical Rediscovery: The collection of REM’s IRS years “And I feel fine” reminded me of why they were such a soundtrack to my teenage years (before Michael Stipe’s little-boy-lost faux-naivety became so grating). Not a rediscovery, but I spent much of 2005 and 2006 marvelling at the great lost Chameleons records that passed me by in the 80s.

Reissue/blast from the past: The 3 Judee Sill re-issues were a genuine revelation - re-mastered by Jim O’Rourke they showcase a talent somewhere between Joni Mitchell and Karen Carpenter. The Josef K compilation “Entomology” brought together the choice cuts from Edinburgh’s finest.

Album of the year: Midlake’s “The Trial of Van Occupanther” and Band Of Horses’ “Everything All the Time” prove that the US is still the centre of the musical world. Two gorgeously evocative records, that were streets ahead competition from across the water. The Clientele’s “Strange Geometry” actually came out at the back end of 2005 but was a fine reminder that Walthamstow isn’t just about drive-bys and dogs.

Top Gig: By a country mile the finest gig of the year was Sufjan Stevens at the Barbican. Sufjan live brings to the fore jazz and minimalist influences that ghost through his (great) records – he is now operating at a level of songwriting sophistication that puts most of the competition to shame.

Best Read: Two novels set in the great depression illuminated my year. Saul Bellow’s “The Adventures of Augie March” was a timely reminder of a time when ambition, achievement and the American Dream were seen as aspirational goals, not selfish human endeavours. “Studs Lonigan” by James Farrell was a harrowing, brutal, but ultimately joyful celebration of the human condition.

Favourite Flicks: Michael Hanneke’s “Hidden” was a claustrophobic tale of a couple terrorised by a stalker secretly filming their life. David Cronenburg’s “A History of Violence” was a menacing story of double lives and ambiguous violence. Two excellent documentaries worth catching; “The Devil and Daniel Johnston” was a funny and moving tribute to the troubled genius; “Grizzly Man”, Werner Herzog’s latest, laid bare the infantilism of those who sentimentalise nature, and was the next step in his exploration of human obsession.

Comedy: The dearth of any real new comic talent emerging in 2006 shows that this continues to be one of the most difficult art forms to master. Larry David continues to set the benchmark (both with Curb Your Enthusiasm and with the Seinfeld box-sets, which continue to amaze with the quality and depth of material), although Peep Show series 3 gives David some genuine competition at last. I also enjoyed Coogan’s new vehicle Saxondale which was brilliantly observed and displayed a genuine warmth for his characters. Jack Dee’s new show Lead Balloon was promising, although the writers had probably consumed a few too many Curb episodes for it to truly stand on its own two feet. Finally, The Mighty Boosh, which despite initial reservations, stands up as one of the most enjoyable and original shows of recent years.

Tipple: When at home nothing can beat a glass of Amarone, the finest red wine that Italy can offer. I also became very fond of a fine Spanish Brandy, Carlos V, which gave me a sore head once or twice. When out you can’t beat a well poured pint of Guinness, or when oop North a pint of Boddingtons always goes down well.

TV Heaven: I loved the Sun Ra documentary on BBC4 which was brilliantly researched and truly hilarious, showing a genius at the peak of his powers. Some great anecdotes from former Arkestra members revealed much of what made the great man tick. My favourite was from Thurston Moore who recounted the first time he witnessed the Arkestra live – Sun Ra walked into the audience and approached Moore whispered into his ear “will you lay down your life for me?” – somehow I can’t imagine Chris Martin doing this!
Biggest disappointment was the World Cup which was populated by average teams playing dire football – England being the worst culprits.


Political Culture lowpoint/highpoint: Highpoint was the protests organised by the Coalition for Medical Progress to support vivisection and the use of animals in medical experiments. A brave and righteous riposte to the unelected minority of lunatics who attempt to curtail necessary experimentation through violence and intimidation.
There were many lowpoints, but the over-riding one for me was the continued focus in political circles and in the liberal media portraying human activity as problematic, and of mankind as a virus on the earth. Lucy Siegle’s (Rosie May from the Day Today) ethical living column in the Observer continues to be the most self-righteous, smug piece of journalism ever vomited up in the mainstream media.

2006 Cultural Highlights – JIM CLEAR

Musical newcomers: Archie Bronson Outfit – raw controlled Fall meets Girls Against Boys garage punk from Britain’s current best band. Band Of Horses – Another spot-on Pitchfork recommendation, yearning heartbreaking country rock reminiscent of both My Morning Jacket and Teenage Fanclub. Sneaking in from the tail end of 2005 - Wolf Parade, another Canadian band benefiting from the glow of the Arcade Fire, their debut LP provided the previously overlooked missing link between Bruce Springsteen and the Pixies

Musical Rediscovery: Denim’s “Back In Denim” CD reissue re-affirmed the glory of this early 90s proto Britpop classic; gloriously “middle of the road” and out of synch with the music scene then (and now). Plus, “No Time” by Whiteout on 7” when back home from the pub: the great lost Britpop song from one time Oasis rivals - hard to believe but true.

Reissue/blast from the past: Another year has sadly passed without the reissue of Dennis Wilson’s “Pacific Ocean Blue” so that will hopefully be next year’s blast from the past. Moving on, although wildly patchy, the Children of Nuggets boxset contained some revelations, in particular the Bevis Frond’s sublime “Lights Are Changing”. Oh yes and the original “Nuggets” was re-issued this year, so that has to win this category – the best compilation album of all time by a street.

Album of the year: Although not a vintage year for the long player, “The Trials Of Von Occupanther” by Midlake’s melodic lush 70s harmonies built on their debut album to create a familiar comforting sound that was simultaneously fresh and exciting. Honourable mentions to the aforementioned Band Of Horses’ “Everything All The Time” and “DerDang DerDang” by Archie Bronson Outfit.

Top Gig: Lots of competition here – has to jointly go to the Monks at Tufnell Park Dome in October (huge excitement to see this legendary garage band’s only ever UK gig 40 years after they split – could they pull it off? Oh yes) plus Nick Cave’s stripped down set at the Apollo Victoria Theatre in February – exhilarating in such an intimate setting. Plus Sufjan Stevens (Barbican), Flaming Lips + Midlake (Hammersmith), Radar Bros (All Tomorrow’s Parties), all of Benicassim Festival but especially the last night beach party (Spain) etc etc

Best Read: “Rip It Up and Start Again” by Simon Reynolds. This history of post-punk/new wave led to revisiting or discovering a large amount of the music covered, always a sure sign of a successful music tome. Also “Who’s the best Captain – Kirk or Birdseye?” in Viz: still funny despite what anyone else says.

Favourite Flicks: Preferring the comfort of the DVD/home theatre, I only made it to the cinema once all year, but Scorsese’s “The Departed” did live up to the hype as a return to form, up there with Casino as his best since Goodfellas; Nicholson in a typical love it or hate it performance (I loved it) and Di Caprio finally living up to the potential Marty obviously always saw in him. Home viewing highlights: The Consequences Of Love (Italy’s greatest ever film?) and Team America World Police (an acquired taste)

Comedy: Aside from the evergreen favourites which didn’t disappoint (Curb Your Enthusiasm season 5, Peep Show series 3) a couple of new series from the Day Today dream team hit the heights again: Saxondale (a more gentle and mature Steve Coogan offering, but no less enjoyable or funny for it) plus Time Trumpet - Armando Iannucci spoofing the easy target of list shows with panache; particularly enjoyed the “old celebrities” reminiscing plus Tesco invading Denmark.

Tipple: Once again lager or vodka, although sadly the Daily Mail was wrong and I have not become an out of control raging alcoholic since the change in licensing laws led to most pubs staying open for a whole extra hour at weekends.

TV Heaven: Dragon’s Den continued to defy convention (a reality business game show – surely that’ll never work) and prove highly entertaining on many levels, especially Duncan Bannatyne’s waterskiing and Peter Jones’ massive head. After an amazing first episode, the latest Sopranos series recovered from a couple of weeks of Tony in a coma nonsense at the start to hit such heights again. AJ’s struggles to work out his role in life were especially poignant, while also showing how lucky they were with their original casting; no UK soap style going up the stairs and then reappearing as someone totally different here. Sky Sports News also deserves a mention (sample story “Breaking News – Tranmere take left back on loan from Sochaux reserves”), especially for Soccer Saturday when presented by the peerless Jeff Stelling, without doubt the best presenter on TV right now.

Political Culture lowpoint/highpoint: In my typically shallow manner, the highpoint is the hilarious, clueless way the mainstream parties attempt to “interact” with the “YouTube generation” – Webcameron, Sion Simon’s spoof etc etc. The lowpoint would be the continuing and ever growing lack of engagement with said generation due to such parties getting excited about this Internet thing as a way to “speak to da yoof” instead of addressing or encouraging debate on many day to day issues in a rational manner.

2006 Cultural Highlights – NEIL DAVENPORT

Musical newcomers: Howling Bells. Hailing from Australia via Eastern Europe but now based in north London, this country-Gothic outfit released a perfectly formed, fully-realised eponymous debut back in May. Whereas so much alt.country has become a bi-word for bland mediocrity, Howling Bells invested pedal-steel sojourns with both Twin Peeks spookiness and leather-booted, rock’n’roll grit. At a time when NME new bands inevitably and lamentably disappoint, Howling Bells became a band you could trust.

Honourable mention goes to Band of Horses for their wondrously elegiac debut, Everything All the Time

Musical Rediscovery: A Quiet Revolution by Quiet Revolution was essentially a solo album by ex-Undertones guitarist Damien O’Neill and released on Alan McGee’s fledgling Poptones label in January 2001. Recorded with the uncredited assistance of Kevin Shields, this instrumental album unites MBV’s Loveless with a stack of badly scratched, charity shop easy listening albums. It’s wonky, out-of-focus stuff, but somehow evokes overcast, mid-winter Sunday afternoons like no other. It’s currently selling on Amazon for £1.99, so there’s no excuse.

Reissue/blast from the past: Bob Stanley’s reissue label Eclipse was launched in grand style back in July. His label’s definitive assembling of Dusty Springfield’s singles with A and B sides was definitely needed. Of course, Springfield has been regularly furnished with best ofs and compilations, but none had included b-sides and EP cuts that were as essential as the more famous A-side hits. Springfield has repute as a studio perfectionist, and this all killer, no filler compilations shows why.

Special mention goes to Cherry Red’s compilation on lost C-86 outfit The Servants. The demos and rickety live-cuts were perhaps over-stretched here, but it was great to hear Rings On Her Fingers, the epic It’s My Turn and A Sun, A Small Star have a digital transfer.

Album of the Year: ‘The Greatest’ by Cat Power. No doubt the title of Chan Marshall’s fifth album was deliberately prescient. She’d always been a talent and charismatic star, but too often plagued by slightly patchy albums and car-crash live shows. On The Greatest, she’d played, rather naturally, to all her key strengths. Recorded with Stax legends the Memphis Horns, Marshall’s love of southern country soul galvanized her compositional skills and that drawling, husky voice to the nth degree. Much of The Greatest simply felt like the first rushes of love colliding with the first flush of spring. Yep, dewy-eyed, tender but big on ambition, scope and heart, few albums were as consistently returned to as this. What could be a better recommendation than that?

Honourable mention goes to Midlake’s ‘The Trials of Van Occupanther’, a roaming, warm and literate collection of beardy AOR via some plaintive Neil Young chord changes and frail wonderment.

Top Gig: As a seasoned gig goer for 20 years, it’s increasingly difficult to get truly open-jawed anymore. However, my personal favourite was former Lift To Experience mainmain, Josh T. Pearson. At both The Spitz and, a few days later, The Betsy Trotwood, Pearson’s coal black Texan drawl and FX-battered guitar heroics was the equivalent of riding pillion with the four horsemen of the apocalypse. That he managed to cast such a foreboding shadow without any backing band, was testament to his menacing skills. Then again, he is over seven foot tall. All hail the southern Americans in 2006.

Best Read: the Third Reich in Power by Richard J. Evans continues with his definitive and exhaustive explanation of this widely discussed, but still rarely understood, black hole in European history. It’s commendable largely because it empirically refutes the Frankfurt School theory that is was the working-masses who were to blame for Hitler. By carefully detailing how the police, army and big businesses assisted the Nazi’s programme of liquidating organised labour, the Third Reich is at last re-located in its economic and political context. No wonder The Sunday Times hated this book so much. Incidentally, the passages on how the Nazi’s banned animal experiments, waged a campaign against supermarkets and smokers, as well as championing environmentalism, is a salutary reminder what happens when the irrational middle-classes take state power.

Honorary mention to novels published this year include Ian McEwan’s Saturday as a thoughtful meditation on the west’s moral malaise, while Zadie Smith’s On Beauty showed she’s growing in statue as a novelist to (finally) write home about. From yesteryear Manuael vazquez Montalban's Murder in the Central is the finest book written about murder in the Spanish Communist Party.....

Favourite Flicks: Not a vintage year for cinema, though Scorsese came good again with The Departed after the visually dazzling but emotionally empty farrago of Gangs of New York. My personal highlight, though, was Festival, a scabrous satire of the comedy circuit during the Edinburgh festival. For the most part, this was queasy eyes-behind-fingers viewing; though observational and insightful on the destructiveness of thwarted ambition. A special mention goes to Wolf Creek; the most disturbing horror movie to grace the widescreen in decades.

Comedy: While Ricky Gervais floundered with the lame Extras 2, Coogan’s Saxondale was both a return to form and a fresh departure. Coogan’s genius has always been his attention to detail, and here Saxondale was bolstered by even greater character-depth and top drawer performances. A slow burner that everyone I knew had opinions on, always a good sign. Best comedy must surely go to Pulling, bleakly funny shot through with wise truths and clear insights on sex wars shenanigans. Elsewhere Jack Dee’s vastly overrated Lead Balloon was just that – an obvious joke, yes, but one that’s entirely fitting. Still, Raquel Cassidy was worth tuning in for.

Tipple: Having shifted from lager to bitter this year, a pint of Black Kat has proven the most flavoursome for the taste buds. Slurp it while you can.

TV Heaven: The Sopranos sixth season was a return to form after the Guy Ritchie-esque diversions of the previous. Plenty of focus on how parasitic the mob are on working-class Americans, but also how pitifully inadequate and infantile Soprano’s mob really are. The episode where Chrissy stalks Sir Ben Kingsley was a masterclass in portraying low-lifes getting it all wrong amongst the high-life. Dragon’s Den continues to be the surprise hit and great fun. The strengths and weaknesses of capitalist social relations in 60 minutes: any advances on that offer? Plus the BBC 4 documentary on Alma Cogan was a fine to elegy to a lost post-war singer.

Political Culture lowpoint/highpoint: The lowpoint is the ongoing and irrational obsession with ‘healthy’ food and, in particular, the hatred of supermarkets. Bring back empty shelves and empty stomachs, I say! Worse, this is no longer contained to the idiotic columnists clogging up the illiberal press, but part of government policy. The banning of delicious fizzy drinks and chocolate from schools? Inspections of packed lunches? As Jerry Seinfeld would say, enough of this tuckshop Taliban already.

Political highlight would be the spat between The Guardian and Noam Chomsky. Back in February Emma Brockes raked over the ITN/LM libel trial and berated Chomsky for supporting these ‘holocaust deniers’. The result? A crimson-faced apology from The Guardian for misquoting Chomsky; a complete retraction of the offending article from their website and the wholesale alienation of a key radical academic. Nice going!