Seriously what were my expectations from this book, and why do I feel somewhat disappointed but also somewhat compelled to keep reading it to the end, despite the numerous other partially-read books on the bedside table which will undoubtedly be much more rewarding?
Partly, and ridiculously, I think it's because about six months ago Dave Ball showed up as a fb friend (surely he didn't ask to be my friend, perhaps I saw him engaging with someone else and I decided to join the gang - don't recall). Anyway, for a time there he seemed like a lot of fun, this man I'd never really thought about aside from the fact I had long enjoyed his solo album from around about the last days of Soft Cell and, of course, I had always been a Soft Cell fan (I like 'Bedsitter' and 'Torch' better than 'Tainted Love', and I like the second album a lot). He had a slightly cynical but entirely down-to-earth attitude to him that reminded me of some English men I didn't mind. So I thought - Dave's book, this'll be fun.
OK so what is it. One thing it strangely isn't is very revealing about Marc Almond. That doesn't matter to me massively in the sense that I have read MA's memoir and feel satisfied I know what there is to be known about him. But it is still strange that he is such a cardboard figure here, and I can't tell whether DB was like, 'well everyone knows Marc Almond so I can't add to that', or whether he was like 'fuck people who want to know about Marc Almond, this is about me and I'm tired of being Matthew to his Sooty', or perhaps Marc Almond was like 'say anything about me and I'll sue you'. This last seems really unlikely, because they seem to have a decent enough working relationship, they don't need to reunite as Soft Cell, they're both individually very successful, but they have done periodically over time. Perhaps DB was like 'if I start talking about MA he will just dominate the whole thing', which also seems unlikely. Anyway, that's one odd thing.
Elsewhere there is disappointment; DB is such a lad, in that sad English way. Whelks and uppers. Seems to be a fan of a lot of things, and excited by other people's rebelliousness, but not ready to do too much of it himself. I mean, kudos to him for sustaining a career, but he's not ready to spill much about his creative process.
More fool me I had no idea that his second-time-around-hit-duo The Grid had a major worldwide hit record in 1994, or maybe I did and I'd forgotten. When I listened to it ('Swamp Thing') I was chronically underwhelmed, though perhaps at the time it was more exciting than it is now. I really ended up wondering what it was all about.
So, I think I mentioned a year or so ago I read the first half of John Taylor's memoir. I wasn't excited enough to get through to the end, but then I was never much of a DD fan. In this case, I admit there's a lot of interesting detail - particularly DB's upbringing, but also the studenty/art school origins of SC - but you never really feel like you're being inducted into anything, you're just being rather bald descriptions. Even when DB tells us how he feels about stuff, it doesn't really feel right.
