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In these days when talentless DJs grow rich from putting dance beats under other people's songs you have to feel that there's a parallel universe out there where the Just are rewarded. Despite his words that 'the money you gave me never could save me, nor could it change me' it'd be nice to think that he would at least be better off and that in such a place Stephen Coates would recline by his pool as Norman Cooke cleaned it. Stephen's alternative world is Tuesday Weld and here love is king, queen and every other card, especially ace, even the rain makes you want to sing. For him, imaginative music is more than having a CD played with a varispeed and that sounds like it's sticking. Here snippets of dialogue open the way into a journey beyond this planet where 'we float between the stars, tap-dance in the dark, spin away into the void, like asteroids', or to Clerkenwell, guided by ethereal, semi-spoken, voices that seem to emanate from inside your head. It's a world where every day is like a (good) Dennis Potter musical, people burst into song at the drop of a chapeau and even the birds sing along in time. While the thought that "even you will be pushing up the daisies one day too" still doesn't blight your joy at seeing them "poke their heads through crazy paving" and, even as you approach death, you recall "stardust days of me and you." When the end does come there's even still time to thank the ladies and gentlemen before saying goodbye. In this far-fetched utopia the beats aren't intrusive, the rhythm never jars and the harmonies are sweet. Alas, back on Earth we can only listen to a record like this and dream of such a place and when we do, we can thank our lucky stars that there is Tuesday Weld to make such beautiful soundtracks to them. There is only one Tuesday Weld and this is the real thing, accept no imitations.

Laurence Arnold
CWAS #9 - Winter 2002

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