A Teenage Fanclub Education: Pesto

It’s dead easy to list the most obvious influences of Scotland’s Teenage Fanclub. He’s read them so often, founding band member Norman Blake can rattle them off at the drop of a tam: Big Star, Byrds, Beach Boys. Pigeonholing the Fanclub’s melodic-yet-rocking sound becomes a little more dicey. Though most of the cornerstones of power pop—Posies, Flamin’ Groovies, Matthew Sweet, Velvet Crush, Tommy Keene, Alex Chilton—don’t think much of the label, it seems to be the only one that’s stuck. If they keep this up for another five years or so, Teenage Fanclub, which opened for business in the mid-’80s when Blake met fellow Scots Raymond McGinley and Gerard Love, might surpass the Groovies for career longevity, a career award that usually precedes only the obit in a band’s publicity dossier. And yet, the group’s new album, Shadows (Merge), is as vital as anything TFC has ever cut, adding fuel to the proposition that some artists come up with their best work after turning 40. Blake and Love will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with Blake.

Gerard: I’d like to salute the genius of pesto. I think I could eat it every day. Well, definitely five days a week! The first time I tried to use pesto, I heated it over the stove just like any other pasta sauce I had prepared, brought it to the boil, allowed it to simmer awkwardly for a minute or so, then poured it over the pasta. It was nice, but instantly I had the sense that something wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t the same as the stuff I had been served in the restaurant. Eventually, the penny dropped; it was to be be eaten cold, raw, uncooked. It’s not actually a sauce, it’s a dressing. Ah. This somehow made it seem more enigmatic, a more exotic proposition, more primitive and way more interesting than all the other heat-infused sauces I had previously encountered, so I decided to encounter pesto on a regular basis, three or four times a week. It’s the perfect taste, the perfect blend of flavour, simple yet complex, ancient and yet somehow contemporary. I quickly developed a habit and would only buy fresh pesto from the local delicatessen, until I started to become aware of the amount of little plastic cartons I was now throwing out every month. I began talking to other pesto users about pesto and came to the conclusion that I should start attempting to prepare it myself. Over the last couple of years, I’ve tried to find the perfect recipe and the perfect process, but I still have a way to go. Perfect pesto still eludes me. I’ve tried the food processor, I’ve tried the pestle and mortar. At the moment, I’m favouring the use of a super-sharp knife, manually micro-chopping 40g of basil, 40g of rocket (arugula) together with two cloves of garlic, 50g parmesan and a handful of lightly toasted pine nuts to dust-sized particles before compacting into a dense block, transferring to a small dish, then adding enough olive oil to achieve the correct consistency. It’s not bad, not quite there yet, but I’ve noticed in my many attempts that even bad pesto is actually pretty good. Any pesto tips would be greatly appreciated!

Video after the jump.