CarterSaidWhat

Mr Ian Dury Caught On Camera... Again

2010-11-12T15:57:00.000Z

Fast-paced and kaleidoscopic, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll has clearly been put together with a respect and devotion that would make Ian Dury grin. Taking us from his shambolic early gigs in pubs to fame, fortune and inevitable decay in a country mansion, the film concentrates on the ever-widening divide between Dury's domestic life with long-suffering wife artist Betty, played by Olivia Williams, and their two small children, and his desperate need for musical affirmation. Directed at breakneck speed by Mat Whitecross (BAFTA nominated for The Road to Guantanamo), much of the action naturally takes place onstage. Dury must be one of the trickier roles to tangle with but Andy Serkis, until now best known as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, inhabits the man so completely, it's unnerving – from the stumbling walk, result of a childhood bout with polio, to the ravaged Cockney growl that made Burl Ives sound falsetto.

There's a droll Withnail & I gloom at the start, but the opening credits, courtesy of pop artist Peter Blake, with whom Dury studied at the Royal College of Art, are eye-poppingly psychedelic, taking you right inside the riot of Dury's head. It contrast fits; for anyone in their teens and twenties in late-1970s England, the first bars of Dury’s jaunty top-selling single, Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick – played here, complete with crazed sax solo and anti-violence message – conjure a world of energy, possibility and louche charm, just the ticket in a country stuck deep in recession. As we watch Dury, already a dad, already an ex-art teacher, get kicked off one too many small-time stages and start to motor round defiantly selecting what were to be the Blockheads, that artwork springs up again; next thing you know, Dury's got the mixture right, gurning in that rock 'n' roll vaudeville style, roaring lyrics of such lecherous innuendo, you realise he'd never get a deal these days. Soon he's picked up girlfriend Denise (Naomie Harris) – he didn't call himself Mr Love Pants for nothing – and moved with her out of the family's suburban semi into a decrepit hole in what he liked to call Catshit Mansions. A new life was beginning.

But of course, Dury was nothing if not triumphant underdog, and the film, often dangerously moving, deals with this side of things in detail. Shadowy flashbacks document his efforts to survive the brutish boarding school for the disabled to which he was sent, and the memories of rare visits from his father (played by Ray Winstone), who'd take the young Dury out for idyllic days before returning him to the school and its bullies, many of them teachers. On a return 'celebrity' visit, he learns that one particular teacher has hanged himself, and smiles serenely, 'That's the best news I've had all day.'

The trouble was, Dury was a deeply selfish bloke, in the way the creatively driven can be. An early scene shows him rehearsing deafeningly while Betty, in the upstairs bedroom, is in labour. It's played for laughs (‘Can you keep the noise down? I’ve just given birth!’), and Dury's crumpling face as he holds the baby shows his tenderness, if it doesn't quite allow for remorse. But this is the man we watch leaving his son in the care of giant bruiser the Sulphate Strangler (actually, a bit of a teddy bear); forgetting birthdays; ignoring a ten-year-old Baxter all the way through a drug-fuelled party. You want to hate this charismatic egotist, quiffed in the manner of hero Gene Vincent, chainsmoking, beer-swilling, flirting but above all sweating over melodies and lyrics – but somehow you can't. The songs it was all for are present and correct, from the title track to Clever Trevor, re-recorded with crunching vim by the original Blockheads and not actually punk at all, though Dury's cited as a founder member and wore razor blade earrings before the idea crossed Johnny Rotten’s mind. No, this was much more complex, a brew of reggae, rock ‘n’ roll and jazz, a bouncing bed for lyrics of hilarious articulacy.

But the subtle mix of dark and light make this much more than a rock biopic. Whether we’re watching a young Dury being knocked to the floor, the estranged husband suavely buckling on callipers after a night of torrid sex or the finally shamed, remorseful father whispering to his son, 'Don't be like me. Be like you...', this is the tale of a vulnerable genius who barrelled through every setback. The film is top and tailed with scenes in the music hall tradition that framed Dury’s life so well, from rakish bravado to underlying melancholy.

Sing In The Cave

2010-11-11T16:07:00.000Z

Here is the mystery of Seattle’s Cave Singers: They never listened to much folk music, they never intended to play folk music, and more importantly, their guitarist never picked up the instrument until recently. Yet, this strange trio is writing and performing some of the most hypnotizing folk music we have today.

One listen to Invitation Songs, however, and you’re ready to call bullshit on them. It sounds like an updated version of the Anthology of American Folk Music. Not the graduate-student, learned interpretations of folk music circa 1962, but folk music approached by way of punk rock. It's sparse, melodic, creepy, and alluring, like the widow mourning graveside in Johnny Cash’s “Long Black Veil”. Guitarist Derek Fudesco's bottom-end acoustic work sounds like Mississippi John Hurt's soft, rolling finger plucks. Singer Pete Quirk's appealingly nasal voice simultaneously echoes Arlo Guthrie and a mosquito's buzz. And drummer Marty Lund plays like he's slapping a newspaper on a kitchen table.

Though Quirk spent time in Seattle post-punk group Hint Hint, Lund in Cobra High, and Fudesco as bassist for Pretty Girls Make Graves and the legendary Murder City Devils, maybe they’ve been folk artists all along and we just haven’t been open to the idea.

The band maintains that they never made a conscious effort to play a certain 'style' of music, and that, besides the odd Dylan record, their favorite bands are still the Replacements, the Pixies, Fleetwood Mac. With that in mind, I do believe it was Big Bill Broonzy who quipped: “All music is folk music.”

Invitation Songs is the Cave Singers’ debut. It was recorded in Vancouver, British Columbia by Colin Stewart (PGMG, Black Mountain), and its title is appropriate; it is one of the warmest and most welcoming records of 2007. Each track is coated in a dense atmosphere that feels humid but not stifling. The shuffle-stomp rhythms on “Seeds of Night” and “Dancing on our Graves” recall Civil War marches, highlighting Lund’s innate abilities. Elsewhere, on “Royal Lawns” harmonicas sigh and echo back like ghosts in abandoned railway cars. The brooding, washboard-driven “Called” is kin to Ugly Casanova’s chain-gang musings, and Quirk’s mid-song yelps don’t sound planned, but rather like the ultimate summoning of his inner turmoil.

“Helen”, a classic tale of a long lost lover (“Helen, you’re eyes are frozen in my brain”), employs a wavering synth to create a Martian blues vibe. On the rustic rock-flavored “Oh Christine”, another strummy song of a love just out of reach, Quirk takes on an almost jazz-poet tone. “I saw you smoking in the bar just the other night/If I saw you right...I saw you drinking in the bar just the other day/And what’s that I heard you say?” Nothing fancy, but he sings as if he is conjuring memories so personal he has to force them through his pinched teeth.

You see, the Cave Singers' music demands attention. You’ll throw this record on, maybe in the morning while you’re getting ready for work. Then, in the middle of the day, one of Quirk’s lyrics or Fudesco’s riffs will pop into your head, the way a Townes Van Zandt song does. You won’t be able to shake it. You’ll go home and listen to it again. Pretty soon, Invitation Songs will have worked its way into your subconscious and become the soundtrack to this moment in your life. Invitation Songs will remain a part of you forever.

Roses Made Of Stone

2010-11-10T10:28:00.000Z

The Stone Roses were four lads from Manchester who believed they could be better than the Beatles. They had influences, sure, but they wanted to be individual. Because only then could they last. Only then would they mean something to future generations. The Stone Roses survives and shines because the band wanted their debut album to be a timeless record. Listening to it may take you back to baggy, to Madchester, to ecstasy and dancing in fields in floppy hats and flares. But it also exists in its very own space.

Sometimes it's cool to be arrogant. Sometimes it's OK to be confident and cocky. The Stone Roses had cheek and ridiculous self-belief. When producer John Leckie finished work on the band's eponymous debut, he told them they were going to do well. They shrugged; they knew. They had that idiosyncratic Manc swagger as epitomised by Happy Mondays before them and Oasis after.

Although singer Ian Brown was beautiful, with his pale northern skin, Jagger lips and hollow cheeks, the Roses were also very much a band. You get the idea that when Brown and Squire went into the studio with bass player Gary 'Mani' Mounfieldand drummer Alan 'Reni' Wren, they trusted and understood one another and were able to do what came naturally to them. They didn't worry about the influences of Jimi Hendrix or Johnny Marr, they just wrote what was in their hearts. You can't create genius; it just is.

When The Stone Roses was released in May 1989, it almost instantly became a classic. The opening chords of 'I Wanna Be Adored' are a perfect statement of intent, sending shivers down the spine with a rumbling, thumping bassline even before Squire's immense guitar sound sets in. It matters not that the lyrics have barely more than a dozen words; the sentiment is made crystal clear.

John Leckie's clever production allows the band to explore their ideas, leaving the songs with raw edges and making them feel real rather than synthetic. Brown's vocals are assured yet sometimes a little croaky, silky smooth yet a little cracked. And the folky Simon and Garfunkel feel is not just present on the 59-second 'Elizabeth My Dear' (an attack on the Queen set to the music of 'Scarborough Fair') but throughout the album.

In some ways this is not the sound of Manchester in the ecstasy-fuelled late Eighties, but a universal sound born of the Sixties. Squire may experiment with Hendrix ('Shoot You Down') and Marr ('Bye Bye Badman') but his heart favours trippy, psychedelic guitars. And he certainly knows how to write anthems, from the magnificent melody of 'Waterfall' to the closing track, 'I Am the Resurrection'. Brown later explained that he had to coax the band into letting the latter run to its full eight minutes, 12 seconds; they were worried about being pretentious prog rockers.

While the others were worrying about the effects of freeform jamming, Brown was wondering what might become of them. 'If we do get big ... we're either gonna get fucked up or we're gonna die - that's what happens to everybody.' He wanted to be in the biggest band in the world - he believed he was - but he knew there could be serious consequences too. Yet even Brown could not have anticipated a long, painful fight with their record label and a delay of over five years before a second album appeared.

In the end, the Stone Roses split up very publicly. All the stories seemed so important at the time: Brown and Squire no longer on speaking terms, the paint thrown over the offices of their other record label. Yet none of that really matters now. Fifteen years on, what we are left with is the art, the music.

The Roses had northern cool but they also had northern soul. They believed they should matter and they did.

John Lennon Talks To Rolling Stone

2010-11-09T21:36:00.000Z

Not content to be merely an ex-Beatle. John Lennon has carved out a new career for himself as political gadfly, floating member of the international avant-garde and as rock's most psychologically daring tightrope artist. John has always displayed an amazing capacity for growth, and it one is impatient with the speed with which he takes up and then discards various causes, philosophies, and people, the other side of the coin is that he hasn't fallen into the latter-day complacency of various other rock and roll over-achievers.

Yet despite his quest in and out of music. Imagine raises the question how much further John can progress with the vocabulary of concepts and feelings land down on John Lennon Plastic One Band.

POB's importance lay not in the fact that it is the culmination of certain tensions which can be seen in John's work since the beginning (the lyrical directness and vocal intensity, for example), but that it was also their solution. As an early adolescent. John chose rock as both his artistic and therapeutic medium. Rock and roll's was of solving problems is simply stating and restating them ("I Can't Get No Satisfaction" is the classic example) and through the resulting emotional and physical exhaustion, the pressure is temporarily alleviated However, the intervention of the primal therapy experience forced John to redefine his approach in a subtle but decisive way Where he had sung "Twist and Shout" with the urgency of someone who had to get something off his chest, he sang the songs on POB as a final recreation of his original traumas, and as a document of their cure. POB is a profoundly "ultimate" album, because it unbends the mainspring of at least one man's rock and roll career. The question of following up POB was thus inescapable because it was difficult to imagine its successor being merely more of the same.

The problem of following an album as perfect as POB is of course more than a stylistic one. POB took an individual course. Where the trend of rock over the past few years had been one of increasing complexity and sophistication (certainly John, with songs like "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "I Am the Walrus" is as responsible for this as anyone), POB represented a return to rock's most visceral, and still implicit origins. Of course, it was not done naively, but with a full regalia of theoretical justifications. But it is a style which, because it is so bound up with a particular experience at a moment in time, is obsolete once it is expressed.

On the evidence of Imagine, I don't think John has resolved the manner in which a masterpiece and an artistic dead-end like POB can successfully be followed. In its technical sloppiness and self-absorption, Imagine is John's Self-Portrait. Most of it centers around issues which have already been dealt with on POB, only here handled less passionately and, strangely, less fastidiously as well. For POB, in its singing and instrumental work, was as much a triumph of artifice as of art. It managed to sound both spontaneous and careful, while Imagine is less of each. Even though it contains a substantial portion of good music, on the heels of POB it only seems to reinforce the questioning of what John's relationship to rock really is.

"Imagine," for instance, is simply the consolidation of primal awareness into a world movement. It asks that we imagine a world without religions or nations, and that such a world would mean brotherhood and peace. The singing is methodical but not really skilled, the melody undistinguished, except for the bridge, which sounds nice to me.

I first heard "Crippled Inside" on my car radio. I didn't know right off who it was (though the dobro sounded like George), but was convinced that only someone very famous, in this age of banal competence, would dare put out something so haphazard. The song's refrain and theme is "One thing you can't hide/Is when you're crippled inside," and is another pitch for John's personal outlook. It sports an Ed Sanders-type vocal.

It is not clear whether "It's So Hard" came before or after John's primal therapy experience. "It's so hard, it's really hard Sometimes I feel like going down." John sings, and the words can have the most general meaning, or, applied to John's own past, the most specific. The guitar playing is extremely basic; the sax playing by King Curtis is extremely compact. Like "Crippled Inside," it sounds to have been done in a single take.

"Oh My Love" is another post-primal testimonial, to the effect that John can only now see, feel, and love for the first time. John's singing here is not as full-bodied as on POB, though part of the blame must be placed on the quality of the recording, which doesn't sound as good to these cars as that on the earlier album.

"I Don't Wanna Be A Soldier Mama I Don't Wanna Die" is an enumeration of all the roles John withdraws from, and contains some incisive lines like, "Well, I don't wanna be a lawyer mama, I don't wanna lie" and, "Well, I don't wanna be a thief now mama. I don't wanna fly." The melody is essentially the Kinks' "You Really Got Me." An aura of grandiose decadence envelops this cut. When John shouts "Hit it!" to the horns, it is like some ancient tyrant commanding the Nubians. He sounds both long-suffering and cruel.

"How," again has a nice bridge, but is otherwise fairly drippy, and contains predictable lines like, "How can I have feeling when I don't know If it's a feeling?" "Oh Yoko!" is a charming bauble, another tribute to his wife.

The three really worthy, musically effective numbers are "Jealous Guy," "Gimme Some Truth," and "How Do You Sleep." And while on a spontaneous level I find them the most musically appealing. I think there are also sound reasons for their quality. Each of them represents an area of John's sensibility which he has previously not presented, and while I find "How Do You Sleep," John's character assassination of Paul McCartney, horrifying and indefensible, it nevertheless has an immediacy which makes it more compelling than most of the rest of the album.

"Jealous Guy" is a touching confession. It boasts a brilliantly tortured, pathetic vocal and an eloquent string arrangement. His voice here is weak and lacks range, but this only contributes to the effect. The song is powerful because it progresses beyond the realm of POB. There, John's whole realty was "Yoko and me." Here, then insulation and mutual devotion comes unstuck out of John's lack of trust in her, and the moment is a humane and revealing one The initial musical motive and the piano arrangement are highly reminiscent of "Day in the Life."

"Gimme Some Truth" is one of John's famous polysyllable songs, and like "I Found Out" is a series of denunciations. Here, however, the shock of recognition is not dramatized, rather, John knows perfectly well what the truth is, and is merely disgusted with all the hypocrites whose business it is to obscure it. It contains a brilliant seething guitar solo by George

In sheet viciousness, nothing on the album surpasses "How Do You Sleep." It begins with the orchestra tuning up, a la Sgt. Pepper. and proceeds to lay waste to Paul's character, family and career. John is still a wicked punster, and lines like "The only thing you done was yesterday" hit then mark. But beyond the cruelty of it, it is offensive because it is unjust. Paul's music may be muzak to John's cars, but songs like "Oh Yoko" of "Crippled Inside" are no more consequential than anything on McCartney or Ram. And while a song like "It's So Hard" is more "serious" than much of what's on those two albums. it is certainly no better. As for "You live with straights who tell you you was king," popstars do have their sycophants and I wonder if John is really such an exception. As for "Jump when your momma tell you anything," that is an unusual accusation for John to hurl at someone else. Finally, there is the audacity of the retrain "Ah how do you sleep at night?" as if to suggest that Paul's conscience should be bothered by the course his life has taken.

The motives for "Sleep" are battling. Partly it is the traditional bohemian contempt for the bourgeois; partly it is the souring of John's long-standing competitive relationship with Paul. When they were both Beatles their rivalry was channeled towards the betterment of the Beatles as a totality. Apart, it is only destructive.

Most insidiously, I fear that John sees himself in the role of truth-teller, and, as such, can justify any kind of self-indulgent brutality in the name of truth. In "Gimme Some Truth," John complains, "I've had enough of watching scenes. Of schizophrenic-egocentric-paranoic-prima donnas"; who is he speaking about now? Personally. I'm interested in John the man, his personal trials and dramas, because he has revealed them to us as John the extraordinary artist. If he does not continue as such, his posturings will soon seem not merely dull but irrelevant. It seems to me that John is facing the most extraordinary challenge of his career, both personally and artistically. But then, great artists, of whom John is one, are nothing if not resourceful.

Nazi's Are Wack Like Woolworths

2010-11-08T12:55:00.000Z

There is absolutely no question in my mind that when it comes to intertwining lyrics with music, Pete Doherty is a genius. He continuously demonstrates that when it comes to songwriting, they aren’t many better. However, I also have no doubt in my mind that when it comes to making life choices, Pete Doherty sometimes decides to go down the wrong alleyways. You know what I’m talking about; the sort of alleyways that end up in either rehab, a courtroom, or on stage in Germany singing a Nazi anthem.

Now, there are certain things that you just don’t do. Inviting a known pedophile who is a registered sex offender to provide the entertainment at a 4 year olds birthday party is one, playing hide the remote control with your mates bird is another, steeling money from a Barnardos collection pot at your local bakery is definitely a no-no; and standing on stage in front of thousands in Germany whilst singing a known Nazi anthem is something that you should never do. Now, thankfully I haven’t done any of the above, but I know a man who has.

Pete Doherty wasn’t even booked to play at the On3 Festival in Munich at the weekend. However, being drunk enables one to have more confidence in trying to persuade people to do something they want to do. Now, Doherty was backstage drunk. And he wanted to be on stage drunk. So, he persuaded the On3 organisers to let him perform. However, they had no clue what he had in mind.

The Babyshambles front man took to the stage and sang the first stanza of Das Deutschlandlied. Now, although the third stanza is now Germany's national anthem, the first stanza is considered demonstration of far-right sympathies. The crowd booed so loud that Doherty was removed from the festival and sent on his way.

A statement was released through one of Doherty’s spokesman which said that he "was unaware of the controversy surrounding the German national anthem and he deeply apologises if he has caused any offence".

Was it bad luck, or was it stupidity? Who knows. But what I am sure about is Doherty’s German fan base may have dwindled slightly.

Moving Through Records At Lightspeed

2010-11-05T11:25:00.000Z

The number 50 is big yet small at the same time. 50 pennies won’t get you a lot. You couldn’t get the bus, buy a bottle of water or even use the toilet on Ryan Air. However, with 50 pound coins you could get the bus to the airport, buy a bottle of water in departures and then fly to Amsterdam with enough change in your pocket to enjoy nice trip to the Red Light District. 50 real elephants would take up a lot of space in your front room. However, 50 miniature toy elephants will provide your young nephew enough entertainment to keep him from irritating you whilst you watch Only Fools and Horses reruns over the Christmas break. In terms of music, to write 50 songs is one thing, however to write 50 albums is quite another. And the latter is exactly what Lightspeed Champion has done.

Mr Champion, AKA Dev Hynes, has spoken out about his resolution to put social media, TV and just about anything else to one side to consecrate on clefs and quavers. He told Spinner; "I decided that in every gap in the week that I found myself sitting down, or watching TV or waiting for tea to brew or logging on to Facebook, I would write and record a song instead," Hynes then went onto explain on his blog. "[I'd do it] without any real thought ... by making words up essentially as I went along”. And done that he’s done in abundance.

Hynes is set to release 50 bootleg albums that he’s written over the past 2 years. "Some, I would say, are awful ... But mostly I find it all interesting. It's an experiment. Even some that I don't like particularly, I like the idea behind it”. It should be known that the bootleg series has nothing to do with Hynes second proper album, Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You, which is due to drop in February.

The first bootleg album is available to download now; aptly titled House Sitting Songs, the album was written during Mr Champion’s extended stay in Manhattan as he was house sitting for a fellow musician. Hynes spoke on his blog; "The person in question was a musician and had a couple guitars lying around, as well as mini keyboards and drum pads for their kid to play on". So as all good musicians do he strummed, hit and pushed his way through house sitting in order to produce the House Sitting Songs.

2010 is panning out to be an interesting year for Lightspeed Champion. With 50 bootleg albums and the release of his second long player confirmed, I’ve got to say, I’m looking forward to it.

Is That Jam On Your Face?

2010-11-04T23:27:00.000Z

The Jam, one of the great British bands, was a thick-as-thieves punk trio who bashed out mod anthems, led by the eternally boyish Paul Weller. On albums such as 1978's All Mod Cons, 1980's Sound Affects, and the 1982 live summary, Dig the New Breed, Weller sang his tales of ordinary English life, envisioning a nation of sad-eyed boys dressing up to go race their Vespa scooters through the streets while a hundred lonely housewives clutched empty milk bottles to their hearts. The fantasy struck a chord in the U.K., where Weller came to be revered with fanatical devotion. Although the Jam never had an American hit and broke up 20 years ago, these sharp-dressed mods have influenced practically every decent British rock band since.
Weller, the self-proclaimed "Cappuccino Kid," was only 18 when the Jam debuted in 1977 with In the City. He yelled his clumsy youth-explosion lyrics over frantic guitar riffs, but even when the band slowed it down for the naively touching "Away From the Numbers," his Woking accent was too thick for any American to comprehend, one of the reasons the Jam never came close to cracking the U.S. This Is the Modern World had weaker songs, as sophomore albums do, except for "Life Through a Window." But All Mod Cons made Weller a boy wonder over in Britannia, with a cover of the Kinks' "David Watts" as a touchstone for Weller's catchy little vignettes, especially the funny "A-Bomb in Wardour Street" and the politically charged "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight." (Despite the somewhat bizarre claim in Jon Savage's England's Dreaming that the Jam were Tories, they were the U.K.'s most energetically left-wing pop stars.)

From their Who/Kinks/Creation riffs to their mohair suits, the Jam touched off a glorious mod revival, inspiring followers like the Merton Parkas, the Jolt, and Secret Affair, whose 1979 hit "Time for Action" perfectly summed up the mod lifestyle: "Looking good's the answer/And living by night." But Setting Sons was a pompous concept album, taking the whole influenced-by-the-Who business a little far, despite "Thick as Thieves," "When You're Young," and "Saturday's Kids," a boyish answer to Blondie's "Sunday Girl." The Jam had its first #1 U.K. hit with "Going Underground" and followed with the magnificent Sound Affects. The album offers the poignant teen-boy ache of "Start!," "Monday," and "Boy About Town"; the sha-la-la harmonies of "Man in the Corner Shop"; a Shelley poem on the back cover; and the Jam's best song ever, the acoustic lament "That's Entertainment," which can break your heart even if you have no idea what Weller's saying.

The Jam faltered with the R&B moves of The Gift -- why these three decidedly unfunky gentlemen decided it was their destiny to get on the good foot, the world will never know. "Town Called Malice" was a gem with an elastic bass line and a howling organ, while "Ghosts" was an elegiac ballad. But the lads were rich adults now and could no longer pretend to be the skinny-tied, bowling-shoe-wearing, Union Jack-waving, tube-station-frequenting adolescents of "Boy About Town" or "Saturday's Kids." So they bade farewell with the superb single "Beat Surrender," though Weller kept pursuing his R&B and classic-rock influences, first as the Style Council and then solo, aging from the Cappuccino Kid to the Duke of Decaf but still sounding touched by the hand of mod.

Of all the Jam's many overlapping repackages, the original 1983 double-vinyl Snap! is still the best, blasting off with the essential early hits "In the City" and "All Around the World." But it's truncated on CD and includes only the inferior demo version of "That's Entertainment," so the 1991 Greatest Hits is preferable. Snap! has the version of "The Modern World" on which Weller yells, "I don't give a damn about your review!"; on Greatest Hits, it's "I don't give two fucks." The poorly selected 2003 Sound of the Jam omits necessities like "All Around the World" and "The Bitterest Pill." Extras has ace covers of the Who's "So Sad About Us" and the Beatles' "And Your Bird Can Sing"; Direction Reaction Creation is an impersonal but functional box set. Dig the New Breed, the Jam's superb live album, has dramatic renditions of "Ghosts," "Going Underground," and "In the Crowd," plus a version of "That's Entertainment" even more moving and incomprehensible than the original. A final thought, from "Boy About Town": "There's more than you can hope for in this world."

That Can't Be True

2010-11-03T12:48:00.000Z

A good rumour is a lot like buying a second hand car. It starts out great giving you lots of false hope. Then one day it decides to break down on you just as you enter the Blackwall Tunnel. It’s at this point that you realise that everything that Dave’s dad told you when you bought it was a complete lie. Note to self: Never buy a motor off Dave’s dad. Then there are some rumours that are so ludicrous that you just don’t even give them the time of day. And why should you? They’re complete horse shit.

Thanks to the internet rumours and myths come quicker than adolescent in a room full of Page 3 models. One of my favourites from years gone past was that Jim Morrison is still alive and kicking.

Myths: Jim Morrison is alive and someone else’s body is in his grave.

Facts: Some people still don’t believe that Morrison’s body is the one buried in his grave in a Paris cemetery. The official cause of Morrison’s was listed as a heart attack (believed by many to have been drug related) in 1971. One enterprising gentleman has even produced a video that he claims is Morrison living the life of a cowboy in the Pacific Northwest. People who have seen the video say the man in it bears no resemblance whatsoever to Morrison, and other than the fact that many of his song lyrics had mystical themes, there is no evidence to suggest that his death was faked.

What I say: Complete and utter rhubarb.

Keep The Kula

2010-11-02T16:57:00.001Z

Once upon a time; long, long, long ago. There existed a land called Britpop. This was an innocent place; a place that excited before terrorist outrages, war in Iraq and Big Brother. A place where Rock’n’Roll was about living for the moment. One group, however, stood out amidst this boozy bacchanal. Emerging in spring 1996; Kula Shaker were strict vegetarians, discussed Arthurian legend in interviews and, when the fancy took them, wrote top five singles in Sanskrit.

After two albums of impeccable progressive pop–boasting themes ranging from global meltdown to Orwellian paranoia – on 11th August 1999 they vanished as quickly as they arrived. “It was getting closure to the eve of the Millennium”, explains Crispian Mills. “At this stage, all the innocence and optimism which we’d started with had been sucked out of us by the process. We went through so many hassles with managers and labels you wouldn’t believe. We played a festival in Cornwall to coincide with the full solar eclipse and splitting up just seemed like the appropriate thing to do.”

As with most bands that’ve played a hand at pop’s high table, a lengthy cooling off period was necessary. In their absence, a host of new groups emerged, inspired either by their love of William Blake (The Libertines), acid rock (Wolfmother) or Boys Own sci-fi (Muse). It wasn’t until last year, however, when Crispian asked original members Alonza Bevan (bass) and Paul Winter-Hart (drums) to try out a song he was working on, that they found themselves back in the same room together. Against the odds, the old magic was still there.

“We recorded a fully blown Hindi song for a charity record. The music just lifted all the poison out. There was still so much energy between the three of us. It’s going to be ten years this year since ‘K’ came out, so we decided It was as good a time as ever to get back together.”

Recruiting keyboard maestro Harry B. Broadbent to complete the line up (original organist Jay Darlington deciding to keep his night-job with Oasis) the band set about rekindling their musical fire. Having tested the water with the ‘Revenge Of the King’ E.P (recorded in “a shed in New Malden; it was very Terry’n’June”) Kula Shaker played their first gig for seven years just before Christmas last year.

“We wanted somewhere off the radar so we got a gig under another name, in this tiny tiny pub as the in Leighton Buzzard we’d once played many years ago. “laughs Crispian. “Somebody must have told them who we were, cos there was literally a sandwich board outside with ’Kula Shaker- live tonite’ written on it. Hysterical. “It couldn’t have been more perfect if we’d staged it. We were all in fancy dress and the audience went bonkers.”

To ensure no one mistook this new adventure for an Electra glide down Memory Lane, the band set to work on their third album. As they had always planned, it would be called ‘Strangefolk’. “The recording process wasn’t easy. There were a few things which threw a Spaniard in the works. But we’ve still got the same beliefs and love of music we always had. For me, song writing is still about storytelling, and Kula Shaker have always been very cinematic.

Lyrically, “Strangefolk” sees Crispian return with an older, wiser head. If the proclamations of ‘K’ and ‘Peasants, Pigs And Astronauts’ were songs of innocence, these are undoubtedly songs of experience.

“There were a few things I wanted to get off my chest” he continues. “I think rock & roll has failed to really comment on the war. It’s staggering, so much going on and yet so little to say about it. Seems like there’s a real complacency in the air.”

Accordingly, “Strangefolk” delivers a lacerating assault on Blairaq (“To Die For Love”) a storming swamp-blues addressing Katrina and her waves (“Hurricane Season”) and in post-millennial mantra “Song Of Love/Narayan”, an epic to rival Ben Hur. Those fearing the band have lost their sense of mischief should head for “Great Dictator Of The Free World”, a song delivered from the perspective of George Bush, climaxing with the line “I want to make love in Guantanamo!” If there are flashes of Freakbeat, Ragtime, Chicago Blues, acid rock and mediaeval harmonies along the way, that’s because those are the forms of music the band love. They’re old fashioned like that. For Crispian, it sees the band coming full circle since those dark days of ’99.

“We are living in exciting and terrifying times, but it feels right to be back. We’ve missed being here, and hopefully people have missed us too.”

Missed them? A Rock’n’Roll band who look great, have tunes to spare and would rather sing about the state of the planet than the state of their wardrobe? They’re just in the nick of time. Watch the skies-Kula Shaker are overhead.

Such A Blur

2010-11-01T10:25:00.000Z

Can you remember what you were doing at 9:50pm on June 28th 2009? You can’t? Well, I’m not some sort of mind reader that has the ability to look into the past of people that I’ve never actually met; however, I do know that 170,000 of you were gathered together to partake in something special simultaneously. And when I mean special, I mean really special. Admittedly, both stumbling across money stuffed down the back of your sofa, or finding out that the bird you always fancied at school likes you back are special; yet neither can compare to what happened between 9:50pm and midnight on that memorable summer evening. Why? Because Blur were back together again performing to the masses on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury.

This performance has gone down in history as one of Glastonbury’s finest. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, in terms of live music there isn’t a better setting than Glasto. It’s the epitome of what rock & roll stands for. It makes bands and breaks bands. It’s the one time of the year where likeminded people from up and down the age ladder gather together in order to rejoice and have it off to something amazing. And 2009’s festival delivered in abundance.

This moves me on to point two. As a band, Blur have achieved vast amounts of success. They grabbed the attention of the youth and gave them some much needed southern-style direction, during a time when northern bands were hogging the limelight. When Coxon left the band in 2002 and Blur subsequently stopped recording music or playing live, an obvious gap in the market was formed. The public missed unique sound of a Colchester based band that’s music was laced with erudite quips of the highest caliber. And with Glasto being the festival that it is, there is no better setting to gel it all back together again.

And the third reason that Blur’s performance at 2009's Glasto has gone down as one of the greatest is because they didn’t fail to deliver. Their show was packed with hit after hit; with each one sounding as good this they ever did. In fact their show was so good that they won Best Vintage Headline Performance at the UK Festival Awards.

Other notable winners at this years awards include:

Best Headline Performance: Blur, Glastonbury
Best Major Festival: Glastonbury
Best Breakthrough Act: Florence & The Machine
Best Metropolitan Festival: Gaymers Camden Crawl
Best Medium Festival: Bestival

The Sex Pistols By Billie Joe Armstrong

2010-10-29T12:31:00.000+01:00

The Sex Pistols released just one album -- Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols -- but it punched a huge hole in everything that was bullshit about rock music, and everything that was going wrong with the world, too. No one else has had that kind of impact with one album. You can hear their influence everywhere from Joy Division to Guns n' Roses to Public Enemy to the Smiths to Slayer. Never Mind the Bollocks is the root of everything that goes on at modern-rock radio. It's just an amazing thing that no one's been able to live up to.

It's a myth that these guys couldn't play their instruments. Steve Jones is one of the best guitarists of all time, as far as I'm concerned -- he taught me how a Gibson should sound through a Marshall. Paul Cook was an amazing drummer with a distinct sound, right up there with Keith Moon or Charlie Watts. There are bands out there still trying to sound like the Sex Pistols and can't, because they were great players.

The difference between John Lydon and a lot of other punk singers is that they can only emulate what he was doing naturally. There was nothing about him that was contrived. As far as the bass player goes, I don't think it was necessarily a mistake to replace Glen Matlock with Sid Vicious. Matlock was cool, but Sid was everything that's cool about punk rock: a skinny rocker who had a ton of attitude, sort of an Elvis, James Dean kind of guy. That said, there's nothing romantic about being addicted to heroin. He was capable of playing his instrument, but he was too fucked up to do it.

The things that Lydon wrote about back in '76 and '77 are totally relevant to what's going on right now. They paint an ugly picture. No one ever had the guts to say what they said, to talk about someone getting an abortion. The only person who did anything similar to it was Bob Dylan, and even Bob Dylan was never that blunt.

When I first heard them, I was fourteen or fifteen and into a lot of heavy-metal and hard-rock music. I think I was at a girl's house. I remember hearing those boot stomps to "Holidays in the Sun." And then the guitar came roaring through like thunder. By the time Lydon's vocal came in, I definitely wanted to destroy my past and create something new for myself. That's sort of the impact that they always had on me and my music. Anytime that I'm trying to create something, I always refer to the Sex Pistols, because it shows you what the possibilities are as far as music. You don't have to emulate what the Sex Pistols do, but thanks to them, you can take it anywhere.

That's A Little Kinky

2010-10-28T14:28:00.000+01:00

The Kinks were part of the British Invasion, and their early hits, "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night," paved the way for the power chords of the next decade's hard rock. But most of leader Ray Davies' songs have been elegies for the beleaguered British middle class, scenarios for rock theater, and tales of show-business survival. After their first burst of popularity, the Kinks became a cult band in the mid-'70s until, buoyed by the new wave’s rediscovery of the Davies catalogue, they returned to arenas in the ’80s. In the ’90s brothers Dave and Ray established more separate identities while the Kinks’ reputation remained secure.

Ray Davies was attending art school when he joined his younger brother Dave’s band, the Ravens, in 1963. In short order Ray took over the group - renamed the Kinks - retaining bassist Pete Quaife and recruiting Mick Avory to play drums. With this lineup they released a pair of unsuccessful singles before recording “You Really Got Me,” a #1 hit in England that reached #7 in the U.S. in 1964. The following year “All Day and All of the Night” and “Tired of Waiting for You” both reached the Top 10 in the U.S. and set a pattern for future releases of alternating tough rockers (“Who’ll Be the Next in Line”) and ballads (“Set Me Free”).

In 1966 the Kinks released two singles of pointed satire, “A Well Respected Man” (#13) and “Dedicated Follower of Fashion” (#36), indicating the personal turn Ray Davies’ songs were taking. Their next album, The Kinks Kontroversy, though containing another hard-rock 45, “Till the End of the Day” (#50) was increasingly introspective, with songs like “I’m on an Island.” Also that year, an appearance on the American TV show Hullabaloo resulted in a problem with the American Federation of Musicians that wasn’t resolved until 1969 and prevented the group from touring the U.S. for some time. “Sunny Afternoon” (#14, 1966) from Face to Face was their last hit of that period.

During their years of U.S. exile, Ray Davies composed the first of many concept albums, (The Kinks Are) The Village Green Preservation Society (1968), an LP of nostalgia for all the quaint English customs (such as virginity) that other bands were rebelling against. Dave Davies, who had been writing the occasional song for the Kinks almost from the beginning, had a “solo” hit in England with “Death of a Clown,” actually a Kinks song that he wrote and sang. More of Dave’s singles followed (“Susannah’s Still Alive,” “Lincoln County”), none of which repeated the success of “Clown.” A planned solo album was recorded but released much later, in 1987, as The Album That Never Was. The Kinks’ next LP, Arthur, or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire, was, with the Who’s Tommy, an early rock opera written for a British TV show that never aired.

The Kinks’ next concept album, Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One (#35, 1970), was built around the story of trying to get a hit record. “Lola,” undoubtedly the first rock hit about a transvestite, reached #9. Lola was the group’s first Top 40 LP since 1966’s The Kinks Greatest Hits (#9).

The group then left Reprise for RCA, continuing to work on concept pieces, once again without hits. Nevertheless it acquired a reputation as a cheerfully boozy live band; Kinks performances were known for messy musicianship and onstage arguments between Ray and Dave Davies, while Ray clowned with limp wrists and sprayed beer at the audience. This was chronicled on Everybody’s in Show-Biz (#70, 1972), a double album split between Ray Davies’ first road songs and a loose live set.

Concept albums became soundtracks for theatrical presentations starring the Kinks in the next years. Preservation Acts 1 and 2, Soap Opera (#51, 1975), and Schoolboys in Disgrace (#45, 1975) were all composed for the stage, complete with extra horn players and singers. For all of the elaborate shows, though, the albums weren’t selling.

The Kinks left RCA and concept albums behind in 1976, and 1977’s Sleepwalker hit #21 with its title track (#48). They finally scored a hit in 1978 with “A Rock ’n’ Roll Fantasy” (#30, 1978), off Misfits (#40, 1978). Low Budget (#11, 1979), aided by another successful 45, “(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman” (#41, 1979), became the Kinks’ first gold record since the Reprise greatest-hits collection of their early singles.

In the meantime, new groups began rediscovering the Kinks’ catalogue, notably Van Halen (“You Really Got Me”) and the Pretenders (“Stop Your Sobbing”). The group, which had tightened up considerably onstage with the addition of former Argent bassist Jim Rodford in 1978, responded with One for the Road (#14, 1980), a double live album that was accompanied by one of the first full-length rock videos. It, too, went gold, as did Give the People What They Want (#15, 1981).

Over the years, Ray Davies has also produced two albums by Claire Hamill (for his ill-fated Konk Records), worked with Tom Robinson, and scored the films The Virgin Soldiers and Percy. Dave Davies finally came out with a solo album, AFLI-3603, in 1980, followed by Glamourin 1981 and Chosen People in 1983; all featured Dave on most of the instruments and achieved modest success.

Thanks in part to some beautifully produced videos, the Kinks’ third wind continued with State of Confusion (#12, 1983), which gave the group its first Top 10 hit since “Lola”: the delightfully nostalgic “Come Dancing” (#6, 1983). A wistful ballad, “Don’t Forget to Dance,” cracked the Top 30 later in the year. Other mid-’80s activities included Return to Waterloo (1985), a film Ray Davies wrote and directed, incorporating Kinks music; and Ray having a daughter, Natalie, with Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders in 1983. The relationship ended the following year. In 1986 Ray also acted in the film Absolute Beginners.

Beginning with Word of Mouth (#57, 1984), the Kinks once again fell on hard times. None of the band’s subsequent albums sold well. But the Kinks, with ex-Argent drummer Bob Henrit in place of Avory, remain a touring attraction. In 1993 the group undertook its first U.S. tour in more than three years to promote Phobia. The album’s first single, “Hatred (A Duet),” poked fun at the long-standing filial antagonism between Ray and Dave Davies that has led both brothers to quit the band on more than one occasion. Despite the sibling rivalry and sagging record sales, these 1990 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees endure with dignity and wit. In 1992 Ray directed a documentary on the making of the Charles Mingus tribute album, Weird Nightmare.

The band’s 1996 release, To the Bone, was a live-in-the-studio rerecording of many of their hits. In 1995 Ray Davies’ “unauthorized autobiography” X-Ray was published in the U.S. He then did some shows performing a spoken word/unplugged piece called 20th Century Man, for which he read sections of his book and sang Kinks songs. By that time, the band’s reputation was enjoying another revival, as contemporary British stars Blur and Oasis acknowledged their debt to the Kinks. And in the U.S., Velvel Records initiated a 15-album reissue series of the group’s classic recordings. Dave published Kink, his own autobiography, in 1997, a recounting of his early debauchery and current interest in metaphysics. Also in the ’90s he provided the musical score for John Carpenter’s Village of the Damned and toured with a band called Dave Davies Kink Kronikles. In 2000 Ray Davies’ first collection of short stories, Waterloo Sunset: Stories, was published.

I Always Love A Clash

2010-10-27T18:35:00.000+01:00

It could have all been so different if they had stuck with the name The Heartdrops. Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Terry Chimes, Paul Simenon and Keith Levine became The Clash in late 1976. Inspired by seeing The Sex Pistols and the music they were making, the boys quickly evolved a stance and image that endeared them to the punk masses. Their first outing was a gig at their rehearsal studios in Camden for journalists and friends which caused Giovanni Dadomo a reviewer for Sounds to opine "I think they're the first band to come along who'll really frighten the Sex Pistols shitless." Indeed their first public gig was supporting The Sex Pistols at The Screen On The Green Islington London. Charles Shaar Murray, in a famous quote he wishes he'd never made, said in the NME they "..are the kind of garage band who should speedily be returned to their garage, preferably with the motor running." This was too much for Levine who left leaving the boys as a four piece.

By Spring 1977 the boys had completed the Sex Pistols Anarchy tour, signed to CBS and delivered their first album, The Clash, to critical acclaim. They had drafted in Topper Headon on drums, had a stable line up and were going from strength to strength. One shouldn't forget Bernie Rhodes role as manager. Friend and initial partner with McClaren they had a similar modus operandi of running bands. For Bernie a strong visual and musical identity was foremost and the clash certainly developed these. The highpoint of this was their stunning Rainbow gig. A highly charged atmosphere of guitars on stun, energy, visuals against a backdrop of stark lighting and the riots at Notting Hill Carnival saw The Clash as an unbeatable proposition. The crowd rioted.

If 78 saw them release the uninspiring Give 'em Enough Rope then '77/'78 & '79 saw them release a stream of classic punk singles. Why were The Clash so popular? Every gig was a torrent of pure energy. Unlike so many other bands who denied they were punk The Clash embraced it and sang about it. Both White Man In Hammersmith Palais & Complete Control name checks' punk' while All The Young Punks is self explanatory. They even named a song Clash Ciy Rockers after their fans! For that we loved them. Always more urban and direct than other punk bands, you felt that with the Clash anything was possible and with the arrival of the album London Calling you knew it was and that music had a future.

The Clash were always a force to be reckoned with and produced the goods all through their career. From singing Career Opportunities in Camden 1976 to singing it in the Shea Stadium USA 83 the Clash became, after the Pistols split, the greatest punk band ever mixing rockabilly, ska, reggae and punk for our enjoyment before internal dissension and drugs split the band. To their credit they never reformed and left a body of songs that will always stand up to repeated listening.

"None of us is going to change anything. Everyone goes "Punk! Hurrah!" But in three years time what do you think I'm going to be doing? What do you think the guys who buy our singles are going to be doing?? I'll still be walking around muttering to myself. They are still going to be shovelling shit down some old chute and maybe with their wages they'll buy The Clash's fourth album. Rock doesn't change anything." Joe Strummer to Caroline Coon - 1988 Punk Explosion.

Twisted Wheel // The Lexington // 23.02.10

2010-10-26T11:06:00.000+01:00

The world that we live in is built on opinions. Without them, this place we call home would be pretty boring. And I'm no different to anyone else. I have lots of opinions on lots of different things. For example, in my opinion the toy in a Kinder Surprise used to be far superior to what it is now. When I was a boy you would get a catapult, a pull-back race car or a bouncy ball as your treat. Now, I bought one the other day for nostalgic value and I got a bird sitting on a perch - I rest my case. I also have an opinion on the current state of live music. And that opinion is that there is a serious lack of diversity. It's frustrating. You don't get rock & roll bands like you used to. You get bands that have been put in a blender with a touch of pop and a smidgin of electro. And the result is a mismatch of genres which produces music that sounds like anything you would hear on any radio station anytime of day. However, opinions can change. And Twisted Wheel are here to prove just that point.

Tuesday saw the punk rock trio descend on The Lexington in London for the first of their tour dates in the capital. And they came complete with a selection of guitars, basses and a set of drums. There was no synthesizer, vocoder and or drum machine in sight. Twisted Wheel are a breathe of fresh air. There are no frills or spills with these boys. They just play good rock & roll music - and they play it pretty damn well.

Now, if you've had half an ear to the ground for the past year then you'll know that The Wheel have been championed by some pretty big acts. They toured with Oasis during the Manchester bands last stadium tour. They've been in Japan supporting JET; and they've even shared the stage with the Modfather himself, Mr Paul Weller. However to get out on the open road and do it all on their own is a totally different beast. But, it seems to be working.

In Jonny Brown, Adam Clarke and Rick Lees you have three musicians that are not only talented, but know how to play together. Being on tour enables a band to gel at a much faster rate than what they would normally. With this in mind, it's extremely obvious to see that The Wheel have been touring relentlessly. They compliment each other musically on stage. Adam supplies the beats which sets the tempo. Rick on the bass provides the framework to the groove which keeps everything moving. And with these two elements in place, Jonny is allowed full range to wonder over the top with his guitar providing anything from harsh riffs to subtle stabs. All combined with a tirade of the guitarists unique northern style vocals.

Tuesday saw the band hit the stage of The Lexington running. They whipped the crowd into a drunken frenzy intertwining tracks from their debut album including She's A Weapon and Bouncing Bomb, with unreleased music such as UK Blues and Postman. With each record rolling straight into the next, they give no opportunity to let the crowd breathe. And believe me, that's exactly the way The Wheel faithful like it.

The biggest response was saved for their final two records. We Are Us and Oh What Have You Done twisted the crowd into absolute anarchy. Stage diving, crowd surfing and general mayhem followed as The Wheel smashed their way through to the evenings climax.

As a band the Oldham lads are certainly making all the right noises. If they were about 20 years ago I would have no issue in saying that they'll go on to achieve great things. However, due to the current music buying public being brainwashed with humdrum conveyor belt music resulting in them buying the same regurgitated rubbish, it's difficult to tell how far they'll go. But as they are midway through their first sell out UK tour they are obviously doing something right. And there is absolutely no question where my opinion lies here; Twisted Wheel definitely get my vote.

Twisted Wheel played:

She's A Weapon
Lucy The Castle
Postman
Bang of the Beat
Turnaround
Let Them Have It All
What's Your Name
Bouncing Bomb
Bad Candy
One Night On The Street
UK Blues
Strife
You Stole The Sun
We Are Us
Oh What Have You Done

Photography by Chris Daffin

Top 10 Most Influential Folk Artists: Number One: Woody Guthrie

2010-02-24T17:39:00.000Z

"I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you." Wood Guthrie

Biography:

Woody Guthrie was born in 1912 in Okemah, Oklahoma. His father was a cowyboy and a local politician, and his mother was institutionalized when Woody was just a boy.
After Okemah's boomtown status started to lose speed, Woody headed down to texas where he married his first wife. There he also joined his first band, the Corn Cobb Trio, and started writing songs at an alarming rate.

Around the time the stock market crashed, unemployed men from all over the Dust Bowl states started heading out in search of jobs and promising futures. Woody was among them, and he spent the next couple of years hopping railroad cars, and in some cases even walking to California.

Once he arrived in California, he got a job doing weekly radio broadcasts, wherein he covered all sorts of social and political commentary. He quickly tired of that lifestyle, though, and headed to New York City two years later.

In New York, Woody joined up with Pete Seeger to form leftist troupe the Almanac Singers, and enjoyed a bit of fame entertaining leftist organizations and labor unions. Soon, he was married again, and fathered four children, including Cathy, Arlo, Joady, and Nora Lee.

As World War II heated up, Woody enlisted with the Merchant Marines and served several tours of duty before returning home in 1946 to his family in Coney Island, NY.

Always subject to his wanderlust, he headed back onto the road with his protégé Ramblin Jack Elliot. Later, in California, he would marry a third time, before falling ill. In 1954, Woody was admitted to a hospital in New Jersey. Over the next decade, he was constantly in and out of the hospital, and was treated for illnesses from alcoholism to schizophrenia.

In 1967, Woody Guthrie died of Huntington's Chorea, but his music continues to thrive. In 1988, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and in 1996, he was honored at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame American Music Masters Series.

Top 10 Most Influential Folk Artists: Number Two: Bob Dylan

2010-02-23T17:46:00.000Z

"Being noticed can be a burden. Jesus got himself crucified because he got himself noticed. So I disappear a lot." Bob Dylan

Biography:

Robert Allen Zimmerman was born in 1941 in Duluth, MN. When he was six years old, his father came down with polio, and the family moved to Hibbing where Bob grew up in a small Jewish community.
In 1959, he enrolled in the University at Minneapolis, where he became involved in the local folk music scene. It was during this time that he started using the name Bob Dylan, which has no verifiable origin.

At the end of his first year in college, Dylan quit school but stayed in Minneapolis and remained active in the Folk scene. During a tour in 1961, he spent a good deal of time in New York City, and was eventually signed to Columbia Records.

Over the next half-decade, Bob wrote and released a hand full of records that became sentinels in the evolving folk-rock scene. His "Blowin in the Wind" (Purchase/Download) and "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" typified a generation and soon became somewhat anthemic tributes to the emerging social climate at the time.

Then, finding himself pigeon-holed as a protest song writer, Dylan changed the tune with the release of Another Side of Bob Dylan in 1964. This record showcased less serious tunes and introduced fans to a more edgy and somewhat sentimental side of his work.

Over the next 30 years, Dylan continued to release timely topical records as well as some occasional flat out rock and roll records. He's toured at the pace only a Folk singer could really hold up. And he's managed to influence just about every second or third artist making a living these days in music.

Top 10 Most Influential Folk Artists: Number Three: Joni Mitchell

2010-02-22T17:52:00.000Z

"Sorrow is so easy to express and yet so hard to tell." Jonni Mitchell

Bigoraphy:

Roberta Joan Anderson (Joni Mitchell) was born in 1943 in Fort McLeod, Alberta, Canada. She began playing piano, guitar, and ukelele as a very young child, but was always primarily a painter.
In 1965, she was married briefly to the Folk singer Chuck Mitchell, from whom she took her name. During the mid 1960s, Joni enjoyed early success as a songwriter, while other artists took her original songs to the top of the charts. Meanwhile, she continued to play in folk clubs and coffeehouses around the country.

Throughout the next decade, Joni released several memorable and inimitable recordings that have been hailed as some of the best from a contemporary folk singer/songwriter. The influences of jazz and rock started creeping into her work toward the middle of the 1970s.

Since then, Joni Mitchell has displayed her wealth of talent by dabbling in genres ranging from rock to pop and jazz. She is best known for her emotive, poetic lyrics and her impressively wide vocal range.

She was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1981, and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2002, she was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for her life's work.

Top 10 Most Influential Folk Artists: Number Four: Bill Monroe

2010-02-19T17:58:00.000Z

"Bluegrass is wonderful music. I'm glad I originated it." Bill Monroe

Early Days:
Bill Monroe was born in Rosine, Kentucky, in 1911. He started playing mandolin as a small child, and was part of his Uncle Pendleton Vandiver's backup band at local dances. He was orphaned at the age of 16, at which point he moved to Chicago to live with his brothers Birch and Charlie.
Bill Monroe Starts Bluegrass:

After several years of playing with his brothers, Bill formed his own band in 1938. In honor of his home state, he called them "The Blue Grass Boys." By the time the 1940s rolled around, Bill had added lyrics to his Bluegrass tunes, and was revered as the grandfather of Bluegrass. In 1965, Bill was the main act at the first multi-day Bluegrass festival. He also started his own festival in rural Indiana.

Bill Monroe in the Hall of Fame:
In 1970, Bill was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He won the National Endowment for the Arts' Heritage Award. In 1989, he was awarded the first ever Grammy award for a Bluegrass record, and in 1995, Bill Clinton awarded him with the National Medal of Honor. A year after his death in 1996, Monroe was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Artists Influenced by Bill Monroe:
Many of Bluegrass' best players came from the Blue Grass Boys, including Earl Scruggs and Del McCoury. Newer artists that were clearly influenced by Bill's sound range from Gillian Welch to Railroad Earth and Open Road.

David Bowie By Lou Reed

2010-02-03T17:07:00.007Z

David Bowie's contribution to rock & roll has been wit and sophistication. He's smart, he's a true musician and he can really sing. He's got such a big range: I like the Ziggy Stardust voice, but he's got a lot of different voices. He's got his crooner voice, when he wants to. And he has a melodic sense that's well above anyone else in rock & roll. Most people could not sing some of his melodies. He can really go for a high note. Take "Satellite of Love," on my Transformer album: There's a part at the very end, where he goes all the way up. It's fabulous.

There had been androgyny in rock from Little Richard on up, but David put his own patina on it, to say the least. He thought hard about that Ziggy character; he'd been studying mime, and he didn't do it just for laughs. He was very aware of stagecraft. He made an entire show out of that character -- and then he left it behind. How smart can you get? Can you imagine if he had to keep doing Ziggy? I mean, if you listened to what critics and audiences say, you'd be playing four songs over and over again. David set himself up to do other characters, like the Thin White Duke. And his take on American soul music, on albums like Young Americans, was incredibly good; the original material he wrote was great.

I can't pick a favorite record. It depends on my mood -- any of the dance records; Ziggy Stardust; I always liked "Bewlay Brothers," that track on Hunky Dory. And the albums he did with Brian Eno, like Low and Heroes, are phenomenal. He's always changing, so you never get tired of what he's doing. And I mean all the way up to now: "The Loneliest Guy" on his latest album, Reality, is a great song. Yet another one.

We're still friends after all these years, amazingly enough. We go to the occasional art show and museum together, and I always like working with him. I really love what David does, so I'm happy that he's still doing it and that he's still interested. I saw him play here in New York on his last tour, and it was one of the greatest rock shows I've ever seen.

The Beatles By Elvis Costello

2010-02-02T11:25:00.005Z

I first heard of the Beatles when I was nine years old. I spent most of my holidays on Merseyside then, and a local girl gave me a bad publicity shot of them with their names scrawled on the back. This was 1962 or '63, before they came to America. The photo was badly lit, and they didn't quite have their look down; Ringo had his hair slightly swept back, as if he wasn't quite sold on the Beatles haircut yet. I didn't care about that; they were the band for me. The funny thing is that parents and all their friends from Liverpool were also curious and proud about this local group. Prior to that, the people in show business from the north of England had all been comedians. Come to think of it, the Beatles recorded for Parlophone, which was a comedy label.

I was exactly the right age to be hit by them full on. My experience -- seizing on every picture, saving money for singles and EPs, catching them on a local news show -- was repeated over and over again around the world. It was the first time anything like this had happened on this scale. But it wasn't just about the numbers; Michael Jackson can sell records until the end of time, but he'll never matter to people as much as the Beatles did.

Every record was a shock when it came out. Compared to rabid R&B evangelists like the Rolling Stones, the Beatles arrived sounding like nothing else. They had already absorbed Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers and Chuck Berry, but they were also writing their own songs. They made writing your own material expected, rather than exceptional.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney were exceptional songwriters; McCartney was, and is, a truly virtuoso musician; George Harrison wasn't the kind of guitar player who tore off wild, unpredictable solos, but you can sing the melodies of nearly all of his breaks. Most important, they always fit right into the arrangement. Ringo Starr played the drums with an incredibly unique feel that nobody can really copy, although many fine drummers have tried and failed. Most of all, John and Paul were fantastic singers.

Lennon, McCartney and Harrison had stunningly high standards as writers. Imagine releasing a song like "Ask Me Why" or "Things We Said Today" as a B side. They made such fantastic records as "Paperback Writer" b/w "Rain" or "Penny Lane" b/w "Strawberry Fields Forever" and only put them out as singles. These records were events, and not just advance notice of an album release.

Then they started to really grow up. Simple love lyrics to adult stories like "Norwegian Wood," which spoke of the sour side of love, and on to bigger ideas than you would expect to find in catchy pop lyrics.

They were pretty much the first group to mess with the aural perspective of their recordings and have it be more than just a gimmick. Brilliant engineers at Abbey Road Studios like Geoff Emerick invented techniques that we now take for granted in response to the group's imagination. Before the Beatles, you had guys in lab coats doing recording experiments in the Fifties, but you didn't have rockers deliberately putting things out of balance, like a quiet vocal in front of a loud track on "Strawberry Fields Forever." You can't exaggerate the license that this gave to everyone from Motown to Jimi Hendrix.

My absolute favorite albums are Rubber Soul and Revolver. On both records you can hear references to other music -- R&B, Dylan, psychedelia -- but it's not done in a way that is obvious or dates the records. When you picked up Revolver, you knew it was something different. Heck, they are wearing sunglasses indoors in the picture on the back of the cover and not even looking at the camera . . . and the music was so strange and yet so vivid. If I had to pick a favorite song from those albums, ift would be "And Your Bird Can Sing" . . . no, "Girl" . . . no, "For No One" . . . and so on, and so on. . . .

Their breakup album, Let It Be, contains songs both gorgeous and jagged. I suppose ambition and human frailty creep into every group, but they managed to deliver some incredible performances. I remember going to Leicester Square and seeing the film of Let It Be in 1970. I left with a melancholy feeling.

The word Beatlesque has been in the dictionary for a while now. I can hear them in the Prince album Around the World in a Day; in Ron Sexsmith's tunes; in Harry Nilsson's melodies. You can hear that Kurt Cobain listened to the Beatles and mixed them in with punk and metal in some of his songs. You probably wouldn't be listening to the ambition of the latest OutKast record if the Beatles hadn't made the White Album into a double LP!

I've co-written some songs with Paul McCartney and performed with him in concert on two occasions. In 1999, a little time after Linda McCartney's death, Paul did the Concert for Linda, organized by Chrissie Hynde. During the rehearsal, I was singing harmony on a Ricky Nelson song, and Paul called out the next tune: "All My Loving." I said, "Do you want me to take the harmony line the second time round?" And he said, "Yeah, give it a try." I'd only had thirty-five years to learn the part. It was a very poignant performance, witnessed only by the crew and other artists on the bill.

At the show, it was very different. The second he sang the opening lines -- "Close your eyes, and I'll kiss you" -- the crowd's reaction was so intense that it all but drowned the song out. It was very thrilling but also rather disconcerting. Perhaps I understood in that moment one of the reasons why the Beatles had to stop performing. The songs weren't theirs anymore. They were everybody's.

Radiohead By Dave Matthews

2010-01-29T12:21:00.000Z

Every time I buy a Radiohead album, I have a moment where I say to myself, "Maybe this is the one that will suck." But it never does. I wonder if it's even possible for them to be bad on record.

It belittles Radiohead to describe their music as having "hooks." Their music talks to you, in a real way. It can take you down a quiet street before it drops a beautiful musical bomb on you. It can build to where you think the whole thing will crumble beneath its own weight -- and then Thom Yorke will sing some melody that just cuts your heart out of your chest. There's a point on the album Kid A where I start feeling claustrophobic, stuck in a barbed-wire jungle -- and then I suddenly fall out and I'm sitting by a pool with birds singing. Radiohead can do all of these things in a moment, and it drives me fucking crazy.

My reaction to Radiohead isn't as simple as jealousy. Jealousy just burns; Radiohead infuriate me. But if it were only that, I wouldn't go back and listen to those records again and again. Listening to Radiohead makes me feel like I'm a Salieri to their Mozart. Yorke's lyrics make me want to give up. I could never in my wildest dreams find something as beautiful as they find for a single song -- let alone album after album. And every time, they raise their finger to the press and the critics and say, "Nothing we do is for you!" They followed their most critically acclaimed record, OK Computer, with their most radical change, Kid A. It's not that they're indifferent: It's that the strength of character in their music is beyond their control.

Seeing them perform makes me even angrier. No matter how much they let go in their shows, they never lose their clarity. There's no point where Jonny Greenwood or Ed O'Brien will suddenly look up and say, "Where the fuck are we?" There are no train wrecks in Radiohead; every album and performance is wrenching. God, these guys have suffered, or they can fake it like nobody else.

The Stooges By Thurston Moore

2010-01-28T14:59:00.006Z

For me, the Stooges were the perfect embodiment of what music should be -- of wanting it to be alive, riding the edge of control. Their music was total high-energy blues, with the contemporary freakout of Jimi Hendrix and the free-jazz spirit of John Coltrane. Iggy wanted the Stooges to be what he'd seen in Chicago as a young guy -- these old bluesmen playing so hard that, as Iggy once said, the music drips off you.

I was fourteen when I first saw a picture of Iggy onstage: shirtless, with his body spray-painted silver. He was sweating -- it looked like glitter sweat -- and he had a chipped tooth. He looked young and on fire. But Iggy's parents were intellectuals -- his father was an English teacher -- and that gave him an edge. He had focus. Iggy believed what he was doing was important -- this self-reliant, anti-establishment art form.

The Stooges' sound was so evocative yet so simple. Scott Asheton played drums as if he was in an electric-blues band. On The Stooges and Fun House, while his brother Ron, the guitarist, was playing these loud bar-chord progressions, Scott was making the band rev and swing. And when I played with Ron for the soundtrack of Velvet Goldmine, the first week was a crash course on how to play Stooges songs. We went through those first two albums, and there was that Asheton swing again, the way he rocked the chord grooves.

Raw Power was made by a different band, with James Williamson on guitar and Ron on bass. It's the ultimate fuck-off. This is a band getting very strung out, putting so much blood and soul into what they're doing, and for the most part looked upon as trash. There's a damaged quality to David Bowie's original mix that is way ahead of its time.

Seeing the Stooges in reunion with Mike Watt from the Minutemen on bass was awesome. When they played their first gig, in 2003 at Coachella, the first thing Iggy did was start jumping in the air, flipping the bird to the crowd -- "Fuck you, fuck you and fuck you." Then Iggy turned to the side of the stage, where the elite were standing -- Sonic Youth, Queens of the Stone Age, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the other all-access rock stars -- and he gave us the jerk-off motion. It was great. After all this time, he's still at war.

Roxy Music By John Taylor

2010-01-27T09:39:00.004Z

Roxy Music were a huge influence on both punk and New Wave: They anticipated the restraint and the coolness of the Eighties, but you wouldn't have had the Sex Pistols without them, either. They made playing music look really cool and sexy, and they did it without being elitist virtuosos. They were very fresh, very modern -- especially the electronics in their sound -- but at the same time, their music was evocative of a romantic past, which England was obsessed with. On their first album, you hear strains of World War II music, of swing and Glenn Miller. But it was all mixed up in a way that made the music seem terribly new.

Bryan Ferry was obviously the songwriter and frontman. His lyrics were very thoughtful and arty but also very warm and full of feeling. In the early days you had Brian Eno, who was the Jimi Hendrix of the synthesizer. There were tremendous musical personalities in the band: Phil Manzanera, Andy Mackay, Paul Thompson. You could get your teeth into everybody; this is a band whose solo albums were worth getting. They all had quite interesting voices. And they were a band that you could argue about; Paul Thompson had a tremendous fan club, and he's the least-known of all of them.

Also, it has to be said: You could never separate them from their look. I think Roxy had a lot of conversations about what the band should wear. You expect that kind of thing to happen when Britney Spears is being launched, but you don't expect it to happen within a band: finding just the right pair of shades for the guitar player, finding these jumpsuits for the sax player. They had great, very sexy album covers, too. But it wasn't like their sound was lagging behind.

Their best song may be "Virginia Plain." That's the manifesto. When I saw them play that song on Top of the Pops, I had to have it -- I had to get on my bicycle and ride to the nearest record store. Another one is "In Every Dream Home a Heartache," from the second album, about a guy who has everything. He's got the beautiful house, he's got the car, all the modern comforts. But for love, he takes the inflatable doll out every night and makes out with it. "I blew up your body/But you blew my mind." You try and write a song about being in love with a blow-up doll and make it sound cool!

Imagine it's 1973, you're looking for something to do, and school isn't really working for you, and a band like Roxy Music comes along. You'd say, "That's what I want to do." What else could compare to making that kind of noise, wearing those kinds of clothes?

The Kinks By Peter Buck

2010-01-26T14:08:00.004Z

I 've got pretty much every note the Kinks recorded on my iPod -- certainly everything through 1980. And it all sounds good. The Kinks are the only major band from the Sixties I can think of that didn't go psychedelic, didn't do any of that crap that all of the other big bands did at the time. When everyone was writing about Eastern mysticism, Ray Davies was writing about a two-up/two-down flat in some suburb of London. Ray wrote songs about the things that were important to him. He invented his world and gave it life. And in that world, people weren't wearing Nehru jackets, smoking pot and jamming for twenty-four hours a day. The Kinks created a different world -- and I'm glad for it.

When I first heard Village Green Preservation Society, in 1971, I got this picture in my head of small-town English life: village greens, draft beer. But when R.E.M. went to England in 1985, I drove through Muswell Hill -- and it certainly wasn't romantic-looking. From "Waterloo Sunset," I had this picture of a gorgeous vista -- when it's really a grimy train-station area. I realized these songs were all acts of imagination, that Ray was commemorating an England that was slipping away. There is a great air of sadness in those songs.

I am amazed at how great the Kinks' records sounded -- even though, when you listen closely, there is very little going on in them. Village Green is the best example: There are two or three instruments in each song. And yet the songs are perfectly realized, well arranged.

I read that Ray wrote "You Really Got Me" on piano. Then he gives it to his brother Dave, this teenage maniac, who turns it into a demented guitar part. An interviewer once asked Dave if he thought the Kinks had gone heavy metal in the Eighties. He said, "It wasn't called heavy metal when I invented it." When R.E.M. started, Dave's solo on that song was the only solo I knew. So whenever I had to do a solo, I'd play that.

The Kinks slipped into rock history through the back door. All of those great albums that we talk about now, like Face to Face and Village Green -- nobody bought those records in the Sixties. But those of us who love those records -- and a lot of us are musicians -have loved them for more than thirty years.

Neil Young By Flea

2010-01-25T10:02:00.004Z

There's a rare contradiction in Neil Young's work. He works so hard as a songwriter, and he's written a phenomenal number of perfect songs. And, at the same time, he doesn't give a fuck. That comes from caring about essence. There can be things out of tune and all wild-sounding and not recorded meticulously. And he doesn't care. He's made whole albums that aren't great, and instead of going back to a formula that he knows works, he would rather represent where he is at the time. That's what's so awesome: watching his career wax and wane according to the truth of his character at the moment. It's never phony. It's always real. The truth is not always perfect.

I can't say enough about how much I love Crazy Horse. The sound is so deep, the groove is so deep -- even when they're off, it still sounds great, because they feel it so much. I don't usually go for that approach. I like Sly and the Family Stone, Miles Davis and Mingus. I like consummate steady musicianship. I grew up on jazz. I didn't listen to rock music until I played in my first rock band when I was in high school. I went from progressive to Hendrix to funk to full-on L.A. punk. That's when I had the realization that emotion and content, no matter how simple, were valuable. A great one-chord punk song became as important to me as a Coltrane solo, and I've had the same feeling about Neil Young. He changed the way I thought about rock music. As a bass player, I used to be into very boisterous, syncopated and rhythmically complex songs. After hearing Neil, I appreciated simplicity, the poignancy of "less is more."

My favorite Neil album is Zuma, with "Pardon My Heart" and "Lookin' for a Love": "But I hope I treat her kind/And don't mess with her mind/When she starts to see the darker side of me." And "Tell Me Why," on After the Gold Rush -- when he says, "Is it hard to make arrangements with yourself/When you're old enough to repay but young enough to sell?" it feels like me. I know I'm not alone. Tonight's the Night is probably the greatest raw rock record ever made, on a level with the Stooges' Fun House or any Hendrix album. It's such a mess, with stuff recorded so loud that it distorts. The background vocals are completely out of tune. And I wouldn't change a note. It's the spirit of what rock music is, and it's the reason to play rock music.

Neil is the guy I look at when I think about getting older in a rock band and still having dignity and relevance and honesty. He's never, ever sold out, and he's never pretended to be anything other than what he is. The Chili Peppers get offers all the time to sell songs for commercials and tour sponsorships, and our manager says it's not considered selling out anymore. It's the smart move, he says. Maybe we could whore ourselves out for the right price someday. I don't know. But I always think, "Would Neil Young do this?" And the answer is no. Neil Young wouldn't fuckin' do it.

Johnny Cash By Kris Kristofferson

2010-01-22T10:03:00.005Z

Johnny Cash was a biblical character. He was like some old preacher, one of those dangerous old wild ones. He was like a hero you'd see in a western. He was a giant. And unlike anyone else I've known, he never lost that stature. I don't think we'll see anyone like him again.

Of course, the first thing he'll be remembered for is the originality of his music. The first time I heard Johnny Cash was when he released "I Walk the Line" in 1956. It was unlike anything I'd ever heard. Elvis had had a lot of hits by that point, but "I Walk the Line" was completely different. It didn't sound much like any of the country music that was popular at the time, either. There was a kind of dark energy around John. My first hero, when I was a kid, was Hank Williams, and he had a similar energy. You could tell they were both wild men.

As a songwriter, I've always loved his lyrics. At the beginning of his career, John released a bunch of powerful songs in a very short time. For me, the best one was always "Big River." It's so well-written, so unlike anything else. The lines don't even seem to rhyme. "I met her accidentally in St. Paul, Minnesota/And it tore me up every time I heard her drawl." His imagery was so powerful: "Then you took me to St. Louis later on, down the river/A freighter said she's been here/But she's gone, boy, she's gone/I found her trail in Memphis/But she just walked up the block/She raised a few eyebrows, and then she went on down alone."

The first time I saw John live, I was on leave from the Army, visiting Nashville. He was playing the Grand Ole Opry, and I was watching from backstage -- and he was the most exciting performer I'd ever seen. At the time, he was skinnier than a snake, and he was just electric. He used to prowl the stage like a panther. He looked like he might explode up there. And in fact, there were times when he did. A couple of nights at the Opry, he knocked out all of the footlights. I think they banned him for a while after that. But they banned Hank Williams, too. They were a pretty conservative crowd.

The main thing about John, though -- the thing that everybody could sense -- was his integrity, the integrity of his relationship with his music, with his life and with other people. He stood up for Bob Dylan when everyone in the music business was criticizing Dylan's move from folk to electric. And he did the same for me, in the Eighties, when I was taking a lot of criticism for going down to Nicaragua. Once I was opening for him in Philadelphia, and I dedicated a song to Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is on death row there. After I got offstage, they told me the police had gone ballistic and that I'd have to go back out and apologize. John heard about it and said, "You don't have to apologize for anything on my show." That's the kind of guy he was. Throughout his entire career, he stood up for the underdog.

I thought the last album John did, The Man Comes Around, was terrific. I remember driving on my tractor mower and listening to it on my headphones and just weeping. His version of "Danny Boy" kills me every time.

I think he'll be remembered for the way he grew as a person and an artist. He went from being this guy who was as wild as Hank Williams to being almost as respected as one of the fathers of our country. He was friends with presidents and with Billy Graham. You felt like he should've had his face on Mount Rushmore.

Points Mean Prizes

2010-01-21T11:24:00.005Z

Now, with the only lasting memories of the festive period being that wafer thin bank balance you now own, I thought I would give you something to look forward to. Something to help ease the January blues and help you move forward into a bright and prosperous 2010. And what’s that I hear you ask? Why, I’ve got a pair of tickets to give away for Twisted Wheels gig at the Lexington in London on February 23rd. And all you have to do to get them is answer this very simple question below…

What record label are Twisted Wheel signed to?

For a chance in winning just email your answer to info@cartersaidwhat.com before midnight on February 19th. It’s that simple.

For more info on Twisted Wheel CLICK HERE to check out my interview with them last year. Top boys. Top band.

Good luck people…

The Ramones By Lenny Kaye

2010-01-20T10:34:00.000Z

Every rock & roll generation needs reminding of why it picks up a guitar in the first place, and four non-brothers from the borough of Queens had a concept that was almost too perfect. Their look -- ripped jeans, tight T-shirt, high-top sneakers, bowl haircut and a black motorcycle jacket -- was a cartoon version of rock's tough-guy ethos. When they first started, they played what they knew how to play, which wasn't much, and worked it to their advantage. They opted for speed rather than complexity, they aspired to be the Beach Boys, Alice Cooper and the Bay City Rollers, and their rotational three chords and headlong lunge kept them skidding through the simpleton catchphrases of their singalongs.

They posited themselves unashamedly against the enigmatic mind games of progressive rock, the long solos, the Ring Cycle lyrics and symphonic synthesizers. Not for them the miscegenation of other musics; the Ramones were pure, unadulterated -- and hardly adult, in their adolescent concerns of sniffing glue and beating on brats with a baseball bat, even if the brats were themselves. Their only-child sibling rivalry meshed like any television reality show, clocking in at under half an hour, with a ready-made laugh track. Johnny was the stern older brother, disciplined, military; Dee Dee was the blunt instrument, the Ramone who took it to the corner of Fifty-third and Third; Tommy was the producer, familiar with the byways of the music business, and like any good producer, he knew that you build a great track from the drums out. Joey was the beating heart.

The Ramones had their act so together that they would change it only in increments for two decades after they took it out of the CBGB nest in 1975. They were easily understood, translatable. When the band got to England on Independence Day 1976, returning the favor of the English Invasion in a fun-house mirror, the die was cast, punk rock and anarchy tangling, a frontal assault on here-we-go-again pop subculture.

The Ramones always believed in their music's message of self-deliverance. They celebrated rock & roll, patriotic flag-wavers, simultaneously harking backward and forward. Their music wasn't angry, though it did have firepower and relentless energy. If anything, the Ramones affirmed that if they could do it, you could do it; just be resolute. Count to four.

They've all left the band or left the planet by this time, and this is a say-hey to Joey and Dee Dee, who are now immortal in more ways than one. But when I think of a Ramones moment, I remember not the early years -- when the bands played for each other on the Bowery and each was like a different world -- but a late afternoon in May, somewhere in New England, a daylong festival, maybe the early Eighties, sun shining, a holiday weekend. I'm standing backstage with Johnny, and we're talking about nothing much, where we've been, guitars we've known, the Red Sox, and finally the conversation stops, and we just look around, quiet in the midst of electric noise, seeing where rock & roll has brought us on this beautiful afternoon, playing the music we love.

The Velvet Underground By Julian Casablancas

2010-01-19T17:01:00.005Z

When you listen to a classic-rock station today, why don't they play the Velvet Underground? Why is it always Boston and Led Zeppelin? And why are the Rolling Stones so much more popular than the Velvets? OK, I understand why the Stones are more popular. But there is also a part of me that has always felt that it should have been the other way around. The Velvet Underground were way ahead of their time. And their music was weird. But it also made so much sense to me. I couldn't believe this wasn't the most popular music ever made.

Listening to those four studio albums now is like reading a good book that takes place in a distant time. When I hear The Velvet Underground and Nico or Loaded, I feel like I'm in Andy Warhol's Factory in the 1960s or hanging out at Max's Kansas City. The way Lou Reed wrote and sang about drugs and sex, about the people around him -- it was so matter-of-fact. I believed every word of "Heroin." Reed could be romantic in the way he portrayed these crazy situations, but he was also intensely real. It was poetry and journalism.

A lot of people associate the Velvets with feedback and noise. White Light/White Heat is the kind of record you have to be in the mood for. You have to be in a shitty bar, in a really shitty mood. But the Velvets created some very beautiful music, too: "Sunday Morning," with John Cale's viola; "Candy Says"; "All Tomorrow's Parties" -- I can't imagine that song without Nico singing it, although I thought Maureen Tucker had a cool voice, as well as being a really cool drummer. She had a femininity. I thought she sounded hotter than Nico.

In the beginning, the Strokes definitely drew from the vibe of the Velvets. I listened to Loaded all the time when we started the band, while I was writing my first songs. For four solid months, it was just Loaded and this Beach Boys greatest-hits record, Made in the U.S.A. A lot of our guitar tones are based on what Reed and Sterling Morrison did.

I honestly wish we could have copied them more. We didn't come close enough. But that was cool, because it became more of our own thing. Which is something else I got from the Velvets. They taught me just to be myself.

Twisted Wheel: Coming to a Town Near YOU

2010-01-18T11:29:00.009Z

For many things, a Twisted Wheel wouldn’t prove to be much help. I mean, you wouldn’t get very far attaching busted wheels to your beloved Rally Racer if you decided to do the London to Brighton bike ride. Or you wouldn’t get very far if Dale gave you trolley with knackered wheels in order to sweep round his supermarket. And then there are Wagon Wheels. You wouldn’t be too keen on eating one of those if it came to you all bunt. In fact, out of all the wheels I can think of, the only one which actually works better a little of shape is the three-piece rock & roll outfit from Oldham.

Now, these boys are personal favourites of mine, and if they’re not stuck on you iPod, CD player, tape deck, turntable or gramophone - they should be. Things seem to be going from strength to strength for Twisted Wheel. After getting off tour with both Oasis and Weller, they are about to embark on their own headline set of shows. And there’s not better way to ride the wheel than by checking them live.

The new tour kick starts in February at the birthplace of Cadbury’s and Duran Duran, Birmingham. They then run up and down the country before calling it a day in Blackburn in April. Below is their complete tour diary along with details of how you can get hold of tickets for any of their gigs.

February
Thursday 11th Birmingham: Academy 3 0871 2200 260 (24 hour) www.gigsandtours.com
Friday 12th Manchester: Academy 2 0871 2200 260 (24 hour) www.gigsandtours.com
Saturday 13th Leeds: Brudenell Social 0113 2454650 www.lunatickets.co.uk
Thursday 18th Nottingham: Bodega 08713 100 000 www.alt-tickets.co.uk
Friday 19th Sheffield: Leadmill 0844 847 2430 www.ticketweb.co.uk
Saturday 20th Edinburgh: Electric Circus 08444 771 000 www.ticketweb.co.uk
Tuesday 23rd London: Lexington www.thelexington.co.uk
Thursday 25th London: Wimbledon Watershed www.seetickets.com www.watershedlive.com
Saturday 27th Coventry: Kasbah 0247 655 4473 http://www.seetickets.com/

March
Friday 5th Wigan: Independence www.ticketline.co.uk
Saturday 6th Buckley: Tivoli 01244 546 201 www.seetickets.com www.thetivnightclub.co.uk
Thursday 11th Grimsby: The County 07880 852910
Friday 12th Scunthorpe: The Brumby 07880 852910
Saturday 13th Swindon: The 12 Bar 01793 535713 www.wegottickets.com
Friday 19th Hull: The Lamp 08444 771 000 www.ticketweb.co.uk
Saturday 20th Leicester: Music Cafe www.ticketsource.co.uk
Sunday 28th Bathgate: Harley http://www.tickets-scotland.com/

April
Friday 2nd Blackburn: Live Lounge http://www.wegottickets.com/

Jimi Hendirx by John Mayer

2010-01-15T16:50:00.010Z

Jimi Hendrix is one of those extraordinary hubs of music where everybody lands at some point. Every musician passes through Hendrix International Airport eventually -- whether you're a Black Sabbath fan or an Elmore James fan; whether you like Hanson or the Grateful Dead. He is the common denominator of every style of contemporary music. There were so many sides to his playing. Was he a bluesman? Listen to "Voodoo Chile" and you'll hear some of the eeriest blues you can find. Was he a rock musician? He used volume as a device. That's rock. Was he a sensitive singer-songwriter? In "Bold As Love," he sings, "My yellow in this case is not so mellow/In fact I'm trying to say it's frightened like me" -- that is a man who knows the shape of his heart.

So often, he's portrayed as a loud, psychedelic rock star lighting his guitar on fire. But when I think of Hendrix, I think of some of the most placid, lovely guitar sounds on songs like "One Rainy Wish," "Little Wing" and "Drifting." "Little Wing" is painfully short and painfully beautiful. It's like your grandfather coming back from the dead and hanging out with you for a minute and a half and then going away. It's perfect, then it's gone.

I think the reason musicians love Hendrix's playing so much is that the language of it was so native to his head and heart. He had a secret relationship with playing the guitar, and though it was incredibly technical and based in theory, it was his theory. And I think that was sacred to him. That's why you almost never read an interview with him explaining his live-gear setup or his favourite scales. That's part of what made his playing so compelling -- all you heard was the colour. The math is what's been applied ever since.

I discovered Hendrix by way of Stevie Ray Vaughan. I heard Stevie Ray do "Little Wing," and I started working my way backward to Hendrix. The first Hendrix record I bought was Axis: Bold As Love, because it had "Little Wing" on it. I remember staring at the album cover for hours. Then I remember spending months listening to Electric Ladyland, which was very creepy. There's something dark about it in certain places that maybe Hendrix was too honest to hide.

Hendrix invented a kind of cool. The cool of a big conch-shell belt. The cool of boots that your jeans are tucked into. If Jimi Hendrix is an influence on somebody, you can immediately tell. Give me a guy who's got some kind of weird-ass goatee and an applejack hat, and you just go, "He got to you, didn't he?"

Hendrix has the allure of the tragic figure: We all wish we were genius enough to die before we're twenty-eight. People want to paint him as this lonely, shy figure who managed to let himself open up on the stage and play straight colours through the crowd. There's something heroic about it, but there's nothing human about it.

Everybody is so caught up in the otherworldliness of Jimi Hendrix. I prefer to think about his human side. He was a man who had a Social Security number, not an alien. The merchandising companies made the Space God. They put Jimi Hendrix's face on a tie-dyed T-shirt, and somehow that's what he became. But when I listen to Hendrix, I just hear a man, and that's when it's most beautiful -- when you remember that another human being was capable of what he achieved. I will always try to attain that kind of control on the guitar: Hendrix's playing was sloppy, but it was controlled. Who I am as a guitarist is defined by my failure to become Jimi Hendrix. And that's who a lot of people have become. However far you stop on your climb to be like him, that's who you are.

RIP Jay Reatard

2010-01-14T17:14:00.003Z

Memphis garage rocker Jay Reatard, who broke out last year thanks to Watch Me Fall, has died at the age of 29, Reatard’s label Matador Records confirmed. According to Memphis’ Commercial Appeal, Reatard was found dead in his Memphis home at 3:30 am this morning and reportedly died in his sleep. “We are devastated by the death of Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr., aka Jay Reatard. Jay was as full of life as anyone we’ve ever met, and responsible for so many memorable moments as a person and artist,” Matador Records said in a statement. “We’re honored to have known and worked with him, and we will miss him terribly.” Watch Reatard perform “Blood Visions” last month in Atlanta in the video above.

“Since 1998’s Teenage Hate, Memphian Jay “Reatard” Lindsey, 29, has spit enough pissed-off, low-fi garage punk to become DIY royalty,” Will Hermes wrote in his three-and-a-half star review of Watch Me Fall. “There’s also choral sugar, dub effects, sweet guitar cascades and mad hooks. On the majestic closer, alongside a sad cello, he insists, ‘There is no sun.’ With sound this blazingly bright, who needs it?”

In 2008, Beck recruited Reatard to record a cover of Modern Guilt’s “Gamma Ray” for the B side of that song’s single. For last year’s Record Store Day, Reatard’s “Hang Them All” was featured on a split 7” with Sonic Youth’s “No Garage.” Reatard also recently opened for the Pixies during their run of Doolittle concerts. On their Facebook page, the Pixies wrote “We want to express our condolences to the friends and family of Jay Reatard, on his sudden passing today.”

The Who by Eddie Vedder

2010-01-13T17:18:00.001Z

The Who began as spectacle. They became spectac-ular. Early on, the band was in pure demolition mode; later, on albums like Tommy and Quadrophenia, they coupled that raw energy with precision and desire to complete musical experiments on a grand scale. They asked, "What were the limits of rock & roll? Could the power of music actually change the way you feel?" Pete Townshend allowed that there be spiritual value in music. They were an incredible band whose main songwriter happened to be on a quest for reason and harmony in his life. He shared that journey with the listener, becoming an inspiration for others to seek out their own path - this while being in the Guinness book of world records as the world's loudest band.

Presumptuously I speak for all Who fans when I say being a fan of the Who has incalculably enriched my life. What disturbs me about the Who is the way they smashed through every door of rock & roll, leaving rubble and not much else for the rest of us to lay claim to. In the beginning they took on an arrogance when, as Pete says, "We were actually a very ordinary group." As they became accomplished, this attitude stuck. Therein lies the thread to future punks. They wanted to be louder, so they had Jim Marshall invent the 100-watt amp. Needed more volume, so they began stacking them. It is said that the first guitar feedback ever to make it to record was on "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere," in 1965. The Who told stories within the confines of a song and, over the course of an entire album, pushed boundaries. How big of a story could be told? And how would it transmit (pre-video screens, etc.) to a large crowd? Smash the instruments? Keith Moon said they wanted to grab the audience by the balls. Pete countered that like the German autodestruct movement, where they made sculpture that would collapse and buildings that would explode, it was high art.

I was around nine when a baby sitter snuck Who's Next onto the turntable. The parents were gone. The windows shook. The shelves were rattling. Rock & roll. That began an exploration into music that had soul, rebellion, aggression, affection. Destruction. And this was all Who music. There was the mid-Sixties maximum-R&B period: mini-operas, Woodstock, solo records. Imagine, as a kid, stumbling upon the locomotive that is Live at Leeds. "Hi, my name is Eddie. I'm ten years old and I'm getting my fucking mind blown!" The Who on record were dynamic. Roger Daltrey's delivery allowed vulnerability without weakness; doubt and confusion, but no plea for sympathy. (You should hear Roger's vocal on a song called "Lubie [Come Back Home]," a bonus track from the My Generation reissue. It's top-gear.)

The Who quite possibly remain the greatest live band ever. Even the list-driven punk legend and music historian Johnny Ramone agrees with me on this. You can't explain Keith Moon or his playing. John Entwistle was an enigma unto himself, another virtuoso musical oddity. Roger turned his mike into a weapon, seemingly in self-defense. All the while, Pete was leaping into the rafters wielding a Seventies Gibson Les Paul, which happens to be a stunningly heavy guitar. As a live group, they created momentum, and they seemed to be released by the ritual of their playing. (Check out "A Quick One," from The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus.)

In Chicago recently, I saw Pete wring notes out of his guitar like a mechanic squeezing oil from a rag. I watched as the guitar became a living being, one getting its body bashed and its neck strangled. As Pete set it down, I swear I sensed relief coming from that guitar. A Stratocaster with sweat on it. The guitar's sweat.

John and Keith made the Who what they were. Now they're different, but still the Who. Roger's a rock. And at this point Pete has been through and survived more than anyone in rock royalty. Perhaps even beyond Keith Richards, who was actually guilty of most things he was accused of. Drummer Zak Starkey played me a new song a while back, "Real Good Looking Boy." It was beyond moving.

The songwriter-listener relationship grows deeper after all the years. Pete saw that "a celebrity in rock is charged by the audience with a function, like, 'You stand there and we will know ourselves.' Not 'You stand there and we will pay you loads of money to keep us entertained as we eat our oysters.' " He saw the connection could be profound. He also realized the audience may say, "When we're finished with you, we'll replace you with somebody else." For myself and so many others (including shopkeepers, foremen, professionals, bellboys, gravediggers, directors, musicians), they won't be replaced. Yes, Pete, music can change you.

Led Zeppelin By Dave Grohl

2010-01-12T17:26:00.000Z

Heavy metal would not exist without Led Zeppelin, and if it did, it would suck. Led Zeppelin were more than just a band -- they were the perfect combination of the most intense elements: passion and mystery and expertise. It always seemed like Led Zeppelin were searching for something. They weren't content being in one place, and they were always trying something new. They could do anything, and I believe they would have done everything if they hadn't been cut short by John Bonham's death. Zeppelin served as a great escape from a lot of things. There was a fantasy element to everything they did, and it was such a major part of what made them important. Who knows if we'd all be watching Lord of the Rings movies right now if it wasn't for Zeppelin.

They were never critically acclaimed in their day, because they were too experimental and they were too fringe. In 1968 and '69, there was some freaky shit going on, but Zeppelin were the freakiest. I consider Jimmy Page freakier than Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix was a genius on fire, whereas Page was a genius possessed. Zeppelin concerts and albums were like exorcisms for them. People had their asses blown out by Hendrix and Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton, but Page took it to a whole new level, and he did it in such a beautifully human and imperfect way. He plays the guitar like an old bluesman on acid. When I listen to Zeppelin bootlegs, his solos can make me laugh or they can make me tear up. Any live version of "Since I Been Loving You" will bring you to tears and fill you with joy all at once. Page doesn't just use his guitar as an instrument. For him, it's like some sort of emotional translator.

John Bonham played the drums like someone who didn't know what was going to happen next -- like he was teetering on the edge of a cliff. No one has come close to that since, and I don't think anybody ever will. I think he will forever be the greatest drummer of all time. You have no idea how much he influenced me. I spent years in my bedroom -- literally fucking years -- listening to Bonham's drums and trying to emulate his swing or his behind-the-beat swagger or his speed or power. Not just memorizing what he did on those albums but getting myself into a place where I would have the same instinctual direction as he had. I have John Bonham tattoos all over my body -- on my wrists, my arms, my shoulders. I gave myself one when I was fifteen. It's the three circles that were his insignia on Zeppelin IV and on the front of his kick drum.

"Black Dog," from Zeppelin IV, is what Led Zeppelin were all about in their most rocking moments, a perfect example of their true might. It didn't have to be really distorted or really fast, it just had to be Zeppelin and it was really heavy. Then there's Zeppelin's sensitive side -- something people overlook, because we think of them as rock beasts, but Zeppelin III was full of gentle beauty. That was the soundtrack to me dropping out of high school. I listened to it every single day in my VW bug, while I contemplated my direction in life. That album, for whatever reason, saved some light in me that I still have.

I heard them for the first time on AM radio in the Seventies, right around the time that "Stairway to Heaven" was so popular. I was six or seven years old, which is when I'd just started discovering music. But it wasn't until I was a teenager that I discovered the first two Zeppelin records, which were handed down to me from the real stoners. We had a lot of those in the suburbs of Virginia, and a lot of muscle cars and keggers and Zeppelin and acid and weed. Somehow they all went hand in hand. To me, Zeppelin were spiritually inspirational. I was going to Catholic school and questioning God, but I believed in Led Zeppelin. I wasn't really buying into this Christianity thing, but I had faith in Led Zeppelin as a spiritual entity. They showed me that human beings could channel this music somehow and that it was coming from somewhere. It wasn't coming from a songbook. It wasn't coming from a producer. It wasn't coming from an instructor. It was coming from somewhere else.

I believe Zeppelin will come back and prove themselves to once again be the greatest rock band of all time. It will happen. They'll find someone to play the drums and I'll be right there, front row at every goddamn show. Then I could finally die a happy man.

The Rolling Stones by Steven Van Zandt

2010-01-11T17:32:00.000Z

The Rolling Stones are my life. If it wasn't for them, I would have been a Soprano for real. I first saw the Stones on TV, on Hollywood Palace in 1964. In '64, the Beatles were perfect: the hair, the harmonies, the suits. They bowed together. Their music was extraordinarily sophisticated. The whole thing was exciting and alien but very distant in its perfection. The Stones were alien and exciting, too. But with the Stones, the message was, "Maybe you can do this." The hair was sloppier. The harmonies were a bit off. And I don't remember them smiling at all. They had the R&B traditionalist's attitude: "We are not in show business. We are not pop music." And the sex in Mick Jagger's voice was adult. This wasn't pop sex -- holding hands, playing spin the bottle. This was the real thing. Jagger had that conversational quality that came from R&B singers and bluesmen, that sort of half-singing, not quite holding notes. The acceptance of Jagger's voice on pop radio was a turning point in rock & roll. He broke open the door for everyone else. Suddenly, Eric Burdon and Van Morrison weren't so weird -- even Bob Dylan.

It was completely unique: a white performer doing it in a black way. Elvis Presley did it. But the next guy was Jagger. There were no other white boys doing this. White singers stood there and sang, like the Beatles. The thing we associate with black performers goes back to the church -- letting the spirit physically move you, letting go of social restraints, any form of embarrassment or humiliation. Not being in control: That's what Mick Jagger was communicating. There were a few James Brown and Tina Turner dance moves in there. But James Brown was very choreographed. Those strange moves Jagger was doing -- they were of the spirit. Iggy Pop and Jim Morrison took it to another level, but all that came from Jagger.

In the beginning, it was Brian Jones' band. He named them. He managed them -- got the gigs and wrote to the paper when they got bad reviews. The attitude and aggressiveness -- they first came from him. And the tradition came from him. He was using the blues pseudonym Elmo Lewis and playing bottleneck guitar. Then, on albums like December's Children and Aftermath, he was playing all of these other instruments: dulcimer, harpsichord, sitar. He was so inventive and important. If anybody gets left out of the Stones' story, he's the one.

But Keith Richards has been taken for granted too, relegated historically to permanent rhythm guitar. But his solos were great: "Heart of Stone," "It's All Over Now." And there are the riffs: "Satisfaction," of course, and "The Last Time," which the Stones themselves considered the first serious song they wrote. "Honky Tonk Women" is just one chord. Then he started the tunings: the G tuning and the five-string version of the G tuning. There are chord patterns that relate to his tunings -- the "Gimme Shelter" effect, let's call it -- where you add a suspended note, and it becomes more melodic and rhythmic at the same time. I play rhythm guitar with the E Street Band in Keith's style all the time. Anybody who plays rock & roll guitar does.

Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts, more than any other rock & roll rhythm section, to this day, knew how to swing. It's so much a thing of the past now, but in those days rock & roll was something you danced to. You can just picture how much fun it was to be at the Richmond Hotel in London, at the Station Hotel in 1962 and '63: the crowd going crazy, the Stones going crazy, like they were in a South Side Chicago blues club. You can picture it in the music.

There are generations of young people now who only know the Stones iconically. There is no connection to the music. So I'd send them to the first four albums, the American versions: England's Newest Hitmakers, 12x5, Now and Out of Our Heads. The next lesson is the second great era: Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street. They make up the greatest run of albums in history -- and all done in three and a half years.

In a lot of ways, the Stones are playing better now than they were in the Sixties. They were quite sloppy in the early days -- which I enjoy. Technically, they're better than they've ever been. The trouble is, their power comes from their first twelve albums. There have been a few great songs since '72, but only a handful. If they were making great records and playing live the way they are now, my God, how amazing would that be?

But live, they're still able to communicate that original power. You can learn a lot from the Stones still: Write good songs, stay in shape and dig deep down for that passion every night. You should live so long, a tenth as long, and be as good as Mick Jagger. It's amazing Keith is still alive. There are a few people who have this constitution of invulnerability, although you shouldn't learn that. Let's be honest: Excessive drug use hurts songwriting. The good side is, he's still on the road, rockin', forty years later. You can't hold most bands together for four years, let alone forty.

I don't look forward to the day when the Stones stop, because going out there and playing continues to be the most effective advertisement for these songs. They may have a bit of production with them onstage now, but it's still about them. They're pushing things to the limit, showing that if you stick to your guns, and don't compromise with what's trendy, you're gonna go a long fucking way.

Sex Pistols: Part Three - The Final Part

2010-01-08T17:27:00.000Z

For Jones, the son of a hairdresser and a professional boxer, who left home when he was fifteen, the Pistols grew out of old-fashioned rock & roll yearnings, born of limited options and the escape offered by crime. "I definitely didn't feel wanted as a child," he says in Julien Temple's 2000 documentary The Filth and the Fury, one of several moments when the band's dramatized mayhem gives way to reveal the genuine damage to children behind it. "I actually got put back a year because I was so stupid."

So he excelled at crime, or at least persevered. He stole clothes from the stores where idols like Rod Stewart or Bryan Ferry shopped, then progressed to stealing from the stars directly: a fur coat from Ron Wood's house, clothes and a TV from Keith Richards', two guitars from Rod Stewart's, a PA system from a David Bowie gig and assorted drums, microphones and other gear. He didn't necessarily want to learn to play at first, just be part of the action. "All the equipment that I stole, that was the beginning of me being in music. I just wanted to be involved in music, that was it. That was the only way I knew how, to steal musical equipment. And clothes."

One of the stores he stole from was a clothing shop on Kings Road run by McLaren and his partner, Vivienne Westwood, which had a jukebox and a couch where people could hang out. Sex, as the store was soon called, was a destination for style-conscious rock stars and a gathering place for young misfits of mid-Seventies London. Westwood's designs, which included fetish gear and swastikas, foreshadowed some of the contradictions later explored in the Sex Pistols: They signaled liberation through the constriction of pleasure, not the free circulation, and they mocked consumerism and materialism while embracing the purest form of materialism, the fetish. When Jones and Cook took up the stolen instruments, they asked McLaren to manage them, though his limited experience as manager of the New York Dolls -- he put them in red leather and communist insignia -- was a disaster. "I certainly did not want to manage them," McLaren said later. "It was more preventing Steve Jones from thieving in the store."

McLaren, born in 1946, was a student of Fifties rock & roll and the working-class dandyism of British Teddy Boys, named for their revival of Edwardian fashions. To the fraying ends of the 1960s he brought a lightning-fast intellect that combined pop theory, prank politics and visions of hip capitalism. McLaren loved a catchy slogan and the promise of calamity. The idea of the Sex Pistols, he said, was an outgrowth of the store. "I was selling rubber masks and tying that to a jukebox playing tracks from Muddy Waters to Iggy Pop," he said, speaking from his office in Paris. "This really did have an idea before the Sex Pistols, it was already blowing up. And the Sex Pistols just gave it a platform for it to be seen outside the niche of the little shop. It spun it into the domain of the media. In this way, I forced and manipulated and created the Sex Pistols, and doing so, I suppose what I was hoping they would become was fatal attractions, dangerous people to know. I liked the thought that they would forever play as if they were on the verge of collapse into chaos and disaster. And I thought, once bitten by that disaster, you become twice as excited." McLaren speaks in long, discursive paragraphs, and though his account of the Sex Pistols is no more plausible than Rotten's bit about music hall, it has the virtue of capturing the feelings the band elicited. Unlike Lydon, McLaren is a mythmaker, not a debunker. "I didn't see the Sex Pistols as a group," he said. "It's funny to say. You just saw them as an idea. They were a constant, moving idea. Unlike a sculptor that uses clay or a painter uses paint, it was much more organic because they were real, but they were still an idea, and they were used as an idea."

Years before the Sex Pistols, he presaged them in a manifesto for an art-school film. "Be childish," McLaren wrote in the manifesto, which is quoted in the exhaustive history England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock and Beyond, by Jon Savage. "Be irresponsible. Be disrespectful. Be everything this society hates." Whatever else they were, from the moment they formed in McLaren's shop in the summer of 1975, the Sex Pistols were this manifesto come to life.

Sex Pistols: Part Two

2010-01-07T17:18:00.005Z

Unable to hear himself onstage, Lydon glared at the crowd, half camp, half Antichrist. Though he didn't know it at the time, it was his last day as Rotten for years to come, because McLaren claimed ownership of the name for the next few years. He had twenty dollars in his pocket, no credit card, no airline ticket, no plan -- no future.

In other words, the Sex Pistols were being the Sex Pistols, and it was crashing down on them, with the clarity of Rotten's famous last words.

"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

In their twenty-six-month public existence, the Sex Pistols managed one album, a handful of singles, a few dozen club gigs, one mildly profane TV appearance, several arrests, two sackings from record companies, some hasty local bans and one dance fad (the pogo, invented by Sid). When they were scaring the English public, three members lived with their mothers and one lived in a rehearsal space with no hot water because they couldn't afford proper homes; Rotten wrote "God Save the Queen," the band's most notorious song, at his parents' breakfast table, awaiting his baked beans. Their best-played shows drew a couple hundred people or fewer, and even for their last gig, at the cavernous Winterland, they split sixty-seven dollars. They were gone before any of them turned twenty-three.

No one managed to destroy more with less.

Of their contemporaries, the Buzzcocks wrote better songs, the Ramones were more conceptually perfect and the Clash were less internally conflicted. Siouxsie and the Banshees dressed better. But it is the Pistols who breathed the viral promise that punk's elements, including their own inadequacies, represented something more: a rejection not just of work and rules but of the rebellions of the previous generation, which were then being fed back as a new pleasure industry. "I hate shit," Rotten said in the band's first interview, just four months after their first gig. "I hate hippies and what they stand for. I hate long hair. I hate pub bands. . . . I want people to go out and start something, to see us and start something, or else I'm just wasting my time." He could not have known how far his provocation would carry. When a square British television announcer warned viewers, "Punk rock . . . to many people, it is a bigger threat to our way of life than Russian communism or hyperinflation," even the kitsch proved prophetic: In 1991, thirteen years after the Pistols' breakup, visitors to post-communist Budapest would have seen the graffiti "Sid Vicious!" in Vörösmarty Square, a new youth culture claiming its identity in the freshest language it knew.

At a cafe in West Hollywood, Steve Jones had his own take on the meaning of the Sex Pistols. It was midafternoon, and he had just finished his daily radio show, Jonesy's Jukebox, with a guest appearance by Slash from Guns n' Roses. Jones wore a black anarchy T-shirt, tired eyes and mild regret that he was lapsing on his resolution to cut down on coffee. "How'd it go with John?" he asked. "Had he been hitting it?" (Lydon for his part had said, affectionately, "Steve thinks thinking's a problem.") Jones has lived in Los Angeles for the last twenty-six years, sober for the last sixteen, but he has little contact with Lydon.

"Do you think it's lame if we go?" he asked, regarding the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. "I think it would be a good thing if we go and play. That would be the most punk thing to do. And just let the swindle continue. I think it's not the punk thing to do to slag it off. That's the obvious thing. That's like the mentality from twenty, thirty years ago. I'm all about making money. I'm not into that about selling out. Sold out? We sold out years ago when we signed with Warner Bros. That's a load of shit. I wanna make some dough. We've never made dough. Everybody else has made dough. Green Day has made millions of dollars off our coattails, and all these other fucks. Which is fine, but I want to make a little dough."

He smiled at the old recurring differences, never resolved. "I hate being in the Sex Pistols," he said, with humor more than malice, like half of a cantankerous older couple. "I just want to lead a nice, easy, normal life now. It's never like that. It's like a dysfunctional family. It's the same shit as any other band. Just that a lot of bands say they don't do that."

At fifty-one, Jones is keenly attuned to the motion of any female figure on either side of Santa Monica Boulevard and more than willing to share details of his experience with Viagra or the curative powers of amatory dress-up. What he had not shared, until recently, is that even during the Pistols days he secretly preferred colossal mainstream bands like Queen, Boston and Journey to the bands on the punk scene.

In the circus that was the Sex Pistols, Jones and Paul Cook, the drummer, never got the attention that went to John, Sid or Malcolm, and even within the band, they were often demeaned as "the sidemen." But to listen now to Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols is to hear the power of their conventional virtues. Now that the songs aren't imperiling the empire, they flat rock.

Continued tomorrow...

Sex Pistols: Part One

2010-01-06T17:07:00.001Z

On a warm afternoon in February 2006, John Lydon sat in a beach restaurant near his home in Los Angeles, and he broke out in happy song. Lydon, newly turned fifty, wore a plaid vinyl jacket, a boater hat, tartan sneakers, Union Jack socks and an exaggerated smile that seemed both easy and self-conscious. A ruddier version of the same face, two decades younger, scowled from a T-shirt stretched across his belly. "I'm staring at you," he said. His hat had a hole in it from a cigarette burn. This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Sex Pistols' debut album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, but on this occasion Lydon was choking on another milestone, the band's imminent induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (they didn't attend). He was talking about the humor in the Sex Pistols, which he said had been missed by all the people who came after. "We're music hall," he said, his cheer rising. "This is part of British culture. You're brought up, you sing along in the pubs, there's a piano in the corner, it's an ongoing process. You can sing songs from 200 years ago and everyone will know it, just like you can sing something brand-new, everyone will know it, because it fits into a thing. And basically, Sex Pistols songs lend themselves absolutely to" -- and by now he was positively beaming -- " 'Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the lamppost overnight?' "

He was a grown man, consigned to explain and reanimate what he had done at nineteen, and he took to it with the forced whimsy of a vaudeville announcer, playing his own straight man when needed. Three decades after Never Mind the Bollocks immortalized forever Lydon's hypervigilant disdain, he said, no record company was interested in signing him, though at PTA meetings he was still Johnny Rotten. I asked what the Sex Pistols had set out to do back in 1975. "Attack. Attack. No recriminations, no defensive strategy. Attack: 'You're all wrong, you've got no fucking right to tell us who or what we are, or what is our place.'

"I think I brought a bit of barefaced honesty to music, which I don't think was there before. The closest that would describe what I was feeling, and what my culture was, would be John Lennon's 'Working Class Hero.' It was about complacency: 'No, I don't know my place, and nobody's going to tell me what it is, either, I'll work that out for myself, thank you -- not happy to be a slave worker, I've got a brain. Yes, I've got a shovel, but I've got a brain, too, and I like to use it.' Still shoveling shit, though, really." At the last bit of wordplay he seemed pleased.

A young woman on the sidewalk asked for a cigarette, and he snapped, "No, buy your own," before seizing the occasion to address a bee that was apparently in his boater. "I don't like kids who can afford things begging. That's an abuse of you." It was one more edict in an afternoon's trove of amiable, punning tirades about Green Day, the Hall of Fame, Virgin Records, Courtney Love, zoos, Malcolm McLaren, flared pants, face-lifts, Catholic school and the Ramones, each riff spinning out familiarly in the benign Pacific breeze. "Inducted," he said, apropos the Hall of Fame. "That's what you do to central heating pipes, you induct them. It's the music industry perpetuating the penguin suit and dickey bow, and it's unacceptable. It's not free-form. It's anti-social, really. It's us versus them, and us will win. 'Us' as in U.S."

John Lydon is a moralist. And because that, after all, was another overlooked dimension of the Sex Pistols.

"No, values. I do this because I have values. I would have used the word 'morals' years ago, but I would have used it badly. 'Morals' is religious-based, and I certainly don't want anything to do with that."

The story of the Sex Pistols begins properly at the end, January 14th, 1978, at the Winterland Ballroom, in San Francisco. Sid Vicious, the band's bass player, had descended into the role of walking emergency, with the plea GIMME A FIX carved on his bare chest and a hardening sense of his destiny as a Sex Pistol. "I wanna be like Iggy Pop and die before I'm thirty," he'd said earlier in the tour -- and though Iggy is still among us, Sid was gone in a little more than a year, of a heroin overdose thought to be provided by his mother. The guitarist, Steve Jones, was sick of Sid's uselessness and Lydon's unconcealed scorn. Lydon by this point openly despised the manager, the band and the state of things. "I don't like rock music, I don't know why I'm in it," he'd told a radio interviewer that afternoon. "I just want to destroy everything." And the manager, Malcolm McLaren, was bored with the group's increasingly calcified routine. He'd imagined them destroying show business, but show business was all they had. "As you design these things, you think you're the master of your own destiny," he said later. "But at the end of the day you're creating Frankenstein, and it will ultimately go out of control."

Continued tomorrow...

Planet Earth Is Blue

2010-01-05T09:36:00.002Z

The word tribute can conjure a lot of different thoughts of feelings. For some, if you say the word tribute they think of 4 guys dressed up as John, Paul, Ringo and George prancing around in matching uniforms on stage at The Venue in New Cross. For others, they think of the two minute silence on Remembrance Day. Whilst others may think of the endless amount of tributes that we endured surrounding the death of Michael Jackson. My point is that tributes come in many different styles and formats. Some bring are done well and others… Well others are just shit. Hopefully the forthcoming David Bowie tribute album be the former.

Mr Stardust has just announced his tracklisting for the compilation album that is due out in May. He’s enrolled artists and bands from up and down the music roster to come on board and record his music in their own style. Amongst others, Soulwax and Duran Duran are onboard. Interesting? I think so. I remember my parents being armed with a Beatles tribute CD when going on holiday with them about 15 years ago. The only thing I can remember from it is Jim Carrey doing his own rendition of “I Am The Walrus”. And yes, I am talking about the same man that played Ace Ventura and The Mask. I also remember thinking that it was quite good. But that’s beside the point.

The album contains a massive 28 tracks; which is so massive that I’m guessing that it will be too big for a single CD and will be released as a double. You can call that a scoop if you like. Ya know, a “you heard it here first” type of thing. All proceeds from the double CD will be going to Warchild UK, which obviously is a good thing.

Below I’ve listed the track and their new composers. So, until May when you can own it for yourself, I suggest just listening to Bowie in general. After all, a little more Bowie in your life will keep you away from that nagging wife.

'Space Oddity' (Exitmusic)
'John, I'm Only Dancing' (Vivian Girls)
'Sound + Vision' (Megapuss)
'Absolute Beginners' (Carla Bruni)
'World Falls Down' (Lights)
'Heroes' (VOICEsVOICEs)
'Boys Keep Swinging' (Duran Duran)
'TBA' (MGMT)
'Always Crashing In The Same Car' (Charlift)
'African Night Flight' (Aska w/ Moon & Moon)
'Suffragette City' (A Place to Bury Strangers)
'Theme From Cat People' (The Polyamorous Affair)
'Life on Mars' (Keren Ann)
'Red Money' (Swahili Blonde feat. John Frusciante)
'Art Decade' (Marco Benevento)
'Be My Wife' (Corridor)
'The Superman' (Aquaserge)
'Ashes To Ashes' (Warpaint)
'Quicksand' (Rainbow Arabia)
'Afraid of Americans' (We Are The World)
'Within You' (Laco$te)
'Ziggy Stardust' (Ariana Delawari)
'Modern Love' (Pizza!)
'Secret Life Of Arabia' (St Clair Board)
'Starman' (Caroline Weeks)
'The Man Who Sold The World' (Amanda Jo Williams)
'Ashes To Ashes' (Mick Karn)
'TBA' (Soulwax)

Welcome Back

2010-01-04T12:46:00.005Z

I hope you all had a decent festive period and that Santa slipped down the chimney with everything that you wanted tucked under his arm. Now unless you’ve been doing your best Stevie Wonder impression over the past week, you’ll see I took a bit of time off from keeping you beautiful people entertained in the form words. However, just like January, I’m now well and truly back to play.

Now, due to the old people and board games you have probably taken your eye of the prize when it comes to the wonderful world of music. And I can’t blame you. Playing Pictionary with your Nan is without doubt more entertaining than reading this waffle. However, now that you’re back at work; waffle such as this provides a nice break from the humdrum time that you have to spend sitting behind a desk from 9-to-5 Monday-to-Friday. Unless of course you are able to smuggle your Nan into work, prop her up next to the coffee machine, and subsequently play charades across the office without anyone notice you waving your hands above your head. Since I guess that isn’t possible, you’ll have to put up with this.

Stuff definitely happened during the climax of 2009’s music calendar. Some of it was interesting, but the majority wasn’t. I’ve listed below the slightly more interesting side that you may have missed due to helping your Nan with the mince pies.

• Organiser Emily Eavis reveals Glastonbury has booked its second headliner for 2010
• Former Arctic Monkeys man joins Reverend And The Makers
• Confirmed Glastonbury headliners U2 outline their plans for the festival
• US campaigners oppose The Who playing this year's half-time show at the Super Bowl
• Liam Gallagher announced that he’s been working on new music with all the old members of Oasis - apart from Noel

This week will see the introduction of my Gotta Be Big section. Here I will be giving my tips for 2010. Naturally, the bands that I reckon will make a real push for it this year will probably end up dropped by their label and staking shelves at Sainsbury’s come March. However, I think they all sound alright now.

I'm All About The Style...

2009-12-21T16:23:00.000Z

Until I have a moment to add some "personality" to this bio, I'll leave a typical meandering with no real passion to describe this hugely affecting group called the Style Council. Righto? the Cappuccino Kid Guitarist/vocalist Paul Weller broke up the Jam, the most popular British band of the early '80s, at the height of their success in 1982 because he was dissatisfied with their musical direction. Weller wanted to incorporate more elements of soul, R&B, and jazz into his songwriting, which is something he felt his punk-oriented bandmates were incapable of performing. In order to pursue this musical direction, he teamed up in 1983 with keyboardist Mick Talbot, a former member of the mod revival band the Merton Parkas.

Together, Weller and Talbot became the Style Council -- other musicians were added according to what kind of music the duo were performing. With the Style Council, the underlying intellectual pretensions that ran throughout Weller's music came to the forefront. Although the music was rooted in American R&B, it was performed slickly -- complete with layers of synthesizers and drum machines -- and filtered through European styles and attitudes.

Weller's lyrics were typically earnest, yet his leftist political leanings became more pronounced. His scathing criticisms of racism, unemployment, Margaret Thatcher, and sexism sat

uneasily beside his burgeoning obsession with high culture. As his pretensions increased, the number of hits the Style Council had decreased; by the end of the decade, the group was barely able to crack the British Top 40 and Weller had turned from a hero into a has-been. Released in March of 1983, the Style Council's first single "Speak Like a Child" became an immediate hit, reaching number four on the British charts. Three months later, "The Money-Go-Round" peaked at number 11 on the charts as the group was recording an EP, Paris, which appeared in August; the EP reached number three. "Solid Bond in Your Heart" became another hit in November, peaking at number 11. The Style Council released their first full-length album, Cafe Bleu, in March of 1984; two months later, a resequenced version of the record, retitled My Ever Changing Moods, was released in America. Cafe Bleu was Weller's most stylistically ambitious album to date, drawing from jazz, soul, rap, and pop.

While it was musically all over the map, it was their most successful album, peaking at number five in the U.K. and number 56 in the U.S. "My Ever Changing Moods" became their first U.S. hit, peaking at number 29. In the summer of 1985, the Style Council had another U.K. Top Ten hit with "The Walls Come Tumbling Down." The single was taken from Our Favourite Shop, which reached number one on the U.K. charts; the record was released as Internationalists in the U.S. The live album, Home and Abroad, was released in the spring of 1986; it peaked at number eight. The Style Council had its last Top Ten single with "It Didn't Matter" in January of 1987. The Cost of Loving, an album that featured a heavy emphasis on jazz-inspired soul, followed in February. Although it received unfavorable reviews, the record peaked at number two in the U.K. That spring, "Waiting" became the group's first single not to crack the British Top 40, signalling that their popularity was rapidly declining.

In July of 1988, the Style Council released their last album, Confessions of a Pop Group, which featured Weller's most self-important and pompous music -- the second side featured a ten-minute orchestral suite called "The Gardener of Eden." The record charted fairly well, reaching number 15 in the U.K., but it received terrible reviews. In March of 1989, the Style Council released a compilation, The Singular Adventures of the Style Council, which reached number three on the charts. Later that year, Weller delivered a new Style Council album, which reflected his infatuation with house and club music, to the band's record label Polydor. Polydor rejected the album and dropped both the Style Council and Weller from the label.

Led On My Zep

2009-12-18T15:31:00.000Z

When George Harrison met John Bonham, the Beatle told the Led Zeppelin drummer, "The problem with your band is you don't do any ballads." Singer Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page could have taken umbrage -- they had already written the gorgeous "Going to California" two years earlier, for God's sake. Instead, they rose to the challenge. "The Rain Song" is seven minutes of exquisite heartache, complete with Mellotron strings from John Paul Jones. And in tribute to Harrison, the opening two notes are recognizably borrowed from his ballad "Something."

Led Zeppelin took the title of Houses of the Holy from their term for the oversize arenas and stadia where they played live. After five years together, they were ambitious and confident enough to believe they could meet any musical challenge; this album even includes a swinging take on reggae, "D'yer Mak'er." "Over the Hills and Far Away" builds in intensity just as relentlessly as "Stairway to Heaven." And "The Ocean," the love song for Plant's baby daughter that closes the album, is a mighty stomp that could rattle the teeth of fans in the last row of Madison Square Garden. The epic scale suited Zeppelin: They had the largest crowds, the loudest rock songs, the most groupies, the fullest manes of hair. Eventually excess would turn into bombast, but on Houses, it still provided inspiration.

Keep The Door Open

2009-12-16T22:59:00.004Z

Jim Morrison said it best: "All the children are insane," and he meant it like I mean it. We are children revolted by the banality of what people think is sane. When Jim rambled, quite profoundly, "Rock & roll is dead," and "Hitler is alive. . . . I slept with her last night," he knew then what we are choking on now. You can't change the world, and if you try, you just end up destroying it. We love all things to death. We leave the lights on, turn everything up to ten and fuck everything we fear.

In tenth grade I was told to read No One Here Gets Out Alive, the biography of Jim Morrison. Everything I'm interested in now got started with that book. It made me want to be a writer, and I started with poetry and short stories. We don't know what was really going on in Morrison's head, but I liked trying to piece it together. The immortality of his words, the mystery of his existence appealed to my sense of fantasy. I found "Moonlight Drive" -- particularly when accompanied by "Horse Latitudes" -- scary and sexually mystifying, like Happy Days told by Ted Bundy. I read the poem in front of my tenth-grade English class, and it was as awe-inspiring then as it is now. Words like mute nostril agony and carefully refined and sealed over always stung in the corners of my eyes.

I think the Doors still fit in because they never fit in in the first place. They didn't have a bass player. The music often had nothing to do with Morrison's words. The keyboard held everything together. Most bands can get through a show if the keyboardist breaks a finger. Not the Doors. Robbie Krieger played very odd guitar parts if you compare him to Jimmy Page or Keith Richards. Yet all this combined into something unique that grabbed people's attention.

Morrison's voice was a beautiful pond for anything to drown in. Whatever he sang became as deep as he was. He had the unnameable thing that people will always be drawn to. I've always thought of the Doors as the first punk band, even more than the Stooges or the Ramones. They didn't sound anything like punk rock, but Morrison outshined everyone else when it came to rebellion and not playing by anyone's rules. There are a lot of bands that seem to want to sound like the Doors filtered through grunge or neogrunge -- whatever it is. But it's all just ideas pasted on ideas, faded copies of copies. If you want to be like Jim Morrison, you can't be anything like Jim Morrison. It's about finding your own place in the world.

I’ll Take The Underground

2009-12-11T13:04:00.008Z

I can’t believe how crazy the music industry is currently going about this years Christmas number one. There is a ridiculous amount of chat surrounding a campaign to get Rage Against the Machine’s 1992 song, Killing in the Name, to beat off Simon Cowell’s music machine to the top spot. I’ve had a lot of people asking me what my opinion on the whole situation is. Personally, I have about as much interest in who wins the race to the Xmas top spot as I do watching Sonia from Eastenders cover herself in baby oil before gyrating up and down against a vat of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.

The charts in general hold no meaning to me in the slightest. They just provide an opportunity for the big record labels to take their “squeaky clean butter wouldn’t melt” artists and place them on a pedestal against others from the same family. The whole thing is a farce. Depending on how marketable the individual is, depends on the level on promotion that the label are willing to invest, and from that will then determine how they get on in the Sunday countdown. The whole thing is bull shit and I can’t be bothered with it.
It wouldn’t matter if Rage Against the Machine, X Factor, Mr Blobby or my mate Dave was announced as Christmas number one. I still wouldn’t care. I’ll be too busy eating my turkey to give it any of my attention.

Now, onto more important matters, The Velvet Underground shared a stage for the first time in ten years this week at New York's Public Library. Lou Reed, Moe Tucker and Doug Yule took part in a debate on the legacy of The Velvet Underground.

The event saw Lou Reed hail Moe Tucker as the best drummer he has ever worked with. "I've tried since then to get a drummer to do what she did, and it's impossible. They can't," Reed said. He went onto say, "If we sped up, she sped up. Instead of having a drummer who'll sit there trying to hold the beat down, our songs speed up and slow down all over the place."

Now a discussion on the New York band wouldn’t be complete without mention of Andy Warhol. The iconic artist produced TVU’s debut album. "Warhol was one of the greatest people I've ever met in my life," Reed explained.

"Without him, [The Velvet Underground were] kind of inconceivable. When they hired us to make a record it wasn't because of us, it was because of him. They didn't know us – they thought he was the lead guitarist or something!"

Ian Brown // Brixton Academy // 04.12.09

2009-12-07T11:02:00.006Z

Visually, to watch Ian Brown perform live is to witness something iconic. He is a man that, along with the rest of the Stone Roses, helped shape the way that music sounds today. You see, without the Stone Roses then you wouldn't have bands like Oasis and The Charlatans. And without the Gallagher brothers, Kasabian wouldn't have picked up guitars in the first place - and so on.

Ian Brown has achieved so much since he first picked up the mic back in the eighties. As a result of this, when you watch him now you get the feeling that you're watching someone of great importance. You can't help but get swept up in the Brown whirlwind that surrounds him everywhere he goes. The image of the Mancunian jogging on the spot whilst looking at the world through his oversized sunglasses as he jabs a tambourine out over the audience is nothing short of legendary. And believe me, Brown deserves the title of a legend.

You see, people get labeled as a legend far too easily nowadays. For example, your mate Dave runs down the shop to grab you a pint of milk; "Cheers, Dave. You're a legend". Or your mate Dave saves you his last Rolo; "You must of known I was starving. What a legend!". Or your mate Dave can sort you out cheap flights to Magaluf as he's currently knocking off a travel agent from Thomson; "Yes Dave! Magaluf for £40... LEGEND!" Now, as much as you love Dave, he's not an actual legend. However, a man who has been crowed a God Like Genius by NME and sold albums by the millions is. And that man is Ian Brown.

Just like Dirk Diggler and Amber Waves; Brixton Academy and the former Stone Roses front man work together perfectly. Prior to the weekend just passed, Brown had sold out London's 5,000 capacity venue a massive eight times as a solo artist. And after his shows on Friday and Saturday, it's now ten.

Brixton was entertained to seven tracks off his new album, My Way. These included Stellify and Just Like You. Brown is obviously trying to move away from his Stone Roses routes by cutting his previous bands tracks to a minimum. Although it's great to hear the old Roses stuff, it's also nice to hear an established artist pushing new music; which is something I'm all for.

Now, as I stated earlier, visually Brown was epic. However, it would be wrong of me to write a review of the evening and not speak about him vocally. As we all know, Brown is not the best singer on the planet. But there were points where his voice did hit an all time low. He started well and ended well. Yet there were points in the middle where his voice was so far away from what we are so use to on our iPod that it was bordering on ridiculous. However, although Ian Brown is a singer by trade, you don't go to an Ian Brown show to just listen to him sing; you go to experience the whole Ian Brown package. The buzz and hype that surrounds the man is so addictive that it sucks you in like a Dyson.

I mean, if Brown was to audition for X Factor, Cowell & Co would laugh him out of their studio stating that he would never sell a record with a voice like that. Yet, he has sold a record. In fact, he's sold millions of the fucking things. And in addition to that, he's still selling out gigs wherever he goes 25 years after he first took the stage with The Stone Roses. It's not bad at all for a man that keep a note about as well as a Laughing Hyena.

However, once you draw a line under everything, you can't hide from the fact that this man is a true great. He's done more for music than most could ever dream of. He's been responsible for some of the most inspirational records of all time and he continues to push boundaries now. And for that you can't fault him.

Ian Brown played:

Love Like A Fountain
Golden Gaze
Time is Everything
All Ablaze
Longsight M13
Keep What Ya Got
Save Us
Crowing Of The Poor
Corpses
Laugh Now
Vanity Kills
Own brain
Marathon Man
Sister Rose
F.E.A.R
Elizabeth My Dear / Fools Gold
Stellify
Just Like You

Yeah Yeah Yeahs // Brixton Academy // 01.12.09

2009-12-03T12:37:00.013Z

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs lead singer Karen Lee Orzolek was born in New York on November 22nd 1978, and rumour has it that she entered the world that day wearing some ostentatious outfit whilst doing the running man up and down the hospital ward. You see, certain people crave limelight but don’t really cope too well in it. And then on the flip side you have people that effortlessly attract the spotlight and subsequently look fucking cool in it. Karen O fits into the latter category with absolute ease.

Since forming back in early 2000, the New York based rock-trio have climbed steadily up the music ladder. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are a band that has never had a defining moment that has turned them into global superstars. Instead they have simply taken it slowly conquering wherever they go step-by-step. At times their music is infectious. Their sound is like an edgy post-punk, dancefloor-friendly racket. But it works. If you were to feed the result of mixing Blondie and Siouxsie and the Banshees together in a blender to three art-rock kids from the states, the result would be the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Now I understand if you’ve not heard or seen this band before that this all sounds slightly strange and very exciting. And to a degree it is. This excitement was replicated by the people of Brixton on Tuesday. Why? Because they welcomed the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, complete with Karen O’s collection of technicoloured leotards, to their beloved Academy.

Never a band not to lord it in any given situation; the three-piece started the nights proceedings playing behind an opaque curtain. They then entertained the blind crowd before dropping the veil resulting in utter hysteria from the crowd as they finally got a glimpse of who the lady they came to see.

The Brixton set was made up of five giant sinister eyeballs. As horrendous as this sounds on paper, the production accompanied the Yeah Yeah Yeahs sound and Karen O’s wardrobe perfectly. The leadsinger leaped, spun and crawled across the floor in a plethora of different outfits during their 90 minute set.

Meanwhile, Nick Zinner was delivering a guitar driven tirade in an attempt to try and steal the show. For me, the wrestling match between Zinner and O was obvious. However, as good a guitarist Zinner might be, people just can’t take their eyes of the only women present. Right from the off, it seemed that there would be nothing that could stand in the way of ambiguous twirling, often masked, screaming spectacle that is Karen O.

The production remained at a high point all evening. Three oversized Y’s fell from the ceiling during Gold Lion. In conjunction with this, confetti cannons trying their best to cover everyone in the audience. At points the crowd were dazzled with sparkles, lights and just about anything else you can think of.

Now, I’m not normally one that enjoys all the frills and spills that some bands seem to think it necessary to use when performing live. I’m much in favour of a few guitar amps, some drums a couple of guitars and a room full of people left to just get on with it. Yet this worked. And the atmosphere that they left in Brixton at the end of their third encore suggested that everyone else enjoyed it as well.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs played:

Runaway
Shake It
Black Tongue
Pin
10x10
Gold lion
Zero
Miles away
Skeletons
Soft Shock
Cheated Hearts
Heads Will Roll
Y Control

Encore:
Maps
Art star
Date with the Night

Kid Harpoon // Hoxton B&K // 30.11.09

2009-12-02T16:59:00.002Z

Certain things are facts. For example, on Monday at approximately 8pm it was both dark and cold. The reason I could tell it was dark is because I have eyes. And the reason I knew it was cold is because the amount of air visible by my breath was enough for people in the Isle of Skye to think I’m sending out distressed smoke signals. Plus, the digital thermometer that sits within one of the huge billboards on Old Street roundabout informed passers by that it was minus 143°C; or something of that ilk.

Following on from this, just like I realised I can’t take frost bite on every part of my body, other facts also came to surface on during the ealier part of this week. And most notably was the undeniable, indisputable, unarguable fact that a certain singer songwriter, that now resides in North London, is an underground hero. And nothing showcased this more than the scenes that took place in the Hoxton B&K on Monday night.

There was an unnatural calm to the Shoreditch air on Monday. The traffic was minimal and the normal hustle and bustle of city slickers meeting East London trendies was gone. The feeling was very much reminiscent of a deserted town. It wasn’t until you made your way through the back streets of Old Street and into Hoxton Square that there was any sign of life. Here lie a congregation of likeminded individuals who had braved the arctic conditions in order to be entertained by their underground hero, Mr Kid Harpoon.

If you visit this website often then you’ll know that I am a big fan of Harpoon. The wordsmithery that Harpoon posses is far advanced to the majority. And the skill he posses to execute erudite songs live is scarily good. However, bearing in mind I am a fan, I always try to write without a weighted point of view. Yet, the performance that Harpoon delivered on Monday can’t be described in any other way than awesome. It was live music as it was meant to be listened to. It came complete with passion, intelligence, talent and a bucket load of feeling.

The live room at the Hoxton B&K is a gem. It creates a good clear sound whilst being able to pack a punch. And it's intimate whilst being big enough to create an electric atmosphere. It was here that 450 Kid Harpoon fans would witness something quite special.

By the time clock hit 10:15pm and Kid Harpoon was due onstage the venue was rammed. Spindle & Wit and Kurran & the Wolfnotes played their part in providing the entertainment early on. Individually, both bands provided a soundtrack fitting for the evening ahead. And with the atmosphere building quicker than Elvis’ cholesterol after eating 14 Big Macs whilst sitting on the toilet, the mood was set perfectly for the nights proceedings.

Harpoon then took the stage, where his band was waiting, to be welcomed by a cocktail of wolf whistles and cheers. And was at this point, before he had even picked up a guitar, that everyone knew it was going to be a memorable night. Then not a second too soon, the instantly recognisable riff of Stealing Cars reverberated around the room generating a reaction reminiscent of a seasoned great.

Kid Harpoon has appeal on many different levels. He writes good music, performs it well and is genuinely likeable. He bobs, weaves, ducks and dives his way through each song, and it interacts with the crowd between them. The energy that Harpoon whips up on stage feeds into the crowd creating a mass of people wearing nothing but smiles. And with each song being delivered with total confidence and ease, Monday was no different.

Harpoon is very much at a crossroads in his career now. If he continues on this vain, the mainstream will not be able to hide from him. Therefore meaning the people on the underground that love him will soon have to share their love with the rest of the nation.

Kid Harpoon played:

Stealing Cars
Burn Down House
Don’t Cry On Me
Unknown
Back From Beyond
Flowers By The Shore
Once
Unknown
Here Comes the Milkmaid
Riverside
Late for Devil
First We Take Manhattan

You Can Start Stroking Again Now

2009-11-30T18:57:00.002Z

The inevitable has happened; as soon as NME names The Strokes 2001 album, This Is It, as their album of the year, Julian Casablancas has completely forgotten about his plans of a solo career and has announced the first Strokes gig in 3 years.

The New Yorkers are to play next years Isle of Wight Festival alongside Jay-Z and Blondie. Now, rumour has it that there are going to be plenty more opportunities to see the writers of NME’s favourite album this decade as they plan a full tour for the late part of next year.

The band members all splintered into their own projects like Nickel Eye, Little Joy and Albert Hammond Jr. and Julian Casablancas’ namesake solo adventure. However, there is now confirmed evidence that the Strokes’ long hibernation may be coming to an end. Bassist Nikolai Fraiture’s spoke publicly surrounding the band entering the studio in January to continue work on their fourth album.

I just hope they can put all their personnel troubles behind them and deliver some music that mad us fall in love with them in the first place.

I Only Like Keys That Are Black

2009-11-26T14:02:00.008Z

Ohio-based duo The Black Keys are well known for their concentrated hermetic approach to recording. Either they are seen hunkering down with rudimentary equipment in an unfinished basement, or commandeering the floor of a vacant local rubber factory. They do this to create terse but soulful rock that seems to have time-traveled into the pair's amps from some long-ago radio show. But guitarist-vocalist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney now admit they were ready for a change of scene-as well as some company. So when they got the opportunity to work with Grammy Award-nominated producer-musician-provocateur Danger Mouse, a/k/a Brian Burton (Gnarls Barkley, Gorillaz, The Grey Album), they agreed, for the first time, to leave their familiar environs. They weren't quite willing to cross state lines yet, though.

The Black Keys had originally been approached by Danger Mouse to write songs for an album he was developing with Grammy Award-winning R&B legend Ike Turner, who, in recent years, had been recognized more for his contribution to the birth of rock & roll than for the time he'd spent in the tabloids. That project would never be completed, however, and the 76 year-old Turner passed away unexpectedly in December.

As the pair were composing and sending tracks out to Danger Mouse in Los Angeles earlier last year, ostensibly for Ike, they realized they were also instinctively laying the groundwork for a new album of their own. So when Patrick went to L.A. to visit his wife's family, he called up Danger Mouse to go out for drinks and, he says, "I asked him straight up if he wanted to produce our record. He said yeah, and we made a plan. Nothing was set in stone until about a week before we went in to record in August. I think Dan and I were intrigued to work with somebody as a producer because we both realized we couldn't teach ourselves anything more, and it was best to start learning from other people. When we were, like, 22, we didn't have the money to do this; by the time we were 24, maybe we thought we knew more than we actually did. Now, at 27, we maybe just realized we had stopped being broke, and stopped being dip-shits, and we could learn from other people who make records."

"After doing four albums in the basement, we were ready to go somewhere else," Dan confesses, "but it couldn't just be anywhere. Brian suggested L.A., but we said no way. We still wanted to do it in Ohio. There's this guy named Paul Hamann, who has a studio outside Cleveland called Suma. I'd done a bunch of projects with him before, bands that I've recorded on the side. He's done some mastering and cut some vinyl for me. In fact, he's got one of the only studios in the world where they still cut their own vinyl. So we said we wanted to go there, and Brian said, 'Whatever you guys want.'"

The legacy, the hand-built recording console, and the engineering skills of Hamann were undoubtedly attractive to The Black Keys, but perhaps it was the ambience of the place that really sealed the deal. As Patrick explains, with genuine affection, "The place is covered with dust, it smells like a moldy cabin, and it looks like a haunted house. It was fitting for our first time of going into a real studio-basically being in a haunted house that hasn't been updated since 1973." Dan continues, "A big part of the sound of this record is the studio and having somebody like Paul, who is an old pro, recording us and helping us get the right sound. Having him there meant that we were free to jump on any instruments we wanted to add stuff. If I wanted to play organ, I could jump on it and just record it; if I wanted to jump on the guitar, I could do it. Brian and Pat had a moog part they thought would be cool on a song, so they would just try it. That studio is a really special place."

Danger Mouse fit right in, too. Says Dan, "He came in as our collaborator. Brian does hip-hop, but he likes rock and roll, obscure 60s psychedelic stuff, and we listen to a lot of that too. So he was pretty easy to get along with. Brian has a real ear for melody and arrangement, and that was a big part of this record, his making suggestions about the arrangements."

Dan and Patrick were childhood buddies who grew up in the same Akron neighborhood and attended the same schools. But they didn't recognize their natural musical affinity until well into high school when they started jamming together with other aspiring musician friends, who they soon ditched. Early demos of The Black Keys featured a third member, who played a moog bass, but he didn't last long either, and they subsequently carried on as a duo. Says Dan, "Pat and I just click. We walk in to a groove quite easily. It's kind of hard to describe." Their minimalist approach to rock is similar to what the late-70s New York City duo Suicide's has been to electronic dance music: The Black Keys have been able to make something ferociously noisy, deceptively melodic, and surprisingly sincere out of the simplest tools and riffs. (Unlike Suicide, though, they're more congenial than confrontational with their audiences.)

With Danger Mouse, The Black Keys didn't veer uncomfortably far from the elemental rock & roll territory they'd mined so effectively on previous albums like their 2006 Nonesuch debut, Magic Potion, or their Fat Possum discs, Rubber Factory (2004) and Thickfreakness (2003). But they were definitely in a mood to experiment on Attack and Release. Dan explains, "We'd never let it all go before like we did for this one, where anything was game." The new tracks have a spaciousness and clarity that accentuate the soulfulness in Dan's preternaturally weathered vocals and in arrangements that oscillate between melancholy and swagger. (On side-by-side, moody vs. head-banging versions of "Remember When," they do both.) There's a subtle range of extra instrumentation (organ, piano, synthesizer) and some very cool arrangements (like the ghostly choir that surfaces midway through "I Got Mine"). Guitarist Marc Ribot and Pat's uncle, multi-instrumentalist Ralph Carney-both veterans of Tom Waits' band-sat in for a few days of unfettered jamming. Jessica Lea Mayfield, an impressive eighteen-year-old bluegrass/country singer from Kent, Ohio, sings alongside Dan on the plaintive final cut, "Things Ain't Like They Used To Be." Dan and Patrick did finally head west for the mix. Recalls Patrick, "We started August 9; our last day was August 23. We went to L.A. to mix the record with Brian's engineer, Kennie Takahashi, who mixed the Gnarls record. He's a younger dude who knows his shit. He matched our rough mixes exactly-the EQ, the compression, everything. He just cleaned them up-or dirtied them up-from there.

"I'm more pleased with the sound of this record than any we've ever made," Pat concludes. "Rather than mask things in, like, a low-fi fog, we can make things sound big and fucked up at the same time."

U Have Got To Be Joking?

2009-11-25T12:59:00.011Z

U2’s 1987 album, The Joshua Tree album, saw the Irish band move from performing in arenas to stadiums, and since then they have never looked back. Well, when I say they have never looked back, I mean in terms of music. In real life Bono is looking over his shoulder consistently. You see, when he’s out in Africa on one of his ‘Save the World’ missions, he’s on edge that the Oromo tribe from Ethiopia are going to ambush him and subsequently threaten to kill him if he doesn’t take those stupid sunglasses off. Or if he’s sitting in the Western world and keeps the shades on, he’s constantly checking that the team he has in place to make sure that his head remains straight due to the enormous weight of his oversized sub blockers are doing their job. Either way, the sunglasses need to go.

Now, taking Bono and his sunglasses out of the equation for a moment; U2 have surfaced a lot in conversation through the music world this week, as they have been announced as headliners to 2010’s Glastonbury festival. Event organiser Michael Eavis revealed that they have been trying for years to get Bono’s band to play on his farm. Personally, I don’t see why he’s wasted his time.

Just like butter in the fridge, coals on a fire or a box of Vaseline on the set of any respectable adult movie, U2 have a place. And it certainly isn’t at Glastonbury. Sure, I hear the arguments that state that they are simply a rock & roll band, playing a rock & roll festival. However, I disagree with that whole heartedly. Just saying the word Glastonbury generates images and feelings of good times and good vibes. It’s a hedonistic festival that’s roots stem from days gone by when it was used as a meeting place for hippies to congregate and spread love like wild fire. I understand that things have changed, but the festival still keeps some of that cherished charm. Welcoming a rock & roll travelling salesman doesn’t represent that.

U2 don’t need Glastonbury, in the same way that Glastonbury doesn’t need U2. The Irish four-piece can pull in a mass-crowd off their own hype without having to use anything else as a platform. Like I stated previously, they have been playing stadiums the world over since 1987. However, the people that have been filling these stadiums are not the same people that will call a farm in Somerset their home for four days in June next year. With this in mind, I struggle to think why Michael Eavis thinks it’s a good idea to get them to play? On one hand I can understand why U2 would want to do it. Headlining Glasto would give them the opportunity to entertain their critics thus attempting to woo them round. Yet on the other, I think why the hell would U2 care what some people think? They’ve had such a successful career in their own right that they should just sit in their respective country mansions and sip Cognac whilst smoking a huge Cuban cigar. Eavis is another matter entirely. I’m totally perplexed as to why he even picked the phone up to their agent in the first place, let alone signed the contract.

2010’s Glasto is designed to be a celebration of the 40 years that the festival has been going for. And with U2, you have a band that hasn’t played the festival before. EVER. I’m still holding out for legendary acts like Bowie and The Who… That have.

I've Got Loads Of Money And Nothing To Spend It On

2009-11-23T12:44:00.009Z

Sense and money are two completely separate things. If you have lots of one, then you probably don’t have much of the other. With this in mind, it’s not surprising that the expression “more money that sense” has now been part of our everyday language since the Anglo Saxons era. You see, even back then people were wafting about more cash than they knew what to do with. And this is something that has continued right up until today.

This expression is very apt when referring to the recent auction that took place in New York. Businessmen, collectors, fans and investors gathered at The Hard Rock Café in Times Square to bid on 80 of the personal possessions that were owned and used by Michael Jackson. Items up for grabs included the fedora that Jackson wore during his 10-minute medley that he wore when opening the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards; which was sold for $73,800. Hand-written lyrics to "Beat It" that fetched $60,000. A Jackson-owned 1985 Mercedes-Benz that raised $104,500. They even managed to get shot of the mold that was used to fit the King of Pops fangs in the "Thriller" video. This went for $10,000.

However, the icing on the cake was the jewel encrusted glove that he wore when he first showed the world the moonwalk back in 1983. This now sits in the home of a Hong Kong based businessman. And all he had to pay for the privilege was $420,000. Collectively, the items were predicated to raise around $120,000. Yet, after all was done, they raised well over $2million.

This led me to think of all the other collectors that have paid an awesome amount of money for memorabilia because, well, they have more money than sense.

A 1965 Fender Stratocaster that was owned by Jimi Hendrix was bought by a collector for $490,000. A handwritten letter that Bob Dylan wrote to Jerry Garcia in 1995 carries the value of $35,000. Slash had his own hat valued at $50,000 - yet, he still refuses to part with it. $945,000 was the price paid by an anonymous UK collector in order to The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Drum Cover his own. Pete Townshend's Acoustic Guitar that he used to write "Behind Blue Eyes" is worth $27,115. Whilst the last notebook that Jim Morrison scrawled in is valued at $91,000. The VOX Organ that John Lennon used to play back in 1965 could be yours, if you have $200,000 spare. And the Sex Pistols press kit that they used to promote themselves to the American market is valued at a mere $5,000.

Now all this may clarify my initial point. However if it hasn’t, then the following will. Courtney Love is a person that shot to fame through her relationship with Nirvana front man, Kurt Cobain. Yes she had her own career with various bands, but if it wasn’t for Kurt, she wouldn’t be a fraction as successful as she has been. After the passing of Cobain, Love described her house as a mausoleum. Now, as mental as Courtney Love is, I’m not sure even she likes living amongst belongs of the deceased. So, she chucked everything in a box together and stuck it in storage. And now the time has come where she wants to get rid of it all for good. So, she’s slung it all in the back of her motor and has taken it down to Christie's for them to auction it off.

The box consisted of cardigans, ripped jeans and flannel shirts. Love obviously went to Christie’s with the attitude of; “Hell, it’s not hand written lyrics to Nevermind, but it’s got to be worth something”. And worth something it is. The forecasted amount that this box of clothes is going to generate is a massive $40million. Which I’m sure you’ll agree is a ridiculous amount of money for what is essentially smelly cloth.

Now as sure as I am that tomorrow in London it will be raining and Big Ben will strike on the hour every hour, someone somewhere will stomp up the vast amount of cash it will cost to take these home and treasure them in a very different way to what you would your own smelly washing.

More money than sense? That’s a yes by the barrel load.

Filling the Airwaves: Volume Nine

2009-11-20T09:33:00.006Z

In theory, if you were going to place monkeys in the arctic, you wouldn't expect them to last very long. Monkeys have evolved to swing from trees in hot climates, rather than be able to survive in minus conditions. So, if you take this theory into practice, it's surprising that the Arctic Monkeys have survived as long as they have. However, if you listen to the music, it's not. Since they first hit us with "I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor" back in 2005, the Sheffield quartet have grown into more than just mere Moneys. They're now more resemble the love child of a Grizzly Bear and Gorillas - big and powerful. And nothing demonstrates this more than their latest album, Humbug.

In comparison to the Arctic Monkeys previous records, Humbug is like the big older brother that can drink, drive, get credit, stay out after midnight and only visits home mum to do his washing. Whilst Favourite Worst Nightmare and Whatever People Say I am, That's What I'm Not are like the problematic young ones of the household. They're incredibly intelligent, but prefer ditching school in favour of chasing girls and causing trouble.

Whilst the Arctics third long-player does reminisce about it's younger childhood days in the form of tracks like "Potion Approaching", Humbug's maturity as an album sees them slow things down. Turner has put aside thinking about the sheer dancefloor impact, and concentrated more on the content of the record. Each individual sound has been carefully constructed and intertwined with lyrics to give the album a complete journey feeling. Alex Turner's talent as a songwriter is well documented. However, some of the wordsmithery on Humbug is absolutely unbelievable. Even though many thought it wouldn't be possible, but Turner is pushing even more boundaries with his lyrics; and it's exciting to be a witness of it.

Along with maturity often comes darkness, and this is certainly the case with Humbug. From start to finish, the Arctic's latest album is a more sinister than it's predecessors. There aren't as many big sing-a-long choruses as the first two LP's. These have been replaced with more educated vocals that are delivered with great confidence and charisma. Turner has continued his vocal style from him side project, The Last Shadow Puppets. Through his time with Miles Kane, Turner's voice seemed to have grown in stature and assurance. He has replicated this on Humbug giving the album a much deeper feel.

For me, this is Arctic Monkeys strongest record to date. It's showcases them at the best of their ability. However, you still get the feeling that there is more to come from the these Sheffield lads. And with their track record to date, I'm not sure there is anyone that would suggest otherwise.

Arctic Monkeys

Humbug

You Can't Be New And Old At The Same Time

2009-11-19T09:07:00.005Z

There is an age old argument that suggests bands should perform all of their hit records from up and down the years when they perform live. Just before Oasis spilt, Noel Gallagher was quoted as saying; “What right have I got to deny our fans, who have paid good money to come and see us play, the opportunity to hear songs like Wonderwall and Super Sonic?” And to a degree, I think he’s got a point.

You see, people love to hear the hit songs. They enjoy going to gigs and listening to music that they know and can sing along to - that’s obvious. Yet, there is a balance. Some bands flirt dangerously close with becoming their own best tribute act. Oasis are a good example of this. Now don’t get it twisted; I’m as big a fan of Oasis as anyone. However, their last tour was to promote their album Dig Out Your Soul. In order to do this, the band embarked on an expedition around stadiums the world over. The set list for these shows consisted of a massive 23 songs, 4 of which were of the album that they were promoting.

For me, I find this a little frustrating. Sure you want to hear the big songs. But just like all new music, I was a massive fan of Dig Out Your Soul. It would have been good to hear more of that record live. This is now something that you’ll never be able to do.

Finding the balance between old and new is something that the Arctic Monkeys seem to have mastered. They played to a sold out Wembley Arena on Tuesday as part of their tour to promote their new album, Humbug. Within their 20 song set, they played 8 tracks from the new LP. And for me, hearing new music is the beauty of going to see a band promote a new album.

The Monkeys still managed to get some of their biggest records like Fluorescent Adolescent, I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor and Mardy Bum into their set. But they intertwined them with new tracks such as Cornerstone, My Propeller and Potion Approaching. Doing this keeps both sides of the music buying public happy.

I can't see the point in making tracks unless you're going to play them live. It's too easy to slip into that comfort zone when trying to entertain a crowd and play the old stuff that people know. With this in mind, I just hope more acts take inspiration from Turner & Co and start pushing themselves into new territories when playing live.

Stroke Yourself To Climax

2009-11-18T08:56:00.006Z

The following is a list of things that you should take with a pinch of salt and a squeeze of lemon. When your mate Dave turns round to you and says he would do a better job than Emile Heskey for England. When your mate Dave turns round to you and says that he can pull anyone of Girls Aloud. When your mate Dave turns round to you and says that he's a better chief than Jamie Oliver. When your mate Dave turns round to you and says that he's got the top ten greatest albums of all time sitting in the glove box of his Escort XR3i. And why should you take the latter with a pinch of salt and a squeeze of lemon? Because one of those albums is Craig David's Born To Do It.

Earlier in the year, MTV asked their viewers what they thought the best album has been since the channel first went live in 1982. Sitting top of the tree with no real surprises was Thriller by Michael Jackson. Other albums the grace the top ten include Oasis' Definitely Maybe, Appetite for Destruction by Guns'n'Roses, Nirvana's Nevermind and OK Computer by Radiohead. And then we have Craig David. The MTV viewing public deemed his debut album Born To Do It so good, that they sat it at number two. And the result of that makes me want to slice off my ears with blunt razors and feed them to Chinese Bull Pigs.

I've always taken these "Greatest Album of All Time" charts with a pinch of salt. And the latest from NME is no different. The weekly music magazine have announced their top 50 albums of the decade. Now, there is some fantastic music in there, but for me, there is no consistency with these sorts of things. The entire industry and public will now be making unnecessary noise about the 'latest' top album.

The winners this time round are The Strokes with their 2001 album, Is This It. Now, although there is no denying that this is a good album, the last decade has supplied us with better. However, not many bands have been championed by NME quite as much as The Strokes have. Although I'm not implying that there is any invested interest from NME to have the American five-piece come out on top, it all seems to be a little weighted.

The top ten is listed below. And as you will see, it reads quite well. However, I would advise you read the rest with a little lemon and salt to hand.

1. The Strokes – 'Is This It'
2. The Libertines – 'Up The Bracket'
3. Primal Scream – 'XTRMNTR'
4. Arctic Monkeys – 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not'
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – 'Fever To Tell'
6. PJ Harvey – 'Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea'
7. Arcade Fire – 'Funeral'
8. Interpol – 'Turn On The Bright Lights'
9. The Streets – 'Original Pirate Material'
10. Radiohead – 'In Rainbows'

Derek B

2009-11-17T10:45:00.007Z

Music is music. If it makes you feel good and you enjoy it then I say roll with it. It doesn’t matter what genre it is. All that matters is that it has a purpose and it means something to you. Sure, this website focuses predominately on rock & roll. However, that doesn’t mean that I’m not into other styles of music. My motto is very much; good quality music is good for your ears. It doesn’t matter where it comes from.

That’s why I was saddened to hear the news that British rapper Derek B had passed away with a suspected heart attack yesterday. B was the first UK rapper to achieve pop success. He appeared on Top of the Pops before any other black rhymer. He was UK Hip Hops originator and he subsequently went onto pioneer the scene.

You see, Derek B was before the time of hip hop acts shouting about guns, bitches and money. It was one man, a drum machine and a mic. And for me, that’s hip hop in its truest form. It’s just a crying shame that he was taken at the young age of 44.

Look Who They've Got Now

2009-11-16T10:41:00.006Z

Where would we be without The Who? I’ve often thought about this question. The face of rock & roll as we know it today would be very much different if Townshend, Daltrey, Entwistle and Moon opted against forming a band back in the day. If Daltrey was your local butcher and Townshend was teaching your little sister to speak French, we would never have had The Jam. And without The Jam, The Stone Roses would never have existed. And without The Stone Roses, Oasis would never have been. And without Oasis… you get the picture.

The Who are regarded by many as the most vital voices in rock & roll. Time Magazine wrote in 1979 that "No other group has ever pushed rock so far, or asked so much from it”. And 30 years later you still wouldn’t argue against that. Daltrey and Townshend are still touring strong, and have been booked to supply the half time entertainment at next years Super Bowl. Although I love The Who, I’ve got about as much interest in watching the Super Bowl as I have trying to write “Go Pacers!” into my inner thigh with a blunt razor. However, some people obviously do enjoy it, as Super Bowl XLIII was watched by 151.6 million people word wide.

The forecast for the 2010 battle of the men in shoulder pads is set to be even bigger. With this in mind, it’s a great testament to the boys who were originally an R&B band called The Detours. You see, not a lot of people know that when Moon, Townshend and Entwistle first joined Daltrey in the early sixties, The Who were an R&B outfit that recorded under a different name entirely. Fast forward nearly 50 years and with a quick name change they are set to use the Super Bowl as a platform to play to over 150 million people. And they’ll do this after they’ve had a career that has seen them sell over 100 million records and chart 27 top forty singles in the United Kingdom and United States with 17 top ten albums.

CarterSaidWhat Chews the Fat with Kasabian

2009-11-13T09:41:00.002Z

In years to come when you look back through the history books, 2009 will be slightly thicker than the rest. You see, a lot has gone on in the past 12 months that leads us into 2010 with lots of stories to tell. The inauguration of President Barack Obama took place in January making him the first black president of the United States. Michael Jackson tragically passed away in June putting to bed the illustrious career as the King of Pop. Wispa Gold made a valiant come back at the beginning part of the year. Whilst, Kasabian became the biggest band in the UK. And for me, the latter has had the biggest impact on my life.

It’s only recently that Kasabian have carved their place within the musical hierarchy. As bassist Chris Edwards quite rightly states, “It has taken us three albums to work certain people round”. And work them round they have. The Kasabian story thus far has been an interesting one. They seem to have cut their own niche into the music scene. Yes, they are predominantly a rock & roll outfit, but their sound takes influences from all different genres.

I thought I would try and get the bottom of what exactly makes Kasabian tick. So I sat down with the man that keeps the bands groove flowing, Chris Edwards, to discuss the past, present and future of Britain’s biggest band.

CSW: “You've accomplished so much in the ten years you've been together. You've released three albums whilst playing the world over. You've won numerous awards, gained fans by the millions, and Tom's had at least 14 different haircuts. With all this in mind, it's pretty safe to say that things seem to be going well in the Kasabian camp. But what's the key to your success?”

KAS: “First and foremost you've got to have good tunes, you know? Serge just churns them out for fun. He'll come over and write some B sides that will turn out to be A sides. So firstly, you've got to have good songs to play. And secondly, we're just best mates. We've known each other since we were 10 or 11 years old; so we've grown up together. We started a band when we were 15 and we've been together ever since. So it's a good tight family”.

CSW: “Where you are now in terms of size and popularity is a million miles away from where you were five or six years ago. And thankfully, you've moved in the right direction. It must be a fantastic experience to be involved in the Kasabian whirlwind. However, are things still as exciting now as they were at the beginning? Or have you come to expect automatically selling out gigs and receiving critical acclaim?”

KAS: “No, it's exciting in a different kind of way. Because when we were kids we were in a bus going round the country; kinda not knowing what we were doing. We were just going out and having fun. It's become a lot more serious. We can't go out and get smashed all week and then turn up and play at Glastonbury, you know?”

CSW: “As much as you would like to?!”

KAS: “Yeah man. You would like to. But unfortunately you can't. We pride ourselves on being quite good live. It has become a bit more serious, but we just have a laugh wherever we go. I'm travelling the world with my best mates, so it's hard not to laugh! Sometimes it can become a bit mundane. Like, when you visit the same place over and over again. But that's the same as anything. However, we're still having a great time - it's all a right laugh”.

CSW: “Talking about playing live; personally, I've seen you play some great shows. I was lucky enough to be at both The Union Chapel when you headlined the Little Noise Sessions and The HMV Forum when you when you played a secret gig prior to the release of West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum. I've also seen you play Earls Court and Brixton Academy in addition to seeing you perform with Oasis on their last world tour. But we all know in terms of live shows, this doesn't even scratch the surface. When you look back over all your performances, is there one show that sticks out and makes you think, "Jesus Christ, that was mental. I can't wait to do that again"?”

KAS: “Earls Court was a big one for us. That took my breath away when we played it. Although I think they're knocking it down aren't they?”

CSW: “The last rumour I heard was that Chelsea were going to buy it and turn it into there knew ground. But, you never know?”

KAS: “Yeah man; anything is possible. But whatever happens, Earls Court was mind blowing. And obviously the first time we played the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury was special. Headlining it would be pretty amazing. We've played it twice, but to headline it would be fantastic”.

CSW: “It's not out of reach. If things continue in the same direction, anything is possible”.

KAS: “Exactly, hopefully in the next 3 years. We probably won't do it next year as it's their anniversary and they'll probably get some big old school acts in. But hopefully in the next 3 years. And if we keep going the same way, it's definitely possible”.

Unlike most bands that endure a roller coaster of events on the way through their musical journey, since forming back in 1999, Kasabian have experienced nothing but a gradual climb upwards to the top. Each album has positioned them that little bit further up the slope. And their latest album is no different.

CSW: “Along with your latest album having the greatest name out of any record in the past twenty years, West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum employs fresh producer, Dan The Automator. What was the decision making process behind moving away from Jim Abbiss to installing a new producer?”

KAS: “We thought about using Jim Abbiss again. He's a good mate of ours and he did a great job on Empire. But then we just decided that it would have gone too much in the same direction as our previous records. So, we flew over Dan and his assistant Tim. They came to our studio in Leicester for about 2 weeks. They flew over for just a taster, but at the end we all wanted to finish the album with him. He put a whole new spin on it. He was using Hip Hop drum beat loops on records that he found. We went to his house in San Francisco to finish the album off, and he's just got this room full of records. He's really into his music. It's a bit like what he did with The Gorillaz, you know? It was that sort of thing. He made it more dancey”.

CSW: “You can really hear his influence on the album. And it's obviously turned out in a massive way. The finished article is very visual. For me, this has a lot to do with the way in which it is programmed. Each song flows into the next effortlessly like they were born together which creates mental images. It's sounds like a complete album should. When writing each individual track, did you constantly visualize how it would sound on the completed record, or did you finish the album then select the order from there?”

KAS: “We finish the album and select it from there. We've always got a big mix of songs, you know? We've got tracks like Vlad the Impaler, which is a big hard hitting track. And then on the other side we've got tracks like Ladies and Gentlemen. At least three of the songs on the new album were B sides that we had written for Empire”.

CSW: “Really? That's a well kept secret!”

KAS: “Yeah! But it gets to a point where it's like; these are too good to be B sides, so we just held onto them for literally 2 years. In fact, some of them we wrote nearly 3 years ago. We're writing B sides at the minute for this album. But potentially, they could be used for our fourth record. It always works on that cycle. Serge always comes up with about 20 tunes, and then we just pick which ones which want to put on it basically”.

Kasabian have all the attributes and characteristics to become true world beaters. Each member of the band offers that something different that combined, creates the Kasabian that we know and love today. In Tom you have a front man that soaked through to the bone with charisma. Since the very first Kasabian album, his vocal assault on the world has been delivered with such confidence that if you were a betting man, you would bet that he skipped out of his mother’s womb swinging the umbilical cord round his head like it was a microphone lead. Meighan is natural showman.

Chris is in charge of creating the grove that everything rides on. His bass creates the framework for every Kasabian song. To watch Edwards rock the bass is watching a man deep in the zone. Every note is struck with pure ease. There are no freeloaders in Kasabian. Each musician is there because they're both talented and gel together perfectly. And this no different from Ian on the drums. Matthews creates a pocket for the rest of the band to work in. His timing is so impeccable that rumour has it, he is the voice of the talking clock.

Then you have Serge, who is the brains behind the operation. Pizzorno is far more laidback in his approach than Tom. His relaxed exterior is a far cry from what people would expect from the driving force of one of rock & roll’s newfound heavyweights. His unique style of blending genres together whist wrapping them in lyrics that not only make sense, but actually mean something to masses, is a major factor to why Kasabian are currently sitting in the position that they are.

CSW: “You've never shied away from the fact that you want to be the biggest band in the world. And with Oasis being no more, you're certainly the biggest band in Britain. Now, although West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum is your second number one album, it seems to have pushed you on and opened you up to a new audience and a new market. Was this a conscious decision prior to making the record, or did it just happen organically?”

KAS: “It just happened organically. We've just become a bit more widely accepted, you know? We're getting a lot more females at the gigs now. We've got 40 year old girls coming to see us [laughs]. And that's something we've never had before. You see, there the ones that buy the albums and don't just download them. It's opened us up to a whole new audience. It wasn't something that we consciously did. Also, it's been more accepted by radio stations across the country. All three singles have been A-listed on the radio”.

CSW: “And obviously, that helps push you out to the mass market, doesn't it?”

KAS: “Exactly! And that's helped this album be bigger than the other two, you know? And because of that we're moving in the right direction. So it all seems to be working. But it wasn't a conscious decision; we just write what we like”.

CSW: “As you pointed out earlier on, your music flirts with many different genres. You can hear psychedelic noises, dance beats and rock & roll riffs through each of your three albums. But who were the main influences for you growing up which have help to create the Kasabian that we have today? And have you always shared the same vision for the bands musical direction?”

KAS: “No not really. I mean, growing up Tom was into Cypress Hill, NWA and people like that. I'm talking really early on. When we first met when we were about 10 or 11 years old he was into all that, You know? Michael Jackson and the rest”.

CSW: “So does this mean Tom's going to be rapping on the next album then?!”

KAS: “You know what? We're actually talking about what direction we're going to be taking on the next album now, and again, it will be different than this one. I mean, don't put it past him!”

CSW: “That is something I would pay good money to see!”

KAS: “Honestly mate, you know what? He's bloody good at it! He's grown up with it; he's into all that stuff. Serge and I was into the whole Britpop thing. When we were growing up together that era helped us put the band together and influenced us to pick up guitars, you know? People like Supergrass, Oasis, Blur, Ocean Colour Scene. The Britpop era from around '94/'96 made us the band that we are today. But then we take influence from every genre under the sun; Jimi Hendrix, Cast, and Kraftwerk. I think that's why we've got a very eclectic mix of songs on the album. We're all into different stuff, you know? Our drummer plays jazz and stuff like that. I mean we don't put jazz into it, but he just brings a different mix again meaning we can approach it from a different angle”.

CSW: “You're already talking about putting the thought process in motion with regards to making your fourth album, but would you prefer to release an album that you knew was only half of your potential, but receive ultimate acclaim from both the industry and the public; or, release an album that you knew showcased you at the best of your ability but only a received mediocre response?”

KAS: “Definitely the second option, mate. I mean, we always try and write an album to our best ability. If we know we've made a great album and we know we're happy with it, and then the public and critics don't get onboard with it, that's just something we'll have to deal with, you know? Kasabian will never write a song to suit the market or a fad. If people are making jingle jangle music because it's selling, we wouldn't. That's something we would NEVER EVER do”.

CSW: “It always surprises me how many bands would do though. It's just cool that you're in a position where you are writing music to the best of your ability, loving it and getting respect from all corners of the industry and public”.

KAS: “It has taken us three albums to work certain people round. It's quite mad because during the first album, Q Magazine voted us in the top 50 most overrated bands of all time. Then two weeks ago we won best album at the Q Awards, do you know what I mean?”

CSW: “So that's just your way of sticking two fingers up at them as well really, isn't it?”

KAS: “We're just sticking to our guns really. Because we just like music we're into. If you don't like it, then that's cool. But if you do, then that's even better. We just write music for ourselves, and obviously our fans have got eh same kind of mind set”.

CSW: “Talking of British music as a whole, you are obviously at the forefront of it. But taking you out of the equation, what are your feelings towards the current music scene? There seem to be bands popping up and getting sucked back down on a pretty consistent basis at the minute. But who out there, if anyone, are really doing it for you?”

KAS: “I don't know, mate. There's not many bands that are really going for it. I mean, when we started there were loads of bands that were doing really well. There were the Kaiser Chiefs, Keane and Razorlight. But they all seem to have slipped to the side a bit. It's sad and it's kind of scary, you know? I mean, I don't see it, but next year we could not be selling out gigs and stuff. But at the same time it gives you a bit of pride that actually, we're still around and we're still having it. But I can't actually think of another band at the minute”.

CSW: “Really, not one?”

KAS: “Erm? I'm not being horrible to them, but I don't like everything that Muse do, but I do appreciate some of the music, you know? They've got certain tracks that I think are fantastic. Bits like Muscle Museum. You see, they have got some mega tracks; but live?! They're incredible live. They're still doing it. They're selling out two nights at Wembley Stadium. They've done four or five albums now and they're still having it”.

CSW: “Muse are a prime example of bands that have made their whole career on their live shows. That's really at the forefront of what they do and then everything else just falls off around it. I mean, the majority of bands will make their name through people listening to their music and then going and checking out their shows. But Muse almost seem to be the polar opposite of that”.

KAS: That's exactly right. It has kind of changed in recent times. We're selling gigs out at the O2 Arena in Dublin for this tour we've got coming up. And we've sold more tickets to the gig than we actually have done albums [laughs]. Do you know what I mean? It's crazy really.

CSW: “It is ironic. But selling out gigs wherever you go is hardly a bad thing. Now finally, the last year seems to have been your most productive to date. From an outsiders perspective looking in, it's been nothing short of mental. If things carry on at the same rate you'll be running the country by 2012, and we'll be singing 'Club Foot' as our national anthem by 2014. But from the inside looking out, what does the future hold for Kasabian?”

KAS: “We're touring the latest album until the end of August next year; so we've got a good 10 months left on that. I mean, we've got the rest of the world to do. Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and places like that. England won't see us for the first quarter of next year, you know? But apart from that we're just going to keep going the way we're are. We've just got to keep together as a band. I mean, if you're getting angry with each other then your work is going to suffer and you're not going to enjoy it. That's the main thing, just to keep sane with each other. If we do that, then we'll be fine”.

CSW: “It sounds like you've got a good attitude within the camp. You're just going to work every day as hard as you can then the rewards will come”.

KAS: “Exactly. I mean, we've been given this opportunity and if we're not just going to sit on our arse and be ‘like yeah we've made it!’ That would be fucking stupid. We've got to keep getting up and writing tunes and playing shows. And just having a laugh with it. Because that's what we do and that's what we're going to do”.

So there we have it. Three albums down, and each one getting better than the last. They are a band set on world domination, and would you bet against them? I certainly wouldn't.

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Don't Even Try And Touch My Velvet On The Underground

2009-11-12T10:09:00.004Z

If my calculations serve me correctly, $75 is about £44. Now, you can do a lot with £44. You could take your partner to the cinema after getting something to eat. You could even fly to Amsterdam; admittedly you wouldn't be able to do anything when you got there, but that's beside the point. You could buy 44 scratch cards; or you could even purchase 88 Mars bars.

Within reason, there really is no end to what you can do with 44 of Britain's greatest pounds. In fact, rewind the clocks 44 years and you could have booked The Velvet Underground to turn up down your local boozer, play all night, and then leave with £44 in their back pocket happy as can be.

That's right, 44 years ago today The Velvet Underground made their live debut when the played at Summit High School in New Jersey. And what did they get for the privilege? $75. Or as us over in Blightly like to call it, £44. Since then, The Velvet Underground have been cited on many occasion as one of the most important and influential groups of their era. With this in mind, $75 is a bit of steel.

The American experimental rock outfit, who took their name from an S&M magazine that a band member found on the pavement, went on to record seven studio albums. They were managed by Andy Warhol, and had Rolling Stone magazine vote their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, 13th in their chart of the greatest albums of all time. This isn't bad for a band that started off playing high school proms for a mere $75.

The Velvet Underground also created a platform for both Lou Reed and John Crale to form illustrious solo careers. Now, I've not liaised with either Reed's or Crale's bank managers recently, however I reckon they're pulling in more than they were 44 years ago when it comes to performing live. And for that they get my full respect.

Filling the Airwaves: Volume Eight

2009-11-11T10:26:00.009Z

All good things have got to start somewhere. Roses start as seeds, butterflies are born as caterpillars, and KFC's Popcorn chicken begins life even more mutated than as it appears in your variety box. And UK rock & roll outfit, The Jam, are absolutely no different to anything else. Way back in 1974, when Weller was a mere 15 years old, The Jam were just some normal lads from Surrey trying to make it in the big world of music. However, it wasn't really happening. The band were coving American artists like Chuck Berry and Little Richard. This carried on until Weller heard My Generation by The Who. It was here that Weller became obsessed with Mod music and the lifestyle that went with it.

Fast forward 3 years to 1977 and after the release of their debut album, In the City, The Jam were officially born. Now, there are few bands in British music history that are held on a pedestal quite as high as The Jam. They almost single handedly saved Mod culture and are regarded as one of rock & roll's all time shinning lights. They laid the foundations for Britpop, and still to this day sell have people walking up and down Carnaby Street trying to look like them.

In The City summed the attitude of the late seventies perfectly. It was raw, young and aggressive. From start to finish Weller delivers a vocal tirade that has been washed up in a sea of spikey fast paced guitar riffs. This is then intertwined with Foxton's bouncy basslines, and drums provided by Buckler that make you want to grab anything that's in close vicinity and smash it rhythmically against a hard surface.

This album opened up the door for The Jam. And the threesome subsequently ripped it off its hinges making it unable to close again. In The City contained the hit single of the same name, In The City. It also was home for two covers, Slow Down, and the Batman Theme. Now, I've never understood why the Batman Theme appears on this album. I know The Who covered it a few years prior, but I just don't understand it. Maybe it was a personal joke between the two bands? It's a little like The Rolling Stones releasing a new album now, and then throwing the theme tune to Supermarket Sweep in the middle. “Next time you hear that beep”... You get my point.

However, taking that one song out of the picture, In The City is a classic album. There is absolutely no denying that. As a complete LP, it supplies the necessary tools for nonconformist youth culture to both engage and enjoy. In The City delivers on so many levels. The music is believable. To the naked and untrained ear, it sounds as it would do live. The music creates a very visual image of young Jam bursting into the studio, hitting the record button and thrashing their way through a live set. And for me, it sounds as fresh now as it did then. This is real music for real people.

The Jam

In The City

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The Bible and Curry Sticks Together Like Hair Gel

2009-11-10T10:20:00.007Z

I would like to take my hat off to the person at NME that booked the acts for their forthcoming 2010 Shockwaves Awards Tour. In fact, I would like to take all my clothes off and just jump up and down with my thumbs up.

You see, I love it when you get something that fits together really well. Check this list for example; Egg and bacon, Richard and Judy, Arsenal and 3 points, Dominos and The Simpsons, and The Maccabees and the Bombay Bicycle Club. All of these fit together like a well oiled glove. So, it's with a bit of luck that the very nice people at NME have looked at this list, and chucked the musical option on a tour bus together in order to send them up and down the country delivering audio pleasure wherever they go.

The 2010 NME Awards Tour showcases two of my favourite bands joining forces to play alongside Big Pink and Drums. Now, as good as the latter might be, The Maccabees and Bombay Bicycle Club have stolen the show before the first punter have even bought their ticket.

If you read this blog on a regular basis then you’ll know that I’m big fans of these two bands. I was lucky enough to speak with Felix from The Maccabees a few weeks ago . And if that conversation taught me anything, it’s that they are a band that are currently flying with confidence, yet keeping very humble about it at the same time. NME bringing them together with Bombay Bicycle Club is a move a sheer genius.

The tour kicks starts in on The Toon on February 4th. It then rattles round the UK for a further 12 gigs whilst climaxing at Brixton Academy on February 20th. I believe that tickets are on sale today. If I were you, I would place getting the tickets in your list of top 5 things to do today.

Let's Party On Your Block

2009-11-09T11:24:00.011Z

Certain things when done for the first time are amazing. In fact, they are so good that you honestly believe that they can’t get any better. And they don’t. They get gradually worse never really living up to that first experience.

This is the case for a lot of things. Can you remember the first time that you tried sherbet dip? The taste was epic. The flavours slapped against each side of your mouth generating the most amazing sugar rush. However, after the sugar rush inevitably comes the sugar sweats. Then after the sugar sweats the rotten teeth are not far away. Essentially, getting carried away dipping sherbet sets you up for a life of sweating your way in and out of dentists. Which I’m sure you’ll agree isn’t really a good look.

Now, I understand that is just one thing - but there are loads. I’ll give you an example of something else that starts off amazing and then slowly but surely never repeats that initial wow factor: Bloc Party. I was addicted to their debut album, Silent Alarm, at the first listen. The album is solid, confident and full of passion and personality.

It brings together a post-punk feeling with minimalistic spikey guitars. I was, and still am, totally in love with that album. However, the latter Bloc Party music has never lived up to the standards that they originally set. Now, I’m not saying that both Intimacy and A Weekend in the City are bad albums, because they’re not. They just never grabbed me in the same way that Silent Alarm did.

So the news that the London four-piece are going to take a bit of time out to pursue solo careers is probably a good thing. Individually, they are fantastically talented musicians. So it will be interesting to see what paths they take.

The rumour mill states that front man Kele Okereke has been working on his solo album for sometime. He’s reportedly called it I Love Thalia Cable. And who doesn’t love Thalia Cable? Personally, I find it a lot easier to work with than three-conductor cable, or BX cable.

I’m excited to see what the Bloc Party boys have got in store as they run off into the hills to achieve their solo goals. However, what I’m even more exited about is the prospect of them reforming to recreate the magic that they clearly displayed on Silent Alarm.

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Towers of Shame

2009-11-06T09:19:00.002Z

Right, what we need is a load of musicians. Someone to play the drums, we need some guitarists, someone to play the bass and a singer. Personally, I can't really play any instruments. So, I'll just organise getting everyone together and making this happen.

Musical talent isn't really a must. It's all about image as opposed to application. Even if the music is rubbish, we're onto a winner as long as they look good. Now, even if people don't notice them for looking amazing, we'll send one on a reality TV show in order to raise awareness. Then when people stand up and take note, it's our time to shine.

We need to make sure that these recruits have the capacity to stay out all night whilst swearing at paparazzi. Although, I'm not bothered if they can really sing or not, we need to make sure that they are able to project their voices. Not in a blissful song-like-way. But in a, I'm going to fuck you up if you don't get that camera out of my face, like way. You see, it's fundamentally important they are able to start a fight at any time with anyone. This could include random members of the public, other celebrities, even their own reflection.

Then once all is said and done, and people realise that they can't sing, play music or entertain. They'll just disappear off the radar leaving me, the manager, cash rich.

You may be wondering what all this is about. However, can you remember that bunch of punk wannabes, Towers of London? Now, I don't blame you if you can't. I wiped them from my memory a long time ago. And if it wasn't for someone talking to me about them yesterday, it would have stayed that way.

You see, the above is probably something quite similar to what the Towers of London's manager put out when trying to recruit the band members in the first place. And thankfully for him, yet not so thankful for us, each and every one of them met that criteria.

So, it was to my amazement, and dismay, that I found out that they have picked back up the hairspray, put the skinny ripped jeans back on, and hit the road again on a new tour. However, it was to my total enjoyment that I found out that tour stops included places like the Queens Hotel in Weymouth.

Other bands to have graced the stage at Weymouth's premier night stop have been the Blazin Squad and N-Dubz. Now, I'm not sure how well Donny Tourette and co would have gone down. But, I'm guessing not well. And as good as I'm sure The Queens Hotel in Weymouth is, it's a far cry from where the Tower of London thought they would be at this point in time. I mean, it's hardly Sex Pistols-esque.

I’m sorry to put this on you on a Friday. Let’s just hope they slip away again quicker than a Johnny Vegas, Roseanne and Rick Waller love sandwich in quicksand.

The Baby Can Speak

2009-11-05T16:58:00.006Z

My name isn't Meg and I'm not a fortune teller. I can't read into the future. I've never been able too, and I'm not going to start investing the time to learn now. However, reading Monday's blog may lead you to suggest that I am. Why? Because it was only then that I implied that some new Babyshambles songs are well over due. And hey presto, Doherty and Co. are performing a selection of new material at Proud Galleries in Camden tonight.

Now, I'm not going to claim that I'm the reason that their new music is finally going to be played to the public - as that would be stupid; and totally untrue. However, what I am going to say is that I am looking forward to hearing it. That of course, is fact.

In my opinion Babyshambles last LP, Shotter's nation, never lived up to to it's predecessor, Down in Albion. Sure, commercially it was more successful. But I just felt it lacked that spark that Down in Albion possessed.

Doherty is a lot like Marmite. You either love him or hate him. To some, all they see is a washed up junkie that spends more time in and out of court rooms than Judge Judy. And to others, they see a lyrical genius that's poetic tongue enables him to wrap words around music in totally unique way. I personally see the latter.

It's obvious that he is troubled, and at times, desperately needs some guidance in his life. But when he puts pen to paper, or blood to canvas, his wordsmithery sets him far adrift from any other song writer about today.

As a package, Doherty is the quintessential rock star. He has money, fame, drugs, cars and women to prove it. However, people need to look away from the man they see in the tabloids, and further into his music. He is undoubtedly a raw talent. Yes, he's a talent that needs looking after, but he's still a talent nonetheless.

So, I welcome the news that new set of Babyshambles songs are on the horizon with open arms, and ears. I just hope that he recreates the same vibe and feeling that he treated us to with Down in Albion.

Filling the Airwaves: Volume Seven

2009-11-04T09:16:00.009Z

"Here I come, I’m comin’ to get ya". And
get us he did. Way back in 1967, you would struggle to go anywhere without hearing those lyrics seeping through many a stereo. Why? Because Jimi Hendirx was taking the world on with his debut studio album, Are You Experienced.

For me, Hendrix was the greatest rock instrumentalist of the Sixties. I know there is an age-old argument that compares the American with Eric Clapton. However, in my opinion they’re different. Hendrix’s take on playing the guitar was much rawer than Clapton’s. His direct assault contrasted roughly with the meticulous virtuosity of Eric Clapton. Think of it as Hendrix being the owner of an old Mustang, whilst Clapton owns a new Mercedes; they’ll both hit 180mph, however the Mustang will make a lot more noise whilst doing so. Hendrix’s rough edges expresses far more than his awesome dexterity. He played with a fresh sound that transcended organic formalities.

His debut album, Are You Experienced, showcased Hendrix as the wizard that he was. It’s clearly displays Jimi’s ability to take R&B based grooves, chuck them in a blender with distortion and psychedelic noises, and then take the results and play the most amazing feedback-laden guitar over the top. And this was the catalyst that made him the international star that is still is today.

Are You Experienced is home to some of Hendix's biggest songs. Fire, Foxy Lady and Purple Haze all found a place on the American's debut album. These tracks, along with the rest of the album, are considered timeless. Jimi's overt, untarnished sexuality oozes out across each song, and his guitar solo sizzle and snap like popcorn in a microwave.

At the time when Are You Experienced was released, Jimi's vocal delivery was totally alien to what the tame Motown croonings we were used to. His approach was fresh. The subject matter in which he sang about couldn't be further from what the mainstream had every experienced before. Let's be honest, he's hardly describing the feeling that he gets from watching his favourite football team score a touchdown when he screams, "'excuse me while I kiss the sky" down the microphone.

In order to get through the day after you wake in the morning, you have to inhale and exhale oxygen. This is a fact. If Cristiano Ronaldo and I were to have a competition to touch the highest point on a wall by standing on our wallets, he would win. That again, is a fact. Jimi Hendrix's debut album , Are You Experienced, has shaped the way in which people play the guitar and write music today. This again is an undeniable, indisputable, unarguable FACT.

Are You Experienced has been written into the history books as one of the greatest albums ever. It' was ahead of it's time in so many different ways. Here you had a man who had charisma by the bucket load, and could actually communicate with people through the guitar. Hendrix shook the world into shape in a massive, massive way. He was a pioneer that’s still recognised today, alongside Clapton, as the greatest guitarist that ever lived.

So in answer to Jimi's original question, am I experienced enough? Most definitely not. But he is. And although he wasn't with us for long, I'm glad that he got the opportunity to show everyone just how experienced he actually was.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Are You Experienced

If The Weather's Not Broke, Then Don't Try To Fix It

2009-11-03T09:23:00.003Z

I don’t think there’s any harm in people repeating themselves. If it helps to get the point across, I say do it. Different individuals do it all the time. Some might say that Gareth Gates repeats himself a lot; whilst others may call it a stammer. Either way, the man has the tendency to produce a lot of words.

Look at Jerry Springer; he’s made millions out of regurgitating the same lines over and over. How often do you think he’s asked the question – how many times have you slept with your sister? I would say the answer is more than one, whilst less than five hundred thousand.

Now, I’m not in a position to say I never repeat myself. Because I do; and I’m about to do it again. Those of you who read this waffle on a daily basis will know that I’m a big fan of The Dead Weather. And you will also know that I wrote about them not so long ago.

However, that was then and this is now. And what The Dead Weather were doing then is different to now. So I’m going to write about what’s happening now, and not what went on back then - if that makes any sense?

The US four-piece were in town on Saturday to play a free gig in East London’s Shoreditch. Along with White’s Third Man Records, they took over Shoreditch Church to showcase a selection of their finest songs to date.

With each track providing the perfect soundtrack for the Halloween party that they were played in, Jack White & Co smashed their way through an eight song set. The gig caused such a stir that five hours before they were due on stage, fans started the queuing outside to make sure they were a part of it.

When the curtain finally opened and all the fans were inside, The Dead Weather took to the stage kited out in their own Halloween attire. They carefully selected four tracks off their debut LP 'Horehound', which they intertwined with covers of Pentagram and Them. To top it off they played two new tracks, 'Jawbreaker', and 'I Can't Hear You'. The latter coming complete with a pre-generated drum beat that allowed Jack to apply his trade on the guitar.

I've said it once and I'll say it again. I love The Dead Weather, they make me happy. Yes, there is a certain element of the whole thing being The Jack White Show; but that's not his fault. This is something that the press has put on him purely because he is such an incredible musician. However, as a complete band they never fail to deliver.

According to the man himself they are already working on their second album. Now, this will obviously mean that the next White Stripes album is going to be put on hold; but after seeing the way they destroyed Shoreditch Church on Saturday, I think I can wait.

The Dead Weather played:

'Forever My Queen'
'Hang You From The Heavens'
'You Just Can't Win'
'So Far From Your Weapon'
'I Can't Hear You'
'Jawbreaker'
'I Cut Like A Buffalo'
'Treat Me Like Your Mother'

Doherty's Prison Waffle

2009-11-02T09:16:00.010Z

Due to a Monday morning hangover so big that it feels like I’ve been out with Pete Doherty on a 72hour bender during the height of his Libertines career, today’s blog is slightly less inventive than normal.

In fact, it’s so uninventive that I’ve just copy and pasted my way through it. However, on my copy and paste journey, I did find something that you may, or may not, be interested in. Below are some extracts from Mr Doherty's diary whilst he was banged up in the slammer.

All this seems fine; however, it would be nice if he concentrated on making some new music with Babyshambles. Or even better, The Libertines.

‘The story starts here with a slap in the mush from some unsympathetic magistrate. I’m banged up in Pentonville with more than a tailor’s dozen charges on me tail. God knows why: the band should be smashing up the Toon, Glasgae and Shepherd’s Bush this weekend and instead I’m birded off on remand after a slow clucking duck walk (sitting too) through the bowels of Bethnal Green nick, Thames magistrates and now da ‘ville. Innit bleeding marvellous?’

'I see paint-cracked walls stained with shite
long long lock-up days
Cold lonely nights
And I think to myself … what a wonderful world
I see men touching fists
Saying ‘watcha bruv’
screams from below
Shit parcels from above
And I think to myself …
I see my true love
On a Rimmel advert’

'For my own sake – because it feels like they have the power to cut off my head – I must become a hero, organise my life and obtain from it what they deny me. If I live, in order to continue to live with myself, I must have more talent than the most exquisite poet. These people can only put up with tamed heroes – they don’t know about heroism.’

CarterSaidWhat Chews the Fat with The Maccabees

2009-10-30T10:02:00.002Z

I've never really been religious. I've got nothing against people who are. However, I've just not been brought up that way. As a result of this I've never given the Bible much time. I'm sure it's a great read; but for me it's got far too many words and a lot like golf, it's far too time consuming. Yet, there are other people, like me, who aren't religious but still use the Bible for one thing or another.

A classic example of this is my mate Dave. You see, Dave uses the Bible as a wedge to keep his kitchen table straight. He's tried everything to stop it slanting, but he proclaims that nothing keeps a six foot plank on the straight narrow like the Bible. And Dave's not the only one. Another group of individuals who aren't religious but put the Bible to good use are, The Maccabees.

The band initially came up with their name by flicking through the Bible and picking out a random word. Four years and two albums later, the word Maccabees is now associated with the modern day indie band, not the Jewish rebel army.

Now, although I'm sure that Jewish armies are fascinating, I'm not really interested. However, what I am interested in is the indie rock & roll outfit from south London. So, I got straight onto Felix from The Maccabees; and although we didn't speak about Adam, Eve or Bethlehem. We did speak about writing music, sticking it together onto an album, touring the finished article, and just about everything else in between.

CSW: "It's safe to say that things have been going pretty well for you recently. Your new album Wall of Arms has finally been released to the general public. And you've been touring here, there and everywhere as a result. Things are certainly different to when you first released X-Ray back in 2005. How are you finding it all?"

TM "Things have always very slowly gone upwards for us as a band. I hope it continues that way, because we are still learning and getting better. I think you feel like you have earned it more that way too".

CSW: "You may think that things have moved slowly. However, I always think it's nice when a band gives the listener the opportunity to digest an album properly before trying to ram another one down their throat. With this in mind, the release of Wall of Arms was a timely one. The music buying public were craving a new Maccabees record again - and you delivered it. Was there any element of planning surrounding this, or was this just how things organically worked?"

TM: "To be honest, we had hoped to put an album out quicker. But we were just aware of how good we wanted it to be and weren’t prepared to put it out till we knew it was the best it could be. I think it felt like the right timing in hindsight though.

The Maccabees latest album, Wall of Arms, was released back in May of this year; exactly two years after their debut, Colour It In. The latter, as a complete album, is a lot lighter than its successor. Wall of Arms feels like the big brother of the two. The band is naturally evolving together; and their latest long player showcases exactly where they currently are as musicians.

CSW: "Although your first two albums are very different, there are some similarities. They both showcase complete albums of solid music from start to finish. It's a rarity to find an album that contains no filler tracks, but both of yours clearly demonstrate this. From a listeners point of view, each track has truly earned it's place on the record. How does the process work internally? Do you start with 30 songs and then try to whittle it down, or do you really try and fine tune the ones you already have?"

TM: "Thank you! The writing process is a very meticulous one. We’ve never been able to write a lot of songs quickly. The songs take quite a long time to reach there final form and, for example, we only had about 15 finished songs in contention for Wall of Arms".

CSW: "When you sit down to write, do you all share the same musical vision? Or is it a case of tracks like Bag of Bones and Toothpaste Kisses come from one side of the camp, and Lego and No Kind Words come from the other?"

TM: "We definitely have different opinions on what we want out of a song, but that’s one of the reasons it works – because when everyone is happy with it, you know it was worth it. Most of it happens accidently, when certain things each of us has just fits together. Bag of Bones was meant to be instrumental interludes in the album but we ended up making it work as the album closer, and Toothpate Kisses was written and recorded in a couple of days right at the end of Colour It In’s recording".

The Maccabees music if full of emotion. Both Colour It In and Wall of Arms are albums that should be listened to as complete pieces of music. Each track flows into the next creating a roller coaster of feelings for the listener.

CSW: "Your sound as a whole is very unique. You seem to have cut your own niche into the scene. I've heard your sound described as many things. Don't panic; they're all complimentary! But, how would you describe your own music?

TM: "We get asked it all the time, but still don’t have an answer for it. We try to make music that is exciting and has elements of beauty to it though".

CSW: "When growing up; were there any particular bands or musicians that you were really into that have taken influence from now to help sculpt The Maccabees sound that we know today?"

TM "One of the great things about music is that you never stop finding new things. So being really into listening to music constantly helps. When we had started The Last Waltz film of the Band by Scorcese, footage of XTC and Dr. Feelgood on Old Grey Whistle Test and The Clash were big influences".

CSW: "In terms of the world of indie music, you're in a position now where you pretty much rule the roost. You manage to keep to keep the real music heads interested on a consistent basis; which we all know isn't easy. However, looking further afield than the indie rock & roll scene, does reaching out and trying to open yourself to the mass commercial market interest you?"

TM: "I think the only way to look at it is that we’re proud that people have stuck by us. But there is still a point to prove to some people and turning some more heads will prove we’re going the right way in time".

Just like any other band releasing a new album, The Maccabees have been touring relentlessly off the back of their latest long player. 2009 has seen the five piece play every major city in the UK, whilst the latter part of '09 sees them tour Europe. And not forgetting their little trip to Malawi to play The Lake of Stars festival in between.

CSW: "You've been back in the road now for a while now touring with the new album. But what do you prefer; the live shows, or writing the music in the first place?"

TM: "It’s been great touring this time, because we were looking forward to playing the new songs, and seeing people take to them was great. But the way bands set their legacy is through their records so we hope we go and make a better one!"

CSW: "Your live shows have won you many great plaudits due the way that the capture the attention of the audience, and the fact that you truly replicate the songs from the album. Your music carries fantastically well over large venues, whilst is still being able to rock a smaller affair. But what do you prefer; the large festival-esque shows or the more intimate venue where you can see the whites of everyones eyes?"

TM: "I don’t know. Every show is important when you’re there, if you know what I mean".

CSW: "I understand. But are there any venues or events that you literally count down the days to playing?"

TM: "Brixton Academy and Reading are huge ones for us".

So as the interview draws to an end, Felix calmly states; "Hopefully things just keep going the same way. I think we’re all set on making our best record yet". And if this is the case, then I can't wait for what's to come.

The Maccabees are a band that sound fresh, yet established all at the same time. Their music pushes boundaries, and they're not afraid to take risks. The future is certainly looking prosperous for this non-Bibal bashing set of London born lads. And I just hope hope you join them of the journey.

Filling the Airwaves: Volume Six

2009-10-29T01:00:00.001Z

Legends are called legends for a reason. As much as you love your mate Dave for pulling the local barmaid after drinking twelve pints of Stella and three Apple Sours, he's not a legend. Nor is your mate Jonny. It doesn't matter that he can fit more Jaffa Cakes in his mouth than anyone else; he's not a legend either. Your mate Smithy; yep, you guessed it. Just because he's shagged both the Routledge twins, doesn't make him a legend.

You have to earn your place on the mantle piece of legends, it's not just given to you. To disguise yourself as a birthday card to get up there won't work. It's takes years of dedication. For me, the epitome of the word legend is John Peel. The man did more for breaking new bands and supporting established ones than anyone could ever dream of. And it's this week that the whole music industry come together to commiserate the tragic lost of one of the nations best love broadcasters.

Peel died on October 25th 2004. And to celebrate his life, Universal have release another installment of The Peel Sessions. This time around we're treated to the Mercury Rev's live performance from way back in 1999. The band went into see Mr Peel in order to promote 'Deserter's Songs'. The album was subsequently named by NME as their album of the year. This live session saw them record a ten minute version of The Funny Bird / Tonight It Shows, alongside covers of Lennon's 'I Don't Wanna Die' and 'Observatory Crest'.

The album brings together the bands complete Peel Session for the first time. For me, it recreates the same emotions that I used to get from sitting round my radio listening to Peel first time round. It sounds raw, fresh and most importantly, Peel like. The artwork contains sleeve notes from Mercury Rev's Jonathan Donahue. He talks about his relationship with Peel, and what it was like to record one of the legendary Peel Sessions.

This album is more about emotion and feeling, rather than content. However, don't get this twisted, Mercury Rev produce a strong performance. Peel's setup provides a perfect platform for their psychedelic rock sound. However, for me, this just brings back the warm memory of the late great John Peel.

Mercury Rev

John Peel Sessions

Check back tomorrow for an exclusive interview with...

Liam's Got To Lay Off The Chips

2009-10-28T12:10:00.006Z

If you sit for long enough in the same house things do start to get a little boring. This may surprise you, but its fact. It’s only so long that you can class counting the amount of Jelly Beans in a jar as fun. You can only watch Judge Judy repeats on LivingTV as a vehicle to hurry the day through so many times. What about playing Fifa? Surely that won’t get tiresome? Well it does. And it’s also bad for your health. Firstly your eyes go square, then you start talking to everyone in a Scottish accent mimicking Andy Gray, and finally you have an inability to move any part of your body apart from your fingers.

So in reflection of this, it’s hardly unsurprising that little over eight weeks after they officially split, both Noel and Liam have both announced their future plans. By the look of things, they’ve both been kicked out by the women in their lives in order to make some money and stop causing a nuisance round the house.

Speaking to the nations best loved paper, the Daily Mail, Noel announced last week that he would be embarking on a solo career. Now, to some people Hull City still being in the Premiership is a shock. Or to others, the fact the Bruce Forthsyth has still got a full head of hair at the age of 81 is a shock. However, the fact that the older Gallagher is set to take on the world solo, isn’t.

Since the release of Definitely Maybe back in ’94 it’s been a case of when, not if Noel would ever release a solo record. He’s a fantastically gifted songwriter that has all the attributes to be equally as successful as he was in Oasis, on his own. He was quoted as saying that he’s looking forward to releasing his own music. And I think it’s pretty safe to say that we’re all looking forward to listening to it.

Now, just as Barry from Bradford used Noel’s interview in the Daily Mirror as chip paper, Liam has announced he’s got future music plans too. Now, everyone knows the difference between Liam and Noel in terms of song writing ability. So, with this in mind, I’m almost more intrigued to hear what Liam will produce. Noel will no doubt produce a solid performance that won't bring many surprises. However, Liam is different. He’s already gone on record saying that he’ll be recruiting a band to perform with. I think everybody expected this. You see, as good as Liam is as a front man, has he got all the necessary ingredients to take on the music world solo? Who knows? But what I do know is that he’s going to be delivering some big rock & roll badness.

This weeks Filling the Airwaves will be live tomorrow

Talking To The Stones

2009-10-27T13:32:00.004Z

I've always loved talking. It's one of the only things I'm good at. And what I've learnt from the twenty five years on this planet is that talking can get you places. You see, you can talk yourself into a lot of things. I mean, when I was younger I used to talk myself into hidings with my parents all time. They would tell me not to do something and I would just keep asking why. Then, sooner rather than later I would have talked myself into being grounded or something of that ilk. I would then sneak out the house and hit the local night spot where I would talk myself into the first of the local hard nut after trying it on with his bird. Once I had got over the pain of talking one on one with a fist, I would then get up on Sunday morning to play football. Here, I would talk myself into the referees book.

Now, it’s about that time of year where all the talk turns away from parents, nightclubs and football pitches, and focusing straight on a little village in Somerset called Glastonbury. With the 2010 festival being a celebration of 40 years of the event, it seems like every man and his dog wants to get on the bill. In the space of twelve hours I've heard Jarvis Cocker stating that 2010's Glasto could be the perfect platform for a Pulp reunion gig. Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant is apparently in talks with festival chief Michael Eavis about performing next year. And finally, The Rolling Stones are meant to be dusting of their multicoloured suits, donning some tricky white loafers, and entertaining the crowds with their best Showaddywaddy impression.

However, this is only speculation. The only person that knows what is going is Michael Eavis. And, just like every other year, we have to wait bated breath for the line-up to be announced. But if you’re reading this Eavis, The Stones get my vote.

Don't Throw The Fire On Morrissey

2009-10-26T14:35:00.013Z

I always find it mental that a smell can bring back some of the most obscure memories. Only last week I walked past someone wearing Lynx Africa. I haven’t smelt that for about ten years. The smell itself brought back memories of being given a weeks worth of detention for making fire dragons back at school. Now, for those of you that don’t know what a fire dragon is, I’ll explain.

You only need two tools in order to create a fire dragon. These are a can of deodorant and a lighter. Once you have both; simply light the lighter and spray the deodorant into the flame. And voila; you now have a red hot fire breathing dragon.

Now, I wouldn’t recommend experimenting with this personally; especially if you are fifteen and planning to do it outside Mrs G. Smith’s classroom. And there are several reasons for this. Reason one, she'll give you detention. Reason two is that she is rapidly approaching her century, and she flirts with people not even a quarter of her age. And reason three is, well there is no real reason three. However, I think the first two are good enough.

Yet, taking all the above out of the equation, Mrs G. Smith did teach me one valuable lesson. And before you conjure any revolting images of a woman old enough to have great grandkids and me getting a little bit frisky over Pythagoras theorem, stop right there. This is something far greater than any sexual advance. Mrs G. Smith introduced me to The Smiths.

Now, I’m still a firm believer that the only reason she used to listen to The Smiths is because of her surname. But that’s beside the point. You see, seeing that detention was afterschool, Mrs G. Smith used to listen to her radio whilst she marked maths papers, and I cleaned tables.

As I was trying to scrub graffiti, she used to listen to Meat is Murder on repeat. Before long, I knew every word to every song. I’ve been a massive Smiths fan ever since. So when I got the news that Morrissey hit the deck at one of his solo shows quicker than a kite that’s just flown through an electricity pylon, I wasn’t best pleased.

This all happened during the opening song of Morrissey's Swindon show. Witnesses say he was “straining" to during his performance of Smiths classic Charming Man. When the song came to the end he reportedly sunk to his knees and slumped over the stage.

Obviously, this is not good news. However, he has apparently been discharged from hospital – which is good news. So in tribute to Morrissey, below is one of my favourite snaps of the man sporting a huge quiff, with his home town in the background.

CarterSaidWhat Chews the Fat with Twisted Wheel

2009-10-23T10:21:00.002+01:00

Picture the scene; you come round mine for a cuppa tea and a slice of banoffee pie and I say to you, “Let’s form a band. Within two years we’ll be able to count Oasis, Kasabian, Paul Weller and Ian Brown as fans and friends. We’ll be signed to a major label, and we’ll have our own headline tour and album out. What d’ya reckon?” In response you would quite rightly say, “Get your head out the clouds you lunatic. We both know that’s impossible. Now pass me the sugar and get back to your Sudoku”.

Now, I understand this may sound a little far fetched, but it is possible. How do I know it is? Because Twisted Wheel have achieved it. The Oldham three-piece have gone from begging and pleading to play gigs wherever anyone would have them, to being invited by Oasis to perform with them on their recent stadium tour. And the most impressive thing is that they've done all this in the same amount of time it takes a banana skin to degrade.

With all this sounding like one of those amazing dreams that could never turn into reality; I thought I would find out first hand exactly what sort of band it takes to achieve everything, in no time. I was lucky enough to get an exclusive opportunity to speak with Jonny, Adam and Rick about everything they’ve accomplished up to now, and how they see Twisted Wheel panning out in the future.

CSW: “You’ve come a long way since you formed back in 2007. Could you ever have dreamed things would turn out the way they have?”  

TW: “We've achieved a lot in a short space of time. Before we were in Twisted Wheel, we were all in other bands grafting really hard for 4 years, but we all believed we could do it”.

CSW: “Many bands say they started out as just a few mates having a laugh in someone’s garage. Was this the case for Twisted Wheel? Or was there always the thought from the beginning that you wanted to make a go of making music a profession?”

TW: “We had always said that one day the three of us would start a band. When he was younger, Jonny used to follow Adam home from school asking him if he could be in a band with him because he knew he was a top drummer. Then one day we just got together and started playing some tunes that Jonny had been playing live, straight away it worked really well and we had our first gig a couple of days after”.

Initially things are always difficult for a new band. However, Twisted Wheel were determined on circumnavigating the pitfalls of being another set of nearly men. The trio went about doing things the old fashioned way; handing out CDs outside other band's gigs. The CD’s came complete with a sleeve depicting a close up of a Victorian slot machine and the words: “Pay £1 for the Mega Ride”. Two years on, and I’m reliably informed that these very CD's are now reaching as much as £40 on eBay.

CSW: “Was there a defining moment when you thought – ‘Jesus, we could actually make this a living?’”

TW: “I think when we supported The Happy Mondays in Manchester at the end of 2007 it struck us mid-gig that we were really picking up pace. We worked really hard and managed to get some top support slots. When we walked on stage for that gig it sunk in what was happening, everyone was talking about us and wanted to come and see what the fuss was about”. 

Just like many top bands that are about today, the buzz surrounding Twisted Wheel started off on a local level. Sheffield has the Arctic Monkeys, Leicester has Kasabian, and Oldham has Twisted Wheel. It's important to build a local fan base which forms the foundation for everything else to grow organically from. However, as crucial as this is, without having a group of individuals that work well together in the first place, the whole exercise is pointless.

CSW: “What is it about you three as musicians together that initially made you think it was all possible?”

TW: “Between the three of us we have quite a similar taste in music, although we like a broad range of genres. Sometimes we'll have Sex Pistols on full wack and other times we'll be listening to the folky Davy Graham or the dubby Lee Scratch Perry. We're all good musicians and have worked hard at what we do and so it gels together really well”.

CSW: “You’ve already achieved a lot. You’re signed to Colombia Records; you’ve played with Paul Weller, and you’re currently sweeping the nation with your own headline shows. What’s been the highlight so far?”

TW: “The tours with Oasis were fantastic, you get to play in front of massive crowds (70,000 at Heaton Park), have a top stage sound and hang around with the people who inspired you to start playing guitar in the first place. We also love our own headline shows, its great playing in a town you've never been to and there's a big crowd of people singing every word back at you, and the hometown gigs are amazing”.

CSW: “Your debut self titled album was produced by Dave Sardy. It’s pretty safe to say this man has been there and done it all in terms of music production. He’s worked some of the biggest names in music including Rage Against The Machine, Jay Z and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers. How do you feel you benefited as a band working with such a seasoned pro?”

TW: “When we were discussing which producer to use, Dave came back to us with some great feedback and ideas about recording the songs. Dave liked the late 70s new wave influence we had going on and I think he really understood what we wanted to get out of the recording”.

Twisted Wheel’s debut album is a perfect example of where they are now as musicians. It produces a fresh sound that contains deeper qualities usually only achieved by more experienced bands. Jonny Brown's lyrics adopt a story teller technique which enables the listener to really engage with the music. Since forming in 2007, the band has received many plaudits from some industry heavyweights comparing them to some truly epic bands.

CSW: “Your musical style and lyrics have been compared to the likes of The Clash, The Who and The Jam. How does it feel being compared to such legendary bands?”

TW: "The Clash, The Who and The Jam are all bands we spend a lot of time listening to, we love that raw energy they have and the song writing is bang on, so obviously we like being compared to them, I think it comes out especially in our live shows".

CSW: “Talking of legendary bands; you’ve obviously taken a lot of influence from Oasis. What did it mean to you to be asked by them personally to go on tour with them?”

TW: “When we were growing up we used to listen to a lot of our dads record collections, like Led Zeppelin and even Deep Purple, so when you're a kid and you see what those rock stars look like its almost like looking at an alien. But when Oasis came along, they just looked like ordinary blokes who were taking over the world and made anything seem possible, they are the band that really got us into music and made us start playing ourselves. When we got the phone call saying Noel had seen us do a live set on Channel M - a Manchester TV station. We were buzzing! Our tunes are honest rock and roll tunes which is pretty much the same as theirs, so we thought they would like it”.  

CSW: “For me, it’s a crying shame they’re no more. However, I read a good quote from Liam the other day in The Times. It said “The thing about Oasis is, no one ... we ended Oasis. No one ended it for us. Which was pretty, kind of ... cool”. I think that’s a fair shout. What’s your opinion on the split?”

TW: “We were gutted when we heard about the split and were glad to be part of what might be their last ever tour. Oasis made such a difference to music. When they came out they blew everyone else out of the water. Even 15 years later, 70,000 people are stood at one of their gigs singing their hearts out to their tunes! It’s a shame; but on the positive side, think about how many people they have influenced and made a difference to”. 

CSW: “The Oasis tour must have been a real eye-opener. You witnessed first hand the rewards you can reap if you work hard enough. But what do you prefer; playing to thousands in a field, or seeing the whites of people’s eyes in a more intimate venue?”

TW: “In reality, both big gigs and small sweaty ones have their upsides and downsides. Its an amazing feeling walking out to a sea of people you cant see the end of, but then again you get a proper buzz from a small venue with 100 people clawing their way to the front singing all the words!”

There's a certain rawness to the Oldham trio. They're a band that is blind to the chaos that surrounds the music industry. They're young, hungry and only care about playing their music to as many people as possible. That's the beauty of Twisted Wheel; they're a real band for real people.

CSW: "Finally; apart from big houses, Bentley’s and supermodel girlfriends; what does the future hold for Twisted Wheel?"
 
TW: “We're working on a lot of new material and getting a good idea of what the second album is going to sound like. It’s great to work on new tunes and to see how they go down live. We've also got a lot on touring wise. We're back out with Paul Weller in November/December and we'll have another UK headline tour early next year”

And so the interview comes to a close with the last word being, "We play because we love music and like being in a rock and roll band". And for me, that sums them up perfectly. Everyone in the Twisted Wheel camp is buzzing. They're an inspired band that has their eyes firmly on the prize. They have the attitude that they can take on the world. And with their impressive CV to date, would you bet otherwise?

Wolves in Elephants Clothing

2009-10-22T11:44:00.007+01:00

There are 117,000 Australians in the UK. The Ozzy contingent that have adopted good ol'blighty have lots in common. Each and every one of them hate the British winters and compare our summers to a slightly colder version of their monsoon season. They all live in south west London and drunk Fosters for the first time when they set foot in Clapham. They also all love Wolfmother.

The Coronet in London's Elephant & Castle last night was awash with Sheila's and Bruce's, as Andrew Stockdale and co played their only London date of their European tour.

Apart from the toilets smelling like they'd just been picked up from doing a 12 year stint at Glasto, and the bar being so busy with people it looked like the post office on the Kingsland High Street on giro day, The Coronet is good live music venue.

Wolfmother however, were a bit hit and miss. They played all their big tracks like Women, Dimension and Colossal. Yet, the miss part is that I found myself getting a touch bored. Massive guitar solos, big drums and prolonged breakdowns are ok for a while. But I just felt they pushed it a little too far.

The hit part is the fact that this band are seriously tight. It's amazing to think that the members of this band have only been playing together for less than 12months. They replicate what you hear on your MP3 at home to the live stage with absolute ease. They also demostrate more energy than the Duracell Bunny after he's just been out on a date with the Red Bull fairy, which isn't a bad thing.

All said and done I'm glad I went. It was a good live show that delivered on a lot of levels. Although next time they're in town, I probably won't rush back.

Set list

Dimension

Cosmic Egg

White Unicorn

New Moon Rising

Women

White Feather

Vagabond

Minds Eye

10,000 Feet

Colossal

Encore

Back & Round

Joker & the Theif

Filling the Airwaves: Volume Five

2009-10-21T11:22:00.001+01:00

In my opinion, anywhere past the Watford Gap is north. Everytime I venture past that service station I start to feel dizzy, I get a big homesick, and then find myself running back to London gasping to inhale some smog. However, if you are actually born t'up north, then you probably feel the same about coming down here.

That's why, in a weird way, it seems like people from their own specific regions stick together wherever possible. And the (not so) new Cribs album is no exception. I understand that this has been out for a little while now, but I've only just given it the light of day. And that in itself should be a criminal offense.

For those of you out there that can count, and congratulations if you're one of those select people that can, you would have noticed that there's an additional band member to The Cribs last album. That's because they have recruited a fellow northerner in the shape of former Smiths lead guitarist, Johnny Marr.

For those of you who don't know who Johnny Marr is; go to your kitchen, put your oven onto gas mark six, open the door and place your head inside. Then repeatedly slam the door onto your to the top part of you cranium for two minutes and forty two seconds. That is the same amount of time that it takes The Smiths classic record Charming Man to start and finish. Once you've done that, please feel free to come back and carry on reading.

Jonny Marr, just like the original members of The Cribs, is a northern boy. And like I stated previously, regions like to stick together. And after hearing this album, it's pretty obvious to see why.

Ignore The Ignorant not only welcomes Marr, but it also swings open the doors open to Nick Launay, an English native Hollywood based producer. Launay is no newcomer to the world of music production. If you look in the record sleeves for bands such as Supergrass, Arcade Fire, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and INXS, you'll find his name. Launay's understanding of what makes a great album mixed with Marr's skill, experience and knowledge of rock & roll, has enabled the Cribs to produce an album that is worthy of any record collection.

As a complete album, Ignore The Ignorant touches on most aspects of indie music. It has the ability to be dark, aggressive and and a little sarcastic. In my opinion, Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever didn't really push them a great deal from The New Fellas. However, I believe that Ignore The Ignorant is the album that can take them to wherever they want to be. The long and short of it is; this album can only be a good thing.

The Cribs
Ignore The Ignorant

Be Nice To Mr Smith

2009-10-20T11:26:00.004+01:00

"Do you not understand what I'm saying?", shouted the angry front man to the sweating sound electrician during a sound check. "It's not that difficult. In order to get sound out of an electrical instrument you need power. Now turn the f*cking thing on or I'll break ya face"

Welcome to Koko; one of Camden Town's finest live music venues. Some truly legendary bands have played this venue over the years. Oasis, The Sex Pistols and The Clash have all performed at this intimate London venue. And now we have some jumped up singer from a band that no one has ever heard of threatening to smash someone's face in if they don't flick the on switch.

To stand and witness this happening is much like watching watching your best mate deny to his girlfriend that he cheated on her, when you know that she knows that he did. All you can help but think is, "he's going to shut up in a minute". And then he just keeps digging into that hole further and further which makes it even harder and harder to get out.

The singer in question just thought he was being all rock & roll shouting at a sound technician. However, what he didn't realise was that the sound technician was off ill and replacing him was chief promoter for the night that they were playing. Subsequently, the band got kicked off the bill and have been nowhere since.

You see, in the music business it always pays to be nice on the way up, as you never know who'll you meet on the way back down. But if you're extra good you remain to be nice when you reach the summit hoping that your stay there might be longer as a result.

Take The Smith's Andy Rourke for example. He achieved so much in his time with the Manchester based four piece. He hit critical acclaim became a pioneer of dragging the UK rock & roll scene back from afar with albums such as Meat Is Murder and The Queen is Dead. However, since getting to the top, Rourke hasn't stopped being nice as he's just announced his fourth Versus Cancer line-up.

The show is due to take place at the MEN Arena in Manchester on December 12th. Get down there, enjoy it and have fun. It's all for a good cause. Just think, if only that kid from Koko wasn't such a dick, he may well be playing himself.

I Can't See Miami

2009-10-19T11:28:00.003+01:00

It's 1984 and Apple have just released their first Macintosh computer. It runs on the latest technology which will revolutionise the way in which people will work, rest and play. It looks like the love child of a microwave and a box of Jenga, and it only takes disks that are the size of vinyl sleeves. I984 is also the year that people got their first glimpse of Rico, Larry and Stan in Miami Vice.

Everything was set to be massive for the launch of the South Beach show. All the stops had been pulled out; action figures, bed linen, curtains, toasters, underwear, cat flaps and crack pipes were all being sold with Miami Vice branding slapped all over it. And this was before the show had even started. Everywhere you looked were billboards and all people spoke about was Miami. So at 7pm on September 16th 1984, every man and his dog was crowded around their television sets with great anticipation for for the start of what everybody hoped be something amazing. Well, everyone except a good friend of mine.

You see, back then my good friend was at an age where he wasn't allowed to stay at home on his own. So on the morning of the September 16th 1984, my friend, who we'll call Leonard for the sake of this story, was dragged round an art exhibition by his mum.

Leonard wasn't happy about this in the slightest - and his mum was well aware of it. He'd been talking about nothing but Miami Vice for weeks. He had the duvet and the action figures, and now he was being dragged out against his will just hours before the start. However, his mum assured him that he would be home in time for kick off.

So off they went to the launch at some shite art exhibition at some shite art gallery that no one cared about apart from two people; Leonard's mum and a random guy in a knitted red jumper. Leonard saw this as a good thing. Due to the fact there were so little people there, surely they could get in and out quick enough to get home and have beans on Miami Vice encrusted toast before the opening credits? Well, apparently not.

It was the sort of art gallery that people moved round as if they were cars being followed by the police. They were moving incredibly slowly and there was absolutely no overtaking. So to Leonard's dismay, he couldn't believe his luck when they got stuck behind the only other person in the whole gallery. It was the guy in the knitted red jumper.

Not only was he wafting round the exhibiting at such a slow pace it made a snail look like Linford Christie circa '92, but he was listening to one of those audio narrators that give you further detailed information on each piece of art.

The look was not good and the situation was even worse. But there was nothing he could do about it. Being only eight meant Leonard couldn't drive, and being miles away meant he couldn't walk. So he just had to suck it up and take it.

The guy in the knitted red jumper got slower as his little audio friend wouldn't shut up. Seconds grew into minutes, whilst minutes grew into hours, and hours subsequently meant that little Leonard missed the first ever episode of Miami Vice. He was gutted. And it was all due to the man in the knitted red jumper and his little audio friend.

So, why am I telling you this now? I recently received an email from a now fully grown Leonard. The email quite simply said; 'This man owes me my childhood'. The email displayed a link to the new Arctic Monkeys video for their latest single, 'Cornerstone'.

The track is off their forthcoming album Humbug, and the video showcases Alex Turner wearing a knitted red jumper whilst singing into an old audio recorder. Now for Leonard this brought back memories of pain, hurt and missing the start of something great. However, this video for everyone else is purely a visual aid for watch is a truly brilliant song.

'Cornerstone' pulls on the Arctic's of old. It is beautifully constructed track that is home to some fantastically intelligent lyrics. There aren't many better songwriters about than Turner. His wordsmithery has helped to install the Arctic Monkeys as a rock & roll heavyweights. And if Cornerstone is a reflection of where Turner is at right now with his lyrics, I'm excited about the future.

CarterSaidWhat Chews the Fat with Kid Harpoon

2009-10-16T08:58:00.016+01:00

Sometimes a musician comes along who produces something a little different from the norm. They're an artist that stands for what they believe in and aren't swayed by what is necessarily trendy or not. With this they deliver a refreshing change from the arguably humdrum musical society that we currently live in. They're not fazed by anything and are genuinely into the music, as opposed to the fame. Now, although this may sound hard to believe; if all of the above was moulded together to create a nail, Kid Harpoon has taken a huge industrial sized hammer and smacked it straight on the head.

Kid Harpoon is a number of things. He's an extremely talented songwriter, gifted musician and a great performer. He has an ability to write catchy rhythms that appeal to the mainstream whilst keeping the real music heads tapping their feet. He's a true musician in every sense of the word. And he's been doing this for longer than you may think. You see, Harpoon is hardly a new kid on the block. For sometime he's been busy playing live up and down the country carving out a loyal following; a following in which he has been teasing relentlessly with the threat of his debut album. However, enough is enough. The teasing has to stop. Now is the time to take all that potential, record it into one of those big machines that you get in studios like Abbey Road; and then click, drag and drop it onto an album. And thank sweet Jesus he has.

I was lucky enough to get an exclusive opportunity to speak with Kid Harpoon just after the release of his debut album, Once. We spoke about the past, present, future and exactly where the hell he got the name Kid Harpoon from.

CSW "Your debut album Once is now on sale to the mass market. How does it feel to let the world finally hear you music, back to back, on an album?"

Kid Harpoon: "I really made the album for myself, and to have finally finished it is great for me. I'm really proud of it, and the work I put into it. The world was already hearing my music via blogs, Limewire and gigs, but an album feels like a rites of passage for me".

Technically, Once isn't the first piece of music that Harpoon has ever released. The First and Second EP were distributed on The Young Turks independent label in 2007 / 2008 respectively. It was hear that the ears of the music world started to pick up to his unique folk sound. In the build up to the release of Once, Harpoon had penned many tracks ready for the album. However, like most things, all was not as easy as it seemed.

CSW: "If rumours are true, you scrapped the original album in order to wipe the slate clean and start again. What was the thought process behind this?

Kid Harpoon: "I had 9 songs recorded, and it just didn't feel like an album. I was really struggling to make it work, and didn't have a great deal of guidance. I'd got to a point where I'd worked out what I should have been doing all along. So sometimes, the best thing is just to scrap what you have and start again. Which is what I did".

CSW: "At second time of asking, you swapped Holloway for the sunnier climbs of LA to work with Trevor Horn. What impact did working with such a legendary producer have on both you as a musician, and your album?"

Kid Harpoon: "Trevor is an incredible person, and we both really enjoyed the experience of working together. He signed my publishing a couple of years ago, and when I went to him for advice on restarting the album, he offered to produce it for free. And I jumped at the chance. He's got such a supportive team inside and out of the studio, that it really made making the record an easy experience. I also learnt a lot from how he works WITH people, which is a really important element to being a musician".

CSW: "In comparison to the first album that you starting making, did the musical direction of the second version change?"

Kid Harpoon: "Completely, it was very raw, with lots of different instruments. Some of it was great, but a couple of the musicians weren't up to scratch. We had a lot of issues with the drums. The way we re-approached it was with a great bunch of LA musicians who've played with many people, and played almost all of it live".

CSW: "What, if any, tracks made it onto Once from the original material?"

Kid Harpoon: "A lot of the album is old material. Back From Beyond, Stealing Cars, Burnt Down House, Once and Marianna were not on the original version though".

Once has been beautifully put together. Each track flows from one to the next perfectly. It sounds complete like a proper album should. However, as I stated previously, this album malarkey is arguably new territory for Harpoon. He originally made his name and built his fan base surrounding his live shows.

CSW: "You’ve been playing live for as long as I can remember. In addition to performing your own shows, there was obviously Nambucca. And more recently you’ve toured with the likes of Larrikin Love, the Mystery Jets and The Kooks. But what really gets you going; playing your music live, or writing it in the first place?"

Kid Harpoon: "All of it really, I love live shows, but the waiting around and sound checks can be very tedious and painful. The gigs themselves I always enjoy. Writing music and achieving a finished recording is a rewarding experience, but then people hear it and have opinions and it gets taken away from you and lives in a new place. So I like both, they are both great and hard at times".

CSW: "Many artists when performing just turn up and play their music whilst hiding behind their instruments. Then they’ll just slip out the backdoor unnoticed. However, your live performances have won you many great plaudits as a result of your energetic stage presence and interaction with the crowd. Is this something that you do consciously, or is it just natural?"

Kid Harpoon: "For me music is all about communication, and I want to interact with the people who've come to see me and give them something back in return. I suppose its a natural thing as I've always just been like that, but at the same time, I don't feel the need to change it".

In terms of the his live shows, Harpoon has now opted away from playing with backing band The Powers That Be in order to perform solo. This showcases Harpoon in his best light; just him and his guitar. To see Kid Harpoon hold the attention of a room through the use of just six strings and his voice is really quite something. Witnessing this would lead you to believe that he'd been studying the greats from an early age. Well, apparently not...

CSW: "You’re obviously a naturally talented singer/songwriter. However, who did you take influence from growing up that created the Kid Harpoon that we know today?"

Kid Harpoon: "I honestly don't know. Your guess is as good as mine. My influences are vast, and I wish I could pin them down".

Harpoon talks about music with a great passion. You can tell it's his first love. The vibes in which he sends out are untainted, whilst his attitude is both confident and honest. You can really feel that this means a lot to him.

CSW: "Is the long term vision for Kid Harpoon shared between yourself and your record label XL? If so, what does the future hold for Tom Hull the musician?"

Kid Harpoon: "I can't speak for XL, but I know they believe in me. Kid Harpoon is a long term vision for me and I am already working on LP2. I'm also writing with a lot of new people, and am looking for new artists to work with in a writing/production sense. So I'm really excited about the future".

CSW: "Finally, Kid Harpoon is a fantastic moniker. Where the hell did you get it from?!"

KidHarpoon: "It’s a story that I wrote, where Kid Harpoon is sailing on the sea one night when a comet flies over his head. It says to him that things are pre-destined to appear in life and they travel in one direction and there is nothing you can do about it. KH doesn't like that so he fires his harpoon into it, and swings the comet in another direction. From then on Kid Harpoon controls his own destiny".

So that's that. It's obvious to see that Kid Harpoon has got a massive future in front of him. The release of Once has given him a platform to go on and achieve whatever he wants. And by the look of things, he's giving it a right good go.

I would just like to thank Richard Onslow at XL Recordings for making this interview possible.

Why Can't You Stand Me Now?

2009-10-15T10:58:00.000+01:00

I've always been a comfort sitter. By that I mean I like to sit in my comfort zone where I don't really have to worry about anything. I can just do what I do when I want to do it and then not have to worry about the consequences at a later date. There are several reasons for this, and they all seem to stem back to my childhood growing up at school. In fact, they all seem to stem back to plays that I was in whilst at school.

Human physics is simple. If you're a boy, from the age of dot to about seven you think that girls smell. However, if you're a girl you think that boys are disgusting. Then between the age of seven to nine you start to find the opposite sex attractive, but daren't say anything through fear of ridicule from your peers. At the age of nine things start to come out in the open and it's deemed as socially acceptable to hold hands with the other gender.

So, what do you do to a young Nick Carter at the age of nine in a primary school play? You dress him in some weird looking bird outfit and stick him in tights. Now let me tell you, this doesn't go down well being a young lad about the school yard trying to make his mark on kiss chase. Being only nine years, when I was told I had to wear tights, I didn't know how to research my emotions in a suitable fashion. So I just cried... In tights. I was mortified. Everyone else was mortified. It was that simple.

I still stand by the fact that I never wanted to perform in the god damn play in the first place. I wasn't happy with the set up and they refused to supply my rider. By the time I reached the age of ten, I was finally over the trauma of the tights. It took a while, but I finally got there. Being ten meant I was in the last year of my primary school education. And by being in the last year of infants meant that there was absolutely no chance in hell that you can get out of performing in the leavers play; which I obviously I didn't want to be a part of.

The play was Cinderella. And I was one of the Ugly Sisters. Yet again I endured totally humiliation at being taken, against my will, out of my comfort zone. It's because of these two events that I now consider myself a comfort sitter. This is why I can't understand why other people choose to do things that is blatantly going to make them look a complete tit.

Take Carl Barât for example. Barât is a phenomenally talented musician who has achieved major success with The Libertines, and more recently the Dirty Pretty Things. This is a man who, along with Pete Doherty, wrote epic records such Up the Bracket and The Libertines. He's a multi-award winning artist who has gained plaudits from some of the industry greats. He is one of rock & roll's success stories that can really do no wrong... This is within his comfort zone, mind.

Carl Barât's comfort zone is obviously making music. It doesn't take someone with a Masters in Economics to work that out. And quite frankly, if you're as good as doing it as what he is, why do anything else? In fact he shouldn't do anything else. He should stay in his comfort zone through fear of messing everything up for the sake of narrating a film on the London Docks.

Yep, you heard that straight. Ex-Libertine Carl Barât is narrating a film about the death of the London Docks. Now, I think I speak on behalf of the majority when I say that all I want to hear Barât talk about is the man that would be king, or the fact he can't stand me now.

I don't care what his opinions of the Thames Barrier are. However, it does concern me that by telling people he's going to be out of his comfort zone. And by being out of his comfort zone he's going to be open to humiliation, tights and looking like an ugly sisiter.

Check back tomorrow for an exclusive CarterSaidWhat interview with Kid Harpoon.

Filling the Airwaves: Volume Four

2009-10-14T08:17:00.001+01:00

The grey wolf is the largest wild member of the Canidae family. It's an ice age survivor originating during the Late Pleistocene around 300,000 years ago. That basically means that the wolf is one tough mother f&%ker. With this in mind, it's pretty obvious to me that the only real wolf like member of Australian rock outfit, Wolfmother, is Andrew Stockdale.

You see, Stockdale is a survivor. He's the only original member left in the band. Both Chris Ross and Myles Heskett left last year citing "irrecincilable personal and musical differences". Determined not to turn all jack it all in and start a new career writing music for Ozzy sitcoms, Stockdale made like a grey wolf would, and started recruiting replacements.

So why all the hard work? Surely Stockdale could just start another band under a different moniker? Well, apparently not. The lead singer had a vision when starting Wolfmother back in 2000. And that vision was to release more than one album in eight years. It was to release two in nine. He's now done that. With his new band mates in place, Wolfmother have given birth to their latest album, 'Cosmic Egg'.

In the majority, 'Cosmic Egg' picks up from where the last album left off. Although it does maintain the psychedelic sounds that initially drew them comparisons with the likes of Led Zeppelin, 'Cosmic Egg' provides far more guitar solos and big drums than it's predecessor. By packaging all these noises together, there is no hiding away from the fact that this is a massive sounding rock album.

The band themselves describe this record as “the sound of the Wolfmother world being rethunk and cracked wide open, with a sprawling, jubilant galaxy of musical and metaphysical harmony spilling forth". Now, I'm sure what the hell that means. However, what I do know is that this is a solid record that will prove to the music world that, just like the grey wolf, they are survivors and deserve to be here.

Wolfmother
Cosmic Egg

Fourteen Bags of Marshmallows, Three Rock Legends, a Footballer and Me

2009-10-13T09:44:00.001+01:00

It was a cold, wet October evening, and I found myself in a wood sitting around a campfire with Jimi Hendrix, Liam Gallagher, Jim Morrison and Neil Ruddock.

It was a strange evening. Even though it was dark and miserable, no one seemed to care. Jimi was trying his best to keep everyone entertained.

Hendrix is a talented man. We all know that. He attached a spoon to the inside of each knee with some masking tape. He then started creating a drum like rhythm by banging them together. As well as this, he's was playing old BB King riffs on the guitar to keep Liam entertained whilst he toasted marshmallows on the fire.

It was a strange mix of people. I mean, I get what Hendrix, Morrison and Gallagher were doing there. However, I'm not sure what an ex-premiership footballer and I were doing round a campfire with these rock & roll heavyweights.

Ruddock, who was definitely feeling a touch out of place, tried to befriend Morrison by playing headers and volleys with him. Although they didn't have an actual football, they fashioned one by moulding together loads of Gallagher's marshmallows. Now, Liam being Liam, didn't find this amusing. The former Oasis front man is a big lover of football, just not when you've made one out of his food.

The mancunian started to chase both Morrison and Ruddock round and round Hendrix in order to give out punishment for ruining his food. Morrison managed to get away by pretending he was a tree. However, Ruddock wasn't so lucky. Liam got hold of the former Liverpool player and proceeded to drag him back to the fire saying that he was going to use him to put out the flames.

If it wasn't for Jimi playing BB King's 'Let The Good Times Roll' on repeat, Ruddock would have got it. The feel good vibes that Hendrix was distributing seemed to nullify Gallagher's want to hurt anyone. So Liam let Ruddock go and apologised by giving him a Mongoose BMX which had a Pretty Green logo sprayed on the seat.

Jimi, Neil and Liam then decided to go for a walk. Although it was late and dark, they wanted to explore some of the woodland that they were staying in. Just before they set off, Jimi announced that he needed to use the toilet.

Hendrix snuck off into the woods in order to find a spot. Soon after he found one, Jimi starting hearing strange noises. Then to his shock, he realised that the tree he was standing by was actually Jim Morrison, and he was urinating on his leg.

It was at this point that I woke up from my DREAM covered in sweat wondering what the hell was going on. I’m not sure if it was the thought of Hendrix relieving himself on Morrison that woke me up, or it was Liam Gallagher trying to use Neil Ruddock as fire extinguisher. Either way, it was a weird experience. One which I’m not too sure I would like to repeat.

Wolves Eat Fish For Breakfast

2009-10-12T20:01:00.000+01:00

Something's are amazing. I mean really amazing. Something's are so amazing that when you see them you actually stop as say to yourself, "that's amazing".

For example, when standing at the foot of The Great Wall of China, you can't help but think that's amazing. Watching a school of piranhas turn a fully grown cow from something to nothing is one of natures most amazing sites. What about the Giza Pyramid Complex? That's pretty amazing. How about the old Anna Kournikova sports bra billboards? You couldn't help but stop and stare in amazement at those plastered everywhere.

However, if there's one thing that amazes me more than Anna Kournikova in a sports bra getting chased along The Great Wall of China on her way to the Pyramids by a school of piranhas, it's that Wolfmother have only released two albums in nine years of performing together. That is amazing.

Yes, I understand that there has been trouble within the group with band members coming and going quicker than Dale Winton sounds his beeper on Supermarket Sweep. Even still, Two albums in nine years? Surely they can do better than that.

I'm a big Wolfmother fan, and the news that Andrew Stockdale is back with a new cast and ready to blow the cobwebs off his instrument and start strumming, fills me with nothing be happiness. The brand new album, 'Cosmic Egg', is out today - and I for one, can't wait. I'll be looking into it further on in Wednesday's helping of 'Filling the Airwaves'.

Now, just like listening to Sara Cox on the radio comes complete with a box of paracetamol, new albums come complete with new tours. And this one is no different. They kick off in Paris on Wednesday and touch down in London Town on the 21st to play Elephant & Castle's Coronet club.

Let's just pray all the madness has been lost and forgotten. Hopefully Stockdale has assembled a group in which live up to the Wolfmother name, and record more than two more albums before 2018.

Oi Oliver, What’s the Weather Saying?

2009-10-09T10:26:00.000+01:00

I have, without doubt, the most unnatural relationship with the sun out of anyone I know. When I enter the sun, my body is reminiscent of a Polo. However when I leave, it looks like Jamie Oliver has grabbed that Polo, crushed into a thousand pieces, put it in a blender with a can of Campbell’s tomato soup and a lobster. He then takes the result and plasters it all over me with one of those dodgy spatulas that you get with a tin of Delux paint whilst saying, “lovely jubbly, you look pucka!”

Although my mind is all for blue skies, cider and summer at Centre Parks; my body has always been more comfortable in the sort of weather where you don’t have to worry about leaving the house ensuring you have your keys, wallet, phone and factor 50. You know the sort of weather I’m talking about? That’s exactly right. The dead weather.

Talking of The Dead Weather (see what I did there), in anticipation of their upcoming UK tour, I dug out their debut album ‘Horehound’ yesterday. This album really does demonstrate that Jack White is an all round master musician. In footballing terms, he’s like the ultimate utility man. If you were to feed John O’Shea a cocktail of speed, creatine, Grandma Audrey’s Victoria sponge cake, and three litres of Red Stripe before sending him out to play Stenhousemuir, you still wouldn’t get close. He’s much better than that.

‘Horehound’ provides White & co a platform to deliver a sound which is both rocky and raw. It’s hard to describe this album in words. It’s darker than anything that White has produced before with the White Stripes and The Raconteurs. If ‘Horehound’ was a person it would be the love child of Pete Doherty and Muddy Waters. It’s dirty, filthy and unshaven; whilst containing a certain blues ridden charm.

The Dead Weather hit London on October 30th. Now, if you only do one thing on that date it should be to brush your teeth. However, if you do two, it should be to brush your teeth and get down to the HMV Forum in Kentish Town.

Don’t Tread On My Loose Ends, Baby

2009-10-08T12:20:00.000+01:00

The definition of mental is for one to be affected by a disorder of the mind which affects intellectuals and their intellectual activity. This is very apt when talking about the person is about to drop £9,000 on Elvis’ hair. NINE THOUSEND POUNDS! That is mental. For starters, it’s not even a whole head of hair; it’s a clump. Apparently the hair was “salvaged” by a friend after he was enlisted in the US Army in 1958. So, not only are you looking to spend the same amount of cash it would cost you to buy a brand new Ford Focus, but it’s probably filled with mud, sweat and dust.

The last time I remember hair causing such a stir was when I was out eating a curry last year. Three bottles of Kingfisher and eight popadoms later, the guy on the table next to us lost it. The poor bloke was busy eating his chicken dansak when he leapt to his feet, let out an almighty roar, and pulled out one of the biggest hairs I have ever seen. This thing just kept going and going. It was like a think, hairy python that had substituted Saharan Africa for N1. The whole incident was like witnessing Rick Waller having it off with Rosanne. It was disgusting and weird, but there was also something quite magical about it.

The Indian I was dining in was The Bombay Bicycle Club. Now, even with that whole hair event, I won’t hear a bad work against the place. I’ve eaten some of the best curries of my life there. I get a lot of enjoyment from The Bombay Bicycle Club curry house in the same way I get a lot of enjoyment form Bombay Bicycle Club the band. Although they have no relation in the slightest, they are both available in London tonight. The Bombay Bicycle Club Indian is on the Essex Road, like it is every other night; whilst Bombay Bicycle Club the band are playing at Heaven.

Now, I strongly recommend to all that haven’t seen this band perform before to get down to Charing Cross tonight. Once there you need to pin a ticket tout up against a wall, rob him for all his tickets, and then march to the front with a big smile on your face.

These boys are absolutely brilliant. Their debut album, ‘I Had the Blues But I Shook Them Loose’ is still an absolute winner for me. They’re a band that just play good rock & roll music; and for that reason alone you should learn to love, cherish and hold them at all times. And if by the former that means keep them on heavy rotation on your iPod, then so be it.

Filling the Airwaves: Volume Three

2009-10-07T10:04:00.000+01:00

I like Wednesdays. To be fair, I would probably like them more if I was a customer of the mobile operator, Orange. As if I was, I would be able to go to my local cinema, with my supersized popcorn in hand, and take full advantage of the now legendary, Orange Wednesdays. Nonetheless, as I’m a customer of O2, the real reason that I love Wednesdays is because it's the day that I typically come to a decision of whether I like an album after its release on the Monday. And this Wednesday is no different.

Even after playing Mumford & Sons debut album on repeat for 12 hours, the last thing I felt like doing was sighing. I’ve been looking forward to the release of their debut since seeing them tour earlier in the year with The Maccabees; and ‘Sign No More’ does everything but disappoint.

Picture the scene; it’s a hot summer’s day and you’re travelling cross country on a train. You’re sitting in the window seat staring out into nothingness. You haven’t passed any sign of busy town life for hours. Your eyes are set on the odd cow, a few horses and mass upon mass of rolling green countryside. The sun is beating down on your face through the glass whilst Mumford & Sons carve a perfect folk driven soundtrack that sets the tone of the journey perfectly, whilst delivering the ultimate feel good factor.

I understand this all sounds pretty deep; however, ‘Sigh No More’ is a very visual album. It’s a record that lets you forget and think. The softy played instruments marry the vocals of Marcus Mumford perfectly. A high percentage of new music that I’ve listened to recently has missed the mark as a result of production. However, Markus Dravs has created a feeling with this album that helps it achieve exactly what it set out to do. It’s not overproduced, and it’s not underproduced. Without sounding cliché, he’s hit the nail right on the head.

So, in cutting a massively long story short; out of all the new albums that have found their way onto the shelves of various record shops this week, this supplies the best in audio satisfaction…

Mumford & Sons
Sign No More

Washed Away With Greed

2009-10-06T16:51:00.000+01:00

For me, rain is a symbol of sorrow, remorse, pain and hurt. It's pretty safe to say that I hate rain. Rain causes football matches to get cancelled, festival campsites to go underwater, and my hair to go flat. Right now in London, water is falling from the sky quicker than Gary Coleman shifts round a court room.

The only positive I've ever had from rain was when it gave me pneumonia back in '99. I got struck off school for a week after being stuck in the stuff in only a t-shirt whilst waiting for Toy Story 2 to hit the shelves of the local Our Price. The fact I missed 5 days of school work made the constant shivering worth while.

In addition to rain; I also hate it when people in privileged positions only do stuff for the money, and not the love. Sure, if you're selling the big issue in order to get by and some chump says to you; "Er mate, can you carry this over the Mongolian border for me? I'll give ya ten bob and a go on this pipe if you do" - you'd probably do it.

However, when Jay-Z turns round and says that he wants to work with Liam Gallagher, I start to worry. Now, don't get it twisted; I'm a fan of both Jigga and Oasis. But mixing the two together is like taking a can of petrol and dumping it on top of your Nan's Christmas cake just as she lights it - you just don't do it. If Young Hova only learnt one thing from that pile of shite that he made with Linkin Park it should have been; NEVER DO ANYTHING OF THE SORT AGAIN. That album was cringe worthy from start to finish, with no exceptions.

The man from Brooklyn has, once again, just got dollar signs in his eyes. He's obviously made a fortune from the music business up until this point. So for me, I can't see why he would want to spoil it and produce another poor attempt at making rock and rap gel in unison.

I just hope that Liam gives him one of his famous two fingered salutes and tells him to do one.

June Mud Slide Anyone?

2009-10-05T12:44:00.000+01:00

A lot has happened since Friday. First I received a touch of bad news; I found out that I would be running the London Marathon next year. Now, at the time it seemed like a good idea to apply. However, having been given the green light to run, realisation has kicked in that I’ve actually got two club feet and the stamina of Dot Cotton after smoking 20 Marlboro Menthols and drinking 3 bottles of Tesco’s finest Cava. I just hope that this time next year I’m still alive.

I also learnt this weekend that Newcastle is a great city. I’ve just got back from spending the weekend there. In addition to meeting both Kevin and Sol Campbell in the space of 12 hours; I also managed to surf down the Tyne, drink my body weight in Newcy Brown and consol a mate after she lost her Vivienne Westwood shoes in a club. I have no idea how she managed to do that, but what I do know is as I write this there is one extremely happy cleaner rocking about the Toon in a fresh pair of kicks.

Yet, this is all irrelevant. The most important factor about the past weekend is that I left out the backdoor with a ticket in my pocket for Glastonbury 2010. That is BIG. Tickets sold out in a mere 24 hours for next years bash. With it being the festivals 40th anniversary you would like to think that we’re going to be treated on the headliners front. Who would I like to see? Well, it’s about time we had a Stone Roses comeback gig. I understand it's highly unlikely; but a man can dream - can't he?

In order to wet the appetite, below are a few classic Glasto photos from up and down the years.

The Smiths - Glastonbury 1984

Liam & Robbie - Glastonbury 1994

Radiohead - Glastonbury 1997

Blur - Glastonbury 2009

I Slept With Joey Ramone

2009-10-02T09:03:00.000+01:00

After 2,263 gigs, which saw these boys tour for 22 years non-stop, it looks like The Ramones are finally getting a full on biopic made on their highly uncontroversial and normal 'plain Jane' lives.

Now, being a big music fan I'm naturally a big fan of music biopic's - when they're done well. Johnny Cash's Walk the Line was great, Spice World the movie wasn't. I just hope that they recreate the attitude, feeling and drama that made The Ramones such a major influence on the punk rock movement both in the United States and over here in good ol'Blighty. However, if they have Joey in pigtails, Tommy playing hop-scotch and Jonny trying to trade Merlin Premier League stickers with Markey; we'll know that they've opted away from the walking of any line and steered straight into Big Ben in a double decker London bus with a print of the Union Jack on the roof.

The Brown Factor

2009-10-01T11:08:00.001+01:00

In homage to Ian Brown's new album 'My Way', here are a few choice snaps of the man himself performing the three S's - standing, sitting and singing. The three S’s aren’t easy to achieve. If you’ve ever seen Brown live then you’ll know that he can do two of them perfectly. Throw in a massive amount of reverb and enough Stella to keep Cardiff Town Welsh Rugby Club oiled and ready to go for a weeks fun on the Costa del Sol, and he’s well on his way to completing the three.