WRONG ANGLE

Wet dream

2008-03-14T11:40:00.004Z

I'm surprised to see Water Lilies - a new film about French teenage lesbians on the cusp of sexual awakening - garnering such universally drooling reviews from middle-aged male film critics. Must be something in the water!

Sons & Daughters @ ULU

2008-02-15T12:09:00.009Z

[Originally published on Orange.co.uk]

“That was a song to kill your girlfriend to. This is one to kill yourself to.”
From any other band, such throwaway nihilism might amount to little more than posturing: but no one familiar with Sons & Daughters’ macabre fetishism can doubt their devotion to the cause. Here to showcase their third and most fully-realised album to date – the Bernard Butler-produced The Gift – the Glasgow quartet arrive at tonight’s headline date on the cusp of a long-awaited commercial breakthrough.

Central to their visceral appeal lies singer Adele Bethel. Appearing on-stage in an ultra-revealing slip of a number, her rapturous banshee wails and spasmodic tambourine-thrashing suggest not so much a front-woman as a Dionysian force of nature. Scott Paterson’s growling vocals prove themselves a menacing counterpoint to Bethel’s, while adding a touch of loucheness to proceedings.

Crucially, the band now have the material to back up their ferocious live reputation. Newies such as the Franz Ferdinand-gone-feral intensity of former single ‘Gilt Complex’ and the yearning Morrissey inflections of ‘The Bell’ slip effortlessly into the cannon, while old favourites ‘Dance Me In’ and ‘Johnny Cash’ – the latter re-worked to channel the raw claustrophobia of the Stooges – have lost none of their lusty impact through over-familiarity.

Ploughing a furrow of heady, apocalyptic Roots'n'Roll, Sons & Daughters’ enthralling evocation of rock’s dark side stands up to comparison with Tom Waits and Nick Cave, twin demigods of that particular pantheon. You wouldn’t want to get too close, but from a distance it makes for a hellishly thrilling spectacle.

The Ting Tings @ Hoxton Bar & Grill

2008-01-26T19:36:00.000Z

[Originally published on Orange.co.uk]

The next big thing: a double-edged compliment if ever there was one. Having formed less than 12 months ago, much-hyped Manc duo The Ting Tings arrive for their biggest headline show to date all too aware that the fall from grace can be brutal should you fail to measure up.

If the pair are fazed by the palpable sense of anticipation in this rammed East London venue, they certainly don’t show it, dispatching their new single ‘Great DJ’ as a sassy, confident opening salvo. Sure, it’s join-the-dots indie-disco, but the insistent post-punk riffs and singer Katie White’s sultry, knowing delivery raise it above the generic. ‘Fruit Machine’ – its “kerching!” hook possibly reflecting their record label’s reaction upon hearing the track – is playful and erotically charged, a teasing vocal building to a Karen O-style caterwaul for the chorus.

Sadly, the quality dips from here on in. Drummer Jules De Martino switches to guitar duties for ‘Traffic Light’, an ill-advised stab at a stripped-down blues ballad which only serves to disrupt the set’s momentum. Much of the material sounds rather two-dimensional, the backing tracks failing to have the impact a full band might have provided. An instantly forgettable newie even manages to summon the unwelcome spectre of Republica.

Despite White giving it her best rip-her-to-shreds Debbie Harry moves and De Martino’s undeniably infectious energy, it’s hard to shake off the niggling whiff of contrivance surrounding the Ting Tings. The band’s vogueish grrrrl pop sound is just rough enough around the edges to be marketed to a credibility-conscious indie market, while remaining safely daytime radio-friendly. Not a bad thing per se, it’s just that with the likes of The Go! Team and Black Kids so definitively setting the standard in exuberant, distortion-heavy pop, it all sounds a little tame.

Interest is belatedly revived with their hook-laden, Toni Basil-aping anthem ‘That’s Not My Name’, but it’s not enough to stave off the gnawing sense of anti-climax at the end of this half-hour set. In a notoriously fickle musical climate, the Ting Tings have the air of a purely ephemeral concern.

Juno it makes sense

2008-01-22T12:28:00.000Z

OMG, Juno may just be the schmindiest movie ever: if there’s any justice it’ll be this year’s Napoleon Dynamite/Little Miss Sunshine cross-over indie cult phenomenon. It features an awesomely sweet lead performance from Ellen Page (the eponymous Juno), who has that same gonna-be-a-humongous-star aura of invincibility displayed by Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls (hopefully sans the celebrity hang-ups and tawdry Callum Best trysts).

The soundtrack’s curated by Kimya Dawson from the much-missed Moldy Peaches. It features two of Belle and Sebastian’s greatest songs (‘Piazza, New York Catcher’ and ‘Expectations’) as well as stellar, career-best stuff from the likes of The Kinks, The Velvet Underground, Cat Power and Kimya herself. Best of all, though, it features Sonic Youth’s spine-tingling, otherworldly rendition of the Carpenter’s ‘Superstar’, one of my favourite cover versions.

Read Laura Barton's musings on the Juno soundtrack here.

"Take off your glasses and apologise"

2008-01-16T12:28:00.000Z

The dress sense of Nathan Barley, the attitude of Napoleon Dynamite. Awesome.

Falling Off the Lavender Bridge - Lightspeed Champion

2008-01-14T15:19:00.001Z

[Originally published on Twisted Ear]

Candid acoustic soul-bearing courtesy of former scenester

Noisenik agitators Test Icicles were one of those infuriatingly faddish industry buzz bands whose short-lived hype frenzy quickly evaporated once rock journalists ceased to be titillated by their gimmicky moniker. Few mourned when they announced their split in 2006, least of all band member Dev Hynes who claimed that "we were never, ever that keen on the music. I understand that people liked it, but we personally, er, didn't." In short: we pity the fools.

Mercifully, Hyne’s new vehicle Lightspeed Champion are musically unrecognisable from his previous cohorts. Recorded in Omaha, Nebraska with resident Saddle Creek producer Mike Mogis, and backed by moonlighting members of Tilly and the Wall and Cursive, it’s perhaps no surprise to discover a debut album steeped in lush, introspective alt-country, but with a roguish geek pop edge.

Written by Hynes at the age of only 19, Falling Off the Lavender Bridge is a record defined both by its creator’s precocious musical accomplishment and his eyebrow-raising candour. Previous singles 'Galaxy of the Lost' and 'Tell Me What It’s Worth' showcase Lightspeed Champion’s flair for literate, deceptively upbeat folk-pop. And while Emmy the Great’s mellifluous backing vocals help to sugar the pill somewhat, they can’t completely mask the undercurrent of angsty ennui which lurks beneath the surface.

Self-consciously nerdy and unaffected, Hynes presents himself as a reluctant spokesman for a generation grown prematurely jaded. But unlike, say, Alex Turner, whose alienation manifests itself in sneering condescension towards his peers, Hyne’s tone is a broadly sympathetic one. Whereas most of the acclaimed indie rock lyricists du jour favour an impressionistic, abstract, approach, Hynes style is blunt and deeply personal to the point of crudeness (“wake up smell the semen,” he urges during sprawling, hook-laden 10-minute epic 'Midnight Surprise', making listeners of a more sensitive disposition nearly choke on their sleeve notes). 'I Could Have Done this Myself' is a frank and comical chronicling of an underwhelming sexual encounter, propelled by a rousing, Arcade Fired-up guitar onslaught. 'Devil Tricks for A Bitch', with its withering commentary on racial factionalism, is a yearning country lament recalling Conor Oberst at his most emotionally fraught.

It doesn’t all work: 'Salty Water' is slight and forgettable, never really managing to stir from its oblique, ponderous slumber. But we can forgive such minor lapses when treated to such twin delights as 'Dry Lips' and 'Everyone I Know is Listening to Crunk' – the former a shimmering slice of early-REM jangle-pop, the latter a wistful, retro-tinged campfire croon.

Deploying liberal sprinklings of humour and pathos to a tapestry of folksy, homespun musical sophistication, Lavender Bridge is a bruised but big-hearted debut, serving notice on a new and formidable talent from this self-styled musical polymath.

This Charmless Cam

2008-01-13T00:28:00.000Z

Every time I start to think my visceral hatred of David Cameron might just be beginning to thaw, he goes and ruins it with a nauseatingly smug stunt like this.

Perhaps now Dave knows Morrissey is on-message with regards to his party's hardline immigration policy he'll look to recruit him as part of his own "government of all the talents" once elected, mirroring Nick Clegg's rather bewildering appointment of Brian Eno as youth adviser. As a taster for what to expect, check out Moz's three-point manifesto to heal "Broken Britain".

Princess Fergalicious

2008-01-10T16:08:00.000Z

I don't get why everyone's so down on Fergie: especially when she gives such great value quotage as this.

Middleton and Whine

2007-12-19T12:00:00.000Z

So yeah, given all the hype generated by this Radio 1 campaign to get Malcolm Middleton's curmudgeonly 'We're All Gonna Die' to Christmas No.1, it's somewhat inevitable the single will limp in at #7 or something come Sunday's chart rundown.

This may not be such a bad thing: the campaign's being backed by a roll call of mediocrity which includes Zane Lowe, Colin Murray, Edith Bowman and Dick & Dom. Can you even begin to imagine how smug that lot would be if they succeeded? We'd be hearing about it until next Christmas at the very least.

All the same, it does make me nostalgic for a time before Simon Cowell and his weaselly cohorts conspired to ruin the annual race for Christmas No.1 forever.

My favourite Christmas No.1 doesn't actually mention Christmas at all. Instead, it's a fantastically irreverential electro-pop cover of a hackneyed Elvis standard by my favourite singles band of all time. Here it is in its extended six-and-a-half minute glory.

Other great Christmas songs which don't mention Christmas:

A Spaceman Came Travelling - Chris De Burgh
(It's an allegory. The spaceman's actually Jesus. Clever, eh?)

Stay Another Day - East 17
(About suicide, allegedly. It does have sleigh-bells on though.)

Only You - Yazoo
(Immortalised in the denouement of The Office Christmas Special.)

The Power of Love - Frankie Goes to Hollywood
(Synonymous with sexual failure at school Christmas discos.)

Caravan of Love - The Housemartins
(Heaton, Cook et al go Barbershop quartet. Awesome.)

Manic Street Preachers @ Brixton Academy

2007-12-18T16:21:00.000Z

[Originally published on Orange.co.uk]

It’s been a difficult decade for the long-suffering Manics devotee: forced to witness the band’s steady decline from fiery glam insurrectionists to bland everyman rock has-beens.

It seems even the hitherto blindly loyal glitter‘n’tiara brigade have abandoned the cause, judging by the disappointing lack of sparkle in tonight’s audience.

Thankfully, this pre-Christmas greatest hits set finds James, Nicky and Sean in defiant mood – re-energised after their solo outings and critically rehabilitated after a (partial) return to form with eighth album Send Away The Tigers.

Any set which begins with ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ is setting the bar high, while 'Little Baby Nothing''s high-octane refrain of ‘cultural alienation, boredom and despair’ is delivered with irrepressible lustre. But newies such as the guileless ‘Autumnsong’ are not disgraced in such illustrious company, while a blistering ‘Your Love Alone Is Not Enough’ sounds every bit like their best single of the noughties.

The Richey-era material already seems like it's being beamed in from another lifetime, but songs such as ‘La Tristesse Durera’ and ‘Roses In The Hospital’ have lost none of their incendiary potency. We can even forgive them the odd throwaway number such as ‘Ocean Spray’ because, well, it's Christmas.

From the moment a beefed-up cover of The Cult’s ‘She Sells Sanctuary’ segues into ‘Motown Junk’, the Manics can do no wrong. Closing with their stately proletarian elegy ‘A Design For Life’, this is a band trading on past glories, but doing so with undeniable class.

'Ames Room' - Silje Nes

2007-11-22T21:59:00.000Z

[Originally published on Twisted Ear]

Less really is more for a unique talent

Long before Sigur Rós became the obligatory soundtrack for sweeping vistas on wildlife documentaries, Nordic musicians have turned to the dramatic natural wilderness around them for creative inspiration. So it is with Norwegian multi-instrumentalist Silje Nes, who spent her formative years in the tiny town of Leikanger in Norway’s largest fjord of Sognefjord, before moving to Bergen in 2000 to begin making music. Her otherworldly and largely improvised recordings are collected on this endearing, understated debut.

From the off, the lyrics suggest an artist immersed in the environment around her. Over All is a glockenspiel-flavoured nursery rhyme teeming with both natural and supernatural imagery: buzzing bees, swamps, frogs and monsters. This child-like awe of the natural world is complimented by a poetic flair and bold musical invention: similar qualities which saw Joanna Newsom installed as indie folk darling last year. With its crisp arpeggios and lilting melody, Drown is disarming in its delicate simplicity, a shimmering, ethereal flight of fancy. Shapes, Electic is the first of several near-instrumentals, with Silje cooing wordlessly over a backdrop of scratchy ambience and woodwind. It's a perfect mood-setter before the gorgeous title track, an implausibly sweet lullaby with echoes of Stina Nordenstam's Little Star (a compliment of the highest order). A counterpoint to such gossamer pop delights comes with Giant Disguise, a hypnotic, slow-building rootsy mantra which evokes a similar druggy inertia to much-missed Domino acolytes Woodbine.

The second half of the album sees a slight dip in quality, with several wilfully unfocussed mood pieces so minimalist as to barely register. Many of these songs were actually written as recorded, lending them a necessarily unfinished air. Even so, there are a couple of hidden gems: Bright Night Morning is a rustic torch ballad possessed of a nagging, frazzled melancholy, like a stripped-down Mazzy Star. Melt, with its wispy refrain “the summer sun will make this melt” repeated softly over a spare guitar riff, is dewy-eyed and mesmerising.

At its best, Silje’s music conjures up a world of fragile beauty and kaleidoscopic intrigue. Like Four Tet and Boards of Canada, there’s a warm-blooded nostalgic core to this organic electro-folk which underpins the spirit of experimentalism. Ames Room is the sound of an artist alive with possibility, guileless in outlook and boundless in imagination.

MySpace

'Milkmaid Grand Army EP' - Midlake

2007-11-12T15:43:00.000Z

[Originally published on Twisted Ear]

Before the Gold Rush: timely re-issue from Texan luminaries

Or “how I learned to quit worrying and embrace my wonky art rock past” as it perhaps should have been subtitled. To clarify: Milkmaid Grand Army is not Midlake’s eagerly-anticipated follow-up to 2006’s sophomore LP The Trials of Van Occupanther. It’s not even new material, but a re-issue of the Texans’ long-since deleted debut EP from 2001, pre-dating their Damascus-style conversion to pastoral, harmony-drenched Americana.

First impressions: hmm, this doesn’t sound much like Midlake at all, at least not in their latter-day incarnation. What it does sound like, (unnervingly so in places) is Radiohead circa 1997. Not surprisingly, as it turns out: the release of OK Computer represented something of a musical epiphany for singer/songwriter Tim Smith, who played the album every day for a year.

The result is seven tracks steeped in turn-of-the-century progressive rock stylings: multi-layered guitar parts, sparse piano motifs, distorted vocals. All it’s missing is the Nigel Godrich production credit.

Opener She Removes Her Spiral Hair gives an early indication of what to expect: a menacing guitar riff and insistent percussion leading into a sneering growl of a vocal which veers off in desultory directions. Paper Gown continues in a similarly downbeat vein, all brooding, woozy psychedelia, sounding to these ears like a lost outtake from Grandaddy’s stately lo-fi opus The Sophtware Slump. Excited but Not Enough and Roller Skate (Farewell June) see a welcome change of tempo, the former an adrenaline shot of dissonant bombast, the latter the sort of falsetto-driven drone rock patented by Clinic. Closer Golden Hour hints at the classicist sensibilities which were to follow, a mournful, minor key lament which owes an obvious debt to (yep) Radiohead's Exit Music (Theme From a Film).

Recent Midlake converts may find this EP hard-going and a little too self-consciously obtuse in flavour for their palates, lacking the obvious musical cohesion and songwriting élan which marks out Van Occupanther as one of last year’s most enchanting releases. While there's much to admire, it’s the sound of a songwriter too obviously in thrall to his influences to yet dare to transcend them. As a stop-gap release it represents an interesting insight into the band’s musical evolution, but one destined to remain a non-essential curiosity for all but the completist fan.

THE NOISETTES

2007-02-05T13:34:00.000Z

Not pronounced like the triangular Quality Street chocolate in the green wrapper which everyone leaves in the tin, that would be waaaay too pretentious . Read my review of their ICA gig >>

ETERNAL BLAME

2007-02-02T16:32:00.000Z

Ever feel that our kids' innocent and vulnerable minds are being corrupted by INSIDIOUS AND SUBLIMINAL GAY PROPAGANDA PROPOGATED BY A DEVIANT BEATNIK MAFIOSO? No, me neither, but these God-fearing Bible belters clearly do.

What I like best about this page is not just the inspired use of parenthisis: Elton John (really gay), Marilyn Manson (dark gay), George Michael (Texan), but also the rather arbitrary logic which classifies Lisa Loeb and Wilson Phillips as threats to the very moral foundations of society whilst categorising androgynous cabaret provocateurs the Dresden Dolls under the safe list.

In a suitably McCarthyist gesture, you can even shop gay artists yourself by emailing the site. Let's hope no-one tips them off about those Sir Cliff rumours.

I'M FROM BARCELONA

2007-01-29T14:06:00.000Z

Not me of course. And not the band either, it transpires. Read my review of their ULU gig here

WHAT THE WORLD'S BEEN WAITING FOR

2007-01-28T12:02:00.000Z

Exciting developments from the home (counties) front comes with this email from Greg, the Chris Lowe to my Neil Tennant...

"Only six years and seven months after the formation of Wrong Angle, our first demo...still some technical issues, but i think the Wrong Angle sound is established, along with the principle of using french language sociology texts with no relation to the song's subject for the coda - i don't think this has ever been done before, so a good six and a half years' work."

Have a listen to the Wrong Angle prototype here. Here's hoping it doesn't sound too much like Jeremy and Superhans band in Peep Show.

THE 'METHOD' TECHNIQUE

2007-01-21T13:13:00.001Z

Great story in Uncut magazine about Jared 'Jordan Catalano' Leto:

"Aside from promoting his new musical project, Leto is currently filming the role of Mark David Chapman, in new film 'Chapter 27' about the John Lennon assasination.

The actor has reportedly gained 62 lbs in weight for the role of the killer by eating cocktails of Haagen Dazs ice cream with added soy sauce and olive oil!"

FEELING JADE-D

2007-01-20T18:17:00.000Z

Resistance is futile. Obviously Big Brother is all anyone really cares about anymore and Jade Goody now vies with Nick Griffin for the title of Britain's most notorious racist. If you really care what I think, read it here. But for my money Simon Hoggart gets the balance just about right in his article in today's Guardian.

Simon's one of my journalistic heroes: his parliamentary sketches are brilliantly droll and insightful. When the press rumbled his affair with Kimberly Quinn it threatened to derail his career for good, but he handled the situation with enough humility and contrition to win back some of the respect lost. I guess being at the centre of one media shitstorm probably enables you to take a more generous line on someone else in a similar situation, no matter how unsympathetic a character they appear to cut.

MORE BLOGGING MADNESS

2007-01-15T17:10:00.000Z

We've launched our News Blog at work, yet another platform for me to rant about things I know nothing about. Take a look and please post your comments, if only to save us from the hate-fuelled moron brigade who invariably take these things over (Will has already been accused of being a threat to democracy for having the audacity to suggest that people who voted for the BNP were a bit dim).

THE NINETIES +10

2007-01-14T09:52:00.000Z

So I went to a party last night which had a nineties theme. Post-modern or what? When asked why I hadn't come in fancy dress, I replied with the not unreasonable explanation that as I pretty much dressed the same now as I did during the nineties anyway I didn't see much point. I really can be quite a curmodgeon when I put my mind to it. I was later informed that there were people at the party who were actually born in the nineties, which made me feel postively ancient and not a little grubby (the majority of people were well into their twenties, mercifully).

Anyway, my flatmate Charlie played a 1995 'Greatest Hits' set, and it reminded me what a great era for singles the mid-nineties were: not just the obvious stuff like Common People and Girls and Boys, but the less celebrated songs too such as Ladykiller by Lush, New Generation by Suede, Trouble by Shampoo, I'm Not So Manic Now by Dubstar, etc. I've spoken about my desire to write a Britpop musical on here before, but I feel the climate could be right, now This Life +10 has made nostalgia for that era officially acceptable. A nationwide hunt for someone to play Crispian from Kula Shaker surely awaits.

DON'T BELIEVE THE TRIPE

2007-01-06T14:56:00.000Z

If there's one thing that vexes me more than those smug, self-congratulatory end-of-year critics' polls, it's the same critics' self-serving predictions of musical 'ones-to-watch' in the forthcoming 12 months.

Don't get me wrong, I like a good list as much as the next mildly autistic beta male, even if I find the whole Nick Hornby schtick slightly tedious in polite conversation. The problem is that it doesn't take Nostradamus-like levels of prescience for music journalists to predict what's going to be big in the next year when they're so obviously instrumental in setting the musical agenda.

So when the NME tells us that the Klaxons will be big in 2007 (and against my better instincts I actually quite like the Klaxons, even if their new single does sound like Spandau Ballet) , it's an entirely self-fulfilling prophecy, as their young and hugely impressionable readership will lap up whatever's thrown at them, so long as it's cutely-packaged with good hair. And why shouldn't they? This is exactly what I did when I was 16. The Internet may have allowed people to be more discerning in their tastes, but never underestimate the pull of the well-oiled media hype-machine when it comes to dictating musical trends.

REST IN PC

2006-12-28T12:41:00.000Z

Could this be the most boring day of the year? I think it must be. To prove it I've devised a formula:

Bloated post-Christmas inertia + back at parents - self-motivation or money = listless ennui + dull pangs of existential angst

To cheer you up, check out DeathSpace (strapline="MySpace doesn't end at death") a pointless but morbidly intriguing online resource compiling a list of MySpace users who've passed on from this world. Their profile pages freeze-framed forever at a moment just before their untimely deaths, their unfortunate legacy is destined to be a series of trite epitaphs posted by friends. Here are some of my personal favourites:

"Dude, so sorry to hear about your accident. It really sucks. RIP"
"Hopefully you can access MySpace in heaven"
"I feel so privileged to make your final top 8"
"Tell me in a dream how God is. I always wanted to know"
"Six months and I still can't believe you're gone. Gutting"
"You look so hot in that pic. Such a waste"

2006: AN AURAL RETROSPECTIVE

2006-12-16T13:43:00.000Z

My twenty albums of the year, in alphabetical order:

Ten Years of Tears - Arab Strap
Fur and Gold - Bat for Lashes
The Life Pursuit - Belle and Sebastian
Let's Get Out of This Country - Camera Obscura
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Victory For the Common Muse - The Divine Comedy
Yes, Virginia - The Dresden Dolls
The Tragic Treasury - The Gothic Arches
Gravity Won't Get You High - The Grates
Off My Rocker at the Art School Bop - Luke Haines
Awoo - The Hidden Cameras
Under the Crooked Moon - The Hot Puppies
The Lemonheads - The Lemonheads
Someone to Drive You Home - The Long Blondes
Live It Out - Metric
Ys - Joanna Newsom
Writers Block - Peter, Bjorn and John
We Are the Pipettes - The Pipettes
White Bread Black Beer - Scritti Politti
Show Your Bones - Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs

PUPPY LOVE

2006-12-11T12:51:00.000Z

Have I mentioned how absurdly ace the Hot Puppies are yet? Read my review of their Water Rats gig here >>

HOW THE MUSIC INDUSTRY WORKS

2006-12-04T23:09:00.000Z

The Kooks are one of those bands I've harboured a mild antipathy towards for a while now without being able to put my finger on precisely why. This review from the fearlessly incisive Stylus Magazine helps to clarify matters a great deal.

For anyone under any illusions as to the cynical machinations deployed by major labels in promoting their 'talent', I suggest you take a seat before reading on...

Review of 'Inside In/Inside Out' by the Kooks >>

(*SPOILER WARNING* It's a hoax alas, but why let that stand in the way of a good stitch-up?)

UNITED THEY FALL

2006-11-30T14:20:00.000Z

Luke Haines has always prided himself on being heroically out-of-kilter with the musical Zeitgeist (at the height of Britpop his former charges the Auteurs released a single with the daytime radio-friendly title 'Unsolved Child Murder') so his new concept album about the 70's makes a perverse kind of sense.

An early standout track - indeed one of my songs of the year - is 'Leeds United', a work of minor genius which uses Don Revie's all-conquering but controversial team as a microcosm for the singer's ambivalent emotions towards the decade.

Football and pop music have traditionally made for uneasy bedfellows, and for every 'World In Motion' there's at least a dozen musical abominations of the calibre of 'The Anfield Rap' or (gulp) 'World At Your Feet'. The reason 'Leeds United' works is less to do with any dewey-eyed nostalgia for the "beautiful game" and more for its visceral evocation of 70's life, referencing Peter Sutcliffe ("the devil came to Yorkshire in the silver Jubilee"), teddy boy discos and Jimmy Saville. Caustic, insidious, drenched in melodrama, it's the sort of record you wish that Morrissey was still making.

Ten other great football-referencing songs:

1. The Boy Done Good - Billy Bragg
2. Strachan - The Hitchers
3. Sparky's Dream - Teenage Fanclub
4. The First Big Weekend - Arab Strap
5. Munich Air Disaster 1958 - Morrissey
6. Theme From Sparta FC - The Fall
7. England 2 Colombia 0 - Kirsty MacColl
8. All I Want For Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit - Half Man, Half Biscuit
9. I Don't Want to Play Football - Belle and Sebastian
10. (Oh, go on then) World in Motion - New Order

Listen to Leeds United >>

LIVE AND LET DIRE

2006-11-16T22:40:00.000Z

I.JUST.DO.NOT.GET all the current Bond hysteria. I mean, isn't the whole franchise just marketed towards inadequate males desparate to live out their action hero wank fantasies vicariously through a celluloid cipher? And, with its intensive product placement and branded entertainment deals, doesn't it merely represent Hollywood at its shallow, bloated, mercenary worst?

The received wisdom, destined to snowball and become nigh-on irresistable by the time anyone gets round to actually seeing the film, is that Casino Royale represents a barnstorming return to form, with Daniel Craig breathing fresh life into a role which had become lumpen and listless in recent outings. The exact same platitudes wheeled out when Pierce Brosnan first took on the role in other words.

I don't know, maybe I'm just being humourless about this, but I sort of thought any credibility Bond had went out the window with Austin Powers?

Read Will's blog for things to say about Daniel Craig.

PLEASE HUMOUR ME HERE...

2006-11-08T17:40:00.000Z

Bobby Charlton, David Beckham, Georgie Best, Fergie, Eric Cantona, Roy Keane, Wayne Rooney, Sir Matt Busby, Denis Law, Mark Hughes, Ryan Giggs, Bryan Robson, Gordon Strachan, Peter Schmeichel, Steve Bruce, Paul McGrath, Neil Webb, Andy Cole, Dwight Yorke, Jim Leighton, Joe Jordan, Teddy Sheringham, Mark Robbins, Kevin Moran, Lou Macari, Duncan Edwards, Gary Pallister, Norman Whiteside, Brian McClair, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Paul Ince, Dennis Irwin, Malcolm Glazer, Gary Neville, your boys took one hell of a beating...

BACK TO LIFE

2006-10-29T17:16:00.000Z

This Life has a lot to answer for - namely persuading me to embark on an ill-advised law degree on the misguided assumption that it offered a passport to a life of intoxicating hedonistic excess soundtracked by the first Marion LP. Nevertheless, the prospect of the series returning next month for a one-off tenth anniversary special is a genuinely mouthwatering one.

Countless lazy and witless imitations have not quite managed to cheapen the legacy of what was the definitive Britpop-era drama.
Early indicators for the new episode aren't altogether promising: they've bumped off Ferdy in order to engineer a somewhat contrived reunion ("If it's AIDS I'm throwing stuff at the TV," remarked my friend Simon) and most of the action takes place in Miles' country manor estate - conjuring unwelcome images of ghastly toff flick Peter's Friends. But as Christmas telly goes, it's gotta beat Dragon's Den: kids' special or Richard Hammond's alternative Christmas message.

A WORLD WITHOUT DAVE

2006-10-15T09:55:00.000Z

The hostile reception to Sion Simon's Web Cameron YouTube spoof was indicative of the mystifying bubble of sycophancy currently surrounding everyone's favourite hoodie-hugging reformed gakhead. I've always been suspicious of cuddly One Nation Tories (at least pantomime villains like Norman Tebbit were self-styled draconian monsters) but David Cameron's touchy-feely brand of everyman populism is particularly risible. Hilariously, Dave cites his favourite album as The Queen is Dead by the Smiths, but admits to finding its author's militant vegetarianism and anti-royalist sentiments 'troubling'. Presumably he regards the lyrics to Margaret on a Guillotine ("When will you die?") as a riotous laugh too.

If, as seems depressingly inevitable, Cameron becomes PM, expect him to eventually be despised for the very same qualities he's currently championed for a la Blair. And expect the illiberal, socially regressive Tory Party, with its vehemently anti-youth, anti-hedonism and anti-arts agenda, to quickly reawaken from its slumber...

FOR TOMORROW

2006-06-18T23:14:00.000Z

"And the view's so nice" the graffitied slogan had promised on the way up, the dot on the 'i' replaced (rather soppily, William felt) with a love heart. The gentle ascent to the top of Primrose Hill had taken no time at all, and his spirits had been lifted by an unexpected burst of sunshine as they approached the summit. A small crowd awaited them, tourists mostly, there to sample the views afforded of the London skyline. He stopped for a moment to take in the familiar panorama, a rather awkward blend of high-rise monoliths, domes and spires.

"Let's take a picture," Alison announced, tugging excitedly at his arm, skipping in front of him. "Let's get someone to take one of us together."

"Not now darling," he said, brushing her aside, "later maybe."

"But I might not be in the mood later," she pouted "and then I won't have anything to remind me of how happy we were."

"We've got lots of pictures of us together. Won't they suffice?"

"But I want one of us now," she insisted, "not then, not at some point in the future when we can't stand the sight of each other, right this second."

She stood in front of him, assuming a starfish position to block his path.

"I don't understand why you need a photo to remember everything," he said, unimpressed by her attempts at playfulness, "isn't it enough to remember and be done with it? Won't that be fresher than some photo which has been buried in the attic for twenty years?"

"Certainly not! When I'm old and grey and have lost my looks, and maybe I won't have you, and maybe I won't even have anyone, and my memories won't be what they once were; then, I shall look back and want to remember what it felt like to be young, desirable and in love."

"Why on earth would you want to do that?" he scoffed, his irritation now getting the better of him, "that's madness. You'll just end up feeling bitter and resentful. You should count it as a blessing if your memories fade."

"Oh William," she frowned "I've no doubt I'll feel maudlin and maybe a little tearful. But I will remember, and that's the most important thing." She allowed her gaze to dip before adding: "but I don't suppose I could possibly expect you to understand."

Alison walked a little ahead now, her energy temporarily sapped, humming a tune which William couldn't make out through the background noise. An aeroplane roared overhead, trailblazing its way beyond the precipice. He looked at her familiar figure in front of him, now hunched in a rather affected show of nonchalance. A bracing wind had picked up and he could see she was shivering slightly, arms folded inside her cardigan. Ashamed at himself for having allowed his temper to show earlier, William bounded up behind her and swept her body into his arms. He clung tightly, as if seeking reassurance, before giving her a repentant peck on the cheek:

"We can take a picture if you like. I really don't mind."

"No, I don't think I really want to. I think it will feel a bit forced now, don't you?" she said, passive and distracted, "let's go and get something to eat."

NOEL EDMONDS... THE WILDERNESS YEARS

2006-03-26T15:04:00.000Z

Probably the most surreal moment in the vortex of craziness which was this year’s Celebrity Big Brother was the fleeting friendship between fellow tabloid pariahs George Galloway and Michael Barrymore. At one point the maverick MP even expressed his sincere hope that the embattled TV legend would ‘dazzle’ in the house and subsequently be restored to his rightful position as king of light entertainment. The odds on this happening seemed pretty remote at the time, and still do. But given the news this week that Noel Edmonds is once again to become the highest paid presenter on television, perhaps the prospects of a Barrymore comeback aren't as far-fetched as we might have hoped...

Since the Beeb called time on Noel’s House Party six years ago its eponymous star has shown all the classic signs of a post-career breakdown , retreating from the media spotlight except to take occasional exasperated pot-shots at the government over fringe issues such as wind farms and fox hunting. But now he's back, fronting Channel 4's pointless but infuriatingly addictive gameshow 'Deal or No Deal?' and pushing facial hair fashion back two decades...

Personally, I can't say I'm exactly enthralled by the prospect of Noel's Lazarus-style career renaissance... During his initial reign of terror in the late 80's/early 90's he was to TV what Phil Collins was to music - irksome, reactionary, ubiquitous . His brand of juvenile light entertainment might seem rather quaint and anachronistic now (Mr Blobby, Telly Addicts, gunge tanks, freak helicopter accidents) but at the time seemed to represent the worst aspects of Thatcherite lowbrow hegemony.

Anyway, the only reason I'm really bothering to mention this at all is that Noel and myself do share a tenuous connection, both being former pupils of Brentwood School in Essex. Other slightly unappetising alumni include Holocaust denier David Irving (who was actually invited back to speak!), Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Britart irritant Keith Allen and the entertainingly unhinged Jodie Marsh who, word has it, doesn't hold particularly fond memories of the place...

SINGAPORE'S INFAMOUS MERLION

2006-03-02T09:37:00.000Z

This imposing beast is the Merlion, Singapore's semi-official national symbol, a freak of nature which boasts the head of a lion and the body of a fish. As faintly ludicrous as this mythical hybrid might sound (calling to mind Napoleon Dynamite's definition of a liger: "It's pretty much my favorite animal. It's like a lion and a tiger mixed... bred for its skills in magic") the story behind its creation is mildly amusing.

Concerned by the lack of authentic nationalist mythology, the Singapore Tourism Board contrived instead to invent their own, commissioning designer Fraser Brunner to build the original Merlion statue in 1964. Tourism brochures of the time peddled some spurious yarn about the legendary Sang Nila Utama, who saw a lion while hunting on an island believed to have been Singapore.

Unfazed by the widespread derision which greeted the Merlion for its perceived artificiality, the Tourism Board persisted with the project, even enlisting unofficial poet laureate Edwin Thumboo to immortalize the Merlion in one of his poems. Employing the Merlion as a laboured allegory for Singapore's post-war economic miracle, his verse is stirring stuff indeed . Below is an abridged version of the meisterwerk:

'Ulysees by the Merlion'

I have sailed many waters,
Skirted islands of fire,
Contended with Circe
Who loved the squeal of pigs;
Passed Scylla and Charybdis
To seven years with Calypso,
Heaved in battle against the gods.

But this lion of the sea
Salt-maned, scaly, wondrous of tail,
Touched with power, insistent
On this brief promontory... Puzzles

Nothing, nothing in my days
Foreshadowed this
Half-beast, half-fish,
This powerful creature of land and sea

Perhaps having dealt in things,
Surfeited on them,
Their spirits yearn again for images,
Adding to the dragon, phoenix,
Garuda, naga those horses of the sun,
This lion of the sea,
This image of themselves.

SINGAPORE SLINGER

2006-02-28T03:00:00.000Z

The last time I went on a proper holiday the Internet hadn't even been invented yet*, which meant that alas I couldn't chronicle my globe-trotting adventures in florid,self-aggrandizing prose, or post lots of glamorous photos of me swimming with dolphins/ pensively conversing with mountain folk in Laos/ catching yet another 'transcendental' sunrise, etc...

Now that I'm abroad I really can't be arsed with it all, and have come to the conclusion that there's a time-and-place for blogging: namely, when you're at work and trying to put off doing something infinitely more tedious. Here's a picture of me in front of Singapore Harbour anyway (taken with my mobile, hence the rather awkward pose)

* This may not be strictly historically accurate.

GUILTY PLEASURES

2006-02-17T13:35:00.000Z

Ever find yourself feeling smugly self-satisfied about what unimpeachably great taste you have in music? I do. Quite a bit in fact. So it came as something of a shock last night when loading up my iPod Nano with some of my favourite songs in anticipation of my two-week holiday to discover that many of them are actually irredeemably naff, to the extent that they can’t even be passed off as a kitsch indulgence or hil-arious ironic joke. Some choice examples below:

Bright Eyes – Art Garfunkel
Goodbye – Spice Girls
Time After Time – Cyndi Lauper
Going Home (Theme from Local Hero) – Mark Knopfler
Still the One – Shania Twain
The Last Unicorn – America
At the River – Groove Armada
November Rain – Guns ‘n’ Roses
The Miss Saigon soundtrack

Your own guilty pleasures gratefully received, if only to make me feel a bit better about confessing to the above…

MOTHER'S LITTLE HELPER

2006-02-16T17:51:00.000Z

Now that Fathers 4 Justice have chosen to hang up their capes, you may have been forced to reluctantly conclude that the era of endearingly unhinged single-issue parties was drawing to a close. Not so! The latest bunch of have-a-go hero(ines) railing against the evil spectre of political correctness are Mum’s Army, a political party set up by best-selling women’s weekly Take a Break.

With plans afoot to enter 54 candidates in local council elections on a platform of zero tolerance towards anti-social behaviour, violent video games and ‘swarthy Eastern European sorts with hairy palms’, the Tunbridge Wells vote is already seemingly in the bag. Only problem is, caught up in the self-righteous fervour of it all, it seems no-one has actually bothered to check whether there’s an election taking place. See this quote from the Guardian:

“Random calls to two of the four candidates put forward for interview by Take a Break reveals that planning may have been a bit slack. One of the candidates is based in Dyfed, where there are no local elections this year.

The other is a well-intentioned widowed father of seven living in Cambridgeshire, where again, no local elections are due. One hazards a guess at how many other candidates are likely to bewilder local residents as they canvass for a non-existent local election.

Yet another example of the metropolitan elite conspiring to drown out the voice of the ordinary people of Great Britain?

MOGWAI: YOUNG TEAM GROW UP

2006-02-14T14:08:00.000Z

(Originally published in Disorder, March 2006)

Mogwai have sold out: words we thought we'd never hear applied to arguably indie's most notoriously prickly dogmatists. Easy, though; The band haven't set fire to their kappa tracksuits, abandoned their DIY rock action ethos or buried the hatchet and collaborated with Damon Albarn on a Gorillaz b-side. They've merely performed a capacity-filled five-day residency at London's illustrious ICA to promote forthcoming album 'Mr Beast', their fifth album in a career spanning over a decade.

Hard as it is to conceive of the polemical Scottish five-piece as elder statesmen of post-rock, this record sees them, if not maturing exactly, than certainly coming of age. The band’s manager Alan McGee has already been moved to describe the album as "probably the greatest art rock record that I’ve been involved in since My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Loveless‘", something Mogwai frontman Stuart Braithwaite readily dismisses as just another example of the former Creation guru's gift for hyperbole: "I think people just take everything Alan says with a pinch of salt," he smirks "I don't think anyone's going to take it that literally. I was talking to Kevin Shields about it and he just pissed himself laughing!"

Nevertheless you sense an intense pride in the way which Mogwai speak of the new album, and an eagerness to share with the public the fruits of their labour:

“It's definitely an exciting point before you're record comes out,” agrees bassist Dom Aitchison, “it's frustrating the time between finishing your record and waiting for it to come out.”

Though the album is in the shops this month, it was leaked as long ago as early December on P2P program Soulseek. Not that the band seem too begrudging of fans taking the initiative and downloading tracks unofficially:

“We always knew it was going to get leaked, but we just didn't expect it to be on the Net as quickly as it was,” says Dom “it's inevitable so we didn’t get that pissed off about it. We're definitely not like Metallica who moan about the Internet. It's a great ways of hearing new bands.”

‘Mr Beast’ was originally envisaged as a return to the ear-splitting intensity of Mogwai’s earlier material following two relatively subdued efforts (‘Rock Action and ‘Happy Songs for Happy People’ respectively). But, as Stuart explains, it was never as calculated as simply choosing to 'rock out' again:

“We’ve always enjoyed playing pretty loud live but we've been moving away from that when we've been in the studio. We were just trying to bring the two a bit closer together.

“But the writing process is pretty organic to be honest, we do have small ideas in the back of our head that we want to do and don't want to do, but it's never really that planned.”

Do you see each new album as a reaction against the last one you released?

“To start with that was certainly the case,” admits Stuart “for instance we made a big effort on ‘Come On Die Young’ to not just repeat the quiet-loud template, because we were bored silly with it. On ‘Rock Action’ we tried to do something totally different again. After that we just thought, fuck it, we'll just try and write 10 really good songs.

“Trying to second guess yourself can be pointless I think. It's hard enough to make good music.”

Certainly, tracks such as ‘Glasgow Mega-Snake’ and the epic ‘We’re No Here’ showcase the band’s love of head-crushing white noise crescendo, but the album is also defined by moments of sparse poetic beauty, not least on the sublime ‘I Chose Horses’, which features Japanese singer Tetsuya Fukagawa on guest vocals.

“He’s the singer for a Japanese band we really rate called Envy,” explains Stuart “with that song we just thought it needed something to make it a bit more interesting and we thought with his voice, a non-English vocal part would be good. It's a non-specific, quite abstract lyric which just suit’s the track perfectly.”

Mogwai’s early interviews were characterised by a snotty belligerence which earned them fleeting notoriety, especially in the wake of those infamous ‘Blur are shite’ T-shirts. Recent sharp-tongued tirades against the NME and FHM on the band’s blog suggest that the boys have lost none of their appetite for controversy, even if today finds them in more subdued mood:

“I don't think age has mellowed us at all, if anything we have even more deranged views now than we had then,” insists Stuart “but in those early interviews we were usually drunk and just came out with whatever we thought. Now we’re more cautious maybe.

"Ultimately I'd rather be known as a band that likes music rather than a band that hates music. Inviting bands we like along to support us is a whole lot more constructive than slagging off generic indie bands that people who like us probably don't like anyway.”

Dom agrees:

“There’s a danger you can come across as bitter, especially if you’ve been going for quite a long time.

“There have been a few people in bands over the years who just start yakking away, and it's almost like they can't handle the attention going to someone else. It doesn't look cool when Liam Gallagher says 'they're shite, they're shite' you know very well that it's stemmed in jealousy rather than superiority.”

Mogwai are guardedly positive about the current musical climate. Stuart even praises fellow Scots Franz Ferdinand for the impact they’ve had on the Glasgow music scene:

“We’re really pleased for them because they’ve literally gone from playing the local art scene to becoming huge superstars in a matter of months. There are similarities between what is happening now in the city and what was happening in the days of Chemikal Underground.”

Do you hear bands cropping up now who you suspect have been influenced by you?

“Quite a few, yeah. It's quite flattering. When we started we were unbelievably influenced by a lot of bands, the God Machine, Joy Division, My Bloody Valentine, etc. As long as you find your feet after a while it’s fine.”

Since their last album, Mogwai have been asked to support two of arguably their biggest influences, the Pixies and the Cure. Stuart enthuses about being given the opportunity to tour with his heroes:

“It was great, yeah. The Pixies was just a few shows, but an amazing experience. They’re one of those bands who've been going a long time and stayed good. The Cure was a proper tour, so we got to meet and spend more time with them. They’re such nice people.”

“I wasn’t really a Cure fan before I went to do the tour,” admits Dom “I didn't really know a lot of the stuff, just the cheesy pop singles. I actually really enjoyed getting to hear them and discovering they have some really brilliant songs.

“Playing with the Pixies in Paris was amazing, people were just going nuts and it's been a while since I've been to a gig like that.”

Mogwai seem as surprised as anyone that they still inspire such a fanatical following a decade on from those seminal early EPs. The not-so young team have defied the critics who labelled them one-trick-ponies, destined to enjoy fleeting acclaim before disappearing from the radar. Stuart attributes the band’s longevity to their fiercely independent spirit:

“I think when you’re constantly being told what to do it causes a lot of tension within the band because you’re forced to compromise. When something does happen and you're not happy about relationships suffer.

“It's pretty weird,” admits Dom “I never thought we'd still be doing this 10 years after we started, but it's something I've never really thought about until we started being asked about it for this record.

“Ultimately we've made an effort to not just remake the same record over and over again. I think that’s a really easy way for a band to die on its arse.”

CURMUDGEON

2006-01-09T12:06:00.000Z

From Simon Hoggart's unfailingly entertaining column in the Guardian on Saturday:

My favourite letter this year comes from quite a well-known biographer, who would probably be happy for me to print his name, but I have a strict rule about that. Anyhow, his four-page letter is monumentally, magnificently dyspeptic, from the first line: "Another spirit-crushing year. Criminally underpaid and underemployed, derided by the critics, betrayed by friends, disrespected and humiliated - the usual stuff."

He soon cheers up at a Francis Bacon exhibition.

"What a useless painter Bacon was. He had one idea - to paint people inside out ... the slaughterhouse screams are adolescent."

He is utterly unmoved by Live8 and Bob Geldof. "As regards food shortages, you try getting a fresh lemon in the Co-op on a Sunday night when all that matters is a gin and tonic. In giving my donation I will just ask for the Swiss bank accounts of the African prime ministers. This will save on postage ..." But this cheery mood soon evaporates when he goes to his son's girlfriend's 18th birthday party.

"I nearly had a heart attack when, on going up to the bar, and asking for a large red wine, the barman said: 'That'll be £4.95.' This was a new experience for me, paying for drinks at a private party ..."

CHAMPAGNE CHARLIE POPS HIS CORK

2006-01-07T11:43:00.000Z

Poor Charles Kennedy. You'd think the British electorate would have taken a piss artist to their hearts, what with their recent deification of George Best. And isn't the affable Scottish drunk one of those hackneyed national stereotypes we're meant to adore? Given the choice between that and a coke-addled posh spaz with all the political gravitas of Tim Henman, I know which way I'd turn in a time of national crisis...

Poor Graeme Souness. Another Scottish stereotype made flesh (this time the 'fierce disciplinarian'), he too could be shown the door due to an invariably losing mix of arrogance and ineptitude. This is the man who inherited the most successful team in the history of the football league and bestowed upon it the calamitous footballing triumvirate of Phill Babb, Jason McAteer and David James. Whilst manager of Southampton, he also famously brought on a player with no professional footballing experience on the dubious basis that he claimed to be George Weah's cousin.

Both men must be cursing their luck. If only they'd be handed their P45s a few weeks earlier, a place in the new series of Celebrity Big Brother would have been a dead cert. As it is, George Galloway gets to do battle with Dennis Rodman over who cops a blow job from Jodie Marsh in the Big Brother diary room. Oh, and Michael Barrymore's in there too. Better hope Preston from the Ordinary Boys doesn't meet an unfortunate end in the Jacuzzi...

YOU SAY YOU WANNA RESOLUTION...

2006-01-01T20:48:00.000Z

New Year's Resolutions...

- To read more novels
- To go to more gigs
- To abandon posturing cynicism (as distinguished from healthy cynicism of the sort which might reasonably be applied to politicians, reality TV shows and the forthcoming Nicky Wire solo album)
- To write the first Wrong Angle meisterwerk
- To drink less coffee
- To have a 'healthy' relationship with alcohol
- To stop laughing and start worrying about David Cameron
- To not slip so complacently into the cosy self-parody of disaffected Gen-Xy dilettante I have sub-consciously cultivated on this blog
- To blog at least once a week
- To do enough interesting things to justify me blogging once a week
- To not just listen to the same seven songs on my iPod Nano
- To write a follow-up to my Gary Glitter Greatest Hits musical "Another Rock 'n' Roll Christmas" in time for next Christmas
- To ignore Razorlight and hope they go away

PUNCH DRUNK LOVE

2005-12-02T12:54:00.000Z

Bit slow off the mark with this one, I know, but I couldn't let this week pass without paying my own personal tribute to the late George Best. Sadly, I was too young to marvel at the legend in his prime, but like countless others I recognise the impact this man had and the extraordinary legacy he has left us. Best was, without question, the most naturally-gifted pisshead these Isles have ever produced, and his heroic consumption of alcohol despite being hampered by serious health problems is a truly remarkable feat. Who can ever forget his iconic appearance on Wogan when, slurring his words and dribbling into his beard, he informed the nation how much he liked 'screwing' before falling off the sofa? Best was a true gentleman who would never raise a fist against a woman unless, you know, she really deserved it. His charisma and charms were multifold, and he was always at hand with a great quote or two, like 'I'll tell you when I've had enough you cunt' and 'if you scream like that once more I'll hit you even harder'...

A lot of the coverage since his death has concentrated on his football, but let's not lose sight of what made the man so special. Raise a glass to George Best, King of the alkis!

CELEBRITY ENCOUNTER #2

2005-11-17T20:15:00.000Z

And here is me with Dave Mitchell (aka Mark from Peep Show!) who I met at a preview screening of the BBC's 21st century take on 'The Taming of the Shrew'. I will stop stalking celebrities and get back to writing caustic asides on the futility of modern living soon, promise...

'IT WAS A GOOD CAR, UNTIL I GOT SHOT IN IT'

2005-11-09T21:44:00.000Z

Here is me with widely-ridiculed Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood. You will see how he is trying to initiate me in the ways of the 'hood', and how I succeed in merely looking slightly awkward. Behind us is the blinged-up Westwood team van, with an estimated £50,000 of gear installed, including swivelling, airline-style captain chairs and an impractically large sound system. It beggars belief. Once I get around to transcribing the interview, I will post some of his best quotes on here...

TROUBLED DREAMS

2005-11-09T13:32:00.000Z

By a strange coincidence, two of my favourite mordant misanthropists, Bret Easton Ellis and Michel Houellebecq, have published their new novels within a week of each other... Both authors appear to have been operating under the law of diminishing returns since their definitive novels ('Less Than Zero' and 'Atomised' respectively...) so fingers crossed they've bucked the trend. I picked up both books yesterday, anyway: Lunar Park is already giving me nightmares...

Y-CHROMOSOME DYSFUNCTION (REVISITED)

2005-11-08T10:43:00.000Z

My favourite TV comedy series Peep Show returns to our screens for its third run on Friday. The first two series were cult hits rather than massive rating-pullers, and Channel 4 initially dragged its heels about commissioning a third series. Thankfully, the huge kudos the show received from comedy stalwarts Ricky Gervais, Iain Morris, et al ensured it got another series. As the Guide points out this week: 'one day they'll all be too famous to make any more and that will be rubbish'.

Enjoyment of Peep Show is necessarily tempered by the realisation that it's a refined sort of masochism: it lays bare many of the more unsympathetic traits of the human condition, and in doing so taps into a peculiarly male cocktail of self-absorption and self-loathing. The programme's USP is that you get to hear the main two characters' internal monologues, which seems pretty canny given that both Mark and Jeremy's default position is blind solipsism. They are essentially two sides of the same coin: Jeremy the workshy deadbeat with delusions of being an edgy hipster, Mark the repressed office drone, a simmering cauldron of sexual and emotional inadequacy. Both greet the adult world with an abject terror which, perversely, feels almost heroic.

Whereas, say, Nick Hornby manages to wrap male neurosis in a sort of wholesome, blokeish package which might almost be viewed as charming, Peep Show exposes the male psyche to a harsh and unforgiving scrutiny which will have you despairing for the future of the world. Or, at the very least, yourself...

A FEW OF MY FAVOURITE PEEP SHOW LINES

Jeremy on University: "I was there in the golden years, the mid-'90s, Britpop was kicking off, Four Weddings was out, it was mental."

Jeremy to Mark: "My mate and your girl have just gone off to fuck each other. So what are we going to do now, Mark? Build a tent in the lounge and eat Dairy Lea? Is that what you want? Cos that's what's gonna happen."

Mark: "Sure, an orgy might sound great, but when you think about it you're just multiplying the number of people you won't be able to look in the eye afterwards."

Mark on his sexuality: "I'm the sort of person who would be gay, and then repress it even to myself". And later: "I'm not gay, I may be Bi, but frankly not very curious."

Mark, on buying shoes: "Maybe I'll go for brown brogues? Nah, better stick to black, don't want to go completely mental."

Mark, on seeing rival Jeff drive off with love interest Sophie: "This is the worst thing that's happened to anyone, ever."

BEST OF 2005

2005-11-03T00:22:00.000Z

A couple of reviews I wrote for Disorder magazine's end of year issue...

Gorillaz - Demon Days (Parlophone/EMI)

Ten years on from Country House, the idea of Damon Albarn still dictating the musical Zeitgeist seems faintly absurd, yet no album in 2005 announced itself with quite such overzealous imagination or radical intent as Gorillaz second opus. The secret weapon here is Danger Mouse, whose dazzling production tricks and deft hip-hop flourishes prove the perfect catalyst for Albarn's scratchy dub-pop melodies to sprout wings. Highlights? Roots Manuva and Martina Topley Bird sparring on discordant electro-racket 'All Alone'; Dennis Hopper's warped Gonzo monologue on 'Fire Coming Out of the Monkey's Head'; the way 'O Green World' simmers with menacing invention. And that barely leaves time to mention Gorillaz two bona fide summer anthems, 'Feel Good Inc' and 'DARE'. Dismiss them as a novelty band at your peril: 'Demon Days' is a sprawlingly ambitious, dizzyingly eclectic masterpiece which puts the rest of the pop fraternity to shame.

The Go! Team - Bottle Rocket (Memphis Industries)

Anyone who saw the Go! Team live this year will know that the recorded experience can never quite compare to the visceral impact of watching frontwoman Ninja in full flow, but as call-to-arms go "come on everybody let's rock this place" is right up there with the Beasties urging us to fight for our right to party. Heady, intoxicating and drenched in euphoric brass, this sublime slice of mashed-up Motown revivalism is an uncomplicated, unadulterated pop thrill. Somebody should have slipped the Mercury judges an E.

THESE GHOULISH THINGS...

2005-10-31T17:01:00.000Z

Partial as I am both to dressing up as a Goth and gratuitously terrorising the elderly, it may come as some surprise to note that I am not doing anything Halloween-related tonight. However, if anyone fancies a genuine fright I would heartily recommend a peculiar establishment called Garlic and Shots on Frith Street. It is a Swedish Metal bar which also serves food, and operates under the following maxim:

"No dishes are served without garlic. You can always order extra garlic, but never less. As you leave the restaurant you should feel like you've been garlic marinated. This is our mission from God."

What it neglects to mention is that by the end of the night you will be quite literally sweating garlic, and will have to be quarantined for a full six weeks before being deemed fit to re-enter normal society.

Also worth trying out are their range of 101 different flavoured shots... My personal favourite is Bloodshot, which comprises double Vodka, tomato, chilli, spices and (yep) garlic. Far greater men than I have capitulated under its fiery intensity, so I'm told...

THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF STEVE COOGAN

2005-10-24T18:06:00.000Z

Saw A Cock and Bull Story on Friday. It's Michael Winterbottom's take on The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, anarchic 18th Century novel beloved of the literati. Or rather, it's a film about the filming of Tristram Shandy, via some whimsical tangents and extrapolations into the private life of its star, Steve Coogan. It's a very funny film and also features the brilliant Rob Brydon, a man who, much like Chevy Chase, has a face seemingly designed to make people laugh.

Afterwards Coogan and Brydon did a Q&A, the former playing it fairly straight whilst the latter gooned around in the background (hey, straight guy/funny guy, they could be onto something there...)

In a rare moment of candour, Coogan admitted that the rather unflattering portrayal of him in the movie was pretty close to the truth, claiming that he preferred to focus on character flaws and neuroses because it made things more interesting... As an admission, it's either brave or foolish, probably a bit of both, but as the best British comedies of the last few years (Nighty Night, the Office, Peep Show) have demonstrated, human fallibility is a virtually inexhaustible source of comic material...

SUBMERGED IN KITSCH

2005-10-22T11:36:00.000Z

This weekend’s dollop of wickedly unadulterated kitsch is Congratulations, Eurovision, where the great European public get to vote on their favourite Eurovision winner from the past 50 years.

Sadly, it looks like ABBA won’t be reuniting to perform 'Waterloo' at the event, even though it's a shoe-in to walk away with the title… On the plus side, Irish entrant Johnny Logan, a man who holds the dubious distinction of having won the Contest twice, will be performing in Copenhagen, alongside Brotherhood of Man, Bucks Fizz and Dana International.

I've always had a soft spot for Logan, whose crooning 80's schmaltz could have been invented to appeal to the mawkish middle-aged eurocrats who sat on the Eurovision panel. 'Hold Me Now' was only the second single I ever bought (after 'The Final Countdown', since you're asking) and still evokes memories of Tizer-fuelled school discos...

Eurovision started to become unstuck for me once they gave the general public the vote in the 90's, thus demystifying the process and turning it into just another bland popularity contest. Democracy merely diluted its appeal, and if there was one thing ever likely to kill interest in the Contest stone dead, it was credibility...

WORLD: SHUT YOUR MOUTH

2005-10-20T22:04:00.000Z

Was delighted to discover the hitherto unknown thrills which can be had from adding a site meter to your blog. As well as being able to track how many hits your blog gets, you can also find out which sites people were referred from, and what country they come from.

Up to this point I had quite reasonably assumed that the only people who might be even vaguely interested in the inane and random ramblings of a jaded new media dilettante would be friends whose daily existence principally comprised of surfing the Net aimlessly for something, anything to detract from the tedium of their shitty and unfulfilling office jobs. Not so. Today, for instance, 9.09% of my traffic was from the Asian Continent, a statistic made only marginally less impressive once you calculate how many people that figure actually represents (you do the math). It truly is a humbling experience.

(Jesus, has it really taken only one and a half weeks of blogging to turn into one of those socially-retarded cyberfreaks who marvel at the minutiae of web data capture programs? I really need to get off-line...)

SCHADENFRAUDE

2005-10-13T16:14:00.000Z

Loved the story about Lisa Scott-Lee holding the British record-buying public to ransom with her threat to quit pop forever if her new single didn't enter the top 10... It has that winning mixture of breathtaking self-delusion and jaw-dropping hubris that only the rich and (semi)-famous can ever truly hope to attain... Sadly, it looks as if her decision to go for the nuclear option has backfired spectacularly in this instance...

It reminds me a bit of when miserly tax-exile Tories like Buster Collins, Paul Daniels and Noel Edmunds threatened to leave the country if Labour ever got into power during the 80's... a promise invariably too good to be true... Wonder if Lisa will now stay true to her word? The smart money's on her performing a low-key u-turn six months down the line...

Watch out for other great promises cloaked as threats in the near future... Tony Blair threatening to resign if the press don't stop writing nasty things about him... Guy Ritchie saying he'll refuse to make another piss-poor mockney gangster flick unless the critics stop giving him such a hard time... Pete Doherty vowing to end it all in a speedball overdose if people didn't start to take Babyshambles seriously...

BRITPOP: THE MUSICAL

2005-10-12T22:40:00.000Z

Anyone who has made even my passing acquaintance will know that I harbour more affection than is strictly right and proper for the much-maligned musical phenomena known as Britpop. Actually, when I refer to Britpop what I really mean is the halcyon era of British indie music between 1993-96, before the rot set in and the genre was comprehensively hijacked by the lumpenprole Luddite morons. The Britpop era was definitively chronicled by John Harris in his book The Last Party. However, for all his meticulous research and invaluable first-hand reccountals, in my opinion Harris clearly missed a trick: namely, the opportunity to turn the whole memorable saga into an all-singing, all-dancing musical revue...

Bear with me, the idea is not as ludicrous as it first might sound. Think about it, all the conventions of musical theatre are ticked: the belligerent factionalism (Blur and Oasis squaring up menacingly á la the Sharks and the Jets in West Side Story), the torrid love triangle (Justine Frischmann as feisty femme fatale, toying with the affections of Britpop's alpha males like Sally Bowles in Cabaret), even an iconic-but-misunderstood martyr figure finally coming good after a largely misspent twenties (Jarvis Cocker Superstar anyone?)

I plan to make amends for Harris' glaring oversight by writing a vaudeville-influenced high farce based around the epoch, but am desperately scrambling for a winning title... Any ideas? A pun would be good, but failing that a suitably obscure lyric will suffice. Best suggestion wins a These Animal Men 'Speed King' skinny-fit tee...

On a related note, one of my favourite anecdotes from Stuart Maconie's Blur biog 3862 days: Graham Coxon's first encounter with a young Damon Albarn was watching him perform a gleefully exuberant 'Gee, Officer Krupke' in a school production of West Side Story. Don't know why, but this image never fails to make me smile...

Ten Great Moments in British Pop, 1993-96
1) Trouble in the Message Centre - Blur
2) Stutter - Elastica
3) Sofa of My Lethargy - Supergrass
4) Pink Glove - Pulp
5) Lenny Valentino - The Auteurs
6) Like A Motorway - Saint Etienne
7) Wishing I Was Skinny - The Boo Radleys
8) Insomniac - Echobelly
9) Metal Mickey - Suede
10) Come Out 2Nite - Kenickie

OPENING SET-PIECE

2005-10-10T20:35:00.000Z

My previous band Grand Delinquents played our final gig on Friday night... I don't want to bore you with the details of how and why we split, and I suspect I'm probably not the best person to offer an impartial account of developments, but it did feel sort of like an end of an era. Comparisons to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire will doubtless sound slightly far-fetched, but in at least two areas there are noticeable similarities:

a) A lack of strong moral leadership and purpose
b) Final days marked by a descent into anarchy, corruption and chaos

So, I guess I'm Nero fiddling whilst indie burns (OK history pedants, it says here that Nero actually presided over the Roman Empire a good four centuries before its actual fall, but for the sake of a rather labored analogy can we let this one go?) but what could be more cathartic than a blog explicitly drawing out the battle lines for a future assault on the musical Zeitgeist? It was this or the Daily Telegraph's Ultimate Sudoku Challenge, and I've never added up to much with numbers...

Let me tell you a bit about Wrong Angle... The idea for an insurrectionist synth-pop collaborative with no settled line-up, and operating beyond the conventional boundaries of popular taste was first mooted back in the carefree spring of 2000 (and few springs managed carefree quite as effortlessly as that of 2000) Like most great ideas, and some pretty turgid ones too, it was mocked relentlessly, with all manner of charges, from 'pretentious guff' to 'unworkable pipedream of a deluded demagogue', leveled against it during its long and strained gestation... With the benefit of hindsight these criticisms now sound laughably accurate, and I hope, time allowing, to do justice to them all...

Wrong Angle believe that good taste is anathema to the soul, scholarship is the enemy of romance and epic folly is preferable to reasoned deliberation... let battle be joined...