World of Pop Meanderings...

Nick McCabe: A tribute in principles

2009-06-07T05:43:00.004-05:00

Finding much of anything on Nick in the internet age is difficult, so I feel blessed to have found anything at all these last years. The importance of Nick McCabe cannot be understated. Where he is at now in life is hard to say, but back then he had principles that are unique and should play a influential role. His criticisms of the Verve's own music, in others' music, and his adherence to his principles are what make Nick McCabe, well, Nick McCabe. With the abundance of say the unoriginal sequel craze sweeping Hollywood productions, I can say for at least a brief moment that it has been wholly satisfying to hear McCabe's comments. I see a kindred soul who just wants to live a merry life of drink and good times. At the same time without his grounded principles A Storm In Heaven never could have been created. So this is to honor him, because frankly I don't think Nick would himself accept his importance.

The quotes themselves below are the one's I feel are key. They should speak for themselves. However, I might add some thought to give it a little more context.

McCabe Interview, Part 1

-- No, I don't even like guitars! I like synthesizers. I got my first one when I was fourteen and I liked it..then I picked up a guitar. I tried to do it my own style, just wanting to make the guitar sound more like a synthesizer.

This is an excellent one because the entire idea behind the Verve sound could have never been created with traditional guitars. OK, obvious. But one of the unique things about Nick's talent was his ability to create volumes of sound with his effects without ever really picking up the tempo of the guitar chords.

-- Urban Hymns was filled with ballads and I'm not into ballads.

This one might seem strange to some since everyone loves ballads. They've existed forever. Yet McCabe doesn't like them. That is a GOOD thing. Just to hear someone say that is refreshing. It means something new might be achieved. Songs like Where the Geese Go, although technically still a "ballad", is unique amongst the genre of ballads.

-- The key to music is create like a child and edit like a scientist. I've been liveing my life to that! You have your fun and then you apply hindsight to it.

Speaks for itself.

-- I never really liked strings in your song to make it sound posh. I don't like posh records. I like what strings do, but I don't like what they say. You know, "We got strings now, we're big".

He's right on the money. It's what I loathe about classical music and the general class status it receives.

-- Yeah, the albums just missed...We took a left turn somewhere.

Again, I agree. What the "somewhere" is is that the Verve sound was overly musaic, I think that's the term. Where many of the Verve songs kind of are sluggish or have a feeling of standing still. I say this with hesitation though as to not overlook an important point: No matter what flaws ASIH has (it is IMO one of the worst pieces of engineering), there's no experience quite like the 'beauty & power' balance on that album. Or the cathartic relationship between Richard and Nick captured on ANS. (I liked how one review described the turbulent relationship between Liam & Noel Gallagher as 'trivial' compared to the scope of ANS.)

-- You know that sound on Stormy Clouds - the sort of whiny high-pitched stuff? I only found out a little while ago that that's an Eventide harmonizer. Problem is that it's an Eventide cliche. Like, fuck that!

Funny stuff. After Drive You Home, ANS does take a detour for the worse IMO. I think Stormy Clouds is probably the best amongst those later tracks (though inferior to the early tracks due to its musaicness). I like the Reprise fairly well too, but the other two really hurt the album, No Knock On My Door is one of them.

-- It got to the point to where he would come out and start fiddling with my amp. I'd wait for him to turn his back and then I'd put it back.

This is his funniest quote. It's about producer John Leckie during the recording of ASIH. And I think Nick's right: His guitars seem to sound right for the most part. They don't seem to be too high or too low, if that's what I think he's going by. I don't really understand amps, and I'm not a gambling man on this one. I'll take the sound as it is and be thankful Nick changed them back.

-- The Roses is just a brilliant band anyways so you can't really go wrong with them, except that one chorus where everything is bullshit.

There's kind of this aura amongst Roses fans that seems the band can do no wrong, so it's kinda nice to hear Nick criticise them if just to get some personal satisfaction on my part. I think he's talking about the s/t album, but I'm not sure. The addition of Fool's Gold on the American version was a mistake as it's one of the most repetitive dance tracks. I Am the Resurrection doesn't really get going till the halway point, so it's 'half-classic'. The thing that's always bothered me about the s/t is that the really great songs are so great that it leaves the album feeling a little uneven compared to the other songs even though nearly all of those are in the excellent range.

-- It turned out to be a good record. What were we, twenty? I was twenty; I'm the oldest. It could've been better, and I knew that at the time.

This is his comment on ASIH, and it's an important one because some fans of the album tend to think it's perfect in every way when in reality it's the best thing available currently produced by human.

McCabe Interview, Part 2

-- There are a lot of shit records and a few diamonds and it was a quest for that perfect record. I still do it occasionally; one day I'm going to find a perfect record. When I start writing I'd like to make something that I would buy, otherwise the records wouldn't be mine.

-- Basically, the jamming thing at the end of Come On, it's like [Richard] would go, "Right boys, lets jam!" You know what I mean? It got so corny. It's like, "Fuckin' hell, Sobbo we've done it, we can't go any further - give it a fuckin' rest." So I always ended up doing nonsense, just making it as evil and horrid as I possibly could, because that was the only thing that was going to satisfy me. It's pretty easy to get a big section of me doing all sorts of nonsense, slapping my strings and all kinds of stuff.

Is it really fair to blame Richard for everything at this point? The Verve never should have went "singer/songwriter" on us starting with ANS. I guess it was inevitable, but the more ethereal aspects should have remained dominant. On Forth...well at least they did give us Valium Skies, possibly their most emotionally satisfying ballad/ode.

-- I was reading this Brian Eno book - I'm a big Eno fan - he did this diary for a year and on the opening page he's talking about life with his wife. The opening line is, "I have a wonderful life." And I always thought Eno was clear - like, he did his pop star bit, realized it was bullshit and basically he's doing what I'd like to do. Play a little bit on a soundtrack, do some production, play every now and then, put your own album out every now and then. It's just sort of keeping it fresh and diverse. And he goes on holiday in Egypt and plays with Egyptian musicians, and it's like, that is the life. Now if you look at Brian Ferry, it's the complete opposite - he's fucked. He's just got to realize that his situation is bullshit.

I came back to the band with such a fuckin' clear head and such a better attitude about it after reading this book. The benefits of having a big record are that than you have the cards. The reason for getting into a band in the first place is because you wnat to create your own univers and your own life by your terms. Generally what happens is the opposite. All your good intentions...you just let people advise you badly.

So I came back to the band and stopped moaning all the time. I had a laugh when we toured, but a lot of it was fuck-all. I just said, "I'm not touring - we got a big record, sold six million records, we'll tour when we want to." We always to put on special shows as well. Something really special, you go, "Fuckin' hell, I've had a really good night out!" But we started getting shit for the tour and we'd be like, "We're not ready yet." But they wanted to time it when the singles were coming out. I'm saying we don't need to do that - let's just make it enjoyable for ourselves. Instead, we'd just been bullied into running the treadmill shit.

I find it now that what happens in a day is my prerogative. I decide what happens in a day. And that's one of the most depressing things about before - I'd ring someone up and say, "What are we doing today?" What am I doing with my life today?"

-- But for that show, Richard's going on - "Oh, John Martin, you won't get it." And he's right. By the time I got my parts in there it's not really a music fan's record. It just sits nicely next to the Oasis record.

-- [Urban Hymns] was just a safe bet for people. I'm not going to say it was bad. I mean, we were good as far as pop goes. But it's pop music.

I've never understood UH fans who claim this is the Verve's best record. It's a pop record with clear intentions. I wonder if these people have ever heard pre-1997 Verve. Kind of insulting in a way if you ask me.

-- because I know what I'm doing is better then anything I did with the Verve.

Contrast that with say Noel Gallagher, and he believes he can never do better than Definitely Maybe. It kinda explains why Oasis haven't put out a solid album in over a decade, and certainly at minimum seem to be taking their time about getting it together, if they ever will...

-- AS: A lot of people want to know why you don't jump around.

McCabe: Jump around?

AS: Yeah, like Pete Townsend.

McCabe: I remember someone screaming at me, "DANCE!" I mean, it's like, what the...?

AS: You should've handed the guitar over. I mean, let's see them jump around and do Stormy Clouds.

McCabe: Most bands that dance around do it because it looks good. They don't do it because they feel like it. Pete Townsend was being injected with speed before doing it. Or Ned's Atomic Dustbin or something.

AS: Ned's Atomic Dustbin has a lot of energy on stage.

McCabe: I dunno...I feel comfortable standing there. I don't see what the big deal is. I remember seeing Billy Corgan when we were both on tour. We were in Oslo and it was the first night of the tour and he must have been having a dilemma about the stage craft or something.... He's doing that "guitar-face" [makes wacky face]...we were right up close and his face was sort of crazy-looking. About halfway through the night, everybody was leering at him anyway because he's a wanker. I never saw him do his guitar face after that.

An Appreciation of Nick McCabe

-- 'It's all about sound,' he continued. 'I think guitar players who strive for technical excellence have lost the plot really. The whole point of the electric guitar started when Charlie Christian plugged his guitar into an amplifier to make it sound like a saxophone or whatever and if I can press some button in the studio to make my guitar come up with a new sound then what's so bad about that? It's like the whole idea that techno isn't "proper" music 'cos they can't play instruments is so short-sighted. That's surely where new music comes from.'

-- 'Listen to (The Stone Roses') John Squire on The Second Coming and you can almost hear the taste barriers go up. He's become too obsessed with this idea of what a good guitar player should sound like. He's lost the plot really, hasn't he?'

film score ratings

2008-07-28T20:36:00.015-05:00

This page was created to give an average score of four film score review sites (usually between 2-4 depending upon if enough can be found). I use Film Tracks, Soundtrack Express, Movie Music UK, Music from the Movies, Movie Wave, SoundtrackNet, Score Reviews, Film Music on the Web (UK), Film Score Magic, Music On Film, Tracksounds, and if all else fails, Amazon. The system isn't meant to be perfect, nor possible for obvious reasons, but if something of a consensus is what you need then hopefully this will help.

(Out of 5)

Anne Dudley
American History X (1998) - 4.125
A Different Light (2001) - 4.75
Black Book (2007) - 3.83
The Full Monty (1997) - 3
Gentlemen Don't Eat Poets (1997) - 3
Hollow Reed (1997) - 2.5 (one review)
Kavanaugh QC: Original Music From The ITV Series (1997) - N/A
Knight Moves (1993) - 2.5
Monkeybone (2001) - 3.5
Pushing Tin (1999) - 3
The 10th Kingdom (2000) - 3.5
Tristan & Isolde (2006) - 3.375

(Albums of hers like Ancient And Modern and Songs From The Victorious City are considered two of her best but are not really "film scores.")

Lisa Gerrard
Ali (2001) - 3.16
Ali [Original Soundtrack II] (2002) - 3.16
Best Of Lisa Gerrard (2007) - 4.5
Gladiator (2000) - 4
Gladiator: More Music From The Motion Picture (2001) - 3.25
The Insider (1999) - 3.375
Salem's Lot (2004) - 4.5
A Thousand Roads (2005) - 3.5
Whale Rider (2003) - 3.375

Jerry Goldsmith
Ace Eli And Rodger Of The Skies/Room 222 - 4.5
Alien - 5
Alien Nation - 2.66
Along Came A Spider - 2.5
Amazing Stories, Vol. 2--Boo! - N/A
Angie - 3.375
Air Force One - 3.5
Baby: Secret Of The Lost Legend - 3 (one review)
Bad Girls - 3.125
The Ballad Of Cable Hogue - 3
Bandolero! - 3.75
Basic Instinct - 4.25
The Blue Max - 4.25
Boys from Brazil - 5 (one review)
Breakout - 3
Breakheart Pass - 3.33
The Burbs - 4.125
Cabo Blanco - 3
Capricorn One - 4.75
The Cassandra Crossing - 3.5
Chain Reaction - 2.875
The Challenge - 3.625
The Chairman - 3.5
Chinatown - 4.625
Christus Apollo (concert work) - 4
City Hall - 3.625
City Of Fear/General With The Cockeyed ID - N/A
Coma - 4.33
Congo - 2.625
Criminal Law - 1.25
Dennis The Mennace - 3
Contract On Cherry Street - 3.625
Damien: Omen II - 4
Deep Rising - 2.625
Disney's California Adventure--Soarin - N/A
The Edge - 3.75
Escape From The Planet Of The Apes - 4.5 (one review)
Escape From The Planet Of The Apes/The Mephisto Waltz - N/A
Executive Decision - 2.375
Explorers - 4
Extreme Prejudice - 3.875
Fierce Creatures - 2.75
Film Music By Jerry Goldsmith - 4.5 (one review)
The Film Music Of Jerry Goldsmith - 4.125
The Final Conflict - 4.75
First Blood - 4
First Knight - 4.25
The Flim Flam Man/A Girl Name Sooner - 4.125
Forever Young - 3.375
Freud - N/A
Frontiers (compilation) - 4.25
The Ghose And The Darkness - 3.875
The Great Train Robbery - 4.375
Gremlins - 4
Gremlins 2: The New Batch - 3.375
Goldsmith Conducts Goldsmith - 4.25
The Haunting - 4
Hawkins On Murder/Winter Kill/Babe - 2.75
Hollow Man - 2.75
Hoosiers (aka Best Shot) - 4.5
Hour of the Gun - 4.5
The Illustrated Man - 4.375
Inchon - 3.5
In Harm's Way - 3.5 (one review)
In Like Flint/Our Man Flint - 3
Innerspace - 3.125
Island In The Stream - 4.5
Jericho/The Ghostbreaker - 3.5
Jerry's Recall - N/A
Jerry Goldsmith: The Early Years, Volume One - N/A
Jerry Goldsmith Suites - N/A
The Jerry Goldsmith SPFM Tribute - 5 (one review)
Jerry Goldsmith: Suites And Themes - 5 (one review)
Jerry Goldsmith At 20th Century Fox - 4 (one review)
Jerry Goldsmith: 40 Years Of Film Music - 4.166
Justine - 4 (one review)
King Solomon's Mines - 3.875
LA Confidential - 3.5
The Last Castle - 2.5
The Last Run/Cross Current (aka The Cable Car Murders) - N/A
The Last Run/The Wild Rovers - 4.5 (one review)
Legend - 4.75
Leviathan - 3
Lilies Of The Field - 4.5
Link - 2.75
Lionheart - N/A
List Of Adrian Messenger/The Challenge - 4 (one review)
Logan's Run - 4.375
Logan's Run/Coma - 4.166
Lonely Are The Brave - 4 (one review)
Lonely Guy - N/A
Looney Tunes: Back In Action - 3.875
Love Field - 3.375
MacArthur - 3.5
Magic - 3.75
Malice - 2.5
The Man From UNCLE, Vol. 1 - 4.5
The Man From UNCLE, Vol. 2 - 3.5
Masada - 4.75
Matinee - 3.125
Medicine Man - 4
Mephisto Waltz And The Other - 3.5
Mom And Dad Save The World - 3.125
Morituri - 2.5 (one review)
Morituri/Raid On Entebbe - 3.25
Mr. Baseball - 3.25
Mulan - 3.75
The Mummy - 3.75
The Music Of Jerry Goldsmith - N/A
Night Crossing - 4.5
Not Without My Daughter - 2
The Omen - 4.875
The Omen: The Essential Jerry Goldsmith Collection - 4.125
100 Rifles - 4
Outland - 3 (one review)
Outland/Capricorn One - 4
Papillon - 4.625
A Patch Of Blue - 4.5
Patton - 4.25
Patton/Flight Of The Phoenix - 4.166
Patton/Tora! Tora! Tora! - 4.125
The Prize - 3.5
Planet Of The Apes - 4.75
Planet Of The Apes (Expanded)/Escape From Planet Of The Apes - 3.75
Police Story - 3
Police Story/Medical Story - N/A
Poltergeist - 4.5
Poltergeist II: The Other Side - 3.75
Powder - 4
Psycho II - 3.375
QBVII - 4.25
The Red Pony - 4.5 (one review)
Raggedy Man (Limited) - 3
Rambo First Blood Part II - 4
Rambo III - 4
Ransom/The Chairman - 4.25
The Reincarnation Of Peter Proud - 2 (one review)
Rent-A-Cop - 3 (one review)
Rio Conchos - 3.75
Rio Conchos/The Agony And The Ecstasy Prologue - N/A
Rio Lobo - 4.25
The River Wild - 3
Rudy - 4.125
Runaway - 3
The Russia House - 3.875
The Sand Pebbles - 4.125
The Satan Bug - 4 (one review)
Sebastian - N/A
The Secret of Nimh - 4.125
The Shadow - 2.875
Six Degrees Of Seperation - 2.5
Sleeping With The Enemy - 2
Small Soldiers - 3.5
The Spiral Road - N/A
Stagecoach And The Loner - 4.166
Star Trek The Motion Picture - 5
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier - 4
Star Trek First Contact - 2.875
Star Trek Insurrection - 3.75
Star Trek Nemesis - 2.875
Star Trek Voyager - 3 (one review)
The Stripper/Nick Quarry - 3.5
The Sum Of All Fears - 3.75
Supergirl - 4.25
Studs Lonigan - 4
The Swarm - 4
Take A Hard Ride - 4
13th Warrior - 3.75
Timeline (Rejected) - 3.875
A Tribute To Jerry Goldsmith - N/A
Tora! Tora! Tora! - 4.125
Total Recall - 4.5
The Traveling Executioner - 3.25
The Trouble With Anges/Stagecoach - N/A
Twilight's Last Gleaming - 2.5
Twilight Zone: 40th Anniversary Collection - 4 (one review)
Twilight Zone The Movie - 4.625
Twilight Zone TV Series (Box Set) - N/A
Two Days In The Valley - N/A
Under Fire - 5
U.S. Marshals - 2.875
The Vanishing - 3.625
Von Ryan's Express/Our Man Flint/In Like Flint - N/A
Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea - Jonah And The Whale - 2.5 (one review)
Warlock - 2.125
The Wild Rovers - 4.125
The Wild Rovers/The Last Run - 4.5
The Wind And The Lion - 4.75

James Horner
Aliens (Deluxe) - 4.125
All the King's Men - 4
An American Tail - 4
An American Tail Part 2: Fievel Goes West - 3.125
Apollo 13 - 4.75
Balto - 4.25
*batteries not included - 3.375
Battle Beyond the Stars - 4
A Beautiful Mind - 3.75
Bicentennial Man - 3.25
Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius - 3
Brainstorm - 4
Braveheart - 4.75
Casper - 3.625
Clear and Present Danger - 2.75
Cocoon - 4.375
Cocoon: The Return - 3.375
Commando (Limited) - 2.75
Courage Under Fire - 2.875
Deep Impact - 3.125
Enemy at the Gates - 3
The Devil's Own - 3.375
Field of Dreams - 3.75
The Forgotten - 1.625
The Four Feathers - 3.5
Glory - 4.5
The Grinch - 3.166
House of Sand and Fog - 3.125
Humanoids from the Deep - 3
Jumanji - 2
Krull - 4.75
The Land Before Time - 4.375
The Legend of Zorro - 4.25
Legends of the Fall - 4.875
The Mask of Zorro - 4.75
Mighty Joe Young - 3.25
The Missing - 4.25
The New World - 4
Once Upon a Forest - 2.75
The Pagemaster - 4
Patriot Games - 2
The Perfect Storm - 3.75
Red Heat - 2.25
The Rocketeer - 4.25
Searching for Bobby Fischer - 3.875
Sneakers - 3.75
The Spitfire Grill - 4.75
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn - 4.75
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock - 3.75
Titanic - 4.25
Titanic-The Essential James Horner - 3.25
Troy - 3.75
We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story - 3.5
Willow - 4.125
Windtalkers - 2.5

Laura Karpman
The Living Edens (2001) - 4.5
A Promise To Carolyn (1996) - 3 (one review)
Taken (TV, 2002) - 4.25
A Woman Of Independent Means (1995) - 4 (one review)

Rachel Portman
Addicted To Love (1997) - 4
The Adventures Of Pinocchio (1996) - 3.75
Beloved (1998) - 2.625
Benny And Joon (1993) - 2.875
Chocolat (2000) - 3.375
The Cider House Rules (1999) - 4.125
The Closer You Get (2000) - 3
Emma (1996) - 3.375
Hart's War (2002) - 3.375
The Human Stain (2003) - 3.625
Infamous (2006) - 3.66
The Joy Luck Club (1993) - 3.625
The Lake House (2006) - 3.625
The Legend Of Baggar Vance (2000) - 4.25
The Manchurian Candidate (2004) - 2.75
Marvin's Room (1996) - 3.5
Miss Potter (2007) - 3.5 (one review)
Mona Lisa Smile (2003) - 3 (one review)
Nicholas Nickelby (2003) - 3.125
Oliver Twist (2005) - 3.75
Only You (1994) - 3.75
A Pyromaniac's Love Story (1995) - 3.5
The Road To Wellville (1994) - 2.875
Sirens (1994) - 3.5
The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants (2008) - 3
Soundtracks: Rachel Portman (2001) - 4.75
Used People (1992) - 3.125
War Of The Buttons (1994) - 3.75
Where Angels Fear To Tread (1991) - 3.5

defining period

2008-07-25T08:35:00.003-05:00

The Beatles
Past Masters, Vol. 2
(Capitol, 1988)
Styles: Pop/Rock, Experimental, Psychedelic, Traditional Rock
Themes: moving forward, studied, organic, cultured, mystical
A-

What seperates this from the previous compilation is that the songs are closer to the originals (and are generally superior). The one exception is Across the Universe, which is known as the 'Wildlife' version and is still one of the most affecting songs with its charmingly youthful backing vocals. The indieish Paperback Writer with those soothing three-part harmonies, and the urgency of We Can Work It Out make up the best from 1965-66. The slowed-down Rain with Ringo's prominent drumming (he was considered one of the best drummers of his time) keeps the compilation from feeling like a complete exercise in commerce. Harrison's worldy, Indian-influenced The Inner Light is also present. And You Know My Name (Look Up the Number) is one of the more interesting oddballs that became a B-side. It's as if it were the soundtrack to Monty Python. (Stones' Brian Jones play sax on it.)

In the end I'm not really sure this is a necessary compilation. If you already have the singles -- than you don't. If you don't -- than maybe you do.

Album title re-working: Blue Album II

1. Day Tripper (Lennon, McCartney) 2:49
2. We Can Work It Out (Lennon, McCartney) 2:15
3. Paperback Writer (Lennon, McCartney) 2:18
4. Rain (Lennon, McCartney) 3:02
5. Lady Madonna (Lennon, McCartney) 2:17
6. The Inner Light (Harrison) 2:36
7. Hey Jude (Lennon, McCartney) 7:08
8. Revolution (Lennon, McCartney) 3:24
9. Get Back (Lennon, McCartney) 3:14
10. Don't Let Me Down (Lennon, McCartney) 3:34
11. The Ballad of John and Yoko (Lennon, McCartney) 3:00
12. Old Brown Shoe (Harrison) 3:18
13. Across the Universe [Wildlife version] (Lennon, McCartney) 3:49
14. Let It Be (Lennon, McCartney) 3:50
15. You Know My Name (Look Up the Number) (Lennon, McCartney) 4:19

second offering

2008-07-23T14:37:00.003-05:00

The Beatles
Past Masters, Vol. 1
(Capitol, 1988)
Styles: Pop/Rock, Rockabilly
Themes: energetic, contemplative, youthful innocence
B

Like the title suggests, this collection gathers the Beatles' recording from 1963-65. Several of the songs are different recordings from the originals, and I Want to Hold Your Hand and She Loves You are German cuts as well. Some of the covers the band attempts are not that gripping, but McCartney's rollicking version of Long Tall Sally was an indication of what he maybe could've ventured to do more of compared to his melodic ballads. (His I'm Down is another up-tempo stunner.) After the mainstays, Lennon's best contributions are the endearing sway of I'll Get You and the sentimental pondering of Yes It Is. Ringo even leads on Matchbox, a Carl Perkins song which is something of an oddity with a Jerry Lee Lewis-like influence.

Overall the recordings are a little more organic as opposed to some of the more polished originals. It gives a slight hint to the essentialness of George Martin as The Fifth Beatle, which is highlighted ever greater on the Anthology releases.

In the end I have to admit some of the Fab Four's early material sounds a little trite around the edges. Some of them have a churned-out, conveyor beltish feel to its productions. However, the compilation is a consistent enough of a listen.

(Only the B-sides and less obvious highlighted.)

1. Love Me Do (Lennon, McCartney) 2:23
2. From Me to You (Lennon, McCartney) 1:57
3. Thank You Girl (Lennon, McCartney) 2:04
4. She Loves You (Lennon, McCartney) 2:21
5. I'll Get You (Lennon, McCartney) 2:05
6. I Want to Hold Your Hand (Lennon, McCartney) 2:26
7. This Boy (Lennon, McCartney) 2:16
8. Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand (Lennon, McCartney) 2:26
9. Sie Liebt Dich (Lennon, McCartney) 2:19
10. Long Tall Sally (Blackwell, Johnson, Little Richard) 2:03
11. I Call Your Name (Lennon, McCartney) 2:09 Woof!
12. Slow Down (Williams) 2:56
13. Matchbox (Perkins) 1:58
14. I Feel Fine (Lennon, McCartney) 2:19
15. She's a Woman (Lennon, McCartney) 3:03
16. Bad Boy (Williams) 2:20
17. Yes It Is (Lennon, McCartney) 2:42
18. I'm Down (Lennon, McCartney) 2:31

Music reviews

2008-07-23T11:54:00.005-05:00

The Beatles
Past Masters, Vol. 1 B
Past Masters, Vol. 2 A-

INXS
Greatest Hits B+

The Moody Blues
The Present C-

Oasis
Be Here Now D+

half-awake

2008-07-23T11:19:00.006-05:00

The Moody Blues
The Present
(Polydor, 1983)
Styles: Pop/Rock, Art Rock
Themes: awakenings, poetic, atmospheric
C-

A rather uninvolved collection including the dated, radio-ready Sitting at the Wheel. What saves this album from total immolation is the fragile sentiments behind the songs. But it's too insular, and only for the hardcore fan.

Album title re-working: Am I Awake or Dreaming?

1. Blue World 5:19 ugh!
2. Meet Me Halfway 4:08 ugh!
3. Sitting at the Wheel 5:40 ugh!
4. Going Nowhere 5:33
5. Hole in the World 1:54
6. Under My Feet 4:51
7. It's Cold Outside of Your Heart 4:27
8. Running Water 3:23
9. I Am 1:40
10. Sorry 5:02

Letters from Iwo Jima

2007-10-22T23:19:00.001-05:00

(Warner Bros., 2006)
Director: Clint Eastwood
Screenplay: Iris Yamashita
Cast: Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Shido Nakamura, Tsuyoshi Ihara

I really don't know who to be disappointed in more for Letters' rather putrid telling of Japanese soldiers defending territory from an American invasion. Clint Eastwood's POV never really goes beyond the underground trenches the Japanese soldiers defend/fall back on. The Japanese military is a proud one, but the camera lens never really transcends beyond its insularity. Letters breaths of historical value, but it becomes too self-important in its presentation to really care about their fates. I'm not sure if that's director Clint Eastwood's fault, or screenwriter Iris Yamashita's because her script never goes beyond Act 1? I kept waiting for some shift in tempo and/or storyline. Every time a battle broke out, or when General Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) made his first appearance, I hoped for something that would lift the story out from its gloominess. Unfortunately the cinmentography's garish color was its metaphor. D

What makes Halloween tick

2007-10-21T14:13:00.000-05:00

I think what makes a horror movie work best is when the suspension of belief is injected into the storyline. When a psychopathic killer or other form of evil presence is present, it adds a level of frustration and/or anxiety that is quite necessary to the building of the plots drama. Many horror movies do a commendable job, but here I will highlight John Carpenter's Halloween as being one of the better examples because it instills those qualities on a number of different levels. For the most part it boils down to Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance), and the opposing characters who lose their lives due to their own failure to recognise their instincts. An audience that invests quite a bit of their emotions over the frustration of the characters' ignorance, is a successful storyline. Some of these characters' fates were unavoidable , but in the end I believe John Carpenter and Debra Hill's screenplay does an exceptional job of tapping into this sort of doomed fate.

The scene that really introduces it for me (and to the audience) in the form of "The Shape" (Nick Castle, the best Michael Myers) is the nighttime car drive to the detention center during the opening. Donald Pleasance really has some of the best lines:

Dr. Loomis: Just try to understand what we're dealing with here. Don't underestimate him.
Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens): Don't you think we could refer to "it" as him?
Dr. Loomis: If you say so.
Marion Chambers: Your passion is overwhelming, doctor.
Marion Chambers: What do I give him when we take him in front of the judge?
Dr. Loomis: Thorazine.
Marion Chambers: He'll barely be able to sit up!
Dr. Loomis: That's the idea.
Marion Chambers: You're serious about that, aren't you?
Dr. Loomis: Yep.
Marion Chambers: You mean you actually never want him to get out?
Dr. Loomis: No, never, ever... never.
Marion Chambers: Then why are we taking him up to Hardin County if you're just gonna...
Dr. Loomis: Because that is the law.

Another dynamite scene that supplants the level of ineptitude of the mental health/security institution:

Dr. Wynn (Robert Phalen): [walking out of building] I'm not responsible, Sam.
Dr. Loomis: Oh, no...
Dr. Wynn: I told them how dangerous he was.
Dr. Loomis: Two roadblocks and an all points bulletin wouldn't stop a five year old.
Dr. Wynn: Well he was your patient, doctor. Precautions weren't strong enough. You should have told somebody.
Dr. Loomis: I TOLD EVERYBODY!!! Nobody listened.
Dr. Wynn: There's nothing else I can do.
Dr. Loomis: You can get back in there and get back on that telephone and tell them exactly who walked out of here last night and tell them where he's going!
Dr. Wynn: Probably going.
Dr. Loomis: I'm wasting my time.
Dr. Wynn: Sam, Haddonfield is 150 miles away from here! Now, now, for god sakes, he can't drive a car!
Dr. Loomis: [opens car door] He was doing very well last night! Maybe someone around here gave him lessons. [closes car door]

Then the phone call to the police:

Dr. Loomis: [at a phone booth] He's on his way. You've got to believe me, Officer, he is coming to Haddonfield... Because I know him - I'm his doctor! You must be ready for him... If you don't, it's your funeral!

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is given several superb hints that someone is following her. The Shape is watching her at school from across the street. Then the car drives by as Laurie and her friends walk home from school. [Linda (PJ Soles): Hey, isn't that Divone Graham? Laurie: I don't think so.] Or peeping out from behind the bush. [Laurie: He was standing right there. Annie (Nancy Loomis): I think you're wacko. Now you're seeing men from behind the bushes.]

Debra Hill talked about how the neighborhood locations brought a depth to the screen because of the branchy tree cover. I tend to think rural people feel safe in the country because no one is around. Well here on the streets of Haddonfield (though still a smaller town) a resident can feel the same sense of safety during daylight hours and the general comfort of knowing boogeymen don't jump on their victims in open public. But what the camera depth gives, coupled with Carpenter's ominous and repetitive score, is the feeling that Laurie Strode is alone, disbelief being the inner demon to her insecurity since no one believes her. Later she even refuses to believe it shorty before returning to her house: "Well, kiddo. I thought you outgrew superstition." Her babysitting job at the Doyle's even tells her to not trust her instincts because Halloween is only make believe. [Little Tommy (Brian Andrews): Laurie, what about the boogeyman? Laurie: There's no such thing.]

There's on final scene that I thought was a great touch because it brings out a helpless feeling in Laurie. It's when she goes over to the dark house across the street to where Annie babysitted. After being attacked by Michael Myers, she escapes and runs to the neighbors screaming "HELP!" while pounding on the door. The neighbor opens the curtain, closes it, and turns the outside lights off. That was another nice touch from a screenplay that exhibits some masterful suspense. I hope you enjoyed these memories from this horror classic.

Song reviews: The Verve

2007-05-16T14:40:00.000-05:00

(Updated 9-26-07)

Currently: Velvet Morning, Neon Wilderness, I See the Door, No Come Down, Where the Geese Go, 6 O'Clock, One Way To Go, Twilight, Star Sail, MSG

The Verve
Velvet Morning
(on Urban Hymns, Virgin, 1997)
Grade: A

Track-By-Track with Richard Ashcroft
"I know the Lee Hazelwood song - 'some velvet morning when I'm straight' - and I just thought it was a bit funny. Obviously, the character in this song is far from that, and I think it's touching on those moments at seven or eight in the morning when you've gone from thinking you've solved the fucking world's problems to feeling like shit and walking out for a pint of milk. It's that fucking black-and-white sometimes! "It was another great night with the orchestra, and that loudhailer I'm singing through I just bought from a car boot sale the week before recording it. I just did it on the spot, but if you speed it up it sounds like a classic country hit!"

The Making of Urban Hymns
Velvet Morning
We had done several takes of it, none of which were quite right. It wasn't boredom but Rich wanted to try something for one of the takes, just to see what it sounded like. We ended up gaffer-taping a megaphone to the microphone. He sat down, played his acoustic guitar and sang into the megaphone. He only did it once but that one ended up being not only the take of the band but the vocal performance as well, which is kind of limiting because it was through a megaphone, so there wasn't really anything we could do about that. It might have been better with a straight sound but that happened to be the take we kept so we decided to go with it anyway. Pete recorded those big tom fills and we overdubbed them as a seperate part and sped the the tape up so they came out really de-tuned. There are twenty two strings again but they're not that important, they're sort of a bed underneath. Tongy plays great lap steel on it on the choruses, sounds like George Harrison. I don't think he'd ever played one before, we borrowed it from Eric Clapton who was working in the studio upstairs. Nick does a lot of what I call guitar shimmering or shimmeryness on it.
-UH producer, Chris Potter

For all the mention of The Drugs Don't Work and Sonnet, I personally think Velvet Morning is The Verve's sleeper. (The b-side Never Wanna See You Cry the best of any during the period.) I think it is Simon Tong's steel guitar that is making the werrrrr sound that ascends and descends, mirroring what Richard said about how the sun rises the next morning, and you've realised your life has gone from conquering the world to feeling defeated. Producer Chris Potter was correct that Richard's vocals could have been recorded straight and therefore clearer, but the megaphones effect of creating a distant and reflective feel would've been lost. These are also some of Richard's most coherent vocals to date, and the key moment is again the bands penchant for excelling during the building outro. At the 3:50 mark, Richard's vox seem to push higher on "He said, don't you find/That it's lonely/The corridor/You walk there alone/And life is a game/You've tried/And life is a game/You're tired/And life is a game/You've tried". Applause to the building guitars that jump in at the 4:20 mark to set the song off even further. Special credit to the strings and Nick McCabe's "shimmery" guitar work in the outro that hits home and crystallizes the theme. Invaluable as a cross between a ballad and as an insular anthem.

Lyrics:

Yes
It's been long
And yes
I still feel strong
Into the half light
Another velvet morning for me, yeah

Time
Stands still
As you take
Your last pill
Into the half light
Another velvet morning for me

And now I'm trying to tell you
About my life
And my tongue is twisted
And more dead than alive
And my feelings
They've always been betrayed
And I was born a little damaged man
And look what they made

I said, don't you find
That it's lonely
The corridor
You walk there alone
And life is a game
You've tried
And life is a game
You're tired

Yes
I'm coming down
Your beauty is
A color surround
Into the half light
Another velvet morning for me

And now I'm trying to tell you
About my life
And my tongue is twisted
And more dead than alive
And my feelings
My feelings, they've been betrayed
And I was born a little damaged man
And look what they made

He said, don't you find
That it's lonely
The corridor
You walk there alone
And life is a game
You've tried
And life is a game
You're tired
And life is a game
You've tried

The Verve
Neon Wilderness
(on Urban Hymns, Virgin, 1997)
Grade: A-

Track-By-Track with Richard Ashcroft
"This track we finished at 7am on the morning of the last day we were given to record the album. We'd spent a lot of time in the studio, and at some point, someone has to say 'Sorry, lads, it's over. Richard, give it up! "It's got that kind of late-night, city loneliness, when you're wasted and walking round that city at fuckin' five o'clock in the morning and moving from bar to bar. You can imagine it being behind 'Midnight Cowboy'."

The Making of Urban Hymns
Neon Wilderness
We were due to finish the album on a Saturday and I was finishing off the last mix. I think they'd been rehearsing for the tour and they were going to come down and check the mix out, finish it off and go through the running order. They came down, we finished the mix and then started fiddling around with this other guitar loop of Nick's which he'd done quite a while previously at Olympic (studios). We ended starting that track at six o'clock in the evening on the final day and finished about five in the morning. So it's the guitar loop with bass and drums on top of it. Rich did a pretty much ad-lib vocal. In fact I'm pretty sure it's all ad-lib. He just went out and did it, didn't have anything written down.

There is some definite disagreement from Verve fans on whether Neon Wilderness should have been included on Urban Hymns at all. It is the two and a half minute odd ball experiment on an album full of space rock, ballads, and jam rockers. It's been regarded as more of a sample, or a "leftover" from the A Storm In Heaven days.

If you ask me this is the ethereal experimental direction the band should have never completely deserted (though definitely tapered) in favor of Ashcroft's traditional singer/songwriter mold. It suppressed McCabe's already magnificent catalog of elemental guitar cascades, spirals, and ambience, ultimately leading to the bands creative downfall. Early Verve were composing their intoxicated dreams on tape as if reality and hallucination were one. The Verve sound could not be defined to any space or time. Music that IMO in several instances does not sound humanly produced, as if dreams can be granted and turned into reality.

Judging by Ashcroft's quote above, the band either didn't get all of their idea out, or there was a Part 2 to the song that they didn't get to. I'm not going to speculate on "what if?" since my outlook on the track is about being in the moment rather than the music's journey. The almost 'out of body and mind' experience you have of being somewhere familiar yet unfamiliar because of ones intoxicated perceptions.

Neon Wilderness is sonic genius. I fathom over how music so complex and dense can also at the same time sound so clear within each instrument? Nick McCabe's opening guitar lines sound like a lonely whale calling for its lost baby. Bassist Simon Jones' drama lays out the groundwork as if stepping onto foreign soil. His bass identical to and leading the way for Ascroft's "Uh huh huh..." falsetto. Drummer Peter Salisbury always providing the spot-on rhythm with pushed back, clattery, and echoed beats that trail off into the night. Singer Richard Ashcroft's gift for ad-libbing shines through at its brightest. On paper his lyrics are usually poor, but here his short phrasing melds with the esthetics dark aura ("In a neon wilderness/He was restless/Escape loneliness/For a new address"). Uncertainty, hopelessness, and yet determination to overcome what isn't real surround Ashcroft in this intoxicated haze. McCabe's chimed crystalline guitar stretches to vastnesses within the mind unimagined. Then at the 1:50 mark he alters the perception with a delicate yet coarse guitar cut so deep that the word "haunting" begs a new dictionary definition.

As some critics have said, the Verve sound has many meanings to many different people. If it weren't for the bands intoxication, I could easily see it being a pictoral blueprint of what space is like. The dead blackness kept alive with bright white stars. The unknowing journey into a mysterious void where nothing is safe. In several instances during their elemental experimental excursions, the Verve had the seemingly impossible gift of mimicing to near perfection the environment which they though to bring out in their music. Neon Wilderness just seems to embody all the insecurities of a familiar yet foreign environment. So infinite it plays to everyones own special meaning.

I See the Door
(On Your Own single, EMI, 1995)
Grade: A

I take comfort in hearing NME call I See the Door "messy". It's true. It isn't a cleanly played recording, but the ballad shines through those limitations because of the bands conviction and Ashcroft's "heartbreaking passion". It will likely make many fans' Top 10 because of the emotional weight set forth.

I think music works best when longing is the central theme. Reaching for something that is always out of hands reach, and the pain that comes with it. Ashcroft's slow singing accentuates the moment over the even tempos five minutes, revealing a hurt every listener has heard before, but rarely captured with such thick and naked poignancy.

This is also a fine example of Simon Jones' classicism on bass. He provides the key framework for the band to ride on his trail with steady acoustics, McCabe's occasional [non-Mississippi] electric blues flourishes, and some faint background vocal harmony. Comes with the touching "I have seen things that I can't explain/Looking through windows, feeling the same/I have seen moments I'd like to share/Scared that you don't want me there". Followed by the band elevating their play with an intense 'that's life' outro with Richard repeating "ba ba ba...". McCabe's guitar adding some weaving friction, and Richard with a second vocal part pushed back ("It's a battle, it's a battle...) and fading out as the acoustics downtempo.

I See the Door is best suited for small intimate venues with lighters flickering. If only it had not been played so messy it might've been given an A+.

Lyrics:
Light...I see the light
You're there on my floor
You're there on my floor
Fly...angel fly
You're out of sight
You're out of sight

She came in a dream, Lord
No way to describe it,
It was in my head
I burn but I don't scream
No way to describe it,
It is in my head
I have seen things that I can't explain
Looking in through that window pane
Open your eyes and let me in
Don't go to think that I don't care
So...I see the door
I see the door
I see the door

It came in a dream, Lord
No way to describe it,
It was in my head
What's life without a scream, lover?
No way to describe it,
It was in my head

I have seen things that I can't explain
Looking through windows, feeling the same
I have seen moments I'd like to share
Scared that you don't want me there,
My lover
Scared that you don't want me there,
My lover
(It's a battle, it's a battle...)

No Come Down, Where the Geese Go, 6 O'Clock, One Way To Go, Twilight
(No Come Down, Vernon Yard Recordings, 1994)
Grade: A+

Seamless sonic perfection. One of the most overlooked Verve tracks period. No Come Down literally never does come down! Over the course of three minutes, The Verve exist just outside the realm of the human conscious in a state of lovely bohemian mysticism. Jones guides the band to the light with deep basslines while Sobbo provides the tribal drumming with delicate cymbols and hand beats. The two together are in the drivers seat with an addicting blend of bass and groove, married together like brotherly kinship. McCabe's high-pitched chords take off into dancing flights of fantasy with the greatest of ease, as if the wind is controlling his every chordly movement. So whispy, feathery, and satisfying it is like taking a deep breath of fresh country air. Ashcroft's elongated elementals cover the horizon with shamanesque spiritualism. All the pieces together creating a sheen of an intoxicating dreamlike passage.

It's been said by one AMG critic that She's a Superstar and Feel are The Verve's purest music. But they were wrong. The five produced tracks on the B-sides No Come Down (Where the Geese Go, Six O'Clock, One Way To Go, Twilight) need to be included. A song so rich and transparent it feels like it has centuries worth of history behind it. Considering The Verve's kaleidoscopic uncontrolled violence around this time on their A-sides, you realize how enormous an accomplishment it was to have set a new standard in purity.

Lyrics:
Keep the thought and I know you've been hotter
I never hurt you
I pray to follow
Now I want to swallow
Every part of you

World of Pop Meanderings
"No, I don't even like guitars! I like synthesizers. I got my first one when I was fourteen and I liked it..then I picked up a guitar. I tried to do it my own style, just wanting to make the guitar sound more like a synthesizer."

"Urban Hymns was filled with ballads and I'm not into ballads." -Nick McCabe

Music Saves
"Verve aren't sinking, they're floating several miles high, drifting way beyond any reference points that may have called them into being."- John Setzler

These quotes more than just about any others highlight for me why Where the Geese Go exists as a creation in the first place. The Verve were simply more passionate and dared to dream bigger than nearly all of their peers. McCabe doesn't even like guitars, and his chimed liquid gold doesn't even sound like an instrument called into being. I also think it's extremely important to note what McCabe says about ballads. He doesn't even like them, and Where the Geese Go is a far greater vision and more beautiful testament than any traditional ballad could ever proclaim.

Arguably The Verve's B-side crowning achievement. Where the Geese Go is life's pleasant surrealities consumed in McCabe's kaleidoscopic psychedelic tapestry. His chords sounding at their most liquid and unguitarific. Jones and Sobbo providing a steady path of rhythm for Ashcroft and McCabe to skyward over. Richard's hushed vocals begin the story with gentle acoustics before his produced counterparts glide in and soar like a consumate sheen of soundscape touching the sky, leaving a trail of mystery yet clarity, capturing to an unimagined tee the imagery and sound of geese flying to their new destination ("I felt surprised/That you wanted to know/Where the geese go/When it snows"). McCabe's fully fledged genius at first creating a boundless array of buoyant aqua beauty before the band selflessly fade away from rhythm, vocal, and then shaker for the effortless guitarist to take the outros reigns. His infinite kaleidoscopic passages enveloping to take their own shape, sounding aerial, ballooning, ambient, pulsing, and spiraling. The sounds ebb and flow like a concoction of dreamy bubbly effervescence whipped upward. Other times circling away and creating a new dimension. Their own mirage in the sky. A tranquil meditation.

Lyrics:
You get the burn
We're on the train
I feel no pain
I feel no pain

You set the sights
But I'm already there
Do you care?
Do you care?

I can't get it out of my head
When you said
I'm gonna leave

I felt surprised
That you wanted to know
Where the geese go to
Late at night
I'm feeling fine
What is it inside
It's inside

And I can't get it out of my head
When he said
I'm leaving

On shoegazer music:

AMG
The sound of the music was overwhelmingly loud, with long, droning riffs, waves of distortion, and cascades of feedback. Vocals and melodies disappeared into the walls of guitars, creating a wash of sound where no instrument was distinguishable from the other.

A masterpiece in shoegaze esthetics. The Verve and producer John Leckie have truly captured the feelings of being on drugs to a hypnotic picturesque. Richard Ashcroft's floaty "6 O'clock I'm wasted..." creates the imagery with distilled stillness. For the first two minutes the band ride this slow tempoed wave of intoxicated transparency as if in a trance. McCabe occasionally taking the notes up into flights of delicate levitation, with a beautiful and poignant chimed scale that signals the movement of the rhythms trajectory into dramatic intensifying. Richard sings "Here comes the blue light..." as if preparing to enter the minds eye, and the band climb higher and higher in intoxification. But unlike A Storm In Heaven's uncontrolled violence, the band remain incredibly restrained and discipline, reveling in the state of hallucinotopia without sounding like an overproduced mess (which ASIH is not). McCabe adds reverberated feedback and skyscraping flourishes that light up the mind while Jones and Sobbo provide jawdropping rhythm as if gently marching to the promise land. Ashcroft's carefree vocals drowning in the moment. It is in these moments that The Verve have created a hallmark, a shoegazer blueprint standard. The feelings of being immersed in the climbing wall of sound and consumed whole. Then during the outro, the band return to the slow untempo they started with as if the drugs fireworks have decreased back to a calm, reflective high ("6 o’clock I’m wasted/She is in my bones again/City’s all gone right dead/May as well find my way").

For those who miss the days of instrument clarity, 6 O'Clock argues against those notions in pure psychedelic bliss.

The most skyward track of the five produced on No Come Down. The seven minute One Way To Go opens with a call and response between McCabe's vivid shimmer and Jones' underlying pulsations. McCabe then takes off into the atmosphere with stark essence while Jones occasionally takes more heartbeat definition. Ashcroft's heavenly crescendo covers the horizon with echoage (I'd rather diiiiiie...than see you fly/Than see you try). The band taking the tempo higher and higher under a bed of air (It's like pushing locked doors to get in your mind/I don't know what I'll find), then lowering themselves into a pool of calm before taking the outro into a jammy shimmery height. Life-affirming.

The purest of the pure Verve tracks. (Though I'm wondering why this is called Twilight instead of "Dawn" or "Morning"? Birdies are singing and harmonica mimics the morning environment.) The band providing the oh-so-delicate rhythm while Ashcroft laments over what could have been ("What I said/Couldn't be that good/Because you left/You left"). I'm assuming that's McCabe's droopy guitar lines. The harmonica capturing the sorrow and loss. Under three minutes of richness in reflective remorse. A hazy dazy feel packed with an environmental purity and seclusion to ones own thoughts. Brilliantly understated, sleepy, and tranquil.

Star Sail
(A Storm In Heaven, 1993)
A+

McCabe's initial distortions are like an entry into space, followed with kalediscopic chimming, "ringing"-Graveyard Poet. That is Simon Jones providing the backing vox "ahhhh" duped to the point of having the mysterious, lordian weight of an entire choir. (A keystone in engineering.) McCabe's vituoso turning more dizzying and violent before Ashcroft's uncertain steps of ""Hello, it's me, it's me, calling out, I can't see you/Hello, it's me, crying out, crying out, are you there?" But then listen to the weight and catharsis of McCabe's reverb. It's as if he's throttling his guitar, and at the same time outputting all other chord-happy guitarists, with a few strokes of reverb, before releasing something even bigger...

"I've been calling home for 20 years and in that time I heard the screams rebound to me while you were making history" -- Listen to this moment where the effects climb along with Aschcroft (2:50) before reaching it's peak, and extending past boiling point into apocolyptic madness with "I could see the fiiiiiiires!" (2:57), like hell's anger being released. McCabe's guitars clash and strike down like unforgiving lightning. It is in these frenzied moments of the track that do not sound humanly possible. Elemental genius. Then the music dissipates into a calm, reflective trail to where it came from.

For me it is a description like no other of universal existence and the rising and falling of violent tides. The Big Bang, a shooting star, chaotic weather patterns -- and for that matter, human history. (Many of these attributes are consistent throughout ASIH.)

Whatever it is, if I didn't know it was The Verve, I'd have to say it was alien, like an apocolyptic that escaped the confinement of dreams. It makes many of the "untouchable" classical pieces sound earthly, and second-place, in comparison. As one person said, it "expands the mind." It makes you realise how small the earth is in comparison to uncharted galaxies. The music is so infinite, and I'm afraid I've failed with words.

MSG
(Lucky Man #1, EMI, 1997)
B+

"'MSG' is a heavily atmospheric vignette that pulses along on narcotic bass groove, eschewing any conventional melody for intermittent showers of orchestral strings, guitar washes, and blurry vocal lines to promote its feeling of druggy euphoria." -by Brian Horgea, AMG

MSG rarely gets talked about, and that's OK because it seems to be more of an exhibition for Chris Potter's genius seamless sonics and Jones and Sobbo's impenetrable rhythm. In short, MSG needs to be included in the running as one of purest displays of bass & rhythm, period.

The track's intro starts with enormous rolling and echoed drum fills. (I cannot really describe them except they remind me of those huge metal-like drums that sit sideways and have a hollow effect to them.) There's these really beautiful sounding twinkling keys that illuminate and a kind of gentle wash effect that reminds me of a misty breeze. Richard's falsetto is pushed back and glides on a distant trail. All this is wrapped in the Verve's signature spacy mystery. Clicks, thumps, and some circular "reer reer reer"'s with a bird-like effect are prominent. I especially love the 4:20 mark because the music moves forward and Jones's bassline is still underneath in heavy form. Sobbo's beats become louder and more magnified yet are typically clean and precise. IMO MSG is really for them. Richard sings, "I am not afraid," and this is a medium-paced jam. The song structure doesn't take any huge turns in direction, nor is that the point since the emphasis is on the subtle production details and everlasting rhythm. I was going to grade this something less, but the groove is so intoxicating. This is masterful mood music. Close your eyes and enjoy the ride.

Inspector Lynley Mysteries 2

2007-05-01T13:09:00.000-05:00

In the Presence of the Enemy
Newspaper editor Dennis Luxford (James Hazeldine) and political chair Eve Bowen (Sophie Okonedo) had a secret child together. Their daughter Charlotte Bowen (Natalie Freegard) has been kidnapped with a ransom note stating Luxford has three days to reveal the relationship in his paper. Helen (Lesley Vickerage) hides her contact with Luxford from Thomas Lynley (Nathaniel Parker). Needless to say, he's pissed. ("If you can't trust me, what does that say about us?!" A tiresome and doomed relationship if you ask me.) It doesn't help Eve's cause either when her significant other, Alex Stone (Clint Dyer), is insensitive, angry, and aggressive.

Then before the three days are up, Charlotte is found dead in a canal with valium in her system. Why did the kidnapper break the ransom's deadline? There isn't time to answer that since Luxford's son Leo (Joseph Friend) goes missing too. As the investigation grows, so to do the suspects. (This is the well developed aspect about Francesca Brill's screenplay.) And Lynley and Havers have to confront a kidnapper who is much closer to home than they suspect. B

Inspector Lynley Mysteries Series 4

2007-05-01T12:36:00.000-05:00

The Seed of Cunning
"It was always personal with us, Tommy."

Inspector Thomas Lynley (Nathaniel Parker) and Det. Barbara Havers (Sharon Small) this time find themselves within the House of Lords when doorkeeper Eric Ramsey (James Pearse) is murdered. A variety of members are interviewed including Lynley's old Oxford chum, Simon Featherstonehaugh (Roger Allam as a polished hierarchy). Soon after the uptight Clerk Geoffrey Crammond (Clive Merrison) is found floating in the Thames. Surveillance footage reveals that Ramsey gave some documents to Crammond beforehand. Laetitia Ganes (Claude Blakley), a hot go-getter with sexy legs, is questioned several times since she works for Bell Regis, which lobbies on behalf of an American company interested in the workings of the committee. With the closing of the deal she could find herself with a lucrative opening in the States. (It really isn't hard to figure out who's involved, but whytheydunnit is carefully articulated along the way.)

Meantime, Barbara has hired a dating service where she meets her dates at a pub. Her second ding is truly memorable. A hangin', self-absorbed character with the slang "Wicked!," "YKWIM?," and "Like, really cool." stirred in just the right liqueur. (I can hardly believe well into Series 4 the program still plods the "other side of the tracks" class differences between Lynley and Havers.)

Through persistence and cunning the detectives manage to get ahold of the documents and the seven missing pages. Lynley takes them to a private meet with Deputy Christine Miller (Matilda Ziegler). She discovers the documents are for a defense contract between American and European contractors that are worth billions. The seven missing pages are a preliminary evaluation of American company Mercury Aeronautics' guidance system that could jeopardize their bid.

So who gains from the suppression of the files and why? Only time will tell. (Richard Henders' performance as the ambitious-yet-pressed Tim Sadler is a good one.) B

The Last Detective Series 2 (2004)

2007-04-28T11:00:00.000-05:00

The Last Detective isn't going to win many achievement awards. It has none of the gripping tension of Prime Suspect or Touching Evil. Nor does it have the philosophical aura of Inspector Morse or the hard hitting Law & Order CI. There doesn't appear to be many cliffhangers either. However, maybe that's the point? It relies on the mundane English locale with a familiar workmanlike face in Peter Davidson to fight its criminals.

(SPOILERS)

Volume One

Christine
DC Davies (Davidson) has to solve a case when wealthy bastard Maurice Leyman (an outstanding Allan Corduner) dies while lying in a drunken stupor as his studio goes up in a blaze. His wife, the certain Christine Leyman (Susan Vidler), is the primary lead. But Davies has other ideas.

It might have been better had writer Richard Harris not given away the culprit so quickly. Mrs. Leyman's cool collectiveness was a sign of her innocence and dislike towards her husband's verbal and physical abusiveness. With a variety of quirky characters to interview but no concrete motive, the killer becomes all too obvious. C-

The Long Bank Holiday
Computer theft, suicide by train, missing identity, buried human bones, and a neighborly fight over hedges are all sewn together to make this the best episode of Series 2. The storyline has a good flow to it and does a fine job of intertwining Davies' personal life. Special props to the ruling Councillor Balsam (Lynda Bellingham) and the charming and lovely Mandy (Tracy-Ann Oberman). B

Volume 2

Benefit to Mankind
There's a lot of money to be made in the drug industry. Henry Winton's body is found in a canal after discovering Carl Swanee's (David Threlfall) Alzheimer's medicine research has failed. Then Anna Beauchamp goes missing, and Davies takes a trip to Wales to find her when he runs into the likes of painter Tecwyn Hughes (Alan David) and the distinctive Professor Tapscott (Ronald Pickup). Michael Aitkins' screenplay is steady, and the opening scene with Pearly Gates (Peter Jonfield) is a memorable one. B-

Dangerous and the Lonely Hearts
Davies investigates the "Love of Your Life" dating service after Natalie Burisha (Branka Katic) is found dead in her flat. Gavin (Alexander Hanson), a former flame, is told of her death and strangely laughs hysterically to this viewers delight. (A sign right there he isn't the killer.) Then Burisha's next door neighbor and wounded love interest, boxer Paddy Jones (Trevor Laird), jumps off the balcony in an honorable suicide attempt (and so to the chances of him being the killer). If that weren't enough, what really ruins the story later is when Davies goes to pick up his clampt car at the impound lot. By chance he discovers an unclaimed car that holds the key to the case. This is absurd, and I found the episode to be light in its expose. Plus some obvious planting devices and cliched instances unfortunately make me think twice about this program. D+

To the Point -- movie and TV reviews

2007-04-24T13:36:00.001-05:00

Crappy, plain reviews in a complex time

TV:
Inspector Lynley Mysteries 2
In the Presence of the Enemy

Inspector Lynley Mysteries Series 4
The Seed of Cunning

The Last Detective Series 2
Touching Evil 3

Touching Evil 3 (2001)

2007-04-24T13:04:00.000-05:00

(SPOILERS)

Episode 1
The third installment sees the mentally unfit DI David Creegan (Robson Green) pursuing a killer who leaves his victims in car boots with their internal organs presented in a bin bag. Anthony Matchin (a fine performance by Michael Hodgson) is the prime suspect, but Creegan knows he's isn't the killer. Internal corruption in the police force leads the OSC (Organized and Serial Crime Unit) to take over the investigation before it gets any further out of hand. (See James Hooton's riveting performance as the pathological Wayne Fitten.)

The primary problem is the storyline is composed of essentially two acts: the first half is a whodunnit which explains the plotline with such a wonderful sense of heightened intensity and meter (arguably the shows best), and the second act, more or less a whytheydunnit, which is expected to deliver the shocking climax but instead feels anti-climactic. Once the killer is revealed, I felt disappointed. It's as if the scripts resources were somewhat exhausted from the first act. Not to say the second is bad, but the drama might have been better sustained if there were three acts. The storyline could have had even more purpose should the killer not be revealed till after the final (and startling) murder.

Then the idea that Matchin becomes suicidal is a bit of a suprise. He was depressed over his wife's death, but he never displayed any real signs directly before his release from prison. With Matchin out of the picture, the trail of leads became quite singular. The murderer is someone who kills women to afflict suffering on their husbands. Someone who has a direct link between the grieving men. The identity revealed felt tame, and had it not been revealed till its latest (or a different character altogether), the lamenting could have been kept to a minimum. I can see why to an extent (no spoiler here), but with such a suspenseful first act, the opportunity to pull this episode atop in the series was left with the dead. B+

best commercials

2007-02-21T14:01:00.000-06:00

Alamo Rent A Car "Where all the miles are free" (Fall 1992, USA-CBS network)

If Chevrolet's nostalgic trip through Americana was the staple network television commercial during the last third of 2006 (John Mellencamp's "This Is Our Country"), then Alamo's 1992 voyage is a crowning achievement in creating a classic marriage between music score, photography, and subtle narration. With a poignant and stark trumpet covering the richly laid out American landscape, it exudes a teary-eyed, romantic longing for America's traditions. Timeless. A+
(No link currently)

They go by names like Chapel Lane and Maple Street... California Highway 1, and The Great White Way...

The roads we travel in small towns, like Pottersville... and they can take you as far as bigger towns, like Pumpkin Corners...

They go by places where people still stop and say hello to old friends, and make new ones...

There are over 4 million miles of roads in Alamo territory, all across America... and every day, with every car nation-wide, only Alamo gives you all those miles for free -- including the ones that go from sea level, to the sky; the ones that take us through a country we call America, to a place we call home.

Dr. Pepper I Would Do Anything For Love (2005, USA)

In which the boyfriend will do anything for love by buying tampons for his girlfriend, but won't share his Dr. Pepper with her and concludes by running out of their home and down the street. Priceless. (Music by Meatloaf.) A+

Dr. Pepper Diet Cherry Vanilla Ma Nah Ma Nah (2005, USA)

The blonde is so interested in her Dr. Pepper, I mean date, by nodding to his one-way conversation with her in a sing-a-long with the restaurant customers and staff. By this time Dr. Pepper were clearly more creative than other soft drink company commercials, let alone industry. A+

pop rock(ish) downloads (aka "pock")

2006-11-11T11:55:00.000-06:00

Pop/rock might seem like an overly vague designation — after all, rock & roll was catchy and melodic long before it was thought of as pop music, and from the early '60s on, nearly all pop reflected the influence of rock & roll in one way or another. But pure pop took a while to become comfortable with rock's insistent backbeat, and it wasn't until the dawn of the '70s — around the time when rock & roll's first-generation fans were settling into adulthood — that truly equal pop/rock fusions became the epitome of mainstream music (as opposed to pre-rock vocal pop, which still commanded a sizable adult audience for most of the '60s). Naturally, pop/rock's primary focus was on melody — as big, catchy, and instantly memorable as possible, whether the song was a rocker, ballad, or midtempo in-betweener. But the other, less immediately apparent aspect of pop/rock was its emphasis on the professional craft of record-making. The songs were tightly constructed, with no wasted space or prolonged detours from the melodic hooks. The production was clean, polished, and bright, making full use of the advances in recording technology (and technique) that had taken place over the course of the '60s. In general, pop/rock was catchy and energetic enough to appeal to younger listeners, but clean and safe enough for adults as well. Pop/rock, however, was not soft rock; it's important to realize — hard as it may be to imagine today — that the big hooks, rock instrumentation, and definite backbeat gave pop/rock an energy that would have been too edgy for more conservative listeners who hadn't grown up with rock & roll. Naturally, with its commercial accessibility, pop/rock produced some of the biggest stars of the '70s, such as Elton John, Peter Frampton, Paul McCartney & Wings, and Fleetwood Mac; it continued on into the '80s with Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Hall & Oates, George Michael, and many others. In the '90s, pop/rock became largely the province of well-established veterans, as alternative rock, urban R&B, hip-hop, and teen pop took over the pop charts to the exclusion of most everything else. -AMG

The Autumns slumberdoll (dream pop/rock)
Chin Up Chin Up This Harness Can't Ride Any.../We Should Have Never Lived...
Futureheads, The Skip To The End
Long Winters, The Pushover, Stupid
Modest Mouse Float On, The View, Worms vs. Birds* (indie/alterna pop/rock)
Pinback Fortress (indie pop/rock)

Shoegaze downloads

2006-11-09T14:35:00.000-06:00

Shoegaze is a genre of late '80s and early '90s British indie rock, named after the bands' motionless performing style, where they stood on stage and stared at the floor while they played. But shoegaze wasn't about visuals — it was about pure sound. The sound of the music was overwhelmingly loud, with long, droning riffs, waves of distortion, and cascades of feedback. Vocals and melodies disappeared into the walls of guitars, creating a wash of sound where no instrument was distinguishable from the other. Most shoegaze groups worked off the template My Bloody Valentine established with their early EPs and their first full-length album, Isn't Anything, but Dinosaur Jr., the Jesus & Mary Chain, and the Cocteau Twins were also major influences. Bands that followed — most notably Ride, Lush, Chapterhouse, and the Boo Radleys — added their own stylistic flourishes. Ride veered close to '60s psychedelia, while Lush alternated between straight pop and the dream pop of the Cocteau Twins. Almost none of the shoegazers were dynamic performers or interesting interviews, which prevented them from breaking through into the crucial U.S. market. In 1992 — after the groups had dominated the British music press and indie charts for about three years — the shoegaze groups were swept aside by the twin tides of American grunge and Suede, the band to initiate the wave of Britpop that ruled British music during the mid-'90s. Some shoegazers broke up within a few years (Chapterhouse, Ride), while other groups — such as the Boo Radleys and Lush — evolved with the times and were able to sustain careers into the late '90s. -AMG

Dirty On Purpose Light Pollution (shoegaze/noise pop)
Seksu, Asobi Thursday, New Years
My Bloody Valentine Lose My Breath
Ride Vipor Trail

Riot Grrrl(ish) downloads

2006-11-09T13:04:00.000-06:00

Riot grrrl is a raw, incendiary brand of feminist punk that emerged from the early-'90s indie-rock scene and sparked a subculture that lasted well after the initial movement began to fade. Riot grrrl was a blend of personal catharsis and political activism, though most of the attention it drew was due to the latter. Many (but not all) riot grrrl lyrics addressed gender-related issues — rape, domestic abuse, sexuality (including lesbianism), male dominance of the social hierarchy, female empowerment — from a radical, militant point of view. The similarly confrontational music favored raging, willfully amateurish blasts of noise, with only a rudimentary sense of melody or instrumental technique. Riot grrrl's abrasiveness served several purposes: it ensured that the anti-corporate music would never achieve alternative rock's crossover success (the label that released the highest percentage of riot grrrl records was called Kill Rock Stars); it defied stereotypes of women (and female musicians) as meek, overly sensitive, and lovelorn; and it found a powerful expressive tool in noise. To most riot grrrl bands, the simple act of picking up a guitar and bashing out a screeching racket was not only fun, but an act of liberation. To outsiders, the musical merits of riot grrrl could be highly variable, but to fans, what the movement represented was arguably even more important than the music. The riot grrrl movement was mostly centered in the Seattle/Olympia, Washington area; several exceptions included England's Huggy Bear, as well as several grungier groups like Babes in Toyland and L7, who fit the spirit of the style but were more tangentially related to its ideology. It was mostly rooted in punk's DIY ethos and tradition of protest, but in terms of direct inspirations, Joan Jett was lionized in many quarters of the movement for her simple, punky hard rock, confident sexuality, and independent business sense. Riot grrrl's emergence coincided with an explosion of female talent in other wings of alternative rock, and the term was frequently misapplied in media accounts of the phenomenon, which incorrectly labeled more accessible alt-rockers like Hole and PJ Harvey as riot grrrls. True riot grrrl bands — Bratmobile, 7 Year Bitch, the queercore outfit Team Dresch, and the center of the riot grrrl universe, Kathleen Hanna's Bikini Kill — never even approached popular acceptance. Since most bands weren't very prolific, the movement's initial flash of enthusiasm faded after a few years, but it continued to enjoy a lasting impact in indie culture, where the original bands helped inspire countless feminist zines and were still looked up to as icons and role models. Kathleen Hanna continued to record with several different projects, and scene veterans Sleater-Kinney became critically revered indie stars several years later, thanks to their ability to blend riot grrrl's passion and ideals with hookier songs and intricate instrumental technique. -AMG

Bikini Kill New Radio, I Like F--king
Brassy Work It Out
Bratmobile Panik, Die, Shop For America
Cadallaca Two Beers Later, The Trouble With Public Places
Excuse 17 Watchmaker
Huggy Bear No Sleep
Sleater-Kinney Entertain/Oh!

Hall of Fame: The Chronicles of Oasis quotes

2006-08-10T19:30:00.000-05:00

(Oasis interviews)

It's a fault of mine, a guilty pleasure. When 1995's "What's the Story (Morning Glory)" exploded onto the scene, I played the album to death. And when I discovered these brothers known as Liam & Noel Gallagher were nothing like their heros, The Beatles, I was mesmerized by their singular and uniquely brash and outlandish comments. There of course is a downside to this, but I think many of us at the time were most impressed with their dead honesty. It was refreshing, and certainly part of the charm was the brothers own laddishness, or ignorance to the things they'd say in front of a mic or camera.

Liam & Noel are the very reflection of their father's abusiveness as children. Liam with his fisticuff incidents, and Noel, amongst else, his resentment towards Liam because he didn't witness near the abuse his big brother had. Liam in turn still craving the support of his older brother, and therefore subconsciously acting out and needing attention, probably developing from his mum's need to try and protect her youngest son from their father. That bothered Noel, and Liam was referred to in American slang as mama's boy. Both brothers were verbally abusive on a scale that typified the Gallagher household. Even Courtney Love encouraged Americans to not buy Oasis' records because they will "rape and pillage our women", or something to that effect.

I think what impressed me most at the time was Oasis could have played the American game. The Gallagher's could have gone on the MTV Awards and smiled and created a stage persona that is typical in rock history where there is a lot of high energy acrobats shall we say. But Oasis stayed true to their principles and just stood their and let the music speak for itself. Liam saying, 'I'm not a performer. I'm a singer. None of that jumpin' around business.' America would go on to not "get" Oasis to the brothers distaste, but I still to this day have more respect for them for that than say U2's limelight stage appeal.

Anyhow, this is my own personal Hall of Fame induction for those uniquely turbulent Gallagher brothers that includes a whole range of reactions. Rock 'n' roll has had many typical cliches through the decades, but I really believe the Gallagher brothers set the standard for using the press to its advantage. It's too bad "the biggest and best band in the world" are riding an 11 year drought musically, but I think it's safe to assume Oasis fall somewhere between the most loved and hated band in the world of their time.

As author Paolo Hewitt titled, these are The Adventures of Oasis...

(Updated at my leisure.)

"I went to Paul McCartney's daughter Stella's party and who should open the door but the man himself. He was dead cool. There were all these questions I wanted to ask him but I settled on, Do you watch Brookside?"
-Noel

"It is hard to be modest at times like these so I won't even try...you are all s--te!"
-Noel

"Oasis got their foot in the door and kicked it down"
-John Power (Cast)

Interviewer: I have with me one of the stars of Oasis...
Noel: What do you mean one of the stars?

"Don't have a piss in the stands because I'll be standing there next week."
-Soccer-mad Liam at the Maine Rd gig

"Let me try to do the interview... So tell me, what's life like being a transvestite?"
-Noel at the MTV Music Awards preshow

"My main concern before going on stage is, What frame of mind is Our Kid going to be in? Will he get fucked off and walk off, which he is perfectly capable of doing. He was annoyed when somebody threw a rock at him at the gig, the bloke responsible was lucky cos if we hadn't been having such a good time we'd have jumped in and put him in intensive care. We're not the psychopaths we're made out to be but you don't take s--t do you?"
-Noel

"Whoever's throwing things like this on stage...like...if you don't like the music, f--k off! If there're any more coming on, I'm off. And you gotta deal with all these people here who are enjoying themselves. If you don't like it, go f--king hang yourself! Don't be throwing f--king stones on stage like this...I don't wanna go blind over some f--king d--khead!

This one's called...this one's called Roll With It, d--khead!"
-Liam uses colourful language at Slane Castle after a rock was thrown at him on stage.

"F--king Wankers! This one's for all the people at the back"
-Noel at Slane Castle

"Sure I love Liam, but not as much as I love Pot Noodles."
-Noel

Dani Behr: What's it like having loads of money now.
Noel: ...er...it's alright

"I do all the work so it's only right that I should get the most money. Plus I am the most handsome."
-Noel

"Next year I hope to get a stalker or two because I don't believe you've arrived until you get a stalker."
-Noel

"In Liam's world it's better to talk bulls--t all day than be silent for one minute"
-Select Magazine

"But some bands give over eight hours for this," says the photographer. Swiftly and bluntly, Noel and Liam put him straight on that one. "We're not some band. And your paper didn't make us, mate. And you know what about your Rolling Stone cover? Arsed mate, arsed."
-Noel and Liam and Rolling Stone photographer after Oasis walked off after 1 hour

What makes Oasis different?
Bonehead: "Good songs."
Liam: "And a handsome lead singer with a beard."

"What was your biggest break?" [in music] - Jason from New York wants to know.
Liam: "My biggest break was 39" [snooker].
Bonehead: "Mine was a hole in one" [golf].

Noel orders a beer, the rest opt for lemonades and Coke. Above us, the TV is on. CNN News. "Have you seen some of the stories they have on here?" Noel enquires. "Check this one I saw this morning. There's this guy who's 75 and he's got cancer. So his doctor tells him he's got about two years to live. So he thinks, 'F--k it, I've always hated my wife, the stupid bag.' So he kills her. 'What the f--k, I've got nothing to lose.' Then he's put in jail, but the problem is, he doesn't die. He's 99 now and guess what he's doing?" Noel surveys our expectant faces. "Suing the doctor," he cackles. "He's taking him to court," he continues, pissing himself. "And he's saying, 'If it wasn't for what you told me I would never have killed my wife and now you owe me ten million pounds.' I'm sitting here thinking, 'I know I live in a mad country but it's not half as crazy as it is here.'"
-Noel in America

"They're off their tits here."
-Liam on Americans

"Imagine if us four were walking down the street, they'd all say, 'Look at those mad f--kers with their haircuts.' When in reality it would be them who are the nutters."
-Liam

"Now we all drink Pepsi"
-Noel after being sued by Coke

"I was walking along and this chair came flying past me, and another, and another, and I thought, it's gonna be good tonight."
-Liam on the joys of touring

"There was this bug in my room and I thought 'you can f--k off, this is my room'"
-Liam

"We're not arrogant, we just believe we're the best band in the world."
-Noel

"We're the best band on the planet. That's not arrogance, that's just a fact."
-Noel

"Discipline? I don't know the meaning of the word."
-Liam

"I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for my Mum. I know I've got Irish blood because I wake up everyday with a hangover."
-Noel

That, of course, brings up the Beatles contradiction. Does he love them or hate them? He calls them the greatest band of all time, but insults them in the press. Despite the many cracks he's taken at the band, he's made dozens of lyrical references to the Fab Four, not to mention uncountable riffs, melodies and production techniques.

"They love us and we hate them," Gallagher laughs. He then goes on to clarify, "I don't steal their music. I steal John Lennon's because he's dead." After a pause he concludes, "and he can't sue me."
-Noel, from Pulse newspaper, Jan. '98

Then it was brother Noel's turn to put the boot in - to Paul McCartney's new classical album: "Sitting around with a bunch of old lesbians writing doesn't sound classical to me. I've written three classic albums." (That's a matter of opinion)

When asked about his recent visit to Prime Minister Tony Blair's official residence at Number 10 Downing Street, Noel replied: "The only reason you'd want to go to Number 10 is to have a s--t in the bog."
-aust

Yahoo! Music
Noel: Kill The Queen
01/06/1998 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Bruce Haring

(1/6/98) - Oasis bad boy and eternal headline-maker Noel Gallagher was up to his old tricks during a recent appearance on Italian radio.

Gallagher told disc jockey Ringo Anaclerio that he hates the royal family. "I don't like the Queen. I don't believe in the monarchy or the royal family. I don't believe that the working people of England should have to pay [the Royal Family's] wages and pay the rent on their houses and pay for their kiddies to be brought up either. I think they should all be shot."

Asked what he would give the Queen for Christmas, Gallagher responded, "A kick up the arse!"

Buckingham Palace termed the remarks "outrageous and inappropriate." Which is probably what Gallagher had in mind...

Yahoo! Music
Oasis Hide Their Love Away
10/13/1997 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Lyndsey Parker

(10/13/97) - Forget the supposed Oasis-vs.-Blur feud...the real battle is being waged between Oasis and their role models, the Beatles themselves. Last week Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher publicly called ex-Beatle George Harrison a "nipple" (a British slang term for "idiot") after Harrison commented that Oasis would be forgotten in 30 years' time. Only days later, in an interview for MTV Live, Liam's brother Noel dissed Harrison's former bandmate Paul McCartney. When--in light of McCartney's recent remarks that Oasis were "derivative"--Noel was asked if there was any conflict between Oasis and McCartney, he replied, "I don't know, I think he's just going senile, isn't he?" No one in the Beatles' camp has yet to retaliate with his own barb.

Yahoo! Music
Oasis Look Back In Anger
10/29/1997 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Lyndsey Parker

(10/29/97) - Oasis's Liam Gallagher is demanding a rematch. It seems the limey lout isn't afraid to put on the boxing gloves and go a few rounds of hand-to-hand combat with the hands that feed him, if we are to believe the profanity-laced rant he delivered during a live BBC Radio 1 interview October 23rd. The younger Gallagher used his airtime to hurl four-letter insults at both the Rolling Stones and the Beatles--something's he's being doing with ever-increasing frequency since George Harrison slagged Oasis in a French magazine interview in August. "I'm gonna shoot me mouth off here, all these snakes coming out the closets, all these old farts, I'll offer 'em out right here on radio," Liam rambled. "If they want to fight be at Primrose Hill Saturday morning at 12 o'clock. I will beat the f**king living daylight sh*t out of them, that goes for George, Jagger, Richards, and that other c*nt [presumably Sir Paul McCartney] that gives me sh*t." (Keep in mind that while myLAUNCH has the luxury of subtly inserting tasteful asterisks into this tirade, BBC 1 didn't have time to bleep out Liam's cursing during the live broadcast.) Liam continued to charm the radio audience with, "If any of them old farts problem with me then leave yer zimmer frames at home and I'll hold you up with a good right hook. They're jealous and senile and not getting enough f**king meat pies. If they want to fight, I'll beat them up." Not one to sit out on all the fun, Liam's elder brother Noel then chimed in by dismissing Paul McCartney's recent classical music project: "Sitting around with a bunch of old lesbians writing doesn't sound classical to me. I've written three classic albums." The Gallaghers' comments provoked so much public outrage that Prime Minster Tony Blair felt compelled to issue a statement saying that Oasis don't speak for all young people, and the BBC issued an apology the following day. No word yet as to whether any of the "old farts" Liam threatened have taken him up on his boxing match dare, and if so, whether Don King will be involved or whether the fight will be available on pay-per-view.

In a recent interview about Oasis' forthcoming studio album Noel Gallagher implied that they might be looking to leave Sony. He said: "We've written 66 songs between the four of us… but we didn't want to give that much to Sony as its our last album with them, so f--k 'em."
-kingblind

Maybe this is why Oasis never made it in America...

"I'm not going to play for silly yanks when I haven't got a house to live in!"
-Liam

"We turned down Bon Jovi because it's not worth the humiliation. I like him as a bloke, but his group... and as for Bowie, twenty years ago maybe, but not now. He's just an old git."
-Noel on supporting in 1996's Oasis Revealed

"When the boys arrive at Creation they're less than impressed with the company MD, Tim Abbott. He's wearing a Manchester United top. Oasis are massive City fans, and despite Creation being the only label expressing any interest in them at the time they are cocksure enough to tell McGee they'll only sign to his label if Abbott 'takes that f--kin' shirt off'."
-Paul Gallagher

"I used to faint every time I had a spliff. The doctor said, 'Basically you're alright with anything that gets you going, cos you need that.' I love my doctor, man."
-Noel on health, 1996

"It got more and more personal until it got to a point where Liam actually said stuff about my family - he was asking for a smack in the mouth and he got one! I ended up with a cut under my eye and there were a few bumps and bruises and I thought, 'Well, I'm not going round Europe with a black eye... I'm too good looking for that! And the girls will cry.'"
-Noel, NME, 2000-08-26

"Gallagher is already predicting some mayhem. 'There's gonna be us and Jet and [Kasabian]. That's gonna be f--king mental. I'm gonna need to have a liver transplant when I get back. It's gonna be good, though, I can't wait.'"
-Noel, VH1

From 1997's MTV Rockumentary:

"There's people in the House of Parliament, man, who are f--kin' bigger heroin addicts and like cocaine addicts than anyone in this room right now."
-Noel

Noel's reply to his own statement...

"Now there's the downside of alcohol folks." (Noel and interviewer laugh.)

Then later...

"If people think I'm irresponsible, you know, f--k you. (Waves V-sign) Yeah, I am irresponsible. I'm in a rock & roll group. I'm suppose to be irresponsible."
-Noel

"I'm a part of the greatest band in the world... am I happy with that? NO I'M NOT! I WANT MORE!!!"
-Noel

"I listened to a radio show in England the other day and, um, someone paid me really... really one of the nicest compliments I've ever been paid. Is that the DJ said that, that I was the new Phil Spector with, with like experimental wall-of-sound support. He said it was like, you know, it was that dense, and that massive sound of it that it was like Phil Spector... Um, and I didn't even pay him to say that either. He actually said that off his own right."
-Noel on Be Here Now

"She looks like some of that I put in me mouth last week... and it really got me hiiiiiigh."
-Liam, referring to a European MTV interviewer

"We can't even agree to disagree."
-Liam on his big brother

VH1's Documentary:

"I don't see the point in writing your own tunes when you can pinch somebody else's."
-Noel

"I never robbed car stereos or anything like that, you know what I mean? I just walk past the shop, there's be a mountain bike outside... and I'd go, Thank you very much."
-Liam on the finer practices of burglary

FM 94.9, 9-14-05 (audio link):

Interviewer: What's the first selection you'd like to have for us?
Noel: Um, it's a song called The Importance of Being Idle.
Interviewer: This is the one with the amazin video that you guys went back to '60s Britain in essence to capture all those great films that were the...
Noel: Yeah, I think I was trying to rip-off The Kinks I think. (Interview laughs)

Interviewer: Did you ever see the Stone Roses live ever?
Noel: Oh yeah... shocking.
Interviewer: Shocking...what do you mean?
Interviewer: Shockingly bad?
Noel: Shockingly bad, yeah.

Zone 105 interview just minutes before Oasis' concert at Northrup Auditorium in Minneapolis, Jan. '98:

Interviewer: (part of the introduction) ...Right, and we were suppose to have this interview for you yesterday but due to some sampling rant technical difficulties that we weren't able to... ("Technical difficulties" being it took a longer process of editing out Noel's swearing.)

Interviewer: Are you guys really thinking about calling it quits, or is that just alot of hype that's coming around?
Noel: Well, no, I don't be reporting the rumor around, that's probably, probably Blur or something like that. (Band laughs)

Interviewer: What sort of things do you have planned while you take your break and...?
Noel:: I'm gonna build a studio I think in me house, and then a...I'm probably gonna eat loads, and sleep loads, and party loads as well. And I'll probably %$#@ put on about 60 pounds or something like that. (band laughs)
Interviewer: Well, you know, that happens with married life and everything, things start to settle down, and a...
Noel: Yeah, yeah, well, ah, well it's good to know me dogs actually, I've got five dogs that I never actually see, so, um, everytime I come home they think I'm burglaring the house. (interviewer laughs)
Interviewer: What kind of dogs do you have?
Noel: Owh, their all sorts...my wife is a, she's a...she takes in stray dogs off the street, she's a flashy %$#@ weird. (band laughs)

Interviewer: You say you're passionate about your music...are you passionate about the Spice Girls at all, they've got the new movie coming out Friday, are you excited?
Noel: (dry sarcasm) .......................overwhelmed. (band laughs) Well, their five young girls, right. They're trying to make a living, so...I admire them for that. I admire them for sacking their manager. Not that I'm going to sake mine or anything like that, but, um, but, you know, they can't %$#@ sing, they can't play instruments, all their songs are %$#@... um, you know, "Girl Power" is the biggest steaming crock of horses--t I've ever come across in my entire life... because who fights the %$#@ walls darling... um... and... but apart from that, I wish them all the best, you know what I mean. (band laughs)
Interviewer: Well with all that in mind, do you have a favorite Spice Girl?
Noel: Um... I don't know? I mean I've met them, honest, and you know, they've always sounded quite polite about me. And don't get me wrong, I do wish them the best, you know, five girls making it is a, you know... it's good for, you know music in general, but I don't like their music, you know, or anything like that, but if I had to pick a favorite... um, probably the black chick I suppose.
Interviewer: (coming from a loud speaker) Scary Spice?
Noel: Is that what her name is? I tell you what, it must've been a funny conversation when they were dolling up them names that bit. (background laughs) (Noel adopts a thick and sarcastic English accent) "So I'll be called 'Scary', and you'll be called 'Posh', and I'll be called 'Sporty'." (more laughs) Why don't you just call yourselves by your %$#@ names, you know, your names your mum and dad gave ya. (someone claps in the background, presumably Liam) I'm a bit (something) about their ages as well, it's like if their 22 then, you know... if their 22, than I must be like 70 or something (band laughs) ... cause they ain't 22 man.
Interviewer: Well now with taking some time off in the not-too-distant-future, having a wife, having a nice house built and the studio, are you thinking at all about kids?
Noel: No... still trying to look after that one over there. (band laughs)
Interviewer: Your brother?
Noel: Yeah... still trying to raise him properly, haha. (Something) is another one. No, I'm not really the family type person really. Don't like family get-togethers or any %$#@ like that man. Just dogs will do me, dogs, dogs and fish... cause then if they piss you off you can always eat them, see! (everyone laughs) But you'd probably get arrested for eating a child these days.

Noel: ...we have not actually mastered that "no comment" thing yet.

The rap against has been that you don't have to see them in concert; that their live thing is so uneventful, you can stay home and listen to the records. But if you did that Sunday night, you would have missed a stunning version of "Wonderwall" propelled by the band's electric hollow-bodied guitars screaming out of Marshall amps; the extended version of the already-classic "Champagne Supernova"; and a reading of "Cigarettes and Alcohol" (which Liam concluded with an uppercut to the microphone), that was so tasty it'd make Skip Humphrey want to light up.
-Jim Walsh (Pioneer Press), Northrup Auditorium, Jan. '98

From Michael Krugman's Supersonic Supernova:

...Oasis were granted a session, though all Elleray remembers of it is that "Liam really took the room over." [DJ Mark] Riley was cohosting the show with Peter Hook, who became the target for Liam's barbed tongue.

"Why are you wearing those f--king awful leather trousers?" Liam poked at the notoriously cranky bassist, who swore that the Gallaghers would now be persona non grata at the Hacienda.

Liam for his part , could give a damn. "Who wants to go down there?" he snarled. "It's s--t!"

"I couldn't believe it," Riley said later of the session. "I thought then that if you bottled that attitude, you'd make a million." -pg.18-19

...The party went on until the wee hours of the morning, when the hotel management mad the fatal error of informing the band and their mates that they had to shut down the bar and get ready for the breakfast rush.

"There was a big row," Bonehead told Vox's Ann Scanlon, "then somebody opened the lounge window and started hurling things out and I had to get involved, 'cos the temptation was too great."

Beer bottles rained out the window, smashing the windshield of a Mercedes parked in the hotel lot. Unfortunately, the luxury car belonged to the hotel's manager. "The police were called," Bonhead continued, "fingerprints were taken and we were told, 'Get out, and don't ever come back.' We were happy to get out, 'cos the Columbia's a pit. It's like somewhere your gran would stay."

"At first it was a buzz being there," Liam explained to NME, "but then I thought it was a dive. There was a bug in the corner of my room and I thought, 'You can f--k off, this is my room.' We had enough in the end. There was a lot of pot going around and we'd got some pipes. We were drinking as well and in the end we just trashed it. Then we started running around the place and going for it. We just trashe it and things went out the window. In the end we got barred. But f--k 'em, we don't care. There's better hotels anyway."

"I can't remember the last occasion when someone was banned," Michael Rose, a director at the Columbia, said. "We wouldn't bar a band unless we feel we have justifiable reasons."

Once again, the band were immersing themselves in one of rock's great traditions. Like The Who and Led Zep before them, Oasis could not seem to resist the destruction of property. The usual excuse for a rocker's rampant vandalism is boredom, the need to act up created by spending much of one's life in hotel cubicles. But, God, bless 'em, the lads in Oasis were happy to admit the real motivation behind their actions: Smashing stuff up is just plain fun.

"It takes years of practice to get good," Bonehead told The Face "I've got a chair in my house that I practice throwing out the window." -pg.46-47

...The second night, they played in Newcastle, a northern city infamous for its hardness. The crowd were hyped up and belligerent from the start, football chanting, "Soft as s--te!" and "Man City, wank wank wank." five songs into the set, Oasis kicked into the punk burner "Bring It On Down" when an audience member climbed onstage and decided to let out some of his inexplicable rage on Noel.

"I looked up and there was this guy stood right in front of me," Noel told Q later, "and he f--king smacked me right in the eye. I just took the guitar off and belted him across the head with it, and then he got dragged into crowd. Me and Our Kid, like a pair of idiots, jumped straight in and it went off, f--king proper. Later in the dressing room, I noticed I was covered in blood. He nearly took my eye out with a sovereign ring he was wearing."-pg.48

Then...

The brothers took a break from battling each other and dove into the pit where they proceeded to beat the puncher senseless. Where most bands would allow the bouncers to handle such matters, Oasis' tough-kid background demanded that they take care of such things. "It's just sticking up for yourself," Liam explained. "If someone gets on the stage and has it then he gets it, it's simple. People think we're up for a fight and that, but we're not up for a fight. We didn't start it, we're here to play songs, that's what we're about. We're not about fighting. We want to do the songs, do the set and get off. But if someone gets up and thinks he's a bit hard and goes for it, he's going to get it."

Considering Noel's bloodied face and battered guitar-the beloved Gibson Sunburst passed down from Pete Townsend to Johnny Marr to Noel-there was clearly no chance of the show continuing. As the band attempted to leave the venue, their van was surrounded by a few hundred angry fans, pissed that the gig was cut so short. Surrounded, the members of the band had to lay down on the floor to avoid being hit with the bricks and bottles caroming off the vehicle. -pg.48-49

Noel was taken to Newcastle's Royal Victoria Hospital and patched up. "I've got a bit of a headache," he said, "a bit of a lump gathering over my eye but if I have another seventy-five cigarettes and a couple of bottles of gin I'll be sort of alright, I might go to sleep tonight."

Two days later, Oasis journeyed to Vimmerby, Sweden, where the were to play the annual Hultsfred Festival along with their pals Primal Scream and Verve. Unfortunately, the fest's naive promoter booked all three bands into the same hotel and needless to say, wildness ensued. "I was walking along," Liam remembered with glee in Select, "and this chair come flying past me, then another, then another, I thought, It's gonna be good tonight."

The Primals, sensing trouble, wisely snuck away in their tour bus after the cops were called in, leaving Oasis and Verve to pay L800 to the hotel manager in order to avoid arrest. A spokesman for the Verve explained the scene later, noting that "everyone was really drunk. The bands didn't play until something like two in the morning. They they got back to the hotel and the bar was open. Unfortunately, they tried to close it after a while and an argument ensued. Some bottles were purloined. You're a bit gauche if you're a promoter and you think that with these three bands in the bar, nothing's gonna happen. The chemistry was there and it's not suprising what happened."

"Everything just went mad," Liam told Melody Maker's Paul Mathur. "People were smashing bottles and throwing things all over the place. At one point, somone opened a window and just started to lob everything out. I woke up the next morning, looked out the window and the car park was, like, full of bedrooms. It was a laugh."

When later asked about his part in the constant bad-boy hijinks, Liam seemed to be in denial, or atleast in full-contrary mode. "Rock 'n' roll can be done without all the crap that's meant to go with it," he told Vox, "and that's why I'm not into trashing hotels. That's one thing I never wanted to get into with the band, but that f--ker over there [Bonehead] is mad for it and it's sad. People go, 'Ooh, it's really rock 'n' roll, throwing your gear out the window.' Bollocks! I'm in bed when all that's going on, reading The Independent with a glass of orange juice." -pg.49-50

The tour went well, with the fans satisfied and the band enjoying the perks of the rock-star world. Girl-crazy Liam met a lass who claimed to be the last person to sleep with Kurt Cobain. "Too dangerous," he conceded, adding, "But I let her suck my d--k."

All progressed smoothly until the band arrived in Los Angeles for a show at the legendary Whiskey A Go-Go. The day before, Liam and Noel made an appearance on the popular Love Phones call-in show on KROQ. For some reason, the callers repeatedly inquired whether Oasis were part of some New Mod scene. After a number of these queries, a testy Liam finally snapped, "Look, we're not f--kin' mods, alright?" Another caller wanted to know how the Gallagher's felt about penis extensions. Noel replied that they've got one playing drums, [Tony McCarroll] and no, he can't recommend it. After that things got out of control, leading to the DJ leaving the studio and the band getting booted off the air.

That night the band got into a brawl with the bouncers at the Viper Room over the two A.M. closing time. The entourage proceeded to Bonhead's brother's house, where the party continued until morning. It may well have gone on longer, but sometime around dawn, Bonehead decided to set up his amp in the street. There he played the spiraling "Supersonic" riff until half a dozen LAPD black-and-whites arrived and puta stop to the shindig. -pg.55

Liam defended his retro tastes in Raygun, telling Ken Micallef that "I'm twenty-two and I totally live in the past and I think it's top. All my mates are into the f--king Chemical Brothers. I hate it. Nonimaginative bollocks keyboard crap."... -p.123

From Paolo Hewitt's Getting High:

'I'm banging on Whitey's door and he opened it and he goes, "I don't know about you but I've got a f--king gig to play tomorrow night for which I'm being paid and if I don't get any kip I ain't going to be able to play it, so will you kindly f--k right off."'

Liam loved that kind of s--t. In your face. The f--k-off attitude. The attitude the band was built on. -pg.60

From Paul Mathur's Take Me There:

On the wall of the office where the contract was to be signed there was a picture of Liverpool band the Farm, the archetypal scally act whose album a year earlier had sold faster than anything since U2's Rattle and Hum. While their sound and sensibility had in many ways paved the way for a band like Oasis, Noel decided they were 'a load of s--te' and flatly refused to sign any contract until an addendum was added promising that the photo would be turned to face the wall.

'When we signed,' he says, 'I was going to make f--king sure that everything was perfect, and I wasn't going to have those twats looking down on us. I mean, there was Bob Dylan on one wall and us standing there in the middle. The Farm weren't exactly in the same league, if you know what I mean. You've got to have standards, man.'

After the contract was eventually signed, the band resumed their champagne, a crusade that had started at noon. Sony staff unaware of what was going on upstairs found out pretty soon as toilets, lifts and corridors were overrun by the sort of people who looked, to the drones at least, like they were just about to trash the place. The remains of white lines covered plenty of available surfaces and the dregs from overturned champagne bottles puddled the carpets. Dusk was hours away.

Noel Gallagher leant against a wall, bottle in one hand, cigarette in the other, buzzing off his head, but still a relatively convincing representative of calm at the centre of the maelstrom.

'So, you're rock 'n' roll stars,' I said to him as the room turned into a typhoon-raddled revolving restaurant.

'We've always been rock 'n' roll stars,' he grinned. 'This is f--king brilliant but you haven't seen anything yet. We're going to start proving it.' -pg.40

Liam: You want to be Andrew Lloyd Webber, you do, you f--ker.
Noel: Who's Andrew Lloyd Webber?
Liam: I haven't got a clue. He's a golfer or something.

Noel: You like shagging loads of whores.
Liam: Yeah, I do. Look, all I've got to say is, I'm just having a crack. It's not doing anyone any harm. John Lennon used to do loads of mad things...
Noel: Do you know John Lennon?
Liam: Yeah, I do.
Noel: Well you must be pretty old then. How old are you? Twenty-one?
Liam: No, about 1005.
Noel: You're twenty-two and I watched you being born, so shut the f--k up about knowing John Lennon.
Liam: I'm not a pop star. And if I am I'm a real one, matey. I haven't been invented. I'm an average lad who was born in Burnage, who played conkers...
Noel: CONKERS!!!
Liam: Conkers, mate. Conkers. The f--king lot. Conkers. That is it. And now I'm in a band and nothing's f--king changed. I'm not an idol. I'm not a faker. I'm not some f--king bulls--tter, I just say what I say.

From then on Noel and Liam avoided doing interviews together. Probably for the best.

Another NME journalist, Simon Williams, hooked up with them in early May and found them in admirably unhinged form.

At a hotel in Portsmouth they managed to fill a swimming pool with chairs, steal several hundred quid's worth of booze, get into a fight with half the other residents, flirt with every girl in the building and still managed to get up in time for their breakfast of cigarettes, Jack Daniels, gin and tonics and the odd Big Mac. Looking back at their behavior the next day, Liam had noted, 'Well, it was a silly place to put a swimming pool, wasn't it?,' Noel adding, 'Yeah and those plate-glass windows were just saying, "Throw a chair through me!"'

The next night the King's Hotel in Newport received similar treatment (even though it has a bar called the Oasis) and Bonehead was rapidly establishing himself as a man with a mission to trash anywhere that he found himself in for more than thirty seconds.

'I remember we were stuck in the tour bus in a traffic jam,' says Williams, 'and Bonehead decided to leap from the front to the back seat. And he was supposed to be driving.'

Noel summed up the mood of the moment.

'People go on about the pressure of touring and all that, but that's because they sit and think about it all day. But we'll just bowl up there arguing in the coach all the way. Someone will probably have a tooth missing by the time we get on stage and we'll play the gig and then we'll get off and start arguing again. With this band it's let your hair down, man, have a good time. That's what it's there for. Then you wake up in the morning and do it all over again.' -pg.73-74

A couple of warm-up gigs were scheduled before the Albert Hall show, in Windsor and Illford. At the second, the night before Undrugged, the band's performance was constantly disrupted by dorky stage-divers completely failing to comprehend the transfixing nature of the band's music, a daft minority of the audience happier to lob themselves off-stage like they were at some crusty playschool.

'I've never understood stage-diving,' says Liam. 'I mean, what's the point? Especially when we're playing. You wouldn't have stage-dived to the Beatles, right? So don't stage-dive to us, you cheeky bastards.'

Liam sat at the back of the stage for much of the gig, increasingly pissed off at what he and the rest of the band considered an invasion of their personal space. To this day they are one of the few bands, particularly in America, who insist on barriers between themselves and the crowd.

'If people want to get on stage,' says Noel, 'then why don't they form a band or something? Don't come d--king around with us.'

The last straw at Illford came when someone grabbed Liam's cherished star-shaped tambourine out of his hand and made off with it. The band stopped mid-song and walked off the stage. -pg.75-76

Noel achieved another of his ambitions the night after the Naked City performance. Ian McNabb, ex-singer with the Icicle Works, was playing King's College, London with Ralph Molina and Billy Talbot of Crazy Horse and Noel, a long-time Neil Young fan, was invited up to join in on the encore, a cover of the Seeds' 'Pushin' Too Hard'.

'They said, "Do you know how it goes?"' he recalls, 'and I went, "Oh yeah, sure," even though I only vaguely knew it. Anyway, afterwards in the dressing-room, one of them comes up to me and he says, "Hey, little man, you can really play." Them saying that to me was a top moment.'

Liam was less impressed.

'What the f--k did he want to play with those old farts for?' he asked a few days later. 'I mean, he's got his own songs and his own band and all he wants to do is play with a bunch of sixty-year-olds. He's weird.'

Not half as weird as the whole band were to be a few days later when they played their first festival: Glastonbury.

'It was never the sort of place I'd ever felt even the slightest desire to go to,' says Noel. 'The only reason we went was because we were playing, but we thought, well, if we're there we might as well have a good time.'

They didn't just have a good time: they disembowelled the concept, roasted it on an open fire and spread the bones over a hundred-mile radius.

'It was completely mad,' recalls Simon, a friend of theirs whom they knew as 'the Cat in the Hat'. He'd brought along a big bag of E's and enough bindles of coke to ensure that the band were able to plunge wholeheartedly into the Glastonbury Experience. And within seconds of their arrival it became obvious that they intended to do just that.

'I was standing in this field,' recalls Simon, 'and this van came along and almost ran me over. Out jumped the band and all their mates and they just started necking all the stuff like it was going to run out any minute. They were bombing about all over the place, wandering off miles away from where they were supposed to be playing. About five minutes before they were supposed to go on someone found them and dragged them to their stage and they just went on and played this phenomenal gig. If you'd seen them beforehand you wouldn't have thought they'd even have been able to stand up. When they came off they just started going for it again on a big mad one. I think Liam even slept in a tent, but I haven't a clue how he managed to put it up.'

The next night, back in London, they still hadn't stopped partying. Booked in at the notorious rock 'n' roll haunt, the Columbia Hotel in Bayswater Road (a place memorably described by Liam as looking like 'the sort of place your granny would stay'), they ended the night throwing bottles out of a window at a Mercedes in the car park. Unfortunately, the car belonged to the hotel manager and they found themselves only the third group ever to be banned from the place.

'It was a s--t place anyway,' says Liam. 'We've been thrown out of a lot nicer places.'

I wonder how their working-class upbringing and the sense of respect that their mother instilled in them when they were young tallies with such relentlessly antisocial behaviour.

'We're lads,' they said at the time.

Nowadays, though, Noel is more circumspect.

'We smashed up hotels because basically it was a laugh and it's something that just kind of happens when you're all running around with this mad energy. And we did end up having to pay for it all. At one point it was completely getting bonkers. I'd be doing interviews with my back to the window and the journalist would be looking over my shoulder open-mouthed when I was saying that it was all just rumours about us trashing hotels. I'd be saying that and she'd be seeing all these things dropping past the window behind me. Beds, wardrobes, everything. I did make sure my room never got trashed, though, if I could help it. I mean, call me old-fashioned, but I like to have a bed to sleep in at the end of the night.'

'Anyway, we don't do that now,' Noel adds. 'We just had to get it out of our system and I'm glad we did. Everyone ought to do it once, just to see what it feels like.' -pg.78-81

And so, on 19 July 1994, Oasis found themselves in New York on the back of the New Music Seminar an annual music-biz beano that exists purely to provide executives from around the world with an opportunity to bump up their expenses claims and trot out dreary, soulless plans for corporate unit-shifting. And while British bands like These Animal Men and Echobelly paraded under the 'official' Seminar banner, Oasis remained defiantly distanced from it all.

'We're not part of all this,' Noel told me. 'We're far more important than some stupid circus industry.'

The night before, executives from Sony had taken the band out for a meal. Halfway through dinner they told Liam that he should be grateful to be on such an important label. He stood up, told them it was the other way round and they could all go f--k themselves. And left.

'Those American companies are mostly run by idiots,' says Noel. 'When we were first looking for a label to sign with out there, we got someone to take a tape out. The guy listened to it in his office and said, "Hey, you guys are from Manchester, right? Well, you don't sound much like Jesus Jones, do you?" Our mate just pressed the eject button, took the tape out and got the next flight home. I mean, you're dealing with complete twats. And I'm sure there's loads of bands who would have gone for the first person they met just because they were American. We aren't about to sell ourselves so cheap.' -pg.83-84

'The only bands I don't understand are the Clash and the Beach Boys. I just don't get what people see in them.'

Any other misconceptions?

'Well, until six months ago, I thought Blondie were French.' -Noel, pg.84-86

Downstairs in the foyer, as the band prepared to head off to their first Stateside gig, a particularly dislikeable couple begged to differ.

'You guys are s--t,' said the guy, dressed in regulation grunge gear.

'You're never going to make it in America - no British band has sold anything here in years.'

'Have you ever heard anything we've done?' asked Liam.

'No, but just look at you. I can tell. I bet you sound like the f--kin' Soup Dragons. America doesn't need you. Nothing you do matters.'

Liam started bobbing up and down, pacing in ever-deceasing circles, understandably furious.

'Listen man,' he said, menacingly calmly, 'don't you ever tell me what I do doesn't mean anything. I can do things you can't even dream about. I'll steal your soul and you won't even notice. I've stolen it while you were standing here.' -pg.86-90

After the show, Noel concurred. 'Hey, even I thought the rest of them played well,' he admitted.

There was a bona fide New York rock celebrity in the crowd that night: Jimmy Destri from Blondie. At the time Oasis had agreed to do a version of Blondie's 'Hanging On The Telephone' for a tribute album to NY's most startling pop band. It's a project which, at the time of writing, still hasn't seen the light of day, but at the time it seemed a more than viable proposition.

So Destri turned up in the dressingroom with a bit of paper on which he'd written the chord sequences for the song. Undoubtedly aware of Noel's compulsion for appropriating any loose stitches on rock's rich tapestry and weaving them into cushion covers of his own, he'd scrawled at the bottom of the paper, 'Steal these and we'll find you.'

'Yeah, right,' said Noel, adding, once Destri had left, 'He's just scared we'll do it better.'

Liam meanwhile was half-heartedly warding off the attention of groupies, moaning to me about an incident that had taken place at the hotel the night before.

'This girl came up to my room,' he said, 'and she was f--king mad. She started dancing around, then stood on the beds with one leg on each of them and her knickers in my face. And she goes, "So, you write the music then?" and I go, "Well, no." "So you write the words?" "Not really, no." So she just gets down, walks out of the room and goes and gives him [Noel] a blow-job in the back of a cab. Bastard. I'm going to start lying from now on. "Yeah, I write everything, the words, the music, the lot."' -pg.93-96

Liam was admirably calm about the album's chart-topping status and the relative merit of the Three Tenors.

'Well, of course we were going to get to number one,' he mused. 'We're loads better than three fat blokes, shouting.' So that's opera f--ked then. -pg. 114

After the Virgin Megastore performance, Evan Dando decided to tag along with Oasis for the duration of their short tour. His eccentric behaviour caused even Liam to describe his as 'bonkers' and he proved it the next night at a gig in North Wales. They were playing a place called the Buckley Tivoli, the only venue in the world that sounds like a pasta dish, the location chosen to give fans who didn't live in the city a chance to see the band. In fact hundreds trekked from Liverpool, Manchester and London to see them and were rewarded with a bizarre performance from Dando afterwards. As the fans left the venue, they could hear Evan singing, but didn't know where the voice was coming from. Then, as they looke up, it became clear. He was sitting on the roof, guitar in hand, serenading all and sundry like it was the sort of thing that happens all the time.

'That was nothing to do with us,' says Noel. 'Evan's just living in a world of his own. We never asked him to come along, he just sort of kept turning up.'

And he kept turning up. Despite having been allegedly banned from Sweden only a couple of weeks later, Oasis and entourage were allowed straight back in again the night after the Buckley gig. Due to the vagaries of the international distribution network, Definitely Maybe had been released a week earlier in Sweden than anywhere else in the world, going straight to number one there as well and ensuring that the demand for tickets for the show had far outnumbered the capacity of the venue, Gino in Stockholm, that they were due to play. One fan allegedly threw himself off a building because he couldn't get a ticket, somewhat muting what should have been a pure celebration of success. The Swedes continue to be among Oasis's most fanatical fans.

Back in Britain, Evan still in tow, Oasis checked into a Heathrow hotel, ready for a flight to their first-ever Irish gig the next day.

'I got back to the hotel,' says Noel, 'and as I walked into the lift, out came Evan with all these police around him. Apparently he'd gone a bit wild in his room and smashed up the TV set and they'd come to arrest him. I was like, "It's OK mate, he's with us, we'll pay for it. Now let him go." And they did.

'Next day,' he continues, 'we got to the airport and everyone was putting their bags through the metal detector. Evan put his through and suddently all these alarms started going off. You've got to remember we were going out on a plane from Heathrow to Ireland, so it was the flight where everyone would be worried about terrorists. When the alarms went off all these guys with guns appeared from nowhere and the X-ray of Evan's bag made it look like there was a bomb in it. They were convinced he was some sort of major terrorist. Anyway, they open his bag and inside there's all these bit of metal and glass and wires. And it isn't a bomb, it's the remains of the TV he smashed up the night before. He'd felt so guilty about what he'd done that he'd just scooped up all the wreckage and put it in his bag. Like no one would notice. He's way out there, man. You've just got to stand back. Completely mad.' -pg.119-120

They got themselves a slot on their old buddy Rodney Bingenheimer's show on K-ROQ, bizarrely overlapping with a problem phone-in and finding themselves having to offer advice to jilted lovers. Bonehead's cunning plan never wavered. 'Sue,' he said. 'Just sue. Everyone's doing it over here. Sue. Sue.' Just about everyone who rung up was urged to scurry away to a lawyer immediately.

One guy rung in asking about penis extensions.

'We've got a penis extension,' said Noel. 'He's our drummer.'

Rodney Bingenheimer rather queered his pitch by recalling the night he'd been with them when they signed, then asking about what part of Camden they were from. And a heap of expatriate Manchester callers trying to get on the guest list for the Oasis gig the next made for jolly phone banter completely incomprehensible to anyone not living within a couple of hundred yards of Bonehead's local. Getting steadily more wasted, the band headed over to Johnny Depp's club, the Viper Room, and, almost inevitably, ended up getting thrown out. The party moved on to Bonehead's brother's and, sometime round dawn, the LAPD arrived, cautioning them about disturbing the peace. By then Noel had snatched a few hours' sleep, and the rest of the band had been up for seventy-two hours, just to see what would happen. -pg.130-131

Nevertheless, the band managed to make it through their American dates without too many signs of combusting, although Noel did manage to crack his head open in a go-karting accident in Virginia, and one of the band got off with a girl who started beating him up during sex, making the rest of them think he was getting murdered. Those blips apart,it all went suprisingly smoothly. At a New York show where they thought they'd played badly, they even got solace from another superstar fan, John McEnroe.

'We met him afterwards and he was great, a complete mad bastard,' recalls Liam. 'He had a spliff and a drink and told us he really liked us and that he was in a band himself. He started singing this song all about "You cannot be serious/Double faults hurt my head" and I'm going, "Yeah, nice one." He's f--king mad.'

Guardian writer Jim Shelley hooked up with the band halfway throught the tour and found Noel in voluble mood. Gallagher even explained that he had medical reasons for his cocaine use. The last time he'd been in Detroit he'd stayed up for days, convinced that if you went long enough without sleep eventually you'd be able to stay up for ever, a somewhat bold new interpretation of received medical opinion and one that not too suprisingly ended with him being rushed to hospital.

'The doctor came up9 to me,' Noel told Shelley, 'and he went, "It's a good job you're twenty-seven, 'cos if you were forty-seven you'd be dead." Before I went away, though, I went to my doctor in Harley Street and he told me I had really low blood pressure. That's why smoking a draw was my only problem. Every time I had a spliff I'd faint. The doctor said, "Basically you're all right with anything that gets you going, 'cos you need that." I love my doctor, man!"

Noel also revealed that the band didn't actually have a management contract with Marcus - rather that it had all been sealed simply on a handshake. And if Marcus ever tried to sue him?

'I'd burn his house down, and he knows it.' -pg.143-144

'I've got a song to finish,' he told me. 'I was listening to this John Lennon bootleg and it's got this great line about "the brains I had went to my head". I'm having that.'

'What, you're just going to nick it?'

Well, yeah. I mean, it'd be a shame to waste it. The song's going to be a classic.' -Noel pg.163

'That Bono,' said Liam. 'We were having this conversation and he went, "I really like the stuff you're doing, son." I was, like, "Well, I think you've made some good records too, but I'm not your son."' -pg.216

'I met Damon there,' said Liam. 'So I went in the dressing-room walking in slow motion and said, "Helllloooooo Daaaaamoooon, I'm from Maaaaanchesteeeeeuur. We taaalk reeeally slooooooowly ooooop Noooorth 'cos weeeeee're reeeeeally stuuuuupid. Have a good gig." -pg.220

Not that the awards ceremony went off without a hitch. At one point Liam tried to brain Michael Hutchence with a fire extinguisher after the latter started taking the piss out of him. And, back at the hotel, Brian Cannon managed to throw a chair out of his window, causing L1000 worth of damage. A rock 'n' roll gesture made all the more remarkable by the fact that he was in his room on his own at the time.

'It was the champagne,' he says by way of mitigation. -pg.221

'We've burgled houses and nicked car stereos and we like girls and we swear and take the piss,' said Noel, making a point with dramatic effect rather than seriously confessing to a life of crime.

Then...

When Liam was asked by a Daily Mirror reporter whether there was any truth to the accusations of burglary, he deadpanned, 'Yeah, I've done loads. I'm doing your house tonight.'

Noel adopts a cod-Welsh accent as he recalls how Marcus sat them down and said, 'Sign with me, boys, and you'll be playing Hawaii in two and a half years. I promise you.'

'He was right,' Noel admits, 'but it took three years, not two and a half. So we'll go over and play the gig, then we'll sack him. Hawaii's going to be good, though. It's full of chicks, isn't it? And we can bury Bonehead in the sand so just his head's showing, then people will come along, think he's a coconut and bash his head in. Oh yeah, I'm looking forward to going there.' -pg.251

'And,' warns Liam, 'if you see Brian Cannon, just go up and stare at him. Whisper, "Microdot, Microdot, Microdot" and freak him out.' -Liam on fan participation, pg.253

album reviews: Oasis

2006-08-04T19:28:00.001-05:00

Oasis
Be Here Now
(Sony, August 26, 1997)
D+

The album that exterminated Oasis' international stardom, Be Here Now (or as one Amazon commentor put it, Be - Ware Now, LOL!) is the third and lesser of the bands three efforts up to this point.

"I think it's a genuine shame that these songs are so bloated, because there's real good songs getting dragged down in their length: four seven-minute songs and one nine-minutes, this album just goes on too long and killed Oasis' megastardom."

"A disastrous comedown
You see, Be Here Now must be viewed as the album that destroyed Oasis' reputation. Whilst most British people still like some Oasis anthems from the first two albums, their public image went from brilliant rock idols to soggy Northerners making copycat, soggy songs."

It was a calculated gamble on Noel "The Chief" Gallagher's part, and his overly-conservative songwriting cost him. Sure, Wikipedia shows the album has sold 8 million copies, but that's less than half of 1995's What's the Story (Morning Glory) sales. And to put it into context today, Oasis' subsequent albums are selling less than half of Be Here Now on average. Outside of their loyal fan base, the music community at large doesn't have an interest in them anymore. I understand the very nature of "pop" music has a 'here today, gone tomorrow' market, but acts like U2 continue to attain a larger fan base through the years. Not the case with Oasis. Their popularity has been, for the most part, relegated to the UK.

The problem derived, as has been mentioned before, from too much sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, but also Gallagher underestimating his audiences interests. Be Here Now was partially What's the Story (Morning Glory) II with an overblown production, as three fans say:

"Indeed, Be Here Now seems thrown together for the sake of pleasing a salivating British public, who, like me, wanted more Morning Glory?."

"The rockers lack the intensity and the credibility of Definitely Maybe and the ballads are practically identical in structure to Morning Glory's."

"I will admit that the sound is much like older Oasis recordings, but that's just the problem. It's TOO much like the older stuff and sounds suspiciously like the Gallaghers were in a hurry to turn out something - anything - a.s.a.p. What makes this album so bad is that it was hyped SO much, which left this Oasis fan with a sharp sense of being taken for a ride."

Before I get into my own views on the album, I'd like to touch on the matter of music's subjectivity. It's been said many times before that everyone is entitled to their own opinion on art. But even though that can be said most of the time, is it not also possible to occasionally prove otherwise? Here's one persons take on the majority of Amazon comments...

"Please read the bad and fair reviews on this album before considering buying it because I think they say a lot more about the album then the good reviews posted by fans who think anything Oasis is good. No way! Definitely Maybe is an excellent album, Morning Glory is good, and then this?! The songs all sound the same, most are way too long, and they have a lot of bad guitar distortion, repitition, but nothing precise and good."

Lets take a further look at some of the contradicting examples given at Amazon...

"As with any Oasis album, there are the references to John, Paul, George, and Ringo. "All Around the World" is a direct copy of Hey Jude, and the lyrics of the songs are almost carbon copies of Beatles' songs (The fool on the hill/And I feel fine). That is permissible, however, because the music is damn good."

"This album is wonderful. Every song is great. "All Around the World" and "D'you know what I mean" are particularly good. I'm a huge Oasis fan, and I consider this album to be one of their best. There is one drawback to the album, though: they don't try anything new."

"Their classic Britpop sound is sort of drowned out by the multiple guitar layers that permeate this album...but that's not really a bad thing. Hey, Britpop is cool, but it can get repetitive."

"I know it is a bit repititous by the time you get to the last couple of songs, but when the first few songs are as good as this, who cares if they go back on themselves?"

"... a genuine '90s masterpiece."

"although I always disliked "All Around the World"-can you say 5 minutes too long?
Truth be told, though, they always have, and probably will always be in some fashion, good at this sort of manufactured, mindless pop. The lyrical fragments in each song are sometimes repeated 2 or 3 times, with the lines a bit rearranged each time, and what lyrics there are are pretty uninspired ("Don't go away/Say that you'll stay/Forever and a day"). The riffs are circular and generally uninspired. But it's so crunchy, loud, rocking (even on the slower songs like "Magic Pie" and "Don't Go Away"), and sincere (especially when they aren't trying to make a point like on the leadoff "D'You Know What I Mean") that it's hard to resist even for someone like me who (I think) has standards."

"Also, Noel is writing very long dreamy heavy rock songs and rock ballads that are well-crafted, yet that go nowhere and in circles but just enjoy doing that, cause that's what it's all about anyway, ehs?"

"Sure the lyics don't make much sense sometimes, but who cares. It's just music."

"Having watched Oasis flounder with "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants" and "Heathen Chemistry," and regroup with this year's "Don't Believe the Truth," it's easier to judge "Be Here Now" in context. It's a sprawling, out of control record that has a life of its own."

"I don't think any band could purposefully set out to make a record this audacious. "Be Here Now" is a product of a band that was too high and wrapped up in their own fame to believe they had limits. When you listen to it now it sounds overblown in the best way possible-- like T.Rex's "The Slider" or the "Use Your Illusion" records."

"The sound is huge, arena rock. The songs last too long. The album as a whole lasts too long. The cover art is ridiculous. The lyrics are ridiculous. It's almost a parody. But beneath it all, the songs are good. It's loud. It sounds great when you're drunk. There are a couple of good ballads that might even cause the drunk girl next to you to drunkenly make-out with you. In short, this is what rock n roll is supposed to be."

Even the respected Stephen Thomas Erlewine (AMG) seems to be suspiciously contradicting himself...

"And that self-possessed confidence, that belief in their greatness, makes Be Here Now intensely enjoyable, even though it offers no real songwriting breakthroughs."

"...to create impossibly catchy songs that sound fresh, no matter how many older songs he references. He may be working familiar territory throughout Be Here Now, but it doesn't matter because the craftsmanship is good." -STE [1]

Or IMO uncritical...

"This album is great to listen to and was unfailry snubbed by all those set-in-their-way alternative music fans who think its cool to hate Oasis."

"I like every song they have ever written..."

"Once again the boys of Oasis have created a musical and Lyrical masterpiece, no matter what anyone says."

Then those who agree their are problems with Be Here Now...

"This album shows that Noel Gallacher has gotten too big for his boots - why make the tune 4 minutes when I can make it eight? - didn't anyone tell him that we do not need the chorus to be repeated 50 times?"

"Songwriter Noel Gallagher's hooks have always been painfully derivative of The Beatles, but now he seems to have decided to hang a sign around his neck with lyrics like: "The fool on the hill and I feel fine," and "Down the long and winding road and back home to you." And those are just the ones that spring to mind. Also, he's named one of his songs "Stand By Me," which is hardly original, either. Hell, Lennon even covered a song of the same name, a song which dates back decades. There's not a copyright on names, no, but still, certain titles reach the point of public awareness that they should then be left alone by future songwriters. "Stand By Me" would definitely qualify as one of those titles. All of this could be forgiven, though, if Noel had concentrated on songwriting rather than production. People accused The Beatles of overproduction on Abbey Road, but Noel's one up on them with Be Here Now."

"Oasis slipped a bit here. Noel can still write great songs, but his guitar playing is starting to sound similar. He has great riffs, but you can here a lot of other songs in his "new" ones."

"And much like a stream of consciousness we find "Be Here Now" moves from thought to thought without any clear indication of change or direction."

"While the album title is a quote from John Lennon, and the songs are filled with references to Beatles songs ("The Fool On the Hill," "The Long and Winding Road," "Let It Be," "Helter Skelter""

"Coming off of what is arguably Oasis' best album, (What's The Story) Morning Glory?, they would return with the tasty (if not somewhat derivative) Beatle-ish Brit-pop infectiousness that was their stock in trade. So, what's different this time around? Not much, except that some of the songs tend to run much longer than they need to.

And this is where the album precisely suffers. Had some of the tracks been trimmed down in length -- or had been removed, altogether -- this would definitely rank right up there with their earlier classics."

"Sometimes, the songs don't really go anywhere, and become annoying..."

Rolling Stone...

"...and guitarist Noel Gallagher's best songwriting is based on repetition: elementary riffs and choruses slowly, inexorably digging beneath your skin. He can literally beat a good idea to death; nine and a half minutes of "All Around the World" is at least five minutes of "Hey Jude"-meets-"Let It Be" too many. And why do pop stars think they need big orchestral arrangements to sound important?" -RS [2]

According to a couple fans, even Noel has problems with the album(s):

"Noel Gallagher himself in an interview disowns Morning Glory, Be Here Now and Standing on the Shoulders of Giants."

"Noel Gallagher has refused to play anything from BHN since the world tour of 1997/98"

Here's Noel acknowledging:

'When people ask why this album took so long, I say, "Because we're lucky," ' he shrugs. 'I would fight anyone in the street to have three years to follow up Morning Glory. We rushed Be Here Now. We went on a huge tour, all fell out, then we came back. Instead of taking a year or two off, and basking in all the glory of all the records we sold and all the money that we made, instead of buying big houses, we went straight back in the studio. I'm definitely taking another three years before the next one.' -[3]

Q: Why do you think Be Here Now is so mediocre?
First of all, the songs are too long and the lyrics are rubbish, it's just an album I don't like very much. We were just getting our royalty checks from (What's the Story) Morning Glory? and we had more money than you could dream about. It was drugs, girls, and one big f---ing party all the time. But in the middle of all that we were trying to make an album and since we're not Coldplay the quality on the record suffered, because we simply partied too much and made a lot of noise. I would never change anything, but the truth is I don't remember that much from that time except for the album, which I don't like. So I guess we learned a lesson from that. -[4]

It's been a problem with Oasis' music since '97: where to go next? Even Noel acknowledged this in Paolo Hewitt's "Getting High" right before the making of Be Here Now. 1994's Definitely Maybe was much more outright rock and homage (Chapter 1), and the generational melodic pop of 1995's What's the Story (Morning Glory?) (Chapter 2). Oasis have since to this day unsuccessfully created Chapter 3. Too many of their songs sound like shells of past glories.

However, this isn't to say Be Here Now is without its moments. D'You Know What I Mean? is a genius production and daring in its layers upon layers of psychedelics and backward loops. Where "Live Forever" was the song to a nation, My Big Mouth typifies the Gallagher cocksureness to a tee. The exploding intro of "24 guitars recorded on top of one another" is sonic brilliance even if the remainder of the track follows standard Oasis verse-chorus. ("'My Big Mouth' was more concerned with the volume of the song rather than the tune. It didn't do anything interesting, but it has a rousing chorus you can't help but like.") (This is what has dogged Oasis since then; the volume of their recordings rarely matches their level of arrogance.) Noel's solo guitar work on My Big Mouth this is top notch. I've never understood the backlash Magic Pie gets? Yes it's overproduced and sloppy, but compared to the rinse/repeat epics of All Around the World and It's Getting Better (Man!!), structurally it does a much better job of moving along and justifying it's 7 minute length. Noel even said lyrically this was in his Top 5. (""Magic Pie," sung by Noel, which uses original lyrics to conjure up the life of a one-time rock 'n' roll star who's come and gone.") The two other standouts are the country-western guitarslinger FadeIn-Out (with terrible lyrics but great Johnny Depp slide guitar) and the beautiful melodic ballad, Don't Go Away.

After that I'm afraid it all falls into uninteresting predictability. There are also some sequencing issues. Putting the sameyness of Stand By Me (cliched guitar & orchestral chorus), I Hope I Think I Know (stagnant) and The Girl In the Dirty Shirt (bluesy piano, tiring chorus) together was a mistake. It really took the life out of the album in the 4,5,6 slots. The title track doesn't really help matters either with more familiar guitar chords and a *toilet flush* effect that is more indicative of where the latter half of the album is heading than making a cocksure statement. All Around the World... well, lovely video anyway. ("..is the two-part "All Around the World." Making it go on for almost 12 minutes on two tracks is totally unnecessary."; 9:20 to be exact) It's Getting Better (Man!!) has to be heard to be believed. If you think the rest of the album is overlong, just wait till you hear this! Running 7 minutes, the song has kind of a cool guitar buzz going, but the rest of the track is terribly daft and predictable formula the first 5 minutes. But I'm not done. The outro, I don't think I've ever heard such a shocking ending. Liam & Noel repeat the chorus "It's getting better man" over 30 times without any variation. No, it's not getting better, man, and the means doesn't justify the ending! ("It's Gettin' Better (Man!!): Enjoy life and hope it gets a lot better. The length just makes it better. 9/10") The melodic Reprise is much more wholesome than its epic counter part. Short, sweet, and to the point without overstaying its welcome (that's if you can justify Noel's obsession of copying Sgt. Pepper). ["Oasis' Beatles fixation in sound (most notably "Magic Pie" and the album's beautifully Sgt. Peppered orchestra ending) and sentiment ("I got something in my shoe / It's keeping me from walking / Down the long and winding road... back home to you") is still intact on this album (which was partially recorded at... you guessed it - Abbey Road Studios)"] -[5]

The problems with Be Here Now are bewildering to say the least. Where was the editing? ("The band just needed more external input on this album") My theory is one of two things: (1) Producer Owen Morris was rumored as being just as coked up as the rest of the band, or (2) he could not give The Chief advice for fear of being fired, which is plausible given Gallagher's clout is documented in various Oasis books. What the answer is I guess remains a mystery.

What I really want to say is Be Here Now, barring a few instances, is an insult to rock 'n' roll. That a band can just throw together an album on the basis of past successes, as well as tossing together mostly meaningless lyrics, is inexcusable. It's an insult to bands in general who are unwavering creatively. It's not acceptable under any genre, and Oasis are still paying that price today with the demise of their popularity. I hope these examples are a learning tool. Because Be Here Now is arguably the most maligned album from a big-named band in the '90s.

1. D'You Know What I Mean? 7:42
2. My Big Mouth 5:02
3. Magic Pie 7:19
4. Stand by Me 5:56
5. I Hope, I Think, I Know 4:23
6. The Girl in the Dirty Shirt 5:49
7. Fade In-Out 6:52
8. Don't Go Away 4:48
9. Be Here Now 5:13
10. All Around the World 9:20
11. It's Gettin' Better (Man!!) 7:00
12. All Round the World (Reprise) 2:08

Sources:
Amazon

Album review: INXS

2006-05-02T17:48:00.001-05:00

INXS
Greatest Hits
(Universal/Mercury, 1994)
B+

Styles: pop/rock, funk, dance-rock, new wave (R&B)
Themes: urban, limelight/center of attention, sexy, party, sensuous, slick, girl hungry/animal magnetism
Key tracks: The One Thing, What You Need, Need You Tonight, Devil Inside, New Sensation, Never Tear Us Apart, Disappear

INXS' penchant for making colorful dance-rock may have also placed them at the premiere of the genre during the '80s assisted by frontman Michael Hutchence's porous sex appeal. Most of the well-knowns are here. Hutch's rompy insistence on the jazzy What You Need. Need You Tonight and Devil Inside display breathy steaminess and animal craving not quite captured since Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf." (I'm sure Hutch had quite a long willing list of women to bed after those two numbers.) On New Sensation, INXS are basically claiming themselves the heirs of the "new thing" with as much confidence, exuberance, swagger, volume, and skill intended. Their tightest rocker. Never Tear Us Apart as many fans will say is the bands finest moment with a classic ballad for the times. Hutch lays out the groundwork with endearing gentility accompanied with tugging strings (keyboards?). Then what cements its memory is a hallmark, full-bodied, storytelling saxophone making a forceful statement during the middle eight to set the song off to another "This is for the one I love" level. It is followed by some beautiful and gentle call & response hooks that eventually fade out. The classic contains the memorable line, "We could live/For a thousand years/But if I hurt you/I'd make wine from your tears."

One of my favorites is the atmospheric, synthish, new wave sheen of The One Thing. To me it depicts the soundtrack feel from some of the Brat Pack movies amongst other sounds from the '80s. The-whole-is-greater-than-its-dated-
instrument-parts of Original Sin is a big, varied dance sound - excellent. The midtempo/uptempo exchanges on the dance rave, bass groove Disappear, the consumate and worldly Stairs and Heaven Sent, and Beautiful Girl with its naked, tender, and simply constructed commitment. The remaining tracks, Strangest Party (These Are the Times) and Deliver Me, are the only real filler on the album. Otherwise this is a solid representation of the bands dance-rock esthetic. When things were clicking, INXS proved they could be unstoppable.

Nostalgic's album title re-working: I'm the Host, and You're Invited

Playlist:
1. The One Thing
2. Original Sin
3. What You Need
4. Listen Like Thieves
5. Shine Like It Does
6. Need You Tonight
7. Devil Inside
8. New Sensation
9. Never Tear Us Apart
10. Suicide Blonde
11. Disappear
12. The Stairs
13. Heaven Sent
14. Beautiful Girl
15. The Strangest Party (These Are The Times)
16. Deliver Me

Remembering Michael Hutchence 1960-1997

2006-05-02T10:40:00.000-05:00

I did a little research on Hutch and thought it would be useful for the fans to pool some of the information I found. I never saw INXS live, but I'd have to say it was the bands downtempo moments in a song where Michael shined brightest. His singular breathy calm and amazing beauty that I imagine built a steamy attraction with the wouldbe adoring fan. A "feline" attraction as one writer put it. There isn't much else I can say that already has been said. R.I.P.

Wikipedia
Biography
The Hutchence family eventually returned to Sydney in Michael's late teens, and it was there that Hutchence befriended Andrew Farriss at Davidson High School on Sydney's Northern Beaches. Shortly, Michael and Andrew joined with Andrew's brothers Tim and Jon, as well as friends Garry Gary Beers and Kirk Pengilly to form their first band, The Farris Brothers which would ultimately become INXS. When in 1979 the Farriss family moved to Perth, Western Australia, the rest of the band followed, returning to Sydney soon after. In 1980, the group released their first album, INXS, and put out their first single, Simple Simon, which was soon followed by their first moderate Australian hit, Wishy Washy.

By virtue of his role as the band's lead singer, Hutchence became the main spokesperson for the band, and gained a reputation as a confident, sexy frontman, although his close friends and family always maintained he was much more introverted than his on-stage persona. A talented lyricist, he co-wrote almost all of INXS's songs with Andrew Farriss, who has attributed his own success as a songwriter to Hutchence's 'genius'.

In 1987, following several increasingly successful INXS albums, Hutchence appeared in the Australian movie Dogs In Space. This was followed by the album Max Q, a collaboration with Australian post-punk pioneer Ollie Olsen. In 1990, he played Percy Shelley in Roger Corman's Frankenstein Unbound.

Hutchence's private life was often reported in the Australian and international press, with a string of love affairs with prominent models and singers. In 1990, he began a highly publicised relationship with Kylie Minogue, helping to transform her image from girl-next-door (a hang-over of her soap opera "Neighbours" fame), into a sexy, edgy pop diva.

INXS spent the mid-1990s trying to develop a successful new album after a series of less-than-spectacular releases.

During this time, Hutchence's relationship with Kylie Minogue ended, and for a time he dated supermodel Helena Christensen before meeting Paula Yates. Paula and Michael's affair was soon discovered by the English press, who hounded them for photos and quotes. The pressure from the media was so intense that Hutchence once assaulted a photographer hounding him. Around this time, Yates' separation from husband Bob Geldof became official, sparking an at-times bitter custody battle over their three daughters, Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches Honeyblossom and Pixie Frou-Frou. Yates eventually became pregnant by Hutchence, and in 1996 gave birth to Hutchence's only child, a daughter named Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Hutchence.

A new INXS release, 1997's Elegantly Wasted, had just been released when Hutchence, aged 37, was found dead behind the door of a room in the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Double Bay, Sydney (now the Sir Stamford). A belt found at the 'scene of crime' suggested that he had hanged. The New South Wales coroner determined his death was suicide but analysis of the witness statements in the report, the lack of a suicide note and other evidence has since been interpreted to suggest that the cause of death may have been accidental, resulting from autoerotic asphyxiation (strangling himself while masturbating). The full Coroner's Report can be read from an external link below.

* note it is not substantiated that this is the actual Official Coroner's Report

Hutchence's long-in-the-works solo album, Michael Hutchence, was finally released in 1999, as was his third movie, Limp.

In summer 2005, a television show featured the members of INXS looking for a new singer to replace the late Hutchence. The show, which aired on CBS, was called Rock Star: INXS. The winner was Canadian singer J.D. Fortune.

Aust
Andrew: The man understood emotional human depth in how to convey that and communicate it. He understood that and I worked with him in it and I know how talented he was. I said to Martha, the group's manager, the other thing that astounded me with him ... a lot of people would get a pencil and paper and they would write out how they feel and then go back with an eraser and they'd rub out "No, I don't think so". The amazing thing with him, he used to shock me sometimes, he'd write a set of lyrics and he'd never go back. It just came out exactly like his thoughts but it used to be very scary because the thing was, what you saw was really exactly what he was thinking and that was often his means of communication and I think he was a great communicator with the modern medium of television and audio and all of it and like, and I'll say me, I can't speak for the rest of the fellas, but I know like me, with him he probably had things he was afraid of or things he had to deal with or whatever but I think I would agree with the fellas, I don't think the band was one of them.

George: What are your finest memories going to be?

Tim: Well, one of the memories I was gonna say just before we did this show somewhere on the East Coast of the USA and Michael had started off the show doing "Elegantly Wasted" in his costume de home suit - you know with the little rip just the way he liked it - and ended up wearing, just wearing his wife-beater and pants you know, and he strolls down in front of the audience, and he's standing on this table and he looks up at the bar and he goes, "Martinis for everybody!" including this couple whose table he's standing on. This is the weirdest gig we've ever played in out lives and, ah, then he started and I've never seen him do this before, he started talking to the people who were sitting at the table and it turned out they'd just gotten married and he says to them, "Oh - they've just got married and this is just what you wanted on your wedding night. Michael Hutchence standing on your table."

George: He was a consummate performer wasn't he?

Tim: Yeah, he loved it.

Jon: The element of absolute terror on stage - you really had to have it together sort of - that's cool that's okay - he'd about to blow that thing up ... he's running under the stage now and we'd lost him for three songs and he's underneath some enormous structure while the 20,000 people are going, "Where is he?".

Aust
On the stage at Metropolis that night INXS were simply brilliant, a smoking roaring bar band, smashing and crashing out the hits and Hutchence worked the stage like a man who knew every centimetre intimately. As one woman commented, "you just have to watch him for five minutes and you want to sleep with him'. And half the guys in the audience wanted that charisma, those moves, that patter and banter and innuendo. Michael Hutchence was close to God on stage. He knew it.

Radar
Michael Hutchence: the last interview
January 28, 2005

A few years back I took part in what I do believe to be the last interview conducted with INXS lead singer, Michael Hutchence. Of course, he had already been dead for some time, but being that his record company was releasing a new Michael Hutchence ‘album’, I thought it only proper that he be afforded the usual publicity, and so an audience was arranged via renowned Sydney psychic "Kate B", who ferried our questions and answers to-and-fro with closed eyes and body all atremble. It was a short interview, but revealing nonetheless, and when it was published in Australian Style in December 1999 it scored me a few hot phone calls, notably from Michael’s father, Kelland, who was pretty decent under the circumstances (he was reunited with his son back in December, 2002). With the imminent approach of Rock Star, it would seem an appropriate time to give the exchange another airing. Note the company Michael’s keeping these days – the possibilities for future ‘releases’ are mind-boggling.

Kate: OK…he’s just behind me now. He has his hand on my shoulder. He’s showing me something…a scar just above his hairline. That’s so he can be identified.
Jack: This new album of his…is he happy with it?
Kate: He says that he wants his music to continue. He’s indicating that friends have been responsible for this record coming out. He’s saying that he has a lot of trust there, that they wouldn’t be doing something that wasn’t right. He says, too, that his death was so untimely, and it wasn’t as if the band was splitting up. The other guys in the band…he understands that it made things very difficult for them, the others. My brothers, he says. He says there’s an awful lot of emotion going into this record, a lot of discussion as to what is the best thing to do. He says there are no selfish motivations driving the release of this album.
Jack: Where is he now, like…can he still create?
Kate: Most definitely. He says everything he could do on Earth, he can do here. He says you wouldn’t believe the people he’s working with. He’s laughing.
Jack: Can he name some of these people?
Kate: He says he doesn’t want to sound like a name-dropper, but…it depends on who’s around at the time. Jimmy Morrison from The Doors, Elvis…he’s doing some stuff there with Elvis - I can see the black hair there. There’s other people too. He loves talking to philosophers, loves discussing things, turning things over. He loves that. Absolutely loves it. He is showing me something, showing me the way they are dressed. It looks like Aristotle.
Jack: Aristotle?
Kate: Yes, people like that. He’s giving me an example of the type of person he means. Galileo…he gave me that name. And inventors. He loves listening to their discussions. Poets, even. There are lots of poets there…
Jack: Poets. Would he say it’s a little warmish where he is?
Kate: He says he knows what you’re asking and he says he is at peace.
Jack: How does ‘the industry’ work there?
Kate: He says it’s not the same as it was. He says there is not much…thought goes into the music. It just flows, he’s saying. It’s different. There is no ‘industry’ as such. No…
Jack: Publicists?
Kate: No publicists. He says people just appreciate things. He hates bullshit. Hates it. He’s shaking his head there. The way he does things now is different. He says he loves mucking around with different instruments.
Jack: Are there fans? Media?
Kate: He says that everybody recognises each other, but there are no stars or celebrities. He says there’s a good order of things. It’s arranged in such a way that you don’t run into people you dislike.
Jack: Is he lonely?
Kate: He says he has company that he keeps regularly. He’s showing me a new lady friend that he has there.
Jack: Really? What’s she like?
Kate: Very pretty. But he misses his family. He says when he first went, there was anger. He felt ripped off.
Jack: Well, it was such a stupid way to go.
Kate: He’s smiling.
[she laughs]
Jack: What’s so funny?
Kate: He said: “There are worse ways to go!”

Contact Music
DEPP TO PLAY HUTCHENCE?
Producers of the MICHAEL HUTCHENCE biopic are trying to convince PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN star JOHNNY DEPP to play the late INXS frontman. The film is being fast-tracked and most of the production will take place in the singer's homeland of Australia. In addition to Depp, film-makers are also looking to cast ERIC BANA, SIENNA MILLER, NAOMI WATTS and RACHEL GRIFFITHS in the movie. The film's tentative title is SLIDE AWAY, which refers to the duet Hutchence sang with U2's BONO, according to website MovieHole.net. Contrary to press reports that the late singer's family was not happy about the film, producers say Hutchence's estate is cooperating with the production. The movie's director NICK EGAN, who directed some of INXS's most popular videos, has been working with the singer's brother, RHETT on the film.
25/04/2006 21:08

Metroactive
On the road a decade ago, a rock writer discovered a different side of Michael Hutchence
By Gina Arnold

ALTHOUGH I HAVE never had much interest in the music of INXS, I was deeply saddened by the apparent suicide of singer Michael Hutchence on Nov. 22--saddened and also surprised. Ten years ago, I spent a week on the road with INXS during its Kick Inside tour, which made the band a big name in the U.S. Although I hadn't seen Hutchence in years, I'd still say he was the last person I'd pick as a prospective suicide.

Hutchence was found naked, had made drink dates with friends for later in the day and left no note. MTV News and the New Musical Express in England, among other media, are already speculating that his death was the result of accidental autoerotic asphyxiation, a kinky, dangerous form of masturbation. But even that embarrassing scenario is more pleasant to think about than suicide for someone I basically liked.

And I did like Hutchence. He cloaked his niceness in layers of rock-star pretentiousness, but he was also remarkably self-deprecating and able to take a joke, even when it was leveled (usually by his bandmates, who'd known him since high school) right at him. To my ears, his music sounded very mainstream, but it was positively arty compared to the dumb synth bands and glammy metal outfits responsible for most of the hits of the '80s.

Formed in 1977 in Perth, Australia, INXS was one of the very few bands to have maintained the same lineup for two decades. Although it began life during the height of punk, INXS was much more influenced by dance bands like Chic and arty rock bands like Roxy Music. INXS' songs were invariably about scary, sexy women ("Devil Inside," "Need You Tonight").

By 1987, when I went on the road with the group, INXS had been touring Australia pretty much nonstop for seven years, financing most of its tours itself in the hopes of eventually "breaking" in America. Thanks to this grueling background, INXS was a truly great live band, even if its music had little social or political content.

The band members were personally very unpretentious--Hutchence excepted. The first time I met them, in a gymnasium at Fairfield College, Conn., they were using the men's locker room as a dressing room, and five of the members were standing around the dingy urinals and benches drinking beer from paper cups.

Enter Hutchence in a floor-length leather coat, looking incredibly out of place. Attached to his arm was an impossibly skinny woman with a face like a snake. I immediately recognized her as one of the genus groupie--a thing that (amazingly) I had not met before, since all the bands I knew personally (R.E.M., the Meat Puppets and Camper Van Beethoven) were constitutionally allergic to "glamorous" females.

This woman seemed to me to be some kind of an insane joke, a parody of a groupie from This Is Spinal Tap or Saturday Night Live. She was wearing lace-frilled bloomers, a fake fur jacket and little else, and she seldom opened her mouth except to bitch about something, at which point the guys in the band would roll their eyes at each other behind her back. She was so possessive that I once saw her nearly slap an 11-year-old girl who was hanging admiringly on Michael's arm.

At the time, her presence on the tour puzzled me quite a bit, but later, after I'd met many such grasping women, I took it to be symptomatic of all the reasons men become rock stars. These women fulfill the men's vast need to be groped and worshipped and possessed. Women like that (and Hutchence's latest paramour, Paula Yates) are able to say all the obnoxious things that rock stars--who need to be loved--feel they can't say out loud.

ONE THING I found out about "Mike" (as his bandmates called him), however, was that he had a shy streak. He could be standoffish, but once he let down his guard, he was very nice indeed.

One night, for example, I had dinner with him alone in a restaurant in Rhode Island, and we both got green bits of lobster stuck between our teeth, which we picked out in a fairly gross way. I told him he had a Doors fixation, and he obligingly sang "Break on Through to the Other Side" in a satirical manner. I'm pretty sure all the other diners in the restaurant were staring at us--Hutchence had lovely long brown curly locks with fabulous gold highlights--and I could tell he liked that.

Another thing I found out that night about Hutchence was that the rest of the band--the three brothers Farriss (Tim, Andrew and Jon), saxophonist Kirk Pengilly and bassist Garry Gary Beers--were regular Australian blokes who felt lucky to be where they were. But Michael lived for the band, and nothing else. He couldn't have survived without it. It was his raison d'etre.

But that's just another reason to find his suicide unbelievable. Although I could picture him doing it if his band were about to play a comeback gig at a greasy local pub, it's hard for me to imagine him doing it just before a giant 20th-anniversary celebration and tour.

In recent years, it's true, INXS hadn't been doing quite as well as it had in, say, 1990, but the band was hardly down at the heels. INXS' latest record, Elegantly Wasted, didn't do well in America, but it was a huge hit in Australia, England and Canada. Hutchence also had a solo record in the can, which will be released in 1998.

Even if his music career hadn't been going well, Hutchence had other options. He had starred in several movies, playing Percy Shelley in Frankenstein Unbound and a character much like himself in a film called Dogs in Space. He was said to be talking to Michael Douglas about a part in an upcoming movie and had been offered a television hosting job in Australia.

Hutchence did have a propensity for dating superbitches, and superbitches can be tiring. The latest was Yates, a woman best known for her acrimonious breakup with Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats and Live Aid fame. According to the Sydney Herald, Yates told journalists that she blames Geldof for Hutchence's death. Hutchence, she said, was distraught because Geldof wouldn't allow her to bring her three kids (by Geldof) to Australia for Christmas, reasoning that would go far in explaining Hutchence's domestic unhappiness.

In the end, of course, it doesn't really matter whether Hutchence's death was suicide or accident: it's still death, and it's still premature. Musically, INXS was a good but not great band; its presence certainly won't be missed. As for Michael Hutchence, the phrase "die young, stay pretty" comes to mind, but small comfort that must be to those who loved him best.

Coroner's Report (not official)
FAQ
Aust Index

The Verve and Nick McCabe's guitar sound

2006-04-19T17:05:00.000-05:00

Verve interviews

http://www.musicsaves.org/verve/interviews/16.shtml

Verve
Lime Lizard, July 1993
Jon Setzler

It's been said, many times before, that the mark of a great record is that it reminds you of other great records, reconnecting you to the score of rocks past. That, however doesn't make a record great it merely makes it great bounded by quotation marks because all it qualities have already been defined. As with Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque or Black Crowes The Southern Harmony..., their existence is only made possible by the fact that their ceiling has already been set. If you're willing to hook into the past, the first casualty is invariably the will to escape. Rather than people who are fixated on rock's legacy, maybe we should look to those who are mesmerised, those who can allow us to glance off the map,into uncharted territory.

This is Verve's Richard Aschroft:

"Anyone can pick up a guitar and play Heroin by the Velvet Underground, but not everyone who picks up a guitar can create something that sounds fresh and new. What's the point of closing yourself in when you've been given the chance to make music? Maybe you'll make only one record in your life, that's the way we see it when we record. We record as if it's the last thing we're ever going to do, purely because you get the most out of yourselves. It's not in a muso way, it's just in an expanding way, and not being afraid to use certain sounds, certain instruments. Maybe with the new LP, A Storm In Heaven, and a few records that have proceeded it, the doors are finally being broken down as far as expression on record, and expression as far as the band are concerned. The way I look at it is that it's time for people who want to create to create, and people who want to be out there in mediocrity to sink."

Verve aren't sinking, they're floating several miles high, drifting way beyond any reference points that may have called them into being. A Storm In Heaven isn't just a "great" record, it's a great "great" record, one that reminds you of records you've never even heard, and makes you dream of records that might one day exist. Verve reach out, not to plunder trinkets from rock's past, but for the sheer task of reaching out, as if the act alone gives rise to the concep of a future, a future defined only by the thirst for it, as real and yet as indefinate as the light emanating from a projector lens as it disperses into space.

http://www.theverve.co.uk/nickarticle.html
An Appreciation Of Nick McCabe

When editor of 'Guitar' magazine, Michael Leonard, contacted us to ask about using some of our Chris Potter interview in his magazine's big Verve cover story, he kindly offered to write an appreciation of Nick McCabe's guitar playing as he is a big fan. It isn't intended as a tribute to Nick or anything like that, it's just an informative look at Nick's work by someone who knows something about guitars and all the opinions expressed are Michael's own. Thank you Michael.

Oasis and A Northern Soul producer Owen Morris has called him 'the most gifted musician I've ever worked with'; Verve bassist Simon Jones once pleaded with a guitar journalist to 'tell him he's fantastic. I think he's the greatest guitarist around and he won't have it. Tell him! He's amazing!' He is Nick McCabe, and for all the column inches devoted to Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft, the quiet guitarist is arguably the true architect of The Verve's unique sound.

Ashcroft reportedly described McCabe's sound as a 'whole new universe' when he first heard the guitarist playing in a Wigan practice room before the band's formation; eight years later with the release of Urban Hymns, and despite the pair's temporary falling out in 1995 and McCabe's recent withdrawal from live appearances, Ashcroft reiterated his debt to McCabe in shaping the Verve's sound 'I love Nick McCabe, 'the singer insisted, 'and I never want to be in band if he's not playing the guitar. I hope he thinks the same way about me. We just needed time to realise it.'

On Verve early releases, from debut single All In The Mind to the debut LP A Storm In Heaven, McCabe's playing relied heavily on delay and chorus doubling effects to build up a formidable wall of sound. Some thought McCabe's 'ethereal' style betrayed the influenced of '80s indie legends The Cocteau Twins and early '90s shoegazing kingpins My Bloody Valentine, even the prog-rock-ish textures of Pink Floyd's veteran guitarist David Gilmour. In a rare interview, McCabe insisted his primary influences came from a much more unique sources.

'When I was 14 or so I listened to a lot of Joy Division, I loved the textures of their records, but now it's more John Martyn, his '70s albums in particular; that's where my textured guitar playing comes from, honestly. I had Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd forced on me when I was younger, and although I tend not to listen to that sort of thing now, I guess it's lodged in my brain. I won't say that bands like the Cocteau Twins were not an influence, but that's not the sort of stuff I really likeŠ I like Vini Reilly (from The Durutti Column) because he could be flashy, but he was really simple about it. I also like Funkadelic's Eddie Hazel who, to me, condensed the best bits of Jimi Hendrix. You can probably hear all my influences in what I play, whether it's recent stuff or old blues records.

'It's all about sound,' he continued. 'I think guitar players who strive for technical excellence have lost the plot really. The whole point of the electric guitar started when Charlie Christian plugged his guitar into an amplifier to make it sound like a saxophone or whateverŠ and if I can press some button in the studio to make my guitar come up with a new sound then what's so bad about that? It's like the whole idea that techno isn't "proper" music 'cos they can't play instruments is so short-sighted. That's surely where new music comes from.'

On those early Verve recordings, McCabe made full use of delay effects to transform his relatively sparse playing into a full, atmospheric wash of sound; at first it was two vintage units, a Watkins Copicat and a Roland Space Echo (a picture of a Space Echo later featured on Verve merchandise t-shirts, though this one belonged to Simon Tong): both the Watkins and Roland echoes are tape units, whereby the notes are recorded on 'standard' magnetic tape and then played back after a small delay to fill out the sound. By the time Verve recorded A Storm In Heaven, McCabe was using a digital unit, a Roland GS-6, which uses microchip technology and records then repeats the notes in much the same way as any modern sampler. His guitars on early Verve recordings were a red Gibson ES-335 semi-acoustic (since 'retired' after the neck snapped off at a Las Vegas gig), a Fender Stratocaster Standard and, occasionally, a Fender Jazzmaster (McCabe was inspired to buy one after hearing Television's Tom Verlaine). For amps, he used a Mesa/Boogie MkIII (an American valve amp, giving a full, warm distorted sound) and a Roland Jazz Chorus (a Japanese transistor/microchip driven amp, offering a cleaner, more brittle and treble-y tone, with built in chorus doubling effects).

More important than the actual technology is how McCabe uses it. At the time of A Storm In Heaven, he explained, 'the way I come up with new ideas is just by dribbling guitars over everything and pick out something that makes sense. John Leckie (ASIH producer) was sampling stuff I'd played and looping bits and it sounded great.' McCabe is well known for rarely playing the same guitar lines twice, and it is this which gives The Verve their unique unpredictability when playing live. For those who complain how McCabe doesn't jump around when playing live (hello RAFT list!) it is simply because he is often not reciting the guitar parts heard on the records but improvising new parts and textures as the songs uncoil. As well as being brave in a gig setting, this requires McCabe to concentrate on his effects and amp settings, meaning he spends much of every gig monitoring his effects rack LED readouts and altering his footpedal settings.

On 1995's A Northern Soul, McCabe's guitar style toughened up. In tandem with the less-blissful, strung-out themes of Ashcroft's lyrics, McCabe toned down his use of effects, cranked up the amps and played with a stronger blues and heavier rock influence. Even so, he insisted, 'I'm playing the St Helen's blues. There's no Mississippi in me at all.' He also distanced himself from the prevalent trend for British guitar players at the time to play and draw on the influence of '60s blues rockers like Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. 'I'm not trying to sound 65 years old, it's not this retrospective thing,' he sniped. 'Listen to (The Stone Roses')John Squire on The Second Coming and you can almost hear the taste barriers go up. He's become too obsessed with this idea of what a good guitar player should sound like. He's lost the plot really, hasn't he?'

While the likes of A New Decade, This Is Music and No Knock On My Door showed the heavier rock side to McCabe's playing, new directions on ANS included the wah-wah pedal driven title track (showing the influence of Funkadelic's Eddie Hazel) and the delicate bluesy bends on Drive You Home, while his live tour-de-force Life's An Ocean/Stormy Clouds showed a mastery of improvising other-worldy guitar sounds. Listen, in particular, to McCabe's control of feedback (created when an amp is turned up high and the player stands close by, with the guitar parallel to the amp's speaker), and how he makes the guitar wail while barely picking the strings.

ANS producer Owen Morris was amazed by McCabe's creativity in the studio, particularly that he created such a huge sound without numerous overdubs, adding -You can ask Noel Gallagher to play the same guitar line a hundred times and, as long as there's a good reason, he'll do it. With Nick, you've got no chance. He just doesn't want to.'

Gear-wise, McCabe retained his Fender Strat and Mesa/Boogie combo for ANS, but also introduced a sunburst Gibson Les Paul (a harder, darker-sounding guitar than his by-now now-deceased ES-335) and replaced the Roland amp with another warmer-sounding valve amp, a British Vox AC30 built in the 1960s.

While ANS remains arguably the most difficult of all Verve albums, it is perhaps McCabe's finest hour to date. He admitted that the initial sessions recording the album were 'the happiest three weeks of my life.' Then, of course, everything went horribly wrong.

Given that much of Urban Hymns was written by Richard Ashcroft alone, Nick McCabe's influence on UH is his weakest of any Verve album. On Rolling People and Come On he reprises the heavy powerchord style of much of ANS (this time, though, McCabe repeatedly overdubbed to make the sound even more huge) and elsewhere Simon Tong and Richard Ashcroft handle electric and acoustic guitar parts. Even so, McCabe's contributions often recorded after the songs were 90 per cent completed show his unique style to be intact. By now, McCabe was playing more and more slide guitar, placing the 'bottleneck' on his little finger: guitar players note that McCabe frets the strings using all four left-hand fingers, an approach more often associated with classically-schooled guitarists (though McCabe is certainly not formally trained at all!), and requires considerable dexterity.

The Drugs Don't Work in particular, is given a country flavour by McCabe's minimal slide guitar motifs just one reason, maybe, why The Verve have recruited renowned pedal steel player BJCole (who has also played with Spiritualised, The Orb and Elton John) for their current US tour.

Other standouts for McCabe on UH include the effects laden Catching The Butterfly (edited down for a mammoth 25-minute Verve jam session led by Nick, just as in those early ASIH days) and Neon Wilderness (built around one of Nick's trademark guitar loops). That said, some of McCabe's most recognisable work with The Verve from the UH sessions can be heard on b-sides in particular, listen to more delicate control of feedback and 'backwards' guitar on Lord I Guess I'll Never Know, the jerky blues lines on Country Song, the fluid soloing Echo Bass, the super-heavyfuzz of Three Steps and the psychedelic synthesizer-like textures on Stamped.

McCabe's sound and style has gently developed over the Verve's three albums, yet his unique signature remains the way he uses effects to build huge walls of noise, his delicate control of feedback and his ability to improvise new lines night after night while some see the latter as making McCabe an irregular live performer, it's this seat-of-the-pants aspect that The Verve will no doubt have missed when they toured without him. Either way, McCabe's contribution to the Verve's music is immense and he arguably remains the most adventurous and unique guitar player in Britain today.

FURTHERLISTENING:

For those willing to seek out artists who appear to have influenced Nick McCabe's guitar playing, the following albums are recommended. Note that these are NOT Nick's own choices, but how Michael personally sees the roots of his sound.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience:Electric Ladyland (MCA, 1968)

Practically every guitarist since the '60s owes a debt to Hendrix though, interestingly, McCabe favours Hendrix's delicate use of volume swells, psychedelic washes and soul guitar licks rather than JH's more widely-imitated proto-heavy metal wailing.

Funkadelic: Maggot Brain (Westbound, 1971) sprawling rock/soul/psychedelic masterpiece featuring Eddie Hazel, one of McCabe's favourite players.

John Martyn: Solid Air (Island, 1972) Veteran Scottish singer/songwriter who supported The Verve at Haigh Hall; his influence on McCabe can particularly be heard on No Come Down's more folky acoustic tracks.

Led Zeppelin: Physical Graffiti (Swansong, 1976) McCabe denies any direct admiration for Jimmy Page's mega-heavy riffing, but it's likely he's absorbed a little Zep

Joy Division: Closer (Factory, 1980) Bernard Sumner's wiry 'no blues' guitar lines are some of McCabe's favourites.

The Chameleons: Script Of The Bridge (Statik, 1983) McCabe has never mentioned this early '80s cult Mancunian band in interviews, but their heavily chorused and echo-ey guitars are something of a precursor to his style

The Cocteau Twins: Treasure (4AD, 1984) again, not an influence cited by Nick, though Robin Guthrie's 'ethereal' approach influenced many a young Brit guitarist in the early '80s. Some moments on ASIH, particularly, show an appreciation of the Cocteaus

The Durutti Column: The Guitar And Other Machines (Factory, 1987) another Mancunian cult player, Vini Reilly's reliance of delays, loops and effects pedals to build up an 'orchestra' of guitars had a keen impact on Nick's textured approach. NB:Reilly also appears on Morrissey's Viva Hate (EMI, 1988)

Music downloads archive

2006-03-22T11:59:00.002-06:00

FREE and LEGAL music and video downloads:

(Note: Downloads may not work after a given amount of time due to website changes.)

Some favorites: (alphabetical, Slightly updated 10-13-08)

I think someone just ripped my heart out. Artful ambient synth. The Album Leaf with Over the Pond and Brennivin. (post-rock/experimental)

Arab Strap's cornish drama Who Named the Days?

Canadian indie rock, post-punkers, Arcade Fire hit with a real high level of conviction and adrenaline on Neighborhood #3 and #2. Plus The Flaming Lipsish (?) Wake Up.

American Benn Jordan (aka The Flashbulb, Flex, Q-bit, Acidwolf, etc.) would give any UK electronic musician a run for their money with his diversity and emotive output. Breaker Sunset, Au Shwe Bah, and more. (Click on "files" @ his website.)

Beachwood Sparks' trippy hippy Confusion Is Nothing New, a former #1 pick.

Beans' spacey Sun

Best Friends Forever's 2081 goes well with the Mates of State "Goods (All In Your Head)," and just may be the more adorable vocal-driven indie song of the two.

Boards of Canada often provides some of the most seamless and soothing ambience around - Chromakey Dreamcoat.

Brian Jonestown Massacre's '60s pastiche with Seer/She Made Me

Cass McCombs beautiful Sacred Heart.

Cursive's The Recluse; plus A Gentleman Caller goes crazy with some macho garage rock jack knifing (metal influences?) before it mellows into that gentlemanly melody.

Pop mastery from Death Cab for Cutie on Title and Registration and Movie Script Ending. Also Wait, Song for Kelly Huckaby, For What Reason, Champagne From a Paper Cup (indie pop rock)

CORRECTION: They were ahead of their time. They disbanded years ago. The mathiest of the math rockers, Decembers Architects/Mimosa Peloria. "Untitled #2", "MP 1", and the final third of "MP 2" is indescribable. (How do they do that with their guitar chords?) None of the tracks does justice to their live performance. The beauty was knowing the band members had such humility towards their own talents. Newer finds: living off the interest, the truth about justin bailey, approaches to infinity. Plus the bands My Space webpage. (Guitarist Mark Swoverland's new band, Fiery Fire, has a My Space page also. ["post-math-indie-punk-something"])

The Dirty Three's humorous storytelling Nate Denver. Plus one of the all-time tugging weepers, I Really Should've Gone Out Last. (post-rock/indie rock/experimental)

The galactic call of Dntel's Anywhere Anyone.

Editors Munich

Eef Barzelay Ballad of Bitter Honey

Fite, Tim Yesterday's Garden - has a lovely '70s air about it IMO.

Brilliant. Fleet Foxes White Winter Hymnal

God Speed You Black Emperor! with the anthemic Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven, a former #1 pick.

Innocence Mission Tomorrow on the Runway

Interpol with NYC and Hands Slow here. Plus PDA

Kid606- Rudestyleindiejunglistmassive (electronic)

Kinsella Family, The:
1) American Football Honestly
2) Cap n Jazz Little League
3) Joan of Arc- White Out; (I'm 5 Senses) None of them Common; Me and America (or) The United Colors of the Gap; What If We Are Not All, All Destined for Greatness?; Post Coitus Rock
4) Make Believe Temping As A Shaman
5) Owen Bad News/In the Morning, Before Work/She's A Thief; Places To Go
6) Owls Everyone Is My Friend

Whomever this Jens Lekman (Scandinavian) is, he's projected to take the pop world by storm with his heady eclecticism, almost Las Vegas show tunes feel, and undoubtedly beyond-his-years swooning vocals. Another Sweet Summer's Night on Hammer Hill, Rocky Dennis' Farewell Song, and You Are the Light here.

Lewis & Clarke's Bare Bones & Branches, should've been a former #1 pick. (folk)

The, well, longing of The Long Winters Scent of Lime. Plus Ultimatum. (indie pop rock)

Marianas are arguably the finest American band today. It's the stark, shimmery guitar 3/4 in on "Hunting & pecking" that sets this track on its heels. Plus "My body is a sail", "We were safe, now we're sorry", and "Summering". (Click on yellow note tab for tracks.) (post-rock/experimental/ambient)

Too bad they don't have the videos up anymore. Priceless. Mates of State Goods (All In Your Head) (Click on the jukebox in the upper left to reach the track.) (indie pop)

Mouse On Mars- Mine Is In Yours

The purity of Mum's Nightly Cares.

The creamy dreamy of Nada Surf's Blonde on Blonde, a former #1 pick. The Blizzard of '77 clip, also from the bands Let Go album, contains an incredibly lovely and addicting hook I swear I need to rush and find. The classic Popular video (bottom) courtesy AMG for us MTV veterans. Puts a big smile on my face. (indie pop rock)

Possibly the most prominent female singer of her time, Neko Case with If You Knew, Star Witness, a former #1 pick.

Pavement with All My Friends and the sedated Greenlander here. (indie rock/experimental)

Pomegranates Whom/Who

Ben Gibbard (vocals, Death Cab for Cutie) and Jimmy Tamborello (electronics, Dntel) make up the Postal Service. The District Sleeps Alone Tonight, Such Great Heights, plus videos.

Icelandic lore tells of a time when music creation could seemingly move mountains or gigantic icebergs. Er, thankfully that happened sooner then expected with the sound of the new millenium. ("'Sven-G-Englar' -- a song of such accomplished gorgeousness that one wonders why such a tiny country as Iceland can musically outperform entire continents in just a few short minutes." -AMG) Sigur Ros' - Staralfur, Untitled #8, Olsen Olsen, Untitled #4, Viorar Vel til Loftaras, Danarfregnir Og Jaroarfarir, Untitled #1 (live), and more here. (post-rock/experimental/chamber pop)

Sleater-Kinney's explosive set Entertain/Oh!, former #1 picks. (punk rock)

The Streets smart street talk with Fit But You Know It.

The Strokes Last Night (rock/indie?)

Likely the most diverse songwriter today, Sufjan Stevens' Year of the Tiger.

Tr Plus Tr Making Gold

At Epitonic: (to reach the mp3's you have to sign up with your email, age, and zip code)
A Perfect Circle-- Wake The Dead
Air- Planet Vega
Album Leaf, The- The MP*, The Audio Pool*, We Once Were (Two)*, Airplane*
American Football- Honestly*
And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead- Relative Ways; Mistakes & Regrets
Arab Strap- Who Named The Days
At the Drive-In- One Armed Scissor*
Beck- Leave Me On The Moon
Black Box Recorder- The Art Of Driving
Black Heart Procession, The- Tropics Of Love
Bright Eyes- Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh*
Calexico- Crystal Frontier
Call and Response- Rollerskate
Capitol Years, The- Its the Law* (use "play", mp3 doesn't work)
Cap'N Jazz- Little League
Cat Power- He War
Clientele, The- Emptily Through Holloway*
Couch- Alle Auf Pause
Cornelius- Point of View Point
Creeper Lagoon- Wrecking Ball
Cursive- The Recluse
DJ Krush- With Grace
Death By Chocolate- Ice Cold Lemonade; While I'm Still Young
Death Cab For Cutie- Photobooth; The Employment Pages*
Deerhoof- Holy Night Fever; My Pal Foot Foot
Delgados, The- American Trilogy
Dirty Three, The- I Really Should've Gone Out Last Night*
Elf Power- The Winter Is Coming
Farrar, Jay- Damn Shame
Felix Da Housecat- Silver Screen (Malibu Mix); Madame Hollywood (Tiga's Mr. Hollywood Mix)
Four Tet- No More Mosquitos
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci- Face Like Summer; Spanish Dance Troupe
Guided By Voices- Everywhere With Helicopter
Halo Benders, The- Don't Touch My Bikini
Handsome Family, The- 24-Hour Store, Far from Any Road, The Song of a Hundred Toads
Helium- Lucy*
Joan of Arc- The Hands; White Out; (I'm 5 Senses) None of them Common; Me and America (or) The United Colors of the Gap*; What If We Are Not All, All Destined for Greatness?
Kid606- Staying Home From School; If My Heart Ever Ran Away
Ladytron- Playgirl*
Lambchop- The New Cobweb Summer
Lifter Puller- Manpark
Low- Sunflower*, In Metal
Low and Dirty Three- I Hear Goodnight
Luna- Black Postcards
Lupine Howl- 125
McCombs, Cass- Sacred Heart*
Masakatsu, Takagi- And Then
Matmos- The Struggle Against Unreality; Lipostudio... And So On; Sun On 5 At 152
Midwest Product- Duckpond*
Modest Mouse- Worms vs. Birds*
My Morning Jacket- Heartbreakin Man; The Dark
Owen- Places To Go*
Orb- Once More
Papas Fritas- Lets Go Down To The Town Oasis
Pavement- Greenlander
Pinback- Loro*
Quasi- Drunken Tears
Quasimoto- Come On Feet
Rachels- Last Things Last
Radiohead- There There, Pyramid Song
Rainer Maria- Sickbed*, Artificial Light
Raveonettes, The- Attack of the Ghost Riders
Roni Size- Sound Advice
Sigur Ros- Staralfur*, Sven-G-Englar*
Smith, Elliott- Waltz No 1 (Demo)*
Solex- Shoot Shoot!
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks- (Do Not Feed The) Oyster
Stereolab- Long Life Love*
Tristeza- RMS 2000
Utah- The Boy Who Gave Away The Bomb*
Xiu Xiu- Jennifer Lopez (the Sweet Science Version)
Yo La Tengo- Don't Have to Be So Sad
Zero 7- Destiny

*=essential

Videos (nostalgia):

WOO HOO!!! Unfortunately the picture quality is poor on Song 2, so I'll have to settle with Blur's This Is a Low (live). (art punk/Britpop/rock)

What it's like to be popular. Nada Surf's Popular. (Alternative pop/rock/punk-pop)

"I'm feeling supersonic/give me gin and tonic"...Oasis' Supersonic. (pop rock)

Michael Stipe and REM had such a gift for bringing such importance to their pop rock esthetic. Losing My Religion, Everybody Hurts, Nightswimming, and many more here.

Where does all the time go?! Still my favorite 10,000 Maniacs hit with These Are Days. (jangle pop)

Whose that young man with the boyish good looks? Silly me. It's Glen Phillips and Toad the Wet Sprocket with Good Intentions. (pop rock)

Verve: The Lost Nick McCabe Interview Part 2

2005-12-12T20:24:00.000-06:00

I apologize for the long delay. Thanks for you patience...

Nick McCabe Interview Part 2

LYG: What bands are you listening to now?

McCabe: Expensive Shit. I bought this album on recommendation a while back. Do you know the Meters? They're a Seventies band. I remember reading an interview with the drummer of the Meters and hw saw Fela Kuti in '73 and it saved his life. I sat in a taxi two weeks ago and this guy was playing Fela Kuti and I couldn't believe it, I was like, "What is this you're playing?"

LYG: When you guys started playing and recording your stuff, did you discover what musicians you've been influenced by?

McCabe: I went back and did my homework by listening to a lot of older records - it's a research thing. There are a lot of shit records and a few diamonds and it was a quest for that perfect record. I still do it occasionally; one day I'm going to find a perfect record. When I start writing I'd like to make something that I would buy, otherwise the records wouldn't be mine.

I subconsciously find myself nicking all these things - I come back to something that I've done two years ago. I was putting a portfolio together and you can tell what I was listening to at the time. It was probably a bit fuckin' dumb, but at the time I thought I was doing something really original, you know what I mean? I bought stuff with bagpipes all over it. I mean, they're really beautiful tunes but it's like, "Why the fuck did I buy this?"

It's really frustrating because I'm trying to find something and all I find is this stupid shit. I've probably got three hours of music that I'm definitely going to something with. I've got a good couple of hours of music. I've got this gadget- it's the ultimate lazy man's toy. It's this delay unit that's got this a thirty-second delay and I use it on all the ambient stuff that I do.

I got like fifteen minutes worth of this thirty-second loop going around. It's sort of like working with Q-base. You press the pedal, play a little bit, press it again and you stop it. It's like a multi-track recorder on a loop. And then you play a little bit more, you hit the pedal, and stick it on. And because you're in a loop, somehow things start sounding music-wise. I mean, I've got a good two hours worth of that stuff as well. Just sitting there watching Springer on telly with the microphone and a cup of tea. I listened back to it and say, "Wow, this good shit!"

LYG: Five years from now you're going to listen to that and go, "Shit, I can tell I was listening to Jerry Springer when I did that!"

AS: San Francisco was the last [Verve] show I saw, and you weren't there. It was okay, but it was just like they were going to through the motions.

McCabe: I was, actually. Virtually. I told you about me being sampled, didn't I ?

AS: Sampled!

LYG: I didn't know that.

McCabe: Si only told me about it two weeks ago. All those American gigs - the guys playing all the octapads - they sampled all the live guitars. I should get royalties. (laughing) Disgraceful, isn't it?

AS: So they kick you out and they took all your riffs.

McCabe: Well... I went to Si and asked, "How were you guys doin' stuff like Come On?"

AS: Yeah, there's like a million guitars in there. The loops and delays, I can see you doing it, but no one else. Richard, no.

McCabe: He told me, "Yeah, we sampled you." I was like, "What?!" Fuckin' outrageous.

AS: That explains a lot - like how it sounded full without a guitarist up there that could do it. I walked away thinking, "What the hell did they do with Come On?" Everything else sounded flat and dry.

McCabe: Fuckin' disgraceful. Basically, the jamming thing at the end of Come On, it's like [Richard] would go, "Right boys, lets jam!" You know what I mean? It got so corny. It's like, "Fuckin' hell, Sobbo we've done it, we can't go any further - give it a fuckin' rest." So I always ended up doing nonsense, just making it as evil and horrid as I possibly could, because that was the only thing that was going to satisfy me. It's pretty easy to get a big section of me doing all sorts of nonsense, slapping my strings and all kinds of stuff. Basically what I said was, when I wasn't touring-I told you about the beer bottle right?

AS: Yeah, about punching a wall [in 1997 before "reunion" tour was cancelled because of Nick's broken hand].

McCabe: Giving Richard a bit of a slap. (pause) I went home that next day and I told them I'm not going to America for three or four weeks. I'll do all the festivals and the V98 thing...I was being a dick, beady eyes and everything. The V98 thing was good - I mean, they were going to pay us a thousand pounds just for showing up. "Fuck that, I'm there!"

But we had the touring festivals...I was getting acupuncture every day and had fuckin' bottles of vitamins in the fridge. I had a massive fever, and it knocked me down for a couple of days - and that's the only time I've every pulled a gig. Richard has pulled his fair share of gigs. Jazz actually sent for this doctor and told him that I was either schizophrenic or manic-depressive. I had these full-blown tests and they said I was fucked and that's why I pulled.

We had like six festivals to go and I had agreed to do all those, and Richard started to panic - he probably didn't want to see me again because I didn't want to see him. Couldn't face me. That's why I haven't spoken to him since that day.

AS: The summer of '98 right?

McCabe: Right. The last time I spoke to him, I had him against a bathroom wall and he was crying. (pause) I just saw a picture of him and his new Porsche. (laughing)

LYG: It's so easy to fall into what he fell into. You seem to have come out of it staying your own person.

McCabe: I was reading this Brian Eno book - I'm a big Eno fan - he did this diary for a year and on the opening page he's talking about life with his wife. The opening line is, "I have a wonderful life." And I always thought Eno was clear - like, he did his pop star bit, realized it was bullshit and basically he's doing what I'd like to do. Play a little bit on a soundtrack, do some production, play every now and then, put your own album out every now and then. It's just sort of keeping it fresh and diverse. And he goes on holiday in Egypt and plays with Egyptian musicians, and it's like, that is the life. Now if you look at Brian Ferry, it's the complete opposite - he's fucked. He's just got to realize that his situation is bullshit.

I came back to the band with such a fuckin' clear head and such a better attitude about it after reading this book. The benefits of having a big record are that than you have the cards. The reason for getting into a band in the first place is because you wnat to create your own univers and your own life by your terms. Generally what happens is the opposite. All your good intentions...you just let people advise you badly.

So I came back to the band and stopped moaning all the time. I had a laugh when we toured, but a lot of it was fuck-all. I just said, "I'm not touring - we got a big record, sold six million records, we'll tour when we want to." We always to put on special shows as well.

Something really special, you go, "Fuckin' hell, I've had a really good night out!" But we started getting shit for the tour and we'd be like, "We're not ready yet." But they wanted to time it when the singles were coming out. I'm saying we don't need to do that - let's just make it enjoyable for ourselves. Instead, we'd just been bullied into running the treadmill shit.

I find it now that what happens in a day is my prerogative. I decide what happens in a day. And that's one of the most depressing things about before - I'd ring someone up and say, "What are we doing today?" What am I doing with my life today?"

LYG: But now you're doing your own thing.

McCabe: That's why I did it in the first place. That's why I sacked my cushy job...so I could be responsible for my own life.

Holland was bit killer for me because I had this [John Martin] loop reeling in my head. I had the worst two days...John Martin is part of my upbringing - my brother was in jail and he came back with all these John Martin tapes, saying, "He's my hero". My brother's the one that got me into music in the first place. The guy that got him into John Martin was a deep-sea diver on an oilrig. And he'd come back from a day of doing all this deep-sea diving in these insane conditions, and he'd seen people die. He'd come back into the oilrig, have a smoke, and listen to John Martin. And that sort of put it all into perspective for me.

I don't know what he's been up to - I mean, I wanted John Martin to play [Wigan] because it was going to be my day. He's a soul mate of some kind, you know what I mean? It was just...Beck? As much as I like him, it was just a bit fuckin' cookie cutter.

AS: Right - you wanted it to be special because it was your homecoming show.

McCabe: Well, not really...none of us are actually from Wigan.

AS: Verve have always been known as a Wigan band?

McCabe: Well, it's another one of those myths, isn't it? I guess there's some truth to it because the band was formed in Wigan. But no one was born there. We all met in college there.

But for that show, Richard's going on - "Oh, John Martin, you won't get it." And he's right. By the time I got my parts in there it's not really a music fan's record. It just sits nicely next to the Oasis record.

AS: Yeah, a lot of fans were very upset, but you're right - if you take the Haigh Hall crowd, only about 10% of them are real music fans.

McCabe: [Urban Hymns] was just a safe bet for people. I'm not going to say it was bad. I mean, we were good as far as pop goes. But it's pop music. I wanted bands like Oval to be there, have them playing in a different part of the field with all these lights going on. Not fuckin' hippy shit. Just...you know what I mean?

LYG: They don't want it to be open - they want it to be safe like you said.

McCabe: It's coffee table. We're coffee table aren't we? You know what I mean, it's like -

AS: You got your Urban Hymns and your Mariah Carey right there.

McCabe: You might be joking, but that is the case though, isn't it?

AS: I know several people that have Urban Hymns and they've never heard of A Storm In Heaven or Northern Soul. They think Bitter Sweet Symphony is your only song. It's just a shame but it's the truth.

McCabe: That was Si's conception about it in the beginning. Its sounds sort of petty really, saying "Si didn't do this!" He's an integral part of the band, but it was Richard and some other blokes.

I would like a bit of respect instead of being...I mean, I've joked about it in the past - I'm a professional knob head. Most people that know me know what I do. They either love me instantly or they hate me instantly. I don't sort of sit in the middle. So the props that you should get are that what you do at least should have some merit to it.

This and that business... (pause) Ah, it fuckin' doesn't matter. [to Ajay] Just shortly before I started mailing you, I was looking at what people were saying and I wanted people to be interested in what were doing, because I know what I'm doing is better then anything I did with the Verve.

LYG: People don't want that little bubble burst, they want to keep you -

McCabe: That whole bubble is all myth anyway.

AS: Have you read any other press? I was just reading the Q article about "Why the Verve Really Broke Up" and I was like, "Oh my god, how can they print this?"

McCabe: Well, a couple of people told me that what was going to be in that article was a lot more controversial then what came out. There was someone who was investigating Jazz Summers and dug up loads of dirt. And I think someone must've got to him and found out how he operates and that he's a bad man, like.

I was fuckin' gaggin' for that to come out. I went and bought it when it came out. I was waiting to see him topple, but that's not what happened. He's a fuckin' seedy bastard. You know how he managed Wham? Well he still takes his twenty percent from them even though he doesn't do anything for them now.

LYG: So many musicians sign contracts and don't even realize what's in them or that they're going to be locked into it for the rest of their lives...well, even after they're dead because their stuff's still going to be around.

AS: Like people still buying Beatles albums and John Lennon albums.

McCabe: Michael Jackson owns the Beatles stuff - fuckin' bonkers, isn't it?

LYG: Talk about a bastard.

AS: That's so sad.

McCabe: It's horrible - the whole collector mentality - isn't it? That's what record companies are, basically - they collect artists. Patron of the arts, patronizer of the arts. If it does well, it's like "See, I knew!" And if it bombs it's like, "Ahh well, err... It's somebody else's fuckin' project." Dickheads. It's war out there. Like Ireland, everyday.

AS: Were there plans to record after Urban Hymns?

McCabe: It was going to happen, yeah. We had quite a lot of stuff in place already. We stuck a couple tracks in the blender and recycled a couple of others...there were some brilliant things emerging. Lucky Man we did like space rock - we took a section of the strings and sampled it and we just went out in the fuckin' stratosphere. It was like fuckin' ecstatic music, really good.

AS: To me and a lot of fans, when we heard Urban Hymns, we knew that it was just Richard's band anyway but we thought the next album would be much greater because it would be back to what it was before. All you guys would be working from the start. It wasn't just having you do final touches and add another guitar track. so everybody was anticipating the next Verve album until the breakup.

McCabe: I don't think that would ever happen, to be honest. My take on it is - well, I posted it on Deja News the other day. It was a bit late at night and I started this rant on the whole thing. It's the only thing I'ver ever posted there -
"This is what I thought the day he asked me back...".

Everybody in Wigan had heard all this stuff and I hadn't heard anything. People were sort of protecting me from it. But everybody had all the tapes from all the sessions so far. Basically what I was hearing from people was that it was like very song based, almost like a country rock thing. And The Drugs Don't Work was written -

AS: Way back - you guys played it on the '95 tour.

McCabe: Right, for Norther Soul. So I was thinking Bon Jovi, Robbie Williams. And I'll stand by that today - I reckon that's up there with the best Bon Jovi record.

AS: That's not saying a lot.

McCabe: I'm talking about his paranoia. [Richard's] shitting himself because he needs somebody to be either more stressed out then him or to argue with him. So I'm thinkin, "He's got this record here and he thinks it's a big stadium record and it's got to be weirder, get the weird bloke back in. You know, he made all those funny noises and people will think we're crazy and experimental."

So he gets me back and it's some sort of convoluted attempt to inject a bit of creditability in it. Then it's a really weird drugs record instead of a Robbie Williams record. Maybe I'm being a bit hard on the man... But then the record came out and he got all these accolades and slaps on the back and he's like, "Well, what was I worrying about?"

As far as I'm concerned, the day that it went fuckin' platinum, the band was over anyway. He didn't need the safety net of us there, him hiding among us - it's like we're a gang. It's not right. If it's shit, then five people are responsible for shit instead of one person. And now that he's like some fuckin' generational spokesman - he doesn't need to worry about it.

AS: Now he's the great songwriter and all that.

McCabe: That's what I think it is. He doesn't even know what music he likes. I dunno if I'm bitchin' or...fuck, it's got to be said though. He won't stand by anything, you know what I mean? And ...I do. I do and I don't mind getting flack for it. I mean, people disappear at fan parades and I'm not fuckin' for that. I'm lucky really. People I've met recently just sort of synched with me without any vested interest.

I was talking about this with Si the other day...because Virgin's got Richard and he's a golden boy, it's a classic situation that the singer is the profitable one out of the band. If you take the singer, the band collapses, so your best bet is the singer. Really speaking, there was a time where we were the biggest band in Britain. We've been dropped by our management and gone through a ton of shit and I was saying to Si, "Someone should be slapping us on the back and going, 'Step out there, go out and enjoy yourself.'" And I've managed to realize that by myself, as I've sort of put myself back into the frame and meet people that are good. I feel like some of my convictions are paying off.

It's a nice life if you can make it work, you know what I mean? But if you take your hands off the reigns for a minute it can all turn nasty. So as long as you keep your eyes open - it's the Brian Eno thing. He's done it and he's done it with dignity and he's a happy man, I think. He's got a good life.

LYG: The entertainment industry is out of control. Too much business, too much politics.

McCabe: I don't mind that so much, really. The big depressing thing for me is that nobody else really knows. As far as I'm concerned, it's a given.

For me, I'm suprised when people turn out to be nice now and I'm pleasantly surprised quite a lot of times. If you just accept that people are a bit dodgy, then you can appreciate what's good about them. I think things could've been more comfortable if everybody didn't try and shove themselves after they realized that we're in shark-infested waters, but if they'd just accepted the deal and made the best of it. People would be a lot happier now. Instead, people got disappointed.

I started out thinking good of people and the only person I'm disappointed about is Richard, because he was once me friend. I've lost a friend and he's lost all his friends. He's got no mates. Really, no mates. Si Jones fuckin' like saved his life a couple of times. I'm not talking suicide or anything - he's just bailed him out of loads of shit through his life and he's been treated really shadowy.

LYG: This is why I'm cynical.

McCabe: I think it's quite good. If you accept that there's a certain amount of bullshit, then you can be pleasantly surprised. There are good people.

LYG: There are a few. But if you're, pessimistic then you're prepared.

AS: There's stuff in these magazines that mention how hard Northern Soul was to record, like everybody was on E for months and no one would sleep for weeks and everybody went insane. How true was that?

McCabe: It wasn't hard it was just... (pause) Well, I went to a doctor after that. I went and got a dose of Prozac. Newport was just down the road and it was the drug capital of Wales. It's shady. And we were always like...

Speed was like the main thing before that. Ecstasy is pretty good for you - in moderation, though. It's an artificial high and you have a nice time when you're E'ed up, and it stay with you for a couple weeks.

AS: A couple weeks?!

McCabe: No, I mean the memory of the nice time, how nice you felt. It's good and you sort of stockpile all the good memories. But I actually got to the point where I thought I couldn't play well unless I was E'ed up. It was fuckin' scary. We only recorded Wednesday...wait, we recorded everyday but we only every got anything done on Wednesday. I don't know why -

LYG: It was just the magic day.

McCabe: ...first three weeks there was a party every night. It was like being in a club every night - we'd have other people's tunes. Then there were Wednesdays. So It Goes and Stormy Clouds are all Wednesday tunes within the first three weeks. They were like when we were standing up. Then you get into that little dirty sort of state of mind where you don't do anything.

I probably did E once every two months because I was always going somewhere. Then it was just like we were partying and recording. Then, after three weeks, things just started getting a bit sinister. Richard was getting a bit abrasive, too. You don't know when he's straight at all - he's just a righteous twat, anyway. If you're in a bad mood, you generally keep out of people's, way don't you? But when he's in a really good mood and you're not, he's on ya' - "What's fuckin' wrong with you, it's a party!" But if he's in a bad mood, you've got to be in a bad mood too.

And I had a lot of other things going on in my personal life. I just realized, "What am I doing with my life?" You know what I mean? [Richard's] got no respect for anybody. And I can't say anything because I would be spoiling the party. It's a bit sappy when you're in a band with your friends, because when you sign a contract it's going to end a bit messy. To the bitter end, you know what I mean? There aren't many friends in bands that stay friends.

At five o'clock in the morning we've been drinking wine all day, everybody's E'ed up and we've got no work done. Going a little bit psychotic as well. It's not good. It's not good. But the first three weeks were great - it was a party, a party and a half.

LYG: What's your advice to musicians starting bands with their friends?

McCabe: They've got to be taken out of London. London is like, "Choose your addiction!" (laughing) (pause; listens to music on jukebox) I got to put up with this shit every time I go out. This is an ode to me. It's The Drugs Don't Work. I'm convinced the last two albums are about me, think about it - History...

AS: I was glad you played the guitar version on the very first American Urban Hymns tour. Oh man, that was it - that was the definitive version.

McCabe: (sarcastically) You're just saying that to make me feel better!

AS: I was looking forward to it again but you had to wuss out on the American tour. (laughing)

McCabe: It was really weird because we never knew when things were going to finish - we'd look at people and they'd be like...[makes a confused face] I was just playing me guitar. I always felt like we should be doing something really mad. You can imagine what that feels like, when you come to the end of a song...

People were going on about me soaring, but it's me concentrating because I can't really play that well anyway - I have to really think about it. Then I look up and I've been concentrating for five minutes and then it's like, "Oh, uh, maybe I should give this up."

AS: (laughing) "Where are my keyboards?"

McCabe: (laughing) "Where's me knobs?"

AS: A lot of people want to know why you don't jump around.

McCabe: Jump around?

AS: Yeah, like Pete Townsend.

McCabe: I remember someone screaming at me, "DANCE!" I mean, it's like, what the...?

AS: You should've handed the guitar over. I mean, let's see them jump around and do Stormy Clouds.

McCabe: Most bands tha dance around do it because it looks good. They don't do it because they feel like it. Pete Townsend was being injected with speed before doing it. Or Ned's Atomic Dustbin or something.

AS: Ned's Atomic Dustbin has a lot of energy on stage.

McCabe: I dunno...I feel comfortable standing there. I don't see what the big deal is. I remember seeing Billy Corgan when we were both on tour. We were in Oslo and it was the first night of the tour and he must have been having a dilemma about the stage craft or something.... He's doing that "guitar-face" [makes wacky face]...we were right up close and his face was sort of crazy-looking. About halfway through the night, everybody was leering at him anyway because he's a wanker. I never saw him do his guitar face after that.

AS: Is there anybody else that you wanted to tour with when you were still in the band?

McCabe: I wanted to go on tour with Witness when we were buddies. We were good friends for a long time. The guitarist for Witness is shacked up with my ex-girlfriend - you know, the mother of my daughter. Twisted. She always used to come down to the pub that we used to hang out. She thinks he's going the Nick McCabe route.

Me current girlfriend is lovely, though. We've been going out for two years. She's my friend as well - our feelings are mutual.

AS: Didn't she tell you, "Don't do some stupid interview with those kids in California..."

McCabe: (laughing) She did say that, actually. "What, are you mad?!"

(End of interview)

Verve: The Lost Nick McCabe Interview Part 1

2005-09-15T16:13:00.000-05:00

I was fortunate enough to have copied the 2002 release of The Verve's quintessential guitarist Nick McCabe's interview with Excellent Online!, whom are now no longer operational. For all those lost Verve souls out there, I'm just greatful for having found this obscure interview from a man who seems to be equally as hard-to-find...

Nick McCabe interview, Part 1

By Lisa Y. Garibay and Ajay Sharma
(June 1999)

FINALLY we are pleased to present the definitive interview with Nick McCabe, former guitarist for Verve, exclusive to Excellent Online!

Nick McCabe refused interview requests from NME and Rolling Stone. So how the hell did we score the chance to talk to him? Here's the story:

Just before the Verve broke up (for the first time) in 1995, Ajay created the first unofficial Verve web site. Throughout 1996 there were rumors flying that the Verve had reformed without Nick. On October 15, 1996, Ajay received a tape featuring six new tracks from the "new" band. To back up this report on the unofficial site, the tracks were posted online for fans to hear proof. Immediately after going live with the new material, Simon Jones's wife Myra called Ajay at 2 a.m., asking where the tapes had come from. As the envelope the tape had come in had already been thrown away, her question couldn't be answered - but instead of being angry about it, she offered more information telling Ajay that the new band name was undecided and the album would be out in early 1997.

In late 1997, Urban Hymns is about to be released. Via other fans privy to promo copies, Ajay received an advance of the album and posted the track listing, including the bonus track "Deep Freeze". Just that little bit of info really upset the Verve camp, who ordered the removal of that information from the site - which Ajay did immediately upon receiving their request. Despite this, rumors began circulating that the Verve were referring to Ajay as an "uncontrollable element" and that he was called a "tosspot" on Radio 1.

In the summer of 1998, Nick quit touring with the Verve. The band replaced him with several different musicians in order to finish a U.S. tour and European festival dates. That October, Ajay received a letter from EMI asking him to remove all sound files, images, guitar tabs, and lyrics from his site. Ajay, realizing this would effectively kill his site, chose to plow forward as is, and strangely enough never heard from EMI again.

Then, in spring of 1999, the Verve really broke up. The day after the official announcement, Ajay began receiving emails from someone claiming to be Nick McCabe. As the messages were coming from a hotmail account and it was easiest to assume they were from some prankster, the emails went ignored. But the person was persistent to the point where Ajay wrote back, "If you're the real Nick McCabe, call me!" That night around 11 p.m., Ajay got a call from Nick McCabe.

The two talked via phone and email for a few weeks, during which Ajay found out the story behind EMI's sudden retreat after insisting he shut down his site. When Nick found out what the record company was doing, he went to David Boyd, head of Hut Records, and asked what was going on, saying, "This [site] is the reason people are turning up to the gigs and you're trying to shut it down!" It was through Nick's persistence that the unofficial Verve site was saved.

Soon after Nick had called Ajay, he stated his desire communicate a message to Verve fans via Ajay's site. Ajay asked for the opportunity to conduct a proper interview in person, and Nick agreed. And so on Thursday, June 24, 1999, at 2:30 p.m. we found ourselves face-to-face with Nick McCabe at the Marquees of Queensbury pub.

It's been a long, hard road... for both this interview and Nick McCabe. The time that's gone by (which seem like a lifetime to those of you waiting for, panting over, and incessantly demanding this interview) has been spent in a whirlwind of transcription, spell checking, name checking, fact checking, retyping, and condensing. It's been crazy; but then again, Nick's life is even crazier. Read all about it.

LYG: What prompted you to email Ajay, for first get in contact with him?

McCabe: It was a bit twisted...I thought I might have a friend. I dunno, I just...In one of my first emails I said to you, "You do [the web site] without any pay, you're a fan and you care enough about the band to do it for free." Well, it's just like it was something special in the old days. It was something worth talking about, and I think about these people that take the bother to write and post about it.

I went purely out of vanity to see if it was all worthwhile. My sort of fantasy was that people were in their bedrooms listening to the music we were making and were in the similar midset. They would be like distant friends that we'd probably never meet. People that think like we do. It's just, "My breed exists," you know what I mean?

I make music whether I get a paycheck or not. You probably get like two bucks off bootlegs or something; it's not a business concern. You just started it. I don't want to sound bombastic about it, like you started a movement or something, for the lack of a better word. It was your three favorite bands [the Verve, Adorable, Swervedriver] at the time and that's what you started. I think that's cool. I'm glad that people notice. It's great that there's a handful of people that are really into it.

AS: It's crazy - in San Francisco there were people who had come from all over to see you perform. Then the same in LA - everybody's talking about where to meet up before the show. It's just great.

McCabe: It's the last neighborhood! Have you seen Talk Radio? He says something like it's the last neighborhood, like it's a bunch of psychopaths and mentally ill and the like. It's communal, isn't it?

You don't meet many people that you can call friends, but it's like there's something about that thing - the only thing you know about the other person is that you share this. I think that's a part of getting old - that you stop being into things. It's what keeps you young, really. I'm looking a bit haggard now, but a lot of people what I went to school with I haven't seen them since I was twenty years old and they've just rolled over and died.

Anyone that likes music is lucky, really. It doesn't have to be music - it can be anything. Just give a damn about something, instead of just existing.

LYG: Just existing instead of hoping for something better. That's what music does for a lot of people. If you're really into music it just gives you hope.

McCabe: I feel I've got to that point where hope is...I mean money is fuckin' nothing to me. You know what I mean? But by the end of the day I don't really worry about the day. I don't have to plan my days.

I don't think people know how to have fun anymore. They think it's all pretty silly. I think of it as the Greeks...I mean the Greeks were like the primo race for a while. If you go to Greece, they're all really down. The British Empire, everybody is so backward now. Nobody does anything, makes anything. You can see it in people's eyes.

LYG: How did you become a guitarist - was it what you were first interested in?

McCabe: No, I don't even like guitars! I like synthesizers. I got my first one when I was fourteen and I liked it..then I picked up a guitar. I tried to do it my own style, just wanting to make the guitar sound more like a synthesizer.

I'm not a big guitar fan. I never set out to be a guitarist. I like things that sound a bit muddy, like Eddie Hazel, the guy out of Funkadelic. I wanted to do everything at once. It was always frustrating, really - I wanted a big stack of toys that I can play with and just make a bunch of noises instead it was like, "You're the guitarist, you're gonna play guitars." There's loads of stuff with me and Si [Simon Jones, Verve bassist] in the old days - just dickin' about with Casio keyboards - that sounds really good because we were sticking them through effects.

LYG: Now that you're on your own, are you able to do the stuff you want to do?

McCabe: I've always done that anyway. I've probably got a good thirty tapes worth of stuff just sitting in the cupboard. Whether I'll do anything with that I don't know. But it was like that with the Verve, which was just a day job, really. At the start, me, Si, and Sobbo [Pete Salisbury, Verve drummer] used to get together every night of the week, every week of the year, and we'd just go and play... We recorded everything we did, and we used to go out with headphones and listen to what we did.

It was exciting! It was a night out - going out, getting some friends into it and just playing. As it progressed and got a bit more...a bit more of touring, you get a bit... The time is allocated so you get stuck in it. It's like, "I can't play now because we got a gig coming up."

So I just do my stuff at home. Someone described it as electro, but it's not - it's sort of abstract. It's probably in a similar vein to what I'm doing with guitar, but a bit more fleshed out. I've been doing that stuff all along and since people have expressed interest in putting my stuff out, I may as well get some money out of it.

LYG: Do you feel that your experience with Verve has prepared you for doing your solo work?

McCabe: I didn't benefit from it more than anyone else, really. (pause) Again, this is the reputation that you get for being shagged out of it - fuckin' bollocks. Thing is I'm a bit too polite for my own good. I just sat there, took all the shit, and let everybody behave like toddlers. I've been through this cynical jaded business for three years, but now, whatever happens, I rise above it. If you came to me two years ago, I might have been really upset, really negative about it... I do feel like the storm trooper, though.

LYG: It's amazing that all of this happened to you so young.

McCabe: Yeah...it's probably better, though. If there was anything different about us, it was because we had that lack of respect that you get when you older. You've got that sort of arrogance - "No, we're not doing that, we're doing this!" You know what I mean?

I had a cushy job, I had money coming in, and I went to Sobbo and said, "No - this doesn't make me happy until I do this, and make this work." And to a large extent I did make it work. If I never made a penny out of it, it still would've been a good thing to do. You get tired of it really, just sticking you neck out, or getting it chopped off as well. (grinning) It grows back, though.

LYG: What things about the industry would you like to see other musicians do away with?

McCabe: Well, you know the band Witness? It's one of my best friends from years ago; It's all gone sour now. They had some great tunes and I used to go out drinking with them all the time. My thing is that people sort of create their own judging rules, this mystification about themselves, and I enjoy popping the bubble. And I like deadpan humor, and to deadpan people. We know a lot of people around us that are just full of shit and it's really satisfying just to - [serious deadpan expression] You know what I mean, and watch them...

AS: Squirm.

McCabe: (laughing) Yeah, squirm. Because that's what it is. A lot of people try to elevate themselves into a position of importance. The thing about music is that people like chopping ice and playing telephone when they get home and that's about as glorious as it gets. It's just something that you do, work and play. I find it all ridiculous really - I mean, we suffered through Richard [Ashcroft, lead singer of the Verve] making all his grand claims and I think people were just... I'm just so diametrically opposed to that. I like things to be stripped of bullshit. You're more receptive to music if you know what's coming. He's just making ridiculous claims.

LYG: So anything that you do will most likely be on done independently?

McCabe: Well, I really don't know. It's all just a big quandary, really, because Richard signed a "leaving member" clause, and we're still the Verve - we're still together as the Verve. But he [Richard Ashcroft] signed the leaving [contract] and has gone solo on Virgin.

He's obviously golden boy, so they're talking about this performance that me and Si are doing, saying, "You know, I don't think we're gonna want to put out anything before Richard does his records." I can see them sort of delaying stuff. Get the Richard Ashcroft record out - that could be four years from now on or that could be never - and then maybe they'll think about putting our stuff out. So at the moment this ambient thing that I'm doing is licensed to another label. I think that seems like the wisest thing to do.

LYG: And that won't conflict with you commitment with Virgin?

McCabe: No.

LYG: That's cool.

McCabe: It seems like the only way around it really. We've still got Virgin demanding that we supply them with two finished Verve albums.

AS: Virgin still wants Verve albums?

McCabe: Yeah.

AS: Without the lead singer?

McCabe: Maybe not as "The Verve" but from the three remaining members on the contract - that's Sobbo, Si and myself. We can use a different name... but Sobbo plays with Richard now.

AS: And Tong isn't even on the contract?

McCabe: Yeah.

LYG: That's messed up.

McCabe: It's all so fuckin' sinister.

LYG: It's so odd that you can't properly distribute your music, or distribute to as many people as you want to, unless you get allied with some mega-company. Yet that just completely ties you up.

McCabe: I was thinking of doing - I know it sounds cheesy - but like multimedia stuff. There's bits of video that I'm putting together myself. I hate to use the word "ambient," but that's the label you can put on the stuff that I'm doing; it's pretty abstract. It's not that pretty - it's quite strange. That's the kind of thing that I'm into. Not really the pop stuff. Like we were talking about the Joy Division record - you get that record, put your headphones on and you're in another world. I dunno - there's nothing special about getting a pop CD, is there? You get a CD, skip through -

AS: That's why you get vinyl. I still have Storm In Heaven on vinyl.

McCabe: You've got that on vinyl?

AS: Of course!

McCabe: I haven't got that on vinyl.

AS: (laughing) I'll go down to Camden and buy you a copy.

LYG: Maybe multimedia is the next wave.

McCabe: It's a buzzword, isn't it? Its so easy for things to get misconstrued, because you say "multimedia" and then there's this DVD thing that's out there, which is supposed to be better. My multimedia idea was a straightforward book and a really good piece of vinyl, like a big thick piece of vinyl.

But now it's getting a bit gimmicky - "Nice plastic molded box fit thing," you know. It's just marketing, so now the price has gone up to 80 quid. (laughing) I can't really see myself buying it. I was thinking about production costs of burning a CD and trying to find the cheapest way to do it and maybe start up a web site, do the rights and then have people buy direct from me.

AS: You remember Carter USM?

McCabe: Yeah.

AS: Well, the guitarist, Fruitbat, is doing that. He started his own band and people just send him five bucks and he presses the CD's.

McCabe: Does he keep it afloat though? Does he atleast break even?

AS: I believe so, yeah. The five bucks cover the production costs.

McCabe: Yeah, that's an easy way to do it.

AS: I asked him if he had a problem getting a label and just didn't want to deal with the industry anymore. He said that he just wants to make the music and deal with the fans.

McCabe: Trouble is that people in the business will tell you - because it's such a gray area - "Umm, it's really tricky..." They just need to create an excuse for why they cannot do it. In my experience, you typically find out after the fact that you could've made things so much easier if you trusted your instinct.

I can't really say which way I'm gonna go. We were talking about that stuff when the Verve was going. Urban Hymns was filled with ballads and I'm not into ballads. Me and Si used to do jams and we thought, "I know what we could do - every three months we put out a record of jams." I mean, if I had a choice of Verve records, that's what I'd be buying.

LYG: Definitely.

McCabe: Stuff like the Longest Day and Stamped. Have you heard Stamped?

AS: Yes, I've got all the singles.

McCabe: They came out of forty-minute jams but because you've got this restriction of a single that you'd like to get to chart, the whole thing has to be no more then twenty-five minutes or something like that. But that's what I'd buy - stuff like that.

AS: That's what the labels care about - chart placement more than anything else.

McCabe: It's just so bloody crass. There are different ways of doing it but you got to follow it like it's this cookie cutter: "Here, this is a single. This is an album." We wanna do vinyl and they get all, "Well, I dunno, you want vinyl? It's expensive, and I'm gonna have to get different packaging and..." It's like they start cringing and all. It's like, "No, we want fuckin' vinyl - do it!" It's simple man. I took it to Virgin, actually because they were being dicks about it.

AS: Were you getting upset that all the Urban Hymns singles were not being pressed on vinyl?

McCabe: They're on vinyl now.

AS: But at the beginning they weren't.

McCabe: It's another way to screw the fans, isn't it? I mean, I wouldn't go back and sell you those B-sides. Basically I feel like we took a piss out of people with our records. The whole two-CD release thing? We were forced to do that because it gets the chart placement a bit higher. People who want the music would buy both CDs. Just taking the fuckin' piss out of it.

AS: The History single was the first one that did that. I was like, "Two CDs?! Well, I don't have a choice..." And I spent twenty bucks on both of them, and on every single one since.

McCabe: I objected to it at the time, but at the end of the day, I'm gonna do it. I've got to get paid, you know what I mean? And they got all these brilliant reasons for why... I'm not so ideological to be like - it'd be nice for me to say, "Oh, yeah, I just do it for the music." Even if it's the only way I'm gonna get paid, I wanna get paid.

LYG: You have to live.

McCabe: I've been on a hundred quid a week since I was eighteen. It's not a lot of money. I spent a year and half on the dole on the fuckin' benefits when I was sacked. Just went down to the dole office every morning.

You've got this thing that you've got to worry about - it's your life span and you might get ten years, fifteen years, twenty years if you're really stupid. And all these fat cats are still giving it away for like thirty years. I was always going to get out of it before I was thirty. I'm twenty-eight this year - I'm getting fuckin' old. I want me life! I'm going to be on my pension in a bit! (laughing)

It's a bit scary, actually, just being left in the dark. I've got a lot of tax bills...no accountants, no management and the tax bills coming after you.

LYG: It's the classic story of everybody taking advantage of the artist, but maybe it's that kind of misery that helps you create.

McCabe: Well, I knew the score before I got into it, but all the stuff about me being paranoid was bullshit really. At the time, I was the only one saying, "John Best, he's a pisstaker, know what I mean?" And everybody said, "Eh? Wot? He's alright. He's a nice lad." I was the only one going, "These people are businessmen, they're not music fans." They're just fuckin' businessmen. I knew the score. I got ten good years out of it and if someone will buy my music, then I'll fuckin' sell it.

LYG: Do you miss playing live?

McCabe: Yeah, I miss playing live, but I don't miss touring. I want to tackle this club down here; me and Si have been talking about it for years and years now. I've even been thinking about doing it in Wigan. An ex-girlfriend of mine ran a pub in Wigan and it got me thinking; she invited me down there to play one night, just get a loose collective of people jamming. I'm not talking about blues guitar or anything like that, but sort of like a hip-hop vibe kinda thing. Like a partyish think - you know, you just ring someone up and say, "Would you like to come down and play tonight?" Just doing something different.

Have you heard Kraftwerk? The early Kraftwerk is the thing. I do like the later stuff as well, but early on they were in a bit of a trippy bohemian scene; it was a bit crazy really. They have this self-sufficiency ethic and had this network of musicians that basically just took over parties in Germany. It was their own thing - they existed without the support of English labels or anything.

Seeing dance bands or DJ's play is a compromise of my perfect night out. My perfect night out would be seeing loads of stuff happening all over the place without being opportunist about it - just have something special, like Pere Ubu was back in the seventies. They used to play on the docks in Cleveland. Maybe I'm being a bit romantic about it 'cause I wasn't there... But it just sounds like something that I want, something of me own with my friends.

LYG: Is that what you aim for when you record?

McCabe: Yeah. The key to music is create like a child and edit like a scientist. I've been liveing my life to that! You have your fun and then you apply hindsight to it.

AS: What's the best gig you ever had, the best time on stage?

McCabe: [Instantly] Southampton, the Joiners.

AS: Wow - that was easy!

McCabe: Yeah, it was the best one I ever had. There were about 50 people, my hair was standing on edge...It was one of those things where the magic was really happening that night. It was a little tiny pub, probably smaller than this, and I think everyone knew they were watching something special happening. I don't mean to sound bigheaded but it's was just like, "Fuckin' hell!"

AS: Do you have videos or any footage of when you guys played?

McCabe: I probably got two videos to my name, Verve videos. I haven't got the records - I just give 'em to people - "Do you want it?" I got the B-sides compilation, No Come Down. Occasionally I listen to that.

AS: Yeah, it's got the live Gravity Grave.

McCabe: They were good times. Oh, the nostalgia - the good ole' days. The anniversary days are coming right up.

LYG: All those years ago...

McCabe: Best of me life. Now I'm just gonna wait to die out.

LYG: Nothing left for you anymore.

McCabe: Just going to sit in a pub for the rest of my days. (laughing) I do that anyway.

We used to drive ourselves. I think that's probably when it's stops being fun anymore - when you stop driving. We'd all pile in the van and be giddy - we were dead excited. We had like four transit vans with bus seats in the back. You probably got like two people on there - you know, a bum cheek on the seats. I used to fall asleep like that. It was really freezing, really fucked up.

Clapham Grand was another good one as well. It was another night where... See, the thing about the later gigs was that when I came off, I was sweating but I didn't feel disturbed. The earlier gigs, when I came off I was jittering - I couldn't talk. Some sort of chemical thing was happening in my brain...it was probably because I was smoking all this weed or something.

That's a funny thing, really. I mean Si Jones can get up in the morning and smoke 'til he goes to bed. He's always under control. You can never tell when he's high. With me, I can't even...They must be on a four-year span or something, and then it stops being fun. It's like, "Why am I doing this? Stop it, it's stupid!"

AS: So Si's not coming down?

McCabe: He's Mister Domesticated now. He's getting his garden sorted out. He's got a real nice place.

LYG: What's he doing?

McCabe: He's working with me. We're doing a film sountrack. Do you know Iain Banks? I guess you can say he's a predecessor to Irving Welsh in a way. Irving Welsh made it a bit more garish. [Banks] does these twisted little psychological horror stories - there's no actual horror, it's just really twisted, you know what I mean? Some of it's borderline science fiction, some of it's not. He's got a real whacked sense of humor. This [film] is called Complicities. It's pretty fuckin' weird.

AS: Have you seen the Acid House movie?

McCabe: I've not actually, no. Shit?

AS: I've read the book and it was great, and the movie came out in England, I'm waiting for it to come out in America. I figure that I'm here and that someone's had to seen it.

McCabe: Is it out?

AS: Yeah, it came out last year.

McCabe: I don't remember any big fanfare for it or anything.

AS: You guys were on the sountrack.

McCabe: Are we? (laughing) I was never asked about that. Do you like Irving Welsh stuff?

AS: Yeah.

McCabe: He and Banks' stuff is really good. Irving Welsh sort of took Iain Banks' thing a bit further.

AS: It's a bit too difficult to read at the beginning but once you get into it, it's really good. It's not in English - it's written with a Scottish accent.

McCabe: You have to decipher it first.

AS: Thank God that when I read the Trainspotting book it had a glossary in the back so you can look up what all the terms mean.

McCabe: Have you ever met a real Glaswegian? I think Billy Connelly said it: "A pissed-up Glaswegian is like being growled at by a Alsatian." I man, they're all right until they get a bit pissed and it's like [makes grumbling noises]. Glasgow's a good town, but it's a bit stereotypical. I went up there with my girlfriend and we got there at three in the afternoon and they were loads of people on "special brew". There were people stumbling about at three in the afternoon. It's a good night out.

AS: It's a good day out, apparently.

McCabe: [For Complicities], we thought we were going to do a lot more music on it, but it's been scored already by some proper Hollywoood orchestra. So we are doing atrack in the middle of the mix. It's nice and scary. I was thinking along the lines of Stamped. You know, evil-like.

LYG: What will it sound like - the Verve stuff or very different?

McCabe: Well, I think it's not like the Verve...I never really liked strings in your song to make it sound posh. I don't like posh records. I like what strings do, but I don't like what they say. You know, "We got strings now, we're big". I like music to be dirty, dirty music. The [Verve] demos are really the definitive versions. (pause) Quite sad, really...

AS: What is?

McCabe: Quite sad, that's my life! I've not done anything.

AS: The demos are classics but the albums -

McCabe: Yeah, the albums just missed...We took a left turn somewhere.

AS: On 'all' of the albums?

McCabe: The best stuff we did really was spur-of-the-moment stuff. Because I've got a thing about rooms, I think a lot of stuff that we wrote was influenced by the very room that we were in. I got sucked into them. Two months later I thought, "That's why the record doesn't sound right, because we can't get the room anymore." We've got like fifty grand worth of reverbs and Mexican shit...We did that for Man Called Sun. On the last day we were so fucked - total desperation - "I know, we'll stick microphones all over the room." And [the engineers and producers] were looking at us like we were a bunch of pricks but that's what you hear - people always try to convince you that they know better.

AS: Do you have a favorite producer that you worked with, or did you always want to produce all your own material?

McCabe: Chris Potter is nice - genius. I never actually met Youth.

AS: Oh yeah, that's right. He was done before you even got there.

McCabe: But I spent like seven months on the record. Basically the key tracks were recorded from scratch, but some of them were already there. The Drugs Don't Work was re-recorded. I wish I'd never played on that.

Chris Potter was just a classic gentleman, a classic bloke. Sometimes he gets a bit touchy, though. You know that sound on Stormy Clouds - the sort of whiny high-pitched stuff? I only found out a little while ago that that's an Eventide harmonizer. Problem is that it's an Eventide cliche. Like, fuck that!

AS: What about working with John Leckie - did you have a lot of expectations because he did the Stone Roses record?

McCabe: I just found it really difficult. I had something in mind, he had something in his, and I generally ended up doing it somewhere in the middle. It got to the point to where he would come out and start fiddling with my amp. I'd wait for him to turn his back and then I'd put it back.

It's ridiculous really. I don't really think he knows how to record guitars. I mean the Radiohead album The Bends- it's lumpy, a bit clumsy...clunky as far as I'm concerned. I love the band but I don't think he did it justice. The Roses is just a brilliant band anyways so you can't really go wrong with them, except that one chorus where everything is bullshit.

It turned out to be a good record. What were we, twenty? I was twenty; I'm the oldest. It could've been better, and I knew that at the time.

AS: Butterfly? You're happy with Butterfly?

McCabe: See things like that...things like that -

AS: To me, [Storm In Heaven] is the perfect album except for Butterfly.

McCabe: You don't like that one.

AS: I don't like that one. It's just...

McCabe: Clumsy. It's clumsy, isn't it?

AS: It seems like it was -

McCabe: Bashed out.

AS: Yeah, like someone said, "Okay, we need another song for the album," you go into the studio and bam - two hours later, Butterfly comes out. That's what it seems like to me. I don't know if you guys spent four weeks or -

McCabe: It wasn't done in a month...but it was bashed out. It was me and Richard in a room with a Steely Dan loop. This is the kind of thing that we were putting up with - a Steely Dan loop. Me playing mandolin? (pause) All right, yeah, I'll play it. What the fuck were we doing with a Steely Dan loop going on in the background...I'm just making bonker noises, hitting my guitar, stoned out of my mind as well...it's fuckin' three o'clock in the morning and me going, "What am I doing here? Girlfriend is pregnant...It's snowing outside and you have to walk down the fuckin' railway just to get to the shops." Now it's four o'clock and we're going, "Hey, we got another tune for the album." Ugly, I dunno...I think it's good. It was good fun playing it. I don't mind. I think it has a big sort of kick on it. There wasn't any finesse at all, but I reckon you can still call it great. Basically I like everything that sounds bonkers.