Adrian Cooper has been unwell

Old reviews that are no longer available online, or from sites that no longer exist. The pen is dead, long live the camera.

Monday, November 26, 2007

The OC


British youth soap opera/teen-drama. Just doesn’t cut it, does it? As if. Hollyoaks. Bunch of fucking crap. Why waste your time watching it?

No, if you want to while your hours away watching twenty-somethings playing teenagers, be it television or cinema, you have to turn to America. It seems that they’re just so much better at than we are. The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Pretty In Pink, Bring It On, American Pie (but only the first film, let’s put the kibosh on the sequels), My So Called Life, Buffy, the list just goes on. But – and it’s quite a big but – that list most definitely doesn’t include Dawson’s pissing Creek.

No, I don’t care who you are; it’s not worth trying to start this debate with me. You can’t win, so I won’t even bother listening to what you saying. Blah blah blah, like, whatever.

That’s not enough? You want reasons? Overly sentimental, unbearably saccharine sweet and twee, drawn-out long past its sell by date, smug as fuck plot lines, and I don’t fancy Katie Holmes. Sorry.

But of course, we also have to take into account the James van der Beek factor.

Mr van der Beek, please approach the bench. I present you with exhibit A, the lower half of your face. How do you plead? Guilty? Too fucking right you’re guilty.

Ok, so I had no problem with James van der Beek in ‘Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back’ or ‘The Rules Of Attraction’, but as far as Dawson goes, you’re having a fackin' laugh, guv’nor. Foolishly sensitive film geek fucks up his love life and loses his girlfriend to the US version Toady from Neighbours. Get over it. Move on. Look, she has. She’s screwing your best mate.

If I wanted hear about the trials and tribulations of being a movie addict trying to get by in the real world, I’d have a chat with New Noise’s very own Eddie Robson. I used to work with him. He’s a nice chap, once you get over his remarkable resemblance to Muse’s Matt Bellamy. And he’s got a book out about the films of the Cohen Brothers, which is more than you can say for Mr Chin.

Anyway, I’ve digressed enough. If you’re after non-patronising teen-drama, with geek-chic skateboard kids, hard-drinking beauties, philandering parents, a bitch queen royale, and a bloke that once died of a heart attack in Neighbours, all based around a reworking of the classic Pygmalion story, then there’s only one place for you to turn. And that’s Orange County, California, baby.

Yeh, you got it. Welcome to the OC.

We’re supposed to pretend that the series is all about Ryan. The Chino boy who was saved from himself just about in time to stop from him turning bad, but who’s still rough enough to punch out anyone that looks at him funny, burn down a house owned by his recently adopted mother’s business, and shag his newly acquired grandfather’s girlfriend in front of the girl he really wants. The perfect post-American Dream rebel with a cause. Like Jack Kerouac raised as trailer trash, but denied the opportunity to place his mother on a pedestal, left with no choice but to lash out at his tormentors.

But really, we know that he’s little more than a plot device. He’s only there so that situations can evolve around him. He’s a catalyst for change, a fulcrum rather than a focal point, and an excuse for a regular ruckus.

No, all the real fun is going on around Ryan. First off there’s Summer. The tart with a heart, only she keeps her heart well hidden behind a wall of vicious put-downs, scything glances and mini-skirts. She thinks she’s all that, and, truth be told, she probably is. Even if she isn’t I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell her. She’d probably have your balls off in an instant. Along with your bladder and lower intestine.

And there’s her verbal sparring partner, Seth Cohen. King geek extraordinaire, the Graham Coxon of US teen-drama. Let’s face it, he’s the kid that we’d all like to be. Good T-shirts, never falls off his skateboard, has hair that marks him out as being just that little bit different, and he’s willing to argue with the girl of his dreams when it comes to music.

And it that isn’t enough for you, he almost manages to pull off the perfect coup. Rolling around semi-naked with Summer in the pool house while he’s got another girl stashed away in his bedroom, playing with a toy horse.

Finally, we get to Marissa Cooper, the OC’s contender for the throne marked teen-drama goddess. A true challenger for the position previously held by Shannon Doherty and Eliza Dukshu. I’d marry her if we didn’t already share a surname.

Where do we start? She’s toying not only with alcoholism and drug abuse but also with Ryan’s heart. She tried to kill herself in a seedy Tijuana bar, is having to deal with watching her parents split up but also watching her mother chase Seth’s grandfather. Her ex-boyfriend is a jock twat who managed to sleep with half the female population of the OC without her knowing. Basically meaning that she gets flit between playing the nice girl next door one moment and fucked-up drug hoover the next. What more could you ask for from a leading lady?

OK, so that’s the kids sorted (well, all the important ones anyway), all you need know for a killer drama is a reasonably believable basic premise. Something along the lines of Ryan starting the series getting caught while trying to steal a car, or some other relatively minor act of juvenile delinquency. That should suffice.

Maybe then his mother and her abusive boyfriend do a runner while Ryan is in custody, leaving with nowhere to turn other than the kind-hearted community lawyer, Sandy, that was dealing with his case. Who then takes Ryan home to meet the wife and their seemingly socially-awkward son, Seth, who just happens to the same age as our lovably roguish Chino troublemaker. Sound good so far? Yeh? Good, then we’ll continue

Imagine for a moment that Ryan’s initiation into OC life doesn’t go so smoothly to start. He keeps getting into fights, usually with Marissa’s boyfriend. At the beach, in the diner, on the boardwalk; wherever Ryan goes, chances are he’ll be coming home with a shiner. And just to antagonise his new home life, each black eye invariably earns another black mark from Sandy’s immeasurably wealthy wife. But Seth doesn’t seem to be acting so introverted anymore, so maybe it’s all going to work out for the best. In fact, maybe they should adopt Ryan.

And once you’ve mixed that little lot together add a succession of parties, Ryan's and Marissa's on-off, should-we, shouldn’t-we, what about my boyfriend-sod him, he’s a lying cheating bastard anyway relationship and the gradual build up of sexual tension between Seth and Summer.

Then you’ve got the near-apocalyptic road trip to Tijuana which cumulates with Marissa knocking a bottle of pills down her gob, and the occasional sortie back into Chino – allowing for the use of grainier and less vividly-coloured film to further highlight the differences between the rich suburb and the scummy run-down poor area. But hey, at least Ryan’s growing up on the right side of the tracks now.

And there it is.. Everything you could possibly wish for from the perfect teen-drama. So next time bleak British teen-soaps are getting you down, just head on over to OC for some fun in the privileged sun because, as every easy-living, hard-partying California rich-kid knows, the future’s bright, the future’s Orange County.

The Make Up


"I wanna introduce four of the most generously gifted motherfuckers that I know. Straight out of Washington, DC…the Make Up. Let’s give it up.”
Introduction from ‘After Dark: Live At Fine China’

It’s not often that a band comes along that perfectly sums up everything that you want, and should demand, from a group. In reality, such an occurrence is so rare that should such a band come along, you’re more or less obligated to love them, obsess over them and stalker them like a nutter every time they set foot in the country as you. But unfortunately these bands come along so infrequently that it’s been years since we were last given the opportunity to express our love in such a drastic and morally dubious manner. In fact, it’s been eleven years since a new band came along and showed themselves to both the personification of our dreams and the realisation of our desires. It’s been eleven years since the dark underbelly of Washington, DC, spawned the Make Up.

The Make Up formed around the core of Nation of Ulysses, a DC area band that made like Rocket From The Crypt with an added socio-demographic political agenda and claimed an intention to “wreck society through direct action by destroying its institutions and the men who serve it, and by relying on the people's forces to spread the doctrines of P-Power and Ragnarok; to consolidate the New Nation, while never forgetting the need for constant purging”. As you may notice, they weren’t exactly your common or garden DC hardcore band.

Styling themselves as an international revolutionaries, the NoU not only declared themselves the first wave of the Ulysses Jihad and waged war on complacency and the US government – laying claim to a number of fictitious assassinations and embassy bombings – but pronounced these claims so loudly that singer Ian Svenonious believes to this day that the CIA hold files on him and regularly keep track of his actions.

When the time came for NoU to part ways, it was obvious that the nation had not fallen, that the masses continued to be repressed, and that there was still work to be done and from the ashes of NoU, via a brief sojourn as Cupid Car Club, rose the phoenix of the Make Up; bold, magnificent and ready to continue the good fight.

“Do not review if...the review would condescend to MAKE-UP's pretension of ideology and dismiss it as sophomoric and naive, as MAKE-UP recognise the unconscious ideology of insipid psychology undermine meaning through invisible propaganda for its father and benefactor, advanced capitalism…6) unless you understand that this is truth on tape…”
From the sleeve-notes to ‘Sound Verité’

Looking like a mix of a Maoist party conference, the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Black Panthers, the Make Up comprised three former Ulysses jihadees – the aforementioned Svenonious (now less a singer than an evangelical rock and roll prophet who could be found sermonizing his congregation as often as actually singing), bassist Steve Gamboa and drummer/percussionist James Canty (brother of Fugazi’s one and only Brendan Canty) – and Michelle Mae, formerly the bassist in proto-riot grrls, the Frumpies.

"Of all the sectarian developments stemming from Christianity in the former colonies, perhaps the strangest and most fascinating is the one called Gospel Yeh Yeh, which, though originating in Washington, DC, seems to be spreading elsewhere at an alarming rate."
From the sleeve-notes to ‘Destination: Love Live! At Cold Rice’

Sonically, The Make Up evolved drastically during their transition from the frenetic soul-punk revue of NoU. While none of the energy or fondness for zealous performance was lost, the Make Up’s mix of MC5, post-DC hardcore, Arthur Lee’s Love (even going so far as to write a protest song demanding his release from incarceration), gospel, rhythm and blues and punk – what they referred to as the Gospel Yeh Yeh sound – was the nearest thing you can find to an incendiary device in your record collection.

The band’s image and politics were echoed in every thing they did. Not only did they perform in matching black uniforms, they could be found arriving at their shows in matching daywear. Far from being the last gang in town, the Make Up projected the idea that they were the only gang in town, and you were welcome to join as long as you could prove your devotion during the gig. Make Up shows (the the prefix used to come and go depending at which record sleeve you happened to be looking, representing the band as both concept and a definitive article in their own right) were characterised by the ever more outrageous antics of Svenonious, often to be found in the midst of his disciples; braying with ruthless abandon like a revitalised James Brown, urging on his fans, pushing them to the point where they abandoned any sense of inhibition and became part of the spectacle itself. Early on it wasn’t unusual for the Make Up to be greeted with initial apprehension, only for this to turn to undying zeal and supplication by the end of the show.

The Hives and the (International) Noise Conspiracy may have lifted most of their ideaz straight from their copies of After Dark and Destination Love, but they were little more than inadequate pretenders to the Make Up’s throne. While repeated attendance at either a Hives or (I)NC gig quickly showed that Pelle Almqvist and Dennis Lyxzén were merely leading their respective bands through a series of rehearsed moves, loaded down with clichéd posturing and identikit rhetoric, the Make Up live experience was the real deal; insurrectionary, inspired by solidarity and a deep-rooted need to express the raw emotions that would have otherwise remained bottled up inside, as can be witnessed on the any of the three live albums currently available – ‘Destination: Love’, ‘After Dark’ and the soon to be released ‘Untouchable Sound’.

Since their demise in 2000 (it was, apparently, only ever intended as a five-year plan) the majority of their rank and file have since been found working under the monikers of Scene Creamers and Weird War, but regrettably that revolutionary spirit has never since been captured as perfectly as with the Make Up. By way of a legacy they have leave behind them, in addition to the live albums, three studio albums – ‘Sound Verité’, ‘In Mass Mind’ (the sleeve-notes to which featured a treatise on the industrialisation of the music industry); ‘Save Yourself’ (by which time the band also included Alex Minhoff, formerly of Six Finger Satellite) – and a whole host of seven inch singles, collected together on ‘I Want Some’.

The dream may be over, but the spirit lives on, on record and carved on the soul of their fans. But do not fear, these things are not meant to last forever, and we can at least look forward with hope for the next band to come along and grant our wishes.

"Dear diary,
We are crossing the country now, playing cities large and small and it seems that indeed the problems that affect us at home beset people everywhere. We will do our best to galvanise this discontent into a tight fist, to discipline these ragtag bands so they can properly be named an army, and they shall read Clausewitz and Guevara and all the various handbooks on martial concerns."

From the sleeve-notes from 'I Want Some'

Sunday, November 25, 2007

The Rogers Sisters
Mean Fiddler, London


If they were more mainstream, the chances are that the Rogers Sisters (well, the women anyway) would have been on the cover of every lads mag/bottom-shelf soft-smut rag in the country by now, and their faces would adorn notebooks alongside Playboy bunny-themed stationary in WH Smith. But as it is, the Rogers Sisters (and male non-sibling, Miyuki Furtado) are ours, and ours alone.

The public at large doesn’t seem to care about them. Amongst the mad scramble for trendy New York bands that took place a couple of years ago, the Rogers Sisters were somehow left behind. Sure, they got some attention, their name was bandied around for a few months, and there was probably at least one day when they were officially the hottest prospect on a platter of tasty morsels but for some reason both inexplicable and unexplainable, it didn’t last. Before they had a chance to consolidate their position, the Liars and Yeah Yeah Yeahs stole their thunder. And just to make matters worse, everyone then forgot about their more talented and, for the sake of battering this fact into the public conscious in the vain hope that you’re shallow enough to pay attention for this sole reason, better-looking peers. Fucking idiots, the lot of you.

So we find ourselves here, watching a pair of beautiful girls and their rather striking mate playing fidgety music full of wired and Wire-y guitars, taut drums and garrulous bass. Laura’s drumming is just an erratic spazz beat away from echoing true post-punk polyrhythms of Gang Of Four and the Raincoats, Jennifer stands there, guitar slung around her looking all cool and ever so slightly restrained, the perfect foil to Miyuki’s rock and roll antics. In a lesser band, there’s a chance that leaning back, letting go a torrent of spittle, neatly picked out in the stage lights, and catching it back in your mouth would be crude and ungainly, but tonight it merely confirms that Miyuki deserves to be regarded as your second favourite Hawaiian – only just missing out on the number one spot to San Jose and USA striker, Brian Ching.

As it is, the Rogers Sisters are the ultimate party band; new wave travellers forging a path between Theoretical Girls and the B52s, Huggy Bear and Assembly Line People Program, Le Tigre and Ill Ease. Which is exactly where we should want to find them; kicking out the jams in a world of their own, just being there, looking good and sounding even sexier. Just for us.

TV on the Radio

I’ve always been a sucker for a band with great hair. The Make Up, 90 Day Men, At the Drive-In. Make of that what you will but bear in mnd that if I were shallow enough to judge a band purely on their hair then I’d be a life-long fan of Kid’n’Play.

And before you start with the style over content argument, I’m not saying that hair is the defining feature of a great band. I realise that other factors are important – you know, the boring stuff; talent, ability, stage presence, songs, that kind of thing. I’d also like to point out that, in theory at least, I’m not adverse to bands with no hair at all. But if you look back through the annals of rock’n’roll, you’ll see that image has it’s role to play in establishing a band as being more than just part of the pack. Image is what makes one really good band stand out from another.

What it all boils down to is that when a band is already musically strong, a good strong image is the finishing touch. And when you’re talking image, great hair is the icing on the sartorial cake.

Bearing this mind, you can understand why, having already read enough about TV on the Radio for them to pique my interest, the first time I saw a picture of guitarist Kyp Malone, I was sold. I had to hear this band.

On stage Kyp is the personification of the immovable object. He’s built like a bear, he’s enormous, the realisation of The Thing from the Fantastic Four. And on top of all that, he’s got the most amazing beard/afro combination going on that makes him look like this giant bipedal lion. The man is a fucking modern-day Sphinx come to life.

First time I saw them play, they were supporting Blonde Redhead. I say supporting, because officially, they were. But for whatever unannounced reason, TV on the Radio were on last, sometime after midnight. For some bands, this would be a problem. Blonde Redhead are a hard band to follow on an average night and this was anything but an average night. Their first London show in an age, moved from the Garage to the Scala, and with a new album to boot. But even after all this, TV on the Radio were magnificent.

Magnificent, but also very hard to pin down. OK, so the time of night and the earlier alcohol consumption may not have helped, but at first listen, TV on the Radio are an intriguing and beguiling mix of sounds. Basically, that night they were a tremendous, vibrant noise; a full-on wall of sound with falsetto vocals and lock-groove rhythms. I left the gig that night knowing that TV on the Radio were good, yet still not knowing quite what they were.

Their debut album, ‘Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes’, makes it clear. Well, as clear as it can given that the band not only somehow mix classic US alt.rock with dub, soul, deep rumbling electronics, lilting horns and military drum tattoos, but also invent the alt.rock barber shop quintet croon-fest. In lesser hands, there’s the risk that this would all come out sounding like an indie Sting pastiche but as TV on the Radio hands are as fine as their hair, they carry it off perfectly.

Video may well have killed the radio star, but it’s clear that the true stars of TV can be found on the radio, big hair and all. It’s time to turn on, tune in and rock out.

The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster
London Rhythm Factory



A support band. Like Mclusky degraded 100 times. Imitation doesn’t guarantee anything, continued xeroxing will always result in lesser quality. An old man in a stinking and fetid leather jacket twitches away as if he likes them. Maybe he does. Each to his own.

Let’s not linger. It’s for the best.

Step back.

Step back, and feel yourself. Feel the cold beer in your mouth, washing around your fillings. Feel the sweat of 200 people settle on your skin. Feel your sphincter muscle tighten, feel your buttocks clench.

Step forward again. Against all odds, for a mere twenty seconds they sound like Chuck Berry playing the Pixies’s ‘Bone Machine’. Twenty seconds of greatness, gone in an instant.

Fade out.

Cast your mind back six hours. Starring blankly at a monitor. Spacing out, a combination of a glucose-induced hypermania and sleep deprivation. Eyes unable to focus, skittering across the empty screen, not latching on to anything, not functioning properly.

They say that everything you do, everything that you say is a self-portrait of yourself. So what does that say about me? What does this say about me? That I’m empty? That I’m waiting for information, awaiting input?

Fade back in.

Plato said that we don’t ever learn anything. All we do is recognise things that we know from our time in the ether, our time between incarnations, our time between times. I know this to be true. At least, I know that Socrates said that Plato said this. Can we ever really know what Plato said, when it was all written down and reported by Socrates?

But that’s not important right now. What’s important is that you recognise the Birthday Party, Bauhaus, the Cramps. See all these things in the band that strutted out and started playing what Stevie Wonder may well have dubbed ‘Songs In The Key Of Death’.

"I've got my limbs tied up and a blindfold across my eyes,
Got the feeling I know that I'm gonna have to tell a lie."


The band look like degenerates. They look like the cast of a 50s B movie. A guitarist that lurches back and forth like an extra in ‘Dawn of the Dead’ hamming it up for his one moment of on-screen glory. A singer that looks like all he ever wanted to be when he grew up was a Ramone. But, damn, the boy sure can scream and howl.

Dark rumbling bass lines that cut you to the bone, cut you to the quick, cut you to the sphincter. Internal body temperature averages around 37°. Theoretically, the closer the temperature in here gets to 37°, the less likely it is that you will notice if you shit yourself.

Every song sounds the same. But every song sounds great. ‘Breaking The Law’ played voodoo-swamp blues style. ‘I Could Be An Angle’ sounds like a circus carny guarding the gates of Brighton Pier. And against this backdrop, amidst this turbulence, ‘Celebrate Your Mother’ sounds like a work of genius. Psychobilly genius, but genius all the same.

If everything that you sing is a self-portrait, then what does ‘Celebrate Your Mother’ say about Guy McKnight?

Coldplay
X&Y


That Coldplay are bland, overrated and uninspiring goes without saying. Unfortunately, it’s what has to be said that is going to cause problems me here.

Back in the summer of 2000, Coldplay were just another Travis wannabe, coasting on the success of the dire ‘Yellow’ and a fortuitous Glastonbury appearance. And it was looking like that was as far as it was going go, their time was going to pass as quickly as it had come, ‘Yellow’ would be consigned to the reduced bin of musical history and we could get on with our lives.

But what happens when the wannabe not only eclipses but also obliterates their idol’s public profile?

Five years on, ‘A Rush Of Blood To The Head’ and one celebrity wedding later, Coldplay are still with us, and crazy frogs aside, it seems that their momentum has become as irrepressible as glacial flow.

But all this window-dressing has distracted us from the fact that, at some stage in the recent past, Coldplay have morphed, albeit slowly and practically imperceptibly, into an amalgam of the House of Love and early U2. In theory, this should be a good thing.

And it almost is. The songs have gained texture and are loaded with an organic feeling that that they used to lack. Where the early singles sounded forced and unwieldy, ‘X&Y’ makes for a more satisfying listen. What’s more surprising that is that ‘Talk’ not only contains the riff from Kraftwerk’s ‘Computer Love’ but is co-credited to Herren Hütter and Bartos – a pair known alleged to have removed former band mates from writing credits when reissuing their earlier albums – and Brian Eno plays keyboards on the aptly named ‘Low’. So not only is ‘X&Y’ reasonably good, it’s also officially credible. Damn them.

But this doesn’t mean that all is well. It’s a shame that Coldplay haven't yet grown out of their reliance on the piano as a source of melody, as the more predominantly guitar-based songs sound a lot stronger and better suited to the restrained production of the album. The intro to ‘What If’ sounds too close for comfort like Elton John’s ‘Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word’ and Chris Martin’s voice just isn’t strong or interesting enough to withstand repeated listening.

That Coldplay are bland, overrated and uninspiring goes without saying. Unfortunately, it’s whether I don’t like this album or that I don’t want to like this album that is causing me problems.

The Raveonettes
Pretty In Black


“Here she comes walking down the street,
She’s got something you would love to meet,
It’s her heart and her heart is black,
Think of ice cream sliding into a crack.”

The Jesus And Mary Chain, ‘Here Comes Alice’

In 1985, the Jesus and Mary Chain turned their back on post-punk and new pop, preferring to take their cue from their anachronistic love of the Shirelles and the Ronettes, the Velvet Underground and the Ramones, the Beach Boys and Bob Dylan.

Likewise, the Raveonettes emerged from Denmark in 2002, paying no heed whatsoever to overriding trends, choosing instead to draw inspiration from the likes of the Shirelles and the Ronettes, the Velvet Underground and I think you can see where we’re going here.

So, the Raveonettes sound a lot like the Mary Chain. But for once, a band has taken that influence and altered it, albeit only subtly, to make that sound their own. Where the Raveonettes’s previous records, ‘Whip It On’ and ‘Chain Gang Of Love’, bought wholesale into the brothers Reid early fuzzed to the max feedback thing, ‘Pretty In Black’, as with the Mary Chain’s later ‘Stoned And Dethroned’, strips it all back to the bare bones, allowing the both the tunes and Sharin’s and Sune’s icy vocals to the fore.

Only these Danes have gone one further than their Scottish predecessors. Not only have they borrowed from their idols, they’ve managed to enlist some of them as well. Former Ronnette Ronnie Spector sings backing vocals on ‘Ode To LA’, Martin Rev of Suicide plays on three songs and Velvet’s drummer Mo Tucker crops up on another four.

Fortunately, ‘Pretty In Black’ is about more than just the guests. ‘The Heavens’ is loaded with pathos and a countrified twang reminiscent of early Neil Young; ‘Seductress Of Bums’ rewrites the Pretenders’ ‘Hymn To Her’; ‘Love In A Trashcan is only a big muff away from being the best song that didn’t make it onto ‘Whip It On’; and their cover of the Angels’ ‘My Boyfriend’s Back’ is just a call and response backing vocal away from being a ‘Leader Of The Gang’ for a new century.

While they will probably never venture too far from comforting shadow of the Mary Chain, ‘Pretty In Black’ does at least show that the Raveonettes know how to find their way into the light, and suggests that we may find them there more often in the future, albeit dressed head to toe in black and wearing wraparound shares.

“Here comes Mary,
All dressed in black,
Her heart so heavy,
A love attack,
Her dying cigarette in the rain.”

The Raveonettes, ‘Here Comes Mary’

Querelle


Some things are a long time coming.

Querelle were formed in London by a trio of estranged Italians (singer and guitarist Gypsy, best friend Valentina on drums and originally Gypsy's sister Stef on bass, since replaced by Antonio, a former band mate of Gypsy and Val back in Italy) way back in 2001, but somehow the forthcoming self-titled mini-album, released on Sink and Stove Records at the end of July, is their debut. With many bands, this would have been an annoying wait; for Querelle fans, and one would assume the band themselves, this has been a period of interminable frustration.

Part of the reason for this delay could be put down to teething issues. As in the I'll tear you apart like Jaws in a pool of neon tetras kind of teething issues.

"We split up after a bunch of gigs as we were about to kill each other and we could not play our songs without bursting into tears. We got back together after six months with the same line up but we kept attempting homicide and sabotage."

So we find ourselves here, four years and two split-singles - one with the Dudley Corporation, the other with the Wow - later, finally cradling the album in our slightly sweaty, appreciative hands, clutching at it like some hard-fought treasure, hoping that our patience will be richly rewarded, grateful the motivating spur that keeps Querelle's flame flickering did not diminish with the passing of time.

"[These are] songs that need to come out, chords that need to exist, rhythms that need to rumble, houses that need to be bought down..."

Fortunately for us, and again you'd imagine for Querelle, the album is stunning. It's everything for which we could have hoped and, yes, as the cliché has it, so much more.

"Up and down the shanty town that you've become there's nothing to be found,
I rock'n'roll I twist and shout I scream out loud I don't make any sound,
I love myself like no one else,
But not enough it's just a little crush as such"

'Shanty Town'

From the opening cyclic riff of 'Shanty Town' to the closing refrain of 'Diverging', it's clear that this record is exactly as it should be: elegaic, full of natural grace and staggering poise, the precise realisation of a Querelle gig. In order to exist, everything in life needs to discover balance in order to survive, must find that point of equilibrium between creation and destruction, life and death, love and hate, love and lust. And in keeping with the greater themes in life, Querelle have found their philosophers stone, the fulcrum around which their world can revolve and evolve.

While their art-rock stylings (think Sonic Youth, Blonde Redhead) and spazz-jazz poses (Theolonious Monk, Sun Ra) may flirt with the avant-garde, the melody and hooks of songs like 'Little Silly Things' show that they're more than happy to lick the tit of pop, aiming for, and often coming pretty to close to achieving, to attaining their dream of sonic perfection, and as both Pier Paolo Pasolini and Blonde Redhead have put it, finding a way to express the inexpressible.

"We all hope to live out the dream that we grew up with, which is not fame and money, but creative freedom and probably some recognition. The kind of parable that the biographies of our favourite bands show."

"It sneaks into your ribcage,
It sits upon your heart it tears your little silly dreams apart,
I hope it keeps you awake at night I hope it holds you tight,
I hope it hits you right between the eyes"

'Just A Song'

Such talk of perfection, brings us, as it was always destined to, to 'Sore'. While the other songs here more than justify the high expectations with which we approached the album, 'Sore' takes those suppositions, smashes them into little pieces and builds something new, magnificent and previously undreamt of from the scattered remnants.

It starts off like a long-lost relation of Sonic Youth's 'Expressway To Yr Skull', takes a lonely, melancholic guitar riff and turns into a work of art, an object of beauty. And just as the bridge tumbles in, it opens its heart to us, affording us glimpses of the childhood spent growing up listening to My Bloody Valentine and the early Ride EPs. And as with all the best songs by all the bands mentioned above, 'Sore' lifts you up with it as it reaches for the heavens. It's that song that, when you first hear it, fulfils everything that you wish it could. It's the song that is going to make you fall in love with Querelle. It's the song that most completely represents everything that they seem to symbolise.

"Heaven sent an angel just to let me know,
Let me feel what blooming flowers feel when they fuck the concrete on the pavement"

'Sore'

Some things are a long time coming. And some things, it turns out, are well worth the wait

The War On Pop, Volume 2


There’s something wrong with pop. Deeply, perhaps irreparably, wrong. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about the concept of pop, I’m talking about the state of our pop. Ultimately, I suppose that it all comes down to your definition of pop music. To me, pop is there to entertain; to provide a constant rotation of shiny new songs that are supposed to make daytime radio more bearable. Songs that will make you smile, if only for three minutes, and that you won’t mind having stuck in your head for the next two weeks.

And it’s for these reasons that I’m not only pro-pop but also proud of it. I’m not saying that I’m a slave to it; I’d have to check to see who was at number one in the chart. Even then, the chances are that even then I wouldn’t be able to pick it out a line-up, (band or song) unless it’s still bastard Band Aid 20. And the only line-up I’d want to see ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ and its evil perpetrators and progenitors in would be arranged against a wall facing a firing squad, but I’ll deal with cover versions and charity records another time.

But despite the casual mix of ambivalence and hatred that I’m displaying here, I’m all for pop. In fact, I think it’s essential part of our lives. At best, pop is the distillation of contemporary music forms, reshaped into a more accessible structure and given a memorable chorus. Pop is capable of being, and should always be encouraged to be, an art form that’s every bit as valid as the Dillinger Escape Plan/Shellac/Dalek album that you’re listening to whilst calling me a bummer.

Obviously when I bandy about words like art form, I’m not talking about Westlife. Westlife always have been, and always will be, unadulterated toss, served up lukewarm to a public that no longer knows any better. But then, for every Westlife, you’ll also discover that somewhere out there, lurking disturbingly like a bad smell in a pair of pants, there’s a Kasabian, Libertines or Razorlight to avoid. I don’t see how indie kids think they have the right to criticise pop when the same bunch of arseholes spent a proportion of their precious student loan on the fucking Keane album. You have to remember that no matter what form of music you look at, there’s good shit and there’s bad shit. And underneath all that shit, there’s the likes of Westlife and the Libertines, wallowing around in shit, gulping down great mouthfuls of shit, and regurgitating it into three minute chunks of bile and bilge.

To provide a bit of perspective here, the most horrendously feeble and arrogantly atrocious song I heard all year wasn’t Eamon's ‘Fuck It (I Don’t Want You Back)’’, ‘Call On Me’ by Eric Prydz or even Natasha Bedingfield’s ‘Unwritten’, it was ‘Glamorous Indie Rock’n’Roll’ by the Killers, whose debut album is somehow nestling at number seven in the New Noise albums of 2004. Baring that in mind, do you really think that you can justify thinking that band X is any better than pop star Y just because they write their own songs instead of being handed them by a team of major label recruited freelance songwriters?

For too long, pop has been mistreated, because the people in charge of pop no longer understand it. As far as the major record labels are concerned, the single is a redundant artefact from another time. Creating a single has become such a quick, automatic process that the market has become saturated and such an abundance of product inevitably leads to a loss of quality. As the standard of songs is lost, then the public’s tolerance for any given record is reduced more rapidly, and the record label have to increase the frequency with which they release singles to maintain their sales figures.

As I said last time round pop isn’t, and in fact shouldn’t be, about the artist, it’s about the song. Record companies think that, if they are going to pay to promote a song, then they have the right to expect that artist that they made record to be successful. But, essentially, the record companies don’t understand their market. When it comes down to it, pop kids don’t care about the artist, they’re there for the instant kick; the song is master; the artist is at best secondary, if not completely peripheral, to the whole process. But the sliced-bread manufacturing process that the labels have adopted doesn’t recognise this fact.

There’s only one way to save the pop single, and that is to bring about a dramatic improvement in the quality of the music being released. In order for this to be achievable, then the labels quickly need to learn that they’re going about things the wrong way. What we need is a return to the stable of pop stars approach used by the likes of Stock, Aitken and Waterman in the 80s.

Forget about even trying to release albums with individual artists. What we need are good, strong singles released by the right pop star. We need carefully picked writers crafting songs for artists who are afforded distinct styles by producers that don’t want to work on autopilot all day long. And this can only happen when you want to write, produce and release songs that will still stand up in six months time.

At present, the nature of the market – which has been dictated by record label policy – is essentially to churn out any old shit safe in the knowledge that the more singles they stick out, the more publicity they’ll get for the album, which is where they can actually make some money. But pop albums are generally shit; a couple of good songs surrounded by acres of filler.

Instead, get yourself a stable of about ten good performers, be they solo artists or bands. Make sure the songs that you give them match the image that you want them to portray and that those songs are creative, tuneful and, above all else, good. Then once you’ve got yourself a bunch of hits, sling them out on a retrospective collection maybe once or twice a year. The sooner the standard of the pop single improves, the better it will be for all of us.

The War On Pop, Volume 1: Girls Against Boys


Ladies and gentlemen, we live in a time of inequality and nowhere is this more apparent than in the world of music. But this isn’t the time for a discourse on the absurdly small number of women in bands or how Karen O has somehow been raised to the status of role model. This is the time to look at an altogether different dichotomy between the sexes; one that seems to inform all of pop, and one that is essentially a self-fulfilling tool of segregation – why is male pop so shit?

Before we go any further let’s get a basic premise out the way. Pop is the ultimate product of a manufacturing industry. The concept of pop group is alien and should any of you claim to hold a preference for any particular pop group over any other, then you are failing to grasp the most basic rule of pop. That rule is that the song is king; the performer, once you look past vocal style, is an irrelevance and the sooner you learn to cut your ties to group or artist the more enjoyment you will derive from pop music.

I’ll return to this premise at a later date but, for now, it suffices to say that the methods employed by pop’s manufacturing base is currently out of sync with reality and the record companies in control of the means of production have forgotten the rule.

Motown got it right. Stock, Aitken and Waterman got the method right but choose the wrong artists. In brief, to create successful, and good, pop, the producer should maintain a stable of artists and writers. The songs should be distributed amongst the artists and be released as singles. The producer should then, at regular intervals, release an album compiling those singles. The artist themselves should not be afforded an album of their own. If the artist proves to be a lasting success, then they can be granted a singles compilation of their own at a later date. I’ll expand on this at another time but, in essence, this means that the pop artist’s greatest hits should be able to be viewed as the ultimate pinnacle of pop, a sure-fire success rammed full of wondrous three minute nuggets of joy and abandon.

But if recent pop best of compilations are anything to go by, all they do is highlight the gender disparity. There’s an underlying mantra at play here – girl pop good, boy pop bad.

Just look at the best pop songs of the last few years: Jamelia’s ‘Superstar’, Destiny’s Child’s ‘Bootylicious’, Beyonce’s ‘Crazy In Love’, Danni Minogue’s ‘Put The Needle On It’, Britney’s ‘Baby, One More Time’, tATu’s ‘All The Things She Said’, Sugababes’ ‘Freak Like Me’ and ‘Round Round’ and all the singles lifted from Kylie’s ‘Fever’ album. Notice anything there? They’re all sung by women, there isn’t a single man amongst them. Is the state of male pop really so bad? Unfortunately, the answer is yes, it really is.

In a society that claims to want to throw off the shackles of gender roles and attain equality, then why are men and women expected to play such different roles on record? Women in pop are encouraged to be strong, to be independent, to be angry, to be outraged, to want sex, to want to not have sex, to be anything they want to be. Men have to settle to be overwhelmed with love, distraught at not having their love reciprocated, or to brag about how good they are at stuff in an attempt to get women to fall in love with them. In short, pop men portray themselves as weak, pathetic, arrogant (but only if the group are being marketed as bad boys), narrow-minded or just plain desperate.

Perhaps the most obvious example of the pop gender gap can be seen with even the most cursory glance at Pop Stars: The Rivals. Who was better, Girls Aloud or One True Voice? Which could you dance to, and which made you want to vomit, ‘Sound Of The Underground’ or ‘Sacred Trust’? Which of those two groups still exists?

The same distinctions can be drawn between Britney and Blue. The Britney compilation, ‘My Prerogative… Greatest Hits’, comes close to what a pop best of should be. Admittedly not every song is earth shattering but it is at least consistently listenable throughout. It’s an album that won’t put extra strain on the skip button on your remote. ‘The Best of Blue’, on the other hand, is an abomination.

Firstly, Blue should never have been allowed to continue for long enough to amass enough singles for this collection to exist. I find it physically hard to listen to this album. It’s like I have some specific and rather acute form of Gilles de la Tourette’s Syndrome. Other than ‘All Rise’, every song has my finger twitching until it hits skip while my mouth utter profanities that would make your mother blush and would stun your English Literature tutor with their complexity and originality. These songs are embarrassing.

I’m embarrassed to be listening to them (and at least I have the excuse that I’m only doing so for your benefit, dear reader); god knows how Blue weren’t too embarrassed to record them. You imagine the rehearsals taking for every, as various the group have to continually stifle that particular type of nervous laughter that tends to accompany the intense discomfort that you experience when you’re in a situation where you don’t know how you should best react.

Even the music is an extension of these roles. The girls get squelchy bass lines, clipped Krautrock rhythms, dirty synths and pounding beats. The boys get mincing melodies, melancholic strings and lame piano ballads. Shit, at least when the girls get lumbered with the ballad, they’re still usually singing about how they’re strong enough to get over whatever it is that might have happened while the men just sound like they’re either stalkers or walkovers.

Where Blue contribute nothing but bilge and piffle to the pop cannon, Britney gives us ‘Baby, One More Time’, ‘Toxic’, ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’, wall to wall floor-fillers every one of them. And this is the perfect illustration of the gender divide. We’re supposed to dance with the girls, yet cry with the boys. Every possible action has been taken to stop the men form seeming in anyway threatening to young girls.

Back in the 70s, the Osmonds were supposedly made to regularly shave their chests to hide the signs of puberty and sexual awakening as this would scare off their pre-pubescent fanbase. Nowadays, with the use of sex as a tool of saturation marketing, it has become necessary to emasculate the men in other ways. This has led to the reduction of men in pop either to show-offs whose actions could never hope to match their words (as with Robbie Williams) or weeping pussies so lacking in balls that it’s impossible to ever imagine them being able to maintain an erection.

This is best illustrated by the cover versions on the Blue and Britney compilations. On ‘The Best of Blue’, you’ll find versions of ‘Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word’ and ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours’, while Britney gives us ‘I Love Rock’n’Roll’ and ‘My Prerogative’. What are these songs tell us about the performers? Just look at the lyrics.

First, ‘Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word’: “what have I got to do to make you love me…, what do I do when lightning strikes me and I wake to find that you’re not there…, I’m sad, so sad, it always seem to me that sorry seems to be the hardest word”. Not only have they fucked everything up, they’re not even man enough to apologise and sort things out because they’re too lacking in courage. Jesus, this stuff is every bit as bad as Dashboard Confessional, and at least Chris Carrabba scores some cool points with the girls by virtue of being able to play guitar and by having tattoos. Even Dashboard make Blue look like a bunch of panty-wearing no-dick pussy-boys.

To add a bit of perspective here, compare those lyrics with ‘My Prerogative’. “They say I’m crazy, I really don’t care, that’s my prerogative, they say I’m nasty, but I don’t give a damn, getting boys is how I live. Everybody’s talking all this stuff about me, why don’t they just let me live, I don’t need permission, make my own decision, that’s my prerogative”. Britney politely requests that you allow her to live her life as she sees fit, and it you don’t like it, you can fuck off and die. You go, girl.

The battle-lines have been drawn, and at the moment the women are trouncing the men in the pop stakes. Unless the men find some way to break free of their assigned roles and stop acting such a bunch of effete no-hopers, then there’s no chance that they will ever catch up again. Maybe, just maybe, this will happen and the men will attain some semblance of equality. Until then, if you’re looking for me, I’ll be over there, dancing with the girls.