None more metal

"I was in New York the other week," says Angry Tom, dejectedly. "It was all right."

This is dropped in the same out of the blue way as he'd said (a bit earlier), "I was out with Peaches Geldof the other week. We went to an Oxide and Neutrino gig" - and in the same slightly depressed tone. Apparently Angry Tom has taken to shouting at non-existent people in his lounge when he gets home drunk. He only knows this because his housemates have told him they've walked on him yelling into thin air.

"I met this guy called Clint," he continues.

"Are you sure she was a girl?" I say, thinking he said 'girl called Clint'. Luckily he doesn't hear.

"He was a heavy metaller," says Tom, who is also not averse to the likes of Iron Maiden. In fact, he's wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt. Then, perking up a bit, "He'd lost two of his fingers in an industrial accident. But the thing was, he'd lost these two fingers." Tom signals the middle and ring fingers on his right hand: "His hand made permanent devil horns!"

We crack up. "But that's not all," he continues. "He lost his fingers in a metalwork accident. He'd lost his fingers in the most metal way it's possible to lose your fingers." We laugh some more.

"In America, you can go out drinking on your own - people just come up and talk to you," he goes on.

"Okay," I say, thinking, yes, that sounds quite nice.

"I hate it," says Angry Tom.

"Yes," I reply.

Pepper spray

Everyone's been getting a bit flustered about the 40th anniversary of Sgt Pepper this month, so perhaps it's time to unleash a savagely bitchy piece of writing from Dylanologist Clinton Heylin, in an attempt to restore the natural balance of things.

Heylin's introduction to Bob Dylan: The Recording Sessions (1960 - 1994) begins by laying into the most famous "sessionography" book, Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, in which the writer, a celebrated authority on the Fab Four, analyses The Beatles' recording career. But he does so in a way which Heylin sees as highly ignorant...

Lewisohn... was the man who informed all those who purchased the CD version of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - courtesy of some liner notes already ODing on hyperbole - that the sessions for Sgt. Pepper were "perhaps the most creative 129 days in the history of rock music."

I could have called this book "129 Days of Studio-Time" but it is most certainly not about the fey indulgences of the Fab Four in the winter of 1966-67... To put Lewisohn's (staggeringly ignorant) "most creative 129 days in the history of rock music" in context, Dylan managed to record his entire studio output up to and including 1976's Desire in just 90 days!

Beatles schmeatles, then. Although the introduction is brilliant, the rest of the book is so intensely geeky, I'd hesitate to recommend it to even the most obsessive of Dylan fans. Sorry, Clint.

Best (auto)mates

Mmmm, cool...





Via Reading Matters
Do it yerself

Oxide and Neutrino, Earl Brutus, My Vitriol

Every time I go back home, my Mum tries to make me throw out my old NMEs and other assorted music mags. Fair enough really - they're piled high and I only ever read them when she tells me to get rid of them.

This means I've been catching up on ye olde days of music. There are always some great discoveries and reminders when I do this. I'd forgotten about NME's fondness for UK garage duo Oxide and Neutrino, and there seems to be an all-encompassing love for the dishevelled rockers Earl Brutus amongst British music hacks of the time ("squalid glam rock genius" raves one). And did you know that the Beta Band played The Fridge in Brixton in 2001?

Better are those moments when they got it slightly wrong. "My Vitriol are capable of reaching places only Nirvana, the Manics and Radiohead have reached before," waxed Krissi Murison (hey, I was at University with her!) back in the heady summer of 2002. Meanwhile, one film review (NME used to review films! How quaint is that?) applauds "a funny, moving, beautifully shot, intelligent blockbuster". That'd be Captain Corelli's Mandolin, then. And there's a slightly lukewarm reception for The Libertines debut album: "This isn't the record to smite The Vines or The Strokes with the sword of Albion - it's too disorganised and chaotic for that. But if The Libertines can keep writing songs as insolently catchy as the title track and the Smiths-style 'Time for Heroes', their finest hour will be upon us soon. Still, this is more than adequate for now."

But this is unfair. The old editions are great enough to make the paper's current incarnation look a bit lame: can you imagine NME putting a terrifying, distorted picture of Aphex Twin on the cover in 2007? Or Outcast? Or any R&B artist?

Meanwhile in the other mags, Q's top 100 albums of all time back in 1997 sheds some light on where the world's musical head was at. The list puts Texas's White On Blonde at 86, Kula Shaker's K at 44 and, wait for it, names the 33rd best album of all time as... Ocean Colour Scene's Moseley Shoals. Ha ha ha.

To finish up, here's an excerpt from one of my favourite rags, the sadly defunct Select, from 1999. Although their contents page features the retrospectively hilarious lines, "The future of rock is blonde, brutal and starey, and it's onstage at the Bull & Gate" - Terris, of course - there's also this one, from the new bands section:

With their own autumn tour and a couple of summer festival appearances under their belt plus a Catatonia support slot ("I had to hold her cigarette while she went to the loo!" exclaims Chris of the divine Cerys) there's no shortage of solid experience which should stand them in good stead once the debut album appears next year.

"Do you know what's going to happen with music in the year 2000?" demands Jon, setting off the in-house pub theory alarms. "Guitars are going to make a massive comeback. For the next two months everyone's going to be celebrating with dance music, but the moment everyone wakes up on the first day of 2000 they'll be screaming out for emotional guitar music."

"Quite right," nods Chris in agreement. "That's why the Vengaboys are bigger than us right now." Grins spread across the band's faces. "But that's all going to change. You wait."

That was Coldplay, of course.

Brit future

BREAKING NEWS: Britney Spears may have a sense of humour.

Yeah, apparently the bald bombshell has asked her fans to pick an album title for her latest offering, and she's come up with five rather tongue-in-cheek suggestions to get people started. They are:

• OMG is Like Lindsay Lohan Like Okay Like
• What if the Joke is on You
• Down Boy
• Integrity
• Dignity

But why? Well either she's taken a leaf out of The Electric Goose's book and totally run out of inspiration, or she's gone all Web 2.0 on us and planning a bit of hardcore user generated content. Maybe fans will be asked to write the songs too?

A complete absence of diggity

Hearing other people's dreams is usually excruciatingly tedious, but bear with me. Last night - back in Dorset, away from the roar of London traffic - I dreamt the following...

1) Arnold Schwartzenegger giving advice on how to pick up girls: "I get chatting to them, then I reel out some classic lines." Tadich and I then repeat the phrase "classic lines" with much glee.

2) A discussion on the meaning of the phrase "no diggity":
"What does 'no diggity' mean?"
"What it says: that there's no diggity."
"But what does that mean?"
"That there's a complete absence of diggity, anywhere."

3) A cross country run at my old school, which culminates in getting the actor Will Ferrell to autograph my copy of The Complete Poems of John Milton.


NB: For a correct definition of "diggity" and the absence of it, go here.

And no religion, either

These have been bothering me for ages. They are, to put it whimsically, songs that sacrifice grammar or meaning at the altar of rhyme.

I’m not talking stupid or nonsensical lyrics here – these are lines that have SOLD OUT just in order to rhyme. Here are a few to be getting on with.

Imagine - John Lennon
The lyric
"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too."

Why? Once voted "Britain's favourite poem", the rubbishness of Imagine's lyrics is frequently overlooked. To prove the point, one of my English professors once read the whole thing out during a lecture in a witheringly sarcastic voice. He singled out this bit - with its "there's no countries" and "no religion too" - as truly unforgivable. Rightly so.


Cats in the Cradle - Harry Chapin / Ugly Kid Joe
The lyric
"'What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys.
See you later. Can I have them please?'"

Why? Because the kid says "see you later" to his father before he's even asked for the car keys. Why would he do that? (A: to make it rhyme.)


Don't Know How to Say Goodbye - The Pigeon Detectives
The lyric
"I don't know how to say goodbye
And if I did I'd surely cry
If it's a choice between you and me I'd go for I."

Why? I do expect rubbish lyrics from the PDs, but this is just terrible. What's wrong with: "I'd go for the latter"?


I Get Around - The Beach Boys
The lyric
"We always take my car cos it's never been beat
And we've never missed yet with the girls we meet."

Why? Beaten. We always take my car cause it's never been beaten.


(What's The Story) Morning Glory - Oasis
The lyric
"Another sunny afternoon,
Walking to the sound of my favourite tune.
Tomorrow never knows what it doesn't know too soon."

Why? Er... what? "Tomorrow never knows what it doesn't know, you goon," would've been better. The goon in question being Noel Gallagher, the man responsible for this crime against meaning.


Regulate - Warren G and Nate Dog
The lyric
"Chords. Strings.
We brings
Melody."

Why? Thanks for bringing melody and that Messrs G and Dog, but that won't excuse your ill piece of conjugation.


Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin
The lyric
"You need coolin', baby, I'm not foolin'
I'm gonna send you back to schoolin.'"

Why? Led Zeppelin are the ones who should be sent "back to schoolin'" if they think this is grammatically correct. And I'm not foolin'.

Chauvinist Zig

Rumours about a possible split for Big Brother’s no.1 couple Chantelle and Preston abound – but don’t worry, there’s a new weirdly-named BB pairing in town: Chanelle and Ziggy. Luckily the parents approve...

“I don’t think we could dislike him as he seems a very sensible and understanding man, and if there’s any problems he seems to step in and take care of it.”
Chanelle’s foster father on Ziggy

“I think he’s very charismatic — if she’d brought him home outside the BB house, I would have approved.”
Chanelle’s foster mother on Ziggy

“I wanna rip her clothes off and have sex with her.”
Ziggy on Chanelle

Inspiration

Nope, nothing.

It's like a jungle, sometimes

Today, let's think about song titles, in particular how changing them can alter the feel and emphasis of the song itself. What normally happens is that a track will simply be named after the most repeated phrase in the song's chorus (I Predict a Riot, say) – but not always.

When the songwriter opts for the unlikely title, it seems odd at first, but it's not hard to get used to it. However, if for fun, we try and give these songs their other potential names, we find ourselves thinking about their meaning much more, as well as the writer's intentions. We also end up with what looks like a playlist from an alternative reality:

Woo Hoo - Blur

Stamp Out Your Fire – Happy Mondays

Sun is in the Sky – Lily Allen

It's a Gas, Gas, Gas – The Rolling Stones

Heroin is So Passe – Dandy Warhols

I Think I'm Cracking Up – Green Day

How Does It Feel? – Bob Dylan

Your Music's Shite – Oasis

I Wanna Be Anarchy - The Sex Pistols

Leaving Just in Time – The Strokes

Whatever – Take That

I Am Tired, I Am Weary - The Velvet Underground

You Know I Love You So – Coldplay

I Got Sunshine (In a Bag) - Gorillaz

I Say You Don't Know – Franz Ferdinand

It's Like A Jungle, Sometimes – Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

These Plagued Streets of Pity – Manic Street Preachers

Mama - Queen

With the Lights Out – Nirvana