20 June 2008
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Up Mainstream
You can make an omelette without getting egg on your face
The iPlayer: in my mind, somewhere up there with the wheel. A beautiful bloody thing and I’ve never even been much of a TV freak. The idea of sitting down to watch a stodgy BBC4 Pink Floyd doc on a Friday night seems like social surrender to me. But, yo, if I can stick it in the corner of my screen while hunting for dangling modifiers on a Tuesday morning, I’m down.
It was really good, as it happens. You forget in all the prog pomposity what a nice bunch of chaps the Floyd were. Other than Roger, of course, but every good band needs a villain. Anyway, what was interesting about them was how openly ambitious they were. They wanted to be famous and they wanted to get rich, and they never disguised it. It was the hippy era too, when you’d imagine people would have been more discreet. No chance. Cold-blooded seekers of the topper-most of the popper-most the lot of them.
Bands these days behave differently and it’s getting really boring. There’s a nice line in Daddy Bones’ Fonda 500 piece on page 4 where guitarist Nick Broten says he’d “drop it like it’s hot” if his band suddenly hit the big time. Most musicians won’t even go that far. They blather on about how nice it is that people like their songs enough to come to a show or buy a CD, but that’s not really what they’re thinking. Egg on the face. They’re scared of it and it takes only the strongest man or woman to admit it.
As expected, Tricky gave this issue a killer interview. More of a surprise was quite how superb Gonzales is in conversation. Now there’s a man who knows his mind and speaks with cojones. Read up bands, but there’s some real wisdom there. “Chaos and fear of success are not worth having in this day and age.” Good quote. Another: “It’s easy to say the mainstream sucks, but to actually test yourself against the mainstream is really tough, because you might come up short.” And, finally: “Being ambitious and being commercial are two different things – being ambitious is just reaching the maximum given what you’ve got.” Refreshing to hear, Gonzo.
Tings Change
Somebody please snatch their little dream away again
Following on from the above… there can a problem with bands that have obvious ambition and that’s that they often reveal themselves to be hypocrites. Gonzales laid his cards on the table years ago, and with integrity too. Some people get confused: they think you can’t be ambitious and do it with dignity. Of course you can. But a lot don’t. Take, for example, Salford pop sensation, The Ting Tings.
They call me sexy. Us Brits like to rip a band down just as they succeed. We get jealous, but there are usually other reasons too. When we interviewed The Tings Tings in August last year, they were at pains to mention how awful a time they’d had on a major label with their previous band and how cautious they were going to be in the future. “We had our little dream snatched away!” purred Katie, and we all wished her the best with the new project. Turns out they were already talking to Columbia, and had maybe even signed. Soon after, a piano player I know was being called up for advice by Mr Ting, Jules, because he’d just been given a huge wodge of cash to buy some fresh new keys.
Good for them, eh? Sort of. You just wish they’d been a bit less deceitful. It would have been a really beautiful thing if they’d said, “We got fucked in the ass once and we’re going back for more, because life’s too short to bother with people who haven’t got money.” But they didn’t, and now they’re having a pop at the people who helped them out right at the beginning of Masterplan Ting. A beef! Between the tiny indie who put out their debut single and the band themselves, who’ve got unnecessarily upset that Switchflicker Records have been slamming unsold copies on eBay.
The band: “This is nothing to do with us, as we would never charge that money for our singles. We pressed up 500 copies which we put on our credit card because we had no money.”
The label: “Switchflicker has the invoice, order form and credit card receipt to prove that the label paid for these and NOT The Ting Tings.”
I know who I believe. And, besides, get over it, you whingeing little whores.
Personal Politics
His name is Barack!? Barack!? What the fuck is a Barack?
This one’s for the Londoners. Boris: rubbish news and the chump’s only been in power for about 20 seconds. At Koko in Camden, a can of Fosters costs £3.70. It’s the shittest beer in the world, they don’t do draught, and then they charge you a mint. At the 100 Club on Oxford Street a pint of still Stella, served in a plastic cup, costs £3.70 too. And old mop top says we’re not allowed to bosh a can of cider on our way out to a gig? Total bullshit.
What’s most frightening about Boris banning booze on all public transport in London is quite how flippantly he did it. He won the election and then the next day, as a quick and badly thought through thank you to blues in the suburbs who voted for him, he signed off the legislation. It isn’t a big thing in reality, but it’s depressing nonetheless. In all the years Ken was the boss, he never once sent a poisoned spear directly into the heart of how music fans go about their daily lives. It’s an omen, people. Bad days are ahead.
On the Quietus website, run by two lovely Stool Pigeon contributors, John Robb recently wrote a piece entitled ‘The Credit Crunch Is Good For Rock’n’Roll’. Subhead: ‘The Tories are gloating over the Crewe by-election, the economy is sinking down Alistair Darling’s plughole and we can’t afford to eat. But this might just rescue us from insipid indie.’
It’s an old argument and it’s full of holes. Punk happened because of Labour and punk probably even helped Maggie to win in ’79. But still, let’s hope Robby’s right.
Politics. Not for everyone, so let’s finish off with a gem of a quote from rapper DMX, who, as Jeremiah James establishes in Court Circular on page 52, is part of a cultish minority that hasn’t been totally gripped by what’s going on Stateside. Quite inexplicably, the fella had never even heard of Obama until very recently: “His name is Barack!? Barack!? What the fuck is a Barack? What the fuck, man!? Is he serious? That ain’t his fuckin’ name. Ima tell this nigga when I see him, ‘Stop that bullshit!’”
