Britpop Survivor

Last night I headed up to Islington on the 205 bus to see The Applicants, with a chum of mine, who for the sake of argument we shall call Denny.

Denny had to nip home for half an hour because he’d left the oven on / hadn’t fed the cat / had to communicate with his spymasters back in Moscow, so I braved the support band, 4 or 5 magicians, from the comfort of the seats at the back, with a glass of wine and Mario on the DS. You’re never alone with a DS.

Glancing up from Mario’s mushroom and flower-eating antics, I could see 1 or 2 of the 4 or 5 of them.

They weren’t bad. Power pop with some clever (but not that clever) lyrics, they still have a bit of work to do. You get the impression they REALLY want to sound like Pavement, while in reality they sound like Shed Seven. But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, lads. You are equally cursed and blessed. Keep on chasing rainbows.

Denny returned, presumably having successfully poisoned someone with kryptonite, and The Applicants came on stage. And oooh, weren’t they lovely. I decided, from a brief myspace listen beforehand, that they were “casio hardcore”, even though I didn’t really know what that meant. Like all musical genres made up on the spot, it just sounded good.

They were really casio hardcore. I was expecting them to be louder, but there was a definite pop edge – think bis / le tigre / punk / malfunctioning commodore 64 / falling over. Singer Jeffrey – a girl – is a brilliantly engaging frontwoman, all bouncing, shouting, ranting, and picking cheerful fights with the audience. The fourth wall was frequently broken – if you can imagine the front of the stage being covered by a large piece of paper, they repeatedly burst through it, dancing, playing guitar, falling over.

I think she only fell over once, so I might be over-egging that particular pudding. I just get the impression falling over is generally an important part of The Applicants experience.

I’ll definitely go and see them again.

The applicants fall over

Thanks to TheMongKey for the pic.

On Tuesday eve I headed to the Camden Roundhouse for Luke Haines’ reading of his autobiographical Britpop memoir, Bad Vibes.

As the ground zero of that much-maligned musical genre (that I survived), Camden was a very appropriate venue for the curmudgeon-in-chief’s book; as we approached we could see the Stables Market is currently being butchered, gentrified and generally Spitalfielded with glass and steel, so as to attract a better class of twat. It was chuffing symbolic.

Mr Haines was introduced (as “much beloved light entertained, Luke Haines”) by the charming Andrew Mueller, who went on to introduce Bad Vibes as “not so much a memoir as a massacre”.

Luke read two excerpts from his book. The first, from 1993, involved his being attacked onstage by an “unfashionable” midget, in Strasbourg. I missed the exact subtleties of this incident, because I was distracted by Eddie Argos arriving. The second sees him living, in 1995, in Camden, with Metallica on his sofa, being told his new album sounded “baroque jesus lizard”.

I am looking forward to my copy arriving.

After the readings came the Q&A, which was like Parkinson but with more swearing. Muller pointed out that the book was “full of cunts”, and that “you yourself come across as the biggest cunt of all”. Mr Haines took this with good grace, and said the reason he comes across as a psychotic hypochondriac megalomaniac is because he was indeed a psychotic hypochondriac megalomaniac, that’s why he was in a band in the first place, and explained that the book was written by the ghost of his past self: “through the mind of a 25 year old warped fool”. The question of whether he is still a psychotic hypochondriac megalomaniac was not asked; I suspect he isn’t, as much. But I still can’t imagine him playing crazy golf.

Next were questions from the audience, like a refined, indie Question Time. Stymied by the fact I haven’t read it yet, the only thing I could think of was: “any comment for Louise Wener, who wrote a scathing review of your book in the Observer?”*.

I’m glad I didn’t ask it: the questions were all of a much higher standard. These included the question of whether he’s going to the Blur reunion gig (“I didn’t know they’d split up in the first place”), then, whether any lawsuits were forthcoming. It was suggested that Cripsian Mills – from “mesmerisingly awful band Kula Shaker” – might be consulting his lawyers.

The answer was that he wasn’t expecting any trouble. Luke said he met Jarvis recently, who’d said he hadn’t read it, but that he “had a look in his eyes that suggested he had”. He went on to explain his former self: how The Auteurs and Pulp were very competitive with each other, “like our song would be seven songs nearer to the top 40 than theirs was”. You got the impression, still, that getting on a major label was about the worst thing that could have happened to the auteurs, or to him, or – to make a wider point – to the now-meaningless concept of ‘alternative’ or ‘indie’ music in general.

He admitted there may have been an element of self-sabotage to his career – that he wasn’t cut out for it the same way as oasis or blur were, either in the shameless / refreshingly simple minded Oasis attitude to fame and fortune, or the more calculated Blur’s array of poses,  deliberations and machinations.

He was also asked: “Did you move to Camden in the mid-90s to spite yourself?” It really can’t have helped, can it?

Afterwards, he played a short acoustic set:

Showgirl
Lenny Valentino (“About Lenny Bruce taking a final shot of heroin. It was a single”)
Leeds United (ah, the seventies. Brown. Grey. Football. The North. And Jimmy Saville being a suspect for the Yorkshire Ripper)
21st Century Man (New, long song: like an autobiographical We didn’t start the fire, but with more murderers. I like the line “David bowie lost it in the 80s – he played slap bass and everyone died of aids” Or something like that.
Unsolved Child Murder

As I didn’t get a copy, I couldn’t get it signed. But I’m sure our paths will cross again, Mr Haines. And this time, there will be no escape. Your pen will touch my paper. And there will be sparks**.

* This can be read here. Basically, she thinks the real Haines is missing from the book. Haines touched on this in the Q&A – he said  he wasn’t able to get in touch with Alice, who I’m going to assume was an ex-girlfriend from this period, so he felt he had to leave her out, “possibly to the book’s detriment”.
** Sorry, no idea why I ended on such a homoerotic note

Ridiculous.

Following on from my previous witterings about the Astoria, I wrote a more general piece, which will appear in tomorrow’s Morning Star, and which appears already to be up on their website.

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The past week or so has seen the destruction of some of central London’s best loved clubbing and gigging venues. The farewell to the London Astoria, the venerable and knackered mid-sized theatre venue on Charing Cross Road that is being demolished to make way for the new Crossrail project, has got the most press, with critics remembering that they had seen some bands there, and that some of them were pretty good. But this transportational great leap forward also means the destruction of the Astoria’s little sister, the LA2, gay clubbing venue The Ghetto, and the Metro on Oxford Street. And, in a separate development, tonight sees New Oxford Street clubbing mecca The End meet its end.

While most of these venues weren’t exactly the most glamorous of places, the disappearance of the spaces in which I spent the majority of my early twenties has left me, if not nostalgic, then piecing together the shards of memory to produce a flimsy and broken window to the past. When I look through it, with my fading eyesight, what I see is my own personal history of noughties popular music.

Firstly, the Astoria itself. The critics are right – lots of good bands have played there. But more importantly was its place at the heartbeat of the London scene, of the rhythm of London, with all the fads and cliques and songs and obsessions that defined us, spilling out onto the Charing Cross Road at the end of the night.

On rainy Tuesdays you would find the hoardes of emo teenagers, queueing patiently to see their heroes, who were probably called Bullet for My Chemical Romance, buying black t-shirts and heading off in search of their mums; every Saturday night it would host G-A-Y, where pretty much every great pop act, from the Spice Girls and Kylie to Girls Aloud and McFly, gave and, in the latter case, showed their all; January would see the NME Awards Shows, and the launch of that year’s crop of haircut indie, and the waning of that venerable organ from trusted bible to indie smash hits-lite hawker of lager and mobile phones.

And, most and least importantly of all, the venue played host to me, singing Babies by Pulp with a backing band consisting of Franz Ferdinand in fake moustaches, to 2,000 confused people at a Belle & Sebastian gig in 2003. I forgot the words and a pop career failed to materialise.

Found lurking in the alleyway behind the Astoria, The Ghetto was the place for mad electro-pop night Nag Nag Nag, where you would invariably see Boy George, generally wearing some kind of lampshade on his head, DJing the night away. Meanwhile grimy intimate dive The Metro was home to many bands’ first gigs, secret shows, and Northern Soul club Blow Up, and the Rabbit Hole, a strange night hosted by Mark Morriss out of Britpop also-rans The Bluetones, who would get drunk and play Madonna and ZZ Top records. He’d also invite his mates to DJ – mates such as Matt Lucas and Simon Pegg, who are both now somewhat more famous than The Bluetones. This was also the venue where Jack White out of the White Stripes tried to chat up my girlfriend. He said he’d dye his hair the same colour as hers. I bet it worked on Renee Zellweger.

Finally, The End was the home of Trash, which was the coolest night in London for a while. I stumbled upon it, and was an innocent bystander of electroclash and the madness of Fischerspooner. It was the place where girls would dress like undertaker air hostesses; where New Order and Kylie were mashed up and Soulwax launched their Too Many DJs upon the world; it was where The Strokes and Jarvis Cocker would hang out, and Marilyn Manson would swoop in to decide which 1980s synth-pop classic to butcher next. The queue felt like the most democratic place in the world, where clubbers and indie kids and goths and fashion victims could all come together, take the piss out of the doorman, and be handed free copies of entertaining and spookily prescient fanzine, The Shoreditch Twat.

And now it’s all gone. And so what? Pop will head out to the O2 and Wembley Arena; the club scene has already headed East; and those after cider and guitars will probably retreat to their natural enclave, Camden. But the point was this: from flyerer’s corner, outside Tottenham Court Road station, you could pick up a piece of glossy A5 card that was your passport to all these different, but overlapping, worlds. North, South, West, East, and all the sprawling suburbs were within a train, tube or night bus journey home. It brought everything together, in a magic central triangle, watched over by the looming centrepoint tower that haunted my dreams. From the arse end of Oxford Street, between the shops selling tat and discounted electronics, and the music shops off Charing Cross Road: this was the place where grime and magic happened.

It feels like the musical heart has been torn out of the West End; central London needs a new musical focal point. So my suggestion is this: in this era of bail-outs, I call on the government to intervene. There are more than enough crumbling theatres torturing tourists with Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals: nationalise one of them, and turn it into a new musical hub.

The campaign starts here*.

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* Actually, it probably doesn’t.

I defrosted some long-lost lost veggie lasagne for my dinner last night. I feel strangely about eating cryogenically frozen food – it’s eating the past. These were November 2008’s aubergenes. They weren’t meant to survive as long as they did; they were out of place in 2009. It was an affront to Allah.

This, of course, reminded me to write about Franz Ferdinand’s ropey comeback single. I feel for them, I really do, as they have lovely haircuts, but I can’t help feeling they should have split after their second single, Take Me Out. First single, Darts of Pleasure, was ace, and had a swampy and sexy (if you find swaps sexy, as I personally do) b-side called Shopping For Blood. Then came the assassination / dating pun you could dance to, and it’s been all downhill from there.

We should have frozen them.

Greetings from a pub in King’s Cross. It’s completely deserted apart from me and the barlady, who’s doing the Mirror crossword. Radio 1 is blaring out a song that sounds like Nickleback crossed with Razorlight crossed with Robbie Williams crossed with Snow Patrol crossed with The Goo Goo Dolls, which is what all modern ‘indie’ popular music sounds like now, as is my understanding.

Last night marked the end of The End nightclub, the culmination of a week of destruction of central London’s clubbing and gigging venues. The farewell to the London Astoria got the most press, with critics remembering seeing some bands there, and things, but the new Crossrail project also meant the destruction of The LA2, the Ghetto, and The Metro. Farewell to the tweenies in black queueing to see Bullet For My Vitriol. Farewell to Flyerer’s corner, outside marathon kebabs, where you could go at closing time and find a place to keep you dancing and drinking rum til the early hours. A place that would probably play The Strokes at some stage.

While most of these venues were total shitholes, the demolition of the spaces in which I spent the majority of my early twenties in has left me in a nostalgic kind of mood. Well, if not nostalgic, then at least piecing together the shards of memory to produce a flimsy and broken window to the past. First up…

#1 The Astoria

Crap venue, crap queues, crap doorstaff, crap sound, crap bars, crap beer, crap sightlines. In terms of the mid-sized venues, I much preferred Brixton Academy (sloping floor!) and the Kuntish Town Forum.

But I did support Belle & Sebastian at the Astoria in 2003.

Let me explain. The band had a ‘fan karaoke’ competition, where they encouraged fans to email in and volunteer to sing one from a large list of songs. I saw Babies by Pulp was on the list. It was the song I was born to sing at karaoke. This was my moment, my perfect moment. This was my Martine McCutcheon.

But I couldn’t do it alone. I roped in my friend Paul, who can actually sing and play guitar at the same time and everything, who agreed to do Mamas and Papas.

And so it came to pass, in December 2003, that the paying fans of Belle & Sebastian were treated not to an up-and-coming Franz Ferdinand, who were the support on every other date of the tour, but to me and a bunch of other fans butchering indie classics. We were accompanied by a band made up of mery scots with stick-on tashes, who I later discovered to be Franz Ferdinand.

I didn’t prepare brilliantly well for my debut pop performance. I spent the hours leading up to the concert in a pub in Barking, explaining unconvincingly to my vengeful and tearful girlfriend why I had to break up with her. I arrived at the venue with my head and emotions spinning, my mouth dry, and my body unpickled by booze. Not ideal karaoke conditions.

I was ushered backstage with the other contenders, barely able to remember my own name, never mind the lyrics to one of my favourite songs. My friend Sara was texting them to me. I couldn’t keep the words down.

The other singers took their turn on the stage. A charming man did a wonderful Darts of Pleasure. Paul excelled as both the Mamas and the Papas. I stepped into a church…

I was last on. By this stage we were running late; the Astoria was full and impatient to see the indie-pop heroes. Not me.

I walked out on stage like I owned the place. Made it to the mike without falling over. The band started up. I didn’t have a clue when to start singing, but I seemed to guess okay. I got through the first half of the first verse.

Then forgot the second half.

Then forgot where the chorus kicks in.

Then forgot where I was.

The band were very supportive, and the front row were singing the lyrics at me, trying to get me to remember. But I was a complete blank.

I’d spotted my friend Geoff in the audience, so I decided to make up the lyrics about him instead, on the spot. He was with his friend Milena, who I unfolded into the unfolding narrative. I rhymed her with “you know you want to do her”. Geoff wasn’t enormously happy.

Lots of yeah yeah yeah yeahs later, it was all over. It was a total disaster, but heroically so. I took in the applause. I shook hands with Stuart Murdoch.

I returned to my rightful place, the audience. Belle & Sebastian came on, and were magnificent, top of their game. Half way through, Stuart announced the results of the fan karaoke.

Paul won. The band were asking where he was, so they could give him his medal. I jumped and shouted and waved to get their attention. “No, not you Jarvis”, said Stuart. Paul got his medal, which I can only assume he still wears to this day.

The gig finished, and we got invites to the after show, where we danced with the band until the early hours.

Knocks Guitar Hero into a top hat.

Hello, and welcome back to the Britpop Survivor blog after the Christmas and New Year hiatus. The good news is I am still alive, and so thus can continue to justifiably describe myself as a Britpop Survivor.

Two days ago I headed to Brighton for an all-dayer in support of Amnesty, organised by the redoubtable yoeman of English pop Chris T-T.

It took place in a village hall on a hill, and was bring your own booze*. I had managed to fail to note the literal meaning of the ‘midwinter picnic’ monicker, and so my friend and I were pretty much the only people who had not arrived with vast quantities of nosh. I even noticed one fellow attendee with a proper old-fashioned picnic basket, which made me realise that there will always be people more organised and prepared than me. Though this is not saying much: you are likely to be more organised and prepared than me if you have tied your shoes and are aware what day it is.

The reason I booked my tickets in the first place was because Chris T-T was involved, and I had assumed he would be the headliner. So it was fortunate that we made it into our seats by 3.30pm or so, as he was unexpectedly the first act on, since most of the acts were stranded somewhere between Brighton and London due to the trains being replaced by bus replacement services, which should more accurately be described as train replacement services.

He was brilliant. There are two types of Chris T-T gigs – the vengeful full band ones, and the more heartfelt, thoughtful, solo ones. Personally I much prefer the latter. Chris remarked that he’s been trying to get himself on the bill for the Cambridge Folk Festival, but they keep missing his acoustic gigs and turning up for the rock ones instead, so don’t book him. The campaign to get the representatives of the Cambridge Folk Festival to turn up to the correct Chris T-T gigs starts here. I feel we may need a catchier title for it.

Gig highlight was English Earth. I paraphrase wildly here, but he said it was “the best folk song written in ages” and also “a song about loving England without being all nationalistic and stupid”. And he’s right. We talk shit, we take drugs, we waste time, and afterwards… I never know where we’ve been. And I also believe I’ll be buried in the English Earth (mainly because I’m terrified of cremation because of a James Bond film I saw when I was very young). And I still ate meat in the eighties – it’s too late for me too.

Though the bloke I’d travelled to see had been on first, there was still much to enjoy. Firstly, the people around my table were lovely. They offered me assorted tofu-related snacks, and also whisky, and one of them was from Teddington but have never visited Teddington Wimpy: a crime in my silly book. And one of them was stalking Frank Turner.

Secondly, the rest of artists were fairly cracking. Emily Barker’s songs were beautiful, like being in a creaking wooden pub by the sea; Jim Bob (he of indie legends Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine) was silly and charming; special guest Frank Turner was once again the song-based equivalent to three pints of guiness and loving all your mates; and Timothy Victor’s Folk Orchestra were a parping, fiddling, double bassing triumph, though I still can’t quite work out how they all managed to fit on that tiny stage, and the vocals were near inaudible at times. It is also important to note that the trumpet player and the trombone player reminded me of Danny DeVito and Arnie in comedy film classic Twins, even though they looked nothing like them.

Unfortunately I left before Spiers and Boden, who I hear are stunning live. But I had a lovely day, and learnt that if someone you think is great is playing an all-dayer in a silly venue, you should definitely go along. But you probably knew that already.

*Though tea and cake was available. Gigs with tea. Can you imagine anything more civilised?