Sunday, October 02, 2005

NOEL GALLAGHER PUSHES HIS LUCK

Earlier this week, we happened across a 1987 vintage episode of 321 - from the programme's twilight years, when Chris Emmett and Duggie Brown had long since flown, leaving just Ted Rogers and the Brian Rogers Connection to shore up the affair. Part of the resulting gap was filled by a slot called the "newcomers", where young, fresh talent were allowed on on the strict understanding that they were not to approach Ted's Table with a tortuous clue. The one we caught, splendidly, featured what may very well have been Shane Richie's first TV appearance - we thought at first it was Fogwell Flax, actually. His "sketch" basically involved going "aren't people who like hip-hop poorly-dressed thugs" and then indulging in some comedy breakdancing. As he left the stage to applause (boosted, we suspect, by a Yorkshire Television employee with state of the art tape technology), Ted predicted we'd see a lot more of him in years to come. We're buggered if we can work out how Ted knew that from what we'd just seen. We did take some comfort, though, in knowing that no pasty-faced moron would be so contempuously dismissive of an entire culture of which he clearly had no understanding of, or empathy for, twenty years later.

Then we read Noel Gallagher's interview in Spin, where he described hip-hop stars:

"bunch of idiots. These guys will go on the telly going, 'Hey kids, stay in school, don't do drugs,' and then they'll be shooting each other down at the shopping mall. And the clothes they wear, it's all about 'me, me, me!"

We don't know if he then did some comedy brekdancing, but we're guessing he did.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is there actually any connection between Shane Richie and Noel Gallagher both disliking hip hop or is this just a slightly thin chance for you grind your anti-Oasis axe a little more? It wouldn't be that their comments on hip hop 'culture' (oxymoron if you ask me)touched a nerve would it?

Simon Hayes Budgen said...

Yes, there would be a link - in that Shane Ritchie was "humorously" dismissing hip-hop as being about bad clothes and violence in 1987 on 321, and nearly twenty years later, Noel Gallagher was "humorously" dismissing hip-hop as being about bad clothes and violence in 2005 in Spin magazine.

It's not that they both dismissed it, but for exactly the same reasons. I daresay if you buy into their thesis, this would demonstrate that hip-hop hasn't moved on in two decades; if you don't, it would show that the same knee-jerk cliches are being used to dismiss an entire subculture after 20 years to think up something a little more compelling.

Although I've always been a paranoid virgin indie kid, so what would I know?

Anonymous said...

But Simon, hip hop has ALWAYS been about bad clothes and violence ! Any vestigial credibility it had was shredded the moment Ice T's first 'Badasss' show went out. Besides I reckon snoop dawg and co can take it - they'd pop a cap in Gallaghers hairy ass if they had serious beef, huh? Increase da peace.

Simon Hayes Budgen said...

I bet Noel would just love a cap popping in his hairy ass, too...

But, obviously, there's always been a poorly-dressed thug element to hip-hop, but there's a lot else that's there to take the piss out of - that perplexing habit of name dropping expensive brandy or champagne brands, for example; or the love of standin about with shirts off in videos looking like they've just come from the Pink Palace podium while insisting on how much they love the ladies... so much to play with...

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