The perils of false modesty are demonstrated in this week's Radio Times, where, for some reason, Helen Fielding takes some time off from writing the next Olivia Joules novel to recall Live Aid. (Okay, we can see why you'd want to do something other than write Olivia Joules, and we know that it was done to mark the broadcast of last night's Live Aid programmes, but why Helen Fielding writing about it? Every fucker in the country saw Live Aid go out; surely they could find someone with something more to say than "I was at a garden party in Oxfordshire at the time."
What makes it worse is that Fielding lazily picks up on producer Trevor Dann's modest downplaying of how the Whistle Test team came to be in charge of the BBC coverage. Fielding describes the choice as "unfathomable". Someone with half a clue would know that the year before the WT team had pulled off a marathon live broadcast on BBC2 called Rock Around The Clock, so they had experience of delivering something on the scale of the broadcast. They routinely were featuring live music on their weekly programmes, so were experienced in that field. And, crucially, they were responsible for both the Rock Goes To College and Sight and Sound In Concert strands - both of which were outside broadcasts; S&SIC went out as a simultaneous broadcast on TV and Radio (back before NICAM, that was the only way to do stereo music on TV), a key aspect of the Live Aid programmes. In what way, Helen, was it unfathomable to ask them, and who would you have suggested in their place?
Dove Woman is in the Observer Music Magazine! Dove Woman has many doves! Less now as she set them free when Michael got off with the creepies! Well done on being in lovely OMM, Dove Woman!
There's little in music that can make us raise more than a curious eyebrow, but the report in the OMM that R Kelly enjoys The Archers has got us all flustered and bothered - he better not have designs on Brenda... or, god forbid, Pip.
The Record Doctor goes to help Rio Ferdinand - apparently Frank Lampard introduced him to the Stone Roses (is this actually making sense or have we passed out in the back yard under a blanket with a glass of spritzer in our hands?); Record Doctor's suggestion of John Martyn didn't go down that well, but Rio might chill out with the Turin Brakes.
Just as the first fingers of sunlight crossing the English countryside sends book sections rushing for the 'what will people read this summer?' space fillers, so too do the music magazines set up an office junior with a telephone and a notepad to knock together a "my festival experience" piece. So here, we get Steve Lamacq at Reading in 2001 - Norm from Cheers and Brian May stood on his coat - and Howard Marks ("author" now, apparently) at 2003 Glastonbury - he had to ask people to not piss in streams; but also Polly Toynbee's 1969 Isle of Wight experience when "hedonism was an earnest business" and Suzanne Vega. Oddly, her most memorable festie was the 2004 Isle of Wight one, rather than the Glastonbury she played in full body armour because of the death threats.
Kitty Empire has seen the future, and it is good. And it is Editors: their aim, they explain is "to make credible, dark pop songs."
Not as dark, of course, as the music made by the hunters of Mali - "Lions are afraid of us. Leopards are afraid of us. Hippopotamuses are afraid of us. So why shouldn't people be afraid too?" Bob Geldof believes that people would rather watch Annie Lennox than hippo-frightening hunter music, which shows what he knows.
David Walliams - that bloke out of Attachments and, oh, something else - and Noel Gallagher come together for a photo shoot and chinwag; David Bailey does the photos. Interesting choice of Walliams to interview Noel; Little Britain is quite a lot like Oasis, as they've been revisiting most of their ideas over and over again for several years now (if you enjoyed the radio series of LB, you'll have been slightly disappointed by the TV series reworking most of the same themes and will be heartily sick by the time you've seen them live); they rely very heavily on catchphrases ("Hey, Lyla") being repeated when there's not much else to do; both are tied to a partner without whom they'd never have got the credit they feel they deserve and you get the impression they hate them for it. Plus, Walliams is actually pretty funny and Gallagher makes you laugh (if "at" rather than "with"). And perhaps because they're so similar, the interview turns into a pleasant jostling for position.
Gallagher approves of the Live Aid crew, because Duran and Spandau could actually play their instruments; Walliams virtually undermines him straight away by mentioning Wham, and then crushes Noel by having a more interesting anecdote - apparently Andy and George used to listen to Joy Division a lot at the time "... and when I asked them if there was part of them that really wanted to make that type of music, he said no. He just accepted that they did one thing and Joy Division did another."
Noel goes on to complain about Hoodies - not something he entirely blames 50 Cent for; announces he "fucking loathes hip hop" and suggests men only have "five minutes" to prepare for parenthood "when the doctor comes out and says it's on the way now." Well, the sort of 1940s throwback who sits in a waiting room while the woman he supposedly loves is about to push a watermelon down a drinking straw, perhaps. And Franz Ferdinand? They've never made a record which can appeal to the trendy kids in Camden and the squares in Ipswich Market, not like Definitely Maybe did. (Although, to be honest, no real indie kid much cared for anything other than Live Forever). Gallagher even finds time to have a go at Sleeper - they had a stylist. Jesus, what sort of man would even bother to remember an encounter with the stylist from a largely-forgotten band, much less bother to recount it in an interview a decade later? A totally insecure one, we'd guess.
Over at the NME, Green Day have pulled together their favourite punk anthems - which is a little like getting Madonna to choose her ten favourite children's authors, it's just flattering their vanity. They do put on Stiff Little Fingers and MC5, but also Generation X (at the time, as a nine year old, and without the benefit of three decades of hindsight, we could see they were about as punk as we were).
Even after the results came in - Coldplay v White Stripes was a battle on a par with the West Indies v the Minor Counties Second XI - there's still an attempt to make some extra mileage out of the battle. Coldplay won, in case you hadn't heard. The winner takes on the Crazy Frog in the finals.
The occasional Two Peters version of Robinson versus sees Peter Hook dropping by: Apparently Hooky now works out three times a week which, since he loves rubberwear, is a bit of relief for all concerned, we'd guess.
Radar has seen the future, and it is good, and it is The Long Blondes - "we do not listen to The Beatles, the Stones, Hendrix, the Doors or Bob Dylan" they say, adding they should update their mantra to rule out The Clash and Joy Division too (so, nothing in common wit Wham! at all, sadly).
We were hoping that the not-that-bad Green Day CD might start to give us reason to feel less guilty about those nasty thoughts we have about Billie Joe. Unfortunately, it turns out they own "punk"-themed restaurants (how can you have theme restaurant that's in any way punk?) and are planning to turn American idiot into a movie. Actually, The Killers are going to do a movie, too - sorry, "long form video".
reviews
live
coldplay - camden koko - "a band at the very peak of their powers"
super furry animals - wrexham newi - "truly inventive and (whisper it) mature"
ladytron - glasgow orlan mor - "the gloomiest good-time band in the world"
albums
the cribs - the new fellas - "they knew great pop had moments" (8)
the ordinary boys - brassbound - "they've produced their 'second debut' (6)
joy zipper - the heartlight set - "they'll break your heart", 8
tracks
totw - hard-fi - hard to beat - "as box fresh as his adidas"
towers of london - fuck it up - "ca rude blast of leathery-kekck hilarity"
Next week, then: it's the start of the Glasto-into-summer slide.
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