No Rock And Roll Fun

WHAT THE POP PAPERS SAY: Transatlantic Edition
Slightly later than usual, but we're sick, so sorry. And there's a lot, too:

tipping a hat of thanks to kellie, we’re able to flick through the current Punk Planet (Kellie sent it to us ages ago, it’s just that this is the first time since then we’ve been ill on a Wednesday and so are able to peruse properly). The frankly bemusing Vagrant Records debate/battle rages on on the letters pages - it seems to have become the Schleswig-Holstein question of the Punk World, only with slightly fewer people understanding the finer points. More entertainingly, Al Burjan reports on sharing a flight with Gwen Steffani and Gavin Rossdale - “Although their presence on the flight does not itself lessen the statistical probablitiy of a hijacking, it makes the possibility of a hijacking that much more exciting and entertaining-seeming.” There’s a twentieth anniversary appreciation of Cometbus (and, without wanting to slide into our usual bemoaning of the UK music writing scene, can you imagine a British zine staying round for a two decade party? In the 80’s, the answer would be “No, as the good writers get snapped up by the pop papers sooner or later”; now, it’s just a sad shake of the head. Sarah Dougher - ex-Lookers, solo artist and now - authour of a book on gays and lesbians in music, to make “artistic gay life accesible to young people. More music writers need to know about gay history in rock. It’s really important, especially in the punk movement.” (We guess this might be a cross-Atlantic cultural difference; is it possible to not be aware of the bi, gay and lesbian input into British pop?) As if to illustrate the point, Limpwrist’s Andrew Martini is asked a few pages on “How did a gay hardcore band come about as a concept”, as if being gay was the gimmick, and the expected answer should be “we were a band for six years, then we thought - gay! So, we buggered each other, and...” Jeff Guntzel delivers a twelve page report from Jenin - of course, you wouldn’t get that in the NME, but then you wouldn’t get it in the NME’s labelmates at Time, either. DeeDee Ramone is remembered with affection: “He said ‘I only play root notes, no runs, no scales, and I play them in a very violent style.’ Asked if he played any other instruments, he said ‘I have a keyboard, which i play in a very violent style.’”...

at the glossier end of the us market, Pink is on the cover of Maxim Blender, wearing what appears to be a Toto-Coello binliner cast off. Why is it in the UK Maxim spins off crappy health and fashion magazines, and the US edition spins off a music title? Could it be that the US readership of Maxim are actually mainly straight? Of course, Blender knows what its doing - with a former Q bloke at the helm and Felix Dennis’ money, it’s basically a Q with some the chin stroking replaced by women without much on - so Coldplay, and the new sassed-up Mandy Moore, then. It’s a mix that does sort of work. It reports that Bob Nastanovich, one time member of Pavement, now fills his days as an owner of thoroughbred racehorses; meanwhile, as one of NSync tries to become an astronaut - and that shows how far you have to go to top a colleague who’s shagged Britney - six NASA astronauts are attempting to travel in the opposite direction and have formed a band, MaxQ; Scott Strap, of god-rockers Creed, is asked if he’d let his son buy the Eminem Show: “No, absolutely not. Nothing against Eminem on a personal level, or the way he expresses himself, but i wouldn’t want my son listening to him.” Right, so you don’t actually have a problem with his material, but you still wouldn’t let your son have his album. Now, we’re not experts on parenting ourselves, but if our kids brought records we thought were unhealthy, we’d sit down and ask them why they wanted it, and explain why we’d rather they didn’t listen to it rather than issuing a blanket ban. But then, maybe we’d have kids that grow up with minds of their own, and that can be tricky, can’t it? Jennifer Love-hewitt says “I don’t drink, i don’t smoke. I’m an awful rock star” - she forgot to mention that she doesn’t make decent music and doesn’t do it except as a sideline , although those are more pressing reasons; “If you like the Strokes and the White Stripes, you’re probably working for the NME” (oh, alright, it really says you’ll also like Blondie and The Fall, which we wouldn’t think would neccesairily be a given); there’s the 25 Most Dastardly Rock Villains - amusingly putting the Wright Brothers at 24, for their part in the downfall of the likes of John denver, aaliyah, Buddy holly and so on, although it points out Orville Wright invented an automatic record changer. Number One villain is Mark Chapman, although they offer in his defense that he’d just finished reading The Catcher In The Rye, which, though true, isn’t as strong as “spared us the Beatles 25th Anniversary Reunion Tour.” The very thought that every Clear Channel Exec wanks with those words on a big poster in their mind’s eye is worth it...

and a big Pink piece, too. “The following morning some unexpected good news arrives - Lenny Kravitz has lost his voice”, starts one paragraph. That really is our idea of good news. Clearly, Pink thinks Kravitz is a bit rubbish; of their tour, she says “Its more of a double headliner - I’m too big to open for anyone these days.” She reveals her youthful obsession with Jon Bon Jovi - which explains why she used to hate herself in High School, or perhaps how. And, of course, there’s the gay question: “I did kiss a girl once. I was 13 years old. It was nice, but she left me for my brother... Anyway, I like Carey’s thing too much, so that pretty much rules out the whole lesbian thing, doesn’t it?” Perhaps, but how about the half-lesbian thing?

What’s funny about Blender is how like Q it is - the new band segment is called “New To Blender”; familiar names like April Long, Ben Mitchell and even Alexis Petredis pepper its pages; the review columns even look like Q Review. The “Who does [x] think she is’ column (in this instance, Marianne Faithfull) might lack the “who the hell” punch, but since they allow her to announce that her favourite cussing is “fucking cunt”, we don’t imagine that its a knee-bow to the Bible Belt readership) and the spine has a cryptic message competition. Indeed, if the cover had a picture of Bono or him out of Coldplay on, it would be Q...

back in Britain, and newcomer Snug has already got a spot of publicity off its revelation that Jarvis is going to move to France. This is a concept mag - although not a high concept: “Just as the Big Breakfast was a TV show broadcast from a house, Snug is a magazine from a pub” explains editor Nick Bradshaw - apparently happy to evoke a series axed due to a major lack of interest and to imply that most journalists don’t spend all their time in a pub anyway. Snug might have more problems, too - if the concept of a Snug has to be explained to the readership in the first issue, it might not have been the wisest choice of name (it’s a pity that other stalwart of northern pubs, the Select, has already been a magazine which has gone down with all hands.) More disturbingly, we found snug tucked between Investors Chronicle and Your Money on the Current Affairs rack, which can’t surely be the place to strike up a casual relationship with a reader...

So, the lad’s mag grows up, then. But not too much - There’s a picture of Denise Van Outen in her pants; there’s one of those articles that are clearly more fun to research than to read (in this case, some sort of Making Boats Out of Beer Cans thing); a photospread that struggles to not homoeroticise amateur boxing in any way; there’s four pages on Lisa Rogers in which she says “FHM is basically a jazz mag for teenagers without the guts to reach the top shelf” while leaning forward so we can see down her blouse...

So, what does Jarvis Cocker have to say besides “I’m off to France”? Actually, he’s charming on the subject of his wedding; and not being able to get the band to move through and start playing. They wanted coffee first, apparently...

On, then, to the nme, which has Queens of the Stone Age - neither interesting or attractive - on the front page...

news: how desperate is this - oasis’ hopes for america ever giving a fuck about them is now resting entirely on Stop Crying Your Heart Out appearing in a scene in Birds of Prey. “Any music used is set to become a cult hit” predicts the nme, missing the point that Oasis need more than cult status right now. “Radiohead benefitted from inclusion in Smallville.” Um... hadn’t the band already become favourites with Rolling Stone, Creem, the International Olympic Committee, the world and everyone in America first? And if being featured on a cult series is the key to mass market success, why the hell aren’t K’s Choice bigger than Shania? More importantly, bad cess to the nme news team for describing Batgirl as being “confined to a wheelchair”

other news: even more desperate than Oasis’ bids to get saved by Batgirl, the diminishing marginal returns on legs that are Fischerspooner are hoping that turning themselves into Glen Ponders to Kylie’s Alan Partridge is going to make someone care about them, too; Charlatans to split? possibly, possibly not; there’s coverage of the death of a fan at a Nelly gig; apparently the new Nirvana video is “genius” - although it looks like a clips show to us; oddly, the nme prints the West Yorkshire Police appeal for ‘have you seen these people’ with their faces blurred out; there’s a possibility that Norman Cook may yet do a third party on Brighton Beach if the fire and theft can be sorted out; Missy Elliot claims her weight loss is due to medical advice; Escapology is out on the internet; we think the nme are telling us so we can avoid it like a computer virus. And, yawn, yawn, Robbie Williams apparently recorded some of the tracks in the nude - unleashing his cock in more ways than one, then; Audioslave have sold their name to a “supergroup” consisting of Rage Against the Machine and Soundgarden types - hmmm, interesting that: the hugely anti-capitalist RATM falling back on sending lawyers with chequebooks to discover the Liverpool Audioslave’s price...

Roots Manuva chooses ten tracks which he could, you know, burn onto a CD, providing its for his own personal use - Barry White, Nate Dogg, Mobb Depp...

In the quotes column: “Some things can just knock you out, and a girl is one of them” says Chris Martin. Hotgwen, we knew you were a wuss, man, but you get beaten up by girls?

on bands: dj/rupture (um, a dj. with a rupture.) and kill city - primals supporting return of Lisa Moorish...

either craig nicholls talks more than the rest of the band, or the nme has decided that, really, we’re not that bothered about the rest of the Vines. The nme is, of course, right. Asked about his first girlfriend, Craig replies “That’s really hard.” What, was it dark?...

the lamest of all desperate journo questions - “where did you get your crazy name?” - is stretched out for an entire page; even asking The Streets and the Foo Fighters where their names come from. Next week: Where Do Stars Buy Their Plectrums?...

Cave In might be supporting the Foos, but they don’t let it go to their heads: “We still change our own guitar strings before every show.” Hey, keep those feet on the ground, lads - new strings *every* show? What are you, rockerfellas?

Queens of the Stone Age come across as rather likeable, amusing young men - they just look like twits and play turgid music, that’s all...

“I think the music we make means more to people like me than someone like Coldplay ever could” reckons Gary from The Bandits - well, yes, but since you’re in the band, you’d expect that, wouldn’t you?...

review time: lps:
nirvana - nirvana - “not closure, but nor should it be”, 9
lupine howl - bar at the end of the world - “one eye on self-destruct”, 8
holly valance - footprints - “lack of ideas and duff ballads”, 6
puressence - planet helpless - “more reminiscent of vegan rockers James than Manchester heavyweights”, 4
manic street preachers - forever delayed - “like remaking A Clockwork Orange without the the ultra-violence” - 0 (“for becomings your enemies”)
add n to (x) - loud like nature - “a real throbbing ehadache”, 5

sotw - pearl jam - i am mine - “oddly refreshing”
others - moby - in this world - “just another punk who sold out”
madonna - die another day - “no tune, only the distant echo of a once-great career tumbling into the abyss”

live - liars - las vegas - “something subversive slithers”
supergrass - nottingham rock city - “the cartoon supergroup are back”
death in vegas - glasgow qmu - “you wonder how Fearless could let his group become so one-dimensional”
british sea power - liverpool uni - “the sheer beauty is inescapable”

in angst (oh, alright, nmemail) someone points out that pete from the Libertines looks like lousie from sleeper. Except, we’d image, with a smaller cock...

and finally, next week it’s the 50 coolest people in music. if Bono is in it, we’re taking Kings Reach Tower like Chechen rebels...