When you get home, Johnny Borrell is waiting for you

It hasn't been a great twenty four hours for listening to the opinions of those with the initials JB. Joey Barton didn't exactly thrive on Question Time, while Tim Jonze in The Guardian struggles to shape Johnny Borrell's thoughts into some sort of shape.

What could you say as a solo artist that you couldn't with Razorlight?
Err … [long pause, repeats the question] I dunno, I always see more similarities than differences. Errrr … Shit. I dunno. I'm not sure I can answer that with any accuracy whatsoever. Erm, what was the question?

Borrell is a bit vague about the process that went into making his godawful solo album:

I got a group of musicians together and they turned up at my house in the Basque Country to record an album, expecting me to have a studio. But I didn't, I just had a house. We had this 17-year-old kid called João [Mello], who had just turned up from Brazil, playing saxophone.

Now, I might not know how things work in Borrell's world, but I'm pretty sure you don't find seventeen year-old musicians "just turning up" at your door by accident.

Still... Borrell's really pleased at this idea of just turning up, and doing it, in a house.

I didn't have a drum kit so we used buckets instead. Wherever we play – be it a street corner or a festival – there's something very real about it.

That's fair enough, right?

Except... here's Borrell feelings on the problem with modern music:

I think the art of recording is being lost.

That's a bit rich from someone who can't even been arsed to book a studio and find a set of drums.

Jonze then asks about the stupid song titles on the solo record. Borrell doesn't usually read the media, man, but he had read the piece in the Guardian about that:

Well, interestingly, my friend is in literature and she reads the Guardian. She read an article on your website and she said: "Wow, that's amazing, I've never read an article before where the first four sentences all end in an exclamation mark." Now, that's very poor writing. That's got to be bad journalism if your first four sentences have to end with an exclamation mark.

As Jonze points out in a footnote:

None of the first four sentences end with exclamation marks, although the last sentence of the article does end with four!!!!

"A friend in literature" who can't tell the difference between a dog's dick at the end of each sentence and - in a clear Harry Hill reference - an over-the-top four stick at the very end? Now, that's amazing.

He's clearly obsessed with the idea that The Guardian doesn't like him - a pop psychology read would suggest that Borrell is desperate that people consider him sharp, and worldly, and wise; that the Guardian spending a lot of time snickering at him must kill him.

In fact, while we're on the subject of the Guardian, there was somebody on the island, I don't know who, but they wrote a nice letter to the Guardian saying there was never a mention of Johnny Borrell without a mention of his arrogance. And they said that I'd been there for four months and they'd found me to be this and that. So who am I going to trust? The person I've engaged with in their community or the one who's written an article?

It's somewhat difficult to find this letter in the Guardian archive. Although it's amazing that Johnny "very, very rare that I read the press" Borrell managed to come across that piece as well.

Borrell seems convinced he's being asked "leading questions", like The Sun would ask. He's confused the idea of a difficult question with an awkward one.

If we're unlucky, he'll write a song about this. If we're really unlucky, a twelve year-old flautist will turn up at his yurt one day and we'll have to sit through a sodding concept album.

Borrell pauses unloved band for unlovely solo career

Did you know that Razorlight are still going? Or, at least, they were, only Johnny Borrell has put them on hold. Why, Johnny?

He told French radio station Oui FM: "Razorlight are going to play The Olympia in Paris on April 3rd and after that it's Johnny Borrell, for the moment, and that's Freddy who plays in Razorlight, and Joao who comes from Brazil, who we met playing his saxophone in the street, and it's Darren who plays keyboards."

He's talking about himself both in the third person, and as if he was another three people.

Johnny Borrell stopping Razorlight to concentrate on a band who exist solely to aggrandise Johnny Borrell. It's not much of a difference, is it?

Johnny Borrell and The Borrells get new line-up, look

Of course Razorlight is more than Johnny Borrell and whoever happens to be behind him. Of course. There's a whole new line-up for the band, although nobody seems sure who they actually are.

There are suggestions that they might be spiritual manifestations of Borrell's ego; others have speculated that he had simply grabbed a couple of tramps and used some sort of machine to pump some of his spare self-regard into them.

There is a photo of the new line-up:

There aren't words. And it there were, no self-respecting dictionary would publish them.

Johnny Borrell is so kicked back

Here's something worrying - apparently Razorlight are making a new album:

Johnny [Borrell] told radio station Xfm: "Big bands get too serious about things. You get very self important and rock and roll is not worth taking too seriously."

I know we should be polite and say something encouraging like "You, Johnny? Self-important? Oh, never", but... well, yes. Yes, you're right.

"The last album was a breakup album and I'm not breaking up with anybody at the moment, thank God, so this is another party album."

Another party album? Just because you don't wear a shirt doesn't make the record a party album, Johnny.

"To me it is going back more to the spirit and the energy of 'Up All Night' or the 'Somewhere Else' kind of Razorlight, which is my favourite period of the band - it's an energetic rock 'n' roll album."

I cherish that even when he's telling us how much of a party album he's making, he still sounds serious and self-important.

Xfm tries to get it right; gets it wrong

Actually, we're being unfair. Johnny Borrell presenting a programme on Xfm isn't wrong for the station. Indeed, set against the confused attempts by a mainstream station to try and give itself a veneer of the supposed alternative station in Global's not-very-diverse radio portfolio, putting Borrell on is a radical move. That's what makes it so heartbreaking.

"Xfm are the only station who would let me play Buju Banton next to Allen Ginsberg within the same show. It's going to be one hour each night of the songs they don't play on the radio," said Borrell.

He's right, you know. Of course, any number of radio stations - Radio 1, 2, 3 and 6; NME Radio probably - would have shows with that sort of playlist. But none in their right mind would take Borrell on to play them, for fear of becoming the butt of gags.

Not Xfm, mind, who seem to genuinely believe that Borrell is veiwed as one part Andy Kershaw to two parts Richey Manic:

Paul Jackson, group programme director of Xfm, alongside sister Global Radio stations 95.8 Capital FM and the Hit Music Network, said Borrell was a "creative genius and a great storyteller".

He added: "We've always loved Razorlight at Xfm and we're looking forward to seeing what Johnny does with the show and which tracks he chooses."

Well, at least there's going to be one listener. And Johnny will probably get his mum to tape it for him to listen to when he gets home.

Johnny Borrell and his high standards

Hey, women - do you want to hang out with Johnny Borrell?

Oh.

Well, for the sake of argument, let's say you did. It's not as easy as you might think. Oh, no no:

Borrell's brother Willy tells Britain's The Sun newspaper, "Johnny basically says, 'Go and find me a girl. But she has to be hot and have at least five GCSEs'"

This is, apparently, evidence that Borrell is not a bloated, ignorant, sexist rock cliche. Because what could be more touching than when you ask your brother to "find a girl", you make him ensure they have five GCSEs.

It's almost touching, the idea that having five GCSEs is some sort of bar for towering intellectual achievement. It's a pity Willy doesn't go into a bit more detail - does Johnny insist on maths and English as a minimum? What grades is he looking for? Does the familiarity with a GCSE syllabus give an insight into what Johnny's conversation is like - "ah, Geography, eh? Yeah... I see myself as an ox-bow lake, where the current has silted up my entrance... or... um... Willy, did you find any hot girls who had done physics? I think my kinetic energy patter works better..."

Things get worse for Borrell: Kelly Jones offers advice

Oh, how badly your empire has slipped when the Stereophonics make sympathetic noises about your plight. It's like getting economic advice from Zimbabwe.

Kelly Jones has looked at Razorlight, kicked the wheels and sucked his teeth:

He told MTV: “If there's any band members left by that point... he reminds me of where we were with our third album… in fucking trouble!"

Actually, Kelly, Stereophonics were in trouble from about thirty minutes after everyone realised that Local Boy In The Photograph was as good as it was going to get.

But you're still here, clinging desperately on, like you're Patrick Kielty of pop. So, what's your suggestion for Borrell? How can he... well, if not turn it around, at least still manage the odd slot when the sun is still out at festivals?

"Just change your haircut, they’ll forget all about you then. It’s a new you – Madonna's done it all her life."

The difference is, though - at least for a good chunk of her earlier career - Madonna would emerge from the salon not only with a new cut, but also carrying demo tapes of something interesting, and arresting, and popular.

I must admit, though, I never noticed Kelly Jones getting a new haircut.

Gordon in the morning: He eats a lot of salad

Gordon has closed his entirely pointless poll to find out what his "readers" want Michael Jackson to play, still pretending that it's in some way related to the songs that the famous warning from history will actually feature:

My poll will now be shown to the legendary King Of Pop before he makes a final selection.

Probably. Possibly.

Gordon knows it's been tough for his readers:

This is a man who has had more hit songs than I’ve had hot dinners, so it can’t have been an easy task to narrow down your favourites.

From this we can calculate that Gordon has eaten somewhere south of fifty hot dinners. I'm assuming he meant it literally because nobody would take such a freezer-burnt old cliche and pop it into an article otherwise, would they?

Supposedly, Bizarre readers want Who Is It, In The Closet and Thriller as the encore. Smart gives no indication what size the poll was to cook up such unlikely results. (Fifty quid to go home with Who Is It hanging in the air? Really?)

Elsewhere, the sound of shouting from a distant street:

RAZORLIGHT are gearing up for a head-to-head battle with their ex-drummer ANDY BURROWS.

Really? They're releasing records on the same day, are they?

Not quite:

Andy, whose songwriting abilities helped Razorlight gain their only No1 single with America, will now spend the next few months putting together a backing band to help his new project — and could be ready to record by the end of the summer.

That would put him on a collision course with Johnny and Co, who will have finished their festival commitments by then and will be recording their fourth album.

So, that's "head-to-head" in the sense of "vague chance they might both release fetid albums in the same accounting quarter". Right up there with other great battles, like when Godzilla and King Kong booked hotel rooms in the same city within six months of each other. Actually, I say Godzilla and King Kong. This battle is more like Bambi fighting a Care Bear.

Smart tells his readers that the record label has annoyed Borrell by making it so:

Egotistical frontman JOHNNY BORRELL is furious that his Universal label have signed up the man who jumped ship just when Razorlight were preparing to break America.

But wouldn't Borrell more-than-likely have already been signed to Universal as part of the contract Razorlight signed?

Gordon in the morning: Handing out hugs and blankets to the shocked masses

Gordon, of course, has coverage of the Razorlight split. And there's only one way to sum up the split of a British band shortly before a gig in Cheshire:

Trouble in America...

In order to stack up the headline, the made-up, sorry, unnamed source places the argument that "brought things to a head" between Borrell and Burrows as happening "during a recent trip to America". Although if that was true, you might wonder why Burrows didn't quit there and then.

Elsewhere, Kylie Minogue is getting a stupid sum of money for recording a single track for a Bollywood film - three quarters of a million quid, apparently. Now, I've been keeping up with the news - we're meant to gather and boo when people get paid money completely out of proportion to their work they do and the value they generate, right? C'mon Gordon - let's boo Kylie, shall we?

And as she chats to star AKSHAY KUMAR between filming she looks worth every penny.

Oh. Are you suggesting that Fred Goodwin could have avoided all that bad press if he'd just been a bit prettier?

It's perhaps fortunate that Gordon Smart isn't up a mountain with Cheryl Cole - can you imagine how thin the atmosphere at the top of Kilimanjaro would be if Smart was having to follow up the story about Ashley Cole's latest bit of bother? Especially given that it turns out his arrest-attracting rage was sparked by someone taking photos for The Sun in the first place?

For the paper, Andy Crick and Philip Case are covering the "story", and they do have quite a scoop:

Cole, who earns £82,000 a week, plonked himself on a bar stool. Then as Chelsea skipper Terry and Mancienne mingled, he knocked back a bottle of Japanese Asahi lager.

He clutched a wad of £20 notes as he ordered a round of drinks — and began chatting to a blonde clubber wearing a shiny blue mini-dress and a string of white pearls.

Sadly, the paper's two writers fail to mention if Cole had been wearing the mini-dress when he was drinking the lager, or if he'd nipped off to change.

Still, nobody would be as cheap as to try and get mileage out of his wife being off doing good works, would they?

Fundraiser v hellraiser

It truly is a dichotomy. It's almost impossible to imagine Cheryl Cole ever being in a violent outburst at a nightclub.

Horror! One of Johnny Borrell's backing band quits

Andy Burrows, drummer with And The Borrells out of Johnny Razorlight And The Borrells, has quit the band. It's a sensation:

"The past five years in Razorlight have been an amazing experience," explained Burrows. "I am very proud of everything that myself, Johnny, Carl and Bjorn have achieved together, but for personal reasons I have decided to leave the band. I will be pursuing other musical ventures."

No word on what these other musical ventures might be - perhaps "whistling while refilling the milk counter at Tesco."

Interestingly, despite the warm-sounding statements, the announcement of Burrows' departure came two days after he was replaced - David "Skully" Sullivan-Kaplan turned up drumming during the band's Warrington gig.

Meanwhile, the glorious leader hopes the image of their fallen comrade will encourage the rest of the Razorlights on to new highs, issuing this from his bunker:

"Over the last two albums and five years Andy has been an integral part of Razorlight and we will miss him," he said.

"From the day he walked into our rehearsal studio it was obvious that he was an amazing drummer and he’s contributed on many levels beyond that. He's been a great player and a great friend and I think we'll both always be proud of the music we've made together. As far as the band's future is concerned, we're all looking forward to touring with Skully and getting on with making our next record."

I'm sure the rest of you are enjoying the cute, fifteen year-old-boy nickname for the new drummer as much as I am.

Experts attempting to calibrate the likely shockwaves from 'drummer sat behind man without a shirt quits' suggests the impact on your life will be somewhere between 'having to take a terrapin to a locum vet' and 'that slightly curious feeling you get when you realise your usual postman must be on holiday'.

Trinity Street has gone

Thanks to the people who confirmed the earlier story about the closure of Trinity Street.

There's now some signs of the company going into administration, with Oasis and Razorlight losing their online stores and Orson and Ministry Of Sound websites vanishing altogether.

Kind of ironic that MOS, which once was attempting to turn itself into an ISP no longer even runs its own website services.

Razorlight buys I Heart NY tshirts

I really want to believe that this paragraph on NME.com is a knowing parody of Razorlight's strange worldview of America:

Johnny Borrell and company will drop 'Slipway Fires' Stateside in March 2009.

Surely, surely, that's NME taking the piss out of Borrell?

Razorlight don't put too much effort into new record

That, I admit, is hardly a headline which is going to surprise or shock you. Apparently, Johnny Borrell and Razorlight have recorded a new record - Slipway Fires - and it was a breeze, says Borrell:

"We wanted to record it quickly, not over-produce it or overthink it too much. We felt like we had the strongest songs we've had so far, and when you've got that material there's not a lot else to do but just go in and record it."

I know, I know, it's hard to think believe that they put any thought into the previous ones - how hard would your brow have had to be furrowed before you came up with that song about how America is always on the telly but it isn't really like that in real life?

For Borrell, there were no problems at all:

"People say it every album - difficult first album, difficult second, ah, tricky third, ah, fourth but for me, writing-wise, it was like exploring the shadows cast by the success of the first and second one," he said.

Writing-wise, it was like exploring the shadows cast by the success of the first and second. You can actually taste the quality of Borrell's skills as a writer just from that first "writing-wise", can't you?

Meanwhile, over on ITV...

You could hear the sigh of relief releasing itself from Television Centre a country mile away, as it became increasingly clear that Mandela's 90th Birthday Party was going to have to shift from being solely a celebration of his life to having a political angle as Zimbabwe became harder and harder to ignore. Sure, nobody would suggest that calling for fair elections in Harare should be balanced with getting a spokesperson in to insist that there should be more repression, not less, but having got boiled over Live Earth and Live 8, you imagine that BBC management must have been relieved to not worry about another knees-up turning a little bit op-ed.

As it turned out, though, they needn't have worried, as it fell to Johnny Borrell to be the voice of the world's conscience. "All we are saying is democracy for Zimbabwe" he pleaded. Or would have done, had he not stumbled over the 'democracy' - a bit like Mugabe, really.

Winehouse did make it out of hospital - although, as she apparently substituted "free Blakey my fella" for "free Nelson Mandela" during the finale, perhaps it would have been better if she hadn't done. Unless morality has shifted so badly that we're suggesting political activism and boorish barroom brawls are now indistinguishable. (Mind you, we've only got the Sun's word for it that she sang those words.)

Razorlighter struggles with concept of 'solo'

Good lord, so much control does Johnny Borrell exert over his minions that even when one breaks out of His Magnificence's shadow to do a solo show, Borrell puts in an appearance. It must be like trying to shake off the unpopular kid in school when we - sorry, they - attached themselves to you.

Burrows on his own

Andy Burrows, who is still a full member of Razorlight with every bit as many privileges as any other member of Razorlight¹, is dipping his toe in the water with a solo side project.

Yes, yes, a solo drummer. It might seem funny, but everyone laughed when Phil Collins said he was going solo. They didn't laugh for long.<sup>2

1</sup> - apart from Johnny Borrell, of course.
² - with apologies to Bob Monkhouse

That 90th birthday, then...

So, does the 90th Birthday party for Nelson Mandela demand closer attention?

Brits RAZORLIGHT and KEANE have signed up to join QUEEN and ANNIE LENNOX on the bill.

U2, the SPICE GIRLS and SIR PAUL McCARTNEY have also been approached to perform.

That'd be a no, then.

Gordon in the morning: Johnny Borrell and the attention of ladies

Lucy Hagan supplies Gordon's column with its, um, big exclusive today: Johnny Borrell has been at a party with Emma Watson, which is enough to work up a claim of romance. (It's alright, apparently she's 17 now. Okay, alright-ish. At least it's not like he's her teacher or anything.)

Trouble is, there's very little to build any claims of romance on - even the made-up pisspoor source isn't going to commit themselves:

A source said: “She seemed really happy. She’s a Razorlight fan and was star-struck.”

Poor Lucy is left struggling to fill the space:

Emma, 17 — whose character Hermione Granger romances fellow film wizard Ron Weasley — spent a night partying with the Razorlight frontman, 27.

Why is she talking about the Potter movie plots? Is she suggesting that, perhaps, the walls between the world of reality and fiction will break down (always a possibility on the Bizarre pages) and a jealous Weasley will offer Borrell out for some sort of wizardly smackdown?

But there's more space to fill. Google, woman, Google:

They later left together in a taxi. Borrell has a history of drink and drug abuse, and once said he was a “smackhead at 16”.

Goodness - let's hope the collapse of reality and fiction doesn't rip a hole in the space-time continuum which sees a drug-addled teenage Borrell get Hermione Granger hooked on smack.

Gordon, meanwhile, has got some pictures: Gemma Atkinson is flogging underwear (sorry, "undercrackers", of course - only Gordon would try and talk up a sexy photo shoot using boyscout language throughout) - which pitches its expectation of Bizarre reader's knowledge at a surprisingly low level:

Blue is one colour

We know this is meant to be a play on a football chant, but it does just wind up sounding patronising.
Mr. Smart also has some pictures of Girls Aloud, where he reads the trouble behind their eyes:

[F]rom the look of Cheryl in the line-up her mind certainly seems to be elsewhere.

Do you think, Gordon?

This "feature" also has an interesting photocaption:

Boobs allowed ... Nadine

Boobs allowed? Really? Someone wrote that - 'what can I do as a witty caption for a picture of Nadine Coyle? Hmm... No, can't think of anything, I'll just scrawl 'tits' on it'.

Johnny Borrell: The Kemp Brothers of our age

How interesting to hear that Johnny Borrell of Not Just Johnny Borrell There's Razorlights As Well is heading off to sequestrate himself writing the new album. Presumably the rest of the equally-important band members will join in by speakerphone, then?

En route, Borrell found the time to turn out for Oban's local football team. It surely can only be a matter of time before Melchester Rovers puts in a call?

One of the Razorlights insists he's turning up for work tomorrow, whatever the papers say

Andy Burrows has issued a denial of stories that The Johnny Borrell experience is about to split; it has the ringing confidence of Menzies Campbell's Lib Dem conference speech.