NEWS AND VIEWS BEFORE THE OOZE
by Herb Wright
TransAction's London Correspondent
Just
about the most exciting no. 1 single in the UK in 99 so far has been FLAT ERIC.
He's a hand glove puppet who wears shades and checks documents a stunning secretary
presents him at his big desk in a wacky office that 's filled with an almost moronically
lo-fi synthesized computer tune called Flatbeat . Flat Eric grooves to his
beat and he 's so cool it doesn 't seem at all dodgy when he offers her a cigar.
The bad news for the UK, alleged world centre of what's hip and what's not, is that
Flat Eric is really a French guy called Mr. Ozio. Oh woe, what happened to our music,
food of love and also of having it large- have we had an excess of't, and so surfeited,
the appetite is sickened and may die? Look you, where are the divers schedules of
England's musical beauty? When we hear in March that the only UK song in the US top
100 is the SPICE GIRLS at no. 98, we must ask ourselves, have we lost the plot?
When we hear in March that the only UK song in the US top 100 is the SPICE GIRLS at no. 98, we mustASK ourselves, have we lost the plot?
Well, what's really occurring? In my January article, I declared
that guitar bands were dead. As if to defy me, there's been a brace of killer singles
from established guitar bands hitting the airwaves and dance floors, and hints that
a new generation of bands are rediscovering the word 'pop'.
Top of the list is Britpop pioneers SUEDE, of whom history books may yet write,
'they put the darkness of goth into glam and saved the UK leather jacket and mascara
trades '. There 's a new album called Head Music and lead single Electricity
is fantastically meaty and electric. If you catch the vid by the way it 's shot
in Falconberg Court, a shady alley behind the Astoria- move over Morning Glory
Berwick St for prime London rock 'n 'roll backdrop. Back to the album tho- Suede
can meander on about drugs and being thin and that but gosh this album is alive!
My personal fave killer cut is She 's in Fashion. Suede did a secret gig this
month in Northolt- famous for having an airfield used in the Berlin Airlift and also
being so far out on the Central Line that men grow beards by the time they've reached
Oxford Circus. The gig was a blinder and BRETT ANDERSON can afford a laugh
about Noel & Liam or Damon cause he proved he's still well alive and the jury's
out with the other 2 Britpop megabands.
Damon? That's DAMON ALBARN of BLUR. Their new album 13 is allegedly
a new incarnation of the band in which Damon actually bares his soul instead of being
clever. Well, okay, but it does rather sound like the last album i.e. mucho lo-fi
doodling. Lead single Tender sounded like Give Peace A Chance with
a gospel choir. And I reckoned they 've buggered their new Song 2 which is
called Bugman by putting raw noise bang in the middle- lots of it, it 's not
pretty.
Back to those killer singles. SUPERGRASS preface a new album with Pumping
On Your Stereo which is an irresistible infectious glammy foot-tapper. And you
could swear they're singing 'humping on your stereo'. CAST, much mocked for
exemplifying 'Dadrock', the mediocre 60 's copyist genre that followed in the wake
of Oasis, have pulled off another storming foot-tapper called Beat Mama ,
where guitars shine like the early 90 's Liverpudlian legends The LA's- frontman
John Power used to be in the La's, so fair play. Talking of 60 's copyists, KULA
SHAKER's hot new single is called Shower Your Love and it sounds rather
like Baby You're A Richman . Their new album Pigs Peasants and Astronauts
is a jolly jaunt through R 'n 'B, Led Zeppy power guitar, Hammond pop and Indian
sounds, and actually it 's quite fab. Also worth mentioning is THE FALL, really a
cantancurous old Mancunian called MARK E SMITH whose servants- I mean band- have
been hired then fired since the 80 's. New single Touch Sensitive is shouty,
groovy and catchy all at the same time- gosh, just when we all thought The Fall had
moved from past-sell-by-date to biological hazard status.
GAY DAD, centred around ex-music journos led by COBAIN-looks CLIFF JONES broke
with a big pop tune called To The Earth With Love and new single Joy
looks like another winner- with their big-space guitars they remind me of MANSUN
before they lost the plot. Ex-music journos are the best when it comes to success
via music biz manipulation and formula- it 's an English tradition the PET SHOP
BOYS started.
Middle England- basically spotty blokes who like lager and football (='soccer') and
used to love Oasis- have gone big on the STEREOPHONICS who are from Wales
and now play stadiums. It 's all a bit trad, but it has to be admitted the tunes
are big and bright and singer KELLY JONES has the grittiest voice since ROD
STEWART. As for OASIS themselves well they 're recording in France and we await the
results with an eagerness generally reserved for the next gas bill.
Commercially, it's Britrock rather than Britpop that's winning. Bands like 3 COLOURS
RED and TERRORVISION and REEF are MTV friendly and it 's all gone a
bit BRYAN ADAMS. That can 't be said for some of the breaking bands in the genre-
ANNIE CHRISTIAN are heavy and have tunes while bands like RADIATOR
are intense, don 't care if some members are slapheads (='bald'), and if you had
them over for breakfast they 'd probably scatter the cornflakes everywhere, they
are that hard.
Don 't be fooled by the ULTRASOUND hype- as I predicted, this hot band fronted
by monstrously big TINY are indeed turning into 70 's prog-rock bollocks. (Note-
bollocks means 'v. good ' if prefaced with 'the ' and 'v. bad ' if not).
New names? ARTURO are worth keeping an eye on- a 3-piece rock combo with groove
and a passing debt to the bendy big guitar wails of MY BLOODY VALENTINE. Then there's
LISAHALL, a 4-piece fronted by, yes, LISA HALL, they have the big sound of
say GARBAGE with an underlying taste of trip-hop- wow!
Sensitive types- y 'know, liable to own SMITHS records- follow extended Glasgow band
BELLE & SEBASTIAN these-a-days. B&S are unleashing spin-off projects
like THE GENTLE WAVES (so gentle it makes NICK DRAKE sound like a mugger in
comparison) and curiously bleepy LOOPER, and they organized their very own
April festival called 'The Bowlie Weekender'. 3000 people rolled up at a Pontins
resort- usually the sort of place where old folk sit on deck chairs with handkerchieves
tied on their heads. (Well, it makes a change from corporate festivals run by Virgin
or the ubiquitous Mean Fiddler Organization.) International names like CORNELIUS
and MERCURY REV played alongside top campy popsters the DIVINE COMEDY,
Glaswegian noise alchemists MOGWAI and people like JARVIS COCKER dj'ing.
Apparently a highlight was some American outfit called LADY BUG TRANSISTOR,
who come across 60 's psychedelic but use 90 's technology. Good job the weather
was good- sensitive types can get so moody when it rains!
Between Looper and Flat Eric and also BIS coming back all disco like, you
'd think there was a cheap drum machine/synth revival going on. The press seem to
think so but they 're backing ADD N TO (X), who are 3 experimental art student
types who like messing with recycled electronic boxes. Could this be the sound of
the Ooze? (That 's the next decade, so-called because the years have two 0 's). I
'm not convinced, but the artwork/video which involves a woman doing 69 with a robot
is cool.
The 60 's are old hat and we 're riding the white swan of a glamrock & kitsch
revival- BOLAN is the new LENNON and ABBA the new BEATLES.
It's hard to get kitschier than YOUNGER YOUNGER 28S, who are a sad combo fronted
by a spivvy jerk with an 80's-expressionless keyboards dude and 2 un-co-ordinated
backing vocals girls. These frankly rubbish yet admittedly catchy 2nd-rate HUMAN
LEAGUE copyists will be hyped to death this month...
Oh, and there's a Baggy revival, what with the HAPPY MONDAYS reforming for
a grab-the-cash tour. Baggy was the early 90 's music that put a laid-back, dancey
groove into guitar bands and spawned the word 'Madchester'. However pleasant, glam/kitsch
and baggy are passing fads.
There 's word that folk could be the new rock. Others say salsa will hit the groove.
I think it's still too early to make Ooze predictions. The most exciting music around
is still FATBOY SLIM, and there's a big clue for the future in his stuff.
He's basically Europe's top DJ, inventor of Big Beat, the Midas of the mixing desk
and- here's the clue- he draws from disparate music genres from black street
culture to piano soul to house garage etc. to make phat-sounding massive-as-a-planet
dance floor winners. The UK's most influential innovators of the 90 's MASSIVE
ATTACK drew from disparate genres- trip-hop, guitar rock, rap etc. The greatest
band of all time the BEATLES drew from madly disparate genres. That's the future:
take a sad song and make it better- take some old ideas and make a new, better idea.
So- UK pop music- the bollocks or just bollocks? We're so mixed up- and maybe that's
our greatest asset for the challenges of the Ooze!
