Melody Maker 31st January 1998 Issue



THE WEEKLEY SESSION
Going deaf for a living with STEVE LAMACQ

Maybe it's because pop's getting older and having a midlife crisis, but have you noticed how everywhere you look, there's someone's (metaphorical) ex?

If I went to these things, it's what I imagine an awkward dinner party would be like. Look, there's Ian Brown and John Squire, they used to be together; Bernard Butler, you know the one who was with that Brett guy; and just past the cheese dips there's various feuding members of old Britpop bands. It all feels a bit odd.

(Who do you side with when two of your mates split up? Who do you believe? Who gets the record collection and who gets the house?)

I've had a run of meeting exes - starting with the laid-back Brown who has timed the release of his debut solo LP to perfection. There was a big build-up for "My Star" pre-Christmas, and now in the forgiving atmosphere of a New Year (when it's too cold to work yourself into a row about the bad old days), here comes "Unfinished Monkey Business", an album which is both the best and worst of the man in one single outing.

Tracks like "She Puts Corpses In Their Mouths" and the epic "Lions", which starts in almost Joy Division mode before changing into a full-powered New Order style machine-disco number, are really among the most interesting songs he's ever done. On the downside, there are fillers, the sound of which suggests a poor night out with the Roses when they weren't getting along.

There is a consistency about him though, which, in conversation, he agrees with. Like the Roses, his new material relies heavily on rhythm, the old bass and drum groove, which he says was overshadowed on the "Second Coming" by too much guitar work and top-heavy production. Then there's the lyrics. Take virtually any Brown song and you can file it away in one of two categories because in Brown's world it's quite simple: there's ugly and there's beauty. Things (people/actions/gardens/the record industry) are either one or the other, there's no point in the middle ground.

He seems very positive at the minute, quite chatty and anxious to get on with the next album which will be more of a full-blown-in-the-studio affair. Which brings us onto Bernard Butler and his first solo effort, due for release in April. Of the two of them, Butler was the one I was expecting to be most tied to the past, but when he was on the "Evening Session", he turned up relatively baggage-free. Putting another year between himself and the Suede split seems to have lessened the need to always talk about it (though I'm sure he would, if you asked).

If there's a comparison to be made between the two, it's something to do with the pair finding their own space in the pop world. Butler talks of old cohorts as people who used to put him in situations he didn't want to be in - while Brown's famously known for describing the whole music industry as a dirty business. With the benefit of hindsight, Brown, by paying for his album himself, and Butler, by teaming up with Creation, seem to be alleviating the pressure on themselves. They probably both work best when left alone in the greenhouse, at a moderate temperature, occasionally tended to by McGee or some guy at Polydor. Or better still, left alone until the frost comes.

I've seen some weird things at gigs, but the Supergrass show we covered live for Radio 1's "In Concert" threw up another first. Standing to one side of Nottingham's Rock City I saw through the dim light a... yes, no, yes it is... an inflatable woman crowd surfing. Believe me, the runaway pigs are nothing to the sight of a blow-up doll being carried through the crowd on someone's shoulders and then launched into the moshpits at the front of the stage. Apparently, there was an inflatable sheep going round as well, but I think - to prevent overheating - that my brain must have blocked it out of my memory.

A fax a couple of days later from the people responsible confirmed that the doll is part of their initiation ceremony for bands they like. If you get the doll, you're in. (What do they do for bands they don't like, apart from not turning up? Inflatable William Hagues? Blow-up Noel Edmonds?)

The 'Grass played a blinder, despite their keyboard amp blowing a fuse during the intro of "Going Out". We knew this because, as there was no room for the amp onstage, I was standing next to it in the backstage corridor. Honest, I never touched it. In the ensuing drama the band came off after "Caught By The Fuzz" and just as I started my link, there was drummer Danny piling through the door with an almight "F***". And you thought these things were pre-recorded?!



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