Pete Doherty's junkie joke?

(Morning Star, Saturday 12 November 2005)

ALBUM: Babyshambles - Down in Albion
(Rough Trade)

THE travelling circus of Pete Doherty and his band of merry men is something to behold. The true essence of punk, they thrash out their anthems for doomed youth with the passion and fervour of the hopeless and looking every bit the urchins.

Playing live, Babyshambles really are a sight - vivacious and thrilling - and the enjoyment of the crowd is evident.

But not so on record. The name "shambles" has never been more appropriate.

The band shuffle into the studio and make a few grunts into the mic, hoping that this constitutes a proper, grown-up album, but they didn't bet on one thing - the expectations for this, the new project from a founding member of one of Britain's most important bands of the last decade, are way too high for the boys to be able to get away with this kind of shiftless, amateur work.

The singles from Down in Albion, Fuck Forever and Killamangiro showcase the work of a much better band, one lurking just beneath the layers of apathy and self-absorption.

But, instead of fulfilling this early promise, this album reeks of "that'll do" and, between the dull The 32nd of December and tremendously tacky Pipedown - as in "put the pipe down" - Doherty's reggae ode to Pentonville prison is a desperate attempt to add credibility.

As the first recorded long-playing effort from Babyshambles, Down in Albion is nothing more than a junkie joke. And Doherty, inevitably, is the punchline.

A long way

(Morning Star, Saturday 22 October 2005)

ALBUM: Depeche Mode - Playing the Angel
(Mute)

THE ethereal world of Depeche Mode is an interesting place for sure.

Dave Gahan seems to think that he's some kind of messiah and is clearly delighted that he has had the honour of his own acquaintance.

The appearance of the word "angel" all over this record - their first in four years - lends credence to the fact that Gahan reckons that he's a wee bit spiritual - and as far as pomposity goes, it's clear that the Mode still have it in spades.

But, for a band who started out with a definitively 1980s electronic-cheese reputation, they've come a long way.

Their gothic electronica is once again "in" and their trademark dourness seems to compress the misery that many of us feel about modern life and hand it back to us on a platter.

The first half of Playing the Angel is packed with a raft of impressive would-be singles, including the wonderful opener A Pain that I'm Used To and The Sinner in Me, while single Precious attempts the lyrically unthinkable - rhyming damaged with manage - but makes it all work regardless.

Although the tunes drop off noticeably in the second half, the intensity is still there and it rings as true as on any of the band's previous best work.

Depeche Mode had better watch out, they're approaching their 20th release and they've never sounded so fashionable.

I'll go to jail... But not Iraq

(The Sun, 17 October, 2005)
Court martial for RAF ace

A Scots RAF officer faces being jailed for refusing to return to Iraq because he believes that the war there is illegal.
Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith is to become the first British office court-martialled for refusing to serve in the conflict.
Proceedings against the highly-decorated officer for 'refusing to obey a lawful command' are due to begin this year.
Last night a pal of the 37-year-old unit medical officer for RAF Kinloss in Merseyside revealed, "He takes the view this is worth going to prison for."
Spirit
The friend added, "Malcolm joined the RAF out of a spirit of idealism. It was good old Battle of Britain stuff - helping the good guys fight the fascists.
"When he first went to the Gulf in 2003, his awareness of the legal position was far less than it is now. He is now ion no doubt that the war is illegal."
Kendall-Smith - decorated for two previous tours in Iraq - was suspended on full pay of around £40,000 a year after being quizzed by Royal Military Police in June. He was charged on October 5.
The defence case Kendall-Smith is putting together is set to hinge on the RAF law that a serving officer is justified in refusing to obey a command if it is illegal.
Lawyers will argue his commission requires him to act under 'the rules and discipline of war'.
International experts insist that there was no legal backing for the invasion of Iraq, launched before the United Nations passed a second resolution approving force.
Under military rules, Kendall-Smith cannot comment.
His lawyer, Justin Hugheston-Roberts, said, "This is the first case of its kind involving Iraq."
The Ministry of Defence confirmed, "An RAF officer is due to appear before a general court martial."

Franz's plan

(Morning Star, Saturday 15 October 2005)

ALBUM: Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better
(Domino)

UNIQUE music is a rarity these days.

Everyone sounds like everyone else, blurring genre barriers and baffling music fans until there's no way to tell who's the rocker-turned-rapper and who's the pop star-turned-chanteuse.

Franz Ferdinand are hardly unique in history - their jagged guitar stabs and skinny ties owe more than a little to the new wave bands of the 1970s - but, in the here and now, they're one in a million.

First single Do You Want To - sounding unfeasibly like Don't Bring Me Down by ELO - recycles the winning formula of Take Me Out, welding two different songs together, but it works to bring listeners with them through an album that's much heavier and certainly more adventurous than their 2004 debut.

The noisy cartoon swagger of This Boy shows that Franz have balls aplenty, while slower tracks such as Eleanor Put Your Boots On are not out of place either. The standout has to be Evil and a Heathen, an unapologetically punchy blast of pure punk.

It seemed as if Franz Ferdinand's trick was to capture the zeitgeist. By adopting an angular Krautrock style when guitar music as a whole was moving in just that direction.

But the more you listen to this, the more it seems that Franz themselves set the template all along - and we are just their slavish style servants.

Doherty washes off tabloid dirt

(Morning Star, Saturday 01 October 2005)

LIVE: Babyshambles, Fat Sam's, Dundee

THE circus of Pete Doherty rumbles on. Even people who don't care about him, his missus or the drugs are bombarded with it every second from every angle.

The packed crowd in Fat Sam's would be easy to put down to that media saturation and people are certainly animated before the band come on, presumably because they want to be ready to dodge the Doherty vomit, although many from the previous night's gig in Aberdeen were not so agile.

So the band come on. It's not the second coming and there isn't an aura emanating from this skinny young whippersnapper in a striped jumper. Quite the opposite, as, with his hair plastered with sweat to his pasty brow, Doherty looks, for all the world, like a centre half in a junior school six-a-side.

Opening with Do You Know Me? his demeanour seems defiant. He sings: "I don't think so" in response to the titular question, determined to perform the music that he loves and journos be damned.

The idea that the crowd are just morbidly fascinated with the tabloid tale is quickly dismissed, as voices raise all around to join the singer in a raft of rocky, as yet unreleased material.

The fans start up with the well-known "ooohh ooohh ooohh," before the band launch into Killamangiro, but, shortly afterwards, a power cut stops the music short.

Gradually coming back in with bassist Drew McConnell pounding out the Rapper's Delight bassline is genius and the audience, predictably, love it.

That's probably the biggest shock. As this thin, shaggy-haired youth spins around onstage, hitting himself on the head with the microphone, the band actually seem much more together than their last gig in Dundee a mere 12 months ago.

The songs are tight, the crowd go mad for recent single Fuck Forever and there is a genuine mutual affection bubbling under all the raucousness.

Earlier in the day, Doherty told an interviewer: "It's exciting to be doing at last the thing we do best, well, the only thing we do really, which is play our tunes."

A quote which sounds for all the world like rock star rhetoric turns out to be truer than 100 tabloid column inches.

Babyshambles are a confirmed musical success and that's before they've even released their first record.

Misty's big bang

(Morning Star, Saturday 24 September 2005)

Interview: GRANDMASTER GARETH of Misty's Big Adventure talks to KIRSTIE MAY about life in Birmingham's most eccentric band.

Misty's Big Adventure are a band apart from the herd. Hailing from Birmingham, the nine-piece multi-instrumental outfit are something approaching a religion for their fans, crazed swathes of whom have been packing out the shows on Misty's latest tour across Britain.

But it wasn't always this hectic. In the beginning, there was only Grandmaster Gareth - and his was the word.

"It started as three of us when we were 15, in 1996. The songwriting's always been a friendly dictatorship," Gareth smiles.

"When you've got a lot of people in a band, if everyone was writing and contributing, it would just be a mess. You need someone to cement it all together."

And who better to keep the whole unruly batch in check than the man with the plan?

"We got to nine members. We have an occasional DJ, but he has a baby, so there's an eight-piece band that does the regular tour.

"Everyone has their own input as I write, thinking of how they'd play it and their style of playing and what kind of music they're into because obviously everyone has their own individual tastes."

Now that the band's second album The Black Hole has hit the shops, Gareth's messianic routine is gaining momentum.

But, if this is their first proper record documenting life in King's Heath, will that make their next work the archetypally difficult second album?

"No, I try to work an album ahead, so I'm on the third album at the moment," he laughs.

With the band spending so much of their formative years steeped in the Birmingham scene, they have, inevitably, adopted some local heroes from the Midlands.

"We don't get to see as much as I'd like nowadays as we're often off on tour, but I still get to see some. Pram are my favourite. There's an amazing one-man band spectacular called Bom and his Magic Drumstick.

"He's very political but very surreal at the same time and he's a spectacle to be seen."

And a spectacle is precisely what Misty's are to their converts, with reviews from their past raving about them being "an utterly eccentric dollop of smile-inducing fun." So, naturally, the musical support of such an inventive lot would have to be pretty special. Any stand-out mentions?

"My favourite's been Jeff Lewis. He's from New York, he's a comic book artist but he's also involved in a genre called anti-folk," Gareth enthuses, referring to a style of music that's been popularised by ex-Moldy Peach Adam Green.
But Gareth's in no doubt as to the real star of the scene.

"In my opinion, Jeff's a better Adam Green. His lyrics are totally amazing, he's the best lyricist around, really."

So who else pads out his listening pleasures? "Locally, we met up with the Retro Spankies from Northampton - they've been supporting us on a few dates. They're just fun, they couldn't be more fun," he gushes.

"My influences are pretty much all over the shop. My taste goes right back. I like 1930s jazz, there's a lot of jazz that I listen to, a lot of '60s guitar pop and weird psychedelic music and then there's hip hop, so it is just a hotch potch of stuff."

A pick'n'mix indeed - but these figures pale into insignificance when talk turns to Gareth's true musical icon.

"I'd love to work with Julian Cope, because I got into him when I was about 10 and I've been a fan ever since."

Can Gareth report any response to these professional advances?

"I did actually meet him last year. I got to have a cup of tea with him, so that was really cool.

"But I haven't broached the subject of collaboration with him. I'm gonna send him the album and see if he likes it."

With such eclectic tastes, will Misty's ever be able to play in rock's big league? Could they ever tour with someone really boring, like Coldplay?

"Maybe if the rider was good." Couple of beers and you're anyone's?

"Well, more like a sausage sandwich," he corrects with a grin.

"The food more than the drink, probably."

Misty's Big Adventure may give the rock'n'roll lifestyle a miss, but, with their Cope fan worship and oversubscribed tourbus, they're truly one of a kind.

George & Jane's anti-war crusade

(The Mirror, 5 September 2005)

HOLLYWOOD legend Jane Fonda is to join Scots MP George Galloway on an anti-war tour of the US.

The 67-year-old actress had been planning her own campaign against the ...

Introducing...

(Morning Star, Saturday 03 September 2005)

IN PROFILE: Trashcan Sinatras

IT APPEARS as if the tide has turned for the regions in Britain.

No more does the average newsreader, presenter or radio personality have to use the clipped tones of RP - meaning that, on the one hand, we have to put up with the annoyance of Lynda Barker and Vernon Kaye polluting the airwaves but also that bands from the provinces get to truly unmask themselves in all their glory, to commit to their territorial vagaries and make their stamp their own way.

For all of which evolution the Trashcan Sinatras must be thankful, as their innate Scottishness makes this Glasgow quintet one of the most engaging, genuine bands around.

In their voices, in their inventiveness and in their hearts, they carry the love of Caledonia around the world with them - and, specifically, as with new album Fez, to New York.

Fez is made up of songs from previous albums, all recorded over two nights last December in the Fez Club while on an acoustic tour of the US.

The songs that were originally electric have not lost anything - quite the opposite.

The gentle acoustic sound gives the Trashcans a warmer, more intense feel and seems somehow imbibed with the very spirit of Christmas.

Sublime representations of tracks like Weightlifting and Got Carried Away show a band who have grown comfortable with their sound over more than a decade performing together.

This richness of experience and their gently winsome nature combine to make a live album for everyone, full to bursting with Scottish sparkle and guilelessness.

True Love Ways - interview with Buddy Holly's widow

(My Weekly magazine, 27 August 2005)

Leeds trio flops at the Fringe

(Morning Star, Saturday 27 August 2005)

LIVE: The Cribs, Liquid Rooms, Edinburgh

THE problem with going to any show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is that expectations are always high.

Even though an inordinate percentage of shows will see you sitting in a hall with two other people watching a Jimmy Carr wannabe, cringing through his set of bad jokes and wondering if you'll inadvertently become part of the act if you stand up to leave, there are times when the talent is so rich and vibrant that it doesn't matter if there are four other people or 404 - the good time is had by all.

The Cribs are a trio from Leeds with a nice line in hype and a disappointing quantity of tunes.

The main point of their current live shows is obviously to flog copies of their recently released debut album, The New Fellas.

After all, you don't know a band's mettle until you've seen them live and there are plenty of punters with hard-earned cash burning a hole in their pockets, eager to have something to cling to.

All of this is a rather unwieldy preamble to the disappointment of the Cribs' live show.

If the idea of a successful Fringe is quality, the Cribs don't stand a chance.

They're sloppy, tuneless and their childlike enthusiasm only makes it worse - like they think that they're really getting it. They're not.

There may be people in the crowd who will invest in The Cribs' recorded material off the back of this show, but, really, they should know better.