Slightly Askew

Spine-tingling.

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Occasionally, a video makes a song better.

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Yes, yes.  I know we’ve spoken about The Courteeners before, but some bands are worth the effort.

St Jude has been looping on the Creative Zen for quite some time.  (I have the heavyweight 12″ vinyl too, darlings.)

And it’s brilliant.  Quite breathtakingly brilliant.

Not in the way that post-OK Computer Radiohead albums are brilliant.  No, definitely not.  With those Radiohead albums, you listen to them a few times, can’t decide whether they’re awful or not, and go with the trend (In Rainbows = brilliant, Hail to the Thief = poo poo).

No, St Jude is a much brillianter brilliant.  Like putting Bucks Fizz on your Rice Krispies.

Okay, so there’s a fourteen-year problem with this idea, but it’s almost as if the Oasis classic Rock’n'Roll Star was written about listening to this album.  There’s a swagger.  A real swagger.  Not a Twang swagger.

Idiots will tell you that

the lyrics are a bit like the Arctic Monkeys

but ignore them.  They know nothing.  Bands did write songs about real life before the Arctic Monkeys came along: Pulp’s Common People being the most perfect example.

So frontman Liam Fray bites…

Just because my newspaper pages havent been the Times in ages: does that mean that i don’t know as much as you?

No you didn’t, no you don’t

…amuses…

The mothers take a shine to you; that’s not the case with the dads.

How come

…and stirs the soul:

Come sing your heart out with me.

Bide your time

And all this through about five-and-a-half guitar chords.

But songs have always been more important than fancy musicianship.  Which, incidentally, is why you’ll always look a dick playing air guitar. 

So expect to read reviews about how it sounds like Babyshambles (it does, but with more guts and conviction) or The View (just no, fuck off now).  Expect the Manchester cliches and the “he’s called Liam” bullshit.  Expect the cynics.

And just be thankful.

Thankful that, every now and then, we do get the bands we deserve.

Roll on Shepherds Bush.

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Eternal thanks to Jenny O for this.

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The Kooks didn’t used to be huge, you know.  There was a time when Luke Pritchard and his merry men were another mop-top bunch of chancers, competing for girls’ hearts and boys’ respect.  They certainly weren’t the indie-pop enormogroup they are today.

And then something weird happened.  Naive, the group’s fourth single (they released six from the debut album Inside In / Inside Out) got under the skin of everybody with a pair of functioning ears.  Radio One’s breakfast show was dropped, and instead they played the single sixty-two times, back-to-back, five days a week (or was that just me?).

Brighton had spawned a monster.  And that monster has returned.

Always where I need to be is the comeback single we always expected it to be (arp).  Sure, it’ll do-do-do-do your head in (double arp) e-ven-tu-ally (triple arp - that’s it, promise), but you can’t help but feel that Summer’s chomping at the bit after hearing this.

Sure, the goths will hate it for being cheerful.  And the emos will hate it for being cheerful.  And Jeremy Clarkson will hate it for being cheerful.  And that’s just bloody wonderful by me.  Buy it.  Buy ten.  Download it illegally to annoy Metallica too.  It’s a crazy life.

I’ve no idea when the single is out, but it presumably precedes the album - Konk - which is released on 14 April (incidentally, the best day of the year.  Somebody very special was born.)

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There was a time when pop was a dirty word - it was a vehicle to steal the pocket-money of gullible teenagers.  In recent years, however, we’ve been spoilt for choice.  From Busted to Girls Aloud and, more recently, Robyn, pop has bucked its ideas up and delivered us with the tunes that we crave so dearly.

There has also been many a time when a smug comedian has taken a pop at Ipswich.  Okay, so this part of the world hasn’t delivered much over the past few years - aside from a mass murderer, some bird flu, and a spot of blue tongue - but maybe things are on the up.

I used to live on a crossroad.  I didn’t know much about my neighbourhood, but I did know there was a gentle boy called James Severy who lived on the diagonal corner to me.  I didn’t know much of him either, to be honest, but I think me, and you, will be finding out a lot more about him this year.

Do The Circus Circus and other songs was released on Monday through the indie label Art Goes Pop.  After one spin of the three songs on the 7-inch, I’m hooked.  Anyone that can drop Las Vegas and amyl nitrates into a drooled rhyme has my attention.  Anyone that can write proper pop songs has my respect.  And anyone that crams three of the fuckers onto one piece of vinyl is getting my money.

It’s annoying that the A-side plays at 45rpm and B at 33rpm, but you’ll get used to changing the speeds because it’ll be in your record player for quite some time.

Proper pop music, from Ipswich.  Who’d have thought it?

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Sat at a sticky table in The Man On The Moon with a pint of Strongbow, I brought up The Courteeners with my good friend Magic.

Nah mate.  Sounds like The Libertines.  Same old, same old.

“Bollocks”, I said.

 I’m old enough to remember when people used to say a similar thing about any guitar band that broke into the charts after October 1995:

Nah mate.  Sounds like Oasis.  Same old, same old.

“Bollocks”, I said.

The problem is, people don’t know a good thing when they hear it.  If we opened up to suggestions half as quickly as we dismissed them, we may find ourselves with a better gene pool.

Thankfully, The Courteeners jump out of the musical gene pool like a salmon dancing to a bizarre R’n'B track.  In a good way.

What Took You So Long is a glorious indie track.  One of those songs that will instantly put you in the mood to go drinking with your mates, and the same song will snap you out of your hangover with a cheeky smile.  All rolling drums and picky guitars; you can’t help but flag it down and climb aboard.

“Sometimes I’m bad and sometimes I’m rotten and sometimes I say things I probably should’ve forgotten…”

Liam Fray (a great rock’n'roll name methinks) ignites our soul with some manc garble about Morrissey and queues in the Post Office.  He’s so self-assured, he even gives a nod to transport enthusiasts - mentioning a “double-decker stagecoach”.  And indeed we all do go “woh oh, oh oh oh oh”.

Now lads, hurry up with that album.

Fast forward five years to a stickier table, and another pint of Strongbow.

Nah mate.  Sounds like The Courteeners.  Same old, same old.

“Bollocks”, I’ll say.

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