Slightly Askew

I haven’t posted for a while; naughty me.

Okay, so by now you’ll have probably heard this delightful little ditty by Noah and The Whale. It’s called Five Years Time.

Amusingly, the plebs at Censorship Central (I don’t if such a place exists, but I’m happy to go with it if you are…) have decided that the following lyric is far too disturbing:

It was fun fun fun when we were drinking;
and it was fun fun fun when we were drunk.

So on NME TV, the words drinking and drunk get that silly reverse treatment - saving our kids from such a disgraceful sentiment.

Shame on you Noah. And your whale.

And not just for your alcoholic tomfoolery, but also for your apostrophe omission.

Surely it should be Five Years’ Time.

The logic being that we don’t say one week time, we say one week’s time (and there has to be an apostrophe in this because one weeks doesn’t make any sense).

So, similarly, the apostrophe must also be used for the plural, i.e. five years’ time.

But even Hollywood gets it wrong.

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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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