Damon Days

It takes something unique or embarrassingly personal for me to get excited about touring bands these days, but I’ll admit that getting tickets for the Gorillaz show at Rod Laver arena in December made me do a little happy dance. This has as much to do with me liking the Gorillaz as having an unexpected opportunity to see Damon Albarn live again for the first time in over a decade. Not getting to Blur’s once-in-a-lifetime 2009 reunion tour of the UK because we needed the money to buy our first house was sad but I appreciated the irony when they took the opportunity to put out a greatest hits compilation titled Midlife.

So my participation in Blur’s reunion was limited to watching the 2010 documentary No Distance Left to Run and accompanying DVD of their concert in London’s Hyde Park. Given that bits of that reduced me to tears it’s perhaps just as well we couldn’t get to England last year; I would only have shown Mrs Custard up. Again. Still, I was genuinely surprised at my emotional attachment to the coming back together of one of my favourite bands.

I’ve met no end of music fans that look down their noses at Blur (and Gorillaz) and laugh when I tout Albarn as my generation’s David Bowie. Too pop for the Wire crowd (remember Mogwai’s Blur: Are Shite t-shirts?) and not pop enough for the masses, Blur’s legacy is still up for grabs. Having relived (as much as one can through a DVD) some of their finest moments, I’m still convinced of Albarn’s legend-in-waiting status. As with Bowie, there’s no doubt Damon’s best work occurs in collaboration with others (Blur were mostly awful without Graham; Gorillaz always interesting though spectacular when working with Danger Mouse) but to me his collected outputs and successes over the past twenty years put him on a different level to most.

Yet belittling Damon Albarn has been a popular past time, in the UK at least, since August 1995. This was the nadir of the Battle of Britpop, the race between Blur's Country House and Oasis' Roll With It to the UK number 1 slot (yes, people really did care). Just weeks after Blur won that particular battle Oasis proceeded to win the war by selling several million copies of (What's The Story) Morning Glory and having Wonderwall become one of the biggest sing-a-long anthems of all time. Oasis’ unprecedented success effectively ended the era of indie as some kind of an alternative, leaving those of us hoping for more from Britpop than Ben Sherman Union Jack t-shirts and having to share our dancefloors with beered up wankers a little perplexed.

The idea of Blur as Oasis' equals, never mind betters, was quickly abandoned by a British press drunk on lad culture and keen to rub Damon’s nose in it. By his own admission a previously cocky Albarn took this hard (evidenced by this awkward interview with Chris Evans on TFI Friday just six months later or his grumpy appearances in 2003’s execrable Britpop documentary, Live Forever). Blur abandoned 1996 to Dadrock, The Prodigy and the Spice Girls and didn’t resurface until January 1997.

I remember the date because I was amongst 1500 people at Newcastle’s now demolished Mayfair to see their first English dates in promotion of the Blur album. A newspaper review i kept from that night decided ‘Blur are possibly the last band you’d expect to go all lo-fi and experimental on you’ which seemed a bit silly even at the time given their earlier recordings but its true I’ve never forgotten the joys of hearing a gleefully fucked up Beetlebum live that first time. Blur had written many fantastic songs before then but Beetlebum was the sound of a band ready to stop messing around and make something worth its 7 inches of vinyl.

Since then Albarn has thankfully remained unashamed of making intelligent, experimental and mostly lovable music. Without ever returning to Parklife-style sing-a-longs (not that there’s anything wrong with Parklife, but you know, been there done that) he has also - much like Bowie in his pomp - kept one eye on the charts. Rather than making album after limited appeal album for hardcore fans and navel gazers, Albarn has kept moving, finding new ways to share his abilities and enthusiasms with as big an audience as possible. In the eyes of the indier-than-thou fraternity it will never make him cool, but then it’s hard to imagine Bonnie Prince Billie writing anything as bizarre and joyous as Gorillaz’ kiddie-choir and dirty beat fest Dirty Harry. Whoo-fricken-hoo...

So, it may not be Blur and it may make me unhip to say so, but I for one am looking forward to saluting Albarn and his troupe of cartoon ragamuffins come December. His record is far from unblemished (Crazy Beat anyone? No, didn’t think so...) and modern life may still be rubbish, but as this year’s Plastic Beach showed, there’s always room for another Damon Albarn album in my collection.

Song Too... if you’ve read this far you’ve probably already got Blur’s more celebrated output. If not then grab yourself a copy of Midlife: A Beginner’s Guide which is a better prospect that their 2000 Best Of which is principally a truncated singles collection which criminally overlooks the Modern Life is Rubbish era. For anyone who fancies delving a little deeper here are some of my favourite (non-single) Blur and Albarn songs from the past 20 years. I’ve excluded the Good the Bad and the Queen (because it’s just all good) and also Gorillaz who deserve a whole section on their own, but I’ll quickly say Laika Come Home, the dub remix of their first album, is well worth a listen and there are few songs as pretty as Hong Kong...

• Girls and Boys - Pet Shop Boys remix (B-side of To the End) “always should be someone you want to faaaack” sang a reinvigorated Damon when Blur played their new single Girls and Boys on Channel 4’s the Word. The indie kids went mental, but it was the Pet Shop Boys day-glo remix that took Blur out of the student disco and into mainstream pubs and clubs across the land. Of its time, but their time...
• Advert (Modern Life is Rubbish album) “food processors are great” - a sure sign of a great band is when they have songs as good as Advert in their live set and still don’t release it as a single. A definite fan favourite (as shown by its inclusion on Midlife) because of its loud hailer-ed count to sixteen, subsequent insouciant dum-de-dum middle eight before Graham’s circling guitar riff crashed back in. Ace.
• The Wassailing Song (fan club only release) I don’t actually own this fan club only single take on a traditional Anglo-Saxon Christmas song, but love the way it was used during a segment about Glastonbury on the 1993 Blur documentary Starshaped in which Graham compares visiting Stone Henge as ‘a bit like going to see Morrissey.’
• Day Upon Day - Live (Blur: the Collector’s Edition album) ...another unreleased track (at least I don’t think there is a non-live version out there) best understood through Starshaped in which a immaculately attired though shit-faced Damon climbs the rigging at Glastonbury and pushes over a speaker only to see it fall over and nearly take his foot off but keep dancing anyway... a fantastic pogoing mess.
• This is a Low (Parklife album) – a song of unspeakable beauty and poignancy that I still haven’t figured out the secret to and hope I never will. Mostly about the British shipping forecast but I don’t think that’s why I cry every time. Ranks alongside Common People as Britpop’s finest hour. No greater praise.
• Ambulance (Think Tank) my least favourite Blur album but in Out of Time, Battery in Your Leg and Ambulance three of their finest moments with this being perhaps the least feted. A gently menacing bass, Angelo Badalamenti-synths, shuffling programmed drums and saxophone (bear with me!) all rendered beautiful by the romantic refrain of ‘I ain’t got nothing to be scared of cos I love you.’
• Trimm Trabb (13) buried deep within their ‘space-rock-opera’ 1999 album 13, Trimm Trabbchuggs along acoustically for a while with processed beats and Damon mocking ‘all those losers on the piss again’ before building into a crunching, soaring brother of the Beatles’Helter Skelter. Best experienced live
• Theme from an Imaginary Film (Parklife single b-side) sweeping waltzing music hall number that would sit comfortably (on its lazy arse) on the soundtrack to Oliver! From a time where it seemed like literally anything could appear on a Blur b-side.
• No Monsters in Me (The Universal b-side) just one in a line of short and sharp noisy Blur songs a la B.L.U.R.E.M.I, Chinese Bombs, We’ve Got a File on You etc but with a dollop of disco bass, a class Coxon riff and a silly la-la-la chorus it’s better than all of them
• All Your Life (Beetlebum b-side) the gorgeously produced, ambitious but understated sound of a fallen pop star looking in the mirror and facing up to a world he made for himself: ‘oh England my love you’ve tattooed your past all over me.’·
• Trailer Park (13) if 13 was the sound of Damon’s difficult split from Justine Frischmann it’s nice that he could smile enough to find someone silly to blame (‘I lost my girl to the Rolling Stones'’). More trip hop beats and the sound of a piano underwater create the backing but it’s Damon’s delivery that sticks in the memory
• Eine Kleine Lift Musik (Help! Warchild compilation) Blur’s contribution to the first Help album in 1995 is a rather lovely doo-wop inspired instrumental with an off key piano melody which sounds a bit like that song Donna and Maddy sing in Twin Peaks but without making you wanting to vomit. Not even in a little bit in your mouth.
• Oily Water (Modern Life is Rubbish) shimmering guitar, Damon with a megaphone and lolloping bass and crashing cymbals slowly spin and climb around you until the sound fills the room and you wonder just when did everything get so loud?
• Theme from Retro (Blur album) gothic and swirling Hammond organ-driven instrumental punctuated with echoey yells, cries and spooky ”whooo” sounds. Not good on acid.
• Jubilee (Parklife album) Parklife’s Advert – a perfect pop song that they just couldn’t be arsed to release as a single. Computer game noises and brass punctuate Blur’s answer to Beck’s Loser (‘he’s gone divvy, too much telly’) which, for many years I thought was about someone called Jessie with bad posture... It’s not.
• Entertain Me (The Great Escape album) the sound of Jubilee’s older funkier brother. Worth listening to for Alex James best bass line outside of Girls and Boys
• ‘Intermission’ (Modern Life is Rubbish album) frustratingly tagged on the end of Chemical World on the CD version of Modern Life is Rubbish making it difficult to cue up at indie discos, my friends and I used to take this along to the monthly rock nights in our shitty town and play it in between hair-metal bands to annoy the rock kids. We would spend its ever accelerating two minutes running in circles around the dance floor lifting our knees ever higher as the piano and drums got louder in our own version of Madness’ nutty boys dance. I wish I still had that energy.
• Death of a Party (Blur album) forever linked to the notion of Britpop’s end thanks to John Harris’ less than perfect account of the Britpop era Death of a Party was actually written in 1992, though I suspect with less of a trip hop beat. Reuses Theme from Retro’s swirling organ sound but it’s Coxon’s circling guitar riff and the pointed pause between ‘hang myself’ and ‘gently on the shelf’ that elevates this even higher.
• Inertia (There’s No Other Way b-side) sleepy shoegazer number curiously left off their debut album Leisure with Graham’s gently overdriven guitar and Alex’s languid bass creating a dreamy anti-There’s No Other Way.
• Closet Romantic (Trainspotting soundtrack) actually Damon on his own (Blur’s more celebrated Sing featured prominently on the Trainspotting soundtrack and was reclaimed by the band and fans as a result) but this simple Wurlitzer waltz sees Damon reeling off the names of various James Bond movies in tribute to the film’s Sick Boy character.
• Got Yer (B-side of To the End) another Damon piano waltz combining elements of Steptoe and Son with woozy guitar, jaunty whistles and a goose being shot dead.
• Don’t Bomb When You’re the Bomb (2002 vinyl only release) the squelchy bleeps and lack of song structure might have put some traditionalists off (a sign that Gorillaz were knocking on Albarn’s door) but I rather like its messy charms and the production on Damon’s voice when it emerges from the digital fog at 2:20 is still lovely.
• You're So Great (Blur album) I’m cheating here as this is a Graham Coxon song but if you’re digging around in Blur’s garden you should excavate this whilst you’re at it. A fuzzily recorded acoustic mess, but being completely broken never sounded so romantic.
• Trouble in the Message Centre (Parklife album) a deceptively ambitious song that recalls the Cars, the detached delivery of Gary Numan and the months of hell I spent bored in a call centre in Dublin. Graham’s guitar at 2:10 still makes my arm swing down in an air-strum despite myself and yet another example of Albarn’s ability with a la la la.
• Supa Shoppa (Parklife single b-side) yet more instrumental cheesy listening from Damon’s Hammond organ that makes you feel like you’re watching a British 1970’s sitcom.
• Caramel (13) – proof after ten years that actually there is another way. Organic and sprawling this is Blur at their loosest and most freeform, with Damon’s almost spoken lyrics echoed, chased and finally overtaken by his own choirboy falsetto. More Tortoise than the terraces, this is the moment Blur left the lager crowd behind for good.
• Music is My Radar (Single) as the only new material on their first Best of... this was meant to herald the sound of a new Blur for a new decade. Instead this raucous combination of melodica, disco-guitar and fuzzy bass and gibberish lyrics threatened to be their swansong (interesting fact/nerd alert: mentions Afrobeat legend Tony Allen who Damon would later work with on the Good, the Bad and the Queen).
• Strange News from Another Star (Blur album) there’s no escaping that this sounds like Blur’s take on Bowie’s Space Oddity but that doesn’t stop it being lush. Foreshadows the sound they would later perfect on 13 but has its own mournful soul.
• Fool’s Day (2010 single) ok, so I said no singles, but this is different because unless you were one of 1000 people to get hold of a vinyl copy on Record Store Day in April this year then you’ve probably just got the same free download I got from the blur.co.uk website which doesn’t count. A lovely return to action after 7 years apart with lyrics meandering between the mundane (‘porridge done, take my kid to school’) to the wryly sweet (‘consolidate the love we’ve had together on a cold day in springtime)’. The good news for Blur fans? “I’m definitely going to do a few more of those 7 inches” says Damon.

So there you go. Not definitive, probably not your choices either but feel free to share your own favourites either here in the comments on via mintcustard@gmail.com. Wotcha.

Disunited States

With two and a half weeks to polling day in Australia I have officially had enough of this general election. It’s hard to feel inspired when the best outcome to hope for is that Labor can somehow compress enough of their gaping wounds and haul their political corpse over the winning line without having haemorrhaged every last drop of credibility. This combined with the media’s pretence that they wouldn’t treat Julia Gillard any differently to other candidates for the top job whilst explaining that they just have to talk about her hair, clothes, accent, femininity and her unmarried, childless status has used up all my rage and now I just want it to end.

Still, when people look back at this election the big question they will ask is surely this: what idiot decided to suspend the ABC’s run of The United States of Tara for six weeks in favour of a Chaser Election Special and a referendum-related adaptation of Wil Anderson’s Gruen Transfer? I appreciate that Gillard’s decision to call an early election might have changed a few people’s priorities but did the ABC really need to go all Channel 7 and just turn it off mid-run? Well, apparently, yes. Ratings for the Chaser’s Yes-We-Canberra and Gruen Nation have been through the roof, which just goes to show that people get what they deserve and that I’ll never get a job at the ABC.

I suppose I’d mind less if either show were as inspired or intelligent as say The Colbert Report, whose US election highlights included host Stephen Colbert’s on-off-on again presidential campaign, recognition of the Colbert Bump as a genuine influence on public opinion and a beautifully childish three-way punch-up with Conan O’Brien and Jon Stewart over who ‘made’ Republican nominee Mike Huckabee. The Comedy Channel’s coverage of the Obama-McCain election as Indecision '08 (subtitled by The Daily Show as Clusterf@#k to the Whitehouse and by Colbert as Don’t F@#k This Up America) actually made the most historic election in US history even more enjoyable.

Lest we also forget Saturday Night Live and Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin tour de farce. It’s fair to say our Tina played as big a part in reinforcing the public’s view of the Alaskan Governor as a gun-toting simpleton as Spitting Image did in ensuring David Steel and David Owen would never be elected in the United Kingdom. If you’ve seen enough of Fey’s impressions check out this slice of genius by an eight-month’s pregnant Amy Poehler on SNL’s Weekend Update, with Palin clearly clueless about what she is condoning whilst trying to look cool on TV.

Elsewhere this year’s Alternative Election Night on Channel 4 in the UK sounded great in theory. I’ve no idea if it was (feel free to let me know) but just the idea of Charlie Brooker, David Mitchell and Lauren Laverne on a show together excites me more than watching the past-their-best Chaser boys asking Julie Bishop to stare out a gnome.

So because I miss it already, and in the absence of anything better (Micallef, please stop messing around with Talkin' About Your Generation and use that brain for something important...) and because the ABC dropped their end of the bargain it looks like I'm going to have to take up my friend's offer from earlier this year of a downloaded copy of the United States of Tara. Sorry ABC; you can't say I didn't try. Your turn now...

Hendricks: Electric Lady, And...

So Mad Men Season 4 is upon us and thanks to a fellow enthusiast I have a copy of episode 1 in my elegantly manicured hands, ready to watch this weekend. Free-to-air episodes stalled before Season 2 in Australia so there is unlikely to be much brouhaha around these parts about the comings and goings at Sterling Cooper (and now Draper Pryce). Still this hasn’t stopped those opportunists at Fairfax Media cashing in on the imagery of the show to sell their own tatty wares.

January Jones’ sculpted features can be found illustrating a syndicated but slightly pointless article about Mad Men on the Age website today. This is a slight improvement on the weekend when her face was used on the same website next to a random article about beauty products. Still this is small fry compared to the way that dear Joanie (actress Christina Hendricks) has been misappropriated by Fairfax of late.

Not only did the Age perpetuate a magnificently pointless story from the UK about an MP citing Hendricks as a “fabulous role model” for young women (way to go politician…replace unrealistic female body shape aspirations with… more unrealistic ideas of perfection!) they used it as an excuse to show yet another photo montage of actress Hendricks and the Mad Men crew (in case you missed this one or this one or don’t understand Google Images).

Sex sells of course, and Mad Men is sexy as all hell, but I’m sure that as the actress portraying one of modern television’s best characters you’d hope to be known for more than having a pair of breasts. Best not to read this piece then, taken from Fairfax’ vapid waste of trees: the Sunday Life magazine.

For people who actually care about Mad Men dear Joan is a mess of contradictions; an independent free spirit who gives up being wined and dined for the practical securities of marriage because she sees her shelf life running out; a dedicated wife who stands by her man even after he rapes her and bungles up their financial future; someone savvy enough to command the middle ground between the typing pool and the ‘professionals’ and be simultaneously in both and neither world; a woman significantly smarter than the men she serves and whose secrets she protects, but who never gets the chance to be more than ‘Red’ – a bosom and bottom constantly tying to escape out of her sculpted dresses. Quite some undertaking for any actor.

Yet to Sunday Life Ms Hendricks is ‘voluptuous’, ‘curvy’ and proof that ‘women’s breasts are larger than ever!’ How do we know this? The average bra size in Australia is ‘six to seven sizes up in a comparatively few number of years’ according to the general manager of Berlei, who are coincidentally about to launch a new “super-sized” (their words, way to go challenging those stereotypes Fairfax) range of bras.

Aside from the obvious fact that this expanding collective Australian bosom might be in some way related to the fact that people are on average much fatter these days (buried deep in the article as an inconvenience), I’m not sure what poor Christina Hendricks has to do with any of it. Despite her face and boobs featuring on the front page of the magazine, filling another full page inside and once appearing once again on the front page of the paper proper the article restricts her involvement to half a paragraph out of 32 others. Perhaps they realised after getting the rights for the pictures that her marvellous but actually rather average sized 36C boobs didn’t quite support their tenuous point. Or perhaps they just put her on the cover of Sunday Life without having a reason because it sold lots of papers when they did it before last January…

Just to be clear, I think that Christina Hendricks is beautiful. I definitely would. If I was a woman I’m sure I’d be very happy to look like her. And maybe I still would. I understand why her image is used in countless magazines and newspapers, known to millions around the world who have no idea what Mad Men is. I just think that both Christina Hendricks and Joan (created and lovingly written by Mad Men head honcho Matthew Wiener) offer more to talk about than boobs. Splendorous they may be – Hendricks and the crew demonstrate how much they understand that with every filmed wiggle and pointy bra Joan wears – but Mad Men is more than high class Benny Hill.

Need proof? Check out A Night to Remember (Season 2, Episode 8) in which Joan helps bring some new work into Sterling Cooper by reading TV scripts. She is rewarded by seeing the new position created to manage the work handed to an inexperienced young male graduate. The show ends with a shot of Joan undressing at home, tenderly rubbing the indents in her shoulders where her bra straps have cut into her. A fabulous role model? Absolutely. But for many more reasons than the Age can be bothered to think of.

Oh and for anyone who arrived here by typing Christina Hendricks Breasts into Google and hoping for something a little less earnest, sorry about that. Maybe do some good while you're here...

Ours Not to Question Why

'Thou shalt not question Stephen Fry' said Dan Le Sac in his 2007 bleepy electro-sermon Thou Shalt Not Kill. Quite right, nodded listeners across the land in earnest agreement; quite right sir. Question Stephen Fry? The Stephen Fry? Encyclopeadius Stephenus? The Lord of the Twitterverse? Why sir the very idea is preposterous. It simply will not do. Of course one should not question Stephen Fry. He sir, is Poppins-esque; practically perfect in every way...

So it was and so it continues to be. Quite when one Stephen John Fry stopped being just another Blackadder alumnus, Hugh Lawrie's comedic other half and that bloke who ran away to Belgium and became the Lord Privy Seal of gently pompous mirth and sardonic wit and Knower Of All Things is hard to gauge, especially from here in Australia. Yet there is no doubt that right now in 2010 he occupies a unique space in public life - a unilateral kind of critical and popular adulation enjoyed by perhaps only Jarvis Cocker, Brian Clough, Terry Wogan and John Peel.

Fry's deification is all the more remarkable in Britain because unlike Jarv, El Tel, Cloughie and Peel dear, darling Stephen is resolutely, irredeemably and slightly apologetically posh. Articulate, verbose and unashamedly intelligent he speaks as though he has a whole plum duff in his mouth and is ever so gently pompous. This is enough to get you stabbed in many parts of Britain, yet even a cursory glance at the internets shows that there are at least eight online campaigns for Fry to be elected UK Prime Minister. If people could be granted keys to an entire country then Stephen Fry would be in need of a very large novelty key ring.

“I stooped to pick a buttercup… why people leave buttocks lying around, I have no idea”

And the rest of the world? Well even the afternoon spent in his company at the beautiful Regent Theatre in Collins Street yesterday only happened because several ute-loads of Australian fans twittered and blogged and pestered their hero into submission after his announcement of Sydney-only shows. A Melbourne date was quickly added and when tickets sold out they chucked in a matinee just to meet demand. The room was still full - not bad for a man who started his own show by admitting he isn't a stand up and doesn't have an act.

Advertised as A Talk with Stephen Fry our session with his Royal Fryness feels more impressive in retrospect than it was at the time. Speaking unaccompanied for over two hours straight without ever losing his way, being boring or losing any of his lustre was quite some feat. I say in retrospect because at the time I think I was lost in some kind of pleasant hypnosis, quite unaware of just what a nice time I was having until Stephen said he'd better wrap up soon to appreciate just how effortlessly good it was. I remember thinking 'oh what a shame, please, do go on... '

So what does everyone's favourite clever person talk about for two hours? Well, himself of course. From woe to go we were regaled with anecdotes about the formative incidents in his life, and in particular his childhood and adolescence when he was apparently 'an evil little bastard.' Stories of public school life and beatings, regular suspensions and expulsions and his eventual arrest and imprisonment for credit card fraud by the age of 17 will be familiar to anyone who has read his novel The Liar or autobiography Moab is my Washpot. Still these tales only gain in the retelling, particularly because of the perspective and self-realisation the adult Fry now has.

Much of the show is spent working through an invisible wish list of Fry topics including his spell at Cambridge University Footlights, working with Lawrie, his love (and portrayal) of Oscar Wilde, technology (a white iPhone 4 is proudly revealed), Tw*tter and his struggles with bi-polar disorder. This latter topic is still clearly difficult for Fry and even he can find little in it to laugh about it, even amongst such an understanding and partisan crowd (he does a rather better job in the TV special The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive). Interestingly I think people understand it's a big part of what makes him who he is more than he realises, but it makes sense that it's painful in the eye of the storm. Still, eternal credit for honesty and trying to explain why.

I suspect that this quality is a big part of what people love about Stephen Fry and why he is currently so popular. His intelligence, wit and charm make him admired, but his self awareness and honesty make him loved. Rather than being the latest in a long line of brilliant but impenetrable English comics - Sellers, Milligan, Morecambe, Williams, Cooper - people like Stephen Fry because feel that they know Stephen Fry. In an age of self-help and analysis, reality television confessions and tabloid exposes, people see Fry as someone who has seen it all, come out the other side, can tell us some of it was a bit shit and then make a joke about it using the word floccinaucinihilipilification... en Francais. Frankly, what's not to love about that? He may not be the messiah, and he was certainly a very naughty boy but if a little charm gets you a long way yesterday showed why Stephen Fry is so far ahead of the rest.