Crazed Teacups

Noel's Last Blog Post

29/08/09

Dearly beloved, it is with a heavy heart and a sad face that I say this to you this morning.
 
As of last Friday the 28th August, I have been forced to leave the Manchester rock'n'roll pop group Oasis.
 
The details are not important and of too great a number to list. But I feel you have the right to know that the level of verbal and violent intimidation towards me, my family, friends and comrades has become intolerable. And the lack of support and understanding from my management and band mates has left me with no other option than to get me cape and seek pastures new.
 
I would like firstly to offer my apologies to them kids in Paris who'd paid money and waited all day to see us only to be let down AGAIN by the band. Apologies are probably not enough, I know, but I'm afraid it's all I've got.
 
While I'm on the subject, I'd like to say to the good people of V Festival that experienced the same thing. Again, I can only apologise - although I don't know why, it was nothing to do with me. I was match fit and ready to be brilliant. Alas, other people in the group weren't up to it.

In closing I would like to thank all the Oasis fans, all over the world. The last 18 years have been truly, truly amazing (and I hate that word, but today is the one time I'll deem it appropriate). A dream come true. I take with me glorious memories.

Now, if you'll excuse me I have a family and a football team to indulge.
 
I'll see you somewhere down the road. It's been a fuckin' pleasure.
 
Thanks very much.
 
Goodbye.
 
NG.

RIP Oasis

Noel Gallagher has officially left Oasis.  Oasis' website has totally crashed, so I haven't been able to see his statement, but it sounds like Liam finally pushed him too far.  I'm a little sad, but I'm surprised he could stand it as long as he has.  I'm also happy for Noel, and looking forward to whatever he decides to do next.

UPDATE: From Oasisinet.com:

A STATEMENT FROM NOEL

28 August 2009

"It's with some sadness and great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight. People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer.

"Apologies to all the people who bought tickets for the shows in Paris, Konstanz and Milan."

Perhaps I'll Get on at George Martin and Get off at Oasis

This is just about the coolest thing I've ever seen: the history of 20th century music, charted on the London Underground map. As Information Aesthetics describes it: "Train lines denote different music styles (e.g. pop.soul, reggae) & are directional according to time, branch lines represent sub-genres (e.g. rock divides into grunge & psychedelia). Stations represent music artists, so that key stations naturally are linked to the most eclectic artists." It's certainly Brit-centric (Finley Quaye? Really?), but it's still relevant even if you've never heard of, say, Basement Jaxx.

You can view the entire map, in pdf form, here. You can also read the artist/journalist's story about making the map here.

Tough Love

I bought 2 new CDs last week, courtesy of amazon.co.uk. One is Down in Albion by Babyshambles (aka Pete Doherty's new band), and the other is from the Under the Influence series, in which musicians pick the songs that influenced them the most. This one is by Carl Barat, Pete Doherty's one-time bandmate from The Libertines, and features some killer songs by Pulp, Small Faces, The Jam, The Clash, NY Dolls, Supergrass and more.

Carl Barat's Under the Influence is the greatest mix CD that no one ever made me, filled with songs from bands I love and bands I've always wanted to hear, and putting old songs in new contexts. It tells its own story, too, particularly when it goes from the Moldy Peaches' very lo-fi "Who's Got the Crack?", a celebratory song about the deadliest drug, right into Pulp's "Sorted for E's and Whizz", which starts off as a cheerful, buoyant ode to ecstasy- and speed-filled raves that quickly erodes into something chilling:

I lost my friends I dance alone, it's 6 o'clock, I wanna go home

But it's no way not today, makes you wonder what it meant

And this hollow feeling grows and grows and grows and grows

And you wanna call your mother and say, "Mother,

I can never come home again because I seem to have left

an important part of my brain somewhere in a field in Hampshire."

Listening to Under the Influence gives me hope that Carl Barat has gotten his act together in a way that Pete Doherty clearly has not. And hearing the first song from Barat's new band, Dirty Pretty Things, gives me further hope that maybe the spirit of The Libertines is not totally dead.

Down in Albion, Doherty's Babyshambles CD, is a difficult listening experience because I can hear a real gem in almost every song, but each song is twice as long as it should be and has none of the tightness of The Libertines CDs. Down in Albion is still good, but it's like being on a train where a great view keeps getting obscured by passing trees and houses: rather than appreciate the glimpses of beauty you do get, you feel anger and frustration at being denied the full experience, which seems so close at hand. I keep wanting to scream, "Put down the pipe and focus!"

Of course, Pete Doherty's well-documented drug problems are more serious than just putting out some mediocre songs, but if he's only going to get more famous, and enjoy more success, and begin dating Kate Moss, all while he's, ahem, under the influence, then why on earth would he stop? From his point of view, he probably thinks it's working out just fine. I almost wonder if real fans should stop buying his music altogether - if we denied him an audience, would he feel forced to change his habits? Because I can't imagine him being unable to make music - that would take away something that hurts. That would be tough love.

I also just bought the new Tom Vek CD, which sounds a bit like The Killers crossed with Beck and was made in his parents' garage. It's interesting, but I'm not quite hooked yet, so I'll give it a few more good listens.

In the meantime, here's my decidedly more mainstream top 10 from my iPod:

1. I Love New York - Madonna
2. Sorry - Madonna
3. Hung Up - Madonna
4. The Meaning of Soul - Oasis
5. Push - Madonna
6. Evil and a Heathen - Franz Ferdinand
7. Get Together - Madonna
8. Jump - Madonna
9. Love Like a Bomb - Oasis
10. Spoons - Mali Music
(Mali Music is Damon Albarn's foray into African music (no, wait - come back!), and actually has a few great songs on it. Brian and I often wonder why it is that we have very little affection for Blur, and yet find his non-Blur work (Gorillaz!) to be some of the most creative, interesting and inspiring music going.)

November Q

What I learned in the November issue of Q, a British music magaine:

- $572 is how much former "INXS frontman Michael Hutchence had in his band account at the time of his death, according to his family."

- Remember Madness ("Our house, in the middle of our street" - that Madness)? They had 20 top 20 singles in a row in England. (I'm assuming that was in the 80s.)

- Film director Guy Ritchie (aka Mr. Madonna) said, "Do I listen to the wife's music? Do I have a choice? I'm not your typical Madonna fan, but I like to think she values my opinion - although I'm not sure she does."

- Nick Mason, drummer for Pink Floyd, holds the record for baking the world's biggest crumpet. The record was devised as a way of promoting the AeroSuperBatics, "Europe's only professional wing-walking team", a team that was sponsored by a margarine company. Mason was a part-owner of the private airfield that was the HQ for the AeroSuperBatics, and added flour and stirred the batter throughout the day. The batter was mixed onsite in 201 plastic buckets.

- The guitarist for Pavement has gone back to school to get his Urban Planning degree, the percussionist is in the horse-racing business, the bassist makes "food that gets photographed for cooking magazines", and the drummer "moved to Virginia and trained as a stone mason."

- Booker T & The MG's had a 1970 album called McLemore Avenue that was an instrumental track-by-track cover of Abbey Road.

- James Blunt, a musician and sudden superstar in England, was a captain in the British Army who led a column of 30,000 peace-keeping troops into Kosovo and later "was one of the Queen's mounted bodyguards and protected the Queen Mother's coffin while she lay in state in Westminster Abbey." He's 28.

- John Lennon's last breakfast was at Cafe La Fortuna, which is a cafe that my friend David and I always went to after going to an event at Lincoln Center.

Switching Gears a Bit....

From the BBC:

Smiths hang in National Gallery

A picture of influential pop band the Smiths, taken by photographer Stephen Wright 20 years ago, is to hang in the National Portrait Gallery in London.

The photo, used for the inside gatefold of the 1986 album The Queen is Dead, shows the four members of the band outside the Salford Lads Club. The club has since become a Mecca for fans of the band, who split in 1987.

"I never anticipated that one of my photographs would still be being talked about after 20 years," said Wright. The photographer has snapped some of the world's most famous performers, including Madonna, U2 and James Brown. He also supplied the Strangeways road sign image for the Smiths' final album, Strangeways Here We Come.

Formed in 1982 by singer Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr, the band's other releases include 1985's Meat is Murder.

After the group disbanded Morrissey embarked on a solo career. In 2004 he released his first album, You are the Quarry, for seven years.

True Britpop

This week, the BBC celebrates the 10th anniversary of one of my favorite moments in music - the battle between Oasis and Blur. Oasis had planned to release "Roll with It", the first single from (What's the Story) Morning Glory, on Aug. 14, 1995, and so the very talented and immensely assholic Damon Albarn, lead singer of Blur, decided to move up the release of their single, "Country House", to Aug. 14th as well. Blur won that particular battle, but Oasis won the war (although granted, it's a war that I don't think Blur have any interest in fighting anymore).

The BBC has used this momentous occasion to look back at the Britpop phenomenon, with a different article printed each day this week. Here are some interesting excerpts from "Looking Back at the Birth of Britpop":

[A 1991 tour through America] inspired [Blur], they said, to begin a mission to 'get rid of grunge', 'declare war on America' and make music that was identifiably English.

It all plugged into British heritage and culture at a very creative time for the country, he adds - with Britart, films and designers also on a high.

And there was an atmosphere of change in wider society as it became clear that the era of Conservative rule was coming to an end.

When a young, vibrant rock fan called Tony Blair took over as Labour leader in 1994, the sense of possibility and expectation grew.

Kurt Cobain's suicide in April 1994 finally finished off grunge as another British band was rapidly emerging - but not from the same southern art school origins as the likes of Blur and Suede.

"Oasis were a no-nonsense rock 'n' roll band who wanted to roll around on a bed of £50 notes," Mr Harris says.

While I don't like how they refer to Kurt Cobain's suicide as though it were (was? I never get that right) convenient, I do like the rest of the series. There's an interactive timeline showing how Blur and Oasis have both fared in the past decade; an article showing where all the major players are today (Justine Frischmann from Elastica is studying the Psychology of Art in Colorado; 2 members of Pulp now own an antique shop and a ceramic shop); and an article on The Boo Radleys, whoever the hell they were.

There is also an interesting article on Britpop's possible second wave (referring to Coldplay, Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand), but despite their success, the first wave is still remarkable:

Britpop may go down as Britain's last great unifying music scene, says Jody Thompson, a former news editor at NME.

"That's not necessarily for it's quality, but because of the political, artistic and social climate of the time as well," she says.

Britpop kind of became the poster boy for a resurgence of British culture as a whole and all aspects became interconnected - like Damien Hirst directing Blur's Country House video."

Bands getting success now may find it lasts longer, she says.

"But then it's probably more liberating for the bands around right now anyway - they can develop at their own speed without the weight of the nation's expectations on their output."

Oasis Quotes of the Day

I've spent most of my evening catching up on magazines. While I did read some non-Oasis items tonight (did you know that Beck's wife is Giovanni Ribisi's sister?), I spent most of my time devouring all the interviews and positive praise for the new Oasis CD. I may be the only person on the planet who still cares, but here are some of the highlights from the ever-bickering, ever-quotable, together-till-death-do-they-part Gallagher brothers:

"Some stuff got damaged, a fire extinguisher got let off in the house. As rock'n'roll as I am, you can't be making record with foam all over the fucking place."

- Noel Gallagher, in a Mojo article talking about a 1995 fight between he and Liam in their studio that ended with the 'doors kicked off, the kitchen wrecked, fridges overturned', the guitar player locking away air rifles and both of them 'rolling in the grass, hitting each other with a cricket bat'.

"For such a pale and mild-mannered people, the British do go on and on about their bloody bands, don't they? It's like after the Beatles took over the world, they do mile-high jumping jacks every time a remotely good UK band comes down the pike, in hopes to recapture that past glory. Their music weeklies have headlines to rival what the New York Post does with actual news. Stuff like, 'Kaiser Chiefs More Important Than Anything Else Ever To Exist On Any Planet Where Evidence of Water Found, And God.' It's like their wee island will once again be the center of worldwide awe, if only Bloc Party would get it together long enough to reverse the events of 1776."

- Writer Gregg LaGambina in Filter

"Name one good-looking rock star out of the lot of 'em! There's none! None of 'em swear, none of 'em drink - they're all fucking soft, if you ask me. I'm not saying it's cool to swear and it's not always cool to drink, but it is if you're a rock star, innit?"

- Liam expressing his displeasure in Filter with Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand and the like

"How's it gonna come back and bite me? What, I'm gonna be stuck without a Bloc Party ticket, trying to get in?"

- Liam in Filter again, answering the question "Do you ever feel like something you say might come back to bite you? Do you believe in karma?"

Filter's word association discography of Oasis, with single-word commentary by Liam and Noel:

Definitely Maybe (1994)
Liam: Classic. Noel: Young.

(What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)
Liam: Classic. Noel: Big.

Be Here Now (1997)
Liam: Classic. Noel: Fat.

Standing on the Shoulder of Giants (2000)
Liam: Classic. Noel: Dark.

Heathen Chemistry (2002)
Liam: Classic. Noel: Grey.

Don't Believe the Truth (2005)
Liam: Classic. Noel: Technicolor.

Silent Disco

The BBC reported that this year's Glastonbury Music Festival, which is hosting such stars as The Killers, White Stripes, Coldplay and Brian Wilson, came up with an interesting solution to the noise restrictions placed on them. When the noise curfew takes effect, they'll hold a 'silent disco', in which concertgoers listen to the music through headphones, not speakers.

"Festival-goers at the dance tent will be given a free set of headphones complete with bass, volume and treble controls, meaning they can have the music as loud as they like.

"The system has been developed by a Dutch firm, which pioneered the "silent disco" at illegal parties as part of a travelling festival in the Netherlands."

My first thought: How does this change such a communal experience as dancing? My second thought: I hope someone is getting video footage of tons of people dancing in total silence.

X&Y from A-Z

Is anyone else wondering what the cover and insert of the new Coldplay CD are trying to tell us? NME.com explains:

"NME.COM can reveal that the seemingly random blocks of colour are in fact a 19th century telegraphic code.

Developed by Emile Baudot, the Baudot Code - or the International Telegraph Code No. 1 - was first patented in 1874 and used throughout the world for terrestrial and undersea telegraph links for over 70 years.

However by the mid 20th century, the Baudot Code supplanted Morse Code as the most commonly used telegraphic alphabet.

The centre pages of the ’X&Y’ inlay shows the full telegraphic alphabet, with the vertical arrangements of blocks representing each letter of the regular alphabet, as well as the coding for numbers and other symbols such as brackets, question marks and ampersands.

When applied to the cover image, it is revealed that the configuration of blocks spells out ‘X&Y’, whilst the message at the back of the album’s booklet says, ’Make Trade Fair’. The colour scheming is merely for decoration."

For more fun with coding, check out Brian's Portland Architecture post about the new paint job for the Pacific Northwest College of Art. It may look like an Atari graphic, but for those in the know, it's Rimbaud.