Issue 31
September 2005
Cover star – Noel Gallagher
Word shuffle
1) P16 – 1 of a 4 page spread about photographs of The Beatles by Jane Bown. She had 2 hours with them while they waited in a little room to play a show in 1963 at the Granada theatre in East Ham. “At one point, someone suggested I leave and Ringo said “Oh let her stay, we like her!”
2) P34 – an article about Emily Turner whose grandfather invented the Vox amp. “I was about nine when I realised he was rather special. It was Christmas at my grandparents’ bungalow in Rye, East Sussex, and our family was singing the harmonies to ‘Blue Moon’ while he recorded us on his 8 track. While we hummed into microphones, he laid his Hawaiian guitar on his lap and played along at a volume that made the windows flex. As my nan screamed at him to turn it down from behind a 1950s lounge bar which was covered in fairy lights and a myriad of weird instruments, I remember thinking that this was not your normal festive family gathering.”
3) P40 – a two page advert for Loreal’s anti-dandruff shampoo. It hs a unique formula and contains the magic ingredients ‘Actirox’ and ‘Equaderm’ apparently.
4) P68 – part of a four pager on the recently reformed Pixies by David Cavanagh. There’s a top 15 of tracks by them in the sidebar which includes ‘Here Comes Your Man’ (“the band mutate into a 1964 beat group”), ‘Havalina’ (“a tune so dreamlike it could be murmured into a sea shell”) and ‘Where Is My Mind?’ (“moved its singer to tears when he saw it in ‘Fight Club”).
5) P125 – review of Sharon Waxman’s book ‘Rebels On The Backlot’ by Christopher Bray. “The biggest question Waxman unintentionally raises is: How vile do you have to be to be a movie director? Just about everyone here is a nasty piece of work. Fame and fortune having been achieved for Tarantino, for instance, he drops all the friends who helped him when he was a nobody and refuses to take calls even from his own mother. Paul Thomas Anderson, the man behind ‘Boogie Nights’ and ‘Magnolia’ turns out to be an insensitive know-it-all, contemptuous of criticism.”
Interesting – David Hepworth writes an obituary for Long John Baldry. “He livened up a journey to a gig by indicating a passing scout troop: “Ooh, look, dear! Trade!”
In the ‘Word of Mouth’ section, we learn: that Lemmy appreciates Enya (“I like the way she merges her melodies with the piano. I’m a big fan of piano and vocals, because I’m denied them with my band! In fact, I’d recommend pretty much anything she’s done”), that Stewart Lee’s favourite book of all time is ‘Marriage Of Heaven And Hell’ by William Blake (“I ripped it off for ‘Jerry Springer:The Opera’ so all the born-again Christians should pick on a dead poet instead of us”) and that Roots Manuva is a fan of Kano’s ‘Home Sweet Home album (“Kano is making music that could sit comfortably with The Stooges or Frank Sinatra or The Stone Roses. He’s an achieved writer”).
Siouxsie Sioux talks about the split of the Banshees. “I suppose I kind of thought in the back of my mind that it would be great if we wanted to get the band back together again and do a new album. But there seems to be this unspoken resentment.” She hasn’t spoken to Steve Severin in a year. “We have go-betweens,” she smiles. “It’s sad, isn’t it?”
Bananarama reveal that in 1986 they ‘d turned to Malcolm McClaren for advice.His idea was for them to record a song called “Don’t Touch Me Down There Daddy”. Keren says “I couldn’t ever sing that song in front of my mother and I’m never going to be able to work with this man.”
Noel Gallagher confirms that the apocryphal tale is true and that Liam did get a massive strop on when he realised that Spinal Tap were actors. “You mean they’re not real?”
“No, Liam, they’re American actors.”
“Fuck off!”
“No, they’re American.”
“Fuckin’ WANKERS!”
And off he went! And we were kind of expecting him to come back with a beer or summat, whereas it was: ‘No, he’s fucked off!’ He had the right arse.”
And in the ‘Word To The Wise’ section, Elvis Costello advises the readers to never get their teeth fixed. “The gap in the middle is probably a crucial part of the sound of my voice. It’s supposed to indicate sensuality? Really? Well, there’s a few other singers with gaps in their teeth – Ray Davies, Madonna.”
Longer article – A celebration of ‘New Yorker’ magazine by Andrew Collins.
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