Okay, so on this occasion I paid for the invitation, rather than being paid for my work, but it doesn’t diminish that gentle sense, Dick Whittington-like, of ‘having arrived’.

But before I get ahead of myself: In order to ‘have arrived’, one has to actually arrive.

Professional arrival is a fine art, I think it’s widely acknowledged. I’ve been through enough job interviews to realise that the optimum arrival time is T-minus seven minutes.

At T-minus ten, the person who is set to receive you will look at the clock and think, god, what am I going to do with this total stranger for ten minutes? I hate them!

T-minus five looks a bit calculated, a bit neat, and you also run the risk of having to rush in the event of any out-of-order lifts or missing staircases or whatever. No, no. T-minus seven. With all unexpected obstacles negotiated, you can stroll in and commence ‘having arrived’.

So the real art, then, with such a target decided, is arriving at the arrival; how do you make sure you’re seven minutes early?

Here’s the route I was required to take yesterday (travelling from west to east):

That is, 0.08 miles (459 feet) of prime British pavement, taking in Eros, flashing lights, shows, pizzazz, everything that great old town has to offer. Here’s the route I took to ensure arrival at T-minus seven:

An entire mile of British pavement, some prime, some sub-prime.

To be honest, the opening gambit was necessitated by that most obstructive of obstacles: Piccadilly Circus. It’s a confusing place to navigate at the best of times, even without taking into account my policy of refusing to look up like a tourist — which is a bit awkward, as that’s where all the road signs are. When I emerged from the tube station, I took a gamble, and lost: I turned the wrong way.

This wrong eventually righted, I zeroed in on the building I was supposed to be doing my ‘arriving’ at, and identified its discreet double doors. Right. I situated myself at a Pret across the street from those doors, and commenced eating a sandwich and drinking a smoothie, peering suspiciously for any tell-tale signs of anything.

Upon sandwich completion, I departed the Pret and proceeded to a nearby Spar to buy some Polos. Then I walked round the block, stopping off only to check out the back door of the building I was supposed to be doing my ‘arriving’ at. Brief panic that this was in fact the correct entrance, as there was a group of people hanging around outside looking expectant. No, no. Wrong street. Onwards.

I passed the front doors again, but I was still at T-minus twelve, so I continued past them and walked for 2.5 minutes, before turning and walking back for 2.5 minutes. I pushed the doors and walked in, with all possible calm and poise, precisely seven minutes early.

I think it’s fine to conclude from this a general rule: what happens at T-minus eight out is nobody’s business but your own.

j

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There are plusses and minuses. You get to keep the review products for free – and that’s a big plus, especially if you’re on the ball enough to bag some pricey loot. A big plus too for the Cancer Research shop at the top of Cartway, if the loot isn’t the kind of thing I’d like to own long-term.

Minus: I wouldn’t know how to construct a good review if I could craft a witty end to this sentence.

Genuinely worthwhile reviewing is a formidable skill, and one I don’t naturally possess. It goes without saying that hardly any reviews on the Amazon site achieve anything like my definition of success, but most particularly not those by people who have been invited to review. Democratic reviewing means a deluge of ill-informed bile and unchecked opinion. I’ve read in numerous places the opinions of web-savvy writers and artists who say they’ve had to develop a hugely thick skin to the acid bile of Internet opinion.

Now, as a reviewer, I’m not a ‘flamer’. I try to keep it balanced. (I’m embarrassed by the sheer number of three-star reviews I give out.) Paul Morley once said that the worst thing to happen at the now-ailing NME was the introduction of star ratings. Reviewing is so much more subtle than that.

Stars are fine for those snappy first reactions: “I didn’t much like this; not as poppy as their first album”, and for technical specs: “The transfer to high-definition is flawless…”, but be honest, who has this amount of snap or the technical gumption to comment?

I don’t.

So every review I write becomes a battle with myself to understand quite why I’m reviewing what I’m reviewing. Those Hitchcock reviews were from a perspective of how successful I felt the movie was, in terms of its storytelling and construction. ‘0 out of 7 people found my review helpful.’

“Listen mate,” came one user’s review of my review, “we don’t care what you think about the film, what’re the extras like? What’s the transfer to DVD like? Is it in 7.1 surround sound or 5.1?”

You know, I have no idea. And nowhere near enough enthusiasm for such things to look at the back of the DVD case. I just concern myself with the creative aspect. I’m a 1D reviewer.

The inevitable outcome of such a democratic approach to reviewing is a total devaluation of critical points of view. I don’t take on board what Amazon reviews say. Do you? Unless I really have no idea which – I don’t know, ADSL router – to buy, because they’re all much of a muchness to me.

The latest review I am cobbling together in my mind is on Graham Swift’s Making An Elephant – a collection of short pieces and ephemera about “Writing from within”, so the subtitle says. I’d already decided what I was going to write after the first ten pages. What sort of a review is that? It’s based on what I think of Graham Swift, and what someone else wrote about him once in Private Eye.

I have come to my keyboard now, typing these words, to discard this initial decision about what I am going to write, and hopefully come up with a response worth reading.

Perhaps I should be suspicious about why Amazon Vine is feeding me through this particular mangle: what does Amazon want? A bunch of mouthy freeloaders who are desperate to crow for the reward of a free item (and who simultaneously are unclogging Amazon’s Ridgemont storage facility).

I’m spinning in ever-decreasing circles here, aren’t I? I’d better go an take it out on Graham Swift.

j

First off, it takes a lot to ask a girl out. Weeks of summoning up the courage, days of shimmying past suspicious friends, hours of trying to find her on her own in just the right situation, just to pop a question that might reduce to ashes the entire foundation of your position in playground society.

This has been documented comprehensively over the generations, and I think it is well understood: it takes a lot.

But that is just the start of it. Where, when the asking-out has finally occurred and consent unexpectedly secured, is ‘out’?

‘Out’ to me, as an adult, is somewhere comfortable to pass time with like-minded people (say, having a chat and a laugh); somewhere to indulge in whatever sensual stimulation is on offer (say, a hearty meal with fine wine).

‘Out’ to me, as a teenager, was somewhere comfortable to pass time with like-minded people (say, kicking a football around and lighting small fires); somewhere to indulge in whatever sensual stimulation was on offer (say, a quarter of rhubarb & custard and a can of cider).

So ‘going out’ — like, with a girl — is the first step on the process of making the subtle switch from one version of ‘out’ to another.

You must find a place you’re not familiar with, to which you can escort your intended (and she’s not familiar with it either, having spent her ‘out’ time round a friend’s house, leafing through magazines and carrying out leftfield cosmetic experiments), and you can get on with the business of, well, being ‘out’.

My mind flits briefly to the evening when I escorted – let’s call her Miss Smith (because that was her name) – across an October-sodden Abington Park in a shortcut to the pub. Her expensively embroidered trousers were quickly reduced to a mud-caked write-off below the knee. What can I say? It was a shortcut. What else were we going to do? Walk round, adding pointless minutes to our journey?

It certainly cut a few minutes off the length of our relationship.

But, shoving my experiences firmly to one side, I was witness to the horrors of someone else’s fledgling relationship last week, as my wife and I investigated our waki udon noodles with chopsticks at Birmingham’s Wagamama.

Wagamama is the kind of restaurant that obliges you to suspend any lingering Englishness, because, first off, it’s ‘pan-Asian’ food (i.e. Asian food you can cook in a pan), and secondly you are sat on a bench opposite your dining companion, and next to a complete stranger. There is no physical divide between you and the stranger whatsoever. I should imagine one of the best things about being a Wagamama waitster is observing the psychological divides people conjure up. I myself never glance outside the –10°/+10° angle of my companion.

Our enjoyment of the noodles and casual conversation were infiltrated about halfway through by a strong scent, as a roughly 18-year-old couple were installed beside us and handed their menus.

Olfactorily speaking, the girl was obviously some way short of being able to judge the precise period of depression of the button on her atomiser. The consequent nasal assault brought right back to me the sheer complexity of the journey those kids were on – the journey that had brought my wife and I to precisely where we were, chatting and having a laugh, enjoying the good food and wine.

Here’s the breakdown of experience of what he had to do after having secured her consent to go ‘out’:

• Think of somewhere to go (“Why don’t you take her out to a restaurant, love? She’ll be very impressed.”)
• Find out what a good restaurant is (McDonalds <—> The Savoy)
• Phone up
• Book a table (or become resigned to the risk of taking her there and finding it full)
• Get dressed up (how dressed up? trip to town? what shops are good shops? TK Maxx <—> Harvey Nichols)
• Find her house; call for her three minutes late
• Wait at the bus stop, while sustaining conversation
• Endure a bus ride, while sustaining conversation
• Find the restaurant, while sustaining conversation
• Know what to do when you get in the door (i.e. queue up to be seated)
• Sit right next to some 30/40 year old couple who obviously know what they’re doing
• Sustain conversation while deciding when to engage with the menu
• Interpret the menu
• Sustain conversation while the food is prepared
• Know how to use chopsticks, and not succumb to picking up the fork that has been placed discreetly to one side by the charitable waitster.

What complete and unutterable misery. How can anybody look appealing in the face of such complexity?

By hook or by crook, our lad negotiated all this. “He was trying really hard,” my wife noted, “but she wasn’t giving him anything to work with.”

The girl was, let it be recorded, eating her noodles with a spoon.

Well, there we are. I managed to attract the waitster’s attention to ask for the bill (oh – add that dark art to the above list), and as I thumbed in my PIN, I heard the lad beside me pitch one last-ditch attempt to stoke up the completely stalled conversation.

“What’s your favourite meat, then?”

I wonder how we survive as a species at all.

As ever,

j

“It was our turn,” pondered guitarist Adam Devlin over the recent lukewarm reception. “We can’t complain because we know that fifty percent of the coverage of ‘Slight Return’ was due to us being around at the tail-end of Britpop. At that stage we could have released something duff and it would have been praised.”

Whatever the case, the Bluetones have never slumped to the duff, and for all the criticism, one would not compare their second album to The Stone Roses. So with the addition of a keyboardist as a permanent band member, are we to see a whole new side to the band for the third album? Record Mart & Buyer got together with singer Mark Morriss and sifted through a few of those stylistic gurus.

The Stone Roses

The Roses started life more or less as an antidote to the Smiths. Otis Redding was Ian Brown’s touchstone in an effort to make music that people could move to. Guitarist John Squire brought in the clean sound of The Byrds and coupled it with a dirty wah-wah, tapping into the central rhythm of drummer Reni. This rhythmic sound provides the root to a lot of pop/rock music to this day, and The Bluetones are fine exponents of that essential dynamic.

The Bluetones’ first release on their own Superior Quality label was a double-sided seven-inch featuring ‘Slight Return’ and ‘The Fountainhead’. ‘Slight Return’ employed the big sounding jangle of the 60s, plus a lively organic-sounding rhythm section, echoing the Roses’ efforts on ‘Mersey Paradise’ and ‘Elephant Stone’. The result of this was a hit single and a tag tied to the band’s toe saying that they sounded like the Roses.

A re-release down the line, ‘Slight Return’ is the track that the neutral fan can invariably cite and, as is the case with so many bands, it provides the benchmark for all subsequent releases. Perhaps a strengthening reference in the public psyche was James’s 1989 offering ‘Come Home’, with its parallel chorus and Mark Morriss’s vocal similarity to Tim Booth.

Having had to dodge such comparisons for the last four years, Mark indulges in no specifics. “I just love guitars, I think they’re the most effective emotional tool. I love the sound of guitars played in a certain way. We all loved the Stone Roses. At first everyone was comparing us to them, but we were confident that, given enough reference points, people would know where we were really coming from. If you know eight tracks by a band, you don’t really know them. But if you know twenty tracks, that’s a more accurate depiction of where they’re coming from.”

So what about the once-burning question: was the Roses’ ‘Second Coming’ a let down for you?

“No, no. I think there are some moments of absolute genius on it. It probably could have been trimmed a bit…” — and into Morriss’s voice creeps the wry confidence of an artist on the rise over his forbears — “…A couple of the long tracks off the second side could have gone. ‘Tears’ I could live without, and ‘Good Times’. That would have made a great album…”

Fellow Contemporaries.

In a genetically modified debate of 1995, the record buying public was asked if they preferred Oasis or Blur. The Bluetones themselves went organic and considered Supergrass to outrank both.

“I’m a big fan of Supergrass,” says Mark. “They have a chemistry about them and they’re really lucky. They can play anything and make it sound funky. They could play the ‘Millennium Prayer’ and we’d all rush out and buy it. I think we have the same chemistry as that, you know? In a band it’s either the chemistry of everyone pulling together or the noise of everyone pulling apart that can make great music.”

In a way Supergrass and the Bluetones have a good deal in common. Their first albums were struck through with unshakeable pop, and were followed up with a much darker sound for their second.

“Yeah, I think their second album’s fantastic. We supported Supergrass early on, and it was a really good place to be. Very fertile. Two of the best bands around on the same bill, and the tickets were seven quid!”

The Britpop idea is almost universally looked back on as contemptible. No bands wanted to be lumped under that little umbrella: a lot of trumpet blowing about guitar music of a merely healthy quality. The danger is not being able to see the new little England that pushed through, with the bands interwoven through fair means or foul. Blur vs Oasis was entirely manufactured, whereas the Blur/Elastica/Suede dynamic had the common element of Justine Frischmann, creating an interesting stir. The Bluetones and Dodgy lived more or less together, honing their harmonies in the same garage in Hounslow.

“There was one gig especially. Supergrass, then us in the middle, and Ash, and by the end of that year we’d all had number one albums. It was a big turning point. Well, not at the time really, you just keep your head down and get on with it, but on reflection it was an important time.”

The Beatles

After a lull in the Electronic Eighties, the career of The Beatles is now about as prosperous as it ever has been. However bad or good you consider the money-spinning reunions or the Britpop rip-offs, there really is no getting away from it: The Beatles’ career is example enough to even the most confident (nay, arrogant) of guitar-based bands in the early 21st century. They are currently more potent than any other band, and their art is definitive in the small field of popular music. The Bluetones bow down, deep down, to them.

“We all love the Beatles,” says Mark. “I would have to say my favourites of their albums are ‘Revolver’, ‘The White Album’ and ‘Rubber Soul’. Those three have been the most influential to me.

“‘The White Album’ is like a perfect antidote to ‘Sergeant Pepper’. I’m not of the school that thinks a reduced, single ‘White Album’ would make it a better record. It just shows a really different side of the band that people didn’t realise existed before. They’re working at a different way of putting the tracks down, a different way of editing it together. They’re going against all the other stuff; it’s not intricate and well thought-out. It’s Jackson Pollock as compared to Leonardo da Vinci.

“‘Revolver’ I think was an innovative jump. It proved that pop tunes could be lasting works of art at the same time as being palatable. It has that really strong guitar with a lovely crisp and clean sound, and then there’s a new aggressive delivery from John Lennon.”

Like the Boo Radleys before them and Dodgy along side, the Bluetones consider this accessible pop sound to be all-important. “The Beatles made the template for pop music, and pop is very important to us. When I was at school I was buying the pure pop stuff, like Duran Duran and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. It’s like, a painter has to have the picture frame to stop working by. The frame we use is pop. It’s a discipline to work to, a challenge when you’re writing interesting new songs.”

Buffalo Springfield

The popular idea of US/Canadian hybrid Buffalo Springfield is as a supergroup in reverse. They consisted of Neil Young, Stephen Stills (later sandwiched by Crosby and Nash), Richey Furay, Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin. They toured with The Byrds before signing to Atlantic and releasing their first album. This contained the ever present ‘For What It’s Worth’ single, which remains their best-known moment, although the band is more generally credited for having paved the way for country rock.

Mark hops to an explanation. “They were so creative for a brief period between 1966–69. They were the first band containing three main songwriters in Stills, Young and Foray. They made about two and a half albums of the most wonderful, beautiful, positive eclectic music. They’ve got to be absolutely my favourite band ever, and the biggest influence.”

There were turbulent times for Buffalo Springfield; Bruce Palmer was deported and Neil Young and Stephen Stills were constantly at each other’s throats, resulting in Young’s temporary resignation from the band. Does that reflect the average day in the Bluetones, who are by all accounts a band of three song-writing guitarists?

“We’ve got five guitarists actually. We can all play. But no, there’s no ego problem. The only time there might be a problem is if someone stops bringing material to the band. We’ve got very much an equal split with song writing and money. The last thing you want to have problems about is money. It’s the first thing you sort out: you make sure everyone gets the same. It’s a Marxist Utopia in the Bluetones.”

Talking Heads

Nobody really pays attention to the 80s when discussing guitar bands. It’s all 60s and Love and The Byrds and The Stones. A less vaunted influence on the Bluetones therefore is Talking Heads. True enough, the parallels are there. Their rhythm-based experiments built them into a success in the latter half of the 70s, and their collaboration with producer Brian Eno helped bring out a filmic element to their work and side-projects. Eno himself is a widescreen maestro, and enjoyed a fertile time with Derek Jarman towards the end of the British filmmaker’s life.

“When my brother was sixteen at school,” says Mark, “he and this mate of his really got into Talking Heads. So he brought the influence home, and we would sit in the bedroom listening to all these Talking Heads records. I was mesmerised with this persona that David Verne built up around himself. He was like a character in a Talking Heads movie.” Verne himself got into movie direction with 1986’s ‘True Stories’, for which Talking Heads recorded some songs.

“I think it’s Verne’s sort of humour and foolishness that I try to incorporate in our own stuff. I mean you’ve got to be light with what you do. It’s like Captain Beefheart as well, there’s a humour in there that I think is really important.”

The Smiths

Thankfully enough, the last decade has seen significant British bands celebrate the legacy of both the Smiths and the Stone Roses, rather than dividing the bands into rival camps. Whereas the latter concentrated on developing the right vibe, the former wielded a heady brew of melody and lyrical wit. Mixed together in the 1990s, those two ideologies created a high standard for bands to follow.

As a result The Smiths, like so many other much-loved bands, owe a percentage point to posterity. “It’s the legend,” says Mark. “The legend of The Smiths is what makes them so great now. But if music is good enough, it doesn’t date. It is a work of serious art, remaining as relevant today as it was when it was written. That’s what has happened to The Smiths.”

“The whole reason Adam picked up a guitar in the first place was because of Johnny Marr. It was the same with me, I was very driven by Johnny Marr, and Morrissey too when I thrust myself up into the limelight as the frontman.”

REM

One critic in The Guardian described The Bluetones’ songs as being about ‘aloof alienation’, and this struck Mark as a well-observed expression. There are no surprises then when he is asked about overseas music.

“REM are a big influence. I’m not what you’d call a massive fan of ‘Up’, although I thought ‘New Adventures in Hi-Fi’ was a masterstroke. It was like a band that had found its muse again. They have been hugely successful in retaining their integrity through a lot of popularity, and I’d like to emulate that. I’d like us to retain integrity in the way they have. That’s one of the reasons we will never, ever, have any of our material on adverts or anything like that.”

Are there any other US influences you think the band has?

“Well, They Might Be Giants. They’re great. I was watching a video of their greatest hits a while back, and ‘Ana Ng’ came on and it sounded just like one of the songs off our new album. I spoke to my brother about it and he said, ‘Yeah, I know what you mean…’ I wish we were more like them. We’ve had meetings about what we can do to sound more like them.”

Really?

“No.”

Oh.

“But they’re not fucking Barenaked Ladies, are they?”

The Comedy B-side

There aren’t many bands who can justify the CD1-of-a-2CD-set swindle when it comes to selling singles. But the Bluetones have always been about good customer service. Superior Quality, to quote their label imprint. All the singles are in thick cases with nice booklets, and all the b-sides are new tracks.

“It’s got to look good,” explains Mark. “You put them in thick cases and they look nice. You give them all new tracks on the b-sides and people move them up from their Ordinary CD shelf to their Good CD shelf. And you can’t start putting live tracks on the b-sides. Why would anyone want to do that? And I don’t think we’ve ever done anything that would benefit from a remix. I don’t like the idea of handing over creative control to someone else. You’ve still got to pay them even if you don’t like it, so you might as well put it out. No, that stuff’s not our bag.”

The first offering from the ‘Science & Nature’ LP was ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’, released in February. For a glimpse at the Bluetones’ ‘bag’ check out the track ‘Armageddon (Outta Here)’. It features Vic Reeves cohort Matt Lucas and the Bluetones in a sketch outlining life in university Halls of Residence, and gently mocking the band for their Biggest Hit, ‘Slight Return’ (“Oh, I just thought it was called ‘You Don’t Have to Have the Solution You’ve Got to Understand the Problem’”). If you are reading this in a University Halls of Residence, it will sound exactly like the guys in the room next door (though not yourself, of course).

So anyway, how did it come about?

“Well, Matt’s a mate of mine. We’ve got this sort of mutual admiration. I initially had this idea for an instrumental, and I wanted to sample some bits of this dialogue he’d done for the Paramount Comedy Channel. So I phoned him up and asked him where I had to get permission for this and he said I could either go to Paramount, or we could record it again. Then he said that he’d quite like to write something new for it, and I liked that idea even better. I gave him the track and some ideas, goalposts to aim at really, and he wrote it and then performed it for us in the studio. We went around the place with a DAT tape recording all the sound effects and we recorded it Goon Show style, really. It was great, a real nice break from the drudgery of recording an album.”

Film

Films play a large role in the life of Mark Morriss. He claims to have nine hundred on video, so surely they have some kind of influence on the way he presents himself creatively?

“Well, I think Woody Allen films are inspirational to me for the way I express myself in songs. He will make the odd flippant remark that throws a curve ball to make you think differently. He gives you a skewed perspective on things and it reveals truths, and it’s nice to go away with these truths. It’s very comforting to think that perhaps you’re not alone in thinking in such a way.

“Throughout his whole career he has always approached his films as a young, fresh person. He’s never been old and doddery, and his films all have the same sort of Woody Allen pace. I love that, and I identify with that kind of pace and emotional tone.”

Second Bluetones album ‘Return to the Last Chance Saloon’ is steeped in Spaghetti Western imagery, with Scott Morriss’s artwork all John Ford landscapes and cacti and sombrero-hidden Mexicans.

“There was certainly a Western thing going on there,” explains Mark. “I was really into Westerns, and there was this general curiosity going on about Latino culture and the Tex-Mex thing. We immersed ourselves in the culture and the food and the music, listening to all these Ennio Morricone soundtracks and Tito & Tarantula, and drinking lots of tequila.”

So it was a conscious thing?

“Well, I was just into it, and I think if you’re in a band then these things bleed through and everybody starts to get a bit involved with it.”

The ‘4-Day Weekend’ single is lifted from ‘Last Chance Saloon’, but dispenses with the Western imagery in favour of stills from a manga video that was made for the song by a Japanese animation company. How did that come about?

“Oh, I was so flattered when that came back. We are quite popular in the Far East anyway, and this company had approached us with an interest to do a video for one of the songs, so we sent ‘4-Day Weekend’ to them and they just gave it their own interpretation. It cost us virtually nothing, because the company figured that they would do this video and it would get picked up by MTV which would be good publicity for them and for us. But in the end MTV wouldn’t play it. The official explanation was that it didn’t fit in with their line, but it was just some chicken-shit bloke sitting behind a desk who made a chicken-shit decision. You know a lot of people suffer from one man’s decision like that.”

THE NEW ALBUM

‘Science & Nature’ will be unleashed on the public on 15th May on (“our little Anderson Shelter”) the Superior Quality Recordings imprint of Mercury Records. The first album was really accessible, and the second was much darker. What are we to expect from the third?

“I have great ambition for this record,” says Mark. “I think it could really do well. We’ve gone out of our way really to make this one the most accessible yet, after the heavy sound of the last one.”

So that makes your last album the proverbial Dark Second Act, a sort of ‘Empire Strikes Back’ of the Bluetones’ career?

“Ha, yeah! That’s exactly right. I’ll definitely have to use that. It was because we were all touring and playing live all the time. Our second album is born out of touring. It’s much beefier with the heavy live sound coming through. That’s what we had metamorphosed into. When you’re in a band it’s like a constant metamorphosis. Albums are like Polaroids of the band at a particular time. I mean, we finished this album in October, and we’re a different band now.”

Rather more thought has been put into the impact of different instruments with the new album. Adam Devlin gave an insight into the new sound recently: “[Keyboardist Richard Payne] is a multi-instrumentalist, but he’s not a muso. There’s a lot of natural instruments, like a banjo and a mandolin in there.”

From the tracks that have sneaked out for a preview, a new less-is-more vibe seems to have struck the band through after the expansive sound of ‘Last Chance Saloon’. ‘Tiger Lily’ lends a Simon & Garfunkel edge, and displays a much more pared down sound, with the suggestion that Richard Payne’s keyboards have been planted right at the centre of the Bluetones’ sound. ‘Zorrro’ was aired on Radio 1’s Evening Session at the end of last year, and has become something of a live favourite.

There is still plenty of the complex song-structure, and a new space carved for the harmonies to gain extra subtlety and impact. With the demise of Dodgy and the Boo Radleys, the Bluetones have a new territory to explore in their own carefully foolish way.

With two major Beck releases on his CV and an ansaphone unable to cope with requests for his services, things are looking pretty good for Justin Meldal-Johnsen. The departure of most of the band upon completion of Beck’s ‘Midnite Vultures’ album means that Beck, Justin and keyboardist Roger Joseph Manning Jr make up the core of the Beck project.

Meldal-Johnsen has been working with Beck since 1996 when the ‘Odelay’ album went on tour. The record marks the point at which Beck completes his jump from straight(ish) folk to hip hop and funk. Here we strike on the reason why music’s latest bravura boy wanted to secure himself a bassist.

“That’s a good question. I think really with ‘Odelay’ Beck wanted to pass on the responsibility so he could concentrate on the other stuff. He was really looking for an instigator for the live performances, someone who would just take his idea and go with it. He needed someone who comfortable with all the styles he was using. It was much the same with me and Roger on keyboards. He wanted to leave it to us and for us really to carry it off.”

“I’m a real fan of the way he plays bass anyway. He absolutely goes for it and does all these really unnatural bends that appeal to me. I mean he’s doing stuff on bass that I haven’t heard since these really bad ‘60s Italian soundtracks.”

With such a multitude of styles — and that’s even before the hyper-everything ‘Midnite Vultures’ hits the road — you’re going to need a pretty sharp collection of instruments.

Justin says, “I’ve got six basses that I take out on tour with me. My very favourite is this 1967 Fender Coronado. I play that a lot. It’s got this weird hollow body and has a nice 1960s soundtracky flavour. It’s good live.”

“Then I’ve got this Guild Starfire, which is my favourite to play when I’m recording. There’s a couple of others — a 1964 Jazz bass and a 1962 Precision. I use those a lot. For some of the more folky songs I’ve got a Schecter 8-string Hellcat. It’s very resilient. With a lot of eight-strings you have to put all your energy in just to get a sound, but this one’s almost totally opposite to that. There’s not much playing to it, it’s very easy.”

“Beck likes me to use the basses to the way he operates. I’ve got a Roland G77 and he makes me use it a lot. It’s this really hideous looking ‘80s thing, you know, with an arm across the top. It’s like you have to be strapped right into it. I didn’t record with it, but Beck likes it partly because he’s got one, and another guy in the band’s got one, so at one point there’s three of us playing them at the same time. I think you can see the effect he’s after.”

It seems then that the band is required to get into Beck’s singular groove. On a recent Top of the Popsappearance you could have caught Justin decked out like Sid Vicious, throwing himself around like a madman while picking out the intricacies of the single ‘Sexxlaws’. What was that all about?

“You know, that shirt was the exact same shirt that Sid Vicious was weraing when the Sex Pistols swore live on air on that TV show? Yes, we have this enormous box there in the middle of the dressing room, full of these really awful awful fantastic clothes, and Beck dishes them out every night. It’s like ‘You can be the punk rocker tonight’. I love that — I mean the night before I was a school custodian in a jumpsuit. These characters are great and they never last more than a night or two.”

“I feel really privileged to be working with Beck because, you know, you’re really not sure what he’s going to say or do next. I really get a sense of that, and we’ve been working together for three years.”

So what about effects? Beck’s set is so varied you’d imagine there to be quite a few…

“Oh yeah, God. I could just reel off a list. I’ve got this custom-made pedal board an old associate of mine made years ago. It’s starts off with Electro-Harmonix Bassballs, and goes into a Bass Synth. I’ve got a Japanese-made Guyatone Phaser and a Guyatone Analogue Delay.”

“An Australian friend of mine gace me an effect called Prunes and Custard which delivers a sort of controlled fuzz weirdness.”

“I’ve also got this Boss OD1 Overdrive and an HM2 Heavy Metal and I step on both of those if I want some really explosive feedback. There’s a Boss Octover and a Sansamp GT2 for a nice warm bass distortion.”

So what about the new stuff. ‘Sexxlaws’ has this really intricate and funky bassline — it was pretty strange seeing ‘Sid Vicious’ playing black ‘70s funk on Top of the Pops.

“We like to call it Boogaloo rather than funk. It’s inspired by the ‘60s British TV style, you know where you have this really over-active bassline like some guy’s popped a couple of pills and just really gone for it. There is a black ‘70s element, but it’s not quite laid back enough. Oh there’s nothing laid back about ‘Sexxlaws’.”

What about the other stuff on ‘Midnite Vultures’? Are there any stand-out moments for you?

“Well, there’s ‘Mixed Bizness’ which is I suppose similar to ‘Sexxlaws’ in style. ‘Pressure Zone’ exploits that sort of angular Brit artrock thing. It’s got lots of noise explosions all done on bass, where we overlaid quite a few tracks.”

“I think my favourite moment is on ‘Milk & Honey’. The middle section of that is like the deepest sex disco ever rendered. I think it’s my best-played thing on the album. I tend to spaz it on stage a bit, and being the studio was a good exercise in toning it down.”

So what else is going on apart from the Beck material? Are there any other irons in the fire?

“Roger and I are going to France shortly to work with Air. I toured their ‘Moon Safari’ album, so we’re looking forward to that. I’ve worked with Mark Eitzel, and I’m about to start some new stuff with him. He’s fantastic — that really is where I’m at musically. What else? I’ve worked with Sasha, who are big on trance, and I’ve done a remix of Jamiroquai’s ‘Black Capricorn Day’. Stuff on the Mel C record, Moby… Oh, there’s been quite a lot lately.”

The Charlatans sold 15,000 copies of their first single, ‘Indian Rope’, which worked its way to the top of the Indie charts. The next thing to do was record an album, and the situation continued in its flagrant disregard for reality when it too went straight to number one.

Thinking back to these days, Jon says: “We got together quite quickly as a band. A lot of groups get together and craft their first album, and then just go on to rewrite that first album over and over. ‘Some Friendly’ is very bright and bubbly, and it was put together quite quickly. It wasn’t crafted over a long period of time-I think you can hear that on it.”

If there is anything that makes the Charlatans stand amongst the quality bands at the turn of the decade it is the drums. Amidst all the ego it’s easy to forget that association with the best bands in the land can be a very good thing. In 1990 The Charlatans stood in the same field as The Stone Roses when it came to a sorted rhythm section, and Brookes considers the Roses’ drummer Reni as one of the best ever.

The Charlatans’ own talent is best heard in ‘Then’-the second single from ‘Some Friendly’. Brookes’ solid beats shape the song into a striking stop-start rhythm, pinning down and kicking up the melancholy air that fills out the body of the song. ‘Sonic’ also relies on its technically immaculate drumming, before the beautiful bashing of the ‘Sproston Green’ finale.

“Martin Blunt [Charlatans’ bassist] has had a big effect on my playing,” admits Brookes. “I mean he’s always going on about drums.”

The only songs from the first album that get a regular airing in the current set are the beat-heavy ‘Then’ and ‘Sproston Green’, and Jon believes that tracks can look after themselves. “There are certain songs that just stay rooted. They don’t move however much you change yourself. You can still refer back to them and they are still right.”

There is however something blurred about The Charlatans around the time of ‘Some Friendly’. Of course it was the era of blurred. It meant something then that we don’t understand now. Blurred album covers, blurred backdrops at gigs, and one blurred track on every album. The Stone Roses’ ‘Don’t Stop’, the Inspiral Carpets’ ‘Memories of You’, and the Charlatans’ ‘109 pt2’. (Wisely, Blur consigned their early experiments in sound to their b-sides.)

But the whole of ‘Some Friendly’ has a blurred quality about it. Jon Baker’s guitar is all soundscapes, and blends in with the Rob Collins’ drifting Hammond technique, making the overall effect monotone. At times it washes together to excellent effect, as in ‘Opportunity’ where it couples with an inevitably looping bassline and relentlessly long-worded lyrics. But too often there is a lack of contrast, and the star tracks suffer by being up to their hips in similar-sounding music.

After the furore over the new major label material has died down (“probably late 2000″), Indie label Beggars Banquet is proposing another between-albums album. It will be another harvesting of the band’s nine years at Beggars’, comprising of all the non-album material recorded up to 1997. Amongst over thirty tracks under this category are two that didn’t make last year’s ‘Melting Pot’ compilation. ‘Happen to Die’ and ‘Me. In Time’ are two of the most interesting tracks to come from the Charlatans fold.

They hark from two EPs sandwiched between the first and second albums, and hopping from one to another is to hop from a monotone era to a much more exciting, fluctuating, challenging era. Hard as it was for the band, you cannot look at the 1992 Charlatans through Stone Roses tinted spectacles. ‘Happen to Die’ is a gem of a track (relegated to track 3 on the ‘Over Rising’ EP due to Gulf War sensitivity), and it constitutes a logical progression from ‘Some Friendly’, all I-Shot-The-Sheriff Hammondy with that bass line, a beautiful chorus, a beautiful song. And, retrospectively, ever-so slightly dull.

Compare then with ‘Me. In Time’-a track that has been fairly well dismissed by the band, who call it “really hesitant and unsure”. The opening gamut is a crystal clear guitar, quickly backed up by beautiful clarity, a piano sound cutting the Hammond cliché and a lovely pop song all round. This last offering announced a real change for the band, with Mark Collins taking over from Jon Baker as guitarist, presenting a much-needed change of dynamic.

The “really hesitant and unsure” feel is certainly encapsulated in the next album title. ‘Between 10th and 11th’ arrived at a nervous time for UK music. Lead-weighted hopes were hung on the Charlatans and Oxford’s Ride to progress and maintain some kind of Indie scene after the creative burst of Madchester. Ride rebelled, refusing to cut their songs down from seven minutes, although the album they produced, ‘Going Blank Again’, contains quality material. The Charlatans’ second album is a similarly awkward affair, with its sullenly non-co-operative title and its bunch-of-bananas cover contradicting the clear, direct, pop style of a number of the songs.

Tim Burgess once recalled, “Lyrically it was weird, it was like ‘Please get me out of this place…What am I up here singing for? I only wanted to play the tambourine anyway’.”

The whole album does have a faintly apocalyptic feel, with ‘The End of Everything’ an attempt at something like a protest song. It doesn’t sit right, with the lyric ‘They only want a “yes-man”/they will tell you what to believe and no (erm…)/Yes I do I only want to be strong’ standing out as being out of kilter with the band’s personality.

Jon Brookes recalls the mood: “I think we were concerned-not that the bubble had burst exactly, but that we were there at the top and we were starting to question if it was what we really wanted. It really shook us. A certain panic started to set in.”

‘Weirdo’ was the first single (Tim: “We were going to scrap it because we thought it was crap”), and the contrast with earlier material is great. There is the rebellious mashing of the Hammond’s keyboard, which really does lend a weird, dangerous sound. Again, the drums signal a change. The organics of ‘Some Friendly’ are replaced with the Genetically Modified sequencer that was prevalent at the time. After all the Baggy Music, producers like Flood and Robin Guthrie were cleaning up music. Unfortunately the rest of the world was going Grunge, leaving hitherto promising bands like James, Lush, Chapterhouse and Curve trying with little success to reverse out of the cul-de-sac of UK music.

It was too soon to go all Eighties again, although ‘Between 10th and 11th’ has dated better than ‘Some Friendly’. The vast effects work foretells the work with the Chemical Brothers and tells much about the band’s interest in dance. If the album didn’t produce their best singles, the sequence of tracks drifting through ‘Subtitle’, popping through ‘Can’t Even Be Bothered’, crunching through ‘Weirdo’, chewing through ‘Chewing Gum Weekend’ and finally breathing through ‘(No one) Not Even The Rain’ is some of the deftest album-work around. The last track quotes e e cummings’ poem-‘not even the rain has such small hands’. No one, not even the Stone Roses had done this.

By the time the realisation was made that drum pads were not the way to go, the UK had no music industry to speak of. Blur were going to be the next big thing, but were still circling for landing with ‘Modern Life is Rubbish’. The best thing happening was in America. The Black Crowes’ ‘Southern Harmony and Musical Companion’ was providing a healthy foil for Grunge, and was certainly doing great things with keyboards. If anywhere was going to provide inspiration for a UK band it was there, hence Primal Scream’s blues/gospel incarnation.

“Something was said about us recently,” says Jon, “That really struck a chord. We were described as the closest thing to white soul. I wish that had been said about us earlier, because I think we’ve had that for a long time. It comes out on the third album, ‘Up to Our Hips’. We’d had such a tough time, and that album has like a ‘phoenix rising’ vibe.”

The greatness of the opening track on ‘Up To Our Hips’ comes in its maracas, harmonica and blues piano. The reaction against ‘Between 10th and 11th’ is huge, and with it came a return of the blurredness, only this time it was an anti-technology blurredness. Blurredness with intent, if you will.

Jon says, “We used a lot of handheld percussion with really raw production. The most technological thing we used on that album was a torch, because we used to go out fishing in the pitch dark after a day in the studio!”

There is certainly a new soul shining through what sounds now like a fairly dark album. The opening track is a real high point, and ‘Jesus Hairdo’ provides a poppy relief, again drawing confidently on the blues piano, with lyrics suggesting a sympathy for America: “If everything you say is true it’s bad TV”.

But, contrary to the general tide, there are tracks which utilise a more complex production value. In ‘Feel Flows’ it is as if the house culture is struck through with techno/indie sensibilities. An absolutely filthy keyboard, links up with a frosted glass guitar over very cymbal-driven percussion. It is definitely a fine moment for the Charlatans, and their best instrumental by a long stretch. More greatness follows on the title track, with a similarly organic dance feel. The soul is high, although as an album ‘Up To Our Hips’ doesn’t quite gel, with the dance and blues influences seeming to pull in contradictory directions.

One important move towards the Charlatans of today is in the lyrics, which start to shed the hesitancy that characterises previous albums. On ‘I Never Want and Easy Life if Me and He Were Ever to Get There’, the words are much more direct: ‘Save me I wanna slip with the slide/Shoot it up and go for a ride’. The choice of this as a single shows the intent of the band to get much more randy, but the whole album can probably be considered transitional. The album scored well, although the singles performed worse than any others, barely cracking the top 40, with ‘Jesus Hairdo’ peaking at 48.

But The Charlatans knew what they wanted to do, and they went ahead and did it. The change of direction to come is evident in ‘Up To Our Hips’, and with the release of ‘The Charlatans’ the change was thrust into position. A high-profile vocal slot for Tim Burgess on the Chemical Brothers’ single “Life Is Sweet” helped both bands at this point, helping the Chemicals achieve debut success and thrusting the Charlatans back up to the fore.

Oddly enough for an eponymous album, ‘The Charlatans’ sits awkwardly in The Charlatans’ output as being somehow unlike them. You might say it was their American Rawk album, if it would benefit you to do so. It is certainly very loud and very trebly. It sits there as a statement of intent: a more expansive sound, with flat-out qualities rather than the (comparative) plinky-plinky gentleness of before.

So what made the difference? “That was when Tim and Mark Collins [guitarist] really clicked,” recalls Brookes. “It was their honeymoon period. Tim was looking for someone to write with and they came together at that point.” It certainly shows. The blurred Hammond sound is mixed low to allow for big fat wedges of guitar and thrusting lyrics, although Rob Collins turns up trumps on ‘Just When You’re Thinkin’ Things Over’ with some inspired piano work.

Jon remembers: “Everything going on in music at the time was self-destructive. Nirvana were really big, and everyone was talking about taking heroin, and we were like ‘No, no, no-that’s not what we want’. Mark especially was adamant that what we did socially should work in the band’s favour. It was quite a conscious decision to behave positively. We ended up with a massive clutch of really upbeat tracks, each one fighting to get on to the album.”

For a band who are constantly fending off comparisons-and The Charlatans’ career has virtually been defined by accusations of sounding like other bands-it is very dangerous to radically change direction. Of course these are the days when bands can duplicate their heroes and it passes unnoticed in a wave of adoration. But anyone taking the trouble to play ‘Here Comes a Soul Saver’ beside Pink Floyd’s ‘Fearless’ will see every reason not to take the material as The Charlatans. The Rolling Stones’ ‘Exile On Main Street’ also leaps readily to mind.

Tim concurs about the lifting of material: “With ‘Just When You’re Thinkin’ Things Over’ we were thinking of ripping off ‘Ramble On’ by Led Zeppelin. ‘Toothache’ was us trying to capture the spirit of ‘When The Levee Breaks’.”

Undoubtedly this was a very silly time for the UK bigshots. Suddenly it was okay to sound like someone-and I mean exactly like someone. For all the quality there were little indulgences that sank entire ships. Oasis have consistently flirted with pop writing excellence before trampling all over their strawberries with irrelevant Beatles references. Ian Brown must sorely lament allowing The Stone Roses to screw up a perfectly good start to an album with Led Zeppelin licks.

But the fact of the matter is The Charlatans have always been able to maintain a high standard of musicianship. That was what put them up there with the best of the Baggy lot, and that is what keeps them there through thick and thin. ‘The Charlatans’, when it comes down to it, is an excellent album. It is tight, focused and confident.

Lyrics like ‘Feeling good, feeling high, it’s a rush’, and ‘I can go for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles’ leave no doubt as to where the band are coming from. They mark a new phase for Tim Burgess who sings with a spitty brashness, withering the former timidity.

‘Tellin’ Stories’ is immediate. Opener ‘With No Shoes’ is massive, and single-handedly makes the album “What the Stone Roses’ ‘Second Coming’ should have been™”. The lyrics (“Stone me”/“I’ve been walkin’ with no shoes”/“I could hardly wait to shoot you down”) is all Roses, head on, without a care. ‘One To Another’ becomes so packed with energy it is almost unbearable, almost breaking the Charlatans’ careful shape-it is a real favourite moment.

‘You’re A Big Girl Now’ is firmly driven, denying the pause for breath that most acoustic tracks afford. ‘Area 51′ breaks the album just past the centre before the trump card of ‘How High’, which sums up the relentlessness of the set. Burgess’s vocal melody is a one-noter, repeatedly battering the listeners up high and keeping them there: “Yeah too right I’m gonna pledge my time ’til the day I die.” The crescendo is reached with another glance at the old adversaries, with ‘Get On It’ bearing a structural resemblance to the Stone Roses’ first album-closer.

‘Tellin’ Stories’-according to Martin Blunt-“sounds like a big bag of spanners”. It is another huge leap forward for the band. But it is so great, so confident, so emotionally charged (coming as it does on the back of keyboardist Rob Collins’ untimely death), one doesn’t-can’t-stop to see the reality of it.

Jon Brookes, inescapably tangled in its making, cannot hear what the fan hears. “I’ve listened to the album a million times just to try and figure out what mood Rob was in, if he was unhappy,” he told RMB. “And I can hear certain conflicts on there between us all. I think the ascent made us dizzy again. I still haven’t quite digested the songs-there are a few ghosts on that album. In time it might make some sense.”

One track that will provide a great selling point for the proposed Beggars Banquet non-album tracks compilation is the b-side to the ‘How High’ single. ‘Title Fight’ was reputedly recorded too late for inclusion on ‘Tellin’ Stories’, and it certainly makes for a class-A b-side, pausing marvellously before its conclusion to get all dirty with some superloops supplied by Bentley Rhythm Ace’s Richard March. As it turns out, it’s a pointer for things to come…

THE NEW ALBUM

‘Us & Us Only’. What a title. Only, thinking about it, it’s like calling it ‘The Charlatans’, except there’s already an album called ‘The Charlatans’. And now is the time for The Charlatans to make a definitive mark. UK music desperately needs a pickup, with all the thunder-stealing acts like the Manics, Oasis and Blur on something of a back foot. What The Charlatans can do is establish themselves once and for all as mainstays, unaffected by the flitterings and nonsenses of fashion and fad. ‘Us & Us Only’ it is then.

According to Jon Brookes, opening track ‘Forever’ is a touchstone of stability: “It’s a great starting song. It’s the first track and the first single to come from the album. Tim took the music with him to Japan and wrote the lyrics in an afternoon. We thought it was the perfect way to start an album, and it remains so even now. It has stayed exactly where it is as a track.”

Clocking in at over seven and a half minutes, ‘Forever’ represents a new direction for The Charlatans. Now safely in the Universal/Island fold, they can afford the time to experiment on the album as a whole. Here we are introduced to a distorted vocal and a choppy drum loop which, together with a classic dub bass line, keep the song throbbing under a Hammond/strings haze.

The track to really flip out with new form is ‘Good Witch, Bad Witch 2′. A double bass and keyboard repeat a dreamy handprint, providing crystal clarity over the filthy failing drum. Burgess’s lyrics switch from exorcism to bluster to Simpsons-style drunken maniac and back, making for an unhinged feel. It occupies the penultimate spot on the album, but the positioning of a minute-long taster at track two means that it suffuses the whole set, skewering it with a dark tension.

‘The Blond Waltz’ starts a little canter of tracks that display a supreme relaxation and self-assurance with the material at hand. (It’s the band’s first ever foray into a three-four time signature, music fans!) Martin Blunt has described the new album as “Bob Dylan and The Band on Ecstasy playing at the last night of the Heavenly Social”, and Tim Burgess’s tendency to imitate Dylan reaches its extreme in ‘A House Is Not A Home’. To be honest the vocal sounds like a digitally remastered Shane MacGowan over a relaxed rush of a song that is musically all smiles.

‘Senses’ is said by Blunt to lay late keyboardist Rob Collins’ ghost to rest. It brings the mood right down, starting with a solemn piano chime accompanied by harmonica before bursting into an impassioned valediction from Tim Burgess. Once again it is unlike anything heard from the band before-not a familiar song structure or sound, but rather a flat-out emotional expression.

The new release is aimed at bringing together material from nearly forty albums recorded in the thirty years of the band’s existence. Founder member Albert Mazibuko took some time out from the group’s recent UK tour to explain. 

“We wanted to take the opportunity to bring together some of our very favourite songs,” he said. “We have gained new members with different singing styles, and of course there is all this new technology, so we thought we would rerecord some of our songs dating back to the early Seventies.” 

Ladysmith formed in South Africa in the mid-1960s from a number of bands singing in the Zulu-chanting ‘isicathamiya’ style. But it wasn’t until group leader Joseph Shabalala co-wrote ‘Homeless’ for Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’ album in 1986 that the band made an impact overseas. 

Albert explains: “The music has changed very much in the last fifteen years, because we have written about what we were experiencing at the time. Our original aim with these songs from the Seventies was to bring hope to the people of South Africa, to encourage them not to lose touch with their culture. There is a great threat to that culture because of the flood of radio and TV.” 

As well as revisiting familiar turf, ‘In Harmony’ contains versions of ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ and ‘Amazing Grace’ with Des’ree, and ‘Beautiful Vision’ with Van Morrison. A collaboration with The Lighthouse Family is also promised. 

“We met Des’ree when we sang at the Concert for Linda McCartney,” explains Albert. “We needed a little time to adjust, but the result was very good. The work with Van Morrison was just perfect. He is very easy to sing with.” 

“We are also hoping to set up a school in South Africa to teach students singing, and to help them celebrate Zulu culture. We want to learn as much as possible in our collaborations with other artists so we can bring this back to the school and teach properly to the students.” 

The new album also sees Ladysmith tread new ground with a remix of old standard ‘Abezizwe’ by British producers D’Influence. Albert laughs: “We approved it, yes. Those people have honoured our music. I don’t know how they did it, but it works wonderfully. I thought it might mix the song’s story up [the remix divides the chorus with a section of verse] but it goes very well.” 

As well as promoting ‘In Harmony’, Ladysmith will be appearing at the MOBO awards with Des’ree, and providing backing on the new album from Irish popstrels B*witched. Does Albert know who they are? “Well, we had seen them a lot on television in the UK,” he laughs, “but we never thought they would want to work with us!” 

‘In Harmony’ is due out on 18th October on Wrasse Records.