Dance music has far better lyrics than Liam Gallagher and John Squire

'Just Another Rainbow' is the new song by Liam Gallagher and John Squire. A meeting of musical minds that has Oasis and Stone Roses fans drinking celebratory lager from their bucket hats.

The single is predictable enough. I won't link to the actual song here, in the same way I wouldn't show you a photograph of a turd I'd found in a nearby alleyway. But I can tell you Gallagher sounds like a donkey on a torture rack, while Squire is so unmemorable, I've already forgotten what instrument he plays. Balalaika? Kazoo?

What I wasn't prepared for was how bad the lyrics would be. I wasn't expecting Oscar Wilde, but the lyrics are so banal, I thought the Oxford English Dictionary had glitched and all the good words had fallen out. Here are the main offenders:

"Just another rainbow dripping on my tree."

"Red and orange, yellow and green. blue, indigo, violet. We've crossed a line."

"Just another rainbow paying the bills. Am I your windmill?"

One thing can be certain is that the boys have never seen a rainbow. A rainbow has never offered financial support for my household amenities, never mind been used as a wind-powered turbine. At least they got the colours right, although a true 'bow connoisseur would include infrared and ultraviolet.

This is why dance music is much better than this turgid indie pop. Dance music has a history of innovative lyrics that really speak to the human condition. Its music makers put thought in the message they want to purvey. It is music for intelligent people.

I'm almost reluctant to do this, because I don't want to shame Liam and John. But here are list of the most insightful dance music lyrics of all time. Next time, lads, put your guitars down and don your raving gloves. You may learn a thing or two.,,

Black Box: Everybody Everybody – "(Everybody, everybody, everybody, everybody) Oh, everybody (Everybody, everybody, everybody, everybody) Everybody, oh everybody. (Everybody, everybody, everybody, everybody) Everybody."

DJ Snake: Get Low – "Get low, get get get low, get low, get get get low, get low, get get get low, get low, get get get low, get low, get get get low, get low, get get get low, get low, get get get low, get low, get get get low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low."

Fatboy Slim: The Rockafeller Skank – "Bout, 'bout, 'bout, 'bout, 'bout, 'bout, 'bout, 'bout, funk, funk, funk, funk, funk, funk, bro, bro, bro, bro, bro." 

Roni Size: Brown Paper Bag – "Step step step step step step step step step step, p-p-paper paper paper paper paper, mmmmmmmmmmmm."

Duck Sauce: Barbra Streisand – "Oo-oo who-oo-oo whooo-oo oo-oo, oo-oo who-oo-oo whooo-oo oo-oo, oo-oo who-oo-oo whooo-oo, Barbra Streisand."

No wait, hold on. These are way to repetitive. I need something more insightful. Lyrics with real thought. Proper deep thinking as if they were written by Albert Einstein or Lorraine Kelly or something. Right. Here we go...

Prodigy: Memphis Belles – "Lick it once, lick it twice, c'mon, put that sh*t on ice."

Calvin Harris: The Girls – "I like them black girls, I like them white girls, I like them Asian girls, I like them mixed-race girls [etc etc etc]"

Scooter: Friends Turbo – "Can you tell me, how do I get off the bus?"

Ye gods, who ARE these monsters? This is going horribly wrong. Excuse me while I dig into my Warp Records collection. There must be something intelligent in those old purple twelve-inches. Intelligent techno and all that. Ah, here we are...

LFO: LFO – "LFO."

Tricky Disco: Tricky Disco – "Tricky disco."

I give up.

Pictured: A hyperfuturistic digital 3D rendering of Liam Gallagher

Further Fats: Guest post – Crimes against crimes against keyboards (2011)

Further Fats: There is one John Cage joke and it is this (2021)

The downfall of Ian Brown

Monkey-faced Mancunian Ian Brown is being roasted on Twitter for a gig he did in Leeds.

His concert at the O2 Academy Leeds on 25 September was part of his first solo headline tour in over ten years. And when he means 'solo', he really means 'solo'. Videos abound of him alone on the stage, drawling to a backing track.

One tweet has him murdering FEAR, Another tweet posted a clip of him looking distinctly lonely on stage as he sang First World Problems. The tweeter said:

"turn up to his £40 a ticket, sold out gig at leeds tonight WITH NO BAND. I’m a life long fan but it was bad. #ianbrown does karaoke and butchers his own tunes. Most were too pissed to care but I had to get out after this one. Longsight M13 was a highlight."

It wasn't all negative. A guy called Ryan said, "You absolutely smashed it tonight… You had the place bouncing and your performance was electric." While another complainer seemed disappointed with his singing and his lack of band, yet found it in their heart to say, "he still has the swagger and he’s still a legend in my eyes"

You can't really roast Ian Brown for singing out of tune. The whole point of Manchester acts like Brown and the Happy Mondays and Mark E Smith is that they sound like boozed-up karaoke. It's kicking-out time at the Brass Neck & Baggie and Uncle Darren's off on one. This is what marketers call a unique selling point. 

But it's a bit of a cheek to turn up without a backing band. I'm quite happy for, say, Karl Hyde from Underworld to be a one-man car wash inflatable, flailing around while Rick Smith keeps himself to himself behind his keyboards. But for indie bands, you need the guitars. The musicianship. Something for beardy journalists to write about in Mojo magazine.

He'll appreciate the extra cash pocketed from not paying a band, though. His caché has been increasingly passée in recent years. He's been churning out Covid-19 conspiracy theories, resulting in him being thrown off Twitter and losing a song on Spotify. I think at one point he used the phrase "lame stream media", which instantly loses him any credibility.

Twitter will have its fun. There will be lots more Brown bashing, mostly from people who didn't attend the gig. I still remember a recent tweet showing a few seconds of Mick Hucknall singing off key at a recent performance. People were scandalised. And they ignored a similar clip of Hucknall recently singing like the angels; a stunning set of pipes. Twitter's engine runs on decontextualized outrage. With someone as odious as Ian, it couldn't happen to a better person.

Is this the downfall of Ian Brown? Not for a minute. Do you really think his anti-vax rants will play badly to ageing bucket-heads? Although he may lose a few ticket sales, is his career really going to be harmed by singing like a drunken monkey man on the loose? Not a bit of it.

No. I reckon the worst is to come. Ian Brown is a crusty old white man with big opinions and a screw-them attitude. He is privilege, he is patriarchy, he is Morrissey. The controversy that fully downs his career hasn't happened yet. He'll overstep the mark in some horrible way. Say the 'n' word, become the new Savile, set fire to an orphanage? Probably not. But something.

To quote one of his songs: "I swim with the fishes; you come from the sea. The dolphins were monkeys that didn't like the land."

Nope. Me neither.

Further Fats: Who do I hate more? Morrissey or Axl? (2010)

Further Fats: Mmm Underworld, the world loves you (2012)

Further Fats: The new Stone Roses single is a barrel of thundering diarrhoea (2016)

Selected tweeted works: 17 Fat Roland tweets as recommended by Fat Roland

Hey Fat Roland, how do you come up with fresh blog content 16 years after starting your blog?

Thanks for asking, lovely reader. I guess I'm just extremely creative and very clever in the brain department. Also, you can just copy a load of recent tweets, dump them into a blog post and pretend it's brand new content. Result!

17 Fat Roland tweets as recommended by Fat Roland

1. Ageing
A month ago, I turned 47, so I really think it's time I started taking things more seriously. *draws the concept of existential trousers playing Twister with a sausage*

2. Politics
Ben Bradley? Ben BADLY more like!!!!! Yes? That's good, right? Please tip this tweet five pounds.

3. Time
Clogs go back tonight. Also: espadrilles go forward and tennis racket snowshoes go sideways.

4. Warning
Comrades, there's a storm coming. THERE IS A STORM COMING. Sorry, not storm. Snail. There's a snail coming. It's just over there. Look at its cute ikkle face

5. Animal
Fox making a right old racket outside my window. Went outside and read it my writing until it fell into a deep coma. Winner = ME.

6. Song
Heads and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes /
Knees and toes and knees and toes, knees and toes /
Toes and toes and toes toes toes toes toes toes /
Toes toes toes toes toes toes TOESTOES TOESTOESTOES.
(Millipede version.)

7. Covidiot (Ian Brown)
Ian Brown crashes into the ceiling. His phone stays zipped in his Kappa jacket as he bangs into rooves, treetops, seagulls. If only I believed in gravity, says Ian Brown, knocking a helicopter for six. Every collision, an accidental pocket tweet, each more absurd than the last.

8. Planning
I just used "Let's dip our Poe in the water" in a Zoom meeting about a new poetry project. #winning

9. Success
I'm happy to announce that I have received £15 billion in government support just for being a great guy.

10. English
I'm sorry to be a grammar pedant, but the apostrophe goes AFTER the umlaut and BEFORE the white space indicating the cold nothing of eternity.

11. Stance
I'm sorry to say, but I am thoroughly Anti-Vax. I much prefer Henrys and their little smiling face!!1!!!]!

12. More politics
I would be a terrible shame if Trump's head fell off and his willy exploded and his knees turned into ants. Just saying. JUST SAYING.

13. Nature
I've just been for a walk in the park and I'm very sorry to tell you the trees are a mess. The leaves have gone the wrong colour and they're dropping off the branches like old scabs. Sad.

14. Dream
Last night I dreamt I bought some pitta bread then I ate the pitta bread so I bought more pitta bread. Sorry, not pitta bread. Hamsters. I meant hamsters.

15. Internet
Last night I was browsing videos of cats destroying model railway sets and ended up watching the whole of Duel.

16. Covidiot (me)
New Covid restrictions:
- Legs must stay two metres apart
- Do not socialise with own face when looking into mirror
- Brain must not be used after 10pm
- Please ensure your home stays home even when homing from home
- Goves are now illegal

17. Oh dear
Wrong Said Fred. Geddit?! Huh? GEDDIT?!?!? Hello? Hello? Anyone? Sigh.

The new Stone Roses single is a barrel of thundering diarrhoea

The new Stone Roses single is awful.

It seems like an obvious thing to knock, but even I wasn't prepared for the whiplash I'd get from how much of a throwback it would be. Even in the 1990s, it would have been Woolworths 99p sale fodder: hey grandad, here's some "cool" "indie" music! No, All For One doesn't belong in 2016. The rhyming is so simplistic ("all", "wall", "fall"), I was worried that Des'ree had suffered a stroke.

What a shame. That first album is such a diluted memory now, it's practically homeopathic. If only my 2011 Stone Roses prediction had been right.

All For One's own chorus, repeated three times between extended riffs before they even get to the first verse, comes across as filler. It sounds like a barrel of thundering diarrhoea. Or rather, a dried barrel of diarrhoea. And the thunder is a vague echo of something half cocked. In fact, the whole thing is a can of old paint; crusted and brittle because everyone died watching it dry.

As for stealing the whole concept of "all for one, one for all"? A fatal blow for the Muskahounds' reputation. Someone, somewhere, is now going to have to take Dogtanian to the vets and have him put down.

Thanks, Stone Roses. You killed the swordy dogs.

See what you think. Here's the new Stone Roses song. Do share that link if you want. Ahem.

The Stone Roses and the seriously stained alley of nostalgia

Edit: I was clearly way off the mark in this piece. Here are my 2016 reflections on the new Stone Roses single.

The Stone Roses are reforming. The Stone Roses are not reforming. The Stone Roses are reforming. The Stone Roses are not reforming. The Stone Roses might be reforming.

Manchester was awash with speculation yesterday. It's the only thing people were talking about in the porn shops. Drug dealers whispered the news from beneath street grids. All the flyers in Affleck's Palace were replaced with pictures of Ian Brown next to a big question mark.

In fact, Manchester does nostalgia almost as well as Liverpool, what with reformations by the likes of James, M People and, um, Northside. When in fact what we really want back are our dearly deceased, such as Joy Division, Frank Sidebottom and Together.

Although the cod-blues drudgery on the second Stone Roses album was a crock of anal splatter, the band's contribution to rock music stands as proudly as the Beetham Tower and we Mancunians should shout about it. Well. Drawl about it.

What we didn't need, though, was another trip down a syringe-ridden nostalgia alley. We'd just end up vomiting into our navals and using our hoody to wipe up the sick, thereby creating an ironically-pleasing hypercolour design on our clothing. How on earth can they recapture the Bez days of our lives? Stand in Harvey Nicks and pretend it's the Hacienda? No, thanks.

The rumours were quashed pretty quickly. Many commentators took a (private) post-funeral piss-up between ex-band members as genuine news. But Mani himself gave a journalist a right old ear-pummelling about the rumours, ending his rant with "It isn't true and isn't happening."

The Stone Roses are not reforming. The Stone Roses are not reforming. The Stone Roses are not reforming. Let the whispers become murmers then shouts: the Stone Roses will not come again.

See also: How do you solve a problem like Madchester?

How do you solve a problem like Madchester (and Fac251)?

I am Mancunian from toe to quiff. I am chuffed with my city's history, from the bravery of the suffragettes and the labour movement, to the creation of the computer, to the literal rise of the Beetham tower.

But then, there are the pills, the thrills and, most of all, the bellyaches from a severe case of Madchester indigestion.

I am not about to rail against the Madchester legacy. I will never forget the sense of pride I felt simply being in the city centre at the turn of the 90s knowing that this great city was ruling the cultural world.

For someone who spent most of the day with his breakfast dribbled down his T-shirt and his evenings trying to smoke banana skins, I didn't have much to be proud about. So I bought it: I wore the T-shirts; I bought the records; I watched the Hacienda bouncers beating people up. Sweet memories.

That nostalgia still feeds this blog to some extent, and I can find myself wallowing in musics past. And so you'd think I would have been at the launch of Madchester-themed club FAC25: Factory Manchester last night, right?

Man boobs

Not right. Quite the opposite of right, in fact.

This whole Madchester revival really gets on my man boobs. Peters Hook and Saville seem determined to keep Manchester in some kind of memory-fogged haze, rewriting the Stone Roses era into a story that needs to be told again and again. This story they're weaving is dragging us into the past: we're caught in the loom and we can't tug free. The Manchester Passion didn't help, and neither did 1960s tribute band Oasis.

Legendary album cover designer Peter Saville is some kind of adviser to the city council on a billion squillion plopillion pounds a year. As for Hooky, the picture above* from last night's launch does not fill me with pride. It's classic Hook with his low-slung bass guitar, but it seems strangely dated like a scouser with a bowl haircut. Or anything new by Coldplay.

But this is not a rant against Peter Hook and his mates, either. Can you blame them? What else are they going to do? This isn't some weird utopia when we can leave old rock stars to die in the woods out of the sight of the youngsters.  Let them play: they made it. The Fuc51 blog is amusing, but we should celebrate Madchester in the right place at the right time.

No, FAC251 isn't the problem. Peter Hook isn't the problem. Madchester per se is not the problem. The problem, dear reader, is you**.

Right arm

You've googled FAC251 because you ripped off your right arm to attend the launch night and you landed on this blog looking for reviews, reactions, piccies and videos. 

The problem is you. You buy into Madchester as an icon of history. You trade off the city's heritage like it's some kind of museum. Yeah, it's cool, you got "mad for it" and now you can wear hoodies without looking like a tosspot and say "Y'alright, our kid?" in your Hastings accent.

You're probably not old enough to remember the halcyon days of crap Northside singles and cheaply-produced cow t-shirts. You do know the Hacienda became seriously crap, right?

If you recognise yourself in my description, you must leave the city now. I will come for you. I will beat you to a pulp with my smiley face cannabis tin. I am Mancunian, which automatically makes me think you can come and have a go if you consider yourself to possess an adequate level of hardness.

Zit craters

You are a fair-weather, nostalgia-leeching cultural blank page. You are a Boddingtons Mancunian. You pretend and pretend and pretend and then you move on, looking for the next nostalgia-trough in which to nuzzle your snivelling, zit-cratered face.

You are the problem. You must leave the city immediately and stop attending Madchester club nights.

Madchester. Right place, right time. Let's build a massive statue of Shaun Ryder's head. We'll bow down before it once a year, smearing it in liquid ecstacy, paint and exploded pigeons***. But otherwise, we will get our fix from the Warehouse Project / Sankey's Soap / Islington Mill / Sacred Trinity / whatever floats your musical boat.

Like The Guardian, like Manchizzle, like Words Dept, I believe we need new spectacles when we look at Manchester culture.

That rose tint clashes with your Afflecks hoody anyway.

* photo: Tim Dobson. See his twittering of FAC251 here.

** this will not apply to most readers of this blog, so it is a tad unfair. You're lovely, thank you for reading, etc etc.

*** references to the Stone Roses paint attack and the exploding pigeons in 24 Hour Party People (book and film)

Tend the tables, broom the rats out for me

I've been brooming out the rats this afternoon and I've come across a few links that I'll share with you before a chuck them into the recycling bin.

Firstly, two people have been blogging about the Refresh FM situation (see posts passim). My radio co-presenter Lee has written an eloquent and nuanced piece about his role with Refresh FM, complete with a picture of one of our legendary wallchart playlists. Also, the Guardian's Comment Is Free has written about me, Refresh FM and the wider role of volunteers. Writer Ally Fogg says:

"Anyone who thinks volunteers are immune from workplace bullying or unfair treatment should think again. Victims of such treatment usually (but not always) go quietly, taking their skills and enthusiasm with them. That is a huge loss to us all."

Also, Soundproof Magazine completed their top 20 Manchester albums of all time. The Stone Roses debut album was voted the greatest because:

"In our (admittedly unscientific) poll of Manchester-based journalists, bloggers, club owners, and artists, almost every single one chose The Stone Roses, and the album accumulated more than twice as many points as almost any other album on this list. It wasn't even close."

Stone Roses was my number four, although in retrospect, it should have been a bit higher.

Finally, Autechre are supporting Salt N Pepa. Well, kind of. They're both on the same bill at Bloc 2010. I hope they bleep it, bleep it real good.

(Autechre's cover design of Tri Repetae is pictured above. It's strangely similar to the original cover of Starflyer 59's Gold, released four months earlier. Scandal!)

Reqing out* to retina.IT gets the headnod over stalking Sven Väth and Andrew Weatherall in The Orbit

So what musics have been troubling me ears?

Let's begin with Cylob (pictured), who made his name in the 90s remixing the likes of Aphex Twin and Mike Flowers Pops, both of whom sport more hair than they deserve to. The 'lob span his first reel-to-reels in The Orbit club, Leeds, a venue which arguably spawned my Fat Roland career. I remember watching DJs Andrew Weatherall and Sven Väth with intense interest, hovering behind them like a stalker. As I left the club, I had a lucid moment when I decided, with a theatrical flourish, that yes the world needed my DJing skills. (It didn't, but I went into DJing anyway.)

Cylob's new track Rock The Trojan Fader isn't as immediate as his lovable classic Cut The Midrange Drop The Bass, but it has the same playfulness and eccentricity. Vocoded voices dance up and down analogue keyboards while everything else collapses into a heap of flurried beats.

It bodes well for new album Trojan Fader Style, which I haven't bothered to listen to yet because it's all one long track.

On to everyone's favourite aging relative, Unkle.

The moment Unkle persuaded arch-miserablist Thom Yorke to wail about rabbits and headlights, I was transfixed like a rabbit in some headlights. Yeah, neat simile, I know. Since that high point last decade, we haven't had much output from the band founded by James Lavelle and David Holmes-collaborator Tim Goldsworthy. So the new Unkle album War Stories should be a rare elixir.

It isn't. It is a decent rock album, and comparisons to Kasabian and Stone Roses are fair. The opening tune Chemistry reminds me of Puff Diddly's ridiculously entertaining Come With Me: that's not necessarily a good thing.

But the Fat Roland blog is about electronica, and when Unkle are collaborating with the likes of Josh Homme and The Cult's Ian Astbury, it just ain't gonna ring my bell.

Like former member DJ Shadow, they seem to have found a formula that works. Generally. Most of the time. Kind of. They just need to move on from trip-hop rock crossovers, which were vogue about 52 years ago.

Back to the good music. When I played retina.IT's infectious Tetsub at Manchester's TV21 bar recentlly, I was overwhelmed with a head-noddy Req moment. Anyone who's got into Req will understand me.

retina.IT have now released Semeion, a greatest hits of sorts, full of mid-tempo glitchy bleeps and distorted yet distant funk.

Their studio lies within erupting distance of Mount Vesuvius, and I wonder if they haven't got a satellite or two picking up the sinister clicks and scrapes sprinkled across this sparse, lunar album.

It's such a pleasing effort, lying somewhere between the coldness of Robin Rimbaud and the chunkiness of Clark, that I'm going to give this the head nod over Cylob and Unkle.

I'm careful about who I hyperlink to on this site. Thankfully, I got through this post without mentioning that Unkle used to record in Meatloaf's recording studio. Ah dammit, there's a link to Meatloaf. Oy, stop linking to Meatloaf. Aaw look, Blogger's gone and put a label down there too...

*yes, Reqing out. I just invented it.