Step inside Brian Eno's Reflection

Come in. Pull up an invisible chair. Rest your feet on that anti-matter futon. You are now inside Brian Eno's newest album.

His latest ambient opus Reflection is in the vein of classic Discreet Music Eno. It is slow listening, where the notes stretch out for eternity. What a spacious album. And so many skylights. I like what he's done with the place.

It's well worth a listen - you can catch segments of the whole thing here. May it give you space to stop for a while.

Speaking of Eno, I've been rediscovering Passengers, his much neglected mid-1990s project with U2. An overlooked album for both artists. Which is a shame because Slug and Your Blue Room are great and the Japan edition of the album had a remix of Zoo Station called Bottoms. That's right. Bottoms.

Fake news: there's a famous faux band in town

Get a load of these tribute band flyers. Korn Again. Guns Or Roses. U2-2. Bon Giovi. And the gloriously intoned Slipknowt. As you may guess, Slipknowt are from that famous Yorkshire town of, er, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

A casual observer-- no, I found these flyers in a pub, so scratch that-- A tipsy observer may think that was the bona fide U2, until you notice they're playing in Prestwich. I mean, Prestwich is an upstanding place, but I wouldn't think a world tour by the rattly hummers would stop by there.

I respect tribute bands, living in the shadow of a more famous version of themselves. I spend enough time being mistaken for Johnny Vegas. I do wonder if I should heave myself around the comedy circuit with a pottery wheel. Call myself Johnny Fake-Ass. Swap the booze for meth so I don't entirely violate his artistic copyright. I've also been likened to an actor from Human Centipede 2 (no really), although I'm happy to leave that one alone.

These are the tribute bands I'd want to set up in the world of electronic music: Faulty DL, Josh Hoodwink, Afaux Twin, Fake-0-8 State, Norbital and Dupe. That last one refers to mid-90 chart-toppers Doop. Hey, shut up, this isn't easy.

If any record company wants me to tour as a tribute act, let me know. I can make pretend keyboards from cereal boxes. I'm sure I can sellotape some spaghetti together to make some leads so, y'know, sound comes out of the speakers. Which are made from mashed potato. Let's do this. I'll even play Prestwich.

Further Fats: Suspended puppies: an absolutely genuine review of Warp20 Sheffield (2009)

Further Fats: Fake plastic CDs and eating too much cheese before writing a blog post (2010)

Boring Pauls

In my ongoing quest to uncover the musical Pauls (see my Awful Pauls and my Gorgeous Pauls), you don't have to scrape off too much froth to discover a steaming pile of terminal dullness. Here are the boring Pauls.

Paul Stanley

Stanley Eisen was so dull, he changed his name to Paul. He then joined Kiss. If you're not sure which one he was, he had a single black star over his eye which made him look like glam-era Elton John after a hefty punch in the face. Stanley was never rock and roll, despite the Kiss persona. He hardly ever missed a show, he's had a hip replacement or two, he talked more than he played on stage, and he perfomed a duet with Sarah Brightman of all people. Crazy, crazy nights, huh?

Paul Weller

Don't get me started on the Pantene-haired Britpop-leeching plodfather of mod, Paul Weller. How he can bottle something like the Jam and let it turn into runny, tasteless like the snoozesome Wild Wood MOR dross, I'll never know. I blame Weller entirely for Ocean Colour Scene and The Enemy, two bands that cancel out anything good he ever recorded. If he was a colour, he'd be brown. And not even a good brown.

Paul Anka

You may not have noticed, but Anka's back in fashion after jumping on the Glee and American Idol bandwagons. This is very bad news indeed. He represents everything I hate about the 1950s: slick hair, white teeth, Elvis warbling and uncontrolled use of rhyming couplets (Diana alone has rhymes as tedious as 'me / see', 'say / play' and 'lover / other'). For a man called Paul Anka, rhyming couplets is a dangerous game. Except it's not dangerous: it's just dull.

Peter Paul and Mary

This trio was drippier than a leaking tap on a drizzly Sunday. They gave rise, unashamedly, to the dubious notion that the 1960s were all about smoking pot and picking flowers. In fact, the Magic Dragon they sang about really was a crappy children's song about a dragon, while Leaving On A Jet Plane led to New Order being sued in a nasty bit of solicitor spitefulness. Drip, drip, drip, the 60s are dead and so is your childhood, get over it.

Paul Hewson

Paul Hewson, otherwise known as Bono Out Of U2, is a Pope-badgering, vocal-straining, swollen-eyed, God-complexing, post-unmodern, microphone-chewing, charity-mugging, tax-dodging philanthropist with a neat line in mid-life crisis trousers and an ability to keep shouting "EDGE!" in live shows like he's got some kind of Pizza Hut tourettes whilst simultaneously making every song sound like it was recorded for an advert for life insurance for the over 70s. He is now possibly the most boring musician on earth, and James Blunt isn't dead yet, so that's saying something.

More Pauls

Surely some Pauls are redeemable? This can't be all the Pauls? What about the good Pauls? Can you have a good Paul? Jump to the Gorgeous Pauls, or click here for some Awful Pauls.

We need a new Mercury Music Prize for people that give a crap about electronic music

There's a sumptuous scene in Danny Boyle's best movie Sunshine where a fullstop-like planet Mercury slinks past a firey, all-powerful sun.

For electronica fans, it represents a brilliant metaphor for the Mercury Music Prize: an insignificant dot backed up by a glowing past that is more distant than you think.

When the Mercury showered Primal Scream with £20,000 for such a far-out album as Screamadelica, beating U2, Simply Red and Young Disciples, it was a kick in the Brit Awards' union jack pants. That was in 1992, remember, when 20 grand was worth about a billion quid..

The kudos reverbarated through the years with Portishead and Roni Size reaching equally dizzy heights. And that's despite the Mercury trying to derail everything by choosing M People in 1994.

I'm not saying this year's list sucks. I've filed Bat For Lashes, Glasvegas or (yawn) Friendly Fires into a big box labelled "shrug", but I'm sure they deserve their success. You may well argue this in the comments section.

But where's the electronica? We've been thrown a brace of bones with Underworld (although never with the ultimate techno album band Orbital), but there's something fundamentally wrong.

In a great piece for Bleep43, Toby Frith searches for any Mercury nods for Warp Records ("the UK’s most important label") and fails. You could make a similar argument for Leaf.

Firth argues it's because electronica immerses itself in singles and live appearances, rather than albums. He's right (think of Windowlicker), but the exclusion from this year's nominations of Squarepusher's Just A Souvenir is criminal.

It's more because of the man rather than the album. The Square one (photo, above, from Bangface) became the darling of the serious press last autumn; if any electronica artist was going to be the Mercury's first true IDM nomination, it was going to be him.

Except it wasn't. Inside that little dot of a prize, there so many are guitars, guitars, guitars, there's little room for a 303. And, as non-nominated Fatboy Slim will tell you, everybody needs a 303.

Maybe we live on a different planet, in a different solar system with Aphex Twin's grinning face where the sun should be. And maybe, therefore, we need our own Music Prize that respects a wickedly neglected genre.

I sold my soul for the second time*: Oasis at Heaton Park

Y'alright our kid? Oasis were lush the other night. We well got bevvied, the burgers were well mank, but the boys brought the party on big style.

Crikes, matron, pass the vermouth, I seem to have come over all indie kid. But yes, I went to see Oasis on Thursday, courtesy of a couple of kind-hearted souls. We were some way away, as you can see from the piccie I took (above).

I'd sold my soul to Oasis before* - I was at Maine Road in 1996, when they simply entranced. But now I am older, less wise and probably a lot more cynical.

So I survived this lager-sodden football-chanting ordeal by wearing a pair of white trainers. They helped me fit in perfectly, and I always had the option of clicking the heels three times if I needed a quick getaway.

In the end, it was an incredibly good-natured affair. After waiting in the cold without sound or lights for 15 hours, one of the Gallagher boys promised to refund everyone's tickets, and the excited buzz that rippled through the crowd never quite left.

In fact, it wasn't an ordeal at all. The crowd camaraderie was infectious, and I think Oasis top U2 in that whole stadium rock spectacle thing.

So Supersonic soared like the anthem it's always been. Masterplan had pilled-up Ben Sherman lads hugging each other like they'd just come off a football field. And the band is turning out some pretty decent new songs as well (Waiting For The Rapture, which has the same beat as The Doors' Five To One, and Falling Down, which has almost the same beat as the fab four's Tomorrow Never Knows). (Get the set list here.)

Kasabian were moody and powerful, as I expected, and thank goodness I arrived too late for the other supports. Twisted Wheel are dull, and I made my views crystal clear about Reverend And The Makers in this piece here.

So, Oasis, I salute you. You were the best rock band in the world when Definitely Maybe came out, and 15 years later, you were compelling and funny. You just need a Moog solo in every track, that's all.

*a reference to the opening line of The Importance Of Being Idle. And no, I didn't quite sell my soul: I got free tickets on both occasions. I gave my soul away gratis.

Live tweeting at the Brits - the full text

As promised a couple of shakes ago, I have just live-tweeted the 2009 Brit Awards on my Twitter feed, which, incidentally, is worth signing up to because I post a few extra links and news that I can't fit onto this site.

Here are my Twitter comments ("tweets") in full, with minor edits so it makes more sense.

- The Brits are copying Glastonbury and using a 'pyramid stage'. Pfffrt. Expect some highly smug tweets as I watch from my tellybox.

- U2 are putting all their words on a big screen like a worship concert.

- Ha ha, look at James Corden, doing a great Homer 'smock'.

- Simon Pegg has kept that weight off.

- Duffy best female?! - the clue's in the name.

- Best International Female up next, it's... NO NO NO WRONG NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO WRONG GET HER OFF NO NO NO NO NO AAAARGH STOP HER TALKING NO NO NO OH PLEASE NO. Katy Perry's stopped. Phew.

- Took Corden 15 mins to do a shag joke to Kyles.

- Girls Aloud look like flamingos.

- Second Brit for Duff(y).

- It's Coldplay - I may have to hide.

- Chris Martin came on naked, doing a rap version of Run To The Hills. Didn't expect that.

- Pet Shop Boys, Brandon Flowers and Lady GaGa later. It could be messy.

- Strong International Group category. It's Kings Of Leon, obvs'ly. Epitome of casual cool, "y'all".

- Why's Paul Weller at home having tea with Adele? (He was in a pub, it turned out.)

- Has Duff(y) finished? Can I un-mute yet?

- Joe Calzagglewaggle looks sheepish because he's totally forgotten which award he's presenting- heh!

- KINGS OF LEON YOU ARE IN BRITAIN NOT JUST ENGLAND. Gah.

- Who are those people with torches?

- It's our hometown boys, Take That. Robbie fever! Rumour was Robbie Williams would turn up. He didn't, but Take That's Brit performance was truly beautiful. Mat Horne is having an orgasm at it.

- Take That looked like Kraftwerk.

- Nick Frost looks like a geography teacher browsing a gardening centre.

- Eddie's just killed Iron Maiden.

- Matt Lucas knows how to find the camera, doesn't he?!

- Hoff and Elbow. What a contrast. Oh as I type, Guy Garvey says to the Hoff, dryly: "You up for a drink later on, David?" Fried Brits gold, ha ha ha!

- Next bit of gossip: Will Katy Perry "controversially" snog Florence & The Machine? Will the Pet Shop Boys, the Killers and Lady GaGa be a car crash? Stay tuned.

- They muted Florence's introduction. Hmm. No snogging.

- Gok's predictable and receding.

- Best International Male Kanye West did a terrible "inter-racial" joke. (International. Inter-racial. It's a pun, see? Kanye's no Tim Vine.)

- Ting Tings and Estelle's quite good mash-up is more sass than my bowels can cope with.

- Did Grace Jones do Estelle's make-up?

- Allan Carr comes on to 'Womanizer'. Does science teacher joke - I've already done that here, luv.

- Best single Girls Aloud is a major relief.

- Tom Jones is a McLaren F1 car (orange and grey).

- Right, Radiohead, it's your time to win... go on... go on... Duff(y)?!? Oh come ON.

- Duff(y)'s crying. Good. She's ruined all music forever by beating Radiohead.

- Stephen Fry's tummy is rumbling - oh the trivia of Twitter.

- Took Corden 110 minutes to do a shag joke about Brandon Flowers.

- Here's Pet Shop Boys' disembodied heads. Starting with Suburbia, with added pink wig, then Love Etc, then Always On My Mind, then (to a massive cheer) Go West . It's a classic Brits melody!

- Here come the sexy men dancers.

- The sexy men dancers have been replaced by Lady GaGa on What Have I Done To Deserve This. One second of I'm With Stupid, then Brandon doing It's A Sin. A couple more breakneck track changes.

- Wow, those mostly naked dancers don't leave a lot to the imagination, do they?

- Pet Shop Boys didn't need Brandon Flowers and Lady GaGa.

- So that's it, done. Elbow had the best moment with the Hoff, Take That were the best performers and Duff(y) was a travesty.

A finally message to a friend on Twitter: "Twittering was the only way of coping with the awfulness." See my Twitter page here.

Blowin' in the wings: why protest songs should return to centre stage

A member of the BNP lives near me.

I know because on the sign outside the flats where this person lives, someone has scrawled a flat number next to the letters "BNP".  And yes, the address was on that leaked list of members last November.

I do wonder if the person concerned wears the graffiti as a badge of pride. Or whether they're vulnerable and fearful in a society that ought to respect people's freedom of speech, even if their views are hurtful and repulsive.

Do you recall the years after Thatcher (you remember Thatcher: she's the mother of the BBC's least favourite celebrity since Jonathan Ross, Jeremy Clarkson and, um, the DEC)?  In the early 1990s, for a generation of young people politicised by the poll tax riots, it was especially cool to bash racism with music.

Some artists waved the flag higher than others. Reggae trance soundsystem Dreadzone (pictured) woke the zion youth and encouraged them to Fight The Power. Credit To The Nation sampled Nirvana with protest single Call It What You Want, and we all learned that (a) racism was wrong and (b) sampling had gone too far.

And Phil Collins threatened to leave the country if the left-wingers gained power. (They never did, because Collins and his ilk secretly infiltrated the Labour party with a drumming gorilla, or something.)

I still have Anti-Nazi League stickers on old notebooks somewhere.  The notebooks are full of appalling song lyrics that will never again see the light of day.

Since then, we've forgotten how to be political through music. Yes, protest songs live on, and plenty of musicians rouse the Citizen Smith within us. But Bono made the whole thing a little maudlin, while Morrissey's revived spat with the NME left both parties looking more than a little pathetic.

Politics seems to be hiding in the wings when it should be centre stage.  There is plenty to be political about.  The BNP keep winning seats for their disgusting cause, the red-top dailies prey on people's fears, and the pay gap continues to drive a chasm betwixt all different sorts of people. 

It's pretty disingenuous of me to turn a piece about racism into an exercise in nostalgia.  But I wish we could regain that spark.  Make Chumbawamba cool again. Well... okay... maybe I've taken it too far...

It's not a pie chart but I called it a Bri Chart because that was the only pun I could think of

This chart shows why I'm worried about Brian Eno. (Click here for large.)

I should have posted this months ago, when Eno told Radio 4's Front Row that he would be producing the latest LP from tapioca-flavoured, whinging popmunters Coldplay.

He said their new material "will be very original and very different from what they've done before."

It wasn't.

Viva La Whatever was released by Coldplay this week and, like past albums from James and U2, you can see the Eno sheen dripping from every note.

But what was Eno thinking of? What was the former producer of U2's sunglasses era and Talking Heads doing anywhere near a band I consider so bad, I'd rather trim my toenails with a chainsaw than listen to Chris Martin's Bluntesque mediocrity.

That's why I created my Bri Chart, above, showing the collapsing milestone's of Brian Eno's production career.

On a more delightful note, listen to Islands covering Eno's The Big Ship (you'll need to scroll down a bit).

Of his Eno cover, Islands' Nicholas Thorburn said "It doesn't matter if it's sloppy. Things can be a little rough around the edges if they have heart."

Or they can be as neat and tidy as a Coldplay song and have absolutely no pulse whatsoever.

Just time for an mpSunday, the series where I use the internet to give away music. Clever, I know. It only seems relevant to bust you some Eno, so here goes:

mpSunday: Brian Eno's Big Ship (this mp3 has now gaaawn - click here for the latest mpSunday.)