I’m confused. Am I the only person who thinks that Jay-Z headlining the Glastonbury Festival is a good idea? It has certainly felt that way following the intense media speculation that has surrounded the US rapper’s billing at the event, which, if you can fathom it, was confirmed all the way back in February.
When it was announced, the festival’s organiser Michael Eavis said that Jay-Z’s presence would help Glastonbury “break with tradition”. I subconsciously nodded with him as I read it. ‘Yes, I can see that happening,’ I thought to myself. Over the weeks that followed, however, it soon became clear that not many people endorsed his, or my now closet, opinion on the matter. Festivalgoers protested, ticket sales on previous years plummeted and, if your name was Noel Gallagher, you didn’t just assault Jay-Z, you declared that the idea of hip-hop at Glastonbury was just “wrong” full stop. “I'm sorry, but Jay-Z? No chance,” Gallagher moaned to the BBC, before saying that throwing “the odd curve ball” like Kylie Minogue was all right actually. Ok, Noel.
Suffice to say, I don’t agree with Gallagher. Not only are his comments misinformed (the percentage of traditional and non-traditional hip-hop acts at past Glastonbury’s has actually been quite high), they got me thinking as to just why people are actually offended. After all, has no one spared a thought as to whom Jay-Z could bring with him to Glastonbury?
Wife aside (the rapper recently married long-term girlfriend Beyonce) Jay-Z’s got a black book of collaborators that should actually make his appearance at Glastonbury the most anticipated in years. First of all, there’s the modern day Glastonbury messiah himself, Chris Martin. Not only has the Coldplay frontman had experience of fronting a band on the festival’s Pyramid Stage, but he also worked with Jay-Z on the rapper’s 2006 album ‘Kingdom Come’. Yes, his appearance on ‘Beach Chair’ might have been rather minimal and, if I’m honest, not particularly great, but theirs is a friendship that goes deep. Martin and his wife, Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow, have been the first to defend the rapper’s booking, for example. When asked recently if Coldplay should be headlining instead of Jay-Z, Martin revoked any suggestion, saying “the best musician on the planet” was already at the top of the bill.
If further proof was needed about the possibility of Martin making an appearance at Worthy Farm then you should look no further than the fact that Coldplay have just suspiciously delayed the start of their US tour. Originally scheduled to begin on June 29th, ‘production problems’ have now pushed it back until mid-July.
Of course, if Jay-Z really wants to bring the guitar music that Noel Gallagher claims defines Glastonbury, then I’m sure he’ll put in a phone call to Linkin Park. In theory, with both acts due to play together in Milton Keynes the day after Jay-Z’s Glastonbury performance, this collaboration, originally united on the 2004 mash-up album ‘Collision Course’, really should happen.
But what if Jay-Z decides to stick to hip-hop? He has, after all, been quoted as saying that the traditional “barriers” created by music genres no longer apply to kids who listen to music in 2008. Well, if that’s the case, then the rapper’s set at Glastonbury could run into the Verve’s slot on Sunday. Kanye West, Mary J Blige, R Kelly, Rihanna, P Diddy…you name them, Jay-Z’s friends with all of them.
To me, all this doesn’t add up to the most controversial Glastonbury booking of all time, it adds up to potentially the most tantalising. And even if Jay-Z chooses to turn up with a DJ and a box of backing records, it will still be remembered as the year Glastonbury truly embodied its own philosophy: to stimulate culture in all its musical forms.
It took 10 minutes of tentative, borderline serious questions before Michelle Obama was treated like any other normal guest on America’s all female, all empowering daytime soapbox The View.
In what has to be the best episode of the programme since her husband put in an appearance earlier this year, Mrs Obama was questioned on everything from her sleek style to whether Mr Obama would install Hillary Clinton as his running mate.
Unsurprisingly she ducked that question, providing an answer that was long in word but void of substance. She’s a political charmer no doubt. And someone that certainly knows what she has to say to in order to actually say very little.
If singer Chris Martin is to believed, then, in 2006, the world came very close to losing Coldplay. In a recent interview to promote his band’s fourth album, Martin (who it should be said has a reputation for exasperated self-deprecation) claimed that the foundations of Coldplay were crumbling to such an extent as touring for their last album, ‘X&Y’, drew to an end that they had stopped talking to each other altogether. Too many “swanky dinners” and endless award ceremonies had, according to the singer, left Coldplay in a state of disrepair, and left Martin wanting to “erase the past.”
Upon reflection, Martin’s recent comments seem to carry some weight. When Coldplay picked up Best Album and Single honors at the 2006 Brit Awards, the singer famously told the crowd that the band wouldn’t be seen again for “many, many years”. Despite selling 10 million copies of ‘X&Y’, Coldplay were apparently “fed up”. As a stunned television global audience tuned in, Coldplay’s record label EMI quickly, and understandably, revoked Martin’s words – highlighting that the band owed them two more records.
After all that negativity, and subliminal claims of a hiatus, it comes as a surprise that one of those records has arrived a little over two years later. Even more of a surprise though, is the fact that on the elaborately titled, ‘Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends’, Coldplay sound so coherent and united. This is not the sound of four men “fed up” with their careers; it’s the sound of four men clambering to reclaim them.
But how have they achieved this? Well, whereas Martin has paid tribute to the bands re-alliance with former manager and friend Phil Harvey, who ducked out of proceedings for the stadium targeting ‘X&Y’, the more astute are more likely to spotlight the influence of producers Brian Eno and Markus Dravs. Both bring their oblique, yet uplifting renaissances of sound to ‘Viva La Vida…’. Eno, for example, provides it on the quite haunting ‘42’, which develops from a sparse piano introduction into a sonic burst of strings and tech-guitar, while Dravs frequently gives Coldplay what he once gave Arcade Fire: unnerving confidence (‘Viva La Vida’).The fact that ‘Viva La Vida…’ opens with an instrumental (‘Life In Technicolor’) probably says a lot about Coldplay’s intentions with this album.
Whereas Martin was once the predominant force driving the band’s music – one thinks of his piano instrumentals in ‘Clocks’ and ‘Shiver’, or even his acoustic guitar in ‘Yellow’ – the rest of Coldplay, particularly guitarist Johnny Buckland, have all come to the fore this time around. Buckland’s guitar chortles menacingly in ‘Cemeteries of London’, which sees Martin cast an eye over a dark capital city, and disports wildly on first single ‘Violet Hill’. There’s even a nod to the Hispanic surroundings that much of the album was crafted in on the deeply sung ‘Yes’, before the faint calling of a Scottish piper crops up later on ‘Strawberry Swing’.
If there’s one area where Coldplay fail to show much progression on ‘Viva La Vida…’, it’s in Martin’s songwriting. Yes he’s broadened his lyrical landscape to challenge everything from religion to the meaning of life and death, but it often comes across as one step too far. “You might be a big fish in a little pond,” he sings on ‘Lost’, before adding: “It doesn’t mean you’ve won, because along may come a bigger one.” Although the symbolism is there, Martin still lacks the ability to link his intentions together with any real sense.
But, that said, ‘Viva La Vida…’ on the whole is a fantastically unexpected and spontaneous comeback from a band that never really went away. Martin has said that the intention with the record was to get better, not bigger; and, for once, it’s hard not to take him seriously.
Released – 12/06/2008 4 Stars
This review was originally published on Tuesday June 10th here.
Clutching a comforting cup of tea, Anthony Ellis is recalling the first time he met Agyness Deyn. It was, he says enthusiastically, “four or five years ago” in a kitchen in the North of England where he was touring with his band the Five O’Clock Heroes. “She had longer hair,” he remembers, leaning over to signal just how long with his hand, “and she was very sweet even then.” As he continues to describe the encounter, which came some time before Deyn was proclaimed by fashion critics as the next Kate Moss, Deyn chats away obliviously to the man beside her. That man is Sam Embery, the band’s drummer - someone with whom she shares a sibling like bond.
As they giggle at a private joke, Ellis glances at them like a proud father. “You crazy kids,” he says, as if right on cue, before returning to his story. “I remember it very well and then when she came to New York, Sam was actually there at the time and those two would hang around a lot.” Seemingly, invigorated at the mention of her comrade, Deyn switches conversations. “We used to run around New York together,” she enthuses, in her sweet Mancunian accent, “we’d be like the kids and he’d be like go play, go play.”
All three are gathered together on an uncomfortable sofa in East London to talk about Deyn’s collaboration on Five O’Clock Heroes new single ‘Who’, a task that is made harder by the fact that all are nursing hangovers of differing intensities. It has, after all, been a heady few days. “It’s been so much fun though,” says Deyn, who has taken a break from her modelling career to help the band promote the single. “It’s felt like a month, this week, because we’ve been so busy.”
‘Who’ is the first song to be taken from the bands new album ‘Speak Your Language’, which, by Ellis’s own admission, is a far fuller record than their debut ‘Bend To The Breaks’, which was released in 2006. The guitars rhythms are more complex, the drum patterns steely and infectious, and the experimentation with brass has given Five O’Clock Heroes a far greater depth. Of course, it’s Deyn’s collaboration that for the moment has garnered all the attention, however. Which is something that, until this week, hadn’t even crossed Deyn’s mind.
“No because we were always like…I’ve been learning guitar for like a few years already and Anthony’s always been helping me with my music anyway, you know, so that was never really an issue,” she says. “But, I think, in the last week it’s been like shit - this is a bit crazy. Especially how fast it’s happened - from us messing around in the studio, having a laugh doing it and then how fast it’s gone from then to now, and now we’re here playing gigs and it’s kind of like a bit unbelievable, it’s really crazy.”
‘Who’ was never consciously written with Deyn in mind. It was originally the produce of a writing session that Ellis had with a French friend and it was only after Deyn heard the original version at his apartment in New York that Ellis decided to translate it. Already it’s proved to be a wise move. On the night before we meet, the band, and Deyn, pre-recorded a performance on Channel 4’s Sunday Night Project. A slot they could have only dreamed of in the past.
“We, the band, we’ve never had anything like that and that’s amazing,” admits Ellis, sincerely. “It was really special, I thought it was a really special moment actually.” Deyn and Embery start chuckling at Ellis’s sensitivity, in the way that children find it hard to grasp that parents can be sentimental. “It was emotional for my manager, she’s been with us for a long time,” he adds. “The thing is, because we’ve come from such an organic sort of start, it makes it so much more…” Ellis is clearly struggling for words now. “Everybody was there backstage, it was really nice. It was a really fun night actually.”
Anthony Ellis was born in England but moved to New York when he was nineteen. His arrival in 2000 came on the eve of the city’s most recent musical renaissance, which saw the emergence of bands like The Strokes, The White Stripes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Having moved to the city with the intention of developing a music career, Ellis suddenly found himself right in the middle of it. He was there, for example, when The Strokes played their infamous residency at the Mercury Lounge, and like everyone else present, he knew we was witnessing a significant cultural and musical moment. “They were all good looking,” he recalls, to Deyn’s obvious approval. “And they were setting up their own equipment and I was like, all I saw was their drums and I thought, ‘that’s a cool logo’, you know, and then they started. They had some serious energy in those days, they had energy, real energy, and were hugely influential on every New York band – it goes without saying.”
Inspired by what as happening around him, Ellis established Five O’Clock Heroes with similarly like-minded and enlightened people who also found themselves in New York at the right time. Although they eventually recorded a debut album, albeit with no money and therefore no studio time, the band have as yet failed to capture the same success as the bands that were so influential in their formation. Spend time with Ellis, who has a hint of the Julian Casablancas about him in the flesh, however, and it’s clear he has no intention on giving up.
Deyn shares his belief as well, that’s why the model isn’t concerned by claims that the band are using her profile to further their own career. “It brings a different dynamic to it as well, do you know what I mean?” she says, rhetorically. “And it is what it is, people can say stuff, whatever, but if you listened to all that stuff then you’d never do anything in life. You shouldn’t think maybe I shouldn’t do that because you know somebody is gonna be like, ‘that’s no good’.”
Having appeared on the cover of both the British and American editions of Vogue and been heralded as the face of her generation all before her twenty-sixth birthday, Deyn knows this better than most. She is very clever, for example, on the occasions that I enquire about her modelling career. With an innocent flicker of her eyelids and ruffle of her peroxide hair, she’ll answer the question for as long as she needs to, which is usually a sentence on fashion followed by three about music. But then Deyn loves music. Having been groomed by her brother in the history of Manchester bands – The Stones Roses, Oasis, Happy Mondays - she’s already got her own band in the pipeline and is often at Ellis’s apartment playing him her new material. “In a strange way she’s going through a phase of writing, like I was a long time ago and she’s always really excited to hear it back, to play it to people,” Ellis says, sounding slightly parental again. “Some of it’s weird and some of its great. No matter what it is it’s interesting because she is just a generally creative person.”
As talk turns to the rest of the year and the series of shows that Deyn will play with the band over the summer, I ask her how her initiation week in the world of music has compared to her modelling career. “Yeah, I kind of like it better,” she replies, sounding a little shy about her admission. Why? “I suppose it’s more manly,” she says, laughing loudly. It’s clear that, despite claiming to be "no Whitney Houston”, Deyn doesn’t want this to end when she boards the plane back to New York. “She definitely wants to go on the road,” Ellis says. “She can handle it, she’s proper hardcore. It’s just a question of time because she’s really, really busy.” Deyn nervously pulls at her dress. “But I’m prepared to be unbusy.”
The original article, published on Monday 16th June 2008, can be found here.
I recently watched The Inbetweeners for the first time. It follows the lives of four teenage boys at sixth form and it is VERY FUNNY. Described as an anti-Skins – i.e. these kids are normal – it follows Jay, Simon, Will and Neil as they embark on the final years of their school life and a desperate bid to lose their virginity.
Like I said, it is VERY FUNNY and I fully recommend it. I’m writing though because it has one of those theme tunes that I stirs my emotions when I hear it. It’s by a band called MorningRunner – they are now defunct – and is little more than a guitar tune with three notes on a piano thrown in. It got me thinking; does a theme tune only become emotional if the programme it’s on means something to you? Or can you vehemently hate a show and still find yourself balling your eyes out during the opening credits?
Anyway, here’s the song. (It’s instrumental on the show – I’m not sure it’s so good with lyrics.)
I’ve not seen campaigning like I saw in Ireland over the controversial Lisbon Treaty for a long time. In fact, I’m not sure I remember ever seeing so many lampposts decorated with political propaganda and so many members of the public being fed information by various campaign groups.
So what is the Lisbon Treaty? Well that appears to be the question on the lips of most Irish citizens who have spent today voting on it. In short, it’s designed to bring the members of Europe closer together, and therefore allowing newly inducted Eastern European countries to integrate with their new western neighbors more easily. Of course, however, it’s not that easy. Much of the Treaty, which is widely regarded as complicated and unreadable, says that to achieve this countries would have to surrender many of their veto powers.
It’s this not so small print that has parts of Ireland shouting ‘Yes!’ and an increasing number shouting ‘No!!’
When I was in Dublin last weekend, the ‘no’ campaign was gaining moment – the people of Ireland, it seems, were awakening to the fact that surrendering power is not always a good thing. The ‘yes’ campaign, which is supported by the countries government, were on the back foot. But that looks set to change by tomorrow, early Exit polls are predicting a win for the ‘yes’ folks – as long as turnout is high. If it’s low then Europe faces the grave reality that one of its members, once a passionate supporter of its cause, may have a population that doesn’t want to be there. I’m sure I’ll blog on this when the result comes in tomorrow.
Whoever wins, from what I saw campaign democracy is alive and kicking in Ireland, which is more than can be said for the UK.
So Lee has won The Apprentice. As expected, the man who lied on his CV and spent the interview process erupting like a Dinosaur on heat, took the glory.
Claire, my tip, was second. She looks sad as a type but somewhat resplendent and ablaze with curls on the ‘You’re Hired’ show. It must be the BBC make-up department.
Apparently, Lee is going to spend his £100,000 a year salary leasing a Porsche, paying his mother’s gas bills and, if Sir Alan lets him, a two week holiday in South Africa. I don’t know, already asking for time off.
Anyway, it’s over – for another year at least. And that certainly is as kosher as Christmas.
The live final of The Apprentice is on in a minute.
Prediction for the win?
Sir Alan – he’s come out of every series as the real winner.
If we're talking real contestant, however, I think he'll go for Claire. She's shown herself to be a tenacious, gritty businesswoman. Even if, at times, her personality is unbearable.
I’m standing so close to a woman I don’t know that if I were anywhere else, and in any country, I’d probably be being read my rights now. Where am I? I’m on Dublin’s Dart, a cross-link over-ground railway that cuts through the Irish capital, on my way to a Radiohead gig and this, apparently, is an eco-friendly way of getting there.
If I’m honest, I wouldn’t normally think about the most environmentally friendly way of getting to a gig – it’s normally just a car, train or foot journey to a venue and back. For this concert, however, I feel compelled to. Why?
Well, ahead of Radiohead’s current world tour the band issued a very thorough set of eco-friendly guidelines that people going to one of their gigs should follow in order to minimise their carbon footprint. They said, for example, that, where possible, fans should consider public transport or increased car sharing. As if this wasn’t enough, the day before I left for Dublin an email arrived to remind me in even more detail. It read like the Ten Commandments, only written by Thom Yorke and not Moses.
1. Thou shall ride a bicycle and take advantage of the big bicycle park. 2. Thou shall take advantage of the extra trains. 3. Thou shall use a shuttle bus. 4. Thou shall kill anyone seen getting into a car…and so on.
OK, so I made the last one up, but this was still a very comprehensive list.
Consequently, I set off to the concert last Saturday with some trepidation, with only my friend, who lives in the city, for company. We arrived at Killester station, a quaint little place where I imagine that the electronic ticket machine is still a novelty, to see one of the “extra trains” pull into the platform. We froze. “Is it normally like this?” I ask, as I look at a woman’s face creased against one of the train’s windows. My friend doesn’t reply vocally – words aren’t needed at moments like this.
Suffice to say, the next 20 minutes are spent in the bosom of an Irish woman I’ve never met, glancing to my left only to see what the chance of Malahide being the next station is – which, for seven stops, it isn’t.
Despite the journey, which improved a little on the way back, I can’t complain about my first eco-friendly gig. I’ve never walked into a concert so swiftly; been treated with such warmth; or, seen better use of recyclable paper cups at any other outdoor European event. And Radiohead weren’t bad either. Blimey, I guess this means I’m an eco-friendly gig goer now, which, by all accounts, brings everyone just a little closer together.
I don’t normally fall for TV programmes that are cunningly disguised as an extended advert for a new product. I say normally because recently I did. The programme in question was Willie’s Wonky Chocolate Factory. Over four weeks, it followed the trials and tribulations of Willie Harcourt-Cooze, whose ambition in life is to establish a genuine independent chocolate factory in Britain that sells 100% bars of cacao – which are, essentially, chocolate in its purest form, according to Mr Harcourt-Cooze.
From Venezuela (where he owns a farm that grows the beans) to Devon (where he owns the factory that makes the bars), the show followed Harcourt-Cooze and his wife and children every step of the way. Like all reality TV shows, it was nail-biting stuff. Would the banks lend him enough money? Would he get the antique 20th century machines up and running in time? Would he get to the end of episode two without a request for a divorce from his wife? The drama, as expected, was relentless.
As with all these shows, however, the real cliffhanger – and in a sense the reality – is whether the public will go and buy the product afterwards.
Unsurprisingly, in Harcourt-Cooze’s case, they did. He’s blessed with the kind of infectious, lively and often infuriating personality that would enable him to sell you your own left arm. For those who didn’t watch the show, his product, Venezuelan Black, went on sale in Selfridges shortly after the series ended – a handy coincidence giving that most episodes saw him plead with the London store’s buyer in a sort of inverted Oliver Twist way: “Please sir, can I give you some more.”
Initial runs, made by Harcourt-Cooze and co (his family) at his Devon factory, were snapped up like hot chocolate cakes. It seemed that people couldn’t get enough of his infectious, lively and…well, you get the picture. I found this out when I went down to the store myself to purchase a bar only to have an ashen-faced assistant tell me that, “We’re all out at the minute.”
“When will you be getting some more?” I asked. “In about two weeks,” she replied, the pound signs with little images of Willie on scrolling in her eyes.
Over the following four weeks, I returned to Selfridges most Sundays. In fact, I became such a regular that either the same assistant was waiting for me next to the empty shelf or the same security guard was waiting to usher me out. Thankfully, with legal prosecution and a restraining order looming, last Sunday I got lucky.
I’m now looking at the bars as I write. They’re cylindrical, immaculately wrapped with shiny black paper and gold foil but, worryingly, are still unopened. The closest I’ve come to sampling the product was when I peeled back some of the foil for a sniff. It smelt funny though. Quite pure – he did say it would – and a bit pungent – I don’t remember him saying that. I wrapped it back up, neatly trying to retrace the faultless folds.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased I got my chocolate – all fourteen pounds of it - the only problem is, I don’t know what to do with it. I certainly remember seeing the fantastic recipes that were so cleverly embedded in the documentary about Willie’s chocolate dream, but I don’t know whether I can be bothered to actually make one. And his website might tell me that “Venezuelan Black can be used in a multitude of ways, enriching anything from aromatic truffles, cakes and creamy hot chocolate to dark savoury sauces, gravy and casseroles,” just to entice me a little bit more, but coupling chocolate up with most of those products just sounds wrong.
The latest on Willie Harcourt-Cooze's Venezuelan Black is that his product line is now available in 120 Waitrose stores across the UK. I can’t help thinking, however, that, like me, a lot of other people will get no further than sniffing their purchase. Either that, or a lot of mothers will find themselves adding 100% cacao to the gravy at Christmas. I know mine will.
Arriving back in London at London Bridge underground station last night (May 31st) was a bizarre feeling. I’d been gone just 24 hours, yet in that time the tube seemed to have become a mini-underground drinking den.
Why? Well it was the last night before the consumption of alcohol on the London underground network became illegal. Consequently, everyone was having a party. Pausing songs on my iPod in between choruses so that I could hear people’s drunken conversations was a rather bizarre feeling – like most Friday or Saturday nights on the tube, only this time everyone was drunk.
Nothing compared to the drinking games in my carriage, however, which involved one group of friends playing chicken with the tube doors at each stop. “Let’s get off here,” shouted the floppy haired leader. The six friends then scuttled onto the platform only to hop back on just as the bleeping began to signify that the doors were closing. They chuckled loudly – the alcohol clearly adding an element of danger to the whole game.
This is arguably mayor Boris Johnson’s biggest decision since being elected last month; yet, you can’t help but think just how hard it will be to police. Having lived in London for over a year, I’ve spent many hours on the tube late at night and have on many occasions got from A to B without seeing a single police officer. And now we’re expected to believe that no one will enter the network and consume a single drop of Strongbow (the preferred drink of choice last night)?
I’ve just found a video of last nights ‘celebrations’. Clearly Edgware road is the new Wetherspoons.
I’m confused. Am I the only person who thinks that Jay-Z headlining the Glastonbury Festival is a good idea? It has certainly felt that way following the intense media speculation that has surrounded the US rapper’s billing at the event, which, if you can fathom it, was confirmed all the way back in February. 
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