oasis

Ever wondered why the English New Wave band The Vapours were just a one-hit wonder with Turning Japanese? They don't. They know exactly why. A little background though: they were from Guildford and the mainman was singer/songwriter Dave Fenton who had a day job as a solicitor. Playing as the Vapours, the four-piece were spotted by Bruce...
> fromthevaults/3252/the-vapours-turning-japanese-1980/

For the Oasis tribute band No Way Sis their work was done for them: Oasis were notorious for borrowing/plagiarising/thieving melodies which songwriter Noel Gallagher cheeerfully admitted -- and their song Shakermaker owed more than a nod to the Greenaway-Cook song I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (a hit for the New Seekers and also used as...
> fromthevaults/3236/no-way-sis-id-like-to-teach-the-world-to-sing-1996/

The difference between the American psychedelic experience of the Sixties and that of the British can be captured in two phrases: in the States Timothy Leary was telling people to "tune in, turn on and drop out" which clearly demanded some committment. In Britain however George Harrison -- on It's All Too Much -- was offering the more...
> fromthevaults/3172/northside-shall-we-take-a-trip-1990/

Despite being one of the most exciting and interesting bands of the Britpop Nineties -– singer Simon Fowler had a rough and soulful voice, guitarist Steve Cradock a member of Paul Weller's touring band –- this outfit from Birmingham never really took hold in New Zealand. On their home turf they had Weller as a vocal...
> music/3134/ocean-colour-scene-saturday-keep-on-keeping-on/

It was one of the saddest days I can recall, and yet it had started out so well in Birmingham, a place where I had been drawn to interview the Britpop band Ocean Colour Scene in their hometown. It was 1998 I think. OCS never really made an impact in New Zealand, which was a pity because the night I saw them they were spectacularly good,...
> mybackpages/777/ocean-colour-scene-here-in-my-heart/

From the outside – even on the rather mundane inside -- the Irish Centre on Birmingham's dreary, windswept Digbeth High St doesn't look like the city’s premier rock’n’roll venue. And it’s probably not, but . . . “Yeah, the history’s here though,” says Ocean Colour Scene’s lanky...
> absoluteelsewhere/3138/ocean-colour-scene-interviewed-1996-take-it-to-the-top/

These are indeed worrying times. Steel birds fall from the sky, tall towers tumble to earth, rumours of war is the way of it if you are an innocent citizen, and the end of the world is apparently upon us. Nostradamus warned us of these times. Jezzus, I wished he'd warned us about the Strokes as well. In case you've missed the current...
> absoluteelsewhere/3147/the-strokes-2001-the-future-the-past-or-just-passing-through/

Mike Edwards has got a big mouth - and without going too far into the anatomically impossible, it’s his big mouth that gets right up people’s noses. And right here, right now in Birmingham, he’s been getting up the noses of the British music press - which admittedly isn’t hard to do and probably quite...
> absoluteelsewhere/3131/mike-edwards-of-jesus-jones-interviewed-1993-right-here-right-now-back-then/

The Jesus and Mary Chain out of Glasgow certainly alienated audiences when they first appeared: not the least for performances which barely stretched past the 15 or 20 minute mark. But it was their noise-drenched guitar sonics and distant, droning vocals on their debut album Psychocandy in '85 -- which took aspects of the Velvet Underground...
> music/3053/the-bargain-buy-the-jesus-and-mary-chain-original-album-series-rhino/

This beautifully shot, career-spanning, feature-length doco leaves a lot of threads hanging for those who didn't follow every nuance of the relationship between the four members of Brit-pop's Blur, and you certainly get the impression that guitarist Graham Coxon -- often a blitzkrieg of noise on-stage but nervous, reticent and slightly precious...
> music/2915/blur-no-distance-left-to-run-emi-double-dvd-set/

There is an easy and convincing case to be made for Radiohead's more obvious OK Computer of '97 -- or the even more edgy Kid A of 2000 -- as an Essential Elsewhere album. But The Bends was their turning point, the album which took them from the pop culture hit Creep (which appeared in the teen comedy Clueless where the main character's...
> essentialelsewhere/2313/radiohead-the-bends-1995/

A couple of months ago I was invited to give a lecture to Auckland Uni music students about a contemporary songwriter of my choosing whose catalogue of work was interesting and worth studying.I picked Paul Weller on strength of this quote from him about his forthcoming album: "It takes in soul, rock'n'roll, there are some folky moments,...
> music/1719/best-of-elsewhere-2008-paul-weller-22-dreams-shock/

Somehow it seemed inevitable that an English musician would talk about clothes. These people work in a world where a photo shoot can be as important as the album of the moment. And right now with the 70s revival, bell-bottoms, chokers and an Afro are being analysed as “cultural signifiers.” Every music has its own pair of trousers....
> absoluteelsewhere/2075/damon-albarn-of-blur-interviewed-britpop-v-usa-1993-england-made-me/

By any measure, 1990 was a pretty good year in rock and pop: Sinead O'Connor announced herself with the single Nothing Compares 2 U and the album I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got; George Michael's Listen Without Prejudice Vol 1 delivered timeless music; and things toughened up in Seattle with Sub Pop signing Mudhoney, Mother Love Bone,...
> essentialelsewhere/1966/world-party-goodbye-jumbo-1990/

Well, no one - least of all the man himself - ever said Noel Gallagher was a wizz with a lyric, but this rowdy and sometimes thrillingly psychedelic album hits some new lows when it comes to raiding his beloved Beatles or just going for the bleedin' obvious. Among the laugh-out-loud moments here are references to  "revolution in...
> music/1919/oasis-dig-out-your-soul-sony-bmg/

When Oasis, out of Manchester, started to gain real momentum a decade ago one wag wrote to a Britrock magazine and said this was all very well, but they were dull to watch live: just hold a postcard of them at arm's length and move it about a bit, he said, and that's about it.That was true but he forgot to factor in one thing, that they could...
> film/827/oasis-definitely-maybe-dvd-reviewed-2004/

The best thing about being in a band? You get to stay up late and make a lot of noise, maybe make some money and become famous. If you want people to notice your group it's a good tip to all dress alike so when you walk in a room you come off like a gang. Black is good.Worst part about being in a band? Well, these two docos about noisy gang...
> film/829/the-ramones-end-of-the-century-metallica-some-kind-of-monster-dvds-reviewed-2007/

By the time he came to releasing albums under his own name in the early 90s, Paul Weller had already had two separate careers: first in the Jam and then the Style Council. If the Jam had been quintessentially English and took its references from the Who, the Small Faces and Ray Davies as much as Mod culture and the rage of the punk years,...
> essentialelsewhere/798/paul-weller-wild-wood-1994/