If you only know me from my blog posts, you may be mistaken in assuming I’m reasonably cool. ‘Look at him slate the Kings of Leon for selling out. Oh, he’s looking forward to the new Arctic Monkeys album. He’s even been on a barge holiday.’ Well, I’m going to come clean and get my geek on, because I need to discuss Pokémon.
Compared to many other members of my generation, I wasn’t heavily exploited by the franchise. I didn’t collect the pointless cards or watch the movies. I did possess a water bottle shaped like Squirtle though and I played the games.
It is the monumental decision which you have to make at the start of said games that I am writing about. For those who don’t know, you start the game in your Mum’s house (I don’t think the character has a Dad for some unexplained reason), before coming across three poke balls, containing a fire, a water and a grass Pokémon within them respectively, and you have to choose one to become your first Pokémon. Each Pokémon’s strengths and weaknesses work in a sort of ‘rock-paper-scissor’ system: Fire beats Grass, Water beats Fire and Grass beats Water. Yes, sneer if you will, but it is incredibly important. Make the wrong choice and your journeys may be marred by a nagging feeling in your mind that you’ve made an awful mistake.
It’s awfully similar to voting for a political party. In fact, unnervingly similar. Let me explain...
Choosing green is a wasted opportunity. Granted, it looks nice and could prove useful in the long term, but it is the choice of an idiot. It is such a ridiculous choice that the makers of the game have had to completely create a strength for it. I mean, in what twisted and disgusting world does Grass beat Water? Do we all head for green meadows when flash floods are looming, in the hope that grass will be able to defend us? No, Water floods Grass as it does everything. It’s this pathetic fantasy that proves what a laughable choice Grass is. Grass is eaten by cows, constantly walked upon and provides a soft landing for falling humans. It’s a completely innocuous selection. The only possible harm Grass could inflict is hay-fever, and even the more pedantic readers will argue that grass doesn’t give out pollen.

Blue is certainly more popular and has its merits. Many argue that we need it, for the key policies and moves, and in some respects, they have a genuine point. It’s a solid choice and those who put their faith in it have nothing to be ashamed of. However, it’s just a dull and predictable choice. Who wants to meet some two headed cobra in the woods and when you lob your poke-ball at it, the equivalent of John Major comes out? The further parallels are uncanny, as blue and yellow (electricity) are incompatible in Pokémon. Why couldn’t have Cameron looked to his Game boy Colour for advice for who to go into coalition with?
Red used to the only option for the sensible Pokémon player. It’s radical and just gets the task done. Don’t like something? Then burn it and move on. Sick to death of poverty and squalor? Just burn it down and replace it with Welfare State. Fed up of workers being exploited? Set it alight with a minimum wage. Come gather round the flickering bonfire of free healthcare for everyone. None of this ‘tackle’ or ‘leer’ shit, just direct, smoking action. Unfortunately, it’s changed. In the most recent instalment of the franchise, the fire Pokémon is a depressingly cute pig and has become as boring as the blue choice.

A lot like the face of the new reds, Ed Miliband then, who looks and sounds like the type of person who just couldn’t bring himself to make a decision of whom to select, so just stayed in the character’s home town for hours on end, doing the tutorials over and over again, as he feels ‘safe’. If he wants to get into power at the next election, he should use my theories to his advantage. In the next leadership debates, he could interrupt Cameron mid flow and just shout: ‘Look, you can vote for this oversized tortoise with a pair of super soakers on his back or the unidentifiable grass Pokémon that looks like part of an adventure playground at a National Trust park or, if you’re feeling really lucky, that yellow liberal Pikachu, who looks very nice, but will let you down when you need it most. You do that. But I’m a dragon. A fucking dragon! With fire on my tail!’ Yes, I realise that no-one but the readers of this blog would have the slightest clue of what he was trying to communicate, but why not play the geek card, Ed? It’s all you’ve got going for you.

Before I start my blog, I want to resolve this awkward situation about me posting on this site. Is this site still used? Is it still read? If you do read it, can you comment; feel free to insult me and the article, but just please confirm your eyes did in fact pass over this shitty font. Thanks.

So, let’s take a recap. Arctic Monkey’s fourth album ‘Suck it and See’ will be released in just under a month and a half, with James Ford, whom produced ‘Favourite Worst Nightmare’, returning for producing duties. Whilst it would be unreasonably harsh to call ‘Humbug’ a disaster, it is fair to state that Josh Homme’s influence was a little bit too heavy-handed on the album, and with the exception of the sublime ‘Cornerstone’ and the glorious ‘Secret Door’, it almost felt that they had matured too much, resulting in songs, like ‘Potion Approaching’ and ‘Dangerous Animals’, which were lacking in the usual wit and flair that they are adored for.

We have already been blessed with two tasters from the upcoming LP, with both each respectively supporting and contradicting drummer Matt Helder’s claim that the album is ‘more poppy than Humbug was’.

‘Brick by Brick’ was the first track to be released. Straight from the start, with its raw, White Stripe-esque riff, it is evident that they have advanced from the ‘Humbug’ sound, though certain elements remain, as they still have a penchant for those perfectly restrained, fuzzy guitar solos that sound like they’re trudging through quicksand. Turner’s lyrics are also position themselves away from the joyless affair of ’Humbug’, with brash claims that he wants to ‘rock ‘n’ roll’, ‘steal your soul’ and ‘feel your love’, which come as a welcome relief.

The first single from ‘SIAS’ was the considerably darker ‘Don’t sit down ‘cause I’ve moved your chair’. Whilst the title might evoke playful images of Turner removing Helder’s drumming stool, resulting in a giggling chase around their massive American studio, the song is full of impending danger and lists the ‘sort of ridiculous things you can do that are probably more dangerous than if you just sat down", according to Turner. The lyrics seem too cryptic on first listen, but after repeated plays, Turner’s sly wit shines through: ‘Wear your shell-suit on Bonfire night’. Granted, ‘Going into business with a grizzly bear’ comes across as clumsy and rushed, and not just because of the Grizzly Bear’s natural financial prowess, but because they could have easily inserted ‘Claiming Humbug’s better than Favourite Worst [night] mare’ instead, which is far more risky activity to partake in. The heavy, chugging riff displays the touch Josh Homme left on their sound, which compliments Turner’s newly perfected croon.

The video is also quite striking. Gone are the days when all that was required of them was to appear in front of a camera with that pose of awkward youth. The video successfully manages to mimic that effect of when you tightly close your eyes and open then again (just me?) and conveys their transformation from the shy teenagers, into the ‘Bigger Boys’ that steal ‘Sweethearts’, whom strike one as far too cool and aloof to serenade over domestic tiffs and Sheffield nightclubs.

Turner’s voice has also matured and there is now no longer any trace of the former spiky snarl; replaced with an unnervingly seasoned purr. It’s not going to help fend off the inevitable comparisons with John Lennon, what with him evolving from the kitchen sink poetry in a band of scallies, to a bohemian new life in New York, with a trendy girlfriend, crooning cryptic ditties. The analogy isn’t completely accurate thankfully, as the transition seemed to occur during The Last Shadow Puppets, which would mean well known shirker, Miles Kane would play the part of Yoko Ono, well known...oh yeah.

So, while many were delighted when Helder’s claimed the new album was to be more ‘poppy’, the new material doesn’t really support that. However, it clearly demonstrates how the band has managed to stay relevant, through their constant progression and maturity, when so many of their contemporaries have tried to emulate them, only to add mass to the ever-growing indie landfill.

When asked to name the most cliché, masculine activity one could undertake, many may be inclined to suggest using your head to hammer nails into the wall for a shelf to place your Top Gear box-sets on or even biting your lip with such vengeance that you struggle to speak for days after, in order to ward off tears when watching Leonardo Di Caprio slump off the door into the frozen Atlantic. However, if we are to go by what the shiny dream-box in our living room threatens us with, it would appear that it’s shaving.
Anyone, by which I mean everyone, who has loitered in front of the television during the advert breaks, rather than reluctantly pulling themselves up to harass the National Grid for a cup of tea, will know exactly what I mean. The regular, platitude advertisements for shaving portray it as ripping pure testosterone off skin with as many blades as humanely possible to fit onto a handle. The topless model, who boasts of a skin so pure that it looks like he has never been troubled by rogue facial hair in his life, seems to take a perverse pleasure in slowly scraping the blade across his epidermis. After enough sickening gazes into the camera to even make Nigella Lawson feel a little queasy, a beautiful woman arrives to carefully caress the shaver’s face and they both frolic in front of their spotless mirror, before she’ll go back to the kitchen to cook him a low fat brunch and he’ll continue to wink at himself. Yes, I said wink. Rather peculiarly, there is no screen time for the wounds that leave the basin looking like an extra from the first scene of Saving Private Ryan or the foam that manages to hide behind your ear until you notice it in the mirror at about 10 o’ clock.

The real reason for the overblown and crude production is that shaving is, in fact, the least macho activity a man can partake in. Think about it. What do Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp and David Beckham have in common? They all look better with facial hair. A beard is an ultimate statement of manliness. It’s rugged, messy, stores food and was invented by Attila the Hun’s school bully. Therefore, the removal of this fellow fodder is alongside actually leaving the bathroom in a reasonable state, on the ever-growing list of Male Sins.

Shaving companies have had to formulate this fallacy in order to stay afloat. They abide by the general rule of ‘MORE BLADES= MORE MANLY’. Currently, Wilkinson and Gillette offer a razor with five blades, but it can only be a matter of months before they start selling miniature chainsaws to hack off excess facial hair. Terms like ‘hydration’, ‘irritation’ and ‘resistance’ are thrown around, as if they’re selling fish resuscitation, rather than an instrument for scything off protruding facial hair. And god forbid that the razor doesn’t ‘glide’ or feel ‘smooth’ against the skin, rather than ‘tug’ and ’pull’ it, as if the device has some harmful vengeance against you. Yes, the razor should pet the skin and conjure up a sensation not dissimilar to a swan rubbing a Johnson’s Baby Oil model’s arse across your face.

For some reason, I dislike shaving. It’s not that I can blissfully recall a more innocent age of shaving, in which a barber would employ a cut throat razor, and neither is it wholly the fact that my facial hair looks as if I’ve been slapped on the back whilst eating a honey and toothbrush bristle sandwich. The most vexing aspect is the expectation to really savour it; an experience so divine and pleasurable, that to not enjoy is inhuman. Well, to me, shaving is just another instalment in the necessary bathroom routine, rather than a much-anticipated opportunity for self indulgence.

“Ah, I only have fond memories of the 1984 Salcombe Rugby club tour. We put in some absolutely wonderful performances on that travel. I even scored five tries in one match, against St Trinfords. Hang on. What’s that I see? It must be one of my fellow players, for why else would one be donning a hoody emblazoned with the details of that fantastic tour? The initials on your top can only mean that you are John Williams; our masterful prop. How are you, John? It’s been years...”
This is the transcript of a particularly awkward confrontation between a young gentleman wearing a Jack Wills hoody and a confused, southern rugby player. It took 20 minutes for the poor lad to convince him that he was not John Williams. On this occasion, I may have made it up, but these misunderstandings must occur tenfold every day.
You may be surprised, as I was, to learn that Jack Wills was only formed in 1999. However, through clever viral campaigns, including giving the head boys and girls of public schools free hoodies to flaunt to their minors, Jack Wills turnover must surely be as high and dramatic as the comb-overs of the girls who wear it. Some people are so desperate to purchase anything Jack Wills related, that they are delighted when given the opportunity to fork out £5 for a tin of paperclips or £6.50 for some, probably shoddy, plasters, with an emblem of a disabled pheasant on. We are all still waiting in avid anticipation for the Jack Wills branded fax machine (£399.99) and the limited edition Jack Will striped wheelie bins, for all those households who feel physically ill looking at their standard, government blue bins.

Every so often, a catalogue, and I use that term very lightly, is shoved through your front door. Whilst some of the content is utilized to sell you the garments, the majority of the pages are filled with snapshots of the world’s most middle class porno: a grubby public school boy comes to fix an airy vixen’s arga. However, the underlying sexual tension just proves too much, so they end up frolicking in her barn, with the mud-caked John Deere and Daddy’s gun just out of sight. Fortunately, it ends on amiable terms, as the final photo is always that of a communal sing-song round a campfire on an empty beach.

The very few pages dedicated to the actual Jack Wills clothing are laughable. For a start, the models seem to be wearing every item of ‘Fabulously British (But made in a humid sweatshop by Chinese children)’ clothing. Ever been dressing up for a formal event and after putting on your shirt and tie, just thought you should be wearing a pair of garish check shorts and flip flops instead of the matching suit trousers? No? Well you must have considered complimenting your swimwear with a thick, tweed blazer? Wrong again? Of course I am. While they want to portray a sense of British eccentricity, the ending result is the models looking like they’ve just escaped from an 18th century lunatic asylum.
A rather irritating consequence of Jack Wills growing popularity is the numerous other outlets attempting to mimic their success. Take Hollister. Another shop similar to JW: full of your decent, staple clothes, in which a logo of an animal somewhere at the top of the food chain can add a couple of notes to its value. When I visited the Manchester branch, you had to queue just to gain entrance to the products. This wasn’t because it was too busy, but to try and create an atmosphere of exclusivity. In hindsight I have a sneaking suspicion that they might be onto a winner with that idea, because there simply isn’t enough queuing involved in high street shopping. Yes, you do get to wait in line for the checkouts and the fitting rooms, but is that enough for the modern day shopper, who thrives on being sandwiched between two strangers? After you’d been permitted to enter the shop floor, it struck you how dark it was, as another part of the decor was to have eerie rays of lighting up shelves and prices. Why should you bother with a fully lit shop, when you can just have various lamps illuminating the shelves? I imagine the desired effect wasn’t to disguise the basic nature of their clothing, in which a check shirt is considered risqué, under a hazy mask of pretension, but it managed to achieve this.

However, the thing I despise most about Jack Wills is their overall attitude towards clothes. When it comes down to it, the primary functions of clothes are to protect your modesty and to help maintain a suitable body temperature given the external climate, but they also add to your character. Surely what you choose to wear should be an individual statement of who you are, not who you should be. They shouldn’t act as an invitation into an elite group. The main problem with brands like Jack Wills is that they prey on teenager’s fears of not fitting in. Their ‘seasonnaire’ garb and catalogues brimming full of smug arseholes, are just ploys to make teenagers feel redundant and irrelevant, so they can present their clothing as a lift up onto a higher rung of the social ladder. They’ve taken everything wonderful about fashion and just...hang on. Is that a giant, striped paperclip for £1.50? Uh, just ignore what I was saying. I’ve been converted!

One of the things that will be sorely missed about the White Stripes, along with their capability to make such a thunderous, exciting noise with only two members, was their innocent and often child-like mentality. When they weren’t singing about schools (‘Sister, Do you know my name?’) or building a home (‘Let’s Build a Home’), they took a joy out of pretending they were siblings or gleefully dressed up in only three colours. Around about the time ‘Icky Thump’ was released, this innocence had been nabbed by Brendan Benson and then later, Alison Mossheart. This would eventually lead to their painful, but sensible demise.
However, tonight we saw the spirit live on in Janelle Monáe. For the majority of the evening, she danced round the stage with the blissful, wide eyed expression of a Disney character, best witnessed when she lay down and sweetly sighed that everyone should have a nap, during the explosive encore of ‘Come Alive (War of the Roses)’.
However, cute infant isn’t her only persona. When she belted out that she’s ‘shaking like a schizo’ during the swift opener ‘Faster’, she meant it. Often, her tone is that of the authoritative freedom-fighter that we vied for on her album, whose threat ‘Dance or Die’ shouldn’t be taken lightly. Sometimes, we caught her in an individual, dreamy mode, as seen during her cover of Charlie Chaplain’s ‘Smile’, in which her delicate voice floated round the venue like cigarette smoke. However, it was her youthful, attention seeking card that shone brightest.
Her performance wasn’t the perfect theatrical, other-worldly show she would have no doubt wanted, as Birmingham felt obliged to add a touch of glamour. Monae’s introduction on the back screen was tarnished by the fact two of the squares where her mouth should have been weren’t working, leaving Monae’s pretty face looking like she had been gagged. There were also several, slightly too long, awkward pauses between songs, when Monáe left the stage. This often gave it the feel of a primary school nativity, except you couldn’t hear voices in the wings telling the innkeeper to be quiet or his parents would be informed.
However, when she was present on stage, she strutted like she was possessed by the ghost of James Brown. It felt a trifle unfair to the fantastic band, but you couldn’t afford to take your spellbound eyes off Monáe’s tiny-tuxedoed frame. One moment she was shimmying to the watery guitar of ‘Locked inside’, the next she was machine gunning her dancers down. I made the mistake of averting my attention towards the muppet-esque guitarist for a few seconds during ‘Mushroom & Roses’ and when I turned back, there was Monáe, with several plastic cups of paint, painting a board held up by her loyal dancers. I’d be a liar if I were to argue that the finished product was a breath-takingly beautiful masterpiece, but as a man behind me quipped, you wouldn’t see Rhianna doing that.
All of the art and dancing could have easily been an elaborate ploy to hide the fact that she had no credible material to boast of, but she proved she had the songs to live up to her extravagance. The old-school funk of ‘Tightrope’ not only effortlessly made even the most stubborn punter dance, but, more importantly, it also provoked an infectious amount of beaming wide grins, as its irresistible bass-line bounced round. Other highlights were the nursery-rhyme like ‘Wondaland’ and ‘Cold War’, where her whimsical guitarist almost stole the limelight away from Monae, with a mesmerizing guitar solo.
The cocktail of her genre-defying album and exhilarating live shows will hopefully culminate in Monae deservedly going far, but if it means dropping her loveable, exuberant persona in order to fit in with the majority of the drab female solo artists dominating the mainstream, then she should just stay in Wondaland.

Yes, I know it was Valentine’s day about a week ago, in which St ‘Clinton’s Cards’ rewards all those who have embarrassed themselves by opening their hearts, but I feel obliged to offer you some frank advice. It’s never a good idea to go to concerts with your other half. While you’re there to drool over the lead guitarist’s fretwork or to see what the lead singer has done to his hair, they will happily pretend they know the words to the band’s first singles’ B-side so you don’t get too friendly with any of the other fans. Or the relationship will have finished before the date of the concert has arrived and a crowd full of hyper teenagers is never a good place to be standing next to someone you’ve taken to avoiding eye contact with.
Last night, I learnt this lesson. Not first hand, but I suffered as a result of it. After my friend’s girlfriend broke up with him, I reluctantly agreed to take said girlfriend’s ticket and go and watch My Chemical Romance with him.
This was to be one of the first gigs I attended as a neutral fan. I don’t mind MCR. If one of their, admittedly quite good, music videos pops up on the music channels, I’ll keep watching, but I wouldn’t go as far as walking round Shrewsbury donning a jet black hoody with ‘DEATH’ emblazoned on the front.
However many would, it appears. I have never seen fans this excitable before. Before the band came on, what was effectively a PowerPoint with images of the band in their ‘Fabulous Killjoys’ attire, flashed up on the big screen and even a picture of an ear and a red sideburn was enough to trigger thousands of teenage girls to holler uncontrollably. Such was the level of rising frenzy, Gerard Way could have probably just put up an Excel document showing his tax returns, but as long as the font was the same colour red as Way’s freshly dyed hair, the crowd would have still let out the same painfully shrill reaction.
After the first support group, who were composed of three men that looked like Barney Rubble had he found Noel Fielding’s dressing up box, the Blackout swaggered on. Not in the fashion of ‘a lovable-rogue’ but more of an ‘I just knocked on your Nanas door and ran away’ sort of swagger. The clichés followed by the barrel load. First there was the obligatory, cringe-worthy ‘I honestly mean this, but you lot are so much better than London’, then we had a bit of an attempt at a Mexican wave, only to be informed it was not of sufficient consistency and there was even time for them to tell us how much MCR means to the band.
It certainly was a relief to hear Dr Death Defying’s voice ring out. As the opening chimes of ‘Na Na Na’ played, the curtain came down and there he was. Way was dressed like he had had a quick rifle through the bucket for those who have forgotten to bring their PE kit to school with them. His eyes were a haunting shade of red and he was dripping with hair dye, as he bound round the stage with a menacing sort of intent. While many lead singers are volatile and unpredictable, Way paces round the stage in a restrained manner, like a predator waiting to leap on his prey. His speaking voice is just bizarre as well; a cross between Michael Jackson and ET. It makes his requests to hang out with them at the upcoming summer’s festivals seem more like a creepy threat. Way plays the misfit card to an absolute tee.
Not that it matters to the band. They positively beam with enthusiasm and sheer joy, which is reassuring as they race through the bombast of songs like ‘Our Lady Sorrow’ and’ ‘Vampire Money’, which sounds like Arcade Fire’s ‘Month of May’ had they been born on the Nevada Strip, rather than some dull Canadian suburbs.
By the time ‘Famous Last Words’ comes on, I’m starting to feel guilty about the fact I know so few of their lyrics, when every mouth in sight was yelling back every word to Way in unison. I start the sheepish journey back to the side and make it there just in time to see Way warning his fans against the effects of Cocaine, before the surly opening to ‘Teenagers’ buzzes out. By the chorus, the LG Arena was shaking, as one collective mass of black-clad fans bounced.
For the borderline obsessive fans that had been looking forward to this gig for months, I can imagine it was well worth the wait. But even for your regular schmuck, like myself, it was clear that MCR nailed it. Despite playing in such a large venue, the band was anything but daunted. They managed to retain dignity whilst also pulling off a loud, raucous performance; something that doesn’t often go hand in hand.
So while I’m not actually hoping for my friend to have to regularly endure emotional trauma and self esteem issues for me be to pleasantly surprised by a gig I would never pay to see, I wouldn’t mind it happening more frequently. Sorry Brad.

Yes, it sounds like a dilemma faced by a man choosing a temporary tattoo, but transfer deadline day was as gripping as ever. In Liverpool, hairdressers were distraught to see their best customer flock to London, citing ‘it was definitely not about money...uh...I just like the accent better’. To add insult to injury for these poor scouse barbers, he was replaced by a man that can only be described as Grant Mitchell, if he’d be on a gap year to Thailand to ‘find himself’.
Elsewhere in London, Arsene Wenger pretended not to notice the whole kerfuffle going on around him; instead choosing to concentrate on his Championship Manager 2010 career. Unfortunately, his Scunthorpe team were relegated to the Blue Square Conference, after he sold his first team and re-invested in Senegalese children.
The big news was of course Andy Carroll’s £35m move to Liverpool; a man with the same amount of England caps as myself, Francis Jeffers and the entire Conservative cabinet combined, and has scored fewer career goals than millions Liverpool have paid for him. Short of offering a chance for Alan Shearer to swap his indecently tight trousers and a regular place on the Match of The Day sofa for a chance to run after the hoofs of Kyrgiakos, this would have been one of the ridiculous transfers ever made, had it not been made by the untouchable King Kenny. Liverpool fans would still worship the Scottish saint had he brought Gary Neville for £30m to just stand in front of the Kop and perform a striptease, ending with Neville’s decency being preserved by a sign saying: ‘ This dance was sponsored by Bill Hicks and George Gillett’.
Heading back down south in a cloud of hair spray was ex fan favourite, El Nino. This was yet another example of the average player’s list of priorities. Surprisingly, loyalty and a desire to please the fans that have your name printed on the back of their replica shirt and contemplate naming their children after you, do not feature that high on that list. Personally, I have a strong suspicion that he’ll have a whale of a time down there. I’m sure Torres, Ashley Cole and John Terry have hit it off straight away and spent Torres’s first night in London in some seedy karaoke bar, followed by a kebab and a spit-roast with Petr Cech’s wife. Classy.
In an event overshadowed by Liverpool and Chelsea’s reckless spending spree, Freddy Adu was loaned from Benfica to a Turkish second division side, whose name does not herald a quick Google search. If, as every cosmopolitan tween football fan, you read Match magazine, the mere mention of Freddy Adu’s name should at least provoke a half hearted ‘oh yeah’. This was the American boy who was predicted to set the football world alight. Man Utd were rumoured to be interested in him, when he was just 14 and he had the world at his feet. It’s particularly poignant that as the third highest transfer fee was being paid, Adu was continuing his rapid slide into obscurity. However, he has saved himself from the inevitable ‘Much Ado About Nothing’-esque tabloid headlines, so who’s the real winner?

A (B²- 2A) + √D
C+4

Right that’s it, I think. It’s taken many sleepless nights and more coffee breaks than one of Silvio Berlusconi’s all night Bunga Bunga dinner parties, but I’ve finally done it. Here is my equation that a band should use if they’re thinking about reuniting. All they have to do is substitute how many solo albums the lead singer has made into A, the amount of bankruptcies band members have had to file for into B, the number of times they’ve said they’ll never reunite to their desperate fans into C and the amount of their ‘classic’ albums that have been re-issued since their demise into D. If the answer comes to over 20, then it qualifies them to do a special one off show. If it comes to over 50, then they can go the whole hog and do a world tour.
The band reunion seemed to be one of the main crazes in the noughties, like those Topman T-shirts with the strange downward collars and sending chain e-mails that threaten the receiver with extreme emotional trauma if they don’t re-send it to another 10 friends in the next 16 minutes. Everyone from Led Zeppelin to The Specials to Spice Girls to The Police and even, er, Blue, who reunited just after 5 years after splitting, have had a roll of the reunion die. Sometimes it works, like in the case of Madness, who still continue to fill festival slots and The Specials, whose songs like ‘Ghost Town’ and ‘Too Much, Too Young’ still feel relevant 30 years on, with the exception of ‘Free Nelson Mandela’, as the big man was very much free at the time of the magazine going to publishing.
However, it’s not always a guaranteed success. Take the serial re-uniters, the Sex Pistols for example. They were a band who’s stripped down, no-nonsense songs were in the right place at the right time. They didn’t have any artistic merit or even have that many good songs, but that wasn’t the point. Yet the Pistols didn’t seem to realise this and have played frequently since, even as recent as 2008. Of course, I’m sure ‘it just felt right’, rather than the multiple figure sums they presumably received, but surely John Lydon must have had enough integrity and dignity to not tarnish the Sex Pistols legacy for a few easy bucks? But this was the man who ‘couldn’t resist the temptation’ to sing the praise of Country Life Butter and frolicked around in the jungle with Jordan and Peter Andre, so I may be wrong. He could agree to The Sex Pistols playing Prince William’s stag night, citing ‘it was what the Sex Pistols were all about’ and I wouldn’t be that shocked.
I also have my doubts about the upcoming Pulp reunion, in which they’re playing several festival dates this summer. They sang for all the misfits that weren’t ‘avin’ it large to Oasis or having a knees-up to Blur. But those misfits have grown up and they don’t want to see Pulp. They’ve grown up, married, and have had children, who they warn to stay away from people that look like Jarvis Cocker. It’s just going to be a tad weird having the bearded Cocker doing that dirty whispering along to songs, like ‘Underwear’. It’ll just sound like some sort of Barnsley 35p a minute sex line, that no-one’s enjoying.
So what I’m getting at here is that while it’s healthy to occasionally dabble in nostalgia, can’t we just leave it in the past, where it belongs? Otherwise, it’s just going to get crazy. In forty years time, I don’t want to see a middle aged, balding man that slightly resembles Justin Bieber to be straining to reach the top notes of ‘Baby’ or a 64 year Tinie Tempah boasting that there’s a groupie everyday at his front door. We should look back on the noughties with a sense of pride, but not continue to re-live it. With the music industry already declining at worrying pace, the last thing new bands need is to compete with some ageing has-beens, belting out their irrelevant ditties.
So bands of the world! I offer you with this ultimatum. Either, stick it out like The Rolling Stones or Prince have done, and yes, make a couple of terrible albums, or you can split up, never to return, leaving us with only positive memories of you.

In my rather audacious attempt to take over the whole front page of randomtales.co.uk, and wanting to post this while it was still reasonabley relevant, here is my review of 'Come Around Sundown' by Kings of Leon.

This was always going to be a difficult album for Kings of Leon. Since jumping onto the shiny bandwagon to the tempting land of stadium rawk in 2008, with the, let’s face it, terrible ‘Only by the Night’, where do the Tennessee boys go next? Do they return to their roots, as lead single ‘Radioactive’ suggests (Just drink the water/ where you came from), re-growing their beards and hair, and forcing Caleb to live solely on a diet of razor blades and whisky to get back that growl? Or do they continue producing the meaningless, pristine, Matalan-thems, like ‘Use Somebody’ and ‘Revelry’?
Well, if the previously mentioned lead single was anything to go by, it would be a bit of both. It would be perfect if you were blind, as you wouldn’t have to watch the bizarre, ego-fest of a video that accompanies the song. For those of us with the misfortune of sight, you will have probably already seen the video, in which the four members frolic and cavort around with a large group of school age, black children. They play football, chase each other through sprinklers and do a lot of hugging. You half expect Caleb to stop singing, look directly into the camera and with a straight face, say: ‘For just two pounds a month, these kids can have their lives back. Don’t you think they could, (chuckle) ‘Use Somebody’? Ok everyone. Back to the chorus!’
However, the song itself, sans video, is everything I wanted from their return. A chorus so large and preachy that Bono himself probably finds himself singing it in the shower; the sharp, spiky guitar lines from Matthew that wouldn’t sound out of place on ‘Youth and Young Manhood’; and one of the best uses of a gospel choir since Blur’s ‘Tender’.
You can tell a lot about a Kings of Leon album by its opening tracks. ‘Red Morning Light’ shows the boys full of energy and provides a suitable introduction for the dirty, raw mess that ‘YAYM’ was. ‘Slow Night, so Long’ was brimming with subtle hooks and had them sounding like The Rolling Stones at a rodeo. ‘Knocked Up’ was a scowling slow-burner that introduced the darker sound of ‘Because of the Times’. So what can we tell about ‘The End’? Based purely upon it, it would suggest that the whole album will plod along at the agonizingly slow pace of Deborah Meadon in a sack race, be dominated by soulless guitar effects, and never really hit a peak until it’s too late. Not surprisingly, that is an incredibly accurate indication of how the album plays.
As previously mentioned, one of the albums biggest problems is that it’s just too sluggish. As ‘The Face’ and ‘The Immortals’ waddle along at a tortoise-like pace, you find yourself trying to work out if this is the same Kings of Leon that recorded the raucous ‘Four Kicks’. Jesus, even ‘Use Somebody’ sounds like they must have been on a mix of speed, Red Bull and whatever the NCIS cameraman has for breakfast everyday, compared to this painful tempo. The album just sounds half arsed and reluctantly made, as a result.
While it should be well documented that I disliked ‘Only by the Night’, at least I can recall some of the songs and even hum along to it. After listening to the new album, all memory of it disappeared into thin air, like a fart at a dinner party. Every song on ‘Come around Sundown’, sounds like it’s lacking a kick.
I can imagine it now. The band are sitting around, congratulating each other on a successful recording session. Then the producer comes in and chirps: ‘Right, all that’s missing now are the choruses. When’s everyone free to record them?’ The band all pull out their limited edition OBTN Blackberrys and mutter excuses. ‘Sorry I can’t, I’m having skinny lattes with Snow Patrol’, ‘I’d love to, but I’m putting the finishing touches to my new clothing range.’ ‘This is a disaster. I’ve already scheduled my stadium arena posing class for then.’ The producer simply couldn’t find a slot when all are free, and just decides it to give it a miss. ‘No-one will notice.’ He reassures himself. And as a result, ‘Come around Sundown’ really is a ‘meh’ record; absent of any sort of hook or memorable song.
There are a few exceptions. There are some nice dub guitar effects on ‘The Immortals’. ‘Pick-up Truck’ is the rare occasion where you’re glad the album slows down, sounding broody and powerful. However, the majority of the songs sound like the type of songs you would have skipped on the previous albums. ‘Beach Side’ is essentially glorified elevator Muzak, while ‘Birthday’ is the attempt at an anthem, but it falls flat on its face with its 50 Cent like chorus.
‘Come Around…’ has Kings of Leon having some sort of identity crisis. They’re trying to imply that it’s a ‘returning to your roots album’ (Music Cliché #447), but they’re forgetting they’re from Tennessee, not Hull. After listening to it several times, I can safely say I have no intention to revisit the majority of it again. As a result, they sound like a parody of themselves. I don’t particularly enjoy heavily criticising them, but with an album this mediocre, they’re leaving themselves open to it. Let’s hope that when they find their true identity, people are still willing to give them a chance.

Morrissey has done it again. In an interview with the Poet Simon Armitage in the Observer last weekend, he called the Chinese a ‘subspecies’. Quite frankly, no matter how much I love the man, it’s unacceptable, as you can’t dub the whole population of a country beneath you, for the acts of a few senseless idiots. Who knows why he did it? He seems too clever and, more importantly, heartfelt to be a genuine racist. Maybe he’s just out of touch, in a world where journalists are eager to pounce upon a (relatively) harmless remark and scandalise it. Maybe it was for publicity, as no publicity is bad publicity. Whatever. I don’t care. The man’s a genius.

What I am going to write about though is what caused him to make such a statement in the first place. Don’t worry, Random Tale reader(s) ( Ite Libby), this is isn’t a rant about China, even though they are hardly my favourite country since that thing in the Olympics, where they replaced that child singer with a prettier one. No, this is about my blurry stance on Animal Rights.

Now, I’m not a vegetarian. I’d love to be one for the moral high ground I so very cherish, but meat is lovely. Most of the time, you just forget that it is the carcass of a mother you’re wolfing down, as it tastes pleasant. Once in a while, you do remember this fact, feel a little queasy and eat the vegetables on your plate until the feeling subsides.

Now, does that make me a bastard? If it does, then so are 96.7% of the Earth’s population, who share the same moral beliefs as me. ( Cheers Google.) Our bodies are suited to eating meat, to the incisors in our mouth to the Hydrochloric Acid produced in our stomach to the protease we produce. Also, our family only buy free range chicken to eat and are getting chickens in our garden. ( Woah. Is it me or did this blog get a whole lot more Middle Class?) So surely that’s OK?

Also, I am more than happy to wear Leather jackets, as I feel like James Dean or one of the Ramones in them. I say I wouldn’t wear fur, but it’s only because it’s vulgar and I have never seen real fur on the High Street. So what I’m trying to get at here is, I, or 96.7% of the Earth’s population, in a position to complain about animal cruelty?

How can we complain about Russians sending a Donkey up into the air, when most of us have been known to eat the slaughtered bodies of Cattle, and then ask for seconds? Why do we give front page coverage of the fact that a woman once put a cat in a wheelie bin for under a day, when there are people strolling around in murdered animals skin?

I’m not sure who I’m angry at. It’s probably just at myself for being an awful, hypocritical human being. I’m in way over my depth if I start debating the morals on whether or not we should eat meat, so I won’t. So to prevent this blog from being completely pointless, I would thoroughly recommend you listen to The Smiths album ‘Meat is Murder’. Just don’t think too much when listening to the title track.