Phil Oakey's Electric Dreams Part 6: Science fiction

Hi-ya!

Oakey's back. By popular demand. What 'ave yer been up to, then? No seriously, love. Are yer keepin' well? No-one's putting on yer, are they? If they are, Uncle Phil will have a word with 'em. Visitors of old will recall that last year I dispensed loads of advice for yer on computers, pop music and stuff like that. Just look under some old posts for a few of me gems. Why your Blogmaster has chosen to write a piece about Erasure instead of The League is beyond me.

As you may know I haven't been on 'ere in a while because I've been kind of busy, with The League and other things. I've been out wi Richard Hawley, been recording a fantastic song with The Pet Shop Boys ('This Used To Be The Future') on the bonus 'Yes' disc) and I've been working with Little Boots. She's a cracking lass. In fact I've had a right belting time, me. Hey, hey, it seems no-one can resist that Oakey magic these days! But enough about me. Today I want to share with you my true passion. And it ain't pies, lacoste aftershave or the mix CD's I buy every fortnight at HMV in Leeds!

When I were a lad, growing up in a small town in Yorkshire, television was in black and white. Sky + was but a twinkle in the eye of Sydney Youngblood. We were lucky to get two channels in those days, let alone three! Yorkshire TV didn't go live until the early 70s, nor did it go full colour until 1980, and even in those days it were full of Parky and 'Emmerdale Farm', for about three hours a day. I had to make do with rusty books from the mobile library and comics I read in the one decent newsagents just out of town, or whatever I could afford once I saved up some of my wages from me paper round and glass collecting. Course I watched Doctor Who. 'Who' didn't? But they only showed it at the local cinema once a fortnight. I always had a soft spot for Jon Pertwee's version of the timelord. I have vivid memories of watching that episode where the Doctor's mind was taken over by a fruit virus and he had to kill some kids by this old rubbish tip. Classic television!! So I lived and breated books, comics and science fiction films! Anything that made me escape from Yorkshire for a couple of hours a week. I didn't want to grow up in a place where all the ladies over 16 wore rollers and headscarves. From an early age I wanted mystery and glamour and if I couldn't go to a world inhabited with lip gloss, skimpy costumes and wild ideas, I would bring it to Yorkshire meself!

I remember watching 'Logan's Run' and thinking, 'Wow, imagine if shopping centres and discos could really be like that!' 30 odd years later, they are exactley like that! Mad or what? Then when I was about 14 or something, I discovered Dick (That's Philip K., yer dirty dickheads, lol, lol!) That's when my mind and imagination were really expanded, like. All those imaginary worlds, alternative realities, bizarre characters and demented Donna's! I wanted to live inside a Philip K. Dick novel. I wanted to take tons of Chew-Z, or use Ubik and live in a conapt among burning Earth or a hovel on Mars, fly my car across a time distorted city scape, not knowing or giving a shit where I would end up. I suppose this is one of my main influences and why I went into music. With The League. The Human League. One of our missions was to decorate this dull, grey landscape with a shimmering futuristic soundtrack that were a bit rough around the edges, like Kraftwerk but with a flash of Abba. We aimed to celebrate being European and be proud of our Yorkshire roots at the same time.

In 1983 there was this film set in Sheffield called 'Threads' where the whole place was obliterated by nuclear bombs. In 1973 I wouldn't have cared less if it had happened. But what has the future present left us with now? Sky + and 'Dancing on Ice' and Noel Edmonds. It's like living in 1980s East Germany with a smile. It's a world Alan Moore has spent many nights screaming about for hours. You can't walk the streets and eat your pie and mind your own business nowadays without someone from Google or the local council filming it and asking your business. What happened to the days when you couldn't walk the streets for fear of being sexually abused by beautiful groupies and Human League fans? Not a chance, mate.

Right. That's me done, for now. I've got some shirts to iron and some lacoste to dab onto my neck. See yer!

'We'll always be together!'

x

Phil

Album review: Christ Embassy- Conspiracies

'It's like nothing you've heard before,' the press release that accompanies an old TDK 46 cassette, states. 'By the time you will have received this, we will all be very dead.' And lo and behold, is it really a myth? Apparently not, if the grainy newspaper cutting, reporting the deaths of four band members with self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the mouths is to be believed. Whatever happens with the fate of the album it's so far the best kept secret within and outside the music industry. The music press won't certainly touch this story and those lucky few like me, who have received the promo cassette, are still left feeling that they have just had a death threat.

So what does the album sound like? Well let's look at the tracklisting and I'll attempt to decode. I was going to put up a piece of music from them but,w e'll, I'll explain later.

1. All The Freud's in All of London Town And I Had To Bump Into You

If Razorlight were formed in the 1920's and were inspired by cheese, Isaac Newton and a bar of soap, then it would sound like this. Features the phrase that will haunt you forever, 'Fandabbidozy, cat features!'

2. Grace Jones Was Behind the 2001 Massarce of the New Yorker

Starts off with a lovely acoustic guitar strum and a refrain which bemoans Nick Hancock, Nick Ross and Nick Owen, before descending into a chaotic 1989 drenched Miss Wet T shirt soakathon. It must be the only song that I've heard this year that features slowed down explosions and the tinny voice of Michael Caine crying over the phone.

3. Suicide Watch

Quite simply it features 18 minutes of sound effects of the clickings of the mouse, pressumably to a website where Welsh emos egg each other on to see who can die the fastest. The song ends with a disappointed yawn.

4. I Blame Jack Bauer

An intriguing dub mix featuring Jack Bauer's famous line's from his work with Captain Birdseye and Rosemary Ford. 'What's on the board Miss Ford?' delivered by Buaer, to the accompaniement of Christian Bale's human beatbox is simply vicious!

5. Knuckleduster

Sadly this is a really disappointing generic, sub-Prodigy, part Oasis number which doesn't do anything for anyone. It's a terrible way to start side 2 after it ended with a weeping Bruce Forsythe.

6. You Might Say That But I Couldn't Possibly Comment

This is a romantic duet between an imagined Keith Baron and Windsor Davies. Features sadism and watersports. It's a sexy, sunkissed, lush soundscape that recalls the Beach Boys experimental album, 'Boards of Xanadu' which was only released in Preston in 1971.

7. Inside We Were All Dead

A true post lifestyle anthem surrounding guilt, lost youth and laughing at the failiures of your old friends, seeing them age, etc It is about two and a half minutes in when the tape chewed up.

Credits.

Written and Produced by Svelt Undsun, Jeremy Irons, McManus McDonald, and Miss Mary Bell.

Rebel diamonds: The Killers at MEN Arena 9,10th March 2009

'The emotion it was electric,' sang Brandon over the Caribbean sun drenched 'I can't stay.' (An unlikely favourite of mine from 'Day and Age') And you believed every word. I've never been a religious person but ever since I saw them last week in Birmingham and was lucky enough to bag tickets to see them on two nights in Manchester this week I, my word, I believe in them now. I'm sure I could be forgiven by fans of The Killers for seeing the light in Brandon. In another life he could easily be a faith healer.

'We got our tickets off ebay!' two starry eyed girls at my side said to me. I could believe that. Last year when tickets went on sale there was about three people in our household on the phone for three hours on that Friday morning, with pages of ticket agents on the desktop, only to be told they had 'all' sold out. Hmm.

'The starmaker says it ain't so bad.'

'How does it happen?' I ask myself. What kind of transformation does Brandon go through before he goes onstage at every gig, every tour, every festival? Off stage the poor fragile bloke is a bag of nerves. I want to stick up for him, thump anyone who would cause him harm, and my female companions want to mother him, love him, and have him. Does he hit himself with leaves, does he slap his face in the mirror uttering 'Do it boy, do it Brandon, you can do it again.' Does he chill out with a few Slurpee's, or listen to some Stuart Price remixes? Does he slap in his old Pet Shop Boys 'Discography' cassette? Meanwhile the rest of the band are suitably chilled out as they professionally hammer out the fan favourites during the two different set lists. It's as if they could be in the studio or in the garage rather than an arena with tens of thousands of screaming fans. And boy, do the fans get all the hits. Depending on what night you've attended you're treated to two differing spectacular openings, 'Spaceman' or 'Human', followed by a mix of tracks from the new album, 'This is your life,' The world we live in', I can't stay,' 'Joyride', 'Neon Tiger' along with staple 'oldies', such as 'Mr Brightside,', 'Somebody Told Me,' 'Smile Like You mean it' and well, you know the rest.

Each set list and opening moments equally inspire enthusiastic, hysterical singalongs, bouncing boobs, air-punching and all the rock fan cliche's which are true for a good reason. Throughout, Brandon struts, preens, stands on the amps and knowingly marches along the stage, with determination, claim-staking proficiency and belts his little heart out. In short. Brandon fucking owned us all. And the new extended version of 'For Reasons Unknown'(Beautiful, whimsical butterflies) does actually threaten to raise the 'mother fucking' roof.

The Killers delivered a spectacular show featuring Vegas-like strip lightning, the surely now iconic 'K' stand by Brandon's keyboard, confetti cannon during 'All these things that I've done' and a wall of sparks, pyrotechnics and the general spectacle of Brandon's nod to Manchester's pop icons New Order and Joy Division with their version of 'Shadowplay' on the first night in Manchester and a stirring and devastatingly beautiful acoustic version of New Order's 'Bizarre Love Triangle' on the second and last night of the tour. 'There's no other city I would rather be ending the UK tour in,' said Brandon of his 'spiritual home' 'Come and live here, then!' one was tempted to shout.

As for the MEN Arena, the venue is a good place for doing Mexican waves as we were on Monday night but asking you to pay £3.80 for a pint of weak lager really does take the piss out of the fans goodwill. Some fans walked about with 'I got soul' tee shirts, others 'Are we human?' shirts and you could even buy 'Smile Like You Mean It' toothbrushes. One of the better items, I thought was the poster of the absent band in the desert.

'Would you catch me if I fall?' Brandon once asked a festival audience a couple of years ago. I would, Brandon. Every time. For reasons unknown you've turned a casual fan into a gibbering fan boy. I really should know better. (But there's nothing better) I hope you're proud of yourself.

If you can't hold on for another concert '...hold on.'