They wanna be adored…

Oh, Penny. Where do I start? If you’re going to write a Guardian blog, at least get a few things right…

For a start – ‘I Am The Resurrection’ is 8.13 minutes on my watch…don’t knock off that last second…because, and this is the point, Penny: Every second counts when it comes to The Stone Roses. 

Secondly – not only do you seem to have no grasp of the importance of Stone Roses’ place and meaning within popular musical culture (are we forgetting that glorious moment in ‘89 on ‘Waterfall’ when rhythm and guitars were brought spectacularly back together again after years of existing solitarily apart), but now you’ve gone and brought in the whole chromsome debate again. I thought we’d cleared this up a few blogs ago!

For the record: I am a girl. I adore The Stone Roses…and for me, their debut is up there with The La’s (probably another debut Guardian writer Penny Anderson deems ‘overrated’ yet is as perfect a debut as any band is ever likely to get.)

Lumping The Stone Roses stodgily as a “lad’s band” offers nothing in the way of an active explanation. Because they attract a largely male audience, does that void them of significance? If so, then we might as well throw out The Smiths, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC whilst we’re at it.

Thirdly, are you really suggesting Reni (that’s Reni, Penny, not Rennie. He’s not an indigestion tablet) was merely a drummer to patronisingly pat on the back for simply “loving music”? Get thee to ‘Elephant Stone’ at once.

Let me get back to the question of those 8.13 minutes. 8.13 minutes of undeniable musical prowess by any musician’s standards. Does Neil Young’s ‘Down By The River’ lose any of it’s power because it chugs over 5 minutes? No, because each second is on it’s way to something. ‘I Am The Resurrection’ is always going somewhere. And as John Squire’s guitars jingles and the bass line soars 3/4 of the way through, they finally bring you home. In all sense and purposes, this is a prog-rock song. It’s the ultimate prog-rock song for the throngs of followers who were looking for a band to finally take them back home.

On a more personal note, I remember sending my first love (unrequited, naturally) a Stone Roses CD to his university digs when I was 19. Strapped to the record was a message explaining just what ‘I Am The Resurrection’ meant to me. I recall something along the lines of “and for that 8.13 seconds, let all be well and good with the world.” As if this would unlock his adoration for Ian Brown, and in turn, unleash his love for me. (Naturally it didn’t work. I lapsed into The Smiths soon after).

But that’s the power of a life-changing song. I felt the same way when I heard Love’s ‘Alone Again Or’ all those years ago, or when my mate Kev turned me onto the wonders of XTC one random Saturday afternoon. When you feel like a song was written for you, and only you – that’s the mark of a true life-changing song.

The Stone Roses wrote life-changing songs. They deserve to be celebrated. Long may they reign. Bring on that re-issue!

The beer and the damage done…

There comes a time in adult life when certain incidents cannot fail but reduce you to your 13-year-old self. There’s usually alcohol involved. In my case, it was alcohol and a backstage pass. And the 13-year-old in question was the kind of kid who couldn’t manage to leaf a couple of gummy bears out of her local newsagent without getting caught.

I’d honestly thought I’d progressed past this 13-year-old geek. Clearly it’s an affliction that never leaves (not unlike my love for En Vogue).

It’s a tragic testiment to my own rock ‘n’ roll failings that brought back flashbacks of that DIY AC/DC vest I so lovingly attempted to make for myself back at college. (The orange material and black felt – hand-hacked – lettering seemed like a feat of visionary dressmaking at the time…)

The world is clearly divided between two types of people: those who can pull off everyday item theft, and those who can’t. I’ve always fallen into the latter (much to my own lament.) So, it was clearly a rooky mistake of mine to use a support band’s backstage pass at the Shepherds Bush Empire the other night and sneak into an (Equestrian-theme named) US band’s dressing room and attempt to nick a few drinks cause I’d run out of money. 

Yes, that’s right. It’s a sorry state of affairs when you get in trouble with a rock band for “borrowing” a couple of pitiful bottles of light ale, but what can I say? The times are-a-changing…

The mortification I’ve experienced by this singular event is two-fold:

1. I was literally caught with a bottle opener in one hand and a bottle in the other by the tour manager (who incidentally had the most awesome red beard I have ever seen and am ever likely to see.)

2. When asked “what are you doing?” by said awesomely red-bearded tour manager (a reasonable question to raise), I actually used the phrase “I’m with the band.”

This is clearly the behaviour of someone who has watched Almost Famous one too many times and thinks she is Kate Hudson. In my defence – it wasn’t my idea. I told Craig I’d get caught. And that’s the other mortifying thing – it wasn’t even my idea. Who caves into peer pressure past the age of 16?

Maybe it was the dazzling sight of the red beard, but I honestly believed this tour manager would see the funny side. He didn’t. Needless to say the beers in question were confiscated.

With time to think about the ethical ramifications of my thoughtless actions, I have to say I am disappointed with Mr Red Beard. Firstly, the band were drinking whiskey. Secondly, I drank the beers anyway when I gatecrashed the aftershow. And thirdly, I was wearing a mini-dress. Do I not get points for that?

Clearly not.

The beer bottles and the damage done, eh?

CSNY til I die

CSNY. Wembley Stadium. 1974. What can I say? 

Having managed to track down a double-dvd bootleg of the gig in question, I am still in awe. Four hours of unbridled rock ‘n’ roll joy. Someone should be appointed to sit down each and every band gigging in 2008, make them sit their skinny-arsed jeans down and force them to watch this gem. A lesson in how it should be done and (dare I say) quite a depressing reflection on the live scene at the moment. Some people have called me a glass half-empty kinda gal, but I beg to differ.

Watching Stills (clad in a police shirt that oozes sexual arrogance) morph himself into a white Hendrix as he literally transubstantiates himself into his guitar only made me more sure of my stance on things. Imagine my sheer orgasmic delight when he told the thousands of long-haired Wembley-ites that he’d “just met someone a few days ago who I’ve been wanting to meet for years” before diving straight into ‘Blackbird’ with (could this get any better?) Joni Mitchell on backing vocals (yes, it can.) Kat’s cuppeth runneth over. Added to this, watching Neil Young in his aviator shades rocking out the old keyboards only pushed me slightly more over the precipice.

What’s my point? This band wasn’t just an unquestionable live force to be reckoned with. They weren’t just a rock ‘n’ roll band bashing out clumsy tunes about sex, drugs and…(fuck it, you know the rest.) This was a band with something to say – and whilst bands right now might consider it corny to “pontificate” about soldiers cutting them down, I consider it a cop-out that bands no longer have any desire to express themselves about anything that may demonstrate they have any degree of social/political/EMOTIONAL awareness, cowering under a math-rock misapprehension that actually celebrates wielding calculators and compasses instead of hearts and soul (Not naming any names. FOALS)

CSNY had Vietnam. We have Tibet. Have things changed that much? If anything, the time is even riper. So why is it being left to sixty year old rockers like Neil Young to keep on churning out the anti-war sentiment on records like ‘Living With War’? When did it become too corny to care?

(Can I just add at this point that I hysterically jump around the kitchen to AC/DC like everyone else, I’m not being a snob here. I’d just like to see a bit of variation. Back in Black forever. IDET.)

And If you haven’t had a listen to Neil Young’s last record ‘Living With War’, please click onto his anti-war video to ‘The Restless Consumer’. Don’t need no Madison Avenue War. Don’t need no more lies.