Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

Beady Eye
Different Gear, Still Speeding
@ Manchester Apollo

Before we get on to "Different Gear - Still Speeding" let's talk conduits. Elvis Presley of Gracelands Inc, Roger Daltrey of the WHO, Liam Gallagher of OASIS and Tom Meighan of Kasabian, all mighty fine front men but each merely conduits for other people's words. Wonderful conduits yeah, but conduits all the same - but does that matter? Well yes it fucking does! Personally the idea of listening to some bloke banging on large about something some other blokes done, thought, felt, imagined or experienced strikes me as a bit bleeding creepy - present company excepted of course.

But just because I don't personally dig lyrics by proxy doesn't mean I'm going to do down the role of the conduit, oh no. Many years ago when the world was a more tolerant place I was in a band (shudder!). I wrote shit and sang shit (so the reviewers said) but there's one thing I learnt during this time (other than keep moving while onstage cos you're a harder target to hit) and that was: in the league of "the toughest" being a front man and having to look down the barrel of that bleeding microphone you have to be the toughest of the toughest. Writing songs comes a very close second. And then writing music critique laced with half baked hyperbole comes in way down the track, after it's been lapped several times, and then disqualified.

So I'm not bad mouthing the conduit crooner I'm just saying it ain't how things should be. I mean if Elvis had squitted out a few tunes rather than doing all those homo erotic dumb ass movies and dressing up in those stupid damn awful costumes in the '70's then they'd be no question in naming him the King of Rock n Roll rather than the Conduit King of Rock N Roll. And Pete Townsend, well, did he really need Daltrey to do the vocalising? Probably in the sixties he did, possibly, but if he'd been operating in any subsequent era he'd have ended up being a singer song writer, and Roger would have been superfluous. Sorry Roger, you would have. And then there's Liam, a slightly different kettle of fish, maybe, because at least he's lobbed a few of his own songs into the Oasis hat in recent times. But when all is said and done he was a conduit for Bruv for far too long, but now, thankfully, those days are over and he's a conduit no more.

So reading through some of the professional reviews (tee hee) of "Different Gear, Still Speeding" and the professional reviews (tee hee) of the three singles that preceded it, and of course after buying and then listening to the whole batch of songs, what have we found? Well first off the Fly review that gave the album 2 stars proved only one thing. Noel is definitely on the Barfly email list. In another review I read some dick described BEADY EYE as "Liam Gallagher's latest collaboration" What? This isn't fucking TIN MACHINE you worm cast!

Overall though most reviews put far too much emphasis on comparisons with what has already been, what we've already seen, if you know what I mean. And that dear friend's is like looking at things through the wrong end of the telescope. OK so we do need to look back for a mo just to see what went right and what went wrong with Oasis. Firstly the known knowns, if after "Be Here Now" Noel had done what Lennon and Weller had done before him and stashed his guitar away for a bit, sat down in front of a piano and written a album worth of tracks on the old Joanna, I don't think we'd "be here now" with Beady Eye. And with the four albums "Giants" "Chemistry" "Truth" & "Soul" released between 1998 and 2008 Oasis did exactly what was expected. They "repeated success". And if you can repeat success in music industry then every one in the music business loves you. Why would you want to do anything else? Its how the system operates, its either "repeat the success" or piss off. And it's a fucking tough ask "repeating success". You want to try getting a success in the first place let alone repeating it. But repeated success is what the beast that is the record biz requires, repeated success - repeated success - repeated success - got it! Ok. Anyway Oasis did it, ten years, four albums all number 1's, most platinum sellers. Repeated success, perfect! Yes?

But of course repeated success ain't perfect. Because when you set out with the intention of repeating success being expansive and experimental goes right out the fucking window. The last track on "Dig Out Your Soul" written by Liam says it all "Soldier On". Oasis were soldiering on, sometimes wonderfully so, but soldiering on just the same, "soldiering on" on a "long dead train".

Now I agree with Steven Goddard of Q Different Gear is "the strongest record Liam's made" since (What's the Story) Morning Glory? But not because it matches or betters the albums in-between. It's not the STILL bit of the Beady Eye debut that interests me it's the DIFFERENT bit. Cos we already know what Liam can do: he can do in your face ranting outbursts like no one else, he did it on "Meaning of Soul" and here does here with the mightily vitriolic "Four Letter Word" - the vitriol is not quite up to "Steel & Glass" levels but all the same I bet someone's still smarting. We know that Liam can do the confessional love thing, he did it on "Songbird" and he does it here again on the B side "Two of a Kind". And we know Liam can, like no one else, rejuvenate and reconstitute the back catalogue of John Winston Lennon and he does it here again with "Roller" and with "The Beat Goes On".

But what is new with Beady Eye is the lightness and looseness employed by Gallagher/Archer/Bell and Steve Lillywhite throughout the LP. Unlike Oasis of recent times only the tracks that need to be stamped out are stamped out. Tracks like "Millionaire" have less rock hardness about them they are allowed to simply and psychedelically unfold. There's an excursion to the Mersey Beat Land of The La's on "For Anyone", which is probably the lightest track on the album, but its new territory, the start of something. As is "Bring the Light" with its piano driven riff and backing singers which gives it more of a Primal Scream feel to it. But for me it's on "Wigwam" where the deal is clinched. Coming after the visceral thrash of "Standing on the Edge of the Noise" the definition couldn't be greater - a free flowing simple succinct and subtle linear unravelling, Wigwam just happens. And this is the main gift of "Different Gear" it's deft, it doesn't bludgeon you into submission from start to finish, it gently and subtly gets under the skin.

The only downer (if there has to be one) is track 13 "The Morning Son". Liam sings "The morning son has rose". Which should of course be "The morning son has risen". But I guess this isn't Henry James, and anyway Paul Weller has been singing "for no bonds could ever keep me from she" in "English Rose" for thirty odd years, rather than "for no bands could ever keep me from her"; and no one seems to mind. So perhaps I should just wince in silence. But then Steve Lillywhite finishes "The Morning Son" the last track on the album in exactly the same way he finished "Looking Glass" the last track on The La's debut, with a jumbled tempo change. I winced again. No Steve, just no!

There needed to be a change and Beady Eye have brought it. They seem to have a waft fresh clean air in there sails rather than stale re-circulated Co2 in their lungs. "Different Gear, Still Speeding" is not the end of the end or even the beginning of the end its NEW DAWN FADES: "A change of speed, a change of style. A change of scene, with no regrets".

Onward to
The Mondays MADCHESTER The land of JOY,
Home of HOWARD, HOOKEY The Hacienda and of Fact Tory.
Home of The Stoned ROSES and the miserable MOZ,
The COCKS, The CARPETS, John Cooper Clarke and MARK with an E.

Onward to
The echoic terraces of the Apollo
Rising out of the City blindingly white
Like a 20's ocean liner
Sailing in a sea of shite