Tim Thornton - The Alternative Hero

To Chris Bateson and John Kelley

a cognizant original v5 release october 07 2010

SUGGESTED LISTENING : Dodgy, Homegrown (A&M, 1995)

Thieving Magpies
are finished

You know how it is sometimes.

Youre at a festival. Youve been drinking all day, the only thing youve had to eat is one of those foul hog-roast sandwiches while watching the Longpigs, maybe a bit to smoke back at the campsite, a couple of tequila shots while waiting for your friends to put their trousers on; the evening draws in, you zip up your tent and set off to catch a few bits and pieces before the headliner.

Grab another drink. Perhaps nail that little half-pill youve been saving. See a few minutes of Mansun on the Loaded stage.

Then it all goes a bit peculiar.

First, youve completely lost all the others. You dimly recall one of them saying they were going to watch Gene, but youve no memory of which stage they were playing on. You try to cast your mind backwere you with anyone else when you saw that mad dude with the body makeup?but your brains not working very efficiently Oh well, bugger it. You dont need them anyway. Plus, youre bound to bump into them by the pizza bus before the Magpies. Hang on, nothis isnt Reading, this is Aylesbury. No pizza bus. Never mind. You can meet them where the pizza bus would be, if this was Reading. Genius. Theyll probably be thinking the same thing. Whos on before the Magpies? You consult the dog-eared running order you pinched off that geezer behind the sound desk. Boo Radleys. Fair enough. Time to get something to eat.

Oh, and another drink.

Go on. Get yourself another drink, Clive. You clearly need it .

You try to walk over to the food stalls, but they dont seem to be where they were this afternoon. The main stage appears to have moved as well, but on reflection it must have been a different beer tent that you started out from. You pause to swig from your cup and get your bearings, but its bloody difficult when the place is littered with people, slouching around in various states of fuckedness, trying to start those poisonous fires made from beer cups, newspaper and the free Aylesbury 95 souvenir poster that came with Melody Maker . Its rapidly darkening and grim-smelling smoke keeps getting up your nose and in your eyes, but you stagger on, accidentally kicking some bloke whos passed out next to one of the speaker stacks. At last you spot a tempura stand. Not quite what you had in mind, but itll do. Four pounds for tempura and noodles. Hunger. Yes. You dizzily instruct the woman to spoon on lashings of sweet and sour sauce, stop off for another drink, then settle down just in time to see the Boos crunching their way through Find the Answer Within.

A brief moment of contentment and serenity.

Which abruptly finishes when you drop most of your tempura on the grass. Bollocks. At least it wasnt your drink. You pick some of it up. A few clumps of grass have stuck to the sweet and sour sauce, but fuck it, its all vegetable. Shove it in with some noodles and youd never know the difference. You scoff the lot while Sice sings his little heart out, wash it all down with some more of whatever that is in your beer cup, and then feels like time for a little rest. Get some energy up before the mighty Magpies. The glorious, world-beating Thieving Magpies, back to inject some quality and integrity into whats swiftly becoming an alarmingly overrated pop landscape. You lie back and settle yourself on the cool ground, the lawn threadbare from constant tramping over the last forty-eight hours. Its funny to look up and see a worms-eye view of the festival: the darkening sky, festivallers walking past, hooded tops, strange hats, brainless conversations. And yes, what an amazing selection of sounds. Its only now youre lying down you can really take it in. The Boos pounding away in the foreground, of course, but theres assorted chatter and laughter, various stereo systems booming out from tents and stallsand if you really concentrate you can actually make out the noises of the band on the Loaded stage. Hmm sounds rocky voice isnt up to much that good bit when the band stops and he sings the verse by himself for a moment When he wakes theres no one there He still loves her, girl from and then they all kick back in.

Respect.

Respect for the real people.

Nah, its not The Real People.

Its um

[From the September 1995 issue of Craze magazine.]

Lance knocks back the rest of his champagne and shrugs. Its all right. I mean, its a decent crop of new bands and theyre all doing fairly decently. It happens. Im not convinced its earth-shattering. I havent heard anything that, like, radically influences me or sends me scratching my head back to the drawing board. But its pretty healthy, I spose. A fuck sight better than the crap that was around when we first came out. I quite like Sleeper, she writes good lyrics. Supergrass are cool. A foreign writer asks who hes rooting for in the great Blur/ Oasis single battle. Neither, I think both songs are shit. But which group does he prefer? Slade. CRAZE: Do you see yourself as part of, or an alternative to, the current explosion? I dont see why we have to be either. CRAZE: Were you ever concerned that youd be superfluous to it? How do you mean? CRAZE: Rendered unnecessary? I knew this was coming. I dunno. You tell me. Why would we be? CRAZE: Youre part of the old guard. Pretty much everyone else has been swept away . Like who? CRAZE: You know. The Cure. The Wonder Stuff. The Mission. James. Pop Will Eat Itself. Carter. Jesus Jones . Yeah, and youve forgotten Neds Atomic Dustbin, Eat and Kingmaker, and why dont you throw in Gaye Bikers on Acid and Dumpys Rusty Nuts while youre at it? About half the room laugh. The others look puzzled. Lance continues. You mustve got that list off the back of an old Camden Palace flyer. You see weve never had much in common with that lot. Weve always been more than capable of moving on, and were not stopping now just cos theres suddenly a cool new scene for all you cool new people to shake your record bags to. I mean, why shouldnt people continue listening to us? Why is it such a surprise? Its not as if were doing something completely contrary to whats happening now. We use guitars. Were British. We write real pop songs about real life. And we still rock harder than anyone. A lot of the new bands rock about as hard as Simply Red. CRAZE: But you represent a bygone era . No. Thats just what youve decided, because the goths and grebos used to dig us, and cos were from Reading. Its a complete fallacy. I bet you wont be asking Shaun Ryder the same question. CRAZE: Does a backlash scare you? From the press? Weve already had four of them. One after each album. Wed survived our first one probably before you finished your GCSEs. [Laughs] CRAZE: What about from the public? No, he scowls. You read Music Week look at the sales figures, mate. The records already gone platinum, and itll probably be double by the time the Blur album comes out. And thats just Britain. So I dont think anyone at BFMs losing sleep just yet. Deciding the conference has reached a natural conclusion, he rises, delivers one of his characteristic cheeky grins, gathers up his routinely silent bandmates and departs. Although hes slightly more defensive than weve come to expect, the consensus is that his acerbic style is on fine form and that its business, for the foreseeable future, as usual. So it comes as some surprise five hours later when, in front of fifty thousand people, Lance Webster single-handedly ensures that the significant portion of his own musical career is drawn to a rapid close.Next page