Seeing Kings of Leon live is like being stripped, half-eaten and sodomised by ferrets. It is the exact opposite of watching a home video of Chris Martin and Soupy Paltrow "making love". It's a fucking necessity that you go see them. If you don't know this - why don't you know this? Because no fucking so-called rock journalist has told you. A couple of years back when I was still hacking diamonds from the British pop culture coal-face you could rely on there being at least one genius writer with a centimetre high boredom threshold to tell you when a truly outrageously sensational band came along – a Manic Street Preachers, an Ikara colt. And now all you've to guide you is the atonal squeaking of dullard pygmy shrews that love everything and hate nothing and can't write for shit and should all be chartered accountants in provincial Belgium.
Fuck me – Hunter S. Thompson is dead. I mean he really is dead. As in not coming back. It's only just starting to sink in. I'm reading his last book – 'Hey Rube' - a collection of sports columns for ESPN, and on the radio a grey little man is asking Wallflowers singer-songwriter frontman Jacob 'Son of Bob' Dylan which novelists inspired the songs on his new album.
,Br> Why? In the name of God, why?
Does anyone really give a fuck what books the staggeringly uninteresting half-talent Jacob 'Son of Bob' Dylan read when he wrote a bunch of songs that (trust me on this) fucking suck utterly? Would not this airspace be better used broadcasting the sound of jam jars full of wasps being dropped from a great height on to the unprotected heads of anti-abortion activists? For instance? I mean, life is short, right?
"Watching the Baltimore Ravens play football" wrote Doc Thompson, "is like watching scum freeze on the eyeballs of a jackass, or being stuck for 6 hours in an elevator with Dick Chaney on speed."
Fucking hell, tell us about THE MUSIC, Doc! Give us some STATS! You know why music writing is boring? Because it's about the music. Because it's written by music fans and music fans are the least interesting people on the planet. Apart from TV soap actors and anyone actually physically capable of holding a conversation about mortgages, cars and/or babies without wanting to smash their own head open with a hammer and eat their own brains after 15 seconds. I apologise if this describes you. I mean no offence. I just don't want to have to read anything you ever write. Or hear your opinion on absolutely anything. Is that clear?
Put it this way. Would you rather read an article about Dr Who written by? a) a Dr Who fan? or
b) absolutely anybody else? A writer, perhaps?
You get my point?
Once upon a time rock hacks (who are always desperately sad wannabes) wanted to be Baudelaire, Che Guevara, Lenin, Rosa Luxembourg, Hemingway, Kerouac, Ginsberg and God. They wanted to be fighters, lovers, poets, insane nukers of small desert cities and jauntily bereted guerrilla fighters in the war against bourgeois complacency. They munched nasal inhalers, did speed 'til their adrenal glands collapsed, drank pints of prole sperm, locked each other in bondage dungeons, wrote "this machine kills fascists" on their typewriters and dressed, walked, spoke and coiffured like Black Panther uber-chic(k) Angela Davis.
And I saw this gibbering freakshow slowly replaced by sensible suburban music fans. Baby John Majors, mini-John Selwyn Gummers, tiny wee mice-men all squeaking repetitively while sat in brutally self-disciplined ranks as the record companies and the publishers slithered their prehensile cocks into tiny mice ears and wanked, pumping tiny mice heads full of diseased corporate spunk.
I heard this week of a Beijing punk band called Brain Failure. They have a song called 'Anarchy in the PRC' and they record on I Fucked People Like You In Prison records. Most "music" journalists would actually need to hear some of their songs. I don't. I already know that they are the best band in the world ever. You see the difference?
My God! The number of times I've rushed up to an editor's desk and babbled:
"There's this band called Banzai Kitty Fucka comprised of three drop dead gorgeous Japanese schoolgirls who perform with samurai swords strapped to their backs and bayonets attached to the necks of their groin-level held guitars and they've got songs called 'Nagasaki Tickled' and 'I Fell In Love With Zombie Joe Strummer' and can we do a piece on them please please please?"
And invariably the fat, jaded, prematurely middle aged Morrissey fan of an editor would look at me, yawn, stretch, scratch their enormous arse and mumble: "Hmm, yes, well – have you got anything I could listen too?"
Do you see the insanity of that? Can you grasp how utterly un-rock'n'roll that is? And worse – what terrible fucking journalism it is? Can you? I mean a) Given that this new band are self-evidently prime contenders for this weeks best band in the world ever slot – why do you need to actually hear them? And b) why not take the chance? And c) even if they are shit – SO WHAT?
So I'm watching the TV and on comes this ad featuring young people and mobile phones. I'm angered, obviously. And snarling. These squeaky clean TV teens in their brightly coloured baggy clothes and sexy new sneakers follow a set of visual instructions on their tiny vid-phone. This leads them to a gig in a barn. I am ready to be appalled. I am looking forward to being disgusted. Because you know that whenever grown-ups "do" rock'n'roll they always – ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS – get it wrong.
And I am... blown away. On stage are some spotty, scruffy hamster haired Black Rebel Motorcycle Club type caucasian teenage guitar scum with shit facial hair. And behind them is a spunkstained white bedsheet spraypainted with the logo ROCK'N'ROLL SOLDIERS.
I am agog, in love and in pain. I can't breathe. My heart leaps out of my chest and pounds like a jackhammer smashing sheet metal flat to make giant cages for rabid brontosauri. My tongue grows to seven times its normal length and lolls on the floor in a sticky slick of glistening drool. I froth. I Google Rock'n'Roll soldiers.
They're "real". Which is a shame but can't be helped. But their first album is going to be called "So Many Musicians To Kill". Fuck me, now. Come on. This is the best album title since Screeching Weasel's "Kill The Musicians". Indeed it might even be the same record repackaged. Who cares? The point is that if you actually need to hear this album to know that Rock'n'Roll Soldiers are the this week's greatest band EVER EVER EVER then – hey, have you ever considered a career in music journalism? You miserable little toe-jam sniffing mollusc.
Oh look! Here's a review of the Rock'n'Roll Soldiers from a website with the word "punk" in its title.
"Actually, I'm tempted to not review this album, and just rant about how much I hate Vin Diesel, and think that Walker Texas Ranger should slow motion spin-kick him in the face, through a glass window. But rumour is this is a music website, so I'll save that for another time."
You get the point? Do you see how a detailed frame by frame description of Walker Texas Ranger booting Vin Slappo through a drug store window complete with loud sound effects (OOOOOOOOF KERRAAAAAAAASSSSH! TINKLE TINKLE!) would not only be infinitely more interesting than some tedious little spotty herbert wanking on and on and on and on about (yaaaaaaaaaaawn!) the music – but would actually tell us more about the music anyway!?!?!
Do you see? Do you? Do you? Do you get it? Do you? Do you? Oh please say you do!
Groovy.
Steven Wells
