Tonight On Channel Four

Channel Four Tonight (UK)

23:50 - 01:10 Lord Don't Slow Me Down
Backstage documentary following Manchester rock legends Oasis throughout their Don't Believe the Truth world tour over the past year. With unprecedented access to the band, the programme features behind-the-scenes footage of the group as well as on-stage performaces across the world



01:10 - 02-40 Live From Manchester
With the release of their sixth album, Don't Believe the Truth, Oasis are back on the road with a sell-out gig at the City of Manchester Stadium.

Blur's Girl Share

Blur bloke Alex James used to share his totty with Oasis. Speaking on The Nation's Favourite Album on VH, Alex said: "There was a small gene pool around us and the girls that were with Oasis one night were with us the next." Itchy.

Source: Daily Star

Liam Fuels Band Feud

The feud between girl bands All Saints and Girls Aloud is set to explode thanks to Oasis bad boy Liam Gallagher.

Girls Aloud are appearing on Oasis's latest DVD which will not impress Liam's partner, All Saint Nicole Appleton.

Last month Cheryl Cole from Girls Aloud accused the re-united All Saints of copying them.

Source: www.people.co.uk

Noel Gallagher Says Cocaine Isn’t That Bad

The Oasis star – who claims not to have taken the Class A drug since 1998 – believes alcohol is the worst substance people can take and only thinks cocaine is harmful because it allows you to drink more.

Noel said: “Cocaine itself isn’t that bad. It just makes you drink more and that’s the worst drug there is - especially when you’re surrounded by people whose psychosis sets in the more they drink.”

Noel – who once compared drug-taking to “getting up in the morning and having a cup of tea” – insists he chose to give up cocaine because he was fed up of partying.

He said: “People think I stood up at a party and announced, ‘That was my last line of cocaine, from this day forth I shall take no more,’ and everybody sighed and left.

“It wasn’t like that. The reason I packed it in was that it was only meant to be a weekend, which became a week, which became a month and so on. I just decided I couldn’t be bothered anymore.”

Source: www.ecanadanow.com

Ben And Greg On The Masterplan Video

Directed By: Ben & Greg

Ben: "We've only been directing for a year, so it was a huge step up for us to do a band like Oasis. Many of the scenes were adapted from actual paintings by [famous 20th-century Manchester artist] LS Lowry.

Noel and Liam in particular loved the way his walk looked. We read loads of Oasis books to find anecdotes and stories that we could drop into the background, so if you know about the band, you should be able to spot the references."

Fact: The bus driver is meant to be Alan McGee

Source: NME Magazine

When Noel Met Serge

It started with an 'Oosh' when Oasis first saw their natural heirs Kasabian, it was love at first sight. And the feeling was mutual.

If there's one question NME has about this rock 'n' roll of friendships, it's this: why didn't it happen sooner? From their swaggering emergence in 2004 with the bovver-boy beats of 'Reason Is Treason', Kasabian always seemed destined to be best mates with Oasis. Like a historical tidal wave crashing back on the shore 10 years after it first struck, when Tom Meighan and Serge Pizzorno appeared with gobby charm, up-for-it attitude and tunnel-vision drive to be the best band on the planet,it was almost a reprise of a young Liam 'n' Noel.

The musical approaches were different; Kasabian looked to chemically enhanced beats while Oasis relied on all-conquering rock'n' roll, but the way both bands causally constructed modern anthems proved that here were kindred spirits - so much so that Oasis' leader Noel Gallagher admitted he was intrigued without hearing a note.

"When the interviews started two or three years ago I thought, 'They're gobby little f**kers I hope they back it up when you hear the tunes,"' recalls the guitarist. 'Then I got 'Club Foot' and it was, 'F**king whoa, man! Is somebody saying "Oosh"?' I went to see them live before we toured with them and they were f**king business!

For the Kasabian boys themselves though, being invited to tour the States with Oasis late last year was the logical conclusion of all their efforts. "It was incredible hearing 'Definitely Maybe' for the first time," explains Tom Meighan. "I'd never really heard anything like it before. It brought me joy, it brought me sadness. When Liam sang 'In my mind my dreams are real' he was speaking what I was thinking! I saw them live for the first time at G-MEX in August 1997, I think. I'll never forget it, I looked onstage and realised that's what I wanted."

And that's what his band got. Having being selected personally by Noel to do the US jaunt, a bond between the two bands quickly formed. "Oasis kind of pulled the book open and read to you," says Tom of the influence touring with his heros had on him. "They tell you the story while you're in bed listening - know what I mean? they've been there and done it. They're great man, they just believe. We're great friends with them, they're all f**king great, just lovely.

So when it was time to arrange a Kasabian and Oasis summit we couldn't just put them in a room and talk, we had to get them in a room and play. Cue NME.Com's birthday party at KOKO in London. An hour after Noel had joined Kasabian onstage for'The Doberman' and 'Club Foot' he settles down in the smallest backstage dressing room as his opposite number in Kasabian walks in.

"Ah, Serge Pizzorno! announces the Gallagher with a flourish, before snatching NME's microphone to go all Trevor McDonald on our arses.

From us in the studio, over to you, Noel Gallagher:

Noel Gallagher: "I'm sat backstage in what was formely the Camden Palace, back in the '80's when i was a child. I'm sat with Serge Pizzorno from the right reverend Kasabian and I'm going to ask him some questions. The first is, ho big was tonight on a scale of one to 10?
Serge Pizzorno: "It was f**king 10! It was the most incredible gig. As you put it earlier, by the middle eight of (first song) 'Shoot The Runner' it was the best gig we've done. The best gig we've done on this album so far."
Noel: "What did you think of the glowsticks being slung on stage?"
Serge: "I wasn't happy about that."
Noel: "Me neither."
Serge: "But Tom did well. He volleyed a few into the crowd. We had a few lads in the crowd so if anyone on stage got hit, it would've been taken care of."

NME: Why didn't you use your famous volley, Serge? Your goal on Sky's Soccer AM last week was the talk of the town.
Serge: "That was a one-off that! The luckiest thing in the world."
Noel: "Right, I want to know this personally. How do you think - deep down - it's going to go in the States?"
Serge: "Erm, you know what. I've got no f**king idea. But we're going to play like that every night and if they get it, then f**king god bless them. If they don't, then we'll just come home."
Noel: "And, how big is Earls Court (Kasabian's December show) going to be?"
Serge: "It's going to be the biggest, most empire show ever! This is f**king great!"

NME: What about being top of the album charts?
Noel: "What does it feel like - I know what it feels like, but for all f**king kids back at home - how big is it being Number One just for that one week?"
Serge: "For all that time we sat in that sweaty, carpeted room in Leicester and having Tom jumping off amps shouting 'F**king Glastonbury, you W**kers!, and to beat Beyonce and all these weird pop acts - and Bob Dylan, bless him, to be number one, it was the most incredible thing. Tom's mam rang me - we found out while we were in Turkey - and she was roaring, she made me cry! It was the best day ever and we had the most incredible Sunday night ever."

So having enjoyed his stint as official Kasabian correspondent, it's Noel's turn to face the 'press', as Serge has a few questions of his own. The main topic of discussion is Oasis' new Best Of 'Stop The Clocks'. With it's tracklist recently revealed, it wasn't so much what was on it that was bothering Serge, but what wasn't.

Noel: "In a way it's liberating doing the Best Of. We've done it and it's out there, it's finished now and it stops people asking about it, we get asked about it constantly. Serge will tell you, he's devasted 'Listen Up' is not on there."
Serge: "Yeah, devastated! And how can you not put ['Some Might Say' B-side] 'Headshrinker' on there? It's one of my favourites."
Noel: "I know, how can you not have 'Headshrinker' on there? You see how I have to put up with these c***s? But fair enough, I'll be on his case when his Best Of comes out, I'll be: 'So "Reason Is Treason" isn't f***ing on it? Get to f**k!'"
Serge: "At the same point you have to go, 'He is the Prime Minister, get in line and you do your job,' that's how it should be."
Noel: "This is the manifesto for future generations! Ten or 15 years from now, when we're all done and dusted, when people are going, 'That's that band everyone was yakking on about."

NME: So is 'Reason Is Treason' your favourite Kasabian song? You played two others with the band tonight.
Noel: "Serge picked the two songs. If he'd had asked me I'd have said 'Club Foot', but then he said 'The Doberman' too and I thought 'F***ing brilliant! Yeah!'. 'Club Foot' is my favourite. It was the first crotchet of music I ever heard by them."

NME: Did you enjoy singing the 'Oosh' bits tonight?
Noel: "I f***ing love that! When we first got to play with them we were going, 'Is that an "Oosh"?' and Tom said yeah, 'Oosh!'. What is that? It's the bit you sing along to at home. It's where Serge taps into the dance music thing.

Only The Prodigy and the Primals have really got into that territory where they've crossed over before - and they done it better than anybody else. 'Screamadelica' is the definitive guitar-dance record - it's not even indie-dance or any of that shit - and The Prodigy did it with 'Raise The Pressure' [we think he means the Prodge's 1996 single 'Breathe']. Kasabian are there now and they're making that music, which is unique."

The respectful air that is starting to grip the room, however, gets an appropriate injection of rock'n'roll as Tom Meighan, looking for his bandmate and guest star, bounds in. "Ah there you are, what's going on?"

NME: How come you all ended up onstage tonight?
Noel: "They asked us in Ibiza on a proper pissed-up, pharmaceutical night out, 'Are you going to get up with us?' I said, 'Yeah, yeah!' So they're off to New York tomorrow to go on their American tour, we're off doing our Best Of press so there was only one night when we were in town together and that was tonight, and as luck would have it, it was the NME night, so we thought, 'Brilliant, let's do it!'"
Tom Meighan: "Mr G! He just said he was f***ing up for it. We got him to bust out 'The Doberman' and 'Club Foot', it's wonderful isn't it? He's great, he's a forefather, and it's great to have him. You won't be able to stop the songs now: Jay Mehler, Chris Edwards, Sergio Pizzorno, Tom Meighan and Noel Gallagher! We went through it once at soundcheck and it was amazing."

NME: Did you have to give him any tips?
Tom: I said to him, 'I love what you're doing, I don't know what you're doing, but carry on!' It's great to have him. It's strange to have him onstage too, but he's a friend now so we'll have a good night."

NME: What was it like touring with Oasis?
Tom: "It gave us a lot of confidence being with them."
Serge: "It was great having that at the end of our live gigs. We were already f**king flying and then we met them and if they gave us any advice it was just, 'Carry on!' We showed them a few tunes before we went in and they thought they were great. It's nice to hear that. It was just the best few months of our lives."
Tom: "It was carnage, man. It was great, we learnt a lot from them. We're good friends with them now. We'll stick by them for a long time."

And carnage, it seems, is what they do best. Amid talk of "heading back to the hotel" the Oasis-Kasabian summit breaks up as more bandmates and girlfriends pile into a tiny dressing room. NME later hears tales of people "leaving Noel's house at 8am the next morning", but as Tom had earlier assured us, this is more than just a rock-star boozers club. This is about a bunch of lads from Leicester who met their heros and found out they were just like them. "They changed people's views and options, life and culture," says the Kasabian singer. "They've sorted their place in the rock 'n' roll circus, now it's our go!"

Source: NME Rock 'N' Roll Yearbook

Win Exclusive Oasis Event Tickets - With Noel Gallagher Q&A!

To celebrate the release of Oasis’ Best Of Album ‘Stop The Clocks’, STV Music is giving 14 lucky viewers the chance to get up close with Noel Gallagher during a special Q&A session after the exclusive fan screening of the bands new on-the-road documentary “ Lord Don’t Slow Me Down” in Glasgow on 22 November at Imax Cinema at the Glasgow Science Centre at 6:30pm.

Our 14 winners will each win a pair of tickets to the screening and Q&A, plus some Oasis goodies! For your chance to get up close with Noel Gallagher just visit our WIN section The screening of the short film is to celebrate the release of the bands' greatest hits anthology 'Stop The Clocks' which is out the same week on 20th November.

It is the ONLY chance people will have to see the short film in full before 2007. In addition, Noel will partake in a Question and Answer session, for which the comp winners will have the chance to submit their own question to him! This is an amazing price, an absolute must for Oasis fans, so spread the word! ENTER HERE

Source: www.stv.tv

Noel Answers Fans Questions

Click here to watch Noel Gallaghers interview for MTVU.com. The interview is done in two parts, one from a normal interview and the second with Noel answering questions sent in by fans.

Source: www.mtvu.com

Clock These Weird Oasis Notes

The sleeve notes for Oasis’s album Stop The Clocks — out on Monday — are gems of gibberish.

Sylvia Patterson writes of the band: “They came into our lives in April ’94 as the body of Kurt Cobain lay newly dead, like a star-shaped tambourine shattering through a window.”

Noel and Liam’s mum Peggy would have done a better job.

Source: www.thesun.co.uk

Watch The Gonzo Interview Here

It's only Noel Gallagher chatting to Zane Lowe!

You can watch the two hour special with the main man by clicking HERE.

Source: www.mtv.co.uk

The Times Stop The Clocks Review

The title gives it away, of course. The clocks have been stopped at 1996, the nation is waiting for new Labour to step in and abolish the Conservative Party for ever, the England football team are preparing to win the European Championship at home and Oasis are in their pomp.

That, at least, seems to be Noel Gallagher’s interpretation of his band’s history. Fourteen of the 18 songs on this selection date from the time when the planet’s biggest band (or so it seemed) was also the best, before cocaine and hubris dulled them. An awed if sarcastic friend nailed it back then, observing: “Football is almost as popular as Oasis these days.”

How five young men from a nondescript Manchester suburb became megastars remains a mystery. Britpop was little more than the application of marketing techniques to a previously marginal genre, but Oasis went beyond appealing to mere music fans. At their peak you could hear every tune from (What’s the Story) Morning Glory on any provincial pub crawl.

They were also the noisiest pop sensation (as opposed to a critical sensation) since T Rex and Slade. No wonder the much-loved Cigarettes and Alcohol borrowed Marc Bolan’s boogie so blatantly. Often Oasis improved on their inspirations. Morning Glory shared a guitar hook with R.E.M.’s The One I Love but it remains a sight more exciting.

Champagne Supernova, the apogee of Dadrock, was modelled on the Beatles’ While My Guitar Gently Weeps, but the solos of Gallagher and his guest Paul Weller were made for stadiums. Yet it took his mercurial brother Liam to turn Rock’n’Roll Star from statement of intent to plain fact. The pounding Acquiesce, their only shared vocal, is probably the best B-side since the Beatles.

One story has it that not only had Noel already penned the songs that sealed Oasis’s reputation before the band were signed, but that the sporadic highlights of their later, weaker albums, overlooked here, were leftovers from this original bounty. Certainly by the time success was a given, pastiches such as the Kinks copy The Importance of Being Idle and the comic-psyche- delic Go Let It Out were pleasing, and nothing more.

Despite their efforts, they never really resembled the Fabs, beyond Liam’s Lennon-esque rasp. Their style of an undisputed leader playing overlong guitar solos probably owed more to Neil Young and Crazy Horse, hugely influential in the early Nineties. Yet they were anthemic, not introspective, as raucous as the Sex Pistols but unafraid of sentimentality. If there really is anyone in Britain who doesn’t own the first two Oasis albums, this overpackaged Christmas present of guilt-free nostalgia will substitute.

Weirdly, the band that killed off indie music forever with their all-conquering success turned out to be its saviours. The generation that grew up playing these uncomplicated songs now dominates the charts. None of them has written a Live Forever yet but at least the guitar industry was saved. This snapshot of an unrepeatable era certainly entertains. Terry Venables is back on the England bench too, so maybe history really is repeating itself.

Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

Noel Gallagher Plays MySpace Japan Show

Noel Gallagher and Gem Archer of Oasis played a semi-acoustic show at Ebisu Liquid Room Wednesday night as part of the launch of MySpace Japan, a Japanese-language version of the popular social-networking Web site. The two guitarists ran through Oasis classics including "Talk Tonight" and "Wonderwall" (both on the recent "Stop the Clocks" CD/DVD package).

There was also a rare performance of "Whatever," and a cover of The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" in a set that lasted an hour. A 600-strong crowd mainly made up of businessmen in gray suits and their hangers-on shouted requests and sang along to the penultimate tune, "Don't Look Back in Anger," before Gallagher ended the chilled-out set with "Married With Children.

Source: www.japantimes.co.jp

Liam's Gay Handcuff Confessions

'Cop Turned Me Camp'

Liam Gallagher reckons being handcuffed by the German plod turned him camp.

Yes, the Oasis former hardman has finally 'fessed up - his fisticuffs with businessmen in ein hotel four years ago was the first step to becoming domesticated. And a little bit gay.

The swaggering singer - who spends much of his time as a docile, loving father these days - said: "Bring back them days man. Bring back the coppers and the arrests. All I do is take my kids to school. The feeling of wearing those hand-cuffs brought out the gayness in me."

Speaking on the Oasis: Lord Don't Slow Me Down movie, he said: "I'm gonna leather someone tomorrow just so I can get back in the papers. I've got it too easy now."

Tough nut Liam, 34, was famously left toothless after his brawl with a group of men in a hotel bar in 2002 ahead of a gig in Germany.

The missing gnashers were replaced and since then he's led a somewhat calmer life. In fact, even as showbiz and rock legends partied with his brother Noel after the Q Awards two weeks ago, Liam was playing the parent. Noel. 39, told me at the time: "He's not coming out as much these days. He's always doing stuff with the kids.
"Today he's taken them off to the zoo to let the monkeys have a look at him."

He's even modified his musical leanings. Last Sunday, he openly got his groove on in Brighton as he watched McFly and then Katie Price, 28, and Peter Andre, 33, performing.

So be warned anyone out there looking to provoke Gallagher Jnr:

He's feeling gay, primed and ready to explode.

Source: Daily Star

Noel Gallagher On WARATTE IITOMO

New Liam, Noel & Gem Interview

Best Of The Best

As a twenty-some-thing oik in Manchester, Noel Gallagher remembers using some of the money he had little of to buy Nirvana's In Utero album.One song made his blood boil: the unfortunately prophetic I Hate Myself and I Want to Die.

"I remember thinking 'Here's this f---ing yank who's got everything I want'," Gallagher recalls of Kurt Cobain."

He was in the biggest band in the world, he's critically acclaimed, revered by fans, he's a f---ing multi-millionaire. That was everything I wanted in life, he had it. And the c--- wants to kill himself. I started thinking, 'How can that be?'."

Gallagher, who had started writing the songs that would become Oasis' seminal debut Definitely Maybe, suddenly got the inspiration to write Live Forever.

The ballad became the band's signature tune, recently voted the best song ever by Q Magazine readers in the UK.

His lyrics became the antidote to Cobain's suicidal misery.

"At the time I had nothing, I was living in a council flat, I had nowt," Gallagher says. "I had one guitar, I could barely pay the rent on the rehearsal room, I didn't have a job but we kept it going. I still loved getting up every day because it was a pleasure to be alive. Live Forever just came out."

Fast forward to 2006 and the twenty-something Gallagher is now a thirty-something multi-millionaire who is the songwriting force behind one of the biggest rock bands in UK history.

He's got everything he thought Kurt Cobain was wasting . . . except Courtney Love. "I'm still working on that," he jokes, "but she won't have it."

Gallagher is on the phone to spruik an album he didn't want to release – Oasis' best of Stop the Clocks. You see, Oasis had left their label Sony BMG in the UK, but the company were going to release the album regardless, so Gallagher stepped in to, as he puts it, stop it being sh--.

"They're within their rights to do one," he says, "We got wind they were going to do one so we figured it's best to be involved, choose the tracks and the artwork and all that f---ing bollocks. But it's frustrating, we'd rather be working on new stuff."

Stop the Clocks features precisely no new tracks, resisting the recent trend for artists to throw a couple of new or previously unreleased songs on their "best of" albums."

Best ofs aren't about new music," Gallagher says. "When you buy a best of, not by a classic band but by new bands like Supergrass or Blur or Manic Street Preachers, there's always two songs at the end that are so obviously new songs that have been lying around the studio – let's stick that on the best of and they're so obviously not the best."

Two unreleased songs, Stop the Clocks and The Boy with the Blues were mentioned by fans as possibilities to make the compilation.

Gallagher says the songs exist but were never going to make the best of.

Instead the best of features Liam and Noel Gallagher's pick of their songs – tellingly nothing from their critically mauled Be Here Now album and a large smattering of tracks from their debut and follow-up What's the Story Morning Glory. There's also four B-sides from that era, only two tracks from their recent "comeback" album Don't Believe the Truth and one track each from Heathen Chemistry and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants.

"This album is not for the Oasis generation, as they're called," Gallagher says. "If you're an Oasis fan you've probably got all these songs anyway. This album is for kids in 10 years time who will maybe get an introduction to Oasis the way I got into the Beatles, through a best of. Then there's plenty of other material they can discover for themselves, as opposed to the band going 'Here's all our best music'. There's songs like Rockin' Chair, D'Ya Know What I Mean, Listen Up, Fade Away, Headshrinker and all these B-sides that should have been on there, but people can discover those on their own."

Stop the Clocks is a best of, not a "greatest hits". There is a difference.

Indeed, there's not only eight singles left off Stop the Clock, but three UK No. 1 hits.

"There's another seven or eight songs that should be on there. But that would have meant stretching it to three CDs and I thought that was a bit f---ing sh--, really," Gallagher says.

"Two CDs is enough. It would have been nice to get it down to one CD, to get 12 killer tracks on one album but unfortunately I've written too many killer tracks."

Not that Gallagher isn't quick to point out which singles he automatically nixed from the potential tracklisting.

"Roll With It, All Around the World. Stand By Me, Sunday Morning Call. Quite a few really. But I wouldn't be surprised if a 'greatest hits' album is on the way very, very soon. The record label owns all the rights to our music. I've got a couple of record labels myself. I'm thinking if I run a record label I'd go 'Hmm, I can still milk this Oasis thing for another album'. There's eight singles not on it. I wouldn't be surprised if there's an Oasis 'greatest hits' imminent."

While rifling through the Oasis vault recently Gallagher says he found a "f---ing immense" live version of Some Might Say and a demo of Cigarettes and Alcohol he has "no recollection of recording".

His iPod contains only one Oasis album in full – Don't Believe the Truth – but plenty of demo and unreleased material.

Any chance of an anthology series, like his beloved Beatles?

"I don't know how these things work. Sony Records is going down the toilet mate. They own it all. I'd brace yourself if I was you, the barrage of any old sh-- is coming.

"There's a full unreleased album of Definitely Maybe, the one that was scrapped, plus a full unreleased album of stuff from Don't Believe the Truth that was scrapped because of, well, various reasons. Well, it was sh-- really."

While they're in nostalgia mode, Oasis will also release a tour documentary Lord Don't Slow Me Down filmed on their Don't Believe the Truth tour between 2005 and 2006."Swarthes of it are from Australia, actually," Gallagher says. "What's it about? I have no idea. There's lots of me f---ing about in it. Me swearing and playing guitar, signing autographs.

"People are expecting me to big it up, the people who made it. You see band documentaries and they're really exciting? This one seems f---ing boring to me but who am I to say? I'm in it."

The band are also in hibernation, and will begin negotiations for new record deals outside the UK.

"As for offers I don't know, my manager deals with all that, but I'm sure there's been millions and millions been offered," Gallagher states.

There's also no word on a new album, but Gallagher is not concerned.

"We had 11 songs leftover from the last album. Out of those seven were pretty good and four were great. I'm certainly not panicking. We could release an album now without even going into the studio to be honest. But there's no hurry. We only got back off that tour in March. F--- that. I'm not even interested yet to be honest. I haven't spent the money

Source: www.news.com.au

Win Stuff - Oasis Limited Edition Albums Up For Grabs.

On Monday, Oasis release their first-ever 'Best Of…' collection. 'Stop the Clocks' is an 18-song romp through a spectacular career that has spanned more than a decade and placed Oasis as the band of choice for millions worldwide.

The tracks on the new album – singles, b-sides, album tracks – have been chosen by the band themselves and will no doubt provoke equal parts adulation and pub debate all over the world. It's a dream set list, if you will, a chance to review the immense contribution that Oasis have made and continue to make to rock n roll. Or in other words, it's a cracking album no discerning fan should be without.

Our friends at Upshot have stumped up three limited edition albums and, wait for it, a set of highly sought-after set of Oasis darts. Yes, darts. First name out of the virtual hat wins an album and the darts, next two get an album. Bargain.

To get your name in the hat to win one of these amazing prizes, just answer the following, frankly insultingly easy question...

The Gallagher brothers are called..?

A: Bill and Ben
B: Stan and Oliver
C: Noel and Liam

Mail your answer, with "I want to win Oasis stuff" in the subject line, to winstuff@rickwaghorn.co.uk.

Don't forget to include your name and postal address. If you would like to receive regular updates from rickwaghorn.co.uk, include the words "Please add me to your mailing list" with your entry. Thank you.

The competition closes next Friday, 24 November. Winners will be notified by email. Good luck!

Source: www.rickwaghorn.co.uk

Noel: I Am Better Than McCartney

Noel Gallagher claims he is a better songwriter than Sir Paul McCartney.

The Oasis guitarist insists his debut album 'Definitely Maybe' is better than the first albums of every other leading British songwriter, including his Beatles idol Paul.

Noel said: "I was a superhero in the 90s. I said so at the time. Paul McCartney, Paul Weller, Pete Townsend, Keith Richards, my first album is better than all their first albums. Even they'd admit that."

Despite his boast, the 39-year-old rocker regrets that he will never be able to record anything that will top the band's acclaimed 1994 debut.

He added: "Those songs were written in my 20s. All I had in the world was a guitar and a Dictaphone. When you're young, you write about being young and s****ing and drugs and drinking. You can't do that when you're 39. I was a different person then.

"If I knew how to write another 'Definitely Maybe', I'd do one every year. It astounds me that I wrote those songs."

www.femalefirst.co.uk

Noel Interview For The West Australian

At the end of 1994, Noel Gallagher was on tour with his band in the United States. The album he’d just written and recorded had gone straight to the No. 1 spot on British charts and was quickly becoming the (then) fastestselling debut album in British history.

But none of that meant much in Los Angeles. He’d just seen his younger brother, Liam, completely mess up a concert, bent on a cocktail of drugs and booze.

Gallagher grabbed his passport, went to the airport and, without telling a soul, boarded a plane for San Francisco. Oasis were over before they’d barely begun.

This was to be the first of many splits, fractures and punch-ups surrounding the enigma that is Oasis, one of the greatest episodes in the celebrated history of rock’n’roll.

Gallagher is enjoying a fairly relaxed day at his luxurious home in Chalfont St Giles, a short drive north of London. It’s been 15 years and more than 50 million album sales since he joined his brother’s band and drove it to the kind of fame and fortune that made instant rock’n’roll folklore.

“I didn’t think that we’d still be sitting here after however long it is discussing the merits of one’s back catalogue,” Gallagher laughs, reflecting on the tumultuous history of Oasis and the release of the band’s greatest hits album, Stop the Clocks.

“It was good to just be getting off the dole, really, and possibly making some money. Taking as much drugs as possible and have a good time. Rock’n’roll is not about making plans or achieving goals and that. It’s about doing what you want. Of course, Liam takes that to the absolute f...ing extreme, but there was no master plan, really.”

With the release of 1994’s debut, Definitely Maybe, there was no going back to the dole line for the five members of Oasis, which included the Gallaghers, Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs, Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan and Tony McCarroll.

Formed amid the crumbling decay of Thatcherism, for these Mancunians music was the only escape. And they were never going to leave quietly, as Liam so famously stated on the snarling Cigarettes and Alcohol: “Is it worth the aggravation/To find yourself a job when there’s nothing worth working for/It’s a crazy situation/But all I need are cigarettes and alcohol.”

Six albums later, including an impressive B-sides release, and Oasis have run and crawled rock’s gauntlet. (What’s the Story) Morning Glory created Brit-pop and made them filthy rich, Be Here Now pushed them out of favour with the hostile British music press and last year’s superb Don’t Believe the Truth reinstated them as heroes again.

There have been broken spirits and broken noses, and today Noel and Liam remain the only two original members in the band — and even they are hard pressed to muster any scrap of brotherly love.

“He’s a f...ing little idiot is what he is,” Gallagher says matter-of-factly. “I haven’t seen him for four months but I know wherever he is he is being a f...ing idiot. Genuinely, he doesn’t like me, I tell you that for a fact. And I am indifferent to his idiocy.”

Behind the brawls and tabloid fanfare, Oasis were quite simply a brilliant rock’n’roll group. Noel the pop mastermind, Liam the untameable rock star — together they were unstoppable. And hearing these 18 undeniable hits from Stop the Clocks blast through the stereo back to back is all the proof you need: Rock ’N’ Roll Star, Wonderwall, Slide Away, Cigarettes and Alcohol, Live Forever, Supersonic, Don’t Look Back in Anger and so many more.

“We tell it like it is,” Gallagher suggests of the reason for the band’s continued success. “And I guess people have been through the ups and downs with us, and ultimately there’s some good music in there. It’s real as well; I often see the rock stars on the tele and I think, ‘There’s something intrinsically fake about you’. And you don’t get that with Oasis. Ask me the f...ing question, I won’t tell you any lies.

“I guess the 90s would have been a little less exciting if it wasn’t for us.”

Add the 21st century to that as well. Not only did Oasis make English music exciting again in the 90s, the band’s influence stretched across the oceans and has today manifested itself in the contemporary rock vogue, headed by bands as diverse as Jet and the Killers.

While Gallagher, who turns 40 next May, is happy to accept his fate as rock’s elder statesmen — and says he’s currently working on the next Oasis album, which will see a release “later rather than sooner” — he humbly admits his time as rock’s bad boy genius has passed.

“Fundamentally, rock’n’roll is youth,” he explains, “so once you reach a certain age you cease to be rock’n’roll any more. It’s not about bad behaviour or about living on the edge or wearing a leather jacket or having a drug habit and drinking Jack Daniels all day. All of those things help, right, but it’s about being young.

“Then you get older and you’ve got more baggage and instead of music being the single most important thing in your life, it becomes one of many important things in your life. “

A kid who is 24 and has one electric guitar and a f.....g head full of ideas is far more interesting than someone who is in their 50s with five kids and six houses.”

Source: www.thewest.com.au

Stop The Clocks For Oasis Retrospective

In 1994 Britain's rock fans were in the grip of a grunge invasion. American bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam dominated the charts with their heavy riffs and desolate lyrics.

Luckily Noel Gallagher was on hand to save the day. "I remember Nirvana had this two-chord song saying, 'I hate myself and I want to die'," says the Manchester-born Oasis songwriter. "And it was like, as much as I like Kurt Cobain, I'm not having that.

"I couldn't have people like that coming over here saying that they hate themselves and they want to die, that's rubbish. So I wrote early hit Live Forever at that time.

"I'm not saying it was written directly as a retort to that, but kids don't need to hear that kind of nonsense. It seemed like to me he was a guy that had everything and was miserable about it, and we had f*** all.

"I still thought that getting up in the morning was the greatest thing ever because you didn't know where you'd end up at night, you know? We didn't have a pot to piss in, but it was great, man."

This was Oasis at the beginning - champions of the people, champions of themselves - a group of men with a deep desire to make music that meant something.

Today, despite selling millions of records, they're still as down to earth, still as cocksure as ever - stomping along rather than treading the fine line between arrogance and self-belief, and still making music they believe in.

It's an impressive feat, not least because of all the line-up changes (only Noel and brother Liam Gallagher are left from the beginning, currently with Gem Archer on guitar and Andy Bell on bass while Ringo Starr's son Zak Starkey is semi-official drummer), and the fall from grace as national heroes after some duff albums.

Aggressive

They're still an enticing live draw, holding on to a stadium-filling legion of core fans, and they've kept the less loyal interested with their entertaining interviews and the aggressive in-fighting between the Gallaghers.

But it's their insistence at doing things their own way, thank you very much, that has really kept them in favour with their fans.

Noel and Liam haven't changed at all. For a start, Noel still does his own shopping at the supermarket, and they've kept a 'can't-be-arsed' attitude to conquering the lucrative American market.

Even in bowing to record company pressure to do a best of, they've done it on their terms. The forthcoming Stop The Clocks compilation isn't the greatest hits collection fans may have expected, or even wanted - half the singles aren't there.

Instead it's a compilation of the songs that Oasis themselves think are their best, including some album tracks and b-sides.

"To me, the songs that are on it are the songs that we have generally played live over the last 14 years," says Noel. "Those are the songs that I feel is our best work. Five of us, four of us, can't sit in a room and pick a track listing.

"I always pick the set list and if anyone's got a problem with it they say to me they're not doing that. It's the same with the track list. I picked it, it went round, and I didn't get any of the usual phone calls at quarter to four in the morning," he laughs.

Savvy

People now bow to Noel's obvious savvy because Oasis' longevity is mostly due to his dedication and undeniable songwriting talent.

Before Noel joined, Oasis were just a bunch of school mates gigging around Manchester. Liam then invited Noel on board, who made himself sole songwriter, simplified the band's playing technique and demanded they aim for nothing less than the top of the charts.
But it took some time for his peers to realise his potential.

"I remember writing Cigarettes And Alcohol in my flat in Manchester," he says, "in those days I used to write on the electric guitar with my amp on 10 in my room in this block of flats.

"One of the guys that lived above me, I remember him once passing me on the stairs going, 'You're not going to write a song with that riff, are you? That's rubbish'. I was going, 'Listen, fat arse, it's going to be amazing when it comes out'.

"And I remember going down to the rehearsal room and bringing the song in. Bonehead used to always be the tut-tutter. I told him I've got this tune called Cigarettes And Alcohol, and he goes, 'Cigarettes And Alcohol? You've got to change the title'.

"And then I did the riff and he's just going, 'Woah, you can't do that, that's T-Rex'. And I was like, 'I don't give a shit who it is, no one's ever going to hear it anyway'."

Both were wrong. Cigarettes And Alcohol was a massive hit, among many others. The Oasis hit-making machine shows no signs of stopping or even slowing down. After a few critically-panned albums, their last, 2005's Don't Believe The Truth, was lauded by many as a return to form.
And while Noel and Liam continue to put new, up-and-coming bands in their place (Arctic Monkeys and The Klaxons are their latest sore points), as well as happily sharing their political views ("New Labour have destroyed politics in this country," Noel said recently), they'll always have an audience.

"To me 1/8this album3/8 is like looking back at old photos of your kid and going, 'Look at that, you've got an ice-cream on your head'," says Noel. "It's just like looking back in time and going, 'There's the tune'.

"And if we don't do as many great tunes for the next best of, then we'll see. But who's going to tell us we're not going to do any more great tunes? I reckon we'll be rockin' 'til the cows come home."

The Clocks EP is out now. The album Stop The Clocks is out on Monday, November 20.

Source: www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk