U2 Should Shut Up About Africa Says Noel Gallagher

In his only pre-Brits interview, Noel Gallagher of Oasis is as acerbic as ever about his pop rivals. He talks to Neil McCormick about fame, money, changing the face of pop – and his troublesome little brother

Noel Gallagher has four Brit awards, although he doesn't know where any of them are. "I'm usually in such a euphoric state after picking up an award that I give them to the most random people – the waiter coming up with a quail egg, 'Here y'are, you have that.' "

Noel Gallagher, Oasis, who is about to win a Brit Award for Outstanding Achievement
Noel Gallagher: a straight-talking rock star entirely without airs and graces

At the 2007 Brits next Wednesday, Oasis will pick up the Outstanding Achievement award. In his only interview ahead of the ceremony, however, the outspoken band leader does not prove a great ambassador for the cause.

"It's a TV show, innit? It's the big carve-up for the major record companies. I love ceremonies. It can be a colossal night out, but the awards themselves don't really mean anything.

"It's not like you win an Oscar, and you can charge 40 million dollars for your next film. The ticket price won't suddenly be going up at Oasis gigs. Although that's not a bad idea!"

Gallagher's reasons for accepting the award are reliably pragmatic. "They're gonna keep asking every year. So do we get it now, when we're in our thirties or are we gonna wait til we look like one of Pink Floyd?

"With the greatest respect to Duran Duran, Eurythmics, Bob Geldof and the Bee Gees, when they got it, their star had waned considerably. We had two number-one singles last year, we're punching our weight with the young kids, we still look good."

It is amusing to hear Gallagher preface statements with "with the greatest respect" when he shows absolutely none. He remains reliably scathing about old sparring partners such as Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke, whose bleak electro solo album has seen him nominated for Best British Male.

"Thom Yorke sat at a piano singing, 'This is f***ed up' for half an hour. We all know that, Mr Yorke. Who wants to sing the news? No matter how much you sit there twiddling, going, 'We're all doomed', at the end of the day people will always want to hear you play Creep. Get over it."
Even friends and allies come in for the patented Gallagher brand of scorn: "It's the same with U2. Play One, shut the f*** up about Africa."

And as for family matters: "Liam's got really long hair at the moment. Looks like a lunatic, which is about right. He's still a very silly young man. Talks out of his arse 23 hours of the day. It's like a sketch in The Fast Show. You say, 'Hey, Liam, what about putting a choir on that song?' 'Brilliant, yeah, f***ing choir, man. Top.' Then someone will go, 'Choir? That's a bit poncey isn't it?' 'Yeah, no, choirs are s***, mate, f***ing rubbish.' So you can have good fun with Liam in the studio."

With his crinkly-eyed, genial smile and bluff Northern-comic delivery, Noel seems to have the talent for dispensing insults without really causing offence.

Shaped in a boisterous, working-class environment, he is opinionated the way a man might be among friends in the pub. Innately approachable, and not inclined to take himself too seriously, for a rock star of his magnitude, he is almost entirely without airs and graces.

"I like to think I keep it real. Liam keeps it surreal, and somewhere between the two we get on all right."

With their swaggering attitude and monumentally catchy songs, Oasis were a phenomenon in the '90s, dragging British rock music out of the doldrums.

Perhaps unexpectedly, it is the group's cultural impact that Noel cites as his outstanding achievement. "We inspired a lot of kids to buy guitars and get into bands in the first place."

Look at all the bands up for awards at the Brits: Arctic Monkeys, Kooks, Kasabian, I dare say every new band that matters over the past few years has cited Oasis as an influence.

"Before we came along, success was a dirty word. We kind of reinvigorated ambition. As dumb-arse a message as it was, looking back now, it was 'Things are s***, so we might as well celebrate something – let's celebrate being young.'

"There was a euphoria in the music and the way it was delivered, and, as the crowds started to get bigger, it fed off itself until it became less about the band and more about being with all those people, jumping up and down, drunk to the music."

As supportive as he is of young bands (who are rarely subjected to the tongue-lashings reserved for his contemporaries), he is not entirely convinced by the new Britpop dawn.

"I wouldn't say it's a golden period for British music. It's a slightly brown period. There's a lot of good tunes on the radio, but there doesn't seem to be one all-encompassing thing that holds it together.

"The youth have got themselves looking smart, skinny jeans, big hairdos, ties and jackets, which is half the battle. It's let down by the fact that everybody's too eclectic. It's kind of, 'Yeah man, I love Bloc Party and I really do like Jay Z's new album as well, and that Devendra Banhart – genius.' That's the death of cool right there. You can't be a mod and a rocker. You have to choose sides."

For such an intelligent, belligerent rock-and-roller, Gallagher's values are oddly conservative. "I've never been interested in pushing music forward.

"Life is so chaotic in Oasis anyway, I never know who's in the band this week. I don't want to be experimenting as well – 'Let's try this in an urban cybersonic punk style.' No, give us that Marshall stack and that guitar. I know where I am with that, thank you very much."

Which is why Oasis, for all their line-up changes, for all their early promise as the most exciting musical phenomenon since the Beatles, have essentially remained unchanged over the years, adhering to a simple philosophy that boils down to "You can't argue with a good tune."

Instinctively opposed to self-analysis, Gallagher describes songwriting as "a calling" and says: "As I get older, I don't aggressively pursue songs. All the great ones just appear."

He claims not to think much about lyrical meaning, yet recognises recurrent themes – "escape, love and hope". It is only the sheer quality of Gallagher's writing that prevents Oasis sliding into irrelevance, or creatively atrophying in the fashion of Status Quo. Although they have certainly come close.

Despite his acerbic criticisms of all and sundry, Gallagher cheerfully admits to having misplaced his own much-cherished coolness, credibility and creativity "a couple of times".

"The first sign is when the clothes start to go bad. At the end of the '90s – fur coats and f***ing sunglasses. I had a Rolls Royce I couldn't drive. I remember thinking, 'I only signed off four years ago – how have I ended up with one of them?'

"But I'm glad it got like that. We went for it, and pushed it to the point that it could not get any bigger, it couldn't get any more mad, you couldn't get any more fur in this coat if you tried, the shades couldn't be any more mirrored, they're mirrored on the insides.

"Then there was a kind of stepping back and going, 'This is all bull****, I've become a laughing stock' – if only in my own bedroom."

Despite the tensions of his relationship with Liam, he insists Oasis will never break up. "If we weren't related, Oasis would have ended after a couple of records.

But I have always got to put up with Liam. There's always Christmas and kids' birthday parties. And, as bad as it sometimes is being in the band together, I think it would be worse for each of us not working with each other. And I don't know why I say that, because in theory it would be bliss, but I kind of know, deep down, it wouldn't work."

Which is why his long-mooted solo album is is no closer to appearing.
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"Somehow I don't really see me at the Borderline playing a mouth organ to 150 people on a Wednesday. Every time I write a song, I envisage them in football stadiums with loads of people going f***ing mental. And that's Oasis."

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Whats The Story?

In Britain, it was always going to happen. The rise of Oasis in the mid ’90s, like the rise of a fascist dictator, was tribal, libidinal, irresistible. Overexcited music writers dropped their pens and shed their critical delicacy; the industry had a hot flash; and the simple folk of the pubs and clubs, bug-eyed on cheap cocaine, rallied to this new thing with a wild, self-discovering gladness. And why not? Five shifty and truculent Mancs with four chords per song and lyrics of nursery-rhyme effrontery (“I’m feeling supersonic!/Give me gin and tonic!”), Oasis were a relief, a living retort to every tendency in popular music for the previous 10 years. No Black Flag or Black Sabbath in their past: the depressive slurrings of grunge had nothing to do with them. Neither did godless techno (except insofar as it provided an opportunity to take drugs), or the local squalor and neurosis of indiedom. In their combined lifetimes Oasis seemed to have heard only two albums: Never Mind the Bollocks . . . and Rubber Soul. They dressed with working-class propriety — clean shirts, brushed hair — and sang rowdily about wanting it all and living forever. And with the release of their 1994 debut, Definitely Maybe, they seized a title for which there were suddenly, remarkably, no other contenders in sight: the title of Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World.

In the US, on the other hand, it was always not going to happen. Easier to see this in retrospect, of course, but even in their first feints at global domination Oasis, at some level, appeared to be aware that they weren’t going to crack America. Noel Gallagher, band boss/songwriter, was canny and pop-literate enough to understand that the tide, post-Cobain, was against them, and as for his little brother Liam . . . in his 1997 book Take Me There, journalist Paul Mathur records an encounter that took place in July 1994 in the foyer of New York’s Paramount Hotel, hours before Oasis’s first gig in the US, between Liam Gallagher and what Mathur calls a “grunge pest.” “You’re never going to make it in America,” prophesied this flannel wearer in passing. “I bet you sound like the fuckin’ Soup Dragons. America doesn’t need you.” Gallagher’s response was vintage: “Listen, man, I can do things you can’t even dream about. I’ll steal your soul and you won’t even notice. I’ve stolen it while you were standing here. . . . And you can fuck your fucking Pearl Jam too.”

The American Anglophile tends to enjoy Englishness in its more wistful and literate forms: Morrissey, Blur, the Kinks’ Waterloo Sunset, shy bards coiled at rainy windows. Liam Gallagher had no place in this company. On stage, snarling, hands behind his back and a tambourine round his neck (as if it just been broken over his head), he had the demeanor of someone scornfully blowing off a prestigious audition. He didn’t “rock out” or fling himself into the drumkit like a rag doll. When especially moved, he would give two fingers to the crowd or break into a brief and surly ape jig. And nothing could stop him from loudly proclaiming the glory of his own band: the best, the biggest, the baddest. Americans are not unappreciative of rock-star bombast, not at all, but they prefer it to be confined to the arena of hard rock, where the bigmouth can go shirtless and do star jumps off his Marshall stack. It’s all right for Ted Nugent, in other words, to talk about rocking your scrotum into a cyclone of burning skulls, etc., but not for the Shins.

And then there were the acts of straightforward career self-sabotage. Oasis’s 1996 US tour, which began a fortnight after their biggest ever English shows (two nights at Knebworth Park, in front of a total of 250,000 people), was a farce of exits and entrances. On August 27, as the band slouched toward the gate for their second transatlantic flight, they were startled to see their vocalist enthroned in the passenger seat of an airport buggy, its light busily flashing, heading at speed in the opposite direction. Liam had decided to stay home. At the tour’s first stop, in Rosemont, Illinois, the entire Oasis set would be sung by Noel, in his strained, serviceable, Mott-the-Hoople voice. Prevailed upon to rejoin his mates, the capricious Liam arrived a few days later, in time to perform the last track from the then new What’s the Story (Morning Glory) at the MTV Awards at Radio City Music Hall. Another disaster: “Champagne supernova up yer bum!” leered Liam into TV land before swatting his mic stand and loosening a slow length of drool from his pursed lips, all the way down to the floor. The tour limped on, to terrible reviews (“Liam Gallagher should have stayed in England,” opined Newsday after a show on Long Island), until on September 11 it was Noel’s turn to freak out. The brothers came to blows, and he flew home. The rest of the band followed two days later.

This was where Oasis blew it. Never again would they have the momentum to put a serious dent in the US market; never again would they be touring off an album as good as What’s The Story . . . Their third, 1997’s Be Here Now, was hugely half-assed and drug-bedeviled, its weak compositions tottering under a Glenn Branca orchestra of multi-tracked cocaine guitars (30 of them, according to Noel, on the song “My Big Mouth”). Here indeed was the creative white-out, the swamping excess foretold on What’s The Story . . .: “Someday you will find me/Caught beneath the landslide/In a champagne supernova in the sky.” Putting it slightly differently, a writer from Melody Maker described Noel as “riffing like a pack of ants on an old banana.”

Ten years later, Oasis have a more-than-comfortable share in the US market; on their 2005 tour they sold out Madison Square Garden and the Hollywood Bowl, and the surprise late-blooming excellence of the single “Lyla” got them into the Billboard Top 20. But the Oasis moment — the point at which the band’s mega-rhetoric coincided with the occult appetites of an enormous public — never happened over here. And no wonder, really; listening now to the songs that made their name, on the recent compilation Stop the Clocks (Epic), one hears not a well-oiled stadium shaker but a fiercely paradoxical little band, knocked together quite cynically out of the postmodern rubble (the empty phrasings, the borrowed riffs) but almost exploding with raw belief.

This, we now see, was the miracle dyad of the brothers Gallagher: in writing for Liam, the beautiful hooligan, crafty Noel was writing for his soul. And the lyrics he gave Liam have become magical with time, full of a spirit for which the word “positivity” seems far too prim: “I live my life for the stars that shine” (“Rock’n’roll Star”). A friend of mine once explained the apparently nonsensical couplet “Slowly walking down the hall/Faster than a cannonball,” from “Champagne Supernova,” as a piercing druggy image of mental acceleration and physical collapse. Whatever it means, there’s no question that the line that follows it is one of the most perfect arrangements of vowel sounds in the English language: “Where were you while we were getting high?” Oasis: masters of vacancy, full of heart.

Source: www.thephoenix.com

On This Day In Oasis History...

"Go Let It Out" is a song by Rock group Oasis, written by the band's lead guitarist Noel Gallagher. It was released on the 7th of February 2000 as the first single from the fourth studio album Standing on the Shoulder of Giants. The song peaked at #1 in the UK charts.

The lyrics are a typical combination of positive sentiments and nonsense lyrics which Noel Gallagher uses to great effect in a number of Oasis songs. It is in a similar vein to "Roll With It" in that it encourages the listener to get on with their life without being specific about how this is to be achieved. The song contains elements from "I Walk on Gilded Splinters" by Johnny Jenkins. The title may be a reference to the line in "Hey Jude" by The Beatles, "So let it out and let it in, hey, Jude, begin".



The song, along with B-side "(As Long As They've Got) Cigarettes in Hell", also embodies the psychedelic feel which the band experimented with on the album. It couples this with an acoustic guitar chord sequence. "Let's All Make Believe", the second B-Side is considered by many to be one of the best B-sides from this era. Some people believe the lyrics of this song to relate to the cracks that began forming in the group at the time (see below), the lyric: "Lets all make believe/were still friends and we like each other."

Due to the departure of guitarist Bonehead and bassist Guigsy in the early recording sessions for Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, the track features only Liam Gallagher (vocals), Noel Gallagher (rhythm guitar, bass guitar, lead guitar) and Alan White (drums).



The song is also included on Oasis' 'best-of' album Stop the Clocks.

The b-side 'Let's all make believe' has recently been included in several lists as a 'hidden gem', such as Q magazine placing it at number one on its list of '500 best lost tracks' and at 4 on its 'list of songs to download this month - January 2006.' Q magazine said in the description 'If Standing on the Shoulder of Giants had contained this track, it would have probably got another star'.

Source: Wikipedia

It Should Have Been Number 1

As of Sunday 7th January, changes to the chart rules mean that singles can make it into the charts from download sales alone - a CD release is no longer required. This puts the charts back in your hands and lets you decide what should be number 1 and when!

So, we decided to start this website so that together we can put right some wrongs. With your help, we plan to identify the songs we think were a number one hit, or should have been number one, but were kept from the top spot by some naf song, or possibly something just as good that happened to come out at precisely the same time.

We start Monday 12th February with Oasis "Roll With It". Released 14th August 1995, it made number two, pipped to the post in the famous Britpop battle by Blur with their single "Country House".

Register now to receive a reminder to come back on the 12th February and download "Roll With It". Downloads from the 12th will appear in the following weeks chart. Together we can generate enough sales to make it happen. Together we can re-write history by making "Roll With It" number 1 …as it should have been 12 years ago!

Visit the website Here

Ricky Wilson Has Apologised To Liam

Kaiser Chiefs lead singer Ricky Wilson has apologised to Liam Gallagher for being "rubbish".

The outspoken Oasis frontman previously branded Kaiser Chiefs a "bad Blur" and mocked them for wearing make-up.

When Ricky came face-to-face with the wild rocker he said sorry for the state of his group, rather than get embroiled in a war of words.

The 'I Predict A Riot' singer told The Guardian: "When we met him, I ended up apologising - to Liam Gallagher! I said, 'Sorry we're so rubbish.'"

Ricky claims the band's new album, 'Yours Truly, Angry Mob', the follow-up to the hugely successful 'Employment', is about taking drugs and enjoying the trappings of rock 'n' roll success.
He quipped: "Our new album is about being rich and famous and taking lots of drugs, because that's what we do these days. I'm a big shot now.

Source: www.musicnews.virgin.net

Liam's Dig At Fan

Liam Gallagher clearly has high standards when it comes to the ladies.

The Oasis rocker blasted one male fan backstage at a recent gig for talking to two (not unattractive) female groupies.

Liam barked at him: "Don't like yours much. You should have gone to Spec Savers, mate."

Charming...

Source: www.mirror.co.uk

Oasis And The Smiths In 'Rock Map' Of UK

VisitBritain unveil map showcasing rock heritage

Oasis and The Smiths are just two of the bands featured on a special 'rock map' of the UK.

The map, put together by tourism company VisitBritain, features locations around the country that have been musically significant around England.

The map is intended to boost internal tourism as interest in rock tourism is set to increase this year.

Laurence Bresh, the general manager for VisitBritain, said: "We know there's huge interest in locations connected to popular culture.

"Everybody knows about tourists going to Liverpool to visit The Beatles locations, but it's much wider than that.

"People like to see the places that have inspired musicians - Oasis is the obvious one, Berwick Street (in London) where they shot the cover for '(What's The Story) Morning Glory'."

Salfords Lad Club, where The Smiths posed for the inside cover of 'The Queen Is Dead', is also featured, as well as infamous Britpop pub, Camden's The Good Mixer, reports The Guardian.


Source: www.nme.com

Countdown To The Brits - Part Two

(1994–1998) Britpop Era And Height Of Fame

Following a limited white label release of the demo of their song "Columbia", their first single, "Supersonic", was released in April 1994, reaching #31 in the charts. Their third single, "Live Forever," was their first to enter the Top 10 of the UK charts. After troubled recording and mixing sessions, their debut album, Definitely Maybe, was finally finished and was released in September 1994, entering the charts at #1, and at the time becoming the fastest selling debut album ever in the UK.


The band also garnered attention due to Noel Gallagher's penchant for taking the odd riff or lyrics from other artists. The track "Cigarettes & Alcohol" had a main riff which Noel Gallagher admitted he'd taken directly from T. Rex's 1972 release "Get it On". "Supersonic" had a guitar solo reminscent of George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" and "Shakermaker" was reportedly the subject of legal action by the New Seekers due to the similarity to their song "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing".

The best part of a year of constant live performances and recordings, along with a typically hedonistic lifestyle commonplace in young rock bands, were starting to tire the band out and a breaking point was finally hit during a gig in Los Angeles in September 1994 where Liam was under the influence of crystal meth, leading to a shambolic performance during which Liam made offensive remarks about American audiences and assaulted Noel with a tambourine. This upset Noel to such an extent that he temporarily quit the band immediately after and flew to San Francisco. He recovered enough to finally rejoin the band in a Texas recording studio in October 1994 to record new songs, most notably "Talk Tonight" which directly related to his recent experiences. Two of these songs were released as b-sides on Oasis' Christmas single EP "Whatever" which peaked at #3 in the UK charts and foreshadowed the band's move toward a mellower sound on the following album.


Oasis had their first UK #1 in April 1995 with "Some Might Say", the first single from their second album. At the same time, drummer Tony McCarroll was ousted from the band, replaced by Londoner Alan White, formerly of Starclub and younger brother of renowned studio percussionist Steve White, whom Paul Weller himself recommended to Noel. White made his debut for the band at a Top of the Pops performance of "Some Might Say".

During this period, the English press seized upon a supposed rivalry between Oasis and fellow Britpop band Blur. Noel Gallagher played along, telling The Observer that he hoped Damon Albarn and Alex James of Blur would "catch AIDS and die". He subsequently apologised for this in a formal letter to Melody Maker magazine.

On Monday August 14, 1995, Blur and Oasis released new singles on the same day, setting up "The Battle of Britpop" that dominated the week's music news. Blur's "Country House" outsold Oasis' "Roll with It" 274,000 copies to 216,000 during the week. Oasis' management came up with several excuses, claiming "Country House" sold more because it was more competitively priced (£1.99 vs £3.99) and because there were two different versions of "Country House" with different B-Sides forcing serious fans to buy two copies. An alternative explanation given at the time by Creation was that there were problems associated with the barcode on the "Roll With It" single case, which did not record all sales.

Oasis had begun recording material for their second album in May of that year in Rockfield Studios near Monmouth. Although a softer sound led to mixed reviews, Oasis' second album, with their first new member, (What's the Story) Morning Glory? became the second largest selling album of all-time in the UK. The album also went on to sell over 19 million copies worldwide and spawned two further hit singles, "Wonderwall" and "Don't Look Back In Anger", which reached numbers 2 and 1 respectively. The album's opening track, "Hello", with its sing-along chant, was a common feature of Oasis' live performances. It also contained their hit "Champagne Supernova" — featuring guitar playing and backing vocals by Paul Weller — that received widespread critical acclaim and peaked at #20 on the US charts. Despite not being released in the UK, it received significant airplay and remains one of the band's most popular songs.


In September 1995, bassist Paul McGuigan briefly left the band, citing nervous exhaustion. He was replaced by Scott McLeod, formerly of The Ya-Yas, who featured on some of the tour dates as well as in the "Wonderwall" video before leaving abruptly whilst on tour in the USA. McLeod later contacted Noel Gallagher claiming he felt he had made the wrong decision. Gallagher curtly replied "I think you have too. Good luck signing on". In order to complete the tour, McGuigan was successfully convinced to return to the band.

In February 1996, Oasis became only the third band after The Beatles and The Jam to perform two songs on the same edition of British music television programme Top of the Pops: "Don't Look Back In Anger" and a cover of Slade's "Cum On Feel The Noize". On April 27 and 28 the group played their first headline outdoor concerts at Maine Road Football Ground, Manchester. Highlights from the second night featured on the video There And Then, released later the same year. As their career reached its zenith, Oasis performed back-to-back concerts at Knebworth on August 10 and 11, 1996. The band sold out both shows within minutes; 250,000 people over two nights (13.5 million people applied for tickets), at the time a record-breaking number for an outdoor concert held in the UK.


The next month proved to be difficult for the group. On August 23 Oasis were due to play the prestigious MTV Unplugged at the Royal Festival Hall but Liam pulled out, citing a sore throat. He watched the performance from a balcony with cold beer and cigarettes, allegedly heckling Noel's singing between songs. The group left for a tour of American arenas early the next month but within days Noel flew home without the band, who followed on another flight. It received massive media attention and the group promptly issued a statement assuring fans that Oasis were not splitting up. Oasis' success at the 1996 Brit Awards was overshadowed by Liam's statement that "Has-beens shouldn't be presenting awards to gonna-bes." after being presented an award by INXS singer Michael Hutchence.



Oasis spent the end of 1996 and the first quarter of 1997 at historic Abbey Road Studios recording their third album. Be Here Now was released in August 1997, the band choosing to launch it on a Thursday rather than the traditional Monday. Preceded by the UK #1 single "D'You Know What I Mean?", the album was perhaps their most anticipated effort, and as such became the subject of considerable media attention. Anticipation culminated with the screening of the documentary "Right Here, Right Now" on BBC1 on the eve of the album's release. The attendant press attention and hype helped the album become the fastest-selling album in UK history (a record which still stands), selling 423,000 units on its day of release, and reached number 2 in the US album chart.

Be Here Now ultimately outsold Definitely Maybe worldwide but could not match the sales of (What's the Story) Morning Glory. Although early media reviews were positive, once the hype had died down, the album was criticised for being bloated and derivative with most of the critics focused on the extensive length of several songs, the heavier sound, and overproduction. Noel defined the album as "the sound of a buncha guys... on coke... in the studio... not giving a fuck."



The Britpop movement was over and the band failed to meet expectations with Be Here Now. After the conclusion of the disastrous Be Here Now tour, amidst huge media criticism the group decided to stay clear of each other and kept a low profile throughout 1998. Noel Gallagher also was criticised for firing most of his stacks of songs into B-sides. Some of these finally found a more high-profile home on The Masterplan, a compilation album of 14 B-sides, released in November. "There was a two- or three-year period where everything I wrote was just fantastic.", related Noel in a recent interview. "And, of course, if all the B-sides for the singles off Morning Glory would’ve been what became the Be Here Now album, I think we would’ve gone on to be possibly one of the biggest bands of all time. Not that we’re not anyway. But I think we would’ve been as big as U2, because I had an idea in my head for Be Here Now – it was to be the most bombastic, fucking hugest-sounding record of all time. And I didn’t worry too much about the words or the arrangements. But the really interesting stuff from around that period is the B-sides — there’s a lot more inspired music on the B-sides than there is on Be Here Now itself, I think." .

Source: Wikipedia

Noel's Gig A Teenage Rampage

Noel Gallagher sent the Royal Albert Hall's booking system crashing yesterday.

Thousands tried to bag tickets for two Teenage Cancer shows by the Oasis star, 39, on March 26 and 27.

Both were sold out by lunchtime.

Comedians Russel Brand, 31, and Noel Fielding, 33, are also on the bill for the week of fundraising events, along with Kasabian and rock Legends The Who.

A top secret special guest to headline a third gig on March 30 will be announced nearer the time.

Source: Daily Star

On This Day In Oasis History...

"Songbird" is a song by British rock band Oasis, from their fifth studio album Heathen Chemistry. It was released as the fourth single from that album on 3 February 2003 and peaked at #3 in the UK charts. Being written by lead singer Liam Gallagher, it was the first time the band had released a single not written by his brother Noel.

Upon joining Oasis in the early nineties, Noel Gallagher claimed sole-songwriting responsibilities, and allowing little-to-no leeway from the rest of the band. He openly mocked the songwriting output of Liam and Bonehead, who had been in charge of Oasis' songwriting prior to his joining and had written a handful of tracks such as "Take Me" and an acoustic number titled "Life In Vain". Liam elaborated on the situation in 1994, after the release of Definitely Maybe saying "Noel won't let me (write), but I can't really write anyway... In the future if I started writing top tunes, I still don't think he'd be up for it... I know for a fact, even if he was going dry, he wouldn't play my songs... I'm not happy with that, but that's the way it is innit?".



However, after Oasis' third album Be Here Now received a cold reception from music critics, Noel began to loosen his control and allowed Liam to contribute songs. Though his first effort, "Little James" which appeared on Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, was criticised for being too simple and childlike (in particular, rhyming "plasticine" with "trampoline"), Songbird was fairly well received, despite only being based around two simple chords (G + Em7).

The song, written for Liam's long term girlfriend Nicole Appleton, was seen as a surprising break away from Liam's "Hard-Man" image. He explained this away saying "I like beautiful things...It's not all dark in Liam World. I take me shades off every now and again and have a look at the world and see some nice things."



The simplistic video was filmed in Regent's Park in London, and featured Liam playing an acoustic guitar under a tree, and also being chased by a dog.

Songbird is the shortest running Oasis single, at 2:07.

The song is included on Oasis' 2006 'best-of' album Stop The Clocks.

Source: Wikipedia

Win A Signed Les Paul Guitar

O2 and Q are offering one Q reader the chance to win the beautiful Gibson Les Paul Custom Plus VS guitar pictured here. A genuine one-off, the iconic axe was signed by the likes of Noel Gallagher, Paul Weller, Razorlight, The Kooks, Peter Gabriel, Gnarls Barkley, Smokey Robinson and the Manic Street Preachers at last year's Q Awards ceremony.

To be in with a chance of winning this splendid artefact all you need to do is answer this simple question:

WHICH GROUP WAS VOTED BEST BAND IN THE WORLD TODAY AT LAST YEAR'S Q AWARDS?

A: U2. B: Oasis. C: Arctic Monkeys. Text 'Q' followed by your answer A, B or C to '82070'

Texts cost £1.50. Standard T & Cs apply. Postal entries to: Q/O2 Guitar Competition, Mappin House, 4 Winsley Street, London W1W 8HF. No cash alternative available. The Editor's decision is final. Competition closes at 6pm, 1 March 2007. All employees and contractors of O2 UK Ltd and Emap and their families are excluded from entering.

Source: www.live4ever.us

Pampered Liam Slams Russell

BB star is Branded as a 'tatty head'

Liam Gallagher has given comic Russell Brand a tongue-lashing by branding him a "tosser with bad hair".

The catty comments flowed while lovely Liam, 34, spent eight hours in a North London beauty salon being preened and pampered.

Our spy said "Liam had been enjoying various treatments at one of the salons on Englands Lane, Haverstock Hill. He started off with an hour-long body massage, a half-hour Indian head massage and some reflexology. Liam next had his hair done, which is a lengthy process, then a full body scrub".

"He was in there for ages and eventually finished off by having a pedicure. But one of the staff mentioned Russell Brand's name and the fact that he is hosting this years Brit Awards. Liam smirked, laughed and muttered the word "Tosser". Then he started giggling and said he always wants to run a brush through Brand's 'bad hair' whenever he sees him".

"Liam had everyone in stitches. He has a great sense of humour. Liam also went on to explain that Russell is pals with his big brother Noel and texts him frequently."

We can always rely on the lovely Burnage boy for some serious entertainment.

And we can't wait to watch the sparks fly at London's Earls Court on Februsry 14 when Brand, 31, hosts the Brit Awards at which Oasis are due to perform on stage.

Our mole added: "There could well be a tense atmosphere - particularly on Liam's side. He doesn't like ant kind of fuss before he goes on stage, so it could all turn out to be very interesting."

"One thing is for sure, you don't mess with a Gallagher. Not only are Liam and Noel a tight team but they're so well connected it's amazing."

Supersonic stuff.

Source: Daily Star

Beatle To Hand Oasis Top Award

Some Might Say Brits bosses have played a blinder by getting Ringo Starr to help them out of a tight spot.

The Beatles drummer is to hand over an award to the legendary band’s biggest fans — Oasis.

And just as well — Noel and Liam Gallagher are still so angry at their album Don’t Believe The Truth being sensationally overlooked in last year’s award nominations that they had vowed they would only turn up to accept their Outstanding Contribution gong if someone “amazing” could hand it to them.

Brits bosses had thought they were on a winner when they lined up Johnny Depp to do the honours.

But the Hollywood star has pulled out of his duties at the last minute due to a clash with his filming schedule.

So organisers — desperate to get the boys to the ceremony at London’s Earls Court on February 14 — thought big and nabbed Ringo for the role.

It is the perfect lure for band members Liam, Andy Bell, Noel and Gem Archer.

Oasis — whose hits include Go Let It Out — credit The Beatles as their biggest musical influence.
The boys even recruited Ringo’s son Zak Starkey to play with them at live dates in 2005 and got him in as drummer on their album Don’t Believe The Truth that same year. At the time, I told you that Noel was “gutted” that despite coming to know Zak so well, he had still not managed to meet Ringo.

He said: “It’s obviously not meant to be.”

So it’s no surprise the band are over the moon about the drummer’s role at the Brits.

A source said: “Noel is well chuffed. It is the ultimate accolade for the lads to be honoured by their heroes.

“It is something they have dreamed of ever since they were starting out in their Manchester bedrooms.”

Back in 1977 The Beatles were the first band to receive the Brits’ Outstanding Contribution prize.

So having a member of the group passing the baton to Oasis will be a magic moment on what is set to be a magic evening.

Hosted by Russel Brand and going out live on ITV1, acts performing on the night will include Amy Winehouse, Scissor Sisters, The Killers, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Take That.

Let’s just hope the great moment really does happen.

Sources tell me Noel and Liam have had another of their rows and are on grunting-only terms at the moment — meaning one or both might decide to be a no-show.

Come on lads — you owe it to your heroes to Let It Be.

Source: www.thesun.co.uk

Noel Gallagher With Special Guests Semi-Acoustic Shows In Support Of Teenage Cancer Trust

Following the success of last year’s celebrated tour of the UK, Europe, America, Australia and Japan, Noel Gallagher announces two very special shows in London. Noel will perform with a semi-acoustic line up of special guests at the Royal Albert Hall in support of The Teenage Cancer Trust on 26th and 27th March.

Monday 26th March
Noel Gallagher plus The View plus special guests

Tuesday 27th March
Noel Gallagher plus The Coral plus special guests

Tickets, limited to two per purchaser, are available from the following outlets from 9am on Friday 2nd February:

Teenage Cancer Trust, 0870 060 6030

The Royal Albert Hall, 020 7589 8212 (no personal callers to the box office)

Aloud, 0870 998 8888

Seetickets , 0870 606030

The last 100 top priced seats on each night Noel Gallagher is performing will be held back and sold by internet auction two weeks before the shows, with all proceeds going to Teenage Cancer Trust.

Tickets are priced at £70, £47.50, £37, £19.50 (all plus booking fee).

Oasis ended 2006 with Stop The clocks a compilation of the band’s favourite tracks from their incredible album career to date scoring top tens across the world. The band will collect the Contribution to Music Award at this year’s Brit Award Ceremony where they will play a short set.

Source: www.oasisinet.com

Stop The Clocks Among Moneymakers For Sony

Net income for Sony BMG Music Entertainment saw an increase when compared to the third quarter of the previous year. The label brought in $110 million in net income in the quarter, an increase of over $23 million. Sales revenue was down for the quarter by 1.6 percent compared to the third quarter of the previous year. The company attributed the drop "to greater contraction in physical compact disc sales than growth in digital download sales in many markets." However, income for the label was up by 10.3 percent due to "lower overhead and restructuring costs." The label also noted that its top selling albums for the quarter included Il Divo's Siempre, NOW That's What I Call Music Vol. 23 and Oasis' Stop The Clocks best-of set.

Source: www.fmqb.com

Richard Dunne: Oasis Gave Me My Baby's Name

In a major interview to be published next month by Hot Press, Manchester City and (more importantly) Ireland centre-half Richard Dunne reveals that him and his partner have named their 10-month-old daughter ‘Lyla’ in honour of City supporters Oasis.

Source: www.hotpress.com

Noel On The Best Albums Of Last Year

Kasabian - Empire

Obviously. That's my album of the year, because I really want those chaps - actually, don't put chaps - those geezers to do well. They're friends of ours now, and I love Tom and I love Serge, but "Empire", "Shoot The Runner", "By My Side", "The Doberman" - all of it's f***ing colossal. I think they've really done it with this record. And I'm not having all this, "the first record was sketchy nonsense"business, either!

Jet - Shine On

At first I was abit like, 'It's not really my thing' with these guys. I thought they were abit too metal. I liked "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?", but then they came on tour with us and I realised all their songs were great. And everyone says that this new one just sounds like Oasis, but I think it's f***ing great.

Source: Uncut Magazine

Oasis In Top 100 Earners Of 2006

Number 21

£11 Million (Last Years Position 20)

They completed their huge world tour playing 27 gigs in Europe, Asia, South America and the USA. They also released their first ever compilation album, Stop The Clocks, in time for christmas. At the Q Awards they picked up the prize for Best Act In The World Today and this year they will be picking up the Outstanding Contribution To Music Award at the Brits.

Source: OK Magazine

Blitz Magazine Scans Portugal

Thanks To Oasisbrother

Countdown To The Brits - Part One

With Oasis about to receive their Outstanding Contribution to Music BRIT award, I thought over the next couple of weeks I would remind people about how they got where they are today - the Best Band In The World.

(1991–1993) Early Years And Breakthrough

Oasis evolved from an earlier band called The Rain, who took their name from a 1966 Beatles B-side. It was comprised of Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan (bass guitar), Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs (guitar), Tony McCarroll (drums) and Chris Hutton (vocals). When McGuigan invited school friend Liam Gallagher to join the group, Gallagher accepted, and quickly pushed for the band's name to be changed to Oasis. Although there have been many theories on where Liam got the name from, he got it from an Inspiral Carpets tour poster which was in his and Noel's bedroom. One of the venues on it was the Oasis Leisure Centre in Swindon.

Oasis first played live in August of 1991 at the Boardwalk club in Manchester. Noel Gallagher, who had heard of Liam's involvement when he phoned his mother whilst on tour in Germany as a roadie for the Inspiral Carpets, came to watch his younger brother play. A few months later he was invited to join the band. Although he had been critical of them, he agreed, with the provision that he would become the band's sole songwriter and leader, and that they would commit to an earnest pursuit of commercial success. Oasis under Noel Gallagher crafted their musical approach to rely on simplicity: with Arthurs and McGuigan restricted to playing barre chords and root bass notes, respectively, McCarroll playing basic rhythms, and the band's amplifiers turned up until the sound distorted, Oasis created a sound "so devoid of finesse and complexity that it came out sounding pretty much unstoppable."

After over a year of live shows, rehearsals and even taking the time out to record a proper demo (known as the Live Demonstration tape), the band's big break came in May 1993 when they were spotted by Creation Records co-owner Alan McGee. Oasis were invited to play a gig at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut club in Glasgow, Scotland, by a band called Sister Lovers, who shared their rehearsal rooms. Oasis, along with a group of friends, found the money to hire a van and make the six-hour journey to Glasgow.

When they arrived, they were refused entry to the club as they were not on that night's set list, which reportedly caused the band to bully their way in (although both the band and Alan McGee have given contradicting statements about how they actually managed to get into the club on that night). They were given the opening slot and impressed McGee, who was there to see 18 Wheeler, one of his own bands, that night. McGee was so impressed by what he saw he signed the band to Creation four days later.

Source: Wikipedia