Oasis Called Police To Remove Studio Lunatic

Rockers Oasis were forced to call in the police while recording new album Dig Out Your Soul - because a "lunatic" gained access to their studio and threatened to kill them.

The band locked themselves away in London's Abbey Road studios, made famous by the Beatles, to work on their seventh album.

But security was breached when a man arrived and made threats against their lives.
Singer/guitarist Noel Gallagher says, "There was an incident when some f**king lunatic turned up at the studio saying he'd written all the songs that we hadn't yet recorded.

The police had to be called - he threatened to kill us, although not (my brother) Liam, funnily enough."

Source: www.contactmusic.com

Russell Brand: 'I'll Boost Oasis' New Album Sales By 50 Percent'

He is confident...

Comedian Russell Brand has joked that he'll help boost sales of Oasis' new album by 50% because he has provided a voiceover for the LP's promotional campaign.

Brand can be heard promoting 'Dig Out Your Soul', which was released today (October 6th), in television adverts.

The comedian was praised by Noel Gallagher when the Oasis guitarist appeared on Brand's BBC 2 Radio show last week.

Gallagher said Brand had done a “very, very good job” at creating some “funny” adverts – but he voiced doubts about how the voiceover might help album sales.

In reply, Brand said: “Well, I would say you can look forward to a 50% increase because a lot of people say this is the voice of a nation you're listening to now.”

Gallagher then said: “I somehow think that however many we sell, you're going to be pretty much taking the credit for it,” to which Brand replied: “I would say so. I'll be looking for some of that credit.”

Previous Oasis album campaigns have received voiceovers from Ricky Gervais and Ricky Tomlinson.

Source: www.gigwise.com

Oasis' Noel Gallagher: 'Marilyn Manson Is A Cool Geezer'

Oasis' Noel Gallagher has described Marilyn Manson as a “cool geezer” - but was less kind about the performer's music.

In an interview with MTV, Gallagher said he liked “everything” about Manson, “except his music”.

“I’ve got to say man, he’s a cool geezer,” Gallagher said.

The Oasis guitarist also gave similar praise to Biffy Clyro, calling them the UK's equivalent to the Foo Fighters. “They’re real top geezers,” he added.

Oasis release their new album 'Dig Out Your Soul' today. (October 6th). Their UK tour will begin tomorrow in Liverpool.

Source: www.gigwise.com

Oasis New Album 'Dig Out Your Soul In Stores Today

I'm popping along to my local record store to pick up the new album today...

‘Dig Out Your Soul’ was produced by Dave Sardy who worked with the band on 2005’s, ‘Don’t Believe The Truth’. It was recorded at Abbey Road and mixed in Los Angeles. All four band members once again contribute tracks.

The tracklisting for ‘Dig Out Your Soul’:

Bag It Up
The Turning
Waiting For The Rapture
The Shock Of The Lightning
I’m Outta Time
(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady
Falling Down
To Be Where There’s Life
Ain’t Got Nothin’
The Nature of Reality
Soldier On

Big Brother Recordings also announced a few weeks ago that they will be making the new Oasis album, ‘Dig Out Your Soul’, available in two separate formats for download purchasers.

In addition to the full-length album, the band will be releasing a simple ten-track mp3 version for £5. This will be available from a variety of online stores and Oasisinet.

A spokesperson for the label said, "We want to give the fans more of a choice. If you just want to get the tracks you've heard on the radio and check out a bit more of the band's new music you can for a reasonable price".

The full-length version of the album will also be available at all online stores and for fans that buy it on Oasisinet.com & Itunes it comes with a half hour documentary on the making of the album.

This is the first time a new Oasis album has been made available on mp3 from release.

Finally, fans who pre-order 'Dig Out Your Soul' from iTunes will also receive a bonus track in the form of the Liam written ‘I Believe In All’ on day of release.

The Wit And Wisdom Of Noel Gallagher

She may not be mad for his music, but pop critic Fiona Shepherd reveres the wit and wisdom of Noel Gallagher

A couple of weeks ago Noel Gallagher, in his eternal, blokeish wisdom, produced a highly predictable list of the ten greatest rock bands of all time, noting with deliberately inflammatory prejudice that "no female artists" were "allowed". It wasn't his finest moment, but for sheer ignorance it paled next to his notorious response to the news that Jay-Z was headlining this year's Glastonbury Festival: "I'm not having hip-hop at Glastonbury," quoth he. "It's wrong."

Shame on you, Noel – you let your fans down, you let your band down, but most of all you let yourself down. Because we have come to expect better of rock's accidental sage.

Ever since the circulation of the Wibbling Rivalry tapes (featuring a hilarious, heated argument between Noel and younger sibling Liam) back in 1994, it has been clear that the Gallaghers give good quote and, now that Liam has decided he prefers jogging to skirmishing, it is Noel to whom we look for an entertaining rant.

He has exhibited a flair for stoking controversy ever since his notorious pronouncement that compared drug-taking to having a morning cup of tea. Often, his comments are just plain noxious – he has called Kylie "a demonic little idiot", proclaimed that The Backstreet Boys should be shot and was more than happy to stoke a bitter rivalry with Blur – in particular, frontman Damon Albarn – at the height of Britpop (yet has all the time in the world for a dullard like Richard Ashcroft).

I shouldn't be listening, but I am. Like many people, I would rather read an interview with Noel Gallagher than listen to his dreary music. His soundbites at least have the modicum of wit, spice and imagination that is lacking in his songwriting.

Gallagher has no aspirations to be either a Wildean wit or a spokesperson for a generation (and he has harsh words for those who would); instead, he just sounds-off prejudicially, like some guy down the pub – which is part of the appeal.

He can be off-puttingly boastful, once claiming that the only reason he is not the most lionised pop songwriter of them all is that The Beatles got there before him.

Most of the time (Jay-Z slight aside, I would hazard), he knows exactly what he is doing and what effect his remarks will have.

But sometimes he does actually make a judicious observation, such as his response to George Michael's Bush-bashing single Shoot the Dog – "This is the guy who hid who he actually was from the public for 20 years, and now, all of a sudden, he's got something to say about the way of the world? I find it laughable," he scoffed.

Ultimately, Gallagher doesn't take himself too seriously, and neither should we. Describing himself as "equal part genius, equal part buffoon", he at least shows self-awareness, if not grammatical and linguistic skill.

My favourite Noel Gallagher quote is a consummate distillation of his half-baked philosophy, wicked wit and downright irreverence – in sharing it, I can allow Noel to have the last word.

"Do you ever look at the sky and think, 'I'm glad I'm alive?'" he once pontificated. "After I heard System of a Down, I thought, I'm actually alive to hear the shittiest band of all time."

Source: www.thescotsman.co.uk

Oasis 'Dig Out Your Soul' Review

Oasis’s best records should be heard in bars, with lots of people talking and a game on the television. Its giant planes of guitar sound and Liam Gallagher’s slow-motion nasal burr — one of the great British sounds — complement the petty emotions and electronic hum that surround us in public places; the songs’ lyrics, trivial and social, keep time sliding along. Any bar will do, though Oasis albums since “Standing on the Shoulder of Giants,” from 2000, might go better in a wine bar. The songs would fit the clientele: slower, more self-conscious, less invincible.

But “Dig Out Your Soul,” the group’s seventh studio album, should be heard in a really good stereo showroom: an extraordinary one with high-end stuff, and where the salesmen might let you have beer and chips while you listen. Produced by Dave Sardy, the record is an interior trip, rich with guitar and voices and organs and keyboards, some of the sonic layers scuffed and some clear as water. You get the full measure of the sound because the songs stay in single chords for longer. It’s an expensive record valorizing the drone.

It sounds so good; really, it sounds better than it is. Noel Gallagher, the band’s guitarist and principal songwriter, wrote half the album and the best of its droney tracks: “Bag It Up,” “The Shock of the Lightning,” “(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady.” They all go down in the first half, and they’re not fascinating; they don’t particularly show off his skill for the unexpected chord change. As ambitious as it is in the experience of sound and groove, “Dig Out Your Soul” is unambitious in songwriting content.

It’s derivative too — mostly, and unsurprisingly, of the Beatles, the Gallaghers’ favorite band. There are small echoes of many post-“Revolver” Beatles songs: sharp, pinpointed references, specific sounds on specific guitar chords, piano figures, and drum rhythms played by Zak Starkey, Ringo Starr’s son. (A nearly inaudible clip of a John Lennon interview, from shortly before his death, rustles through the background of Liam Gallagher’s ballad “I’m Outta Time.”) But it doesn’t stop at the Beatles: “High Horse Lady” welds together David Essex’s “Rock On” and Tommy Tucker’s “High Heel Sneakers.”

These songs are heavy with thoughts about time. They’re mildly philosophical, but not so spiritual that they would make you put down the beer and chips. “The Nature of Reality” is, offhandedly, about the nonexistence of objective truth. And “Soldier On,” with its endless-march feeling borrowed from the end of “I Am the Walrus,” is pure stiff-upper-lip: “Who’s to say that you were right and I was wrong/Soldier on/Come the day, come the night, I’ll be gone/Soldier on.” BEN RATLIFF

Source: www.nytimes.com

Going To Any Of The Upcoming Oasis Shows?

And taking your camera along....

I have added all the photographs that I have been sent to date to the 'Dig Out Your Soul' Tour Archive (here).

Just send your photographs from the gigs to scyhodotcom@gmail.com

You can include of the band onstage, meeting the band, the venue or even you and your friends at the gigs.

Please include what show they are from...

A few shows are missing but hopefully a few of you reading this can send in your own photos, to fill in the blanks.

I've received loads of great photographs from readers of the blog to date, I'm going to the first date in Liverpool and a few others around the country over the next few weeks.

I look forward to receiving you photographs and adding them to the archive.

OASIS - Dig Out Your Soul Album Review

5 stars out of 5

The last time Oasis tried experimenting, on 2000’s Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants, it made for an album even worse than Be Here Now.

After Don’t Believe The Truth finally saw band is back to its best and them back to their best, they’ve gone one better and can finally dismiss any “Beatles rip-off” insults. The songs written by Noel Gallagher on the first half are the heaviest they’ve ever done, with hard rock guitars like their mates Kings Of Leon for massive hard rock guitars as Liam Gallagher sings in a new gruff voice like Johnny Cash on The Turning and Liam singing in a new gruff voice.

Of Liam’s songs, the sweet I’m Outta Time is Songbird Part 2, and the biggest surprise is guitarist Gem Archer’s To Be Where There’s Life – addictive funk like The Rolling Stones’ Sympathy For The Devil.

Any of the 11 tracks will fit brilliantly next to the classics at concerts. Seven albums in, and Oasis have never been more inventive. Still the rock & roll band all others in Britain have to be judged by.

Source: www.newsoftheworld.co.uk

Oasis 'Dig Out Your Soul' Review

Maturity always seemed an alien concept to Oasis. The brothers Gallagher may have worshiped music made before their birth but there was no respect to their love: they stormed the rock & roll kingdom with no regard for anyone outside themselves, a narcissism that made perfect sense when they were young punks, as youth wears rebellion well, but the group's trump card was how their snottiness was leveled by their foundation in classic pop. This delicate balance was thrown out of whack after phenomenal success of 1995's (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, when the group sunk into a pit of excess that they couldn't completely escape for almost a full decade. When Oasis did begin to re-emerge on 2005's Don't Believe the Truth they sounded like journeymen, purveyors of no-frills rock & roll.

All this makes the wallop of 2008's Dig Out Your Soul all the more bracing. Colorful and dense where Don't Believe the Truth was straightforward, Dig Out Your Soul finds Oasis reconnecting to the churning psychedelic undercurrents in their music, sounds that derive equally from mid-period Beatles and early Verve. This is heavy, murky music, as dense, brutal, and loud as Oasis has ever been, building upon the swagger of Don't Believe and containing not a hint of the hazy drift of their late-'90s records: it's what Be Here Now would have sounded like without the blizzard of cocaine and electronica paranoia. Dig Out Your Soul doesn't have much arrogance, either, as Oasis' strut has mellowed into an off-hand confidence, just like how Noel Gallagher's hero worship has turned into a distinct signature of his own, as his Beatlesque songs sound like nobody else's, not even the Beatles. His only real rival at this thick, surging pop is his brother Liam, who has proven a sturdy, if not especially flashy songwriter with a knack for candied Lennonesque ballads like "I'm Outta Time." To appreciate what Liam does, turn to Gem Archer's "To Be Where There's Life" and Andy Bell's "The Nature of Reality," which are enjoyable enough Oasis-by-numbers, but Liam's numbers resonate, getting stronger with repeated plays, as the best Oasis songs always do.

But, as it always does, Oasis belongs to Noel Gallagher, who pens six of the 11 songs on Dig Out Your Soul, almost every one of them possessing the same sense of inevitability that marked his best early work. Best among these are the titanic stomp of "Waiting for the Rapture" and the quicksilver kaleidoscope of "The Shock of the Lightning," a pair of songs that rank among his best, but the grinding blues-psych of "Bag It Up" and gently cascading "The Turning" aren't far behind, either. These have the large, enveloping melodies so characteristic of this work and what impresses is that he can still make music that sounds not written, but unearthed. These six tunes are Noel's strongest since Morning Glory -- so strong it's hard not to wish he wrote the whole LP himself -- but what's striking about Dig Out Your Soul is how its relentless onslaught of sound proves as enduring as the tunes. This is the sound of a mature yet restless rock band: all the brawn comes from the guitars, all the snarl comes from Liam Gallagher's vocals, who no longer sounds like a young punk but an aged, battered brawler who wears his scars proudly, which is a sentiment that can apply to the band itself. They're now survivors, filling out the vintage threads they've always worn with muscle and unapologetic style.

Source: www.allmusic.com

This Week's Top Ten Best Selling UK Singles

10 - Gym Class Heroes Ft The Dream - Cookie Jar
09 - Iglu & Hartly - In This City
08 - Pussycat Dolls - When I Grow Up
07 - Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl
06 - Rihanna - Disturbia
05 - Boyzone - Love You Anyway
04 - Sugababes - Girls
03 - Oasis - The Shock Of The Lightning
02 - Kings Of Leon - Sex On Fire
01 - Pink - So What

Oasis have entered the UK Official Singles Charts at number 3 on this weeks chart, Pink claimed her second UK number one single, her first since Just Like A Pill in 2002.

Upcoming Oasis TV & Radio Appearances

October 5th, 2008 - Dave Pearce, BBC 6 Music, London, England (Noel Gallagher interview)
20:00 -22:00 (UK) listen here.
Noel Gallagher from Oasis will be telling Dave about his ultimate Dance Anthem.

October 6th, 2008 - Gonzo, MTV2, London, England (Noel & Gem and Liam & Andy interviews)
21:00 - 22:00 (UK) MTV 2
Followed by 22:00 - 00:00 Oasis: Takeover
Brand new and exclusive! Oasis take over the airwaves now for a chat and to play their favourite videos of all time.

October 7th, 2008 - Steve Lamacq, BBC 6 Music, London, England (Andy Bell interview)
October 8th, 2008 - Steve Lamacq, BBC 6 Music, London, England (Liam Gallagher interview)
October 9th, 2008 - Steve Lamacq, BBC 6 Music, London, England (Gem Archer interview)
October 10th, 2008 - Steve Lamacq, BBC 6 Music, London, England (Noel Gallagher interview)

16:00 - 1900 (UK) listen here.

It's Oasis Week, as Steve speaks to a different member each day. Join him as Gem, Liam and Andy will be on the phone whilst Friday sees Noel Gallagher in the studio.

New Oasis Posters Available From PLAY.COM

Play.com have two a pre-order for two Oasis posters for release on 17/10/2008.

The posters are 61cm x 91.5cm (24 x 36 inches) and available here.

Source: www.play.com

Australian Interview With Noel Gallagher

"F**n' hell ' you're making us look like Bon Jovi," yells Noel Gallagher at the photographer as all of us in the North London photo studio try to suppress a chuckle, in an effort not to encourage Noel, so that the photographer can get on with his job. It's not an easy job, taking photos of someone who can't be arsed.

More photos, more interviews - Oasis are on the promotional trail for their new album Dig Out Your Soul, and Inpress has been granted access to the band's amusingly cheeky and immodest spokesman, Noel. The new album is an independently funded recording, and is once again produced by Dave Sardy, who worked on the last Oasis album, Don't Believe The Truth. Boasting all the melodic qualities that have become synonymous with the band, the album also treads new ground as a result of further lyrical exploration, tempo changes, and musical innovation (interesting drum patterns, et al).

Always quick with a slicing quip - especially in the direction of his brother - Noel has jumped on the sofa and is ready to chat about Dig Out Your Soul and the world of Oasis. There is little doubt that there are few interviewees who are as entertaining as Noel, so without further ado...

Coldplay said that they brought in a hypnotherapist to their recording sessions. Did you guys get involved in the new age science for the new album?
"I'm afraid not, no. Is that true, or were they joking?"

No, that's what they told me - honestly.
"They brought a hypnotherapist in to hypnotise them?"

Apparently so. They told me it was to help with self-awareness.
"What? He hypnotised them so they could become more aware of themselves?"

Yeah. It was a friend of (producer) Brian Eno.
"Ah, yeah, well that's (what) you get for working with Brian Eno, innit? That, and a lot of lentil soup, one would imagine."

Is there any weighting in accordance with the group structure when Dave Sardy selects songs to record for the album?
"I don't expect preference. It just so happens that I tend to be far more brilliant than anybody else. It's a f**g curse I've had to live with, for a long time."

Tell us about the first single, The Shock Of The Lightning
"That song wasn't even written when the album started. We had a weekend off and I went home, and that song fell out of the sky and landed right in my lap, and I just wrote a few words that rhymed."

There's also the 'magical mystery' Beatles reference in there... Did you do it consciously?
"Oh yeah, you gotta get a Beatles reference in there now and again - the Japanese love that. It was only pointed out to me when I started doing the promo a few backs back that there were some Beatles references in the new music, and I was like, 'Where?'. It didn't dawn on me when I was doing it."

I'm Outta Time has a touch of the Beatles too, right?
"The John Lennon sample you can't hear?"

I heard it.
"No you didn't; you can't hear it. What does he even say then?"

Err... I don't know... but it was obviously Lennon.
"There you go then."

So it's not a posthumous duet then?
"What, like Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole? No."

Ever thought about doing one?
"What, throttling Liam, and killing him, and then doing a duet with him when he's dead? The idea has suddenly become very appealing."

Waiting For The Rapture is a pretty sexy track, isn't it?
"It's about meeting an angel on a night out at a club called Space in Ibiza. Some would say I was taking drugs, or it was a dream. It did happen a long time ago - eight years ago to be precise."

If you were inclined to have sex to your own music, would that be the one?
(Laughter) "Unfortunately, if I was inclined to have sex to my own music I'd be distracted by the bass drum, thinking, 'F**k, I could have got that sound better'."

How are you preparing psychologically for being on the road together for your upcoming world tour?
"There's two buses - Liam's in charge of one, and I'm in charge of the other. My tour bus is very calm: card games, scrabble, a bit of knitting, maybe watch some old documentaries about whittling. Liam has drinking games on his bus, and people setting fire to their own farts. Our worlds don't collide on tour - I see him onstage and that's enough."

Give us the word on this supposed feud you had with Jay-Z regarding Glastonbury.
"This won't come as any surprise to you, but the British press just grabbed the wrong end of the stick, and then beat about the bush with it for six weeks."

Did you feel you had to defend yourself?
"No, not at all. I never said anything. I made a comment about ticket sales at Glastonbury, and then all of a sudden it was like I was saying, 'How dare a rap artist come to our country and infiltrate your children?'. I never said that. It was ludicrous, to be honest."

What is it you want people to get from this record?
"That I'm still - after 15 f**n' years - a f**n' genius."

Do you promise that the wheels won't fall off the tour bus before it gets to Australia?
"No, not at all. There's too much money involved for the wheels to come off these days. I'll be there regardless, even if I have to come with ukulele and a f**n' bass drum on my back."

Source: Inpress Magazine

Oasis Goodie Bag Given To Irish Fans

A special gift was given out on Friday for the first few Irish Oasis fans who bought the new Oasis album Dig Out Your Soul in HMV Dublin.

The lucky few were given a goodie bag that included a Oasis Tote Bag, Oasis Pin Badge, Oasis Deck Of Cards and more.

The Shock Of The Lightning entered the Irish Charts this week at number 12 in the singles chart.

Oasis' Greatest Hits

Noel Gallagher denies he's a tough guy, but that hasn't stopped him and his brother from brawling with fans, bandmates and each other over the years. A few of their more famous dustups:

1994 During their first U.S. tour, Liam changes the words of Noel's songs, offending both him and U.S. fans. During a post-show confrontation, a chair is thrown and Noel leaves the tour.

1995 While recording (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, the brothers have a violent fight involving a cricket bat after Liam invites everyone from a pub to the studio where Noel is working.

1997 In Australia, Liam is charged with assault after head-butting a 19-year-old fan who claims he was asking him for a photo. The charges are dropped, and a lawsuit is settled out of court.

2000 While drinking in Barcelona, Liam insults Noel's wife sparking a scuffle. Noel leaves and vows to quit the tour, but eventually returns.

2001 Shortly after the birth of Liam's second son in July, the singer tries to drag a photographer into a fight outside the hospital.

2002 Liam, drummer Alan White and members of their entourage are arrested after a drunken brawl in a Munich club. Liam, who also tested positive for alleged cocaine use, loses two front teeth, while Alan is hit in the head with an ashtray. Liam claims they are fighting Italian gangsters -- who turn out to be real-estate agents and computer salesmen.

2007 While shopping with then-fiancee Nicole Gallagher and son Gene, Liam attacks a photographer, pummelling him with fists and insults for apparently following too closely.

2008 Noel is assaulted onstage during Virgin Festival in Toronto by a man who shoved him down into his monitor speakers and then lunged at Liam before being tackled by security. Noel -- who recently admitted he initially thought he had been stabbed -- sustained three broken ribs. Daniel Sullivan, 47 of Pickering, Ont., has been charged with assault and is due in court Oct. 24.

Source: www.edmontonsun.com

Oasis Back In The Groove

Dig Out Your Soul

Sun Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5

For 15 years, Noel Gallagher has been making it look easy. But lately, he's just taking it easy.

Just dig into Dig Out Your Soul and hear for yourself. The seventh Oasis studio album is earthy and relaxed, noisy and experimental, groove-based and trippy -- in short, a big change from the tightly crafted Brit-pop of the band's early days.

This is all Noel's doing, of course. Or his undoing. Over the last few years and albums, the Mancunians' mercurial musical mastermind has slowly morphed from a blatant control freak into a laissez-faire, semi-benevolent dictator, gradually loosening his grip on the band's sound and songwriting.

Here, his passive-aggressive tactics have their pros and cons. On the plus side: These songs are warmer and livelier, avoiding linear verse-chorus-solo arrangements for looser, more organically flowing arrangements. The stream-of-consciousness approach is echoed by the atmospheric, layered production, with tunes casually flowing into each other, loosely connected by effects, field recordings or musical vignettes.

And while some cuts feel underwritten, Noel still hasn't lost his uncanny ability to skilfully rearrange classic-rock moments into songs that are more than the sum of their name-that-tune parts.

On the minus side: He doesn't do enough of it. Of the 11 cuts on this 45-minute disc, only five are new Noel numbers, with another being a recycled oldie. Three others come from singer Liam Gallagher, with a token track each from guitarist Gem Archer and bassist Andy Bell.

They're okay, but honestly, they can't hold a candle to Noel's work -- which is why most of them are jammed onto the end of the front-loaded disc. Even the title is a bit of a burn. It sounds like a plea for spiritual self-examination -- but it's just a tossed-off line about a DJ playing old Motown records.

Bottom line: Dig Out Your Soul is still an intriguing and entrancing work. But Noel might want to consider cracking the whip a bit more next time.

After all, there is such a thing as taking it too easy.

Bag It Up 4:39

Hit the ground running? Not these guys. Instead, they warm up with a thumpy, mid-tempo groove that tops a simple, gritty riff and haunting keyboards with lyrics that claim "the freaks are rising up through the floor." As long as they're not rushing the stage.

The Turning 5:05

"When the rapture takes me," sings Liam, "Be the fallen angel by my side." Fittingly, the cut starts off simple and soulful, then launches into a fuzzy arena-rock chorus with soaring backups.

Waiting for the Rapture 3:03

Again with the Rapture -- but this time it's Noel on the mic, praising a woman who "put an apple in my eye" over a chugging, bluesy riff that borrows from The Doors' Five to One.

The Shock of the Lightning 5:02

The disc's first single is this pumping rocker with a hooky chorus, a Keith Moon-style drum solo, and lyrics about love being a "magical mystery." Huh. Where have we heard that before?

I'm Outta Time 4:10

Liam wrote three tunes this time. Here's the first: A slow 'n' steady Lennonesque piano ballad that even has a snippet of an old BBC interview with John. One for the girls, as Noel puts it.

(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady 4:07

The lazy stomp-clap rhythm echoes Give Peace a Chance, but the dry, rootsy shimmer of the guitars makes this the most American-sounding cut. It's also the oldest -- Noel says it's been around for eight years.

Falling Down 4:20

Noel (who also sang High Horse Lady) handles the vocals again on this string-sweetened psychedelic rocker topped with twangy Bond overtones. "We live a dying dream, if you know what I mean," he says. Um, not really.

To Be Where There's Life 4:35

Sorry, Noel fans: Starting here, he passes the songwriting torch for the rest of the disc. Here's guitarist Gem Archer's contribution: A hypnotic slow-burner full of sitar-like buzzing. Skippable.

Ain't Got Nothin' 2:15

Liam's second tune is this surprisingly punchy rocker bashed out in waltz time. It's short, sharp and simple -- but that's exactly why it works.

The Nature of Reality 3:48

Bassist Andy Bell splices bits of Helter Skelter, Revolution and a million blues tunes into a slow-whomping nugget of glammy boogie. Seriously, Noel couldn't have written one more song?

Soldier On 4:49

Liam takes it home with another plodding acoustic rocker. But while the song is nothing special, at least the echoing vocals and spacey keyboards are nice touches.

Source: www.edmontonsun.com

Noel Gallagher Interview

Noel Gallagher was interviewed in London by Stijn Vandevoorde, click here to watch the interview.

Source: www.stubru.be

Bigger Brothers

Long written off as 1990s leftovers whose contracts outlasted their talents, Noel and Liam Gallagher are back with a surprisingly powerful new album By Paul Dalgarno

So is this the start of a much bigger, baggier Oasis? After just a few listens to their new album Dig Out Your Soul, it sounds remarkably like it - and that comes as a genuine surprise. Noel Gallagher describes track two, The Turning, as The Stone Roses meets The Stooges (which is pretty accurate), and the ambitious, non-Oasis-sounding Falling Down as "the kind of song I've wanted to write for years". His intention for album seven (that's right, you may have missed a few) was to "write music that had a groove". Reviews to date have been gushing, fuelling the resurgence of interest in the band that began with 2005's Don't Believe The Truth. But clearly, if things are going right these days, they must have gone wrong somewhere in the past - or for the entire decade between 1995 and 2005, to be precise.

The band's new-found conviction on the single Lyla in 2005 was like waking up from an Oasis dream in which nothing of consequence had really happened for years. Liam getting his teeth knocked out in a Munich bar brawl in 2002? Ach, who cared? By the late 1990s the band was becoming too much like someone on cocaine at a party; someone who had been on cocaine, and at the party, for too long. Time was when the brothers Gallagher were everywhere: Liam and Patsy's arm-tattooing years, Meg Mathews and Noel's divorce, the spats and cancelled tour dates - all gone now.

Cynics will tell you that Noel's mojo was sucked, via the nervous system, into Tony Blair's egotron during their infamous Downing Street handshake in 1997 and that, after this, his songs were never the same. Whatever the reason, things changed. Definitely Maybe (1994) was the fasting-selling UK debut ever at the time of its release, shifting more than 7.5 million copies worldwide. Its follow-up (What's The Story) Morning Glory? sold more than 18m copies and remains the third highest-selling album in UK chart history, behind Queen's Greatest Hits and The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
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But by the time of Be Here Now (1997), the wheels were badly rusted. The album shifted 420,000 units on its first day and was hastily described as a classic, but, more tellingly, none of its tracks was included in the band's 2006 Sony swansong compilation Stop The Clocks. In 2007, Q magazine described the third album as "the moment when Oasis, their judgment clouded by drugs and blanket adulation, ran aground on their own sky-high self-belief". Its bloated sound was down, according to studio producer Owen Morris at the time, to "massive amounts of drugs. Bad vibes. Shit recordings".

Oasis had become the last slice of cake at a party, with other people's fingermarks clearly visible in the marzipan. Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants (2000) and Heathen Chemistry (2002) were both chart-toppers, but will be remembered as the revolving-door albums: founding members Paul McGuigan and Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs left the band during sessions for the first, and had been replaced, not entirely comfortably, by the second. Oasis had lost their swagger - and if there's one band that can't lose it's swagger, it's Oasis.

Liam's angry stance on stage - his hands behind his back as if they've been tied for an execution - was even wearing thin, and that was a real shame. The look (most recently employed to good effect by drug lord Stringer Bell in the hit HBO crime series The Wire) has always communicated the band's central thesis: you could lunge towards me, grab me by the knees and headbutt me clean in the maracas, but you won't. And that's partially because, even at their worst, Oasis have never been terrible - they just needed to grow up. In the century past they were embraced by, and embraced, rock elder statesman Paul Weller, but their own transition to an older and wiser version of themselves has been plagued by inconsistency.

The first sign that they were over the worst was Don't Believe The Truth (2005). Peter de Havilland, producer and ideas man for the record, has described it as a "make or break album", adding: "In the industry, a whispering campaign was in full swing. Oasis had lost their edge and the future of the band was on a knife edge."

The album sold 6m copies and triggered a worldwide tour to 1.7m people in 26 countries. Dig Out Your Soul, they hope, will do the same. Noel describes it as "the album we've been leading up to since Gem Archer and Andy Bell joined the band in 1999". Clearly, it has taken some time to incorporate those members - and still the personnel keeps changing.

Drummers have been a peculiar Achilles heel for the Gallaghers. Founding member Tony McCarroll was booted out before the release of What's The Story; his replacement Alan White served for nearly a decade until an argument with Liam forced him out in 2004. Much of the bombast with guitars - on the first album especially, but not exclusively - was, one imagines, a means of over-compensating for the (sometimes shockingly) poor drums.

That problem seemed to have been solved in 2005 with Zak Starkey, son of Ringo, who replaced White on Don't Believe The Truth. But Starkey quit following the recording sessions for Dig Out Your Soul, and has now been replaced by Chris Sharrock, formerly of The La's, World Party and, for the past 12 years, Robbie Williams's backing band.

It's a shame Starkey had to go: his drums are the standout instrument on the new album. And, of course, there was his father, Ringo. The Gallaghers have always worn their Beatles obsession on their sleeves. Books could be written on how little they resemble their idols musically, but there are several similarities: not least their chart success with two different lead vocalists, and not least those Beatles melodies and chord progressions, lifted so blatantly you assume it's being done on purpose, without any deliberate malice. Also mirroring The Beatles, there has been an increasing democratisation of the band's songwriting duties. Originally, it was agreed that Noel would write the songs and lead the band, no questions asked, but that rule has been slipping for a while. The lighter workload bodes well for Noel on the new album: there are still superfluous lyrics about "merry-go-rounds" and "revolutions in yer 'ed", but fewer than there have been for a good while.

Opening track Bag It Up sets out Noel's stall: psychedelic harmonies, thumping drums, Liam bellowing that "the freaks are rising up through the floor". (Get Off Your) High Horse Lady is bluesy enough to blow the stitching from the Confederate flag; Waiting For The Rapture lifts The Doors' Five To One guitar riff and runs with it. Guitarist Gem Archer wheels George Harrison's sitar out of retirement for To Be Where There's Life - a slice of Madchester meets the Middle East with a baggy-assed bass line that would have Bez from the Happy Mondays popping moves until kingdom come. Bass player Andy Bell, on The Nature Of Reality, has Liam singing about "pure subjective fantasy", and then there are the songs written by Liam himself.

There are three on this album, which indicates a growing belief by Noel in his abilities. Little James, from Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants, was the first time Liam had written a song for an Oasis album, and, as Noel told Q recently: "Little James isn't the greatest song in the world. In fact it's one of the ****ing shittest." Liam's first track on Dig Out Your Soul, I'm Outta Time, is also the best. By far. A piano-driven ballad (not three words you would necessarily associate with Oasis) it offers surely one of the best vocal performances of Liam's career (undercut with a sample from a John Lennon radio interview recorded two days before his death in 1980). Liam also wrote the album closer, the drearyish Soldier On - a melancholy sentiment if ever there was one.

For some time Liam has played home bird to Noel's night owl, expressing in recent interviews his love for SpongeBob SquarePants and The Weakest Link. He runs 10 miles every morning from his house on Hampstead Heath and enjoys spending time with his two boys: Lennon, who lives with his ex, Patsy Kensit, and Gene, who lives with Liam and his second wife, Nicole Appleton of All Saints. The partying is not what it once was.

Noel, by comparison, is a party animal, turning up everywhere from nightclubs to BBC Radio 5 Live, on which he regularly airs his opinions. But for Noel too, the stimulus has changed. He gave up cocaine in June 1998, he told Q recently, after watching a World Cup match and feeling unwell. "I've been ****ed on drugs before," he told the magazine. "I've been slapped awake by Bobby Gillespie in my house ... This was something completely different."

Gem Archer describes both Gallaghers as "beyond positive people", which has never got in the way of their famous feuds. Lately, they have said they never talk to each other outside the band, which doesn't seem outwith the realms of possibility. In 1996 Liam heckled Noel during an MTV Unplugged Oasis set, having backed out of his singing duties shortly before the performance; in 2000, there was the tour-threatening punch-up between the two in Barcelona, supposedly over one of Liam's stray comments regarding the legitimacy of Noel's daughter Anais.

The spikes are still out, but these days the brothers are less willing to go in for the kill. Following their recent media battle with Jay-Z - who headlined, controversially, this year's Glastonbury Festival - Noel admitted openly that both parties profited through publicity from the supposed spat. It seems a lifetime since his infamous comment (later retracted) at the height of the band's Britpop rivalry with Blur, that he hoped Damon Albarn and Alex James of Blur would "catch Aids and die". The message has been softened by Liam, if only slightly, for contemporaries such as Coldplay and Radiohead. "I don't hate them," he told The Times recently. "I don't wish they had accidents."

The band's place in British music history was cemented with an Outstanding Contribution To Music award at the Brits last year. Definitely Maybe and What's The Story were subsequently voted the number one and two best British albums of all time by a HMV and Q magazine poll in February, and Noel was dubbed by NME recently as "the wisest man in rock". Both brothers, whether it's Liam in The Times recently on "chav" culture ("they look like dicks but fair play to them") or Noel in the NME on knife crime ("If you're not in the kitchen chopping a tomato, you're f***ing going to jail."), have found a certain stride. And in the midst of all this, the new album.

The Gallaghers have discovered the balance between burying the hatchet and staying angry: you find the groove, and build from there. You maybe thought it would never happen again for Oasis: an album to bring back the doubters and, hopefully, start a few more fights.

Dig Out Your Soul is released tomorrow on Big Brother

Source: www.sundayherald.com

Oasis' Main Man Chats About West Edmonton Mall, Scrapping With His Brother And Band's New Album

He may not have seen it coming. But Noel Gallagher was still expecting trouble at Toronto's Virgin Festival.

"I have a bad feeling about it," the Oasis guitarist posted on the band's website hours before an onstage assault left him with three broken ribs and forced the Brit-Rock icons to curtail their North American tour.

Despite his injuries, Gallagher -- who signs his posts with the fitting handle of General Dread -- was back online the next day, discussing the incident with his usual dry humour:

"I'll have to stop this prophesizing," he wrote. "I knew something was going to happen last night.

"Someone who can only be described as a 'Canadian' was able to get onstage, somehow managed to evade our crack security team ... and assaulted my mid-riff. Can't say much more than that as the 'perpetrator's' gonna get the book thrown at him. Repeatedly. It was all going so well up until that point 'n' all."

Indeed. When we spoke to the 41-year-old Gallagher a few days earlier, the band's chief songwriter and main mouthpiece was in a playful and cheery mood, weighing on everything from West Edmonton mall to scrapping with his younger brother Liam -- and, of course, the band's seventh studio album Dig Out Your Soul, which lands in stores Tuesday.

Did I read correctly on your website that you've been riding across the country in the bus instead of flying?

Oh, that was just one trip (from Edmonton to Winnipeg). But I've always preferred driving instead of flying. You get to see the cattle close up. You get a sense of where you are and where you've been and where you're going. And I prefer being below the clouds than above the clouds, that's for sure. More chance of survival if anything goes wrong ... (and) you get to stop at wacky truck stops and meet people.

Speaking of wacky truck stops, you went to West Edmonton Mall, I heard.

It's mental. Who put the lake in there with the ship? I've never seen a lake indoors before. Unless, of course, they built the shopping centre around the lake. But where did the ship come from? And what does it mean? It certainly puts paid to the f---in' saying, 'Only in America.' 'Cause evidently, it's in Canada as well.

The new album feels different than the last couple. It's looser, it's noisier, it's messier. How did that happen?

Those are just the songs that we wrote. We're bound by what we write. And we're not the kind of band that sits down and makes a decision of, 'Right, this year, we are gonna mostly be playing reggae.'

We just wrote these songs, and the best ones sounded more trancy and heavy and lent themselves to what you hear on the record. Now, we wrote a bunch of other songs that sound more like what you would commonly call Oasis music, but it just so happened these were the best songs.

That looseness is reflected in the production. There's lots of background noise. The songs aren't all clean and neatly broken up. Some of them drift into each other.

That wasn't a concept. We were just going with it. Though we do write the songs before we go in, the whole feel of it wasn't thought-out. It just kind of made itself apparent. With (older) stuff like Live Forever and Wonderwall, they lent themselves to being very clean, produced songs, because they're classic songs, so you're not going to put a bunch of noise over them just to sound cool.

So the songs on the new CD aren't classics?

Well, not yet, 'cause it's not out yet, innit?

But they will be classic songs?

Give it 15 years.

You think it takes that long? That doesn't sound optimistic.

I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic. I'm not -istic of anything. I'm on the road doing what I do. Other people can be optimistic for it. We don't set targets. I don't give a f--- what it does.

One -istic I've seen you labelled is atheistic.

I don't see the hand of God anywhere that I've been, let's put it that way. But maybe I watch too much TV.

Your beliefs seem at odds with the lyrics about the Rapture and other spiritual concepts on the new album.

Well, I do think the Bible is a great story. And I do think religious imagery is fantastic. It makes for great things to write about -- angels and devils and all that. But I don't believe in angels. Metaphorically, you could say that your loved ones are angels. But I don't believe there's people in the sky flying around with wings.

Your brother was quoted saying that if he weren't in Oasis he'd want to be God. I would think that's reason enough for you to be an atheist.

(Laughs) Well, you know, he is in Oasis, and he thinks he's God, so he's having his cake and eating it, isn't he?

Back to songwriting, it seems that over the past couple of albums you -- and maybe this is the wrong turn of phrase -- have been letting the other guys have more say and make more contributions. Was that difficult?

Well, it is the wrong turn of phrase. Everybody has always been required to write music in the group. It's just that the people who were in before didn't write anything. And Liam has been writing for about eight years, but he's only just recently got good. I'm not that arrogant that it's like, 'I will now let somebody else write a song.' It's as much their band as it is mine. If a producer was to say, 'Noel's written 12 classics, they're all going to go on the record,' I'm sure everybody would go along. By the same token, if I only write a third of the songs on the next album, it doesn't matter to me. It's a band. It always was -- it's just that everyone else is a lazy little (*?#&!).

So you're the guy who shows up and does the work.

Add to that the fact that I'm brilliant -- that helps as well.

Talking about Liam again, he recently said that you two don't talk much. And seeing you on this tour, there didn't seem to be any interaction. Is that the way that it works for you?

Well, what's to say? I've known him for all his life. Put it this way: When I haven't seen him for three months, I ask him what he's been up to and how his kids are and blah blah blah. But when you see us on the road, we've been together rehearsing for seven weeks, so I know what he done last night, 'cause I was (screwing) with him. I don't really have a great deal to say to anybody about anything. I'm a loner.

Over the years, both of you have acquired reputations as tough guys. Are you?

You don't expect me to say yes, do you? That would be ridiculous. I've got an opinion on almost everything. And I know who I am. And I stand up for what I believe in. That's it.

But you and Liam have had your share of fights.

Oh, yeah.

If it comes down to it, can you still kick his ass?

It never comes down to it.

Why is that? He's wised up?

Um, there's enough conflict in the world right now.

Source: lfpress.ca

Gallagher Rules Oasis With A Musical Iron Fist

Even brother Liam's songs must meet his approval

He's smaller than you'd think he is.

Considering the trouble Oasis guitarist and self-appointed leader Noel Gallagher always seems to be getting into, the impression you have going into an interview is of a large, intimidating lout ready to settle all disputes with his fists.

Whether declaring hip-hop wrong for the traditionally guitar-oriented Glastonbury festival -- thus earning him a rebuke from headliner Jay-Z -- or being tackled by an enraged fan at Toronto's Virgin Festival just a week after this interview, the man always seems to find his way into the news.

In person, he doesn't come off quite that way, though -- blunt, yes, but not quite the jerk the English music press would have you think he is. Just back from a quick record-buying trip to "that rather large mall of yours with the fake Spanish galleon," Gallagher did this interview while relaxing backstage at Rexall Place before his band's Aug. 29 show. The subject? Oasis's seventh studio album, Dig Out Your Soul, which will be in stores Tuesday.

Relaxing is a subjective term, though. Gallagher's body language is very defensive, and it takes time for him to let down his guard somewhat -- understandable, considering the number of times he's been carved up in the press.

Gallagher believes Dig Out Your Soul isn't as experimental as many reviewers are making it out to be, and he's right. Aside from a few modern production techniques, it sounds as much like an Oasis album as any of the ones before it. It's as though they can't escape their own sound, which is precisely his point.

"We're very aware of our own identity," says Gallagher. "We don't like much post-Stone Roses, maybe a few bands, but generally modern music is rubbish songs played by idiots. Someone has to keep the flame of the '60s alive."

Gallagher is an admitted musical reactionary, generally believing that if he can't play a song on the acoustic guitar, then it's not worth it.

"This time around was different," he concedes. "A lot of the songs are not the usual structured pop numbers. It was the producer's (David Sardy) idea to work it out in the studio. We would sit there with a drum machine and fiddle with songs."

Gallagher is still the main contributor on Dig Out Your Soul -- with the first single being his own The Shock of Lightning -- but the others get their one-song-per-record/George Harrison deal.

A strict taskmaster, Gallagher has no time for coddling inferior songwriting. The songs that made it had to pass his approval, and he singles out bassist Andy Bell's T-Rex and blues-flavoured The Nature of Reality as a personal favourite among the other contributions.

"Andy sent a demo with five tunes, in order of what he thought was best to worst, and that was the one he thought was the worst, but I thought was the best. I think it was only song we played live in the studio. The others were chopped up on computers."

If anyone out there is under the impression that Oasis is a democracy, Gallagher would be the first to deny it. Describing the process by which the band arrives at decisions as an endless argument followed by everyone eventually agreeing with his opinion, Gallagher is also quick to note that the selection of their first single was unanimous. Brother Liam's offerings -- including the quiet, introspective I'm Outta Time -- took some to work their way into the final mix.

"I was a bit hesitant about that one because it's a ballad, and I thought, 'Can we not make an album without lighter tunes?' As it turned out, we needed it to break it up because it all gets a bit intense."

If he seems somewhat hesitant to speak about the band's experiment in the studio, he's still quick to reassure that Oasis won't be running out of material anytime soon.

"Oh, we have lots of other songs," he snorts.

"I was just playing a bunch to our new drummer. There's always the potential for a triple album, but I always get talked out of it."

Source: The Edmonton Journal