Tales From the Middle Of Nowhere

Taken from Noel's tour diary for oasisinet.com

I fuckin' love Vegas. I think I may have mentioned this before. Have I? It's mental. And not good for the soul but I'm glad there's a place on Earth that exists like that and I get to go there once in a while.

The room they gave me at The Palms was incredible. It had a pool table in it! And a disco shower (that's right, a shower/discotheque)!

Got taken to what's called a high-rollers suite to watch the fight between Manny Paquiao and Fighting Oscar de la Hoya and what a fight! Paquiao battered him senseless. De la Hoya quit in the 8th (shithouse!).

Tricky-Ricky-Hatton was in town ('coz he's fighting the winner, see?). He popped his little head round the door 5 mins before showtime. Good to see him again. I may have mentioned this once or twice before but he's a good fuckin' lad. He cleared out a few Guinness and went out front to watch the gig.

The first person I spot in the gig (out of thousands) is my 4th best friend Russell Brand casually eyeing up people to get pregnant. Sadly for him it's mainly boys at our gig (although I'm not sure that'd stop him). That dressing room was too small for all them people, it could've got dangerous. Good fun though.

Me, Russell, Ricky, Burnin'Natty and various others had a look upstairs at the Bunny-Club (did I mention that The Palms is somehow affiliated to Playboy?). Poor Russell, he didn't know where to start. He was like a dog in a cake shop.

There's too much to tell really. Ricky turned up in a wheelchair, the DJ played some hip-hop bootleg of 'Wonderwall', all manner of shit was going on. I slung it before sunrise (a wise move!).

I'm at this moment back on the bus. Underneath the big sky. In the middle of nowhere. On the way to Denver. Mountains out of every window. Glorious. No wonder they all believe in God out here.

Anyway, my head hurts. I need breakfast.

In a bit.

GD.

Source: www.oasisinet.com

Bonehead Joins The Vortex

Former Oasis man Bonehead last night officially joined The Vortex, he has played with the band a few times and last night became a full time member of the band.

Nick from The Vortex told us exclusively 'Yeah the rise has started, he loves us , we love him, it makes sense. We're very honoured to be the band that has given Bonehead his buzz back after 10 years'.

For more information visit www.thevortexmusic.com

Rock 'N' Roll Covers Story - Part 2

Album sleeve photographer Michael Spencer Jones continues his memories of ‘The Oasis years’.

Be Here Now (album released August 1997, reached Number 1 in the UK)

“That was interesting... photography can often be about problem solving situations – there’s always things coming up you have to sort; the light or shadows coming in where they shouldn’t be, or props not arriving.

Be Here Now was just full of these problems that kept arising.

We drained the swimming pool and repainted it, and then we got the tarpaulin to camouflage the scaffolding [that was supporting the Rolls Royce] and then realised the blue was completely different from the blue of the pool.

It was: ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have repaint the swimming pool to hide the fact that the Rolls Royce is supported on something, which might take away the illusion’, so we did that and then it was ‘right, let’s fill it back up with water’.

With swimming pools you can’t just get a normal domestic hosepipe, it’d take about three days, so we had to get the fire guys out to get to the nearest hydrant, then started filling it up.

This is about seven o’clock in the evening, so we retired to our room, then next morning drew the curtains back, looked out... no water in the swimming pool... oh s***. ‘What is going on? Why isn’t it full?’ – you look at your watch and Oasis are arriving in two hours.

A quick phone call to the fire brigade: ‘we have a problem – you’re going to have to come out’, so they came out, went to the hydrant and suddenly realised they’d not turned the water on properly, so they turned it on and it started to fill up...

Then a side issue was that the water pressure in this five star hotel (Stocks House in Hertfordshire) went completely, so they couldn’t wash up, you couldn’t brush your teeth, flush the toilet... and this is in the morning when everyone’s getting up. All the guests are going absolutely mental... there’s this mini mutiny happening in the hotel.

Anyway, the pool fills up and then I looked from my window and saw all this foam and black scummy mess in the pool.

What had happened was the water level had risen and the oil from under the Rolls’ wheels had washed off and gone into the pool and it was black.

So we got this rowing paddle to skim off the top layer of oil and we managed to clean it up about 20 minutes before the band arrived – knowing nothing of all the trauma that had just happened.

A lot of people think the Rolls Royce is Photoshopped into the swimming pool... no, trust me it was definitely not.”

* Out of the Blue – The Oasis photographs of Michael Spencer Jones is on show at Snap Galleries until February 28 2009. www.snapgalleries.com

Source: www.birminghampost.net

Rolling Stone 'Top Album Covers' Of 2008

Rolling Stone released it's reader's rock list for top Album Cover Artwork of 2008. Oasis' cover for Dig Out Your Soul made the top ten at # 9

10 Top Album Covers Of 2008

10: Of Montreal, Skeletal Lamping
09: Oasis, Dig Out Your Soul
08: The Raconteurs, Consolers of the Lonely
07: Death Cab For Cutie, Narrow Stairs
06: Nine Inch Nails, The Slip
05: Coldplay, Viva la Vida
04: Metallica, Death Magnetic
03: Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes
02: The Mars Volta, Bedlam In Goliath
01The Killers, Day & Age

To view all of the top 26 covers click here.

Source: Rolling Stone

Oasis, Ryan Adams A Fine Match In Broomfield Show

At first it seems an odd pairing of acts. Oasis is a band of pop-rock stars that plays stadiums around the world (if not here in the U.S.). Ryan Adams' latest incarnation is with his fine band The Cardinals, but his style has bent more toward traditional rock and folk. It seemed the only characteristic the two share were their lead singers' penchant for being, um, outspoken.

But in a moment of fortuitous artistic synchronicity, both are going through a phase in their careers bent toward harder, at-times psychedelic rock. So the two rockers' sets in Broomfield on a snowy night matched up much better than anyone might have expected.

Adams seems to get in the press only when he has an onstage meltdown, with the mainstream ignoring his steady stream of fine albums and nonstop touring in various incarnations.

Adams has at times been solo, at times has had fine players around him, but never has he clicked onstage so seamlessly and intensely as with The Cardinals. Whether working through cuts from the new album Cardinology or recasting old Adams standards as hard-rock jams, the band was solid and exciting, easily bringing Oasis fans into the fold. Tougher versions of When the Stars Go Blue (with a warm, heartfelt guitar solo from Adams) and Come Pick Me Up were highlights, as was the new song Natural Ghost.

Oasis is known for rock-star attitude and drilled the point home by opening with Rock 'n' Roll Star, with singer Liam Gallagher dressed head to toe in black and full of his usual onstage affectations (what's with the tambourine in the mouth?).

The set was heavily salted with songs from the band's great new rock album Dig Out Your Soul, along with a bunch of carefully chosen earlier hits throughout the set, starting with a stirring version of Cigarettes & Alcohol.

The band began plowing through its catalog at breakneck speed, with new drummer Chris Sharrock (formerly of World Party and The Las) powering with frantic, impressive drumming.

Gallagher noted the anniversary of John Lennon's murder onstage, a tribute he gives with every Lennon-like note he sings. His voice can get a bit grating at times, so a two-song mini set without Liam found Noel Gallagher taking the lead on Waiting for the Rapture and The Masterplan.

At press time big hits, including Don't Look Back in Anger and Champagne Supernova awaited the crowd.

The sound at the Broomfield Events Center was solid and clean, but the place just can't seem to catch a break. With $19 tickets available, there was surely a large percentage of walk-up audience that stayed home due to the snow blowing sideways in the night.

Source: www.rockymountainnews.com

Oasis In Denver Setlist

Last nights setlist from Broomfield Events Center, Denver, USA.

Fuckin' In The Bushes
Rock 'n' Roll Star
Lyla
The Shock Of The Lightning
Cigarettes & Alcohol
The Meaning Of Soul
To Be Where There's Life
Waiting For The Rapture
The Masterplan
Songbird
Slide Away
Morning Glory
Ain't Got Nothin'
The Importance Of Being Idle
I'm Outta Time
Wonderwall
Supersonic
Don't Look Back In Anger
Falling Down
Champagne Supernova
I Am The Walrus

Did you go to last nights gig or future gigs or even past gigs?

Send in your pictures to scyhodotcom@gmail.com and I will add them to tour archive.

Next stop Minneapolis...

Oasis To Release Exclusive iTunes EP

The 'I'm Outta Time EP' is available to download from today (December 9)

Oasis are set to release a special US-only iTunes exclusive EP.

The EP includes previously unreleased material including a demo version of the current single ‘I’m Outta Time’ and remix versions of ‘The Shock of the Lightning’ and ‘To Be Where There’s Life’.

The band are currently on their ‘Dig Out Your Soul’ American tour playing to sold-out audiences across the country. The jaunt continues tonight in Denver, CO.

The tracklisting for ‘I’m Outta Time’ is:

‘I'm Outta Time’ (Album version)
‘I'm Outta Time’ (Remix)
‘I'm Outta Time’ (Demo)
‘The Shock Of The Lightning’ (The Jagz Kooner Remix)
‘To Be Where There's Life’ (Neon Neon Remix)

The remaining dates are:

Minneapolis, MN Target Center (10)
Chicago, IL Allstate Arena (12)
Detroit, MI Palace of Auburn Hills (13)
New York, NY Madison Sq. Garden (17)
Camden, NJ Susquehanna Center (19)
Washington, DC Patriot Center (20)

Source: www.nme.com

Hamilton Odds Favorite In Popularity Contest

Formula One racing champion Lewis Hamilton is a clear odds favorite at bookmaker Paddy Power to be voted Zoo magazine's coolest British man of the year.

Hamilton, who in 2008 became the youngest person to win a Formula 1 Drivers' World Championship at the age of just 23, is an 11/8 favorite to take out the award.

He is followed by Daniel Craig, Ricky Hatton and Joe Calzaghe on 10/1 each. Craig will surely benefit from the recent release of his second James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. Ricky "The Hitman" Hatton has also had recent success, retaining his IBO light welterweight boxing title in November. Also a successful boxer, Joe "the pride of Wales" Calzaghe retained his ring light heavyweight title in November.

Last year's champion Noel Gallagher is 14/1 to go back-to-back, while his brother Liam is 20/1.

Not very cool

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is 100/1, but if the current opinion polls are anything to go by, he has almost as little chance of keeping his job as he does of becoming Britain's coolest man.

Source: www.onlinecasinoreports.com

Rock 'N' Roll Covers Story

Photographer Michael Spencer Jones shares his Oasis memories with Jon Perks.
Oasis' Cigarettes and Alcohol cover

You’d think that anyone working with Liam and Noel Gallagher on a regular basis would require the patience of a saint.

Not so, says Michael Spencer Jones, the acclaimed photographer who captured the now famous cover shots for their first three albums and 11 singles.

“They’re probably the greatest bunch of people I’ve ever worked with,” says Michael, who first met the Gallaghers in October 1993.

“You’ve got a band that’s straightforward and honest. You know where you stand.

“One of the things about being there from very early on was the fact there was never any question whether this band was going to make it – it was blindingly obvious right from the word go that they’d be a huge success.”

Spotted by Noel Gallagher through his early work for The Verve (Jones would also later photograph the cover to Urban Hymns), the Sheffield photographer went on to take the images for every Oasis UK release, from their debut Supersonic to the 1998 number one All Around The World.

All 14 covers (plus a previously unseen night shot version of Be Here Now) form the latest exhibition at Birmingham’s Snap Galleries.

Entitled Out of the Blue (after the Manchester recording studios where he first met the band), the show is accompanied by a limited edition boxed portfolio with all 15 images signed by Jones and a 196-page large format book chronicling his time with the bad boys of Britpop.

As well as his passion for photography – and his talent – what also comes through when speaking to Jones is that he’s clearly a huge Oasis fan.

In fact, he has been ever since he first heard Columbia on his car stereo, the day before he was to meet them for the very first time:

“I heard this great piece of music, and it was one of those occasions when you hear something and you want to hear what it is, and the DJ said it was by ‘local band Oasis’ and I was like ‘wow, hey, I’m going to photograph them tomorrow, that’s good’,” he recalls.

“It’s so important with any band I work with that I like the music,” he insists.

“The next day when I heard Shakermaker at the studio it was very much a contrast to Columbia, and there were vocals on it as well, which made it more interesting. Then I got a demo tape of Definitely Maybe and just couldn’t stop playing it – I was like ‘wow, there’s only one direction they’re going in, and that’s up’.”

Creation Records wanted their artwork to be done in-house, but Noel insisted that they use Jones – in retrospect, a great decision.

The portfolio of work – which features 5,000 imported carnations (Don’t Look Back In Anger), a disused railway station (Some Might Say) and a half-submerged Rolls-Royce (Be Here Now) – is a fabulous snapshot of not only the band’s golden years but also some of Britpop’s finest moments.

“It was very much an organic creative process of ‘right, we’ve got this track, what are we going to do?’” says Michael.

“Sometimes Noel would come up with it, other times the designer would come up with an idea or I would come up with an idea, or Noel might suggest something that I would develop into something else.

“When I was doing the book and looking at the contacts and the outtakes, I got some great memories back and it’s just interesting how many stories there are behind the shoots,” he adds. “It was a very colourful period. There are some anecdotes behind every single cover I did with them.”

Cigarettes and Alcohol (single released October 1994, reached No. 7 in the UK)

“It was in this small hotel room in Holland Park and it was a staged shot, and in the end we got a kind of vibe going, running up a big room service bill... but at the end of the shoot, about three or four o’clock in the morning, Noel took his guitar up and began playing.

Liam was in the room – I think he was asleep – and there was Tim Abbott the art director, about four or five of us in total – and Noel must have played his whole repertoire, maybe 15, 16 songs one after the other. Incredible.

Just playing Live Forever, then next track Whatever – songs I’d not even heard, it was just one after the other. I think he even played All Around The World, and that didn’t surface for about another four years. The thing about his songs is they’re so well crafted and he’s such a rare talent.”

* Out of the Blue – The Oasis Photographs of Michael Spencer Jones is on show at Snap Galleries until February 28 2009. www.snapgalleries.com.

Source: www.birminghampost.net

See some of the images here in the NME Gallery.

Rowdy Oasis Fan Ejected From US Show

American Oasis fans are still causing the band problems - one concertgoer had to be physically removed from the British rockers' Los Angeles show on Thursday night (04Dec08) for arguing with singer Liam Gallagher.

The band had just started its show at the Staples Center when the rowdy fan was dragged out of the venue by security guards after screaming abuse at the frontman.
The concert was only Oasis' second gig on a new North American tour. The band's last trip to the U.S. in September (08) ended abruptly after Liam's bandmate and brother Noel was attacked onstage at a festival in Toronto, Canada.

Gallagher fell on a monitor speaker as he attempted to avoid a charging Daniel Sullivan. Subsequent back and rib injuries prompted the guitarist to cancel the rest of the Oasis tour and a trio of dates in Europe.

Source: www.contactmusic.com

Tales From The Middle Of Nowhere

Taken from Noel's tour diary for Oasisinet.com

Well, well, well. He turned up! Morrissey was actually in our actual dressing room. Being very funny. He asked me did I have any "new moves"!! Genius.

Steve Jones (the Sex Pistol) was there. A proper dude. Can't tell you what a buzz it is to have 2 of the people who are absolutely responsible for you making music in the room. I love meeting my heroes. They're all top, top geezers.

Gig was good. Went to the after show to see a few cats who come over from England. Didn't hit it hard though. Got my boy in town. Not fair dad rolling in at dawn stinking the gaff out. Got another 2 weeks of that.

Which brings me to tonight. Back in Vegas. At The Palms. Very 70s. Ricky Hatton's in town (again!) as is Russell Brand and the elusive Matt Morgan. Gonna watch the Oscar de la Hoya fight and then rip it up (so to speak). Could and should get messy.

In a bit.

GD

Source: www.oasisinet.com

Be Here Now Is Still The Fastest Selling LP In UK Chart History

Take That's new album has become the third fastest selling LP in UK chart history.

The Circus sold 432,000 copies since Monday to debut at number one on the albums chart.

Be Here Now by Oasis is still the fastest-selling album of all time, it sold 695,761 copies in it's first week when it was also released on Thursday August 21st 1997.

Selling over 420,000 units on the first day of release alone, and over one million within two weeks.

First week UK sales

01. Be Here Now - Oasis - 1997 - (695,761)
02. X&Y - Coldplay - 2005 - (464,552)
03. The Circus - Take That - 2008 - (432,000)

Oasis' 'I'm Outta Time' Chart Position

I'm Outta Time has entered the Official UK Singles Chart at number 12 on this weeks chart.

Unless it goes up in the chart next week, it ends a run of 22 consecutive top 10 singles that goes back to August 1994.

Consecutive top 10 singles by Oasis

Live Forever - 10
Ciggarettes And Alcohol - 07
Whatever - 03
Some Might Say - 01
Roll With It - 02
Wonderwall - 02
Don't Look Back In Anger - 01
D'You Know What I Mean - 01
Stand By Me - 02
All Around The World - 01
Go Let It Out - 01
Who Feels Love - 04
Sunday Morning Call - 04
The Hindu Times - 01
Stop Crying Your Heart Out - 02
Little By Little - 02
Songbird - 03
Lyla - 01
Importance Of Being Idle - 01
Let There Be Love - 02
Lord Don't Slow Me Down - 10 (Digital only single)
Shock Of The Lightning - 03

Dig Out Your Soul has re-entry in the Official Album Chart at number 25 on this weeks chart.

Stuart Hall Has News Of A New Stevie Riks DVD

The Stevie Riks 2008 Xmas DVD, "Festive Frolics", is NOW Available.

The New Triple DVD for 2008, is also available called "Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad DVD" It features most of the videos from 2008.

For more information click here.

Oasis In Los Angeles Setlist

Last nights setlist from The Pearl, Las Vegas, USA.

Fuckin' In The Bushes
Rock 'n' Roll Star
Lyla
The Shock Of The Lightning
Cigarettes & Alcohol
The Meaning Of Soul
To Be Where There's Life
Waiting For The Rapture
The Masterplan
Songbird
Slide Away
Morning Glory
Ain't Got Nothin'
The Importance Of Being Idle
I'm Outta Time
Wonderwall
Supersonic
Don't Look Back In Anger
Falling Down
Champagne Supernova
I Am The Walrus

Did you go to last nights gig or future gigs or even past gigs?

Send in your pictures to scyhodotcom@gmail.com and I will add them to tour archive.

Next stop Denver...

The Brit Is Back: Gallagher Talks Oasis, Past And Present

Of all the excuses Oasis has doled out for canceling gigs, at least the one that made headlines in September can be easily verified.

"Just go to YouTube -- it's there for all the world to see," guitarist and bandleader Noel Gallagher said, referring to the Sept. 7 attack by an audience member who rushed the stage during a concert in Toronto.

The online clips show Gallagher getting tackled from behind with linebacker-like force and landing awkwardly on his stage monitors. Don't look for the British rocker to make any more excuses, though, as his band finally returns to Minneapolis for its Target Center concert Wednesday with Ryan Adams.

"I've been given the all-clear and everything's healed," he said in a phone interview before the tour kicked off last week. "I'm back to the way I was before."

Indeed, Oasis' new album, "Dig Out Your Soul," offers the same Beatles-and-Stones-copping sound that made the band famous in the mid-'90s, which is to say it's their best album since their heyday. Likewise, Gallagher showed the same flashes of arrogance and inhibition that have made him one of rock's great characters -- and the same contempt for his brother, Oasis singer Liam Gallagher.

Q What do you remember about the incident in Toronto?

A I don't remember a great deal about it and, of course, I'm not able to discuss it much because there's a legal case going on at the moment. Anything I say can be used against me. But I really don't have any recollection of it. I was just playing away in my own little world. I had my back turned, and the next thing I know it was total chaos all of a sudden.

Q Any lingering physical or mental effects from the attack?

A No. It was two months with three broken ribs and five bruised ones. Mentally, no, not at all. I'm not that fragile upstairs.

Q Is it true Liam tried to kick the crap out of the guy?

A Yeah, you can actually see that on YouTube, too. It's very embarrassing.

Q So he does like you.

A No, no. Of course, he doesn't. We have a mutual understanding in that department. Nothing has changed there. At best, we have a hostile relationship. At worst, it's nasty. I can live with that, though.

Q One thing that has changed: Liam is writing more songs [three on the new record]. Is it a case of you letting him, or him insisting on it?

A Yeah, I don't like that term "letting him." I'm not letting anybody write songs. It's our band. It belongs to the four of us. Going back to the early days, everybody was required to write songs, but it just so happened that I wrote more than everybody else, and mine were better than everybody else's.

Q How do you rate Liam as a songwriter?

A He tends to write a lot of ballads, which is quite annoying. I've got to say, though, if I didn't like them, I'd say so. But I generally think his songs are pretty good. The best thing about him is his music. The rest of him I could live without.

Q You guys get a steady balance of criticism and praise for not trying to reinvent the wheel from album to album. Do you consciously follow the same formula?

A I genuinely don't care what people say. I write my songs on guitar. I can't write on keyboards. I do what I do. I don't analyze it. Other people do, and I don't care what they say about it. When we first arrived on the scene, and everybody was saying I was the greatest songwriter since Lennon/McCartney, I never believed it. And then in the middle bit, when they said it wasn't happening for me, I didn't believe that, either.

Q You've admitted you were in a creative rut around 2000's "Standing on the Shoulder of Giants." What happened?

A Yeah, I personally had a great lack of inspiration around me. That particular album, we were kind of doing it for the sake of it. There's some good stuff on it, but when it was time to go make another record, I didn't want to be bothered. If I had that time over again, I'd have resisted making that record. But in the grand scheme of things, you've got to go through some of the [expletive] to get to some of the stuff that's good. You can't be brilliant all the time. Even the Beatles had some [expletive], you know?

Q Can you credit some of your turnaround to you guys mellowing out a bit and avoiding a lot of the excess?

A Oh, yeah, definitely. Liam would try to convince you that he hasn't mellowed, but he has. We're all fathers now. If that doesn't change your life, then you're a bit of an idiot. But all the stuff that goes on outside of what's on the stage is kind of irrelevant anyway. All the scandals surrounding "Definitely, Maybe" and "Morning Glory," you can't remember any of it now, can you? What you're left with is the music. So as long as you get that right, who gives a [expletive]?

Q Oasis fans definitely demand those old songs at shows. Are you cool with that?

A I love it. I only get to do it every three years or so, so it stays fun. I also particularly like playing the songs from "Morning Glory" because that album kind of annoys me a little bit. We only spent 12 days in the studio recording it. It's really a bunch of demos. I think those songs now sound way, way better live than they do on record.

Q I understand you became a Ryan Adams fan after he covered your song "Wonderwall." What did you like about it?

A That song is essentially a blues song, and he kind of found something in it that I never knew existed. Like the point I was making before about that album, "Morning Glory." Ordinarily, I'll have put songs on a demo a year before and make constant changes to them until we put them out. That song was just captured in an embryonic state. I maybe would have gotten to that version he made if I had a year to work on it. He found something I thought was really quite moving.

Q Do you have a favorite album or song of his?

A Well, he's made so many [expletive] records and written so many songs, where do you start with him? He's doing stuff on tour with us that he did on that Nashville album [2000's "Heartbreaker"]. He's doing those but in more of a rock style, and they sound great.

Q Ryan has a reputation for being a bit of an ego case and troublemaker. Any worries that could be a problem on a tour with, um, Oasis?

A No, no, no. You'll find that most rock stars who are known like that are not really like that. A lot of them just get nervous around journalists. I've always found him to have a bit of nervous energy. I think people who come off like that are trying to mask something. He's actually sort of a shy American rock star.

Source: www.startribune.com

Happy Birthday Gem Archer

Colin Murray Archer (born December 7, 1966 County Durham), turns 42 today. Colin who is better known as Gem Archer, is an English musician best known for his work with Heavy Stereo and Oasis.

He joined Oasis as rhythm guitarist in November 1999, Gem also contributes towards the writing of some of the band's songs.

Oasis On Gonzo

Source: YouTube

The Funniest Clip Of The Year?

From Newsnight to YouTube - these were Observer Music Monthly's funniest and strangest screen moments of the year.

1. Liam Gallagher culinary critic on The F Word
Billed as this year's comeback kings, Oasis delivered some excellent live shows and the new album had its moments, too – particularly Liam's 'I'm Outta Time'. But his finest hour, surely, came with this surreal guest appearance on Gordon Ramsay's The F-Word. Wife Nic Appleton and fellow All Saint Mel Blatt have been cooking up a storm with their mums when the chef decides to see who's eating out front.
Gordon Ramsay: Good to see you.
Liam Gallagher: And you, brother.
GR: How you doing?
LG: Yeah, very hot. Chilled out now.
GR: What do you think of the food?
LG: Your fucking sweet potatoes are bobbins, man, because my missus does better than that.
GR: So bobbins means what? Shit?
LG: Yeah, shit, because it's a bit like clumpy....
And on the question of how Liam would fare with Noel in the kitchen? 'I reckon his head would be firmly pressed against one of those hot things.'

2. Jeremy Paxman left speechless by Dizzee
3. Doherty and Winehouse talk to the animals
4. Goldie throws down the baton on maestro
5. Cheryl Cole blubs on x factor: a nation swoons

Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Noel Gallagher: 'Who Wants To Be A Drug Addict At 41?'

He had the Roller, the fur coat, the crazy party lifestyle. Now he's a sensible father of two who won't smoke in front of the kids. Simon Hattenstone finds Noel Gallagher is all grown up.

Noel Gallagher is listing the world's 10 greatest bands on his fingers, and working out where Oasis sit among this lot. "The Beatles, Stones, Who, Sex Pistols, Kinks, Jam, Smiths, Stone Roses, Bee Gees." He pauses. "I'm putting us at seven ahead of the Smiths cos we've done more." It's classic Gallagher, the great Mancunian motormouth. In the time it takes for some rock stars to muster a coherent sentence, he'll have set the world to rights, written off many of his peers as no-hopers, talked a great deal of sense, said something truly stupid or offensive or both, and provided a potted history of 128 years of Manchester City football club.

Now he's explaining why Oasis are different from other bands. "People like Coldplay, but they don't love them. People like U2, but they don't love them. But people fucking love Oasis. That's the way it is. It's more than the music." He's got a point, as I later witness at the gigs. Though it is also true that plenty of people can't stand the band, regarding them as crass copycats, playing 100 variants of the same song - when they're not ripping off the Beatles, they're ripping off themselves.

It's a bleak November afternoon in Aberdeen, freezing, already dark outside. On the telly, the news is even bleaker than the weather as we hear of shutdown after shutdown, and a recession that has been made official. Gallagher says it reminds him of his childhood days of three-day weeks, followed by industrial carnage and Thatcher. "I remember the 70s constantly being winter in Manchester and the Irish community in Manchester closing ranks because of the IRA bombings in Birmingham and Manchester, and you know the bin-workers' strike, all wrapped up in it... They were violent times. Violence at home and violence at football matches."

It was the 90s when things began to look up for Gallagher. If ever a pop group mirrored a political project, it was Oasis and New Labour. While they couldn't have appeared more different - Oasis all scruffy jeans and swearwords, New Labour smart suits and urbane accents - both grew out of the ashes of Thatcherism and the grey Major years. Both were determined, in their own way, to counter the cult of the individual and the ethos that there was no such thing as society. For the Gallaghers, it was obvious what society was - their mates at the job centre, their mates determined to have a good time despite everything, their mates standing at the bar drinking and taking drugs as they played.

Definitely Maybe, their first album, crackled with energy - in the song Rock N' Roll Star, they don't sing about what it's like to be a rock'n'roll star because they don't know, they sing about feeling as good as one. Live Forever, still Gallagher's favourite Oasis song, is about the invincibility of youth. He wrote it as a riposte to a song by Nirvana, the morbid grunge band, whose frontman Kurt Cobain went on to kill himself. "I heard this song called I Hate Myself And I Want To Die and I thought, I'm not having that, I cannot have this American rock star who everybody is lauding as a genius with all the money in the world sitting there in his mansion on smack saying that. What d'you want to die for?"

Live Forever was Oasis' first top 10 hit - a unique mix of raucous rock and drunken optimism. But while their first album anticipated success, the second (What's The Story) Morning Glory? was about rock'n'roll fulfilment. There was a sense of wistfulness in the famous ballads, Wonderwall and Don't Look Back In Anger, as if Gallagher was already nostalgic for something that had barely started. These two songs became the supreme arm-in-arm, cigarette-lighter anthems of the 90s. They were also archetypal Oasis songs - loaded with emotional meaning, and yet virtually meaningless in themselves (what is a wonderwall, why is Sally waiting, who exactly is looking back in anger?).

He says he often didn't understand his lyrics, yet the larger meaning is transparent - the yearning for something better. One of his strongest memories is collecting the dole every week with his dad and seeing his friends there, too. "That was the Maggie Thatcher age - everyone was there with their dad."

Gallagher thinks he could have done well at school if he'd tried. He was expelled at 15 for throwing a bag of flour down the stairs and over a teacher. His mother Peggy was a dinner lady, father Tommy a labourer when he could get the work. "He was a typical Irish drinker-worker, always at the bookies, always gambling on something, didn't take his drink very well, quite violent." When Noel was 17, Peggy took the boys and moved away from Tommy.

In his early 20s, Gallagher worked as a roadie for the Manchester band Inspiral Carpets. "What a gig! Amazing. I was earning £300 for setting up a drum kit... Seeing the world, wow, couldn't be any better." That was when he started writing songs seriously.

One night he phoned home and asked Peggy what his younger brother Liam was doing. She told him he'd started a band. Gallagher couldn't believe it. "I'd shared a bedroom with him for years, playing my acoustic guitar and him sitting there going, 'You fucking weirdo' and all of a sudden he's a singer." On his return, he went to see the band, called Rain, told them it was a shit name, and gave them some of his songs to play. They changed their name to Oasis, and he joined them. Gallagher had to learn to play guitar all over again - he'd never played standing up before. "Then all at once, I turned into Paul McCartney. I was just like, 'Right, you play this, and you play that, I play this, you sing these words and sing it like this' and we were off."

Earlier this year, in a poll to find the 50 greatest British albums of the past 50 years, conducted by Q Magazine and HMV, Definitely Maybe and Morning Glory were voted numbers one and two respectively. It's incredible that Oasis are still going 15 years on - Gallagher himself thought of them as a here-today-gone-tomorrow band. With Definitely Maybe, he thought he'd done it all, said all he had to say, rocked all he had to rock. Yet here we are, Liam and Noel the only original members left, both embracing a maturity of sorts, the whole world changed around them and the band still churning out more of the same. Even more incredibly, they are as popular as ever (their last album went into the charts at number one, as have all the others) with an ever younger audience. How have they done it?

The one thing both Gallaghers knew was that if they made it, they were going to make the most of it. And so they did. By the time Labour came to power in 1997, Oasis were regarded as the biggest band in the world. Morning Glory sold 22 million copies worldwide, and more than four million in Britain alone. The band were constantly on the front pages of the tabloids - whether for manufactured rows with rivals Blur, hitting photographers, arguing among themselves, almost splitting up.

I ask Gallagher what it would have been like if I'd been here a decade ago. "There would have been a lot more hangers on... And the extracurricular stuff would have started already." I'd have had to kick my way past a mountain of coke? "Not a mountain. No, a little lump. When we started all the crew was from Manchester, and one by one they've all fell by the wayside, and it's a lot more professional now.

"Because it happened so quick, at Knebworth nobody really knew what we were doing. Normally when people play Knebworth it's the pinnacle of their achievement and they put on these awe-inspiring shows. We were just on the piss really. There's not so many fuckin' idiots surrounding the band any more."

What does he prefer? "I loved it then. But we couldn't be like that now because we're all late 30s, early 40s. I'm 41. Everybody says I'd be dead. Well, I wouldn't be dead, I'd just be a little caricature of a rock star. Who wants to be a drug addict at 41?"

In the mid-1990s, he moved to a salubrious part of London and a house he named Supernova Heights. "When I lived in Primrose Hill, I operated an open-door policy. I'd spent so long on the dole, and I'd moved to London and lived in this huge house, it was like, this is it, I'm living the dream, man. I invited a full awards ceremony back to mine once, George Best included. I won summat for summat or other, and it was the last award of the day and I gave out my address and said, 'Everybody back to mine.' And loads came. It was a great day. The police were called and all sorts."

Soon after Labour came to power, Gallagher was invited to Downing Street to celebrate their respective triumphs over Thatcherism. Tony Blair shamelessly tapped into the new wave of pop groups and designers that became known as Cool Britannia. "Alan McGee [Oasis' manager] got involved with the Labour party and he said, they want to meet you, and I was like, well of course they do. Who wouldn't? I was still on that euphoric night out that started in 94."

Did he have any qualms about endorsing Blair? "It wasn't so much an endorsement of him as, get these fuckers out." They all got carried away, he says - Blair thought he was JFK, Oasis thought they were the Beatles. When the band signed to Creation Records, Gallagher told McGee that if he made enough money to buy a chocolate-brown Rolls-Royce, he'd never want another thing.

After the success of Morning Glory, McGee bought him the chocolate-brown Roller and they turned up at Downing Street in it. Of course they did. "It was all symbolic. McGee used to work on the railways in Glasgow, I used to work on the building sites in Manchester. So we all piled in this Rolls-Royce and went down there. It was only four or five years since we'd signed off." Gallagher is a good storyteller. He can still recreate the weirdness of it all. "There was a strange array of people, Piers Morgan, Pet Shop Boys, Ross Kemp, Lenny Henry... It wasn't cool." Ever since, people have asked whether it was good for the band. For Gallagher it was just the first stop on a night out. "We left there and went somewhere else and then somewhere else and then back to someone's house and ended up back at mine at 7am, watching it on the news."

In the end, he says, Labour were corrupted by power, but he refuses to write them off. "Domestically, whatever Blair did will be overshadowed by Iraq and the weapons of mass destruction. But they brought in the minimum wage and for that alone it was worth it." He could never vote Tory. If Labour raised taxes for the very wealthy, would he still vote for them? "Yeah, totally." I remind him of the 70s when income tax rose to 98% and so many stars left the country. "It would be with a heavy heart that I became a tax exile, but then again if you're earning a pound and somebody's taking 98 pence of it, what's the point?" So what's a fair rate? "Well, I pay 40. I dunno - 50?" He settles on 50p in the pound.

I ask him if success changed him. "You'd have to be a fool to sit here and say no." Is it possible to become idolised without becoming a bit of a twat? "Well, I didn't become a twat, but I started to dress like a twat. I wore sunglasses a lot and I might have had a fur coat and I thought that was the correct procedure for being in the biggest band in the world, but no, I didn't become a twat." Nor, he says, did he go mad. "It's only solo artists who go mad; Robbie Williams, George Michael, they go mental because it is all about them, but it's not all about me."

What's the most ridiculous thing he bought? "A Jaguar Mark 2, Inspector Morse car, had it built specifically for me - a £110,000 car. Never had a licence. Never had a lesson. It sits in a garage." He's still got it? "Oh aye. It's got about nine miles on the clock. I've got a gateway that's a quarter of a mile long, and I've driven it up and down the drive. I'm going to give that car to my son, I think." What if his daughter Anais wants it? "She's not getting a big Jag. It's a lad's car. Totally."

Later, I meet Gallagher's girlfriend Sara MacDonald and tell her what he said about fame. She says it doesn't ring quite true. "Noel says to me he became a bit of a cock - being a bit mean to the people he was working with. Everybody says he's much nicer now he's not doing drugs. Everybody is, though. I mean, if you're doing tons of Charlie..."

Ultimately, the endless partying did become too much for him. He remembers the exact moment - when the band got home from a massive tour in 1998. "I dumped the bags, there were loads of people in the house, and the World Cup was on, and I still remember the one last line. I had a moment of clarity - I need a proper fuckin' life.

"I thought I'd done it all. I'd come from that rehearsal room in Manchester, gone all the way from the bottom right to the top, had all the money in the world, massive house in the country, there was nothing left to do beside go and buy a jet airplane and crash it in the lake. That's it. And I went to bed that night, and have never done cocaine since.

"Of course, nobody wants you to stop doing it because it's your house that everybody's in. So I started with a week and then it went to two weeks, and slowly but surely I began thinking, I don't really know any of these people. I'm not even sure that I know the woman I'm married to. It was a gradual dawning of, who the fuck are all these people? I know her, I know she's Kate Moss, I've seen her in the paper, and I know she's here because she manages to be with every rock band at some point so why wouldn't she be here, but everybody else I had no connection with except that they'd seen me on the telly.

"It was like, right, we're selling this house, then we're moving to the country, then the party moved to the country, then, right, this is not working - so I just stayed in, all the time, and just waited for everyone to fuck off. One by one they all left. The next thing was, well, I need to get divorced because this is rubbish. And that was it. It was very liberating."

We're sitting in Liam's changing room. He is the only band member with his own room because his guitar playing and warm-up vocal exercises annoy the others. Although there is an acoustic guitar in the corner, the room is anything but rock'n'roll - his "riders" are laid out on a table: seven bottles of Volvic, three packs of green chewing gum, three packs of blue chewing gum, fruit squash and honey.

How did success affect Liam? "He got drunk. For four or five years. I never saw him sober. I don't know whether he felt he didn't deserve any of the accolades, but he was trying his hardest to destroy everything, that's how I saw it. Like not turning up for American tours."

If you want to sum up Oasis in one anecdote, this is it. The third album, Be Here Now, was rising in the US charts, and with a grand tour to come they were set to conquer the States. Only Liam gets a phone call at the airport from his then wife Patsy Kensit and decides to return home to househunt. Noel decides he'll be fine on his tod, the band hurl a few barrels of abuse at the press, and America decides it doesn't like Oasis after all. With the world in their grasp, they blew it. "It would be like U2 turning up and the Edge going, 'By the way, Bono won't be here tonight but don't worry, I'll do it for you.' "

It's surprising how often U2 are a reference point for Gallagher, but it makes sense - while U2 are just about the most professional (and clinical) outfit going, for many years Oasis were just about the most shambolic. "People love us more for the fact that we went to America and did what they probably would have done - we had a bit too much to drink and we said the wrong things. And they love us for the fact that we never nailed it there and we keep going back and plugging away." The American tour taught him another lesson. Until then he had assumed that because he was the brains and engine of the band, the grunt with the whining voice and hyperbolic sideburns was a mere accessory. After he took over the singing duties for the tour, he soon realised that most of the fans came to listen to the band and stare at Liam.

What did America do for their relationship? "It's always been the same," he says. "I'm not one of those boys from the home counties who'll sit there and seethe and write poetry about him. I give him a clip round the ear and call him a fuckin' knobhead and then we move on."

Would he say they were friends? He's not sure. "If I don't see him from one end of the year to the next when we're not gigging, that's fine by me, and by him. The safety valve is knowing that eventually you end up in a rehearsal room together writing songs. But he's one of the few people who can make me laugh out loud and vice versa. For someone who's not got a sense of humour he's hilarious. He's got a weird way with words. Only me and him can say the things we say to each other..."

Were they ever jealous of each other? "There's a real journalistic way of going, 'Well, Liam would always want to be Noel cos he's the talent and he writes the songs, and Noel would always want to be Liam cos he shags all the supermodels.' Yeah, you can say we snipe at each other all the time... You'd have to put me on a couch and hypnotise me."

The thing is, he says, Liam was born lucky. Fact. "I'm not jealous of him, but I can't understand why someone would get on stage and attack me and not him." A few months ago a "fan" in Canada pushed Noel off stage and he broke three ribs. "If ever there's a bottle thrown on stage, it always manages to miss him and hit me in the back of the head. My point is he always lands on his feet. I always land on my arse. I've always had to work for everything I've got, and he's always just in the slipstream."

As the crowd gathers before the show, I spot three young Liam lookalikes - always Liam, the cool one. I ask one of the Liams why he thinks Oasis are still so popular. "The atmosphere. A lot of the songs are big singalongs, get your mates together, get pissed, have a good laugh," he says.

An Oasis gig is unlike any other I have been to. It is more football match than concert. The young men (mainly boys, actually) walk in with a pint of lager in each hand - more for throwing than drinking. As soon as the gig starts, mini beer fountains fly through the air like so many teenage ejaculations. As boys push their way into the mosh pit, they are patted on the back - young soldiers off to do their time at the front.

There are a good few girls here, but this is a lads' night out. When the band play the ballads, they come together, arm in arm, singing every word, living the dream. From the band, there's no small talk, no niceties, just singing and yearning. Sometimes the band stop and allow the audience to do all the singing and yearning for them.

Four nights later, we're in Glasgow. It's just as bleak, just as bitter. Gallagher has a cold and is knackered, but he's ecstatic. "I've been up all night watching the election. To sit and watch all those states swing to a leftwing politician is amazing enough, but the fact that he's a black man is just mind-blowing. Wow!"

Again, we're in Liam's changing room, and Gallagher is talking about how Oasis reinvented themelves after two of the original members, Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs and Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan, left in 1999. "That's when Oasis mark 2 started. We became more professional. Bonehead was a big drinker and Guigsy was always stoned. So when Andy Bell and Gem joined, I guess they felt they couldn't just rock in with a bottle of Jack Daniel's in one hand and a spliff in the other. They were easing their way in and that helped Liam and me be on our best behaviour."

What interests me is how he managed to keep going when he thought his best work was behind him. He says maybe he shouldn't have done. After Wonderwall and Don't Look Back In Anger became national anthems, he struggled. Paul Weller gave him the best advice when he told him that one day the songs would stop coming, and he musn't force them. He ignored him. "Between Be Here Now and Don't Believe The Truth, which spans five years, I was putting out records for the sake of it. We shouldn't have bothered, I didn't have anything to write about."

The trouble is nobody told him he was writing rubbish songs. Liam would tell him everything was great because he'd be desperate to get back in the studio and record something new. "A lot of it I listen to and think only an egomaniac would convince himself that that was worth putting on. I say to my manager, 'You told me it was brilliant.' And he goes, 'Well, you don't tell the goose that laid the golden egg that his arse is blocked up, do you?' " If he'd been really brave, he says, he would have called it a day after Definitely Maybe. "Morning Glory is for the squares... It's up there with all those great crossover albums like Thriller, and the greatest-selling albums of all time like Phil Collins and Genesis."

I ask him what a wonderwall is. He smiles. "There's a film called Wonderwall and George Harrison did the music. It's about a guy who lives in a bedsit and in the next room to him is a hippy student. He spies on her through the hole in the wall and he christens it the wonder wall. It was made in 67, appalling film - I thought what a great word, though."

These days, he says Oasis is a more democratic band - although he is still the main songwriter, all of them contribute. On the latest album, Dig Out Your Soul, there are two outstanding tracks - Falling Down is written by Noel, I'm Outta Time by Liam. The album has done well around the world, even in America where Oasis reached the top five for the first time since Be Here Now and the disastrous non-Liam tour.

I ask Gallagher if he thinks the songs have returned. "Yeah," he says, with less certainty than normal. Does he think he could write another Definitely Maybe? "No. I wrote that album when I was 21/22, and the people who picked up on that album were 21/22-year-olds. You can only do it once. We went on that tour and we were the same as them. We had no money, the people in the crowd had no money. We're rock stars now, we don't live in the same circumstances as any of these kids, so you can't even begin to write from a position of where they're coming from. But there's a point that lasts for about three years where you're in the same circumstances, you look the same and you dress the same as your audience, and that, my friend - you cannot buy that. I'd give it all up to go back to those three years.

"Listen, I'm 41, I've got two kids, I don't expect a 16-year-old to be looking to me for inspiration. It's the Arctic Monkeys' job now. I've done my bit. Now we go in the studio and it's just like, let's make some records, let's do it cos we love it."

There aren't many other contemporary bands he rates. "People say I seem very negative about new music - well, if somebody asks me what I think of Keane, I'll tell 'em. I don't like 'em. I'll obviously take it a step too far and grossly insult the keyboard player's mam or summat, but I'm afraid that's just me." His most famous insult was directed at Blur's Damon Albarn and Alex James when he said he hoped they'd die of Aids. Unforgivable, he says - he was so young, and off his head to boot. "Looking back now that fight's all so pathetic over two really quite shit pop songs." How do he and Albarn get on today? "He's a great artist," he says. "He's different from me. I'm not an artist - for me, it just comes out. He does Chinese operas and that kind of thing, he's got more strings to his bow than I'll ever have." So how do they get on? "There's always been something between me and him, and I don't know what it is."

At the aftershow party, Gallagher's girlfriend Sara is showing me pictures of their one-year-old boy Donovan. "What d'you mean, he's sweet?" she says. "He's more than sweet." There is no sign of Liam. She says he generally disappears after the gig. "He goes off quietly with Nicole [Appleton]. They're not really party types. Noel likes to chat, you can see, can't you?"

Gallagher's actually playing the DJ - flicking between the Beatles, Bob Dylan and the Hives, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. He says if the children were here he certainly wouldn't be doing that. "The kids rarely come to see the band, and when they do it's a dry night. You wouldn't be like Keith Richards, smoking fags in front of the kids, man, it's not right, is it?"

The drummer from the support band Sergeant has been giving Gallagher an earbashing all night, telling him how thrilled he is. "I told my mum I was supporting Oasis, and she just said, 'What time will you be home?' " Gallagher laughs. He tells me he has never seen crowds as young as tonight, and he doesn't really get it. "That freaks me out a bit, and I'm starting to get self-conscious thinking, wow! I'm some old dude, man, and they're all going mental for these songs I wrote."

It is strange, but there's a good reason Oasis continue to appeal to kids - unlike the Beatles and Stones, say, their music hasn't evolved. And although Gallagher is now one of rock's elder statesmen, his attitudes haven't much changed either.

Well, some have. It's 1am, the party's been going for a couple of hours and he looks around at all the young aspiring pop stars. "Right, let's be having you," he says, in his best pub-landlord voice. Time for bed, he says. "You've all had your fun."

• Oasis' single, I'm Outta Time, and album, Dig Out Your Soul, are out now. The band tour the UK next June.

Source: www.guardian.co.uk