Wrote this piece about pubs for the Guardian – meant interviewing a load of folks including the utterly brilliant Ken Livingstone (in the Social aswell!). An honour.

It was a long time coming but finally the new pub book is out… book of the week in Time Out this week, blogged everywhere from the Quietus to the Daily Mail to the Sun. A review in the Scotsman described it as a “rattling good yarn”, the FT (!) called “reading it very thirsty work” and the Reluctant Scooper said it’s a “very entertaining journey with plenty of input from the kinds of characters I’d love to spend a pint or three with. And I highly recommend you buy a copy. It’s the ideal book to make you think as you drink in that pub that you love on a wet afternoon in winter.” Can’t say any fairer than that!

“I’ve always felt more comfortable with the bad reviews than the good ones. Well, until I decided to stop reading them.”

Looking out over all of East London from a rooftop garden in Dalston on a muggy April afternoon, I interviewed the mighty Green Gartside for the best music website bar none, The Quietus. One of the nicest guys in music, bloody smart too, he’s also a Welsh.

Picture by Al Overdrive from the Quietus piece. 

Also for the Q Best British Songs issue, I interviewed Nicky Wire and James Dean Bradfield about the mighty A Design For Life. Text after the jump. 

Nicky Wire

“That song really was crucial in helping us to stay together as a band. We hadn’t written a thing since Richey disappeared. It was originally written as a two-page poem. One side was called A Pure Motive and the other side A Design For Life. I gave the whole thing to James and he cherry picked the bits he thought would work best. Pretty quickly he had an epiphany. He called me up saying, “It’s Ennio Morricone, REM and Phil Spector.”

“It was the first thing that clicked after Richey disappeared. On the face of it we were really stoic and Manics-esque, thinking we’d just plough on but in reality we weren’t fucking doing anything. Those lyrics were the first thing that poured out that I thought were good enough to give to James.

“We went into the place we recorded The Holy Bible – this shitty studio in Cardiff – and the three of us played it together and it just fell together so naturally. James already had the whole thing worked out in his head, he was singing the string parts. He knew he wanted a cinematic, broad sweep to the whole thing.

“The song was definitely inspired by what seemed to me at the time as a flippancy, what I perceived as the middle classes trying to hijack working class culture. That was typified by Girls and Boys, the greyhound image on the Parklife cover. It was me trying to say, “This is the truth”.

“It was never a number 1 single. Only the Who have had more number 2 records than us! Then again, it did sell 93,000 first week and was only beaten by Mark Morrison (Return of the Mack). I remember walking through the studio at Top of The Pops thinking, “We’ll have him one day!”

“So the rest of our career has been an elaborate plan to get back at Mark Morrison. Our career has always been based purely on revenge.”

James Dean Bradfield

“I remember being given the two lyrics by Nick. We had come to a total standstill since Richey had disappeared. There was a long period of shock where we just couldn’t do a thing. I just really needed something to occupy me. Deep down I wanted to know what it was like to write a song as a three piece. That was the most daunting task facing us at that point – how would it work? I remember being incredibly nervous when the first proper set of Nick’s lyrics arrived five months after Richey disappeared. I didn’t actually start writing anything for a few days after they came which is strange for me as I usually start pretty much the second I’ve torn open the envelope.

“I remember atomising the two lyrics. It felt like there was a thread running through them both; they shared the same anger and what I thought at the time was the same sarcasm. They both had truly amazing lines. From the time I organized the whole lot into one lyric, I think it was one of the quickest tunes I’ve ever written – it came fully formed in just ten minutes. By the time I called Nick, I was pretty sure I was onto something brilliant. It felt as like the song was something that we could truly grasp at. Up to that point, we were genuinely in limbo. That song was a door opening for us, showing us a way out.

“The most bizarre part of the experience apart from Richey being missing and working as a three piece was having people coming up to me in the street saying, “I love that song, it’s amazing, what a great first single”. That happened a lot, people saying they knew nothing about us. People were incredulous when we said we’d been going for years, they all thought we were some new upstart Britpop band. That was really, really strange.”

More Q bits… first up, Karl Hyde on Born Slippy. I did press on the record when it was first released (’95) and its 750,000 selling reissue in ’97. Now I’m writing about it as the best British record made in the last 50 years. Karl is – and always has been – a total gent. Glad to still be in touch after such a long time. 

My memory of the time when Born Slippy was written is incredibly cloudy as I was drunk throughout the whole period. I remember Rick (Smith, Underworld partner) playing me this fantastic and deeply inspiring groove. When I looked in my notebook for any words, it was pretty much all there. As invariably happens, words and motifs got stuck in my head and I never know how to get it out of first gear so I kept repeating them like mantras.

The lyric was written on a drunken trawl through the streets of Soho. Nights back then started at the George on Wardour Street and this one ended up moving to the Ship just down the road. I came back from the toilet and all my companions had left apart form this girl who was the most blonde I’d ever met. I’m pretty sure she was sat with Bill Bailey at this point. I remember pulling a tenner out of my pocket and saying, “Get a round of drinks in” before wandering off towards the tube. The looks on their faces was pure confusion, possibly fear.

I remember saying to Rick that I wanted to respond to his music and the rant that’s on the record came out full force. There’s another verse that Rick chopped out too – I was a little bit miffed at the time. Looking back I’m so glad he did, it was crap!

The day after recording the vocal, Rick called saying, “I’ve put these chords on top and I’m not sure if they’re too cheesy but…” I remember hearing and thinking that’s sublime. It’s cheese but it’s top quality cheese. Camembert electrique even!

So the record comes out and it’s the biggest selling 12” we’ve ever had. Then we get the call that some geezer called Danny Boyle wants to put the track in the film version of Trainspotting that he’s working on. It was a book that mates were tell us it was amazing, about people getting fucked up and out of it. Myself and Rick weren’t part of a druggy culture, we didn’t see the association with our music and getting out of it. So we said no to the request as we didn’t like the analogy that we thought was being made. That being the first and last time we’ve ever said no to Danny Boyle!

Anyway, Danny somehow managed to convince us to go to the edit suite and we saw rough cuts of the film and realised it was quite the opposite of glorification. The film was mindblowing. It so perfectly put the song back into context. The first time we played it live my heart sank ‘cos loads of people were holding cans of lager aloft. The song was really a cry for help – I was asking for help by illustrating a typical night out. I saw the film and what danny did and he completely redressed the balance, gave the song a different level of resonance.

When JBO wanted to re-release it, we refused again! Then Steve at JBO canvassed 100 DJs up and down the country and all but one of them said we had to re-release it, that it was the most in demand record around, people were desperate for it. I’ll never forget that the only DJ who said “don’t bother, it’s shit” was the resident DJ at the Top Rank club in Cardiff!

Interviewed the majestic British Sea Power on a skiff scooting up and down the Thames a few weeks back for Q. Free canapes, some old goat from the Tory party and The Great Skua chiming out just outside Parliament. Full piece after the jump. Quality of photo due to quality of free piss on board the boat. 

How do you make protesting sexy on a Tuesday night? If you’re the country’s premier outdoorsmen, British Sea Power, you take to the waves to protest government cuts to renewable energy research. Then, without pausing for breath, you head out for a clutch of gigs in the nation’s beleaguered libraries. As the spectre of spending cuts looms and recent student revolts look more like a prelude, the Brighton based sextet appear more and more out of line with their contemporaries by making their support for worthwhile causes so vocal.

Martin Noble: “With the libraries or with this, there wasn’t much of a question. They are pretty intelligent ideas to get on board with.”

Yan Wilkinson: “Culling libraries really struck home with me. My dad learnt everything from the library. There aren’t many places left you can go where and sit and read and get warm where no one is trying to sell you things.”

Tonight’s gig is on a boat fit to bursting with environmentalists hoping to make a noisy point for lobbyists Embrace My Planet about harnessing energy from waves. For the band, the cause was a no-brainer.

Yan Wilkinson “I’m just surprised they wanted some loud rock music to go with the message – It’s an odd idea to get a bunch of MPs talking then saying, “Now listen to this!”

All around, there’s earnest talk of renewables, while Martin – nursing a broken rib after diving off a stage monitor two nights before – finds an ingenious use for the chilled gazpacho being passed around when he adds a hefty jigger of vodka. Downing his experimental concoction as the boat launches from Embankment Pier, he muses on what’s going on downriver in Westminster.

Martin “So much of what this government is proposing is based on short-term gain, long-term pain policies.”

Yan adds, “Young people haven’t got memories of what a Tory government was actually like. I think people will get a shock then go fully Egypt!”

In front of an audience that’s less Barfly, more Newsnight green room, the band are introduced by – of all people – ex-Tory environment spokesman Peter Ainsworth. A jolly pre-Cameronite toff, he claims to be “looking forward to a good bash from the band!” An almighty blast through the incendiary ‘Who’s In Control?’ drags the hardcore fans who’ve gained entry towards the makeshift stage at the stern of the boat, the song’s confused and pissed off sentiment chiming perfectly with the times. A rabble rousing ‘Waving Flags’ is followed by the glistening harmonics of ‘The Great Skua’ as boat and band each seemingly reach ramming speed as Parliament appears starboard.

And then, it’s over. The boat docks and the chattering classes disperse into the night. Martin seems confused as to what just happened.

“Well, it’s different to how we’d do things. I’m not sure how you tackle climate change with free booze and ice age canapés.”

Possibly he already has the solution. Add Smirnoff and turn the music up.

“We need to cherish these things while they still exist. Seek solace, seek knowledge. Seek power.”

Extremely proud to have been part of this piece - Nicky Wire on the plight of our libraries in today’s Guardian.

In a year that’s seen editing three different magazines, winning an art award and having a kid, here comes another strange addition to the CV. I was official photographer for the Manics album launch the other day. The band were ace (not that you’d know that from talking to them). The pics went on Twitter. The good people at The Quietus asked if they could use them. Eat your heart out Mick Rock.