From: Charles Holland (briefs@NETCOMUK.CO.UK)

Here's another article - this one appeared in the London Times on June
27.  Translation notes for non-UK recipients - a "train ticket to
Dottingham" is a reference to a crap 70's TV advertisement for cough
sweets called "Tunes", and B&Q is a hardware store.


What^Òs so funny about peace, love and decorating?
The ever-lovely Teenage Fanclub talk to Caitlin Moran about beards,
dirty dressing rooms and other matters of moment.

It^Òs good to know that, in pop^Òs increasingly hideous naked city, there
are still suburbs where you^Òre greeted as an old friend.  Pop^Òs naked
city is, of course, London.  The talent may be incubated in Glasgow,
Bristol, Manchester and Cardiff, but it still has to move to London to
make a crust.  And so each musical genre is gradually taken over by
London^Òs more wretched tendencies: Britpop was based in Camden, and
turned into Camden, the more eclectic market stalls gradually being
taken over by shifty looking men selling leather jackets and My Mum Went
to Camden and All She Bought Me Was this Lousy T-shirt tat.  Trip-hop
took on West London^Òs paranoid traits: wealthy white middle-classes
patronising poorer, more creative black neighbours; with resentment on
one side and blissful ignorance on the other.

In the midst of all this city sickness, an encounter with Teenage
Fanclub is like getting on the Tube and coming up on the Isle of Mull. 
The locals are Zen, the air clearer, the welcome warm, and you^Òll heard
bird-song - or, in the Fanclub^Òs case Byrds-song - for the first time in
years.

"London is one of the worst places in the world to live if you want to
make music and stay sane," Norman Blake, the Fanclub^Òs strawberry-blond
captain, explains.  "Bands come down to London and start living up at
celebrity parties and the like.  They think they^Òre getting Real
Experiences they can put on their albums.  But, of course, the outside
world doesn^Òt care for albums that go on about trying to fit two people
into a cubicle to take drugs, or how the free bar ran out at midnight. 
And, as a result, bands^Ò second albums are always rubbish."

Teenage Fanclub heeded their own advice, and stayed in Glasgow after
their first album, A Catholic Education, won them a loyal army of fans. 
As a result, their second album, Bandwagonesque, was acclaimed as a pop
classic, with songs like the glorious Alcoholiday typifying their
musical appeal - woozy, warm harmonies, bright guitar jangles seasoned
with the salt of melancholy, and more tunes than someone with a very
bunged up nose trying to get "a first class ticket to Dottingham".

Three albums later, and the Fanclub are still writing songs which glow
with humanity^Òs bright and comforting night-light.  Their latest album,
Songs From Northern Britain, hums with a subtle mellowness that blows
summer into whichever damp room you are listening to it: and the
occasional whisky-sorrow of country merely turns their milk-and-honey
pop joy into a blissful toddy.  "Aye, well, we recorded it last summer,
and it was very hot and hazy,"  Blake says.  Things like that always
find their way into the music."

Blake rubs his chin thoughtfully.  A beard resided there until he took a
razor to the ginger thicket, exasperated by the amount of interview time
he spent explaining its presence.  "I felt like I should just put the
beard on the table and wander off for a pint," he sighs.  Facial hair
seems to send out brain-affecting static to other people.  Their normal
thoughts become completely corrupted, and they can say, over and over
again, is "You^Òve got a beard".

"It^Òs a very British trait though, isn^Òt it?"  Raymond McGinley, the
Fanclub^Òs second guitarist, takes up the theme.  "If someone^Òs really
tall, you just find yourself saying ^Ñyou^Òre so tall!^Ò every hour or so. 
Like they might not have noticed why they kept smashing their heads on
doorways."

"We^Òve found a new way to spot light entertainment Tory voters." Gerry
Love, the Fanclub^Òs bassist exclaims, pushing his pasta to one side. 
"Their jumpers!  Every light entertainment Tory wears those jumpers that
old ladies in Devon knit - you know, ^Ñwhacky^Ò jumpers with big teddy
bears and sheep on them.  We don^Òt want to name names, but just watch
out.  You^Òll spot them."

It^Òs typical of the Fanclub^Òs gentle, "whatever" Zen that they wouldn^Òt
even want to name those who have committed grave knitted crimes.  This
is, after all, a band that became so distressed by the "unpleasant"
graffiti in one dressing room they encountered that they went down to
B&Q, got in a load of rollers and emulsion, and redecorated.  This is a
band that solved the ethical problems of meat-eating by suggesting that
carnivores sedated their animal of choice, removed a limb under
anaesthetic, and then fitted a wooden leg in its place, thus allowing
the animal^Òs life and the meat-lover^Òs dinner to co-exist.  Their motto
is: "Teenage Fanclub don^Òt kick ass - just the one buttock."  And, in
these days of coke-fuelled nastiness and thin melodies, we have much to
thank them for.