GLASTONBURYOFTHEMIND

Ben Drew is a fucking national resource and Thom Yorke and his Oxbridge-bred, chin-stroking, edifice-building, up-their-own-arses, banda Radioheads come ANgst Rock Godheads ought to be ashamed of themselves. IN their imperious position as the Lords Of The Rock Manor Radiohead - through their officious and priestly money fuelled legal team - have said “get orf my land” to Drew. They have drawn the artistic drawbridge of Prog pomp rock state and with it painted a stark picture of the lack of artistic unity in UK Music today. A distaff that is, I’d suggest, social and ecnomic and, oh dear, spiritual, even Maybe I’m blowing a gasket over something unnecessary here but what the fuck? The grand old Duke Of York has set himself up for this one and well I was always more likely to get invited to Elton’s annual flip your wig fest than get an interview with him, so what is there to lose?. Ben certainly isnt gonna get as annoyed about it as I am. Christ the guy has got a whole raft a great songs (that Thom could certainly do with sampling to liven his dreary ole shit up) that soak up his fan fuckingtastic swear filled musically rich raps. And, whats more, Drew has felt Radiohead much more deeply than I ever did and can’t bring himself to slag them for not stepping in when legal eagles weighed in and got him offa their Pyramid Song. Ben’s an open minded guy. He fucking had to be. The smartest kid in his class, I’ll bet, he was put in a holding pen for difficult kids in his teens.  Sometime later Benny boy saw his single mum take up with a crack addict who stole from her and fucked another woman, in the family home, in front of him and his ma. Anyhow that’s not what made Ben – who cast himself Plan B a few years ago and released the  hard edged musically adventurous, socially incendiary Who Needs Actions When You Got Words under that soubriquet this year – openminded. It was Michael Jackson. Can you dig that? Michael fucking Jackson! The man who was called King OF Pop because ….because have you ever heard of something as fucking stupid as a BLACK man being called The King Of ROCK ? Anyway where was I? Yes - Ben and Michael Jackson! Oh to be alive in those glorious 80s and early 90s to see him El Jacko Ecstato in his shining hour. The last great creation of the Mega Popstar era. and if you dont know why it was so great to see and feel and be there when Michael did his thing… if you dont know why…you were probably a CREEP, a fucking loser. You certainly  weren’t Ben (little Ben, black Ben ?, white Ben ?) who’s daddy went and left to become a slap happy Christian cultist and who was all lit up by the fluid majesty, the shape changing strangeness, the racial elusiveness, the all encompassing wonder that shone from MJ. And 8 year old there he was Ben Drew r&b song man trying to be a superman singing and a dancing and doing the do with Michael Jackson and his mates. In the front room there in Forest Gate, East london Michael then was a real pop star of shining wonder so different to the cloistered internalising of Yorkie Bar and co. Why? What was it about Michael Jackson? “Anybody who needs to ask that question…” Ben spluttered when I asked him on the phone the other day, “…because he was a fucking superstar, mate.” During the chat Ben was impressing me with both his understanding of where the furious brilliant Who Needs Actions When You Got Words fits into the censored British radio gameplan. He was impressing me too in the way he has remade himself once. And will do again. With r without Thom Yorke’s help. What exactly is the problem with Plan B Ben Drew sampling a bit of the fucking Pyramid song on a mixtape? What is the purpose of Radiohead’s vile protectionist snoot baggery? What does Thom fear, up there in his Rock Aristocrat’s gated community? That Ben’s gonna come in and storm the ramparts, like some ‘orrible little man from Oikville? Christ, he already recreated himself once what’s he gonna do next - move in with the hoodrats tanks on the Oxfordshire lawn ? Get a lazy eye and a degree in louche and haughty chattering class Eggheaddom, add a monocle for the full Lord Snooty effect? I wouldnt fucking think so, Tommyboy. Y’see when you come out of your cocoon and come down from your Ivory Tower well then you might see how it is in the world of ideas and creativity. In the world YOUR FUCKING REAL FANS, you foool, “I was addicted to Radiohead. They had a real sorrowful take on life, and that’s how I felt at the time,”* Drew has said, recounting his sonic cure for the teenage blues. Ben found for whatever reason something real and precious and good and kinda balm like kinda healing and he wanted to pass it on. “I did a mix tape of rock records with me rapping recently. We told everyone to keep it quiet that we’d re-recorded a sample that was cut up to fuck from Pyramid Song, but Jo Whiley let it slip on the radio and they got their lawyers involved. I’m a bit bitter about that. I can’t stay angry at them though - I fucking love them.”** *The Independent 23/06/06 page 12 **NME July 1st 2006 page 32 Y’see on a fundamental level, forget the death of the industry through downloads.( Do get off it you whingers, don’t you realise that Ben probably fits the demographic of artists whose sales may have doubled if you factor in all the shared sounds around of his shit? Who will prolly be dropped next time round because censorious broadcasters didn’t give him the The Killers blanket airplay treatment?). This is whats fucking wrong with musical arts these days - they’ve become a fucking clearing house for fucking lawyers to fucking make money. And look I’ve got nothing against lawyers. Some of them or real nice blokes but let them go and do something worthwhile - get some compensation off a corrupt city council, perhaps - but let them not get tangled in the crotchets and the quavers. Musicians sharing and caring for each other passing forth ideas and rhytthms made this world. Not lawyers. Wouldn’t is CRIMINAL (a crime against the laws of art in nature) to allow them to hold sway now. To allow that legal buuuulshit to become the conversation. I mean what’s real here. Are you gonna take “I present here Milord the ongoing tragedy of Whiter Shade A Pale possibly the most jaw droppingly beautiful heartcry for the 60s sweetdeath created in a British studio presented as courtrorom farce?” Or would you prefer someone crying their heart getting down to what is really real. Doing it through the sweet strange or strong sound of music? Thom (does he really need the fucking h? I’d need some, if I was ever forced  to listen to his fucking band again) may gesture airly at all the other bands of times gone bt. Rock is a business and this is just the way things are done. Bollocks, Yorkie, bollocks. There are other ways of doing business ways of insuring your fans are not left out in the cold, involve themselves in your work that you are not some omniscient diety from on high that…oh fuck YOU KNOW what I mean. The Grateful Dead and David Byrne have shown ways it can be done. Oh I know, I know every fucker on the planet loves the ‘head. Then can do wrong can they. But I’m not surprised by this attitude they show toward Drew. Go back to when they was on the up, round the Bend not yet buggering on about the Computer. It was 1991 in San Francisco at the Phoenix, right? The fucker with my key, coming back from the cow palace gig that neil Young had just played with Sonic Youth, was held up. I needed a pee we got talking to these Oxbridge Cambridge cunts and I asked if it were possible to use their loo. What did they think I was going to do? Jizz over the dolphin porn behind the cistern. Jack up? Smear shit on the walls like I was one of them H Block Paddies. I dont know - all I know is that when I asked to answer nature’s call in a Radiohead bathroom the look of horror on the collective face of The Radiohead massive it was like someone had told them there was going to be no more cucumber sandwiches, ever. A few years later  after I’ve had to one night listen to Rebecca tell me that The Bends was one of the greatest album ever (sorry? have we got a bad connection? I mean The Bends? The greatest album ever? Yeah and I’m Andrew Lloyd Webbers houseboy I saw this fucking RADiohead show in Brixton and right there I knew EXACTLY what Charlie Murray felt when he said , in NME 1975 that 10cc’s Original Soundtrack “Is brilliant and I hate it”. Faced with the reverence reserved for visiting religious emissaries at some Scriptural conference of sound Radhiohead created their shiny edifice, gleaming spires all that architectural accuracy, majoring in that soulless look at us-ness. That keep a looking but you dont come in-ness. Stand back and watch our glory. Did we really fight the punk rock years ago to have this sort of crabby interaction tween stars and their fans. Go on Thom, its Christmas show brother Ben a little love, other than that which leaked into your Pyramid in the first place . Y’see Thom the Xmas message worth cherishing is the one that says “peace on earth and good will to ALL men”. Not just Bono and Michael Stipe! Peace !