Phil Lynott - An Appreciation

Phil Lynott was the coolest rock star who ever lived. Fact. Let's examine the evidence...

Apart from the recorded legacy, of which more later, there is his remarkable biography. Misfits often find a home in rock and roll because basically they can't do anything else. But then again, it's easy to imagine Roger Daltrey working as a truck driver, or Noel Gallagher lugging bricks. You can't imagine Phil Lynott ever doing a proper job, though, can you? No matter how much you delve into your fevered imagination, there is no disputing the fact that Phil Lynott was born to be a rock star. The trousers, the hair, the rake thin physique; it's perfect, even before you add the voice and the bass.

And as for the misfit, how about being an illegitimate half caste in a 1950s Dublin which was closer to the 1850s in many ways? Upbringings don't get much tougher than that. The fact that Phil's race was never an issue in Lizzy's fame shows how he overcame prejudice with dignity and authority by virtue of just being the coolest motherfucker that ever walked the earth. You can't argue with the evidence.

Thin Lizzy have never had the credit they deserve from the British press, possibly because of the fact that they weren't British, despite the Observer's Music Monthly voting Jailbreak into their top 100 British albums, conveniently avoiding the fact that only one quarter of the band was actually British (and he was a Scot!)It's a bit like when Seamus Heaney won the Nobel Prize and the mainstream UK media fell over themselves to call him a British poet, despite most of his work being informed by Ireland.

The Irishness of Lizzy is what makes them unique, and why no other bunch of metal meatheads has ever come close to what made them great. Lurking beneath the leather trousers and the rock anthems was a romantic sensibility which manifested itself in the melodic swirl of the harmony guitar lines, the wordplay of Lynott's lyrical flights and the subtle minor/major shifts within his songs.

For an example, listen to Cowboy Song, possibly my favourite Lizzy track ever, combining as it does all three of those traits into one life affirming burst of melodic rock. From the understated opening, with Phil's voice drifting like smoke through a desert campsite, through the ecstatic stampede of Gorham and Robertson's guitar solos, right up to the inarguable declaration that "A cowboy's life is the life for me", Cowboy Song is quite simply one of the greatest rock songs ever written. It's romantic, it's upbeat, but at the same time the inclusion of a sighing D flat Minor chord lends it an ineffable air of sadness as we realise Phil is out there all alone, riding the range from gal to gal, a realisation only slightly tempered by knowing that this is the only way it can be. Phil's still out there somewhere, riding the range for all of us.

I have realised, the older I get, that I fucking love Thin Lizzy for the reasons cited above. While you can only enjoy lots of hard rock with irony filters firmly in place, there is nothing ironic about Thin Lizzy. They are the purest expression of what it means to be in a kick-ass rock and roll band, doing what you think is great, writing songs which are anthems without really trying and speaking with a poetic soul that isn't contrived or pretentious. Phil loved Irish literature, the history of heroes which permeated his celtic heritage, and wasn't afraid to take it onto the world stage without apologising for who he was or where he came from. I can still listen to those records nearly 30 years since I first heard them and love them just as much.

I'm older now than Phil was when he died his tawdry, tragic death, so unbefitting a vagabond such as he. That in itself makes me sad. Maybe he would never again have reached the heights of that great Seventies tryptich of Jailbreak, Johnnie the Fox and Live and Dangerous, but at least he would have been around with a sly wink and a decent tune. Who knows, maybe he would have made a great writer.

I keep thinking of the words which opened Phil's first single..."Glad you could all make it, 'specially you, Skinny Lizzy..."

Indeed I am.

Other Lizzy Related stuff

Scott Gorham Interview
Review of Thin Lizzy's Greatest Hits

Russell Brand

From Russell Brand's official biography on the Radio 2 Website...

Russell made his theatrical debut aged fifteen, in Bugsy Malone as Fat Sam. An education at Italia Conti stage school led to a three-year scholarship at the drama centre in Camden where, in his spare time, Russell began performing stand up in pubs around London. He reached the final of the prestigious Hackney Empire new act of the year competition and his political rantings caught the eye of Time Out’s Malcolm Hay who dubbed him “Essex’s Bill Hicks”. "

Oh sweet Jesus. Italia Conti stage school? A three year scholarship at the drama centre?

Essex's Bill Hicks?

Jesus suffering fuck almighty. The jury awaits the Essex Bill Hick's views on the sucking of Satan's cock that is Big Brother's Big Mouth and the trenchant political satire that made his Brits appearance so cutting edge.

Gillian! Mah Keech!

Isn't Gillian McKeith the most loathsome little anal parasite you've ever clapped eyes on? She's the most unhealthy looking health freak you could ever see, too. I've just watched her with a mixture of appalled fascination and loathing as she bullied a bunch of big fat biffers into eating her insipid mung bean concoctions day after fucking day until they probably shat rose petals.

I note that she is no longer "Dr" Gillian McKeith - was this because the American institution where she got her "Doctorate" is the kind of place which e-mails you a diploma to print out at your leisure? Well, I'm not guessing, but I'd be probably be more trusting of the guy with the big pointy hair out of Doctor and The Medics. Not that I'd let him examine my copious effluent, mind you, never mind write fucking books about it

Who would have thought they would make television out of some twisted little quack looking at the rancid stools of overweight women? Well, they did. Freak show masquerading as public service, and filed under the same category as "How Clean Is Your House?" , "How Septic is Your Cludgie?" and "Fat Camp".

Watch it and weep, for the apocalypse is surely on its way.

The Glesga Banter

Had an American complain to me about the weather in the West of Scotland today, but cheerfully say that global warming will sort that out. When I pointed out that the effect would eventually mean the gulf stream being deflected south and Britain having a climate like Greenland she seemed less than enthused. Mind you, she is from LA, where, as Bill Hicks pointed out, they don't have weather.

The foul weather isn't the worst thing about Glasgow, though. Since moving back to live here after many years elsewhere, I can't help but noticing a certain arrogance has crept into the place. Like those people who try so hard to be cool and then tell everyone about how cool they are, it's all a bit, well, uncool.

Last year there were Mockintosh banners all along the length of Great Western Road advertising Glasgow as "Scotland with Style", annointed with some stick thin bimbo in black dress who probably has never experienced the delights of the Stonner Supper , branded the most dangerous meal in Scotland. Something in this smug, self serving little slogan riled me, way down inside, like a freshly swallowed thistle, as it fluttered from a lamp-post in front of that temple to fashion that is Wintersgill's Saloon. Perhaps it was the usual gathering of tubercular smokers gathered at the door, heaving up vast gobbets of lung tissue onto the spattered pavement as they wheezed on their stylish Regal King Size. Perhaps it was the shameless display of catwalk panache displayed by the young gentleman in this season's must have shell suit as he whipped his boaby out in the doorway of a nearby close and sprinkled some of that stylish pish onto the steps (or should that be "pishe?").

I am all in favour of civic pride. But fuck me, this was just like getting reminded that you didn't have the most stylish set of trainers at school. Some dreadfully trendy ad executive is sitting somewhere trying to appeal to even more dreadfully trendy little wankers who will flock here to populate more dreadfully trendy wank emporia playing bad music and selling unpronouncable beers at unforgivable prices. Afterwards they will all go home to their hideous rabbit hutch homes in Glasgow harbour where they can gaze out over the handy moat of the Clyde at the run down streets of Govan and listen to the folk upstairs playing happy hardcore through the gyprock ceilings as the sun sinks slowly behind the high rise prisons.

We are all being sold another lie, just like in the 50s and 60s. Only this time, the slums have got plasma screens.

Comic Relief Relief

Why is it that everywhere I look these days I see Russell Brand? This wouldn't be bad if I could actually look at him without feeling the urge to strangle the shaggy haired cunt with a length of razor wire...

It's Comic Relief time again, so we can't get away from these unfunny bastards polluting our collective conciousness, all in the name of charity. As if that makes it alright for The Sugababes and that other bunch of micro-talented strumpets with a penchant for beating up cloakroom attendants to drag Walk This Way into the gutter outside TV Centre and beat it to death with outsized Red Noses.

And what does Lenny Henry do for the rest of the year? Bake doughnuts for that tedious wife of his? I am sure he is a perfectly nice chap, but let's face it, he reached his comedy zenith with Algernon Winston Razmatazz, didn't he?

Also on the subject of charity grin-a-thons, is it only me who finds the tendency of BBC Newsreaders and weathermen to dress up inappropriately (often in drag) to re-enact some feeble pop video faintly disturbing? The next time I am being told about the latest atrocity in Darfur or car bomb in Iraq which has scattered the body parts of 25 toddlers across some dusty marketplace, I may well find it hard to get the image of Huw Edwards prancing around dressed in suspender belt and bra out of my mind to make way for some gravitas...

Of course, if you want to donate, so so here - Official Comic Relief Website

I Don't Wanna Grow Up

I found myself listening to The Ramones blasting through the aforementioned Tom Waits song this morning. While a unacknowledged highlight of their twilight years, it also seemed to have a certain poignancy now that three of the original Ramones have prematurely gone to that great Bowery Bar in the sky.

Approaching, as I am, my late thirties, I am stricken with regular bouts of age anxiety, and hearing Da Bruvvers set me to thinking. So much of my generation's outlook has been moulded by pop culture to the extent that we tend to define ourselves against our idols. Strangely, if we see them constantly we never notice them aging, in much the same way as we don't notice changes in our siblings. Only when you look at pictures from long ago and make direct comparisons do you see the change.

It's the same with our own faces. We like to think we look at the same person in the mirror everyday, but the creep of age is imperceptible, like erosion on the sandstone of an old tenement building. Inspired by my Ramones encounter, I'm currently listening to loads of old punk records - at the moment Dancing the Night Away by The Motors is chuntering along on a wave of gob and guitars - and reflecting that my earliest musical memories were of punk, which evolved into the mass consciousness just as I was becoming aware of music beyond my parents' Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan albums. Jon Savage, in his book England's Dreaming, is at pains to point out the sheer alien-ness of the 1970s to today's culture (although Savage was writing in the happy clappy dayglo early 90s) and I have to agree, although being nothing but a lad at the time I wasn't really tuned into the Ballardian despair of the times, being more concerned with Action Men and 2000AD comics. Still, looking back at the cultural forces which shaped the music of the day, you can't imagine the same thing happening again.

Going back to the Ramones, the day punk lost any anti-establishment credibility was the day people like Ferne Cotton started wearing their t-shirts. The fad for recycled band t-shirts, which at its apotheosis saw Robbie Williams declaring how he was rich beyond his wildest dreams while wearing a Shout at the Devil-era Motley Crue t-shirt, seems to have died down, but it represented what, for me, was a worrying trend. Everything was fair game for nostalgia, as long as we all adopted a knowing mask of irony. The fact that Mr Williams wouldn't have known a Crue album if it jumped up and fellated him in the back of a tour bus is neither here nor there. It's all just fashion, and fashion fades.

But a preoccupation with irony, in which we're encouraged to take nothing seriously and strip mine our collective memories for artifacts with which to furnish the bachelor pads of our post-modern minds, has the effect of making us take nothing seriously. The reason I, and many other people my age, eventually grew to loathe The Darkness, was because they treated it all as a big joke. What they failed to grasp was that even at their most ludicrous, most heavy metal bands take what they do very seriously indeed, as do their fans; even while Angus Young is duck walking in front of a giant inflatable naked woman you can see that he means business.

When I was younger, we lived through music. It defined your identity. Friendships were forged based around what albums you could swap with people. You'd sling an armful of records into an old HMV carrier bag and head off to your mate's house and make a point of listening to them. I'm not one of these old farts who maintains that vinyl had a certain charm and the art of the compilation tape is just as worth keeping as the skills of a stonemason, but it was a very serious business. I love my iPod as much as the next 30-something techno geek, but I can't help but feel that this obsessive need to share everything, with everybody, all the fucking time, has diminished what it was that made music interesting to many people of my generation. The fact that it was something you only shared with your mates was what made it special, as it was what made you special, at least in your own eyes.

All this online stuff has done has made us six year olds swapping football cards again to fill our empty albums. If music is just about filling up empty spaces, then it will go the same way as all those Pannini albums once the season is over - dumped beneath the bed if it's lucky, or else thrown out with the old comics.