London royalty: the Soho Dukes

© Simon Poulter 2019

Living in Greenwich, as I partially still do, I am constantly reminded of the emergence of the so-called New Wave in the late 1970s. All around this corner of south-east London there are venues that played host to legends of pub rock that were a vital part of the New Wave. Squeeze, in particular, loom large in this story, gigging in and around Greenwich and Deptford (Glenn Tillbrook still lives and works from a studio in Charlton), and there are tales from varying ends of the Old Kent Road of bands like Nine Below Zero, Dr Feelgood, Kilburn And The High Roads (and their successors, Ian Dury & The Blockheads) and even Dire Straits plying their trade in the pubs of the area. Dire Straits' debut single, Sultans Of Swing, was even inspired by a jazz band playing a near-deserted pub in Deptford.

Before the term ‘pub rock’ became coined, there was no shortage of back rooms in pubs hosting bands. The Rolling Stones got their break with a residency at the Crawdaddy Club, a back room at The Station Hotel in Richmond-upon-Thames which was a glorified pub itself. A couple of years later, The Yardbirds - featuring the teenage Eric Clapton - built a similar following in the same part of south-west London. Clapton himself had grown his reputation by busking in the pubs of nearby Kingston. It was perhaps fitting, then, that he signed his professional terms to join The Yardbirds in a pub down the road in New Malden. Today, the term 'pub rock' covers a multitude of exponents and it is, perhaps, a lazy term, but does still validly cover that strata of the music industry that can be found on any given night of the week knocking out a combination of standards and their own tunes to an audience of punters getting ever-so-slightly sozzled, and ever-so-slightly deaf. A case in point is the Cavern Freehouse in Raynes Park, a couple of miles up the road from the pub where Clapton turned pro, and typical of the kind of local haunts where, on any given night of the week, an erstwhile act will be pumping out some chugging boogie. Unashamedly named after its more famous Liverpool namesake, thanks to proprietor Noel being a proud Scouser and Beatles fan, the Raynes Park Cavern is typical of venues where you’ll find good quality, honest-to-goodness pub rock. Such as, on this particular Wednesday night, courtesy of the Soho Dukes.

Formed by rhythm guitarist Colin ‘The Duke’ Foster (a New Malden-raised lad himself), together with seasoned pub rockers Johnny Barracuda (vocals), Si Leach (lead guitar), Mark 'Bomber' Randon (bass) and Adrian Blackwell (drums), the Dukes are a lively brew, drawing quite happily on a number of Route 1 influences. Significantly, they write their own songs, rather than rely on an overworked canon of standards. “It’s all about the song for me,” says Foster, the band’s chief songwriter. “Always has been, always will be.” That is always the essence of any good pub rock band. As Bono once said, “All I want is a red guitar, three chords and the truth”. Well, we’re not far off here. No vibey keyboards, no elaborate backing tapes, just a couple of guitars, a bass, drums and a highly charismatic front man.

© Simon Poulter 2019

“The idea behind the Dukes was to take all the influences we love and create a very British band,” Foster says. “One that you could find trawling the streets of Soho, clutching a can of Party Seven in between falling in and out of pubs, bars and venues! It struck me that the musical history and heritage of Soho and its surrounding areas was that of hosting some of the greats in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. So, why not celebrate the area that gave us so much music - places like the Marquee, the St. Moritz Club, the Borderline, Astoria, and so on. Soho is a place where the Dukes had either individually or collectively spent so much time breathing in the sights and sounds. Hence the Soho Dukes: something regal but with dirt under the fingernails”.

And there certainly is plenty of that. This is pub boogie at its best, with songs like Angel Walk, Pablo’s Place, Murdertown and tracks off their recent Three Sheets To The Wind EP drawing on an even wider range of influences to Foster’s writing style. “My influences are many and varied,” he says, “but right at the top of the list are the Stones - Keith’s guitar playing and Mick’s vocal phrasing. But you can add to that Slade lighting up Top Of The Pops [in the 70s] with rabble-rousing anthems; Rod Stewart’s voice and the good-time vibe that The Faces would bring to the bar room table. From across The Pond you’ve got the likes of John Mellencamp and Tom Petty, while back in Blighty, Tyla from the Dogs D'Amour , who is a huge influence on my song writing. Tyla’s lyrics and melodies set to a backdrop of simple, three or four open chords.”

The influences don’t end there: “I love both electric and acoustic compositions,” says Foster. “Take the Black Crowes: Rich Robinson’s guitar on Shake Your Moneymaker and Chris Robinson’s voice, but also the songs overall on that album. Then you’ve got The Quireboys, with their Mott The Hoople/Faces-influenced rock n roll and Spike’s voice; Phil Mogg from UFO’s vocals and lyrics; Blondie with their delicious pop songs and Clem Burke’s Keith Moon-style drums; early Police, Aerosmith, Hanoi Rocks, Zep, ELO and Jeff Lynne’s eloquent songwriting. Cheap Trick’s zany songs and delightful pop melodies. The list goes on…”

It could indeed go on, such is Foster’s unbridled enthusiasm for collating his influences and shoving them into the music blender. All are readily audible in the Dukes’ music, and fronted by the delightfully eccentric Barracuda, one of those lead singers who can transform themselves into something that can’t be ignored with just the addition of an undertaker’s hat and a pair of sunglasses. Married to Foster’s boogietastic compositions, Barracuda draws on Rod Stewart's phrasing, Ian Dury's comic timing and New Wave figures such as Wreckless Eric and Elvis Costello. He’ll even throw in some literary effect: “The wit of Raymond Chandler. The imagery of Ray Bradbury's prose,” he says. “It's all different flavours of genius. And I'd kill for just 1% of it.”

“Weekend Millionaire was the song that, for me, started to properly define the direction the band has taken,” Barracuda explains. “It's become a bit of an anthem for us and was a natural to record for the EP.” Another is Analogue Man: “It’s about an obstinate old boy standing firm against the march of technology, and and possibly more than a little autobiographical! Usually Col and I will develop a song together; guitars and vocal melodies evolving simultaneously. Songs definitely taste better when they're grown organically. ... And we'll generally start with a chorus and work our way outwards. But Analogue Man was an exception. A vocal melody suggested itself as I was writing the words. Col grabbed it, twisted it into shape and then the band took it to another level entirely. This one won't appear on the first album, in the final stages of completion, but it'll definitely feature on the second. I'm already looking forward to recording it.”

With a name evoking that most central area of central London, the Soho Dukes have a distinct Britishness about them. That doesn’t mean Barracuda adopting Steve Marriott’s Itchycoo Park vocal persona, but more of a lyrical geolocation bound with the American roots of their music. No more is this exemplified than Think Of England, which evokes “supposedly better times”, according to Barracuda. “An England gone forever. An England of fizzy bitter, Marc Bolan and Randall and Hopkirk. It's the Dukes' national anthem. 'Lie back, think of Eng-er-lannnnd!' One for the teenagers…,” he giggles. The song makes references to “back seats at the Odeon”, taking the “last bus home and change out of a shilling”. Resolutely old imagery, but imagery that takes a welcome baseball bat to the latent neanderthal tendency in Britain today that views a return to the 1970s of The Sweeney as being a healthy one. Don’t, however, see this as a Richard Digence-style reminiss about Spangles, Bazookas and Knock-down Ginger. Or see the Dukes as any kind of revivalists. In fact, there’s more going forward for them than going back.

The Soho Dukes will play the 'Camden Rocks' all-day event at Club Kolis (The Lounge 666), 1 Archway Road, London N19, on 29 February - Leap Day. Their three-track EP Three Sheets To The Wind can be downloaded from www.sohodukes.com.  

Modz rool: Paul Weller at Greenwich Music Time

Picture: Simon Poulter © 2019

When your career has produced a current total of 26 original albums (14 as a solo artist, six each with The Jam and The Style Council), and you are Paul Weller, you’ve got a certain licence to do whatever the hell you want to. You could, for example, turn your gigs into a two-hour jukebox of hits and send your exclusively middle-aged punters home satisfied, blissfully karaoked-out with sore throats from reliving their youth club days singing along to The Eton Rifles, Going Underground or Beat Surrender. Or you could play to the political climate and revive the prescient Walls Come Tumbling Down, a song as relevant and needed today as it was during the era in which it was conceived.

But, if you are Paul Weller, you’re 61, you’ve been in bands since you were 14, recording since you were 19, and you have produced 26 studio albums, there’s nothing stopping you opening your set at an outdoor summer's evening show with I’m Where I Should Be, a low-key, somewhat obscure track off 2015’s Saturn’s Pattern. Because you can. And he did.

It's hard to truly tell whether the choice of opening song was Weller's little joke, simply as it's hard to tell if Weller ever does joke. I think he does, and the stony face cracked a number of times during Sunday night's closing show of the six-night Greenwich Music Time festival, delightfully staged in the stunning grounds of the Old Naval College next to the Thames (one of London's busiest filming locations, with episodes of The Queen shot there amid the pristine period surroundings). If the opening number caught the audience off guard, My Ever Changing Moods up next restored the crowd to the familiar.

Now, about the crowd. Unsurprisingly, for an act in the public eye for over 40 years, the crowd is default middle-aged. Dadwear is in copious evidence, along with a high propensity of close-cropped balding pates which, when queuing behind, makes you wonder whether you're standing behind a London cab driver you've ridden in and had to put up with his views on, well, everything. Then there are the Weller uberfans, replete in Ben Sherman and Fred Perry shirts, some sporting feather cuts (one even going the full distance with a magnificent mane of grey hair and a camelhair jacket that the Modfather himself would surely approve of. Or laugh at. Again, I'm not really sure).

Over the course of 27 songs, Weller and his band - which included trusted lieutenants Steve Craddock on guitar and Andy Crofts on bass, augmented on occasion by the brass section of Weller protégés The Stone Foundation (who'd opened for their mentor) - covered a wider gamut of the canon that perhaps many in the audience, especially those who'd come in costume, were expecting. There were the brusque, R'n'B rockers like Woo Sé Mama from 2017's A Kind Revolution and Peacock Suit from Heavy Soul, the fourth in Weller's extraordinary - and continuing - purple patch of solo outings, as well as the reminders of his soulfulness: the sublime Broken Stones appearing in the encore, along with an old live favourite, Curtis Mayfield's Move On Up. Earlier in the set, Weller brought out Leah, his daughter with Dee C Lee, to duet on You Do Something To Me, another perennial of the tender side to his songwriting (which also includes A Kind Revolution's standout, The Cranes Are Back - which I would have loved to have heard reproduced live). There was another surprise appearance with former Style Council compadre Mick Talbot coming out to tickle the ivories on Shout To The Top! A pity Merton's finest couldn't have stayed for more.

When The Style Council split, somewhat ignominiously, in 1989 when their record company blocked the release of their fifth and final album, Weller found himself at a crossroads. It was to be the making of him as a national music treasure. Despite having fronted two of the most successful and intrinsically British bands of the 1980s, his first solo album, Paul Weller set him on a path that would result in the 13 albums of rich variety that have followed, and which were heavily drawn from in Greenwich. Above The Clouds drifted dreamily under the partially leaden sky next to the Thames, while Into Tomorrow reminded of the Britpop template that Weller laid the foundation of. Wild Wood provided an early would-be cigarette-lighters-aloft moment, casting grey-haired memories back to the second solo album that really underlined the creativity that had pent up during Weller's brief sabbatical. Later in the set, that album's Can You Heal Us (Holy Man) provided an energetic example  of an album that contained such stompers as Sunflower, Foot Of The Mountain and Shadow Of The Sun, all of which would have been welcome in Greenwich.

Picture: Simon Poulter © 2019

Weller is nothing if not a prolific songwriter, and the number of albums recorded masks the shere scale of songs he's committed to tape: Mermaids and Brushed from Heavy Soul are performed as a brace, and even Strange Museum - co-written with Talbot - is resurrected from the debut solo album. There was even the rare moment of Weller fluffery, with Have You Ever Had It Blue throwing back to the Bass Weejun-wearing, carefree side of The Style Council and that period of mod revivalism that coincided with all things Soho and The Face magazine that occurred when Julien Temple decided to make a film out of Colin MacInnes' nod to 1950s teenage life in London, Absolute Beginners. Looking back, it was all rather naff, but I loved it at the time.

Weller is, and always has been intrinsically cool, and that's why the association with an era of supposed jazz-cool, revived in the mid-80s with the The Style Council's Cafe Bleu album (with sleevenotes from the legendary 'Cappuccino Kid', itself a nod to Bar Italia and that Soho scene), along with Sade and even Everything But The Girl's Eden album, was something of an affectation. After all, that's what mod culture has always been about, as opposed to rock's somewhat obsessive adherence to its earnest blues roots. Whatever culture Weller was hoping to channel in his younger self, manifests itself now, in his early 60s, as simply extraordinarily good songs. Earnestly performed, perhaps, but an encore that includes the soul classic Broken Stones, The Jam's Start!, the Mayfield cover and Town Called Malice, there is an unlikely communion with the 5,000-strong congregation, sitting in this quintessentially British environment. Apart from the more nailed-on devotees, who'd been able to recall the words to Jam songs like Precious and Man In The Corner Shop, the crowd on this Sunday evening in South-East London had been somewhat subdued, perhaps by a somewhat chillier climate than expected, forcing Weller at one point to enquire of his crowd if it was enjoying itself. Of course it was. This was a master at work. Why wouldn't they?

Woodstock, SE3

Picture: OnBlackheath 

When it comes to outdoor music festivals, I’m of the fair weather variety. That is, if it ain’t got a roof, I'll remain under my own. Thus, over the years I’ve focused my festival experience exclusively in Montreux, chiefly as some years you can spend an entire week’s holiday on the shores of Lake Geneva, stay in a nice hotel, eat in nice restaurants and, each night, take the free bus down to the Stravinsky Auditorium to see that evening's A-list line-up. Forget glamping at Glastonbury, this one - even with torrential Alpine summer storms - is mud-free and stress free. And you get to mingle with the artists over the road at Harry’s Bar. It’s not cheap, mind (and I don’t just mean Harry’s), but you are at least conscious of the fact you’re paying a premium for it all and not requiring tetanus injections, going down with Trench Foot, eating overpriced rubber vegan food and being stung by all the other hipster indulgences that have proudly kept me away from Worthy Farm. My luxury yurt has, happily, been the living room, BBC Four’s coverage, a short walk to the fridge and to my own bed.

On his doorstep: Danny Baker
© Simon Poulter 2018

Last weekend, however, I caved in to festival fear to attend OnBlackheath, a two-day, does-what-it-says-on-the tin event in south-east London, and absolutely tremendous event it was, too. I was chiefly drawn by headliners Squeeze, playing literally on their home turf, but also The Divine Comedy, Paloma Faith and the prospect of De La Soul whipping up this profoundly white and middle class enclave into a frenzy of arthritic good times. Sorry to bring up class, by the way, but despite Danny Baker (who lives a matter of yards across the heath from the festival venue) hosting Day 1, and proudly boasting his lifelong connection to this part of London (Deptford-born, raised and schooled, Blackheath dwelling via Bermondsey), the clientele is decidedly white, middle class and middle aged. You know this by the carafes - carafes!!! - of rosé being consumed, and the number of men with floppy grey hair wearing age-defying T-shirts, who clearly work in the creative industries, pushing high-end child transportation around the field. 

But don't be thinking that I'm being sneery about OnBlackheath being, in 80s parlance, a yuppie affair: a safer, family orientated festival you could not find, even with Baker jokingly dubbing it "Woodstock, SE3". Before you've even heard a note of music, your senses are assaulted by the aromas of Caribbean, Vietnamese and Korean food wafting from craft food vans, while children are well taken care of by the obligatory face painting and glitter concessions. This little green enclave of south-east London spans two stages, with a main arena devoted to the two days' major acts, while a tented second hosts groovy acts, such as the venerable and still brilliant James Taylor Quartet, Dirty Vegas (featuring local boy - schooled in Eltham - Steve Smith) and even Steve Davis - yes, that Steve Davis - doing a DJ set. Throughout the show hours, a disco tent pumps out groovy choons for wine-fuelled mums to dance around their handbags. I kid you not.

But it is to the main stage where the big draws are assembled, and the build up to Squeeze on Day 1 is appropriately filled with a theme of British songwriting at its best, albeit with a contrast. First up is dear old Billy Bragg, the 'Big Nosed Bastard from Barking', as the NME used to call him. Still as agit-prop as he was when I last saw him, over 30 years ago on a Red Wedge bill on the South Bank, his punk-meets-folk is probably a little raw for some of the more refined tastes in this audience, but, given the rancid mess that is, currently, the state of British politics, he is brilliantly and fittingly abrasive. Now, grey of beard, Bragg can afford to make light of his resemblance to Jeremy Corbyn (“except that I’m the one with the fucking guitar,” he quips to an already uncomfortable crowd possibly hearing their first swear of the day).

Picture: OnBlackheath

Next up, The Divine Comedy, and a 12-song set including pleasers like Becoming More Like Alfie, Generation Sex, Something For The Weekend, At The Indie Disco, National Express and Tonight We Fly, as well as the brilliant How Can You Leave Me On My Own from their stunning last album, Foreverland. Neil Hannon remains one of Britain's most unsung musical heroes - I suspect he likes it like that - and the hour his sharp-dressed outfit are on stage for provides a reminder - if it was needed - of just how clever a writer he is. It's still impossible to pigeonhole The Divine Comedy: are they rock? Pop? Vaudeville? Anthony Newley incarnate? I'd simply leave it as "genius".

Somewhere much earlier in the day, Danny Baker smashed the proverbial champagne bottle to launch OnBlackheath by announcing that it would be his pleasure to introduce the very first act - someone he's "known since birth" - and the last act of the day, with whom "I went to school with”. The former is none other than 18-year-old Mancie Baker. Yes, the name is no coincidence: it’s the youngest of his three offspring, and a supremely talented singer-songwriter she is, too, boldly getting a thinly-crowded early audience under way with a set of just her and a blue Fender acoustic, singing compositions written in a bedroom just a short walk from the stage. It’s a family affair, too, as the Clan Baker and assorted family friends and neighbours are out in force to support her. Watch this space: I think she’s going to be huge. 

Fast-forward, then, to the evening's finale, Squeeze. Formed, more or less, 40 years previously on the very heath on which we are assembled, they have an unrelenting charm built on the tremendous canon of songs written by Deptford’s Glenn Tillbrook and Greenwich’s Chris Difford. I saw them last year at the O2 Indigo (part of the O2 Arena, built on the site of the Greenwich gasworks, where Difford’s dad worked as the payroll clerk), and it was as joyful a couple of hours of thoughtful pop-rock as it’s possible to have. Moreover, it underlined what Tillbrook and Difford have contributed to post-punk music. So here, a few miles down the road from the O2, Squeeze recreate the same brilliant selection of memorable classics like Pulling Mussels From The Shell, Hourglass, Annie Get Your Gun, Labelled With Love, Goodbye Girl, Another Nail In My Heart, Take Me I'm Yours, Tempted, Slap And Tickle, Is That Love, and of course, Up The Junction and Cool For Cats, ending with Black Coffee In Bed. Just those 13 songs alone would have constituted an incredible gig in their own right, but with the addition of tracks from their last album - the paean to London that was The Knowledge - Squeeze confirmed that they're not just kings of south-east London but a band that, frankly, should be recognised as national treasures. I'm not exaggerating when I say that Difford and Tillbrook is a songwriting partnership in the same breath as Lennon and McCartney, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker.

Squeeze homecoming
© Simon Poulter 2018

Squeeze are, for me, the weekend's undoubted main attraction, but Day 2 brings plenty of good stuff to warrant a full afternoon and evening's attention, with R&B singer-songwriter JJ Rosa kicking things off on the main stage, and another well connected individual, Leon Tlilbrook strumming the second stage into post-prandial life. 

The first major act of the afternoon are The Lightning Seeds, who storm through Sense, Lucky You, Perfect, The Life Of Riley and Pure, with Ian Broudie thankfully ignoring calls for Three Lions (despite one or two members of the band sporting England shirts). I think we've had enough of that song for one summer, thank you. But with a strict evening curfew to observe, the main stage performances come thick and fast. Next up is Corinne Bailey Rae, the Leeds-born soul star who, you'll remember from her self-titled 2006 breakthrough album and hits such as Like A Star and Put Your Records On, a pile of awards, and then a decidedly low profile in the 12 years since (just two more albums - 2010's The Sea and The Heart Speaks In Whispers in 2016. She is, though, an infectious performer, and her set - which includes the 2006 hits - suggests that there's much more to come, albeit at a pace she seems happy to be fully in charge of.

© Simon Poulter 2018

It may now be almost 30 years since De La Soul first emerged with their still lovable album 3 Feet And Rising, with its hippy-dippy mixture of "hip-hop lite" (their words) and psychedelia, so a seemingly lengthy wait for them to reach the main stage is worth it. Within minutes the trio are getting the audience grooving to songs they probably last moved limbs to at university. Noting the family orientation of OnBlackheath, they vow to keep the set profanity-free, a pledge that lasts for only half their allotted time, much to the amusement of children in the crowd. Their parents appear unoffended, willingly joining in the pantomime fun that divides the audience into competing halves, with Posdnuos, Trugoy and Maseo whipping well to do mums and dads into wild frugging with feelgood performances of Me, Myself And I, Eye Know, The Magic Number and Ring, Ring, Ring.

There appears to be a personal pattern to the 2018 OnBlackheath headliners: I only saw Squeeze last October at the O2, and I was back to the Greenwich dome in March to see the second night's star bill, Paloma Faith. Similarly local (well, Hackney), Faith purveys big, brassy retro soul (not dissimilar, in that regard, to Adele) but delivered with a gusto and at times exhausting amount of chatter. She does like to go on, a fact she happily reminds the audience. She has a lot to say, though, and a lot of it is said on her stunning last album, The Architect, tracks from which form the backbone of her Blackheath set. Her songs and their themes revolve around the human condition - often her own, personal experiences - and she's not afraid to tackle the evils of racism, misogyny, homophobia and sexism in society. 

During one lengthy rant I was reminded of the previous evening's Billy Bragg, and the two share an undimmed conviction that their stage is a platform. That might not be everyone's cup of tea, especially if you're expecting a jolly night out waving your arms in the air, but her vow to spread "epic kindness" in her songs is endearing. She may not have - yet - the lengthy career of Squeeze from which to draw on a vast catalogue of witty, poignant, instantly repeatable pop songs, but this second night's headline act is nonetheless a force majeure, belting out blockbusters like Can’t Rely On You and even The Mamas & The Papas’ Make Your Own Kind Of Music. A momentous finale to a couple of delightful days in one of London's more delightful postcodes.

Brother beyond: why Oasis aren't reforming anytime soon

In a week of political rancour, from Helsinki to Westminster, from Brussels to Washington, one tweet yesterday bucked the trend with an apparent gesture of reconciliation: “Earth to noel ... I forgive you now let’s get the BIG O back together.” No, this wasn’t Boris presenting an olive branch to Theresa but Liam Gallagher reaching out to his estranged brother Noel, apparently genuinely interested in reforming Oasis. “I’m not desperate just think it’d be a nice thing to do,” the younger Gallagher added.

So far the brotherly love has not been reciprocated by Noel, and it’s unlikely that it will any time soon. Seeing him and his High Flying Birds recently in the wonderful setting of Greenwich's Old Naval College, Gallagher seemed perfectly at home in his solo skin, drawing on his three HFB albums and a smattering of crowd-pleasing Oasis standards, including Don’t Look Back In Anger, Wonderwall and Little By Little. He walked out on Oasis in August 2009 saying that he “simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer” and that has been the situation since. Indeed, Noel has said relatively little about either his younger brother or Oasis, whereas Liam has maintained a constant stream of invective towards his sibling, mostly via Twitter, including the somewhat comical barb of “Potato”. That said, he also wished his brother a happy Christmas in December last year, raising the prospect of a thaw in their relationship. However, the tweet was later dismissed as a “wind-up”.  And so the tweets have continued.

There’s every chance that yesterday’s supposed peace gesture is another joke by Liam, even if he has said in recent months: “I don’t want to be solo. I don’t want to do it on my own – I’m not a guitar player or a prolific songwriter.” The Gallagher brothers released two of 2017's strongest records in Liam’s As You Were and Noel’s Who Built The Moon?, arguably better albums than anything Oasis produced towards the end of the period with both Gallaghers as members. If - and it’s a big ‘if’ - Noel was to accept Liam’s offer and reform “the Big O”, they would certainly be putting together one of the biggest and most lucrative reunions since Sean Connery agreed to play Bond again in Never Say Never Again.

Simon Poulter © 2018

"He’s rude, arrogant, intimidating and lazy. He’s the angriest man you’ll ever meet. He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup," Noel told Q magazine in April 2009, four months before their bust up at the Rock en Seine festival near Paris, in which Liam is alleged to have thrown a bowl of plums at his brother (“A plum from a plum”, quipped Noel later).

The issue is, perhaps, more deep-seated than typical inter-band creative tensions. Last year Noel revealed that the brothers’ feuding began when they were teenagers, still living at home, and when the senior sibling returned, drunk, from a night out and urinated on his brother’s brand new music centre. Though Oasis were, technically, Liam’s band to begin with, Noel’s joining set them on the path to become one of the biggest British rock bands in history, a trajectory that came with the Gallaghers' headline grabbing antics, from public fights to stage walkoffs and concert no-shows.

For the most part, this was all grist to the mill, generating unprecedented publicity and the resultant record and ticket sales. Post-Oasis, the feuding has, at times, become decidedly nasty. For Liam, in particular, there’s been no let up (”Lots of people say I need to chill out about Noel. Not until they stop Twitter,” he said in one memorable interview.) And so it has gone on.

Noel, for his part, has adopted a position of relative silence as the better part of valour. A resumption of hostilities over Noel’s absence from the concert for victims of the Manchester Arena bombing prompted Liam to comment on an apparently tearful Noel: “NG broke down in tears cmon,” he said in yet another tweet. “You seriously ain't buying that he doesn’t give a f**k. Don't buy into his PR stunt he doesn't give a f**k if the same thing had have gone of [sic] in Edinburgh he'd been up there like a shot ahem.” Noel responded a month later: “He needs to see a psychiatrist. I don’t say that as a joke. Because young Mancunians, young music fans, were slaughtered, and he, twice, takes it somewhere to be about him. He needs to see somebody.” Liam hit back: “As for seeing somebody I bet you and the mrs have got a few on the go you pair of chameleons.”

Frankly it has become tedious, even if occasionally quite entertaining. Liam, with blatant disregard for syntax, grammar or the use of a spellchecker, has made Twitter his medium for assaults on his brother. “I guess it was about him staying relevant,” commented Noel after Liam started the first of his “potato” taunts. “If you’re him, what else is there to tweet about?”. While Noel has recognised that the publicity garnered by the feud has been a boon to business (“As long as he keeps promoting my record, there’s a good boy”), he drew the line in a BBC Radio 4 Front Row interview in which he said “maybe [Liam] should stop tweeting [about me]” for the “ugly” things he’s said about Gallagher’s wife and children. “People come after them, and … it’s not very nice,” said Noel. “It only heightens my resolve that I’ll never walk the stage with that band again for that reason.” That, I believe, is your answer.

Record store daze

Two weeks on from this year’s Record Store Day, Danny Baker may have finally calmed down. His Twitter rant, on the eve of RSD, about record company "vampires" exploiting poor saps like me with limited-edition, available-for-one-day-only pressings of records we probably already own, was particularly fruity. Over several tweets Baker (for almost half a century a voracious record collector himself) frothed with some justification about the Record Store Day "racket" and "this stupid treasure hunt" being "so much less about indy [record] stores than creepy eBay limited editions". And those were some of the milder remarks.

While some of Baker’s eruptions were a tad overblown, he made a good point in that local independent record shops - much like a Christmas present puppy - should be for life, not just one single day. This is an argument supported by Garth Cartwright, who has just written the deliciously insightful Going For A Song: A Chronicle of the UK Record Shop.

"Record Store Day certainly increases turnover for shops and gets them some attention," says Garth, "but the whole RSD 'limited edition vinyl' thing is a scam. You need to be nice to record shops like you are nice to your mother - all year round, not only one day a year!".

Nevertheless, record shops this year reported another day of boffo business, with some doing as much turnover on that day's trading than in the usually moribund entire post-Christmas period. This year’s best sellers, such as David Bowie’s triple-live LP Welcome To The Blackout, helped generate a 16% increase in RSD album sales, with 60,000 LPs sold in the UK as part of the exercise. Rachel Lowe of Brighton’s Vinyl Revolution told the industry trade magazine Music Week that April 21 had been "the best day we've had since opening" and that "the revenue will help our young shop immensely but the publicity and goodwill will last much longer".

Picture: Surrey Comet

Jon Tolley of Banquet Records in Kingston-upon-Thames said that RSD was "hands down our busiest day of the year" and a "great shot in the arm" for the business. He told Kingston’s local newspaper, the Surrey Comet, that Banquet had seen more than 1,000 people queuing up, some since 6.30am the previous morning. "Our business year revolves around Record Store Day, which really lasts at least a fortnight," he said. "It’s a great time to not only celebrate physical music but also the weird and wonderful independent shops who sell it."

Such "weird and wonderful" shops provide a strong component of Garth Cartwright’s book, for which the New Zealand-born author travelled the UK, talking to shop owners, record collectors and even musicians to map both the national history of record shops as well as the state of play today. Going For A Song builds a fascinating picture of record buying culture that transcends the traditional tropes of musty shops staffed by cocky cynics like Jack Black's High Fidelity character, as well as some of the characters who made record shops cathedrals of their worlds - famous patrons such as Bowie and Elton John, and former employees like Dead Or Alive's Pete Burns, Dusty Springfield and, of course, the aforementioned Baker. Some shops, such as Dobells in London's Charing Cross Road, played an integral part in the evolution of Britain's post-war musical habits as a mecca for jazz, blues and folk records, while Liverpool's NEMS department store - whose record section was managed by Brian Epstein - became key to The Beatles' own story, and was, by the 1960s, the most successful record shop outside of London.

Garth Cartwright

Incredibly, though Ground Zero for the British Record Shop was neither in London or in the rock and pop era: it was Cardiff. "Cardiff is home to Spiller’s, the world’s oldest record shop," reveals Garth. "It was founded in 1894 to sell wax cylinders (amongst other electrical goods) and developed its focus on only selling records in the 1920s - and continues doing so today. Why is sleepy Cardiff home to such a historic shop? Because in the late 19th Century it was a booming port and much of the coal trade came through here - a boom town - which meant there were people with lots of money around. And people with money tend to buy new technology. Wax cylinders and wax cylinder players weren’t cheap when they came on the market."

It's long been believed that, as word reached these shores in the 1950s of rock'n'roll, Elvis and the blues, cities with strong maritime links became gateways for imported American music. Garth says there's a little bit of myth to this theory: "Liverpool, another booming port city, and Manchester, a massive industrial city, became home to important record shops," he says, "but I actually don’t think the transatlantic liners provided so many records. What I’ve learnt is that the UK has long been obsessed with American music - minstrels were popular here in the 19th Century and there was a banjo craze at the start of the 20th. Then jazz exploded across the UK, post-World War One, and record labels - both majors and indies - were releasing some jazz, blues and country '78s from then on."

Garth notes that the record industry in the 1960s was (and still is) profoundly London-centric. From a record shop point of view, however, London is only a bit-part player in the story. "Brian Epstein could not get The Beatles a record deal as the London-centric labels were absolutely contemptuous of music from outside 'the Smoke'. That he did came through him being such a good client of HMV, with NEMS selling large amounts of [their] records."

Regional shops became intertwined with their local music culture. "There were regional music scenes, like Merseybeat, across the UK and all reliant on their local record shops," Garth says. "There was no Radio 1 until 1967, so the record shop was where you went to hear new music. The Beatles used to colonise NEMS’ listening booths! The Diskery in Birmingham - still trading today! - was a big place for the early Northern Soul DJs. Selectadisc in Nottingham too. Not that these shops were specialist soul shops - they sold everything but ensure they got R&B 45s for the local mod scene."

Specialist music shops, however, continue to be resilient in the UK music scene, albeit in proportionally smaller numbers than mainstream outlets. "There remain a handful of 'ethnic' record shops that continue to sell music related to their communities," says Garth. "Southall - which once was home to great Indian record shops - now has the Afghan Music Centre. At the bottom of Brick Lane there’s Sangeeta Ltd which still stocks CDs and cassettes from Muslim artists in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Melodi Muzik in Green Lanes is a Turkish shop that focuses on Turkish music and musical instruments and football paraphernalia. Supertone in Acre Lane, Brixton, is an old school reggae shop that also stocks what the owner calls 'big people music', i.e. old R&B, Elvis and Jim Reeves LPs that older West Indians love. In Brighton there’s The Record Album, a vinyl-only shop established in 1948 and run since 1960 by George Ginn - he specialises in soundtracks and showtune albums. George is a lovely man and has a very eclectic stock in the sense of stocking some really weird albums - John Wayne’s one spoken word album! Fabulous!".

The depth and scale of Garth's research for the book is impressive, as is his clear enthusiasm for the characters and stories he encountered along the way. But the book does also reflect the clearly changing landscape: "I landed [in the UK] in 1991 and record shops then were everywhere - from megastores run by Virgin, HMV and Tower Records, to junk chains on the high street like Our Price and basement dance shops selling techno 12"s and beyond. Today very little of that remains: I miss places like Mole Jazz and Beano’s - Europe’s largest second-hand record shop in Croydon. The Tower Records in Piccadilly had really deep stock."

Greenwich's finest - Casbah Records on Record Store Day

© Simon Poulter 2018

Today, says Garth, there are still plenty of good independents on offer with, even, new players opening up: "After the crash of the CD and the megastores, and the high street Top 40 chains, people have retrenched and decided that they like buying vinyl and going to good independent stores. Eel Pie Records [in Twickenham] is a great example of a new shop that has a musical vision - Phil and Kevin love music and have worked in the industry for years so they’ve gone about opening a record shop that reflects their passion and knowledge. They’re not attempting to compete with the supermarkets. Instead, they’re championing fresh, independent music. This is the way forward."

"There’s lots of good shops," he adds, from the specialists I mentioned before through to longstanding outlets like Reckless Records, Sound Of The Universe, Honest Jon’s, Soul Brother and new places like If Music in Soho and Lorenzo’s Record Shack in Peckham." Garth, who lives in south-east London, regularly visits Camberwell's Rat Records as well as my own local emporium, the very brilliant Casbah Records in Greenwich (dangerously located just 600 yards from my front door...).

While the record shop landscape has changed, as chains like Tower Records, Virgin Megastore and Our Price have vanished from high streets over the last couple of decades, the business is still relatively vibrant. Margins might be thin and rents might be high, and while we shouldn't get too carried away by the so-called vinyl "boom", shops like Casbah remain the knowledgeable, if slightly intimidating experiences they've always been. Garth is somewhat cautious: "I think the club-going, DJ-ing youth are into buying records on vinyl, but most people just want to listen to music on their phones." Times have changed, he says: "Back in the 1950s and '60s most people bought their records in Smiths and Currys, and Mantovani was the most popular album seller in the UK," but adds that there remains a resilient core of consumers - semi-obsessive middle-aged blokes like me as well as Millennials and hipsters - keeping the trade going. "So long as there is a developing community of record shoppers I believe there’s a future for good record shops," he concludes.

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Garth Cartwright discusses Going For A Song: A Chronicle of the UK Record Shop in the next Word In Your Ear podcast - details of which will be published here. The book is published by The Flood Gallery and can be ordered via their website.

A slice of reality: Squeeze's The Knowledge

For reasons I can't explain, and would probably require a pyschology professional to help understand, I've always been fascinated by celebrity associations with the environs I occupy. Discovering that John Martyn was born in a house less than half mile from the dwelling where I entered this world was like hitting a rich seam of gold. That Eric Clapton walked the very streets I did growing up, or that Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck haled from districts no more than a bus ride from my front door provided sparkle to an otherwise not particularly thrilling suburban existence.

So now I'm living in Greenwich, I'm discovering an iconic part of London famed not only for its maritime history, but for being the epicentre of one of the great earthquakes - even if one with somewhat erratic aftershocks - of British pop music. For it was around here that Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook found a kindred musical interest that would become Squeeze and endure - more often off than on - for the last 44 years. Difford's superb memoir, Some Fantastic Place: My Life In And Out Of Squeeze charts extensively the ebb and flow of his relationship with Tilbrook, as well as the intrinsic part south-east London (and Greenwich, in particular) has played in their lives, and still does.

These two elements - their relationship and their origins - is an underlying background to The Knowledge, the 16th studio album under the Squeeze name and as musically and lyrically rich as anything they've produced since their recorded debut in 1979. Like all musical partnerships, Difford and Tilbrook's has always been strongly fraternal, a classic case of they only do what they do best when it's been the two of them working together - the former's lyrical wit (recognisably of its geographic origin) whether spoken, written or sung, the latter's melodic ease. Of course, that fraternity has been frequently stretched, often as Difford - as his memoir reveals - has gone off on his own path, encountering demons in the way. But it's a brotherly fabric that even when stretched seemingly beyond shape, it has a welcome habit of retracting back to the state that serves the relationship best.

While their last outing, 2015's Cradle To The Grave (a musical accompaniment to Difford's Deptford schoolfriend Danny Baker's sitcom based on his first memoir) was a first flexing of the Difford/Tilbrook writing muscle in a while, The Knowledge feels like a fully-fledged adventure. And a grand adventure it is, too. Opening track Innocence In Paradise delivers a cinematic Western-theme, while still rooted in London's southern hemisphere, evoking both the social commentary of Up The Junction as well as that perennial pub singalong favourite Cool For Cats. Patchouli sets itself in Difford's Greenwich hometown, referencing Maryon Wilson Park in a nostalgic nod back to some of the tales his book's early chapters covers in entertaining depth. London is a recurring muse in Difford's lyrics, with Rough Ride giving a less than glowing appraisal of the struggles facing Londoners today ("this city we love") while married to a Steely Dan-like funk.

If we were honest, there are few pop acts who can do social conscience without sounding insincere or, simply, corny. Bruce Springsteen can succeed in covering the blue collar human condition whereas Phil Collins singing about homeless people just sounds false. It's all about how you go about it. Thus, A&E, with its gentle jazz-soul, shouldn't deliver anything even remotely cutting about the state of the NHS. But it does. "It wouldn't hurt to give them more," Tilbrook sings about public sector wages. It is, even with a serious message, simply a lovely song.

When Squeeze emerged at the beginning of the post-punk New Wave, they could easily have been categorised as novelty pub rock merchants. But this dismisses Difford and Tilbrook's mastery as songwriters of exquisite, if too often unrecognised class. Final Score is a perfect example - a beautifully crafted, beautifully performed slice of soul - replete with a piano solo former member Jools Holland would be proud of - that lulls you into its arms...until you realise that its about a young boy with aspirations to become a professional footballer being abused by a predatory coach. It's here that you realise that Difford is taking no prisoners with his writing, whether tackling topics as diverse as erectile dysfunction on Please Be Upstanding, record collectors on Albatross, or his relationship with Tilbrook on Two Forks.

One of my frustrations with Squeeze over the years is that they have, too often, only been judged by their hit singles. And while the greatest hits packages that aggregate these songs have, it would appear, kept them solvent during the lean years, the real strength to this band can only be fully experienced in their albums. The Knowledge is a welcome reminder of just why Difford and Tilbrook have been rightfully compared to pop's greatest writing partnerships - yes, a certain pair of Scousers included. Tilbrook has called it their "best-ever record", and he may not be wrong. It's certainly one of the most consistent, soup-to-nuts good albums in their history, one that feels like its been written and recorded with comfort and ease, particularly Difford and Tilbrook being comfortable and at-ease with each other, and rooted in reality - the pain and joy of it.

Remembering 'Black Saturday' - the Blitz on London's docks

© Simon Poulter 2016

With my impending return to London I've commenced the trepidatious process of finding somewhere to live. This, obviously, is no easy task given the capital's spiralling rents and insane house prices, and that anything actually worth inhabiting ends up in the hands of offshore owners before the cement has even dried. However, I plough on regardless, and am looking vogueishly east, rather than returning to the south-western Surrey suburbs I grew up in.

In particular, I'm being drawn to the areas around what used to be London's docks, once the gateway to a third of Britain's imports and the site of London's origins as both the capital and a point of trade established by the Romans. In the 1980s, after the docks had been supplanted by facilities elsewhere capable of handling gargantuan new container ships, the-then Tory government began the process of transforming the area into what became known as Docklands, and the forest of gleaming glass and steel spires it is today.

Even now, 30 years on, looking across the water from Greenwich to Canary Wharf and the Royal Docks, the skyline still seems to serve testament to Thatcherism and the loadsamoney 'yuppyisation' of '80s London. What you don't see so obviously is the social patchwork it created - expensive towers rising from some of London's poorest boroughs, City workers living in lofty, pricey eyries above one of the most culturally and socially diverse populations in the country.

© Simon Poulter 2016

Michael Heseltine, Margaret Thatcher's Environment Secretary, set up the London Docklands Development Commission as an enterprise zone for the redevelopment that would follow. However, it was The Long Good Friday - John Mackenzie’s superb British gangster film, starring Bob Hoskins as ambitious crime boss Harold Shand, which presciently anticipated the birth of Docklands.

With filming starting shortly before the Tory landslide in May 1979, Shand was the most Thatcherite of criminals - running his 'manor' in and around Wapping, Limehouse, Shadwell and the Isle of Dogs, and making a landmark deal with the New York Mafia to invest in the regeneration of the East End. He even invisioned the area hosting an Olympic Games. "What I'm looking for is someone who can contribute to what England has given to the world: culture, sophistication, genius. A little bit more than an 'ot dog, know what I mean?" he tells friends aboard his yacht moored in St. Katherine's Dock.

The other Sunday I took a walk around the Royal Victoria Docks, strolling from the ExCel exhibition centre on one side, past a row of hotels and apartment buildings, underneath the northern terminal of the Emirates Airline (the Boris Johnson-sanctioned attempt at a cable car commute between the Greenwich Peninsular and the docks), past a credible-looking urban beach shining in the late summer sunshine, and onto the southern side which has retained the towering dock cranes.

Like that of my Sunday stroll, the afternoon of Saturday, 7 September, 1940 was similarly warm, with the docks basking in late summer sunshine. That was until the sky turned black with the sight of almost 350 Luftwaffe bombers escorted by more than 600 fighters, unleashing an onslaught that would herald the start of the Blitz - the systematic bombing of the British capital with the intention of demoralising its people.

It was a technique that Hitler had used on the continent, notoriously in Rotterdam the previous May, bringing about the swift surrender of the Dutch for fear of the Germans repeating the exercise on Utrecht and other cities. This time, London's docks, in particular, were singled out as the main target for the German bombers, with Hitler hoping to paralyse London's life and trade by bombing the wharves, warehouses, factories and power stations in the East End and around the Thames Estuary.

That day, 76 years ago tomorrow, became known as 'Black Saturday'. It began shortly after 5pm as the first wave of bombers dropped incendiary bombs, disturbing life in one of London's most vibrant districts. "My sister had gone to Stratford to see an Arthur Askey film," recalled Frank Thorpe, a young boy at the time. "I went with my brother to watch West Ham versus Tottenham. At half-time West Ham were leading 4-1, when the planes came over. They looked so menacing. We rushed home as fast as we could. A stick of bombs dropped not 100 yards away."

Guided by the flames casued by the first wave, a second came along two hours later, with more and more bombers appearing over London as Saturday gave way to Sunday. Across the capital's east and south-east - in Brockley and Catford, Bermondsey, Camberwell and Peckham, Stepney, Mile End, Poplar, Plumstead and Woolwich, civil defence records list entire houses, bakeries and butcher's shops, sugar warehouses and timber yeards, printers and churches, all ablaze. Some properties had been levelled completely, while others partially, with roofs missing and windows blown out. The entire eastern end of London was lit by the bright orange glow of flame.

Len Jones, another schoolboy on September 7, remembers the first German planes arriving overhead: "It was very exciting, because the first formations were coming over without any bombs dropping, but very, very majestic, terrific, and I had no thought that they were actually bombers. Then from that point on I was well aware, because bombs began to fall, and shrapnel was going along King Street, dancing off the cobbles."

As the bombing intensified, and German incediaries gave way to high-explosives, the experience became very different. "The whole of this atmosphere was turbulating so hard that, after an explosion of a nearby bomb, you could actually feel your eyeballs being sucked out. I was holding my eyes to try and stop them going. And the suction was so vast, it ripped my shirt away and ripped my trousers. Then I couldn't get my breath, the smoke was like acid and everything round me was black and yellow. And these bombers just kept on and on, the whole street was rising and falling."

Len's house was destroyed that day. And he saw death for the first time: "Two bodies, two heads sticking up. I recognised one head in particular: it was a Chinese man, Mr Say, he had one eye closed, and then I realised that he was dead."

Between 7 September and between September 1940 and May 1941 some 20,000 Londoners died in the Blitz. London wouldn't be alone, of course, with Coventry, Plymouth and Liverpool also coming under attack in the weeks that followed, but London's docks came in for the heaviest bombardments - with some 25,000 bombs falling on Docklands throughout the Blitz, including the 57 consecutive nights of bombing after the 7th, making it the most heavily bombed civilian target in Britain during the war. But, as Nazi Germany would find to its cost, Hitler's bombing wouldn't break the British spirit.

Despite the daily attrition, London continued to function, Londoners continued to be Londoners. The docks continued to be of strategic importance to the war effort, even harbouring naval ships and submarines. The docks also played a part in D-Day, with the East India Dock being used to pre-assemble the Mulberry harbours before they were towed to Normandy on 6 June, 1944, with landing ships bound for the beaches being loaded in the docks as well.

76 years on, there is little to link the modern Docklands with Black Saturday or indeed the war. Like much of London, the skyline has been transformed by modernity, and ground level transformed by the multiculturalism of a city which is now home to more than 250 nationalities.

The cranes around the docks sit idle, looking somewhat like the giant mechanical 'walkers' from The Empire Strikes Back. Once they were functional, but today they sit alongside the modern housing, like iron statues, strange pieces of modern art, towering like guardians over the wakeboarders, canoeists and cayakers, and the City workers who call this place home.

© Simon Poulter 2016