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“Nothing really matters…”

Today we awake to the news that Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody has been voted the nation’s favourite Number 1 single as part of an ITV series called, um… well, called The Nation’s Favourite Number 1 Single.

First off, let’s spare a thought for all those fans of The Ketchup Song, Shaddap You Face and most importantly Blazin’ Squad’s early Noughties smash-hit Crossroads who were let down by the decision. I’m sorry Flava, Frenzie, Tommy-B, Freek & the gang – you may rap like Reebok-clad angels but I’m afraid your falsetto skills fall woefully short of Freddie’s.

Secondly, this constant opinion polling is pretty bizarre. We all know how it’ll pan out – Del Boy falling through the bar is the funniest thing that’s ever happened, Star Wars is the greatest film of all time etc. So quite what the point is of yet another vote to decide that Clearly The Greatest Song Of All Time is indeed officially still The Greatest Song Of All Time does seem to have been lost somewhere in the haze. Still… people love countdowns, don’t they?

Anyhow, all that nonsense aside, Queen – we salute you. There will never be another band like Freddie, Brian, Roger and John.

Also, here in The Lightyears, we’re proud to be able to say that (along with Queen, obviously) we’re one of the few acts ever to have performed Bohemian Rhapsody at Wembley Stadium.

Mind you, we also once performed La Bamba at a jumble sale, so it’s swing and roundabouts.

Beware… incoming music rant.

I’m hacked off.

I’m hacked off.

That’s right, hacked off. (AKA: a hair’s breadth away from writing a snitty e-mail to the Guardian.)

On Saturday night, at the climax of an epic concert, two of rock ‘n’ roll’s best-loved performers – Springsteen & McCartney – joined forces onstage at Hyde Park. This has never happened before. And just to ensure nobody was tempted to forget this momentous collaboration, an unnamed jobsworth operating on behalf of the concert organisers carved himself a dubious spot in music history by pulling the plug on the PA system actually during the pair’s raucous rendition of Twist & Shout at the end of the night.

The sound apparently dampened, went a bit weird, then suddenly silent. The 65,000-strong crowd were as confused as Bruce, who at first continued addressing them through the microphone before realising it wasn’t turned on. Basically, here you have a man – the Boss, no less – who has dedicated his life to giving mind-blowing live performances and is just in the process of wrapping up what was by many accounts an absolute belter when some berk in combat trousers and a Black & Decker utility belt shut the whole gig down because the band had apparently ‘broken their curfew’.

As Springsteen’s guitarist Stevie Van Zandt rightly pointed out, this wouldn’t happen anywhere in the world apart from England. And I personally believe this is because we are gradually falling foul to a culture of litigation, where stuck-up local residents complain about concert noise and, after threatening legal action, effectively harangue local councils into imposing laughable sound limitations on venues, on pain of losing their licenses. So in truth it would be unfair to blame the concert organisers who pulled the plug on this particular occasion, because they’re really just trying to keep their jobs. No, instead we should all be blaming the residents of Mayfair and Knightsbridge who, upon purchasing their absurdly palatial London penthouse pads SLAP-BANG NEXT TO THE CONCERT VENUE HYDE PARK waste little time in complaining to anyone who’ll listen that, hang on a minute, there I was just a-going about my business when one day I woke up to discover I was living next-door to a concert venue. That’s right, Residents Of Central London, I blame you for this ridiculous circus of health and safety regulations, and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that you are BRINGING ABOUT THE DECLINE OF CIVILISATION.

We’ve inherited this culture of blame from the States, and we need to be a bit bloody careful. Accidentally hacked your leg off with a saw while pointlessly wandering drunk through a building site with a bag on your head? Yeah? Don’t worry, our team of spineless failed lawyers who when not otherwise tied up poisoning kittens for money will happily fill their time shooting endless disingenuous TV ads destined to clog up the dead air between parts one and two of Jeremy Kyle’s ‘Young Mums On Crack’ midweek special and carefully designed to lure witless people into suing their own grandmothers for fat wadges of cold, hard unearned cash.

In The Lightyears we’ve been on the sharp edge of this sort of thing ourselves. Countless venues we’ve played at have been forced to hardwire so-called ‘sound limiters’ into their electrical circuitry, maliciously designed by (I can only imagine) Lucifer himself to instantly cut all the power in the venue should it dare to creep over the laughably cautious pre-set maximum. The thing is, though, it would be okay if this pre-set maximum sound level allowed you to, I don’t know, PLAY A GIG, but it’s more like ‘Hey, yeah sure, come along with your guitars and your drums and just totally do your thing, right, but you’d better hope one of the earwigs living in the skirting board doesn’t inadvertently belch because that could very well max out our limiter’. We played a gig in a tudor barn once, a barn lumbered with particularly severe limiting technology, and while we’d managed to just about shoehorn the level of our instruments down underneath the red line, every time the crowd applauded at the end of a song the whole place was plunged into silent darkness. Ridiculous. And all because some wrinkled miser in a neighbouring cottage – who was probably half-deaf anyway – didn’t like the idea of anybody having fun within a ten-mile radius of their bleak little existence.

I’m a big fan of the principles put forward by Utilitarianism – a man should act in such a way that increases happiness for the maximum number of people. Simple idea, simple philosophy. So I don’t have a lot of time for the decision taken on Saturday night that made the lives of sixty-five thousand fully paid-up music fans considerably more rubbish in favour of pandering to the fatuous whim of some cantankerous, over-privileged, probably-only-lives-in-Hyde-Park-because-her-ancestors-oppressed-lots-of-poor-people, Daily Mail-reading coiffed moose in a blouse who’s decided she can’t hear the closing credits of Morse over the sweet sound of one of the world’s greatest living musicians.

There. I told you I was hacked off.

Never judge a book by its cover

It’s emerged in the press that Katy Perry‘s insurance agents are concerned that, one of these days, she’s going to come a cropper on one of her bizarre stage outfits.

The Pezmeister has upset her insurance company by insisting on wearing a mechanical rotating bra during live gigs, and now they’re worried her hair might get stuck in the mechanism and cause a serious neck injury (I should imagine Katy’s publicists, on the other hand, are rubbing their palms together at the PR jamboree that would follow the headline ‘Popstar decapitated live onstage by malfunctioning brassiere’).

Perry’s insurers are probably justified in their anxieties, although of course her wardrobe antics do somewhat pale in comparison to Gaga’s – a woman who, when she’s not dressing up in pork underpants, is more than likely to be seen accepting a Grammy in nothing but a few strips of rather cleverly positioned duck tape.

But the thing is, insurance issues aside, all of this just exposes the superficial farce that is pop music these days. What are we doing endlessly discussing the outrageous garb of this popstar or that when really we should be debating the quality of their music…? Isn’t that judging proverbial books by their covers? I just think it’s really sad when musicians feel like they have to dress up, like they have to play court jester in ridiculous costumes, when really they should just let their music speak for itself.

I just think it’s really sad.

Always stay one step of Coldplay…

When it comes to Coldplay and The Lightyears, it turns out that dodgy early band names (us: “4ever”; them: “Pectoralz”), a piano-playing Chris and a hardline policy of firing any members who use hard drugs aren’t the only things we have in common.

Yesterday it was announced on MTV that the world-conquering four-piece will be releasing a comic book series to accompany their recent album Mylo Xyloto. The story will be based on the eponymous, Manga-inspired character that the band created ahead of releasing the album last year, and follows the young warrior Mylo as he fights on the front line of a war in the mysterious world of Silencia.

Thing is, chaps-out-of-Coldplay, I don’t want to start one of those Detroit rap-battle feuds by slinging mud at you (imagine that: “My degree’s better than yours, Buckland” / “Pipe down Russell, you can’t even pull off a basic home-made hummus” etc), but we nailed the comic thing years back. Anyone who’s been following us for a while will remember The Lightyears Comic Strip, a classic three-box affair in which we went all Charlie Brown Peanuts on your asses. As a special treat, here’s a wee reminder of some of our cartoon adventures:

With a comic strip in the bag, it was only inevitable that at some point we would go the whole hog and write a novel. I’m working on getting the thing published as we speak; in the meantime, check out my brand-new readings at www.ProjectLightyears.com.

All Killer, No Filler

I’ve got a bit of a man-crush on Brandon Flowers. He’s so rugged, and he plays the keyboards. Which is a pretty rare combination.

The Killers are making a comeback this year with a new album called “Battle Born“, and today sees the official premiere of opening single Runaways (you can have a sneaky listen here on Gigwise.com – the track’s already been leaked). What I love about this band is their strong sense of place, and identity. This song, like most of their stuff, just shouts Las Vegas.

In The Lightyears we’ve been talking a lot about sense of place in relation to our new album. In my head I want it to conjure up the image of England’s rolling countryside, because that’s where we grew up. So I guess if So Solid Crew are ‘urban’, you might call us ‘rural’. Or ‘pastoral’. Pastoral piano pop. Catchy, huh?

Incidentally, while we’re talking about The Killers, I’d like to wager that we’re the only band in the world to have played ‘All These Things That I’ve Done’ in South Korea and sung ‘I’m in Seoul but I’m not a soldier’. I know – it really is clever, isn’t it? Top-draw political satire, considering our extreme proximity to Kim Jong-il at the time. Read more in my 2008 Korean tour diary.

Sarcasm is the lowest form of twit

Razor-tongued folk balladeer Frank Turner has raised the ire of Nicki Minaj‘s fanbase by openly criticising her on Twitter for selfish and idiotic behaviour backstage at T In The Park. Apparently, after turning up late, she demonstrated a complete lack of respect for the tech crew and then crashed onto stage in a huff only to mime the entire thing anyway.

Franky T is one of my favourite songwriters so he’d have my support anyway, but good on him for taking a stand (you can read Frank’s personal blog about the incident by clicking here). There’s no place for divas in music anymore, it’s not the 80s.

Anyway, if you’re looking for a source of endless amusement, carry out a Twitter search for @fthc and have a little sift through the backlash from Minaj’s army of seething, hormonal followers. Here are some highlights:

Harry O’Toole
@NICKIMINAJ fans are the best and there is so many shes more known better singer than @fthc

Romandelux
@fthc BITCH stfu I kno my ARTIST Nicki wasnt disrespectful until yall showed yall asses now f*ck out my mentions TRICK

And my personal favourite…

TimbabweSyed
@fthc F*K U U HAS NO TALENT NICKI HAS ALL TALENT U CANT RITE YOUR A ASSDICK

Now then. To describe these Tweeters as semi-literate would, to be frank (no pun intended), be a little insulting to the semi-literate. At least the semi-literate are halfway there. Romandelux, on the other hand (by the way, what is that – posh Italian loo-roll?), wouldn’t know what a sentence was if it punched him in the face, and there’s so much irony in the accusation ‘U CANT RITE’ that I think I might actually pass out.

Oh, and Ms Minaj, if you happen to be reading, please relinquish some of The Talent. It’s not fair to hoard all of it. The Wanted are practically starving over here.

But anyhow, all that nonsense aside… it’s amazing isn’t it, Twitter? It has this unique light-the-blue-touch-paper quality to it that’s strangely irresistible. You can cause chaos with just a few casual words slung from your smartphone, and this got me thinking – if I was going to incite Twitter riot, how would I do it? Here are some ideas.

1. @beyonce Actually Miss Knowles, I am ready for your jelly. Because I BLOODY LOVE jelly.
2. @kelis Your milkshake brought me and several other boys to the yard and, when we got there, there was not only no milkshake but we were stuck in a yard. #falseadvertising
3. @tinietempah Apparently you’ve got so many clothes that you keep them at your aunt’s house. Don’t get me wrong, I’m impressed, but I really don’t think you’ve thought this through. #underpantsemergency

I’d never really send any of them, of course. I’m far too nice. #actuallyscared

That’s our bit done – now bring on the sport…

Yesterday afternoon I arrived back in London after our trilogy of Olympic Torch Relay concerts, exceptionally tired but incredibly proud of what everyone has achieved over the last few days.

Tuesday evening kicked off with a rendition of our Olypmic anthem “There With You” to a crowd of thousands on Peterborough Embankment (see photo on the right). We then dashed around to Peterborough Cathedral to perform for the BBC cameras while the torch itself passed by (check out a video by clicking here). Finally, we dragged ourselves out of bed at 5am yesterday to once again serenade the Olympic Torch from the Town Square, and I got a chance to chat live with DJ Paul Stainton from BBC Radio Cambridgeshire (click here and scroll through to 25mins 30secs to listen).

All in all, an incredible three days. And certainly the largest unicorn count of any gigs we’ve ever played. Thanks to the many hundreds of children and adults who spent months learning and practising the piece, and then sung their hearts out time after time. You were awesome.

Chris Lightyear

ps. The only slight dampener – other than the rain of course – was that the BBC, despite sending cameras down specifically to film us, decided against screening the performances in the end (apologies to anyone who sat in front of the telly waiting for us!) and word is we were bumped from the One Show by footage of a lost cat in a church. I was a little disappointed about this at first but, on reflection, TV companies do have to make sure they point the media spotlight on the stuff that matters. I mean, how often do the great British public get a chance to look at cats? Exactly – almost never. It’s not like you can just ‘load up YouTube’ and expect cats at the touch of a button.

The calm before the storm

We’ve got a few hours off before the soundcheck for our Olympic Torch concert, so we’ve come to Wetherspoon’s. Which is exactly what Bono did before Live Aid.

Danny is eating a massive breakfast. Everyone else in here is an alcoholic.

Anyway, here’s the latest. We’re performing ‘There With You’, our olympic song, on Peterborough Embankment at 5.35pm with an army of singers and drummers from across the city. We’ll then be hotfooting it to the cathedral, where we’ll be performing it again for the BBC cameras. As far as I’m aware, this second performance will be going out live on BBC Look East West.

Tomorrow morning, at an hour that’s already making my eyes water, we’ll be playing a stripped-back acoustic version of the song that is apparently also making some kind of appearance on (probably regional) breakfast TV. After the event, I’m hoping some of this footage will be available to view on iPlayer – we’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, keep an eye on The Lightyears’ Twitter feed for rolling updates, photos and nuggets of devastating wisdom.

Okay then. I’m off to think of something erudite to say to Seb Coe later. So far I’ve come up with “Lordy, lordy. What a day”.

You’re right. That needs work.

Our turn with the Olympic torch…

It’s 7.15am and, I’ll be honest, I’m pretty exhausted. A week of manically preparing Project LYs for launch followed by a gig in Scotland and a frankly dangerous level of partying (on Saturday, before the gig, I ate a whole asparagus and quail’s egg salad to myself and didn’t even pause before knocking back well over a quarter of a glass of champagne) has left me with some kind of non-specific illness and a sleep-overdraft of about 400 hours.

However, no time to sit around in my pants moping because things are about to kick off on the Olympic Games front. Last year we wrote a song for the Peterborough leg of the Olympic Torch Relay and tomorrow we’ll be performing it live on the Peterborough Embankment with 800 singers and drummers from across the city. It’s just been confirmed that Seb Coe will be making an appearance; click here for more details.

As far as I’m currently aware, the performance will be going out live on telly for anyone in the Eastern region, and highlights may appear on the One Show later in the evening. The following morning (Weds 4th) we’re performing a stripped-back version of the song in the town centre and rumour has it this may get coverage on breakfast television. TV scheduling often tends to change at the last minute, of course, so stay on your toes! More to come on that throughout the week. Either way you ought to be able to catch it on iPlayer.

Have a good week folks, and keep an eye on this blog / Facebook / Twitter for updates. Also, don’t forget to visit Project Lightyears to download your free copy of our new version of This House Will Burn.

ps. somewhere in the middle of all this I need to make time to find myself a literary agent. Hmm. Could forego sleep? Either that or invent time travel. Any other suggestions, let me know.

Book Slam – where fiction meets live music

Last week I went to my first Book Slam night.

Book Slam – “London’s best literary club night” – is a monthly event bringing together novel readings and live music. As a musician who has recently completed a novel about his band, this seemed like the kind of place I needed to be hanging out.

The event took place at the Clapham Grand, a venue we’ve played many times ourselves (if you need reminding, here’s a photo and here’s a video). The main thing that struck me during the evening was I’d never heard the Grand so quiet. There was a pin-drop silence as the guest authors read, despite the generous 400-strong audience in attendance.

Novelists Chris Cleave (Incendiary, The Other Hand) and Marina Lewycka (A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, Two Caravans) both read from their latest releases, thoroughly charming the attentive crowd. Inbetween their sets, ukelele-wielding singer-songwriter Purple Ferdinand provided the meat to the multi-media sandwich with tinkly Lady Gaga covers and a sprinkling of her own songs.

I couldn’t help but feel that this is just the kind of gig I’d like to do with The Lightyears. I think it could work really nicely if the readings tied in directly with the live music and, with the album we’re working on being directly inspired by my novel, there’s potential there for a link between the two art forms.

You can find out more about Book Slam by clicking here. Give me a shout if you’re heading to one of their future events – chances are, I’ll be there.

Oh, and if you haven’t yet had a chance, check out my new novel readings at the Project Lightyears micro-site. We just need another 270 views to unlock our slowed-down, acoustic recording of “This House Will Burn”.

ps. if you fancy helping me along, drop Book Slam an e-mail and tell them how much you’d like to see The Lightyears at one of their events. If it works, I’ll buy you a drink after the show. 😉

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