Another week, another episode of Hugs and Kisses from Mr. Everett True, who recently moved from the UK to Australia and managed to piss off his new neighbors by insulting national treasures like Silverchair and the Vines within six months of living there. Australian Immigration officers can reach him at everett@planbmag.com

Hugs and Kisses

The Relocated Outbursts of Everett True

This week: Everett True Vs Australia, part 315

The whole Everett True Vs The Australian Street Press saga rumbles on—a brief kiss here, a barbed insult there.

I got interviewed by a mid-morning TV chat show and had my musical taste called into question by a pair of U2 fans. I’ve been pilloried and praised with mind-numbing force. I've been accused of engineering the entire ruckus single-handedly as a way of forcing my name back into the headlines. I’ve been courted, cursed and championed. One of India’s newspapers (The New Delhi) has been moved to write, “What we need is an Everett True.”

Another week, another episode of Hugs and Kisses from Mr. Everett True, Plan B editor at large, White Stripes book author, all-around bearded dude who's recently relocated to Brisbane. Harass him about liking the Spice Girls at everett@planbmag.com — SOTC's Home Spice

Stereo Total photo by Cabine

Hugs and Kisses

The Relocated Outbursts of Everett True

This week: Stereo Total and the live scene in Brisbane

Stereo Total, "Carte Postale" (MP3)
Stereo Total, "Party Anticonformiste" (MP3)

Folk dance like it's the Eighties here—all uncoordinated arms flailing at their sides, feet moving on tiny imaginary bike pedals, heads shaken furiously from side-to-side. The girls all dress in pleated skirts and Olympia tops: the boys, straggly and occasionally bearded, struggle to keep up (as always). There's a semi-pogo happening in spots—or at least the energy of one: a fair amount of grabbing another dancer and swinging round for three seconds or so, raising the occasional arm in the air. No hair-slides sadly, but a few badges pinned to lapels—dude, this is Brisbane, after all. The crowd at the front is resolutely mid-twenties. Behind, the age shoots up by several years. It's making me very happy, watching this bustle and giggle of enthusiasm being exerted stage-front: it's making me feel far more at home than anything this side of our local ice cream vendor; it's making me begin to think that I've definitely chosen the right city to stop in, that there's no way Sydney or Melbourne would support this sort of unabashed support—too cool. And you know what? The band on stage is as un-cool as I've seen for many a long year.

And they're glorious! Recently, I've been having mainstream Australian TV folk poking fun at my taste because I admit to a fondness for The Spice Girls. But, but, but, they're entertainment! They have great pop songs, and harmonies, and voices you can recognise in a darkened lift. And these folk are mainstream…Jesus, they probably think Bono is cool! Are The Spice Girls un-cool? Is Stereo Total? Should there be any sort of differentiation simply 'cos the last time I saw one was at the front of an Italian stadium packed with 20,000 screaming pubescent girls and the other one was at the front of Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art packed with a couple of hundred of reasonably excited arty and lesbian and hipster sorts? Both are great. Both dress ridiculously, in clothes that just can't exist outside of punk designer hovels. And both are top-class entertainment.

Say what you want about Everett True, but you ever cover a song with Nirvana?

Hugs and Kisses


The Continued Outbursts of Everett True

THIS WEEK: Perfect Unpop

I received a pamphlet in the post yesterday morning from prime agent provocateur Bill Drummond. In it, he announced his intention to write a book in precisely a year, the book to articulate his vision of ‘future music’ (my quotes, not his)—a time when music and the means to create music has been entirely forgotten, but people still have an urge to create sound, only with pure voice. He’s been hearing these voices in his head for a while now, a choir: and he wants to give some form to their beauty. Written form, I guess.

The former Number One UK hit-maker feels that the means to produce music is so ubiquitous it’s stifling music’s creativity. For a few years now, he’s been holding an annual No Music Day, wherein the participants actively avoid all recorded music. Amen to that, brother. I’ve long since ceased watching TV, listening to the radio…long since preferred performing a cappella on stage myself to virtually any other musical form. The moment matters, not the documentation of that music. Folk are way too concerned with the documentation.

It's Tuesday, which means another episode of Hugs and Kisses, a weekly column from UK-based music writer Mr. Everett True, author of Nirvana: The Biography (da Capo Press)--one more fucking book about one of the most overrated bands of the Nineties--and publisher of Plan B Magazine, a title dedicated to writing about music (and media) with barely a nod towards demographics.

As we've told you before, True is famous/infamous for all sorts of stuff. He's the guy who gets "credited" with introducing Kurt to Courtney, possibly "inventing grunge," and, on the eighth day, giving us riot grrrl. Okay, one of those previous statements was a lie. -- Yr friendly blog host

Hugs and Kisses


The Continued Outbursts of Everett True

THIS WEEK: Behemoths of ROCK

Blame Tad.

In case you're just joining us, a little background. Today marks the 25th installment of Hugs and Kisses, a weekly column from UK-based music writer Mr. Everett True, author of Nirvana: The Biography (da Capo Press)--one more fucking book about one of the most overrated bands of the Nineties--and publisher of Plan B Magazine, a title dedicated to writing about music (and media) with barely a nod towards demographics.

And so we fondly recall six months' worth of one-sentence introductions, Kurt Cobain namechecks, and backhanded Vampire Weekend compliments as Hugs and Kisses enters its quarterlife. -- Yr friendly blog host

Hugs And Kisses

The Continuing Outbursts of Everett True

THIS WEEK: Kate Nash, Part Two

Kate Nash headlines the Bowery Ballroom on Wednesday, January 9. The show already sold out. But you're in luck: she's also playing the Virgin Megastore tomorrow night (Tuesday the 8) at 7pm.

This is the second part of my Kate Nash interview [part one here], conducted a couple of months back in Brighton, England. Since then, the world has moved on. World leaders have been assassinated, End Of Year polls have been compiled and Ms Nash is much in demand on British TV. She's charming, talented, sharp, appeals to a certain female part of the 'indie' demographic that is often overlooked - but one wonders how much of that will survive past the initial ritual mauling. But 'til then, why not enjoy her Number One UK album Made Of Bricks? I know I have: especially with the sound of laughter from the self-proclaimed hipsters ringing in my ears (Pitchfork gave it 5.5 out of 10 - one of these days they'll start evaluating albums using words).

One thing not on Everett True's desktop: the long-awaited Kate Nash interview tape.

Kate Nash, waiting for Everett True to run her interview.

Hugs and Kisses

The Outbursts of Everett True

THIS WEEK: a lost interview tape and a recollection of a concert 10 days past.

I've lost my Kate Nash tape.

For the (ahem) possibly the last time this year, Everett True examines the contents of his desk. But first, he thought it'd be pertinent for us to remind you again that Entertainment Weekly once called the following author, Everett True, "the man who invented grunge." But wait, there's a disclaimer: "Now I come to think on it," he writes, "I've never actually seen that phrase written down, except on the sleeve to my first 'proper' book Live Through This (Virgin, 2001, but long since out-of-print) and my initial source for the quote was an inebriated Jon Langford from The Mekons in a Chicago bar circa 1993." Point being: Everett True invented grunge. E-mail him at everett@planbmag.com.

Hugs And Kisses

The Outbursts of Everett True

THIS WEEK: The increasingly tired device of examining--and writing about--objects on Everett True's desk continues. Possibly for the final time: after all, we have an exclusive Kate Nash interview to run with ...

ITEMS ELEVEN AND TWELVE: Two promotional Happy Mondays CDs--their two finest moments, actually--Bummed (1988) and the splendiferous, sprawling, monstrous, drug-riddled and era-defining Pills 'N' Thrills & Bellyaches (1990). If you want to recreate the spirit and fug and off-yr-head dementia that assailed British youth at the start of the Nineties during those few crazed months when rave culture and indie crashed and exploded and started breeding full on, you're far better off looking here than to Primal Scream, who were only ever (exquisite) courtesans; or to The Stone Roses, whose records never created the borderline hysteria of the live performances. These grooves reek of dry ice, sweat and hedonism: these tracks feel like they'd fall apart any second if it wasn't for the relentless groove, the sodden disco mania. Both these reissues come via Rhino, and both come with the requisite bonus tracks and discs featuring 12-inch versions and Vince Clarke mixes and 'rare' live footage and the 'Hello Girls' mix of 'Mad Cyril,' etc--but that's not what concerns us here.

What concern us here are the following factoids.

Factoid one: while reviewing Happy Mondays for popular British musical paper NME, upstairs in a London pub in support to the doubtlessly redoubtable McTells, I used the word 'grungy' to describe their guitar sound. This was in 1987. Grungy. That's right. Uh-huh. Happy Mondays invented Seattle and Kurt Cobain and fucking MTV 120 Minutes several years before anyone even thought of calling Billy Corgan a puffy-faced twat.

Factoid two (momentary diversion): Rowetta Satchell--famous for, uh, being the last remaining female entrant in the first series of The X Factor in the UK (Americans may call it something else)--featured on backing vocals on Happy Mondays' only US (minor) hit, 1990's 'Step On'. Rowetta Satchell was delirious/crazy with a voice to call the angels down to Manchester for a quick bevy to: absolutely the only time ever, in the entire history of TV, that anything involving Simon Cowell has been worth watching, and...she was in Happy Mondays! That is so perfect.

Factoid three (clears throat): well, I was going to tell the story of how I woke up one evening in Valencia, blood and vomit and water strewn across my back, my bed and my room, my photographer screaming at me for 15 minutes straight...and when, how I finally calmed him down enough to ask how I managed to get in such a state, he listed five different fist-fights with various bands, an escapade with security that resulted in myself being thrown down three flights of stairs, being dragged across the gravel in front of the hotel, strangling the van driver at 80mph...and how, when Bez (the really fucked up one out of Happy Mondays) encountered me that evening, he gravely announced me to be "the most fucked up person" he'd ever seen...but I thought better of it. Fuck rock'n'roll. It fucked most my friends.