Thou shalt not read NME.

I have this love-hate affair going on with the hipness. As a post-millennium individual, I am trapped with an infinite identity disorder. When I'm at work at the concert hall (We've had the Arctic Monkeys play. Bite me.) with a lot of bad ass older men, I wear my Smiths shirt and black safety shoes for respect. When I'm at the club with my friends, I wear this season's miniskirt and leggings and I ask whose song this is again and pretend to -"Ah, of course !"- recognise new and upcoming band Ghosts. (Their single Stay The Night is cool, though.)

It's so schizo. But after all, we're all slaves to the rhythm. And to commerce, for that matter. Would we really enjoy listening to the fucking Raconteurs, had Jack White not been in the band ? Where did the skinny jeans all of a sudden come from ? Why are we the one single blog in this solar system who did not blog about Justice ? Who fucking cares ?

In the indie music scene, hipness is as fragile as a dried and framed butterfly left outside in a raging blizzard. In january of 2006, it was so avantgarde to casually sigh: "I wish I could've attended the London Calling Festival at Paradiso, I would've loved to see the Kooks play." Your less well informed conversation partner would go like: "The who ?" And then you looked all "GOTCHA !" and said: "Ah, the Kooks. It's this band from Brighton. They're fab."

Anno now, June 2007, your mom thinks Inside In/Inside Out qualifies as a nice birthday present for her friends . It's the Pigeon Detectives who are on the top of the hill, but already slighty toppling over. New Kids On The Block The Films and the 1990s are at its foot. Bromheads Jacket is halfway down and previously named Kooks have basically fallen into a ravine.

It's all fucking schizo. It's NME-induced mass frenzy. Us hipsters, we're all part of a medieval mob, hunting for witches. Music somehow should inhibit more than a generic 'take away food in a styrofoam box'-feeling. Really, I love going to gigs, but after seeing The Rakes, The Brakes, The Flakes, Turin Brakes, The Hippy Hippy Shakes and The Hungry Hungry Hippoes, I pretty much went numb.

Can't we just stop the frenzy ? Not every new band is the next Beatles/Smiths/Jesus, so stop fucking treating them like they are. (In case of The Arctic Monkeys, it's true though.) It's okay to have bands that are okay instead of brilliant. It's okay to start a band which is not called The Nouns. Calling your band Somebody Still Loves You, You Blokes With Biblical Names, But Thanks To Those Exploding Chemical Toilets, I Think I'll Chose Darkness is pretty pompous, but it shows some creativity at least. It's okay to take NME with a pinch of salt, though I love the letters to the editor and the fact that they dramatically announce a Libertines reunion in every issue. It's okay to go see a gig while you haven't heard a note of the bands music before in your life.

Getting rid of this Big Dick Competition in the indie scene seems nice. Therefore, individuals who mock it deserve blogs. So, as a musical frame for this piece: Art Brut and Dan Le Sac. Art Brut is a British band and sarcasm is its middle name. Here's Formed A Band and My Little Brother (never mind the pictures of someone's little brother that come with the song) off their first album Bang Bang Rock 'n Roll. As a DJ, there's no better way to diss a bad band than to play Formed A Band immediately after their gig. Then, there's Dan le Sac. I've got no idea who the guy is, but his beard kicks the shit out of those worn by Bin Laden, Jim Morrison or Matisyahu and I totally dig his anthem Thou Shalt Always Kill.

Fuck reperitive generic music.

But after all, it's all very ironic and we're all the same. I pretend to distance myself from my definate wannabe-hipness and the fact that I indeed like the new Justice album and the woman on top of NME's Cool List: The Gossip's singer Beth Ditto.


I saw The Gossip in concert last Wednesday and it was fab. Beth Ditto has the nicest voice, Standing In The Way Of Control is going to be this years Seven Nation Army and I'm not going to waste any bytes talking about her weight and sexual orientation. That's what the NME is for. The Gossip: just another band, but as a band, they're well deserved mountaineers.