Chuck Klosterman on Noel Gallagher; Me and “Be Here Now”

13 May 2012 ~ Chris Cocca ~ 1 Comment

I somehow missed this Klosterman/Gallagher Grantland interview from last fall but Noel’s in great form as usual. Timely for our purposes in the context of my recent suggestion, prompted by a Klosterman quote, that Axl Rose and Noel Gallagher cut some tracks together. A.V. Club’s Steven Hyden explores the place of Be Here Now in the Gallagher cannon given Noel’s suggestion that we play his career in reverse for an alternate narrative of artistic expectation.

Hyden gets close to saying what I’ve been saying for a while: Be Here Now is going to be one of those albums that people come back to and say, it’s not the first two Oasis albums, but it’s pretty great. It’s who they were then, and it’s who we, the people who loved it, were, too. Definitely Maybe and Morning Glory were almost perfect. Be Here Now was a victory lap that may have misfired, but it was a hell of a lot of fun, and it made sense that the biggest band in the world (“the first post-grunge band to be massive in every way,” as Klosterman says) act the part. And they did. And that record got me through my senior year of high school. I’ll always love it.

Noel Gallagher Talks About Upcoming New Material and Playing Coachella (rollingstone.com)
Noel Gallagher Wants to Be President, Google Thinks He’s Roger Daltry (chriscocca.com)

Noel Gallagher Wants to Be President, Google Thinks He’s Roger Daltry

6 Mar 20126 Mar 2012 ~ Chris Cocca ~ 4 Comments

I am huge Oasis fan and an even bigger fan of Noel Gallagher, creative force. He’s been great on American late night TV this year promoting Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, his first solo album since leaving Oasis amid great tumult in 2009.

While it’s true that Oasis never topped their first two albums critically or commercially in the US, there’s a lot to like in the catalog that came after (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, starting with the 1998 b-side album The Master Plan. Ten years, a handful of great singles and some okay albums later, 2008’s Dig Out Your Soul came forth as the best Oasis album since 10th-grade English. (That said, I remain an unabashed, un-ironic fan of 1997’s Be Here Now.)

Earlier today, my best friend and Oasis-loving partner in all manner of existential creativity for the past 20 years (let’s call him Ramon) sent me a new piece from CNN.com: Noel Gallagher: ‘If Obama loses, I’ll run for president myself’. As Noel himself might say, “bloody brilliant.”

When I was a kid, the honesty and swagger Oasis presented felt like inside information. “We’re great and we know it. That’s all the really matters.” One of the best things about that attitude in the early days was that it was totally untested and undefended. There would have been no point. It’s an existential conviction, an ontological statement that resonated with the entire youngish population of the UK and a good chunk of us here. It came to us in the wake of Nirvana, in direct, deliberate contrast to sentiments like “I Hate Myself and Want To Die.” When I spent a few weeks in England the summer before Oasis released Morning Glory Stateside, Oasis’ grip on British culture was as inescapable as it was brazen, and it was something to behold. That fall, it took root in bits and pieces here, never reaching monoculture status for reasons the piece above gets into.

Still, all these years later, I find myself watching recent Noel interviews on YouTube when I can’t sleep or when I need a special kind of affirmation. I can’t bear to watch the old ones…I’ll get too nostalgic. The thing about Noel in his 40s is that the pomp and confidence is tempered (never dampened) by the facts of his successes. The brazen upstart is now a winsome statesman of the same old plucky mettle. It’s wonderful to see.

Also, this:

The thumbnail looks like Paul McCartney, but it’s Roger Daltry. In any case, it isn’t Noel.

5 Mar 20125 Mar 2012 ~ Chris Cocca ~ Leave a comment

Well said, Mike.

broken liturgy:

“Sometimes I can’t say the things I want to because it’s out of reach.
I am not able to say it, regardless of how hard I try. I stare blank
stares and feel like I have no mouth.Then the art in each of us starts
to speak through another. I hear it perfectly said and am satisfied,
relieved in a way, and when I hear it I laugh the laugh of bona fide
truth, obvious delight….It has taken me a half century to see we sing
the songs the other can’t sing – that we give each other the voice we
do not have of ourselves alone.”

– Michael Nesmith (today on Facebook)

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The Second Coming of Jeff Mangum

27 Feb 20121 Feb 2018 ~ Chris Cocca ~ Leave a comment

NPR has a pretty cool piece up about Neutral Milk Hotel genius Jeff Mangum. He’s playing at Coachella this year along with acts like James, Mazzy Star, and Noel Gallagher (and little indie bands like Radiohead and some hip-hop up-and-comers called Dre and Snoop).

I am, however, going to a Beach Boys 50th Reunion Tour show in May and am beyond stoked. Brian Wilson will be there. That’s all that matters.

Jeff Mangum Adds West Coast Tour Dates (stereogum.com)

Divergent Visions of the Past: What Would Google+, YouTube, and Facebook Have Looked Like in 1997? (And Some Guest Apperances)

11 Dec 2011 ~ Chris Cocca ~ 2 Comments

Once Upon has their answer. I love the spirit of their project, but I believe the truth is much simpler, and it’s called AOL. Circa 1997.

Speaking of which:

Beck in 1997

I literally cannot watch that video for fear of the uncontrollable mourning that might pour forth. Not a longing for my teenage years as such, but a sadness at how the Beckthos just didn’t stick.

MTV in 1997