Hard Going

While in Sligo town last week with The Mad Scientist, I met a couple of young fellas called, shall we say, Paddy and Joe who were into sharing alcohol and laughs. Meself and Herself like making friends, but explaining that we've both got fellas at home tends to make for a few awkward moments when chatting with straight males under the age of eighty - most of the time they fuck off sharpish, looking disgruntled. Paddy and Joe didn't. They were grand lads altogether.

Anyway, they were from Letterkenny (note to foreign readers: it's pronounced Leyther-kyawney), and they seemed only too happy to put the place down.

"All my friends do drugs," complained PaddyJoe. "And they've all had kids since they were 16."

I blinked and gawped because I think they were expecting it. Problem is, that sounds normal to me.

Hate me now? Don't laugh; it doesn't take much more than that to slip into a lot of people's inner blacklists, lemme tell you.

The Mad Scientist tells me that I attack other people's taste in film, literature and music all the time. Which is utterly true. If I think something's shit, I'll say it's shit. There's a 50% extra free offer with me, though; I'll tell you why I think it's shit and I'll back it up with evidence. I've never actually said, "You read chick lit? Why, that means you are an idiot!" because we all like to stick our toes into stupidity from time to time. Some of us submerge ourselves up to the neck, and that's ok too. The point is - you like what you like, but if we all just smiled politely on the subject of culture and refused to engage in anything approximating spirited pisstake there wouldn't be much fucking culture left, would there?

I mean, I like plenty of things other people attack as a matter of course. I have a soft spot for Terry Pratchett, who's as pop-lit as that awful Rowling woman. I like Green Day and no twat who hasn't been listening to them for the last fifteen years will stop me doing so. I went to see the remake of Hairspray the other day because it was raining and I had a hankerin' after popcorn, and I rather enjoyed its glossy inanity (Hairspray wasn't bad either). And I am really, really looking forward to Hard-Fi's new album.

Ah, Hard-Fi. Do you know them? They recorded their debut album, Stars Of CCTV, in a disused cab office, and apparently if you get your hands on one of the 1000 first presses you can hear people pottering about in the background, over songs like Hard To Beat and Cash Machine. And then they got loads of airplay and got really popular and were signed by a great big label and Champion Sports bought Living For The Weekend to sell runners with. And, naturally enough, the backlash began, and here's why.

"Hard-Fi are an English rock band from Staines, England. They are the product of their suburban West London environment; the sound of twenty-somethings on the minimum wage... In love and in debt - the raw materials required to soundtrack a life of box-fresh Adidas, Berwick Street vinyl, and the black economy."

See? Fucking knackers! Knackers coming down off Eastern European yokes and rowdy because of it! Who the fuck gave them guitars? Dirty Mike Skinner types with their manky trackie pants! Kill them! Kill them all!

We don't like to think of there being an underclass out there, because they're hooligans who stab businessmen for fun and record it on mobile phones which they stole from nuns whilst pissed on cheap cider. We don't like baseball hats and girls with shiny pink lips and black eyeliner and we really don't like those stringy young fellas with perfectly straight fringes and earrings. Yet if they try releasing singles someone, somewhere, is going out and buying thousands at a go, which is surely the only explanation for the dizzying success of Hard-Fi and The Streets and even Lily Allen, who's about as working class as a racehorse but is a mistress of disguise and jumping on manky coattails.

Usually, when a band gets more of a mouthful than a taste of success, we automatically hate them. I know I do. You know me, people - I hate anyone richer than me with access to a stylist. But... is it just me wondering why anyone who looks like they might be musically representing kids called Darren and Sharon gets a backlash that's that bit lashier than anyone else's? It doesn't happen in cinema, or in literature; if you've got Ray Winstone on board or you're writing about sink estates, chances are you ain't from there. At the very least you'll have left it behind for the ortistic life. If you've got a guitar or a microphone though... well, any cunt can get their paws on a microphone, la. And record angsty shit in cab offices so that the peasants will be revolting before long.

Anyway, here's a taste of Suburban Knights, the new one from Hard-Fi.

Hard-Fi – Suburban Knights

It goes on about paying bills and suburbia, so prepare to bristle. Oh, and it's sinfully simple and equally as catchy, which is why I like it. It might not be sophisticated, but not having a pot to piss in rarely is. I'm sure before too long you'll hear, if you keep your ears open, the sound of people sniffing and saying, "For chavs, by chavs" in the background.