Tired of England?

On my way back to my beautiful Mediterranean island it suddenly struck me: my iPod features 60% American music, 30% Brit rock and 10% world stuff. Tired of England? Not really. When British music sparkles it really sparkles a lot, and my three top bands ever are British (and very British they are: Clash, Smiths and Libertines). I can't let a single day pass without listening to Morrissey's voice (hey, he's got a new album out in Autumn!) and fucking hell, I'm writing this blog dedicated to two 100% British songwriters. OK? BUT. There are times when britrock gives me claustrophobia, and long spells when albionic music seems to shrink into itself, and I'm afraid this is one of those times. As crazy as I am for the Libertines I can't help but admit that they spawned a whole population of awful clones. And to me this is the major limit of britrock: a new band is born, they make wonderful music, they set a new trend. Hordes of kids want to be like them, they start a band of their own. And the next generation is only made of clones. Awful clones. Until a new original band is born again and a new cycle starts, but it takes years. Having been born in 1981 I've had the time to witness the long tail left by the Smiths in early 90s (the infamous shoegazers) and most of all the Beatles revivalists of mid 90s (Oasis and Blur) but I've never been into them at all. I chose to listen to old stuff, or dedicate myself to Yank rock. Until the Libertines came. Now their cycle is over and we need fresh stuff. I've had enough of clones. Tired of England? No, tired of clones.

Anyway, since we still have Peter and Carl, let's have a look at what happened to the boys in these last days. Peter played with Babyshambles on the third night of his Brixton Mass residency last Friday. The gig was crowded ("Where were you all on the other two nights?" Peter joked) but the security staff behaved horribly, hitting kids and doing the fascist thing until Peter shouted at them and left the stage in a huff.

Carl is on the Irish leg of the DPT tour and last night played in Dublin. I've found a very nice review by my fellow blogger Mark, who also met Carlos at a Guinness convention before the gig. For review and photo go to his blog.

As for the "Libertines wish" allegedly expressed by Carl you'll find splattered all over the press today... of course it was taken out of context. Of course Carl Barat can't go around promoting a new DPT record talking about his desire to make music with Peter again. Of course if journos didn't ask him about the Libertines all the time he wouldn't mention it. Of course his bandmates get irritated when he speaks about his current commitment with them as if it was a little more than a burden. That he can't wait to be finished with.

Of course.

What's on my iPod: Sunday at Devil Dirt, Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell.