Thus spake former Liverpool defender turned Match of The Day pundit Alan Hansen, after Manchester United had been brushed aside 3-1 in front of a packed house of mainly jubilant fans at Villa Park on the opening day of the 1995/1996 Premiership season, having fielded a young and inexperienced side. It is a moment Hansen will never be allowed to forget.

After United’s failure to beat West Ham Utd on the last day of the previous season had gifted Blackburn Rovers their first title for 81 years (despite themselves losing 2-1 at Anfield), for non-United fans it was almost too good to be true. Had Alex Ferguson lost the plot, and miscalculated in selling club stalwarts Mark Hughes and Paul Ince, as well as the pacey right-winger Andrei Kanchelskis before the start of the season?

Not quite.

United were unbeaten in their next ten Premiership fixtures, the run ending with a 1-0 defeat at Highbury, thanks to an early Dennis Bergkamp strike (only his fourth goal since signing for Arsenal). From then to christmas, United’s patchy away form prevented them from making the running at the top of the Premiership, while an exuberant, attacking, Newcastle United side, managed by Kevin Keegan was leading the way. When Spurs beat Man Utd 4-1 at White Hart Lane on New Years Day (United’s 5th league defeat away from home), Newcastle were well clear.

United, though, went on to win 13 of their remaining 16 Premiership fixtures, picking up 41 points in the process, losing only once more, away at Southampton. In the process, Ferguson successfully wound up Keegan with suggestions that teams were making less effort to beat Newcastle to make sure United didn’t win the league - claims which prompted Keegan’s famous “I’d love it if we beat them. Love it!” outburst in an interview with Sky Sports.

In the end, United took the title, finishing four points ahead of Newcastle, in second, and 11 ahead of Liverpool, in third.

But worse was to come, as United faced Liverpool in the FA Cup final eleven days later. Liverpool, arriving in ludicrous designer suits, were desperate not to allow Utd a second league and FA Cup double since the start of the Premiership, and would have loved nothing more than to inflict United’s second consecutive FA Cup Final defeat at Merseyside hands - Everton having won 1-0 the previous year in a largely forgettable encounter.

Sadly, Liverpool goalkeeper David James chose the occasion to live up to his billing as clown-in-chief, by weakly punching a late United corner towards Eric Cantona at the edge of the area. Cantona did what Cantona did best (kung-fu aside), striking the ball - off-balance but with technical perfection - on the half-volley through a crowd of Liverpool defenders and into the back of the net.

Reading a comment about the Villa game a few days ago, I wondered what happened to those so-called kids, and who exactly it was who played that day. Here’s the skinny, courtesy of soccerbase.com:

Aston Villa v Man Utd, Villa Park, 19 August 1995

Aston Villa 3(3)-1(0) Man Utd
Taylor 14             Beckham 82
Draper 27
Yorke  36 (p)

Aston Villa: Bosnich, Charles, McGrath, Ehiogu, Wright, Southgate, Taylor, Draper, 
Townsend, Milosevic (Tommy Johnson, 50), Yorke (Scimeca, 86) 

Subs not used: Spink 

Man Utd: Schmeichel, Parker, Irwin, Gary Neville, Pallister ( O'Kane, 59 ), 
Sharpe, Butt, Keane, McClair, Scholes, Phil Neville ( Beckham, 45 ) 

Subs not used: Davies 

Bookings: Scholes (Man Utd) 

Attendance: 34655 

Referee: R Hart (Darlington) 

The Protagonists

(Ages on the date of the game given in brackets)

• Peter Schmeichel (31yrs 9 months 1 day)

  Currently playing just down the road for Manchester City, Schmeichel has had spells at Aston Villa and Sporting Lisbon, and retired at least once since leaving Old Trafford. Made over 400 appearances for the club.

• Paul Parker (31 yrs 4 months 15 days)

  Left United at the end of that season. Currently coaching non-league side Chelmsford City.

• Denis Irwin (29 yrs 9 months 19 days)

  After 12 seasons with Manchester United, signed for first division Wolves in 2002. Made over 500 appearances for United, and was capped 56 times by the Republic of Ireland. Has medals for pretty much everything a footballer can win.

• Gary Neville (20 yrs 6 months 1 day)

  The only ‘kid’ in the defence for this game, the older Neville brother (and occasional Dot Cotton stunt double) has now made more European Cup and Champions League appearances than any other United player in history. Has also played for England 55 times, and was David Beckham’s best man. Scores a goal, on average, once every 90 games.

• Gary Pallister (30 yrs 1 month 20 days)

  Returned to Middlesboro after nine years with United in 1998. Another player with a full trophy cabinet, although no international caps to accompany his many winners medals.

• Lee Sharpe (24 yrs 2 months 23 days)

  For a while, Lee Sharpe was all set to be an England sensation. Hyped from a young age, he somehow failed to deliver, leaving United at the end of the season for Leeds United. David Platt signed Sharpe on loan at Sampdoria during his brief stay in charge, but that and periods at Bradford, Portsmouth, and Exeter failed to re-ignite the early promise of Sharpe’s career.

• Nicky Butt (20 yrs 6 months 29 days)

  Still at United, and has even managed to find an occasional berth in the England side for his solid defensive midfield style.

• Roy Keane (24 yrs 0 months 9 days)

  Many thought Ferguson mad to sign Keane from Nottingham Forest for almost £4 million in 1993, but as the fiercely beating heart of the side for several seasons, Keane proved the doubters wrong. Loathed and hated in equal measure, Keane’s 58-cap international career looks to be over after walking out from the Republic of Ireland squad at the 2002 World Cup, and persistent injuries have left him considering a deeper-lying role in the heart of the United defence.

• Brian McClair (31 yrs 8 months 11 days)

  Brian “chocky” McClair trundled about ineffectually up front for United for 11 years, before returning to his first senior club, Motherwell, in 1998. Made around 400 appearances, almost always in slow-motion, and apparently even scored some goals during his time at the club.

• Paul Scholes (20 yrs 9 months 3 days)

  A midfielder who scores goals regularly (something of a rarity in the English game), Scholes has been employed as an occasional forward in United colours, but seems most comfortable as an attacking midfielder, in the David Platt mould.

• Phil Neville (18 yrs 6 months 29 days)

  Remarkably, Neville junior now has 37 England caps, despite not actually being particularly good either in defence or midfield. Takes partial blame for England’s exit from Euro 2000, giving away the winning penalty in the last few minutes against Romania. Apart from that he’s usually quite reliable.

• Simon Davies (21 yrs 3 months 27 days)

  Made only a handful of appearances as a trainee, before being offloaded to Luton in 1997. Signed for Bangor City in 2001, which is a far cry from scoring for United in the Champions League.

• John O’Kane (20 yrs 9 months 4 days)

  Trainee, sold to Everton in 1998. Currently playing for Blackpool.

• David Beckham (20yrs 3 months 17 days)

  England captain, celebrity icon, general all-round hero, like, you know.

• Alan Hansen (40 yrs 2 months 6 days)

  Liverpool legend, strolled about in defence alongside Mark Lawrenson for many successful seasons. Currently acting as BBC pundit alongside Lawrenson. Tends to be critical of defences.

Perhaps the most surprising feature of this team sheet is that it’s not as stacked with teenagers as I thought it must have been. With the exception of Gary Neville, the defence was already getting on a bit in 1995, while Sharpe and Keane had been around a while, as had McClair. It was hardly the Busby Babes, but it’s a sign of how blessed United were with a crop of youthful talent, all coming through the ranks at the same time, and how successful the club has been in recent times, though, that six of the players on show against Villa seven and a half seasons ago are now at the heart of the current side. It’s hard to think of many young players who have made the transition at Old Trafford since then. Wes Brown and John O’Shea have made the grade, but since 1996, the vast majority of United’s trainees have failed to hold down regular places in the top flight - John Curtis, Ronnie Wallwork, and Mark Wilson play in the Premiership but are not regulars at their clubs, while a handful of others have had to move to First Division teams to find first-team action.

What is interesting about Hansen’s statement, though, is that since that season, the game has undergone a youth revolution in England. Almost all successful English sides since have tried to blend experience and guile with the fearlessness and exuberance of youth.

In recent years, Michael Owen became the youngest post-war England player, and at the age of 18, scared the Argentine defence witless with his pace in the 1998 World Cup, only to see his record broken recently when Wayne Rooney appeared as a substitiute against Australia. Rooney, meanhwile, became the Premiership’s youngest goalscorer with a 20-yard strike against champions Arsenal this season, only to find his record quickly eclipsed by the even younger James Milner, of Leeds United, who scored against Sunderland eight days before his 17th birthday.

In some cases the youth has been imported, but a glance at the team sheets for recent England International sides reveals a wealth of young talent. The likes of Wes Brown, Jonathan Woodgate, Chris Kirkland, Paul Robinson, Joe Cole, Michael Owen, Emile Heskey, Owen Hargreaves, Frank Lampard, Danny Murphy, Stephen Gerrard, Alan Smith, Sean Davis, Rio Ferdinand, Kieron Dyer, Jermaine Jenas, Wayne Rooney, Paul Konchesky, Ledley King, Wayne Bridge, Ashley Cole, James Beattie, John Terry, and Francis Jeffers could comfortably fill an England training camp even though Murphy, at the grand old age of 26 years and one day, would be comfortably the senior squad member.

You’ll never win anything without kids, Alan.

Sources

The Times Online
soccerbase.com
soccerage.com

March 19th, 2003, posted by Neil in e2 · 1 Comment

Ask most people who the greatest footballer of all time is, and they’ll chant “Pelé, Pelé, Pelé “ at you until you can’t take any more.

Fair enough. He wasn’t bad, I guess.

But if Pelé had been denied the chance to play in three World Cups by a World War, politics, bureaucratic procrastination, and cruel injury, and an Argentinean by the name of Alfredo Di Stéfano had had the opportunity to shine on the world stage, maybe the popular view would be a little different.

Born 14 years before Pelé, Alfredo Di Stéfano was the greatest player of his time, of that there’s no doubt. Representing Spain, Argentina and Columbia at international level, securing a record five consecutive European Cup titles for Real Madrid, European Footballer of the Year twice in three years in the late 1950s, he was the player Diego Maradona described thus in 1997:

“I don’t know if I had been a better player than Pelé, but I can say without any doubt that Di Stéfano was better than Pelé. I am proud when one speaks of Di Stéfano. Pelé would have flopped had he played in Europe, whereas Alfredo has played very well throughout the world. I can say that Maradona could be worse than Pelé. But I emphasize Di Stéfano was better.”¹

If you’re not convinced by the words of the controversial, diminutive Argentine midfield legend, try these, from Di Stefano’s coach at Real Madrid, Miguel Munoz:

“The greatness of Di Stéfano was that, with him in your side, you had two players in every position.”²

And if you’re still not sure, here’s Helenio Herrera (inventor of catenaccio, Internazionale coach, and Spanish coach in the 1962 World Cup), on Di Stéfano:

“Alfredo Di Stéfano was the greatest footballer of all time - far better even than Pelé. He was, simultaneously, the anchor in defence, the playmaker in midfield, and the most dangerous marksman in attack.”³

Di Stéfano was total football way before Rinus Michels’s Ajax revolution in the 1960s, defending, attacking, stopping goals, scoring goals, setting up goals, with pace, vision and strength, and all with a fighting spirit lacking, for all their collective genius, in the Dutch ideal.

A quick run through Di Stéfano’s career should be enough to convince you of the man’s greatness.

Club Football: South America

Born in the suburbs of Buenos Aires on July 4th 1926, Alfredo was the eldest son of Italian parents. His early years were spent working on his parents’ farm, before, aged 12, he joined a youth team called Los Cardales. After winning the amateur championship with Los Cardales, Di Stéfano signed for River Plate when he was just 15, and by 16 had forced his way into the first team squad. River Plate, however, were already well-stocked with strikers, and loaned Di Stéfano to Atlético Huracán.

It probably didn’t look like such a good idea when the teenager rewarded his club by scoring the winning goal against River Plate when the two teams met. Di Stéfano was recalled to River Plate in 1947, and “La Saeta Rubia” (The Blond Arrow) , as he became known, immediately made an impact, becoming the leading scorer in the league, with 27 goals in 30 games.

River Plate won the title comfortably that year, and again in 1948. A players strike in 1949 saw many Argentine players hop across the border to Columbia, to play in the then unofficial Di Mayor League. Di Stéfano, along with his River Plate team mates Adolfo Pedernera and Nestor Rossi, helped his new club Los Millonarios dominate Di Mayor over the coming seasons, winning the league title in 1949, 1951, 1951, and 1953. Di Stéfano scored 267 goals in his short time at the club, making him Millonarios’ second highest scorer of all time.

Club Football: Spain

On a tour of Spain in 1953, Di Stéfano and his Millonarios side played the then lowly Real Madrid, winning a tournament marking the Spanish side’s 50th anniversary. Real and rivals Barcelona then both tried to sign Di Stéfano, with Real negotiating with Millionairos, and Barcelona with River Plate, with whom Di Stéfano was still contracted. The Spanish FA suggested that he should be able to play for both teams, changing from one to the other at the end of each season. When Di Stefano rejected this, and the Catalan side’s idea of both clubs selling their share in the player to Italian side Juventus, Real were able to sign him for a measly £70,000. It was to become one of the greatest signings the club (or any club) would ever make. The joy began as early as Di Stéfano’s debut the day after the transfer was officially confirmed.

Playing against, yep, Barcelona, Di Stéfano helped Real to a 5-0 win. To make matters worse for Barça, Di Stéfano helping himself to 4 of the goals. Real, of course, won the Spanish league that season. The success paved the way for the European glory and domination that was to follow.

The European Cup, launched in the 1955/6 season, might just as well have been called the Real Madrid Cup in its first few years. In the first final, played at Parc Des Princes, Paris on 13 June 1956, Real fell 2-0 down after only 10 minutes, but came back to beat a strong Reims side that included French genius Raymond Kopa.

The following year, this time stronger after signing Kopa, Real defeated Fiorentina 2-0 in Real’s own Santiago Bernabeu stadium to lift the trophy again. Milan were the victims a year later, losing 3-2 to Real in extra time. For the 1958/59 season, Real signed the ridiculously good Ferenc Puskas, giving them an attacking force of Puskas, Kopa, and Di Stéfano, surely the greatest trio of attacking players ever to grace the same side. Unsurprisingly, Real again won the European Cup, beating Reims 2-0 in Stuttgart in front of a crowd of 80,000. So far, Di Stéfano had played, and scored, in each of these four finals, but the best was yet to come.

At Hampden Park, Glasgow, on 18 May 1960, 130,000 fans were treated by two great teams to the finest display of club football ever witnessed. After 18 minutes, Real’s opponents, Eintracht Frankfurt had cheekily, perhaps unwisely, taken a one goal lead. Eintracht were pretty good that year, and knocked 12 goals past Glasgow Rangers in the semi-final legs. Some pundits were even tipping them to Be the first team to break Real’s winning streak.

53 minutes later, Real Madrid led 6-1.

After falling behind, Real had been stung into action. Two goals from Di Stéfano gave Real the lead after the half-hour mark, and Puskas casually scored the next 4 in a 26 minute period. Stein then pulled one back for Frankfurt, before Di Stéfano completed his hat-trick. Stein scored another for Eintracht, but at the end of the game Real had run out 7-3 winners. The crowd applauded both teams at the end of the game, the players responding by reappearing to take the plaudits, like actors after a great theatrical show.

That was the end of Real’s run of success in the European Cup (for the time being, anyway) - in 1961 they lost unluckily (3-2) to Barcelona in the first round; Real’s first defeat in the competition. So, Di Stéfano scored in 5 successive finals, and was instrumental in helping Real win all five finals. In 1960, he also helped Real to the first Intercontinental Cup title, beating Peñarol of Uruguay over two legs.

While at Real, Di Stéfano also won the newly created European Footballer of the Year award, in 1957, and again in 1959. Di Stéfano played in two more European Cup finals with Real Madrid, losing 5-3 to a Eusebio-inspired Benfica side in 1962, and 3-1 to Internazionale in Vienna in the 1964 final, with Di Stéfano less than two months short of his 38th birthday.

Past his best, Di Stéfano was accused in the sporting press of having lost some of his pace and strength in this, the twilight of his career. Still a potent force, though, despite his advancing years, he moved to Español to play out the remainder of his career, playing for a further two seasons before a back injury forced him to retire at the grand old age of 40.

International Career

Di Stéfano is part of a pretty select band of footballers to have played international football for more than one country. But not only that, he actually represented three nations during his career, playing for Argentina, Columbia, and Spain. I don’t know how - I can only assume the rules and regulations for making international appearances were a little more relaxed in those days. If a country asked kindly enough, you could slip on a jersey and play the occasional 90 minutes for them.

This peripatetic international career began when Di Stéfano was a 21 year old, selected for Argentina in the 1947 Copa America (South American Championship). Di Stéfano established himself as a star immediately, scoring on his debut, and adding a further 5 goals in the competition, as Argentina ran out winners. Di Stéfano was the competition’s second leading scorer.

While in exile in Columbia, the Columbian FA asked Di Stéfano to play for their national side, Di Stefano obliged, and so Columbia became his second international team, albeit for only 4 matches.

While in Spain, however, Di Stéfano established himself properly on the international scene, scoring 23 goals in 31 games for his adopted homeland, at the time a Spanish goal scoring record. (The record has since been beaten by Emilio Butragueno and Raul)

If there is one reason, and one reason alone why Alfrédo Di Stefano is not remembered better for his great achievements and as a challenger to Pelé’s generally accepted title as the greatest player ever it is this: Despite being capped by three countries, and playing at the top level of professional football for 20 years, Di Stéfano never played in the World Cup Finals.

In 1950, the first competition since his international debut, Argentina were one of many teams to withdraw from the competition, the first to be played after World War II. (India, on the other hand, wanted to play as one of the reserve teams FIFA drafted in, but withdrew when their request to be able to play in bare feet was rejected by FIFA.) In 1954, having played for Argentina and Columbia - although the Columbian matches aren’t generally counted as official international appearances - Di Stéfano was ruled by FIFA to be ineligible to appear for Spain, a decision not reversed until 1957, when Di Stéfano was 31; an unusual age for an international debut. But before you ask, yes, he did score on his debut. A hat-trick in fact, against Holland.

In 1958, Spain failed to qualify for the finals in Sweden, and in 1962, having been selected for the Spanish squad, Di Stéfano picked up an injury just before the tournament began. He failed to recover in time, but a dispute with coach Herrera meant that he might not have been selected in any case. And so it was that one of the world’s greatest footballers was denied the chance to grace the world’s greatest tournament.

Career Record

Games and Goals:

1943-1949 River Plate: 76 games, 49 goals
(1946 Huracan: 25 games, 10 goals)
1949-1953 Millonarios: 294 games, 267 goals
1953-1964 Real Madrid: 282 games, 219 goals
1964-1966 Espanyol: 21 games, 9 goals

Honours won:

Argentinean Championship: 1945, 1947
Columbian Championship: 1949, 1951, 1952, 1953
Spanish Championship: 1953-1954, 1954-1955, 1956-1957, 1957-1958, 1960-1961, 1961-1962, 1962-1963, 1963-1964
Spanish Cup: 1961-1962
European Cup: 1955-1956, 1956-1957, 1957-1958, 1958-1959, 1959-1960
Copa America: 1947
Intercontinental Cup: 1960

League Top Scorer:

Argentina: 1947
Columbia: 1951, 1952
Spain: 1953-1954, 1955-1956, 1956-1957, 1957-1958, 1958-1959

With help from…

soccer-europe.com
Career stats taken from here
rsssf.com (Quotes 1,2,3, and general career info)
stoppagetime.com
ifhof.com
futebolstars.com

September 12th, 2002, posted by Neil in Football and e2 · 2 Comments

Dates: 1992-1999
Label: Slash Records
Line-up: Grant Lee Phillips, Joey Peters, Paul Kimble

The Story

Having moved to LA in the 1980s, the three members of Grant Lee Buffalo all joined, at one time or another, a Paisley Underground band called Shiva Burlesque, fronted by Grant Lee Phillips and housemate Jeffrey Clark, who Phillips had met and played with before leaving his home town, Stockton, CA. Shiva Burlesque’s eponymous debut featued Phillips, Clark, James Bremner, and Joey Peters, with Bremner replaced by Paul Kimble (appearing in the sleeve notes as “Dick Smack”) for the follow-up, “Mercury Blues”. A cellist, Greg Adamson, also played on this second album.

When the group splintered shortly after the release of the second album, Phillips, Peters, and Kimble stayed together, and after a few false starts and a brief solo period by Phillips, became Grant Lee Buffalo. When Peters was poached briefly by Cracker, James Bremner returned to the fold. A first single, “Fuzzy” was released on Bob Mould’s singles only label, before, in 1992, Grant Lee Buffalo signed to Slash Records, where they were to stay through to the end.

Grant Lee Buffalo split in 1999 after four albums. A posthumous 2CD collection was later released, featuring album tracks, alternative versions, and unreleased material.

Debut album “Fuzzy” was released in 1993. Having taken so long to get this far, Phillips wasn’t sure whether he’d carried it off:

“There was so much pressure to make it great. Then there was the question in the back of your head: Will this be the last as well as the first?”¹

Once the album had worked its way into almost any Best of the year selection going, and was described by Michael Stipe as “The best album of the year, hands down”, the fears began to pass. It’s a tenderly gorgeous collection of folk-rock songs, produced by bass player Paul Kimble, with a stripped down back-to-basics feel that is surprisingly warm, mixing melancholy songs of love lost (”Fuzzy”, “Jupiter and Teardrop”) and brutal political and social statements (”The Shining Hour”, “America Snoring”).

Mighty Joe Moon, released the following year expanded and progressed the Grant Lee Buffalo sound.

“The confidence and solidarity was at its strongest when we made ‘Mighty Joe Moon,’ and because of that it’s our best effort”²

“Mighty Joe Moon has an urgency to it and a cool kind of collage quality; this record feels more like a slice of time. Vocally, it’s more ambitious; lyrically, it’s much more involved. Sonically, it’s more melodic; it’s really pushing the emotional envelope. And the harmonic too. Yet there’s a brute side, as well.”³

“By the time we got to ‘Copperopolis’ I was writing songs and waiting for some kind of negative reaction from Paul [Kimble], who was still producing. It was becoming harder to communicate, and that was ultimately what fractured our relationship creatively and personally.”⁴

After an exhausting tour schedule, with spots supporting the likes of R.E.M. and The Cranberries, Grant Lee Buffalo released “Copperopolis” (1995), but just when everything should have been falling into place, everything fell apart. Tensions within the group led to the departure of Kimble, and Copperopolis failed to make a name for itself. Of the group’s four albums, it shows the least variety in pace or mood. Sumptuous production seems to detract from the songs rather than enhancing them, and despite some great moments - the raw power of “Homespun”, the sullen majesty of “Bethlehem Steel” and the serene beauty of “The Bridge” and “Better For Us” and “The Only Way Down” - failed to live up to the promise of its siblings. The time had come to refresh the Grant Lee Buffalo vibe:

“I’m always longing to bring something new into the fold musically. It seemed the only way we were going to be able to do that was to continue as a two-piece.”⁵

If you’re gonna go, go out in style, and “Jubilee” does exactly that. After Kimble’s departure, Phillips and Peters invited along session musicians, a few famous friends, and XTC producer Paul Fox. The result was a brilliant return to form. As with each of its predecessors, “Jubilee” opens strong, with “APB”, and closes gently, with “The Shallow End”. Between are 12 tracks, mixing perfectly the mellow folk of “Everybody Needs A Little Sanctuary” and “Come To Mama, She Say”, and the power-pop of “Truly, Truly” (almost the radio single Warner Bros, who now owned Slash Records, were looking for) and “Change your tune”.

The music

Albums:

• Fuzzy, Slash, 1993
• Mighty Joe Moon, Slash, 1994
• Copperopolis, Slash, 1995
• Jubilee, Slash, 1998
• Storm Hymnal Gems From the Vault of Grant Lee Buffalo, Slash, 2001 (2CD)

The players

• Grant Lee Phillips, band member 1992-1999

  Now hyphenated to Grant-Lee Phillips, currently pursuing a solo career. Has released two solo albums since disbanding Grant Lee Buffalo: “Ladies Love Oracle”, a low-budget acoustic recording, and “Mobilize”. Lush and more poppy than the band’s albums, it’s nearest relative is “Jubilee”. Update: April 2004 Phillips has released a third solo album, “Virginia Creepers”. It’s a mellow, melancholy affair, far from Mobilize, closer to Ladies Love Oracle.

• Joey Peters, 1992-1999

  Ex-Cracker drummer, who also played with John Lee Hooker earlier in his career. Has more recently cropped up on the Blue Druids album “Roadsigns Towards Antiquity”.

• Paul Kimble, 1992-1997

  Produced “Fuzzy”, “Mighty Joe Moon”, and “Copperopolis”, before leaving the band to concentrate on studio work. Has also worked with Madder Rose and David Gray, and co-produced the soundtrack to Velvet Goldmine.

• Dan Rothchild

  Replaced Paul Kimble on bass on “Jubilee”.

Notes:

• Grant Lee Buffalo’s cover of The Beach Boys’ “In My Room” was used in Friends Series 3, and was included on the Friends soundtrack album.
• Jubilee features appearances by Michael Stipe (additional vocals on Everybody needs a litle sanctuary), and Robyn Hitchcock ( additional vocals and harmonica on “My, My, My” and “The Shallow End”)
• An acoustic version of “Solt Wolf Tread” appears on “…Hold On”, an album of BBC Radio 1 sessions, released by the BBC and Melody Maker in aid of The Samaritans.
• “America Snoring” appears on the “NME Singles of the week 1993″ album.

Sources

Sleeve notes to Storm Hymnal
Official band site
Grantleephillips.com
musiccity.com

September 2nd, 2002, posted by Neil in Music and e2 · No comments

You gotta love the Scottish indie scene these days.

Not so much a band as a Scottish indie music workers collective, The Reindeer Section is the brainchild and pet side project of Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody.

It’s no more than that, though; work gets in the way, you see. As Lightbody explains: “Everybody’s first band has to come before The Reindeer Section so it is a side project, but that’s the beauty. There’s no pressure on anyone. It’s not our drive for world domination.“¹ And like most things when the pressure’s off, The Reindeer Section has a certain joy about it.

Knocking the likes of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young into a cocked hat, the original Section line-up comprised 15 members plucked from the great and good of Scottish Fey Music Making, since when the total number of active members has swelled a further 12, making the section the equivalent of two Lambchops (laughably understaffed, at 13-strong) and a Ryan Adams, numerically speaking, although you’re more likely to encounter comparisons with Nick Drake than the former Whiskeytown frontman. That is, unless you’re talking productivity, where Lightbody and Adams are kindred spirits.

Debut album Y’All Get Scared Now Ya Hear! was penned entirely by Lightbody, and although some of the songs were entirely unknown to some of the players, the studio recording was polished off in a mere ten days.

2002’s follow-up, Son of Evil Reindeer was written in a creative spurt almost immediately after, but things slowed a touch with the recording, which took a more leisurely 14 days. Lightbody again took care of the song writing duties, with the exception of closing track whodunnit?, which was written and sung by Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat. And by jingo if it isn’t one of the finest songs on the album, one of the finest songs Moffat has ever written, and an actual piece of singing from Moffat, rather than his more familiar drunkard’s slur.

If I didn’t prefer my friends to be IRL, this album would be my best friend. Inevitably, it sounds more than a little bit like Snow Patrol (which is a good thing), with Lightbody writing and singing, but the songs that make their way into the Section’s play list are altogether more mellow than Lightbody’s day job output. Most of the album slip-slides around you in a waltz, a mellow here-and-there drift of acoustic guitars, Lightbody’s soft vocals, and haunted harmonies. It’s the sound of the feeling of turning over in the night and finding someone you really, really like there.

I can’t help falling in love with The Reindeer Section. How could you resist a name like that? And I defy you to not admire and cherish a band that only exists in the same way an E2 Noder Gathering does, but manages to make such sweet, sweet music.

The web site is surprisingly good, too, and must have taken a good deal longer to make than the albums, with links to interviews, reviews, some lyrics, some guitar tabs, and a shop that sells Reindeer Section badges like the last 20 years didn’t happen².

The good, good people of The Reindeer Section are:

• Iain Archer, (Cadet)
• Norman Blake, (Teenage Fanclub)
• Willy Campbell, (Astrid)
• Charlie Clarke, (Astrid)
• Richard Colburn, (Belle & Sebastian)
• Mick Cooke, (Belle & Sebastian)
• John Cummings, (Mogwai)
• Ben Dumville, (Alfie)
• Paul Fox
• Lee Gorton, (Alfie)
• Eugene Kelly, (The Vaselines)
• Bob Kildea, (Belle & Sebastian)
• Gary Lightbody, (Snow Patrol)
• Marcus Mackay
• Colin MacPherson, (Arab Strap)
• Mark McClelland, (Snow Patrol)
• Malcolm Middleton, (Arab Strap)
• Gill Mills
• Aidan Moffat, (Arab Strap)
• Sam Morris, (Alfie)
• Neil Payne, (Astrid)
• Jonny Quinn, (Snow Patrol)
• Jenny Reeve, (eva)
• Sarah Robertson, (eva)
• Gareth Russell, (Astrid)
• Stacy Sievwright
• Roddy Woomble, (Idlewild)

The below don’t, but have been in the section at some point:

• Michael Bannister
• Roy Kerr
• Colin McIntyre, (Mull Historical Society)

The Reindeer Section currently weighs 297 stone, and is 162 feet tall.

1. Uncut, June 2002

2. You could argue that those gathered at an E2 noder gathering have also produced a web site; one more useful and infofilled than reindeersection.com, and you’d be right. You’d be missing the point, though.

August 14th, 2002, posted by Neil in Music and e2 · No comments

In his most recent novel, “The Rotters’ Club”¹, Jonathan Coe treats the reader to a sentence containing 13,995 words. The sentence, which makes up the last section of the novel, appears as a monologue by Benjamin Trotter, one of the story’s protagonists, related in a stream-of-consciousness style, and according to the author, in homage to Molly Bloom’s monologue in James Joyce’s Ulysses, which contains eight sentences, the longest at 4391 words².

Although Coe’s effort is generally regarded as the longest sentence in English-language fiction, it begins to read like John 11:35³, alongside the 40,000 or so words Polish novelist and political dissident Jerzy Andrzejewski (1909-1983) managed to put together, unbroken by fullstops, in his 1960 novel ”Bramy raju” (The Gates of Paradise), written as a retelling of the Children’s Crusade of 1212, and containing in its entirety, remarkably, only two sentences, in a wonderfully excessive example of the elegant variation every English teacher looks for with the advice that you should always mix sentence lengths because reading sentence after sentence of equal length rapidly inspires ennui. (The other sentence is very short.)

If two sentences is one sentence too many for your taste, then the book you are looking for is “Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age: A Novel”⁴, by Czech author Bohumil Hrabal, and translated into English by the man of a thousand languages (seemingly) Michael Heim, in which the tale of an old man recounting stories of his youth, his life, his ideas, political history, to six young sun-soaking women, is contained within a single sentence of around 20,000 words.

July 2nd, 2002, posted by Administrator in e2 · No comments

In medieval Europe, it was not unknown for domestic and wild animals, including insects, to be prosecuted in secular and ecclesiastical courts for a variety of crimes.

In the dock most often were pigs, frequently accused of causing injury, especially to children. In 1494, in a court at a French monastery, a pig was found guilty, and hanged for having “entered a house and disfigured a child’s face, wherepon the child departed this life“¹. The medieval animal crime wave was not restricted to porkers, however. In one case, a number of rats were prosecuted for destroying barley crops - although their defence lawyer, Bartholome Chassenee, tried to mitigate the sentence by arguing that separate summons would have to be issued in each parish inhabited by the rats. Also recorded are acts of fraud by field-mice posing as heretical clerics, and thieving foxes².

Arising, perhaps, from the growing belief that animals should be held morally and legally responsible for their actions, the exact purpose of these trials is unknown. They may have been inspired by passages from the Bible³, given liberal interpretation, while Graeme Newman places the trials in the context of “a broad network of social control constructed by religious authorities in their attempt to dominate and to stabilise the social and the natural worlds.“⁴. Some commentators have argued that they were carried out to deter other animals, but there is no supporting evidence that pig owners would take their stock out to watch public executions, or to see the animals left on the gibbet after they were hanged. It is also not clear whether this would have given medieval pigs a greater sense of civic responsibility. A more likely explanation is that the trials served to let animal owners know of their vicarious liability for their animals’ actions.

The subject was given the celluloid treatment in 1993, in “The Hour of the Pig” (distributed as “The Advocate” in the US), starring Colin Firth - who went on to set hearts-a-fluttering by appearing as Mr. Darcy in a BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. The cast included Ian Holm, Donald Pleasence, and Lysette Anthony - who had previously appeared in British class-sitcom, “Three up, two down”, with Michael Elphick. The slow-burning (animal pyre pun unintentional) film is based loosely on documented events, notably the sparing of an ass from the hangman’s noose in the opening scene.

1. quote taken from http://abc.net.au/animals/program4/factsheet1.htm
2. documented in Evans, E.P. (1906) (1987). The criminal prosecution and capital punishment of animals. London: Faber and Faber.
3. “If an ox gore a man or a woman that they die, then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit” Exodus, xxi, 28. In some medieval cases, guilty parties were excommunicated.
4. Newman, Graeme (1978). The punishment response. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott.

June 20th, 2002, posted by Administrator in e2 · No comments