Damon Albarn | The List – November 1997

The home front

Having survived his acting debut, Blur’s DAMON ALBARN is turning his mind to other ambitions. The heady world of shelf building beckons.

by Fiona Shepherd

DAMON ALBARN RECKONS Blur have spent one and a half months of this year in Britain. That can only really mean one thing — Britain‘s finest quirky pop band have been conquering the world via the art of touring their backsides off.
Their fifth album Blur, released earlier this year to muted praise, has convincingly outsold all their previous, more chart-friendly efforts around the world. Blur are now an international band, more United Nations than Union Jack. and Britain typically has gone ever so slightly lukewarm on them.
Damon doesn‘t care — having just returned from the States hours earlier, he‘s shortly off to play Australia, Thailand and Korea for the first time before returning to Britain for an arena tour. Before that, though, he has some important business to attend to. Apart from speaking to The List, he hopes to fit in a football match, despite his jetlagged demeanour.
‘I‘ve been denied football for about five months,’ he says, speaking slowly and deliberately. ‘I’ve been to American football in the past and I hated it. Really, really dull. They never get to the point. Same with baseball — it’s all about that last shot.‘

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Blur | The List – June 1999

Caffeine culture

Headliners Blur stormed T in the Park four years ago and are poised to do it again. That’s as long as guitarist Graham Coxon gets up the courage to open the door.

by Fiona Shepherd

IMAGINE this scene: a Slightly Eccentric International Pop Star is on the phone chatting to a Journalist in Scotland when suddenly and inexplicably he falls silent.
SEIPS: (almost inaudibly) ‘There‘s someone weird at my door.‘
J: (after a pause) ‘Aren‘t you going to see who it is?‘
SEIPS: (whispers) ‘I don‘t know. It‘s a bloke I don‘t know. I get really paranoid about people coming to the door. Hold on a sec.‘
SEIPS answers door and has normal-sounding conversation.
SEIPS: (returning to phone) ‘lt was a taxi driver coming to pick up some lithographs from me. I was getting really scared because he looked smart and he had shades on. I thought he might be coming to bump me off, to open fire through the letterbox.‘

Damon Albarn | The List – September 1997

Not just a pretty face

He has topped the pop charts with Blur, now he’s making his acting debut as a wannabe criminal in Face. When DAMON ALBARN made a recent trip to Scotland, The List was there in the limo beside him.

by Sophy Bristow

DAMON ALBARN SMOKES shiftily in a stuffy corner of Edinburgh‘s Caledonian Hotel. He‘s here for the Film Festival premiere of new British movie Face in which he makes his acting debut alongside Robert Carlyle.
For now, though, it’s the pre—premiere ‘do‘, and everybody is painfully aware of Damon‘s presence. The tense atmosphere and the long, winding corridors of the Caledonian make it feel as though we‘re in The Shining. You keep expecting to see a crazed child on a tricycle pedalling frantically past.
Bobby hasn‘t turned tip yet. Damon wears sunglasses. Publicists are perspiring heavily. Finally everyone is released, and a flotilla of impatient limousines ferries the stars to the ABC cinema. On arrival, the scenes are frantic. Damon manages to fight his way through the screaming hordes and is escorted to the bar. He is last seen shuffling into the cinema, beer in hand, shades still on. Perhaps it is easier to watch your big screen debut with as many visual impairments as possible . . .

Damon Albarn | The List – May 1994

London pride

Awkward popsters, Mods, music- hall throwbacks, Blur may well be the last truly British band you will ever know, as Garry Mulholland discovers from lead Blurster DAMON ALBARN.

We had only three things to say in our first interviews: We’re great we’re not an indie band and don’t judge us now – judge us in four years’ time. At least now we’ve done something that lives up to my big mouth.’
Damon Albarn has a right to enjoy his revenge. His band, Blur, have been dismissed as ‘baggy’ bandwagon-jumpers, shoe-gazing saddoes, pretty-boy dilettantes and perennial also-rans by knowing critics for those four long years. They‘ve been kicked about by the business, bowled out by bad management and passed over by a disinterested public. Their re-emergence last year as America—hating nouveau-mods was initially dismissed as desperation. But through it all Damon kept on insisting his band were England’s finest, slagging off the opposition with increasing ferocity. The band‘s reputation for drink-fuelled excess, and Damon‘s relationship with Justine from press darlings Elastica, provided the music press with a constant supply of gossip. Particularly as Damon reserved his most vitriolic put-downs for the ubiquitous Suede, whose lead singer, Brett Anderson, had previously been involved with Justine. That was Blur all over. Great laugh. Good press. Zilch success.

Blur | Singapore newspapers – August-November 1997

scans courtesy of Tawfiq @thenameisnineeight (thank you!!)

Blur | Deadline – December 1991–January 1992

Scanned by loveinthe90s.tumblr.com (thank you!)

Project Blur Book

Interview by Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin.
Tapes transcribed by K.L. Rich (M.A.)

Jamie: We were going to build an Orgone Accumulator.
Dave: Are you into all that sort of thing, then? Organons and that?
Jamie: Oh yeah.
Dave: I know very little about it, but what I do know, it’s intriguing.
Jamie: I only know a little about it, but I’m interested in it anyway. Anything anyone wants to tell me…
Dave: Oh, I probably haven’t got anything to tell you at all.
Jamie: (laughter) I probably haven’t got anything to tell you either, but we can both be interested together.
Dave: Let’s both be stunned at the sheer variety of what we haven’t got to tell each other about it then.

Blur | Classic Pop – September 2019