Blur | Sounds – 14 April 1990

Courtesy of Vern (thank you!)

Daze of change

They might not have made a record yet, but Blur are already one of the most vibrant bands on the live front. David Cavanagh reports. Bleeuurrggh by Ed Sirrs

We have two choices here, for our discussion of London’s latest and most precociously vibrant live affront.
We could say, Blur. Short, abrupt and poppy, hinting — rightly — at a strong cinematic quality perhaps, definitely intimating something fresh and new and exciting.
Or we could say, Bleeuurrgghh!! And something in me thinks that would make better sense: a mess of limbs, throats, hair, leads, amplifiers and youthful moans, all spewed out into something mesmerising and off kilter.
That’s what Blur are like on a stage. They are the first band in ages that make promoters actually afraid to go for a quick leak, in case the stage is not there when they come back. “I hate all this cool shit, you know,” explains Blur’s boyish, articulate singer Damon, completely unnecessarily. “It’s like The Who — any shot of video you ever see of them, whatever they’re playing, it’s just so exciting. I mean, some of their music’s absolutely diabolical, but they always maintained that level of excitement.
“And so did the Stones as well. “The Beatles didn’t need it, cos they had so many people screaming at them the energy was created anyway.”
Damon’s and Blur’s desire —to bring about “‘that sense of abandon” — is what makes Blur so exciting. With no records yet and the Pentel only just applied to their contract with Food (Diesel Park West, Jesus Jones etc), they have been embroiled for the most part in an ongoing live vigilante scenario — they see an audience prepared to be cool and blase and asleep, and they shout and scream and excite them until they wake up.

Before Blur were Blur they were Seymour, but that’s an indie episode they don’t care to talk about. Blur are really into this thing about being a lot of different bands, constantly reinventing themselves. It’s rare to meet a band who have decided to stop what they are doing and do something different.”
“Yeah, well, we can do that all the time,” says Damon. “Do it for years. Just stop one thing and go on to another. Like The Who and The Beatles — everything they did, we’d like to go through those kind of stages. One style an album. The Beatles are the real role model, the band everyone should aspire to. All those episodes, we’d like to try. I’m really looking forward to our Maharishi period”
Now, this is more than youthful bravado. Sure, it’s easy for new groups to namecheck the above fab fours, as well as Damon’s other favourites The Doors and Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd, and say, We’ll have some of that, please. But beneath the surface lunacy and daft upfrontness of Blur is substantial musical depth, and here’s where the story starts to get a little weird. Damon and Blur guitarist Graham — a younger, snottier Nigel Tufnel lookalike — were classical musical students in Colchester, regularly having their compositions performed by the Essex Youth Orchestra. Unwilling, though, to polarise music’s good feelings into “serious” and “frivolous” camps, Damon (now 22) and Graham (21) settled for rock ‘n’ roll. “All the people I know that are still doing classical music,” shudders Damon, “are boring arseholes. All f**king Bible bashing or just being well dull. That music just doesn’t liberate you in the same way. . .well, unless you’re very, very good at it. But, like, it’s not very cool to talk about classical music, is it?” The thing is, not much about Blur Is cool in the accepted way. Certainly not their spacehead bassman Alex or drummer Dave (called “Uncle” because, at 25, he is seriously old). Here’s Damon explaining the band’s roots. “We come from Bournemouth and Colchester. Not two of the greatest cultural centres in the world, but that’s where we. . .well, I come from the East End originally, but I moved to Colchester. Actually we all come from. . .see, the guitarist’s from Germany originally. So we’re all over the place. But we’re here now.”
Here now, indeed, looking at a potentially electric debut album.
“Hmmm, I don’t know what it’ll sound like,” muses Damon. “It’ll be very strong on groove I should think. But at the same time very strong on noise. So it’s gonna be groovy noise. “ I think all these bands getting ‘on Top Of The Pops is an example of the fact that that indie ideal of being a moody, sullen git is finished. Now people can start to be alittle more, uh, flamboyant about it.”

One thing about Blur’s approach which demands comment is Damon’s lyrics. While the band dream up an intoxicating din around his ears, there he is bemoaning his lot with Morrissey-like wistfulness. Like a real loser, in fact.
“Yeah, loser lyrics and winner music. Ha ha! Yeah, I’m a bit of a loner. I wouldn’t say I had problems, but I just don’t find it easy to— how to put it— accept people’s fronts. All that shit. Can’t be bothered.” Despite Blur’s wariness of getting a reputation as an predictably madcap live band, Damon’s in too deep now to slow down. Bawling out great tunes like ‘Repetition’ (which will probably be the first single) and ‘I Love Her’ (‘She doesn’t care if I live or die/And that is why I love her”) he does not exude the sensitive veneer of a trained keyboard wizard. He used to play piano onstage (“weird Brecht-like things mostly”) and is keen to utilise harmoniums and sundry unheralded items for B-sides. Hoping to precipitate the Nico revival, perhaps?
“I played with Nico, that’s the funny thing. When I was at drama school — yes, I went to drama school, but it’s OK, I dropped out — I got this gig playing my piano with this old woman called Nico. Pretty big gig, Chippenham it was. I’d never heard of her. Didn’t know who she was until a year later.”