Re: Oasis

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OASIS EXTRAVAGANZA ON NME.COM!



Oasis in 1994

It was 10 years ago next week that OASIS released their mind-blowing debut album ‘DEFINITELY MAYBE’ and helped kickstart the BRITPOP phenomenon.

In celebration of this historic event, NME.COM is hosting a special site dedicated to ‘Definitely Maybe’ and all its attendant shenanigans. The site launches next Tuesday, August 31, and will roll out a full week’s worth of Oasis goodies, including:

Your chance to quiz Noel Gallagher on the especially revived, legendary Lamacq and Wiley show on Radio 1.
Your chance to hear, for one week only, the very first Oasis release, the demo of ‘Cigarettes And Alcohol’ that appeared on the ultra-rare NME covermount cassette, ‘Muthas Of Creation’
A whole bunch of archive Oasis reviews, interviews and pix from 1994
The greatest Oasis competition in the world ever – win Liam’s tambourine!
Exclusive footage from the forthcoming ‘Definitely Maybe ‘ DVD

So don’t forget, log onto nme.com/oasis next Tuesday for the big Oasis ‘Definitely Maybe’ extravaganza!

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Oasis Stars Wanted for Film Project

By Louise Hogan, PA News


A cousin of Noel and Liam Gallagher today appealed for the Oasis stars to consider writing the music score for a £14 million (20 million euro) movie being filmed in Ireland next year.

Fintan Cullen Gallagher is finding actors, crew and music for Lang Syne Films’ latest production based on one of Ireland’s most popular ballads, The Green Fields of France.

Mr Cullen Gallagher said: “We have been finding it difficult to get in contact with Liam and Noel. But we would like to discuss the possibility of Noel writing the score and maybe making a cameo appearance as it would give it the height of international flavour if Noel gets involved.”<br>
He added: “I only met the pair once and we chatted but they hardly know me. I thought it might be something they might be interested in as it includes the UK and Ireland and they are of Irish descent.

“We have made many attempts to get the boys on the phone to discuss the possibility of working together on this great film project, several contacts with the Gallaghers’ record company and the boys’ management has proved unsuccessful to date.”<br>
The script, which was written by Ned Stuart of the US production company Lang Syne Films, centres around Willie McBride, the 19-year-old soldier whose death in the First World War was immortalised in Eric Bogle’s ballad, The Green Fields of France.

Stuart fictionalised the life of Private McBride for the screen adaptation, called The Last Parade, but has tried to keep it historically accurate.

In the script Private McBride is a boxer who joins the army in Enniskillen before he meets his death on the war fields in France.

Mr Cullen Gallagher said all of the film crew – from make-up artists to camera operators – were being sourced in Ireland.

Irish actor Chris Feeney, who is being considered for a main role in the production, was instrumental in bringing the film to Ireland.

Feeney met the film company owner at an airport several years ago and has worked with him over the production of the project since.

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Oasis : Supersonic


Supersonic single cover, 1994

If Oasis didn’t exist, it’s hard to believe anyone would have the gall to invent them. Great bands out of Manchester there has been, even ones that harked back to previous great Manchester bands, but nothing like this. First impressions dictate that here we have an inch-perfect amalgam of late-‘80s Mancadelic cool: Tim Burgess fronting the Stone Roses with lyrics by Shaun Ryder. To suggest these lads ooze self-confidence is akin to saying Ryan Giggs looks a bit useful on the ball; statements rarely come so under.

Yet these are only the crudest of reference points, and anyhow, Oasis are rightly setting mouths a-gape by being so astoundingly accomplished from the outset. Even their illustrious forefathers allowed themselves a few initial fumbles before hitting that swaggering stride, but ‘Supersonic’ is a paragon of pop virtue in a debut single: three or so minutes of laid-back urgency, generously appointed with at least four melodies, and fizzing with enough attitude to silt up the orifice of your choice. Milkmen will whistle it, impressionable youths will play air guitar to its swooping, stalking riffs, while fading twentysomethings who remember with fondness something called ‘baggy’ will find themselves lapsing into the Dance Of The Tired And Emotional Baboon. Obviously, in the wrong hands this record is a potent weapon.

And those lyrics! “I’m feeling supersonic/Give me gin and tonic,” offers Liam Gallagher in Verse One, before totally outdoing himself in Verse Two: “I know a girl called Elsa/She’s into Alka Seltzer/She sniffs it through a cane on a supersonic train/And she makes me laugh/I got her autograph/She done it with a doctor/On a helicopter…” Suffice to say in the next line he rhymes “tissue” with “The Big Issue”.

That Oasis have the nerve to foist such doggerel on a nation of still vaguely intelligent folk is sufficient proof of the intuitive genius at work here. That the B-side is a beautiful aching ballad called ‘Take Me Away’ demonstrates still further that they’re not just along for the ride ‘til the Roses finally sort themselves out. Thrilling? Absolutely. Stars? Inevitably. And? Simply a great rock ‘n’ roll group.

Keith Cameron.

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Watch the videos...

www.nme.com/oasis/feature_story.htm?ID=109738

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Oasis : Shakermaker

(Single of The Week, June 18 1994).


Shakermaker single cover, 1994

Predictable, maybe, but even in a fantastic week for singles, inevitable. Which just goes to show that, as starts go, Oasis’ has been pure Ben Johnson at the 1988 Olympics: devastating, effortless, triumphant. And, of course, ‘assisted’.

Fortunately, there are no urine tests in pop, so this almighty second single will undoubtedly grant the brothers Gallagher access to the world of ’Top Of The Pops’ and mass adoration.

They deserve it, too: for in much the same way that my entire life has been but a tawdry dress rehearsal for “doing” the NME singles, one suspects that Oasis’ entire existence has been leading up to this moment.

By rights, ‘Shakermaker’ should lack the colossal impact of ‘Supersonic’, but from the second they unapologetically strike up a crunching, gob-smacking 12-bar boogie you know this is going to be one unspeakably cool record. And, by the time Liam’s vocals loll out of the speaker in the ultraconfident fashion of the natural star, half-inching the ‘I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing’ melody along the way, you know you’re dealing with greatness.

The three other tracks are more formulaic (especially the hey-let’s-write-a-B-side dippiness of ‘D’Yer Wanna Be A Spaceman?’), but sod it, it’s A-sides that matter. Even minus ‘that’ line, this is a Coca-Cola Classic of a record.

Mark Sutherland

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Oasis : Live Forever


Live Forever single cover, 1994

Two ungainly slabs of thug-boogie down the line, and I had this lot marked down less as the Beatle-browed saviours of rock ‘n’ roll, and more as The Real People for ’94. Remember The Real People? Scally bruisers with a heavier take on baggy, a taste for scrapes and an inevitable obsession with the Fab Four… See?

‘Live Forever’, though, is much, much better. Noel classes it alongside ‘Wild Horses’ and ‘Cortez The Killer’, predictable bravado that shows in a couple of impeccable solos. But really, with a kind of sun-kissed nonchalance rather than those two’s fraught elegance, it comes across more like The La’s ‘There She Goes’ or- I’m afraid it’s true- like ‘Made Of Stone’. It TOTALLY gives off the impression that the Gallaghers believe they can make the world dance around their little fingers just when they like it- which they can nowadays, more or less. And it even succeeds at being extremely pretty, a quality you’d hardly expect from such svelte sophisticates.

Basically, what thus far looked like Manc lad arrogance looks like sheer effortlessness. A terrific record.

John Mulvey

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The Making Of Oasis

by Vicky Roberts on 9/2/2004


Oasis have will broadcast a special documentary tomorrow (September 3) to celebrate the release of their ‘Definitely Maybe’ DVD.

The veteran band who shot to fame in 1994 have planned a torrent of special features for fans and the tenth anniversary of the band, including special ringtones, downloads, screenings and artwork.

Now, a documentary ‘There We Were…Now Here We Are: The Making Of Oasis’ will be broadcast on Channel 4 at 11.35pm. It documents the bands rise to stardom from their roots in Manchester to having one of the fastest selling debuts of all time.

Featuring interviews with all the original band, as well as other key people, the documentary will make essential viewing for anyone who was there, and give an insight to those who weren’t.

Footage from the forthcoming DVD, released on Monday (September 6), will feature on the The Sunday Times CD-Rom ‘The Month’. The CD features more than five minutes of footage from the DVD including excerpts from the hour long documentary, and live footage from this year’s Glastonbury and archive footage of the band performing ‘I Am The Walrus’.

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Oasis : Desert Storming, Oasis, London King's Cross Splash! Club


Liam Gallagher live at
King's Cross Splash! Club in 1994

RUMOUR HAS it that more than a couple of Oasis - Manchester's latest loafers, freshly attached to Creation Records - used to roadie for The Stone Roses. Reality shows that, no doubt exhausted by the intense legwork inherent in working on the Roses' mammoth world tours, Oasis have spent their time mastering the art of the 17-skinner and, like, uh... what's my name again?

Remember the first time you saw Verve? How you howled openly at their mad fusion of rock histrionics and off-the-wall arrogance? Oasis have a similar effect, helped not only by neatly avoiding Verve's Led Zeppelin excesses, but also by a stuffed, perspiring throng waiting to see if the new kids on the Manc block can elevate themselves above the memory of The High.

"I can see for miles and miles," howls singer Liam Gallagher at one point. "I'd like to teach the world to sing," he shrugs at another, and the man with the David Cassidy haircut isn't lying.

See, Oasis know their pop history and aren't afraid to stroke its belly until the past 30 years of music simply rolls over and capitulates, seduced by the most nonchalant approach to making a racket since the Mondays had their day. Lethargic? Christ, Oasis can barely move.

So Liam toys languidly with a star-shaped tambourine. Smart. So his brother Noel knocks out all these spangly, never-ending guitar licks, most of which resemble the last 30 seconds of The Edge's axe solos circa Red Rocks, albelt without the leather waistcoat. So 'Cigarettes And Alcohol' is a complete rehash of 'Get It On', down to a T.Rex, and one song sounds exactly like Blur, and Oasis should, by rights, be unmitigated crap but...they are in fact more fun than a mudbath with a meerkat.

It's the way they grove (seriously!). It's the way that - unlike the torturous Scream album - Oasis songs simply roll along with a genuine Up yours attitude and a lazy beat sufficiently Infectious to make gawping, semi-concussed 'gezzers' of us all, while Liam carelessly chucks melodies on top. And - here's the important bit - it's the way that Liam says "Thank you very much" with such sneering topspin it sounds uncannily like "F- you vey much." Lovely.

Simon Williams

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Oasis : Definitely Maybe


Definitely Maybe album
cover, 1994

There are those who are convinced that an evil cabal of journalists and record execs routinely invent pop groups and then devise ways of tricking otherwise sensible people into giving them money just for the hell of it; who believe they are being sold a pup here and would like to see Oasis fall flat on their lippy Mancunian arses. They see fights on ferries. They hear rustic language. They narrowly escape serious injury from chairs hurtling through the windows of hotel rooms; hotel rooms booked in the name of a certain Mr. Bonehead, if you please. In short, they smell hype and they think it stinks.

The funny thing is, they may have a point. But such an analysis omits one vital detail from the equation:
Oasis make records, write songs, stick ‘em down on tape and then put them out to stand or fall in posterity’s cruel gaze. And the fact that too much heartfelt emotion, ingenious belief and patent song writing savvy rushes through the debut Oasis album for it to be the work of a bunch of wind-up merchants. They’re too good. And yes, they really do mean it, man.

This much will be self-evident to anyone who’s seen the band live this year. By now, that First Oasis Gig syndrome has been experienced nationwide: an arms folded, eyebrow arched, all-pervasive ‘oh really?-ness’, gradually eclipsed by the realisation that this dammit, is rock as she was meant to be rolled. A shame factor enters because at this late stage, 30 years since The Beatles’ first Number One and nearly 40 since ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, we’re somehow supposed to have evolved from beyond these simple pleasures; the buzz of an electric guitar and a young voice yearning simple truths and uncomplicated desires ought to leave us cold because, by definition, something better must now exist. Oasis prove that this need not be so.

The reason is all too obvious: Noel Gallagher is a pop craftsman in the classic tradition and a master of his trade. Of his generation, probably only Kurt Cobain wielded the manipulative power of melody better, and you can’t imagine Noel having many guilt pangs about whether or not ‘Live Forever’ was just that little bit too perfect. For the same reason that The Stone Roses assuaged suspicions that beneath the star-spangled tunes there was less going on than met the eye, so Oasis lasso the heart in the time-honoured manner. Here are 12 songs- 11 if you’ve thrown away your record player- to hum beyond the grave.

It begins, somewhat inevitably, with ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Star’, a song about not being a postman that postmen the world over will clutch to their breasts and whistle ‘til horse. Cards are dealt squarely on the table. The first line mentions “living” ones “life” in “the city”, goes on to imply that it’s not a bowl of cherries all the time, but come nightfall there’s only one thing to do. “Toniiiight, I’m a rock ‘n’ roll star”, declaims Liam Gallagher with not the merest hint of irony. He holds this truth to be self-evident and we are in air-guitar heaven come the second verse of an opening track so perfectly realised that the challenge thereafter is simply not to blow it.

One major wobble aside, they don’t. And even then, the cod-mod farrago that is ‘Digsy’s Dinner’ is thrown off with such brass neck that you can only smile and rue the arrogance of youth. Erm, except Noel’s old enough to know better. “I’ll treat you like a queen/I’ll give you strawberries and cream/And then your friends will all go green/For my lasagne”. Right. It’s the one time his tendency for ‘will-this-do?’ nonsense poetry can’t be redeemed by the surrounding heavy racket, yet one resolutely daft moment on a debut that otherwise negotiates the line between divine inspiration and disaster without a flinch isn’t bad going.

It’s their much-vaunted ‘attitude’ that has bolstered Oasis with the confidence to make all this work. The only equivocal thing about ‘Definitely Maybe’ is its title. Everything else seems certainty. So what if all the singles are here? Or that one of them (‘Shakermaker’) breaches the Name That Tune copyright hardline just that bit too brazenly? You don’t get owt for nowt and these same people give us ‘Slide Away’, a completely heart-rending love song which proves that Oasis do possess both the sweetness and tenderness to complement their well-proven hooligan qualities. “I dream of you and all the things you say,” sobs Liam in his least mannered, most unambiguously heartfelt vocal of the album. “I wonder where you are now…”

It’s a touching response to his elder brother’s desolate, sad-eyed melody, something like ‘Zuma’-period Neil Young via Paul Weller’s ‘Foot Of The Mountain’. At such moments even the conspiracy theorists have to qualify their doubts and acknowledge the greatness that lurks somewhere behind those magnificent Gallagher eyebrows (really kids, check ‘em out).

If ‘Slide Away’ is atypical, then so too is ‘Columbia’, the oldest songs on the album and a barbed wire groove monster that prompts the most overt comparisons with illustrious Manc predecessors, though even the Happy Mondays in their pomp would have killed for its certifiable reserves of menace. Again, the thought occurs that if Oasis really cared about what anyone else thought they would have passed on this remnant from their past. But hell, self-consciousness is the enemy of great art, as Bonehead no doubt said at the time.

Said rationale also explains ‘Cigarettes And Alcohol’. Yes, yes, it’s that riff, and it’s just been waiting all this time for the most beautiful boy in Lancashire to walk up to it and scream “It’s a crazy sityooaysheeeunn!!!” down its lug. If we were to split hairs, that the demo version as given away by your caring, sharing NME is superior in that it made absolutely no attempt to tart up the song’s root source, whereas here Noel adds a guitar frill or two. Nothing wrong, just a bit unnecessary.

Yet the essential vindication of ‘Definitely Maybe’ is that one is forced to delve through the small-print to find fault with its gleaming, thrills-aplenty scheme. There really is precious little else amiss, and even in the space of a relatively one-dimensional effort like ‘Up In The Sky’ there are constant reminders of the endless serviceability of that chord change and those fervent, ruthless drums. The butt of many a joke, sure, but deny the brutal effectiveness of one Tony McCarroll at your peril.

So there we are: even the drumming’s heroic. That ‘Definitely Maybe’ has an air of over-familiarity is perhaps unsurprising- especially if Oasis have reinvigorated your faith in the redemptive powers of the in-the-flesh rock ‘n’ roll experience to the extent that you’ve seen them at least a dozen times in the past six months. And even then there’s the virgin treat of the closing ‘Married With Children’, just Noel on guitar and sardonic vocal: “I hate the way that you’re so sarcastic/And you’re not very bright/You think that everything you’ve done’s fantastic/Your music’s shite it keeps me up all night”. Like, smart.

There are those who caution that there’s not enough depth here, that in 18 months’ time no-one will care to listen to ‘Definitely Maybe’, that it won’t endure like the all-time greats it so reveres. This, surely, is not the point. Few other debut albums have captured a band at such a fully-realised aspect, or are capable of scorching the soul with so many jaw-jarringly great pop moments.

Granted, subtlety is not top of the agenda, and including Noel’s solo acoustic and very lovely ‘Sad Song’ on all formats would have upped the tenderness quotient, as well as dispelling the suspicion that its absence on CD and cassette is nothing but a crafty ruse to boost sales, as opposed to a noble gesture of support for the endangered species that is vinyl.

Yet in the grander scheme of things, such quibbling seems unwarranted. With ‘Definitely Maybe’, Oasis have encapsulated the most triumphant feeling. It’s like opening your bedroom curtains one morning and discovering that some f-er’s built the Taj Mahal in your back garden and then filled it with your favourite flavour of Angel Delight. Yeah, that good.

Of course, as Liam Gallagher himself advises in spiralling mantric conclusion to ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’, “It’s just rock ‘n’ roll”. Quite so, young man. That’s all ‘Definitely Maybe’ is. But when this brilliant, it’s enough.

Keith Cameron

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Oasis : 100 Club, London


Liam Gallagher live

There it is, the new sound of young Scotland, wiggling its corduroy-wrapped hips, pursing its lips and clapping enthusiastically into the mic in a basement club in Oxford Street, London, March ’74... Ooops! Sorry, but that Andrew Shields of Whiteout is a deadringer for a young-ish Rod.

But only if you’re drinking Bacardi. Whiteout continue the current obsession harboured by a clutch of West Coast Scottish bands of choosing an early to mid-’70s rock group and carving out a direct replica in their own image.

There’s only room for one Faces cover band in this world, and they’re called The Black Crowes. Hopefully Whiteout will come to realise this and develop accordingly, because there’s real, raw talent lurking in those skinny frames.

Oasis, however, are fully formed and fantastic. They sound like Happy Mondays’ ‘Kinky Afro’ crashing headlong into Teenage Fanclub’s ‘What You Do To Me’, as each song, from the assured debut single ‘Supersonic’ right through to the T-Rexian highlight ‘Cigarettes And Alcohol’ revolves around a collection of huge grooves attached to glittering yet menacing glam guitar riffs.

At times tonight Oasis assume the mantle of Best Live Band In The Country with joyous, arrogant Mancunian confidence. They may never be this good again and they may have never been this good before but, four rows from the front, they sound like the most astute, important signing Alan McGee has made since Ride. They may even cancel out all the Hollyfaiths, Boyfriends and Shonen Knifes that once littered the Creation office.

Certainly, Liam Gallagher could do with shaking off some of his more latent Ryder-isms – the hunchback microphone molesting, the between-song banter (“Cheers, big ears”?). But he’s twice the singer Ryder was, much better-looking – and if he just stands up straight every now and then, he’ll be on Top Of The Pops by Christmas.

Ted Kessler

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Oasis screening By Scott Marley




On 6th September 2004, Oasis release Definitely Maybe – The DVD to commemorate the ten-year anniversary of this landmark album’s release. To celebrate the release Upshot are running 5 exclusive screenings of the new format. The events take place in Manchester, Glasgow, Sheffield, Exeter and Birmingham in early September.

The screenings allow Oasis fans a sneak preview of the DVD, and many of its special features, before it hits the shops. Events are open to the public, but operate on a first come, first serve basis, so get there early! Competitions will also be running throughout each event, allowing attendees to win exclusive Oasis promo, as well as the chance to enter a national DVD player and signed artwork competition.

Celebrated as the best British album ever by Q Magazine in June 2004, Definitely Maybe became the fastest selling debut album ever upon its release in August 1994. For the first time ever, the whole album, including rare vinyl-only track ‘Sad Song’, is available on DVD. The classic audio version is accompanied by an hour-long documentary about the recording of the album featuring rare and contemporary interviews with the band, label, friends and entourage, memorable live and TV performances of Definitely Maybe’stwelve era-defining tracks and more besides – totalling nearly five hours of classic Oasis music and footage.

“Definitely Maybe bucked the trend of cynicism and despair to give us belief in our right to excitement.” NME, December 1994

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Buy Noel's Rolls Royce

by Vicky Roberts on 9/3/2004


Noel Gallagher’s Rolls Royce, famously given to the Oasis star by Creation Records boss Alan McGee, has been put up for auction on Ebay.

The Rolls, given to Gallagher in 1995, was a present from McGee for huge record sales of the band’s debut album ‘Definitely Maybe’. Gallagher couldn’t even drive.

Bids on the cream and metallic brown 1978 saloon have shot up from £9,000 to a current price of £11,400 with over eight days to go on the bidding.

According to the seller, he bought the car off Gallagher, and Noel’s signature is still on the vehicle registration document.

Explaining his gift at the time McGee said: "Noel had always said he wanted a Rolls-Royce if he ever made it, and I suddenly thought why not get him one?

"He's sold six million records in the last year - if that's what the guy wants I'll buy him a Rolls-Royce. I just loved it as a rock 'n' roll gesture."

Oasis' special edition 'Definitely Maybe' DVD is on sale on Monday (September 6).

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Oasis thank drugs for Definitely Maybe


04/09/2004



Rockers Oasis insist the secret behind their chart-topping debut album Definitely Maybe is copious amounts of drugs.

The band frequently dropped acid while recording the 1994 CD and boast their inebriated state fuelled their creativity, although occasionally, their drug-inspired tunes horrified them the following morning.

Noel Gallagher admits: "Everyone was cabbaged beyond belief - 4am in the studio, you're about to eat yourself because you're so f***ing fantastic.

"You listen back the next morning and it sounds like Trumpton. But I love the album. And not only musically, but for what it meant to people - still means."

His brother Liam adds: "You're an idiot if you start taking drugs because you're in a band. It just so happens you can get more drugs when you're in a band."

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Gallagher pines for North


07/09/2004



Oasis rocker Liam Gallagher is tired of London and keen to return to his native northern England.

The Manchester-born singer has been busy recording new material for the band's upcoming sixth studio album in London - but he claims he's grown sick of the capital and ready to revisit his friends and family in the north.

He says: "I've just been so busy in the studio recording new stuff and sometimes London just does your head in and it's s***.

"But it makes going back north better in a way. I do miss it. Everything is so far apart here, but I'm going to go and see me mam soon."