Okay folks. It's like this. I'm putting the PAPER ARTICLE to the list, because so many people mailed asking for it, so I thought that It would be easier to do this. I'm too tired and sad to comment on it right now, although some of the quotes were quite amusing. I've got more to say now. The whole 'likes' thang with the gurrrrlll. I believe that it isn't just a 1 way thang (sorry for adopting the texan drawllllll) Sometimes, when we talk, there will be strange looks and I don't know what they mean. I can talk about serious things to her - death (don't worry, I'm not going to get morbid) , life, worries, fears, problems, and all that, stuff that we can't really discuss with anyone else, not even my parents, family, or other friends. I've even given, and recieved a hug to and from her. However, sometimes it's just hard to tell what everything means - you don't know what is intended by a certain comment, or or look - and someone suggested that I get drunk and tell all, as I'll be able to blame it on the drink - well I'm only16 - would you be suggesting that I do a bit of underage drinking? I thing that there might be somthing, but how can I be sure - I keep onn thinking that I'll say "I think you're great, really great, the greatest ever", and then I'll see her and think "I can't do this - this is stupid - I know what the answer will be - a big fat no". I have already said that there are some strange looks that are given (not strange as in (you are a bloody nutter), but possibly 'I want to say somthing but can't, (but not cause my mouth is taped up) or even looks which are perfectly innocent, but I can't tell what is what. Yeahhh - also, I'm a scotsman, and I have a kilt, but I am in no way foolish enough to wear no underwear - sometimes, when it is cold and windy, it could be rather embarassing. However, us scots chase haggis (you know, the three legged furry animals), round hills , throwing spears and rocks at them, shouting "ARRRAGH - YABASTARRRD!!!!!!!!!" the article follows. (It is very, very, very long - took me an hour and a half to write up last night. Ooohhh - my hands - Aggghhhhh - the pain) Chris Mellan "CRYSTALBALLS" - the original and best. M223CMELLAN@holyrood.gla.sch.uk BATTLE OF THE BRITS Sunday Times - Ecosse Section - 7th March 1999 --------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- They are the best newcomers to British pop, but Belle & Sebastian have found themselves in the middle of a pitched battle, they tell ALAN BROWN It was fitting that Muhammed Ali, the greatest fighter of all time, should have been a guest of honour at the British music industry's annual beanfeast, the Brit Awards, at the London Arena last month. There he witnessed the most unlikely knockout in the history of British pop, as an obscure band from Glasgow triumphed in the Best British Newcomer category. Against the commercial might and boisterous appeal of teeny bop acts such as B*witched and Steps emerged Belle & Sebastian, a band known, if they were known at all, for their collective timidity than for their music. One look at them - at their Jesus sandals, librarian V-necks and unattended hair - would have told the former champ that not only did this lot float like butterflies, they stung like them too. That night in Docklands it was unlikely that even Ali, a perennial champion of the underdog, would have predicted success for the flyweight Scots. Nobody could have predicted what happened next. As their celebratory hangovers lifted, Belle & Sebastian became enmeshed in controversy, amid allegations that the vote had been rigged in their favour. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the body that organises the Brits, was quick to vindicate them, but the row rumbled on. Just as it began to subside, Billboard magazine claimed on Friday that Belle & Sebastian might be stripped of their award, not because the vote was rigged but because they did not qualify under BPI rules as newcomers, having had several singles reach the top 40 last year. One irony is that this unwanted attention has focused on a band who have made reticence an art form, shying from exposure and maintaining their distance from the London music business by recording for a tiny independent label from their base at a church hall in the west end of Glasgow. But there are other curious twists to the Brit affair. While Billboard claims that Belle & Sebastian contravene the BPI 's definition of a new band, the BPI says that this is untrue and accuses Billboard of publishing a distorted summary of BPI rules. An on-going Billboard investigation is considering the possibility that commercial interests within the record industry are influencing which performers are nominated and triumphant in the Brits. As Mark Solomons of Billboard admits, much of it's information comes from BPI board member Pete Waterman - the record producer who first voiced the vote- rigging allegations: "Pete tipped me off that commercial interests are being brought to bear on the Brits," Solomon says. "And he seems to be talking a lot of sense". Waterman insists that the Belle & Sebastian affair is not closed. "There are just too many anomalies that remain unanswered". He says he will raise the issue of corruption at a BPI council meeting on March 25. As producer of Steps, who lost out in the Best Newcomers category, Waterman's crusade might reek of sour grapes. Equally, the modest victory of a Scottish band could become a landmark in Brits history, for all the wrong reasons. Safely ensconced back in Glasgow, the band are happy to let the furore play itself out. Mark Jones, managing director of their record label, jeepster, says the band will "happily give the award back without loosing any sleep over it". Stuart Murdoch, Belle & Sebastian's front man, is more reflective: "I thought the only way I'd ever feature on the cover of The Sun would be for things that involved a six-year sentence." FAMOUSLY, the band did not attend the awards en masse. An eight piece collective, Belle & Sebastian found themselves so strapped for cash that only their drummer and trumpeter could afford to go. When the award was announced, the boozy cheer of the evening gave way to much bemusement, and not just in London: sitting at home in Glasgow, already drunk, the rest of the band listened to the ceremony on the radio. Drummer Richard Colburn was halfway through his acceptance speech when singer and songwriter Murdoch, the gravity of the situation dawning on him slowly, woozily cried: "I think we've won something!" If the award surprised the reticent Glaswegians, it proved more disquieting for some at the highest levels of the London music industry. Shortly after the ceremony, Waterman unleashed his claim. Known for his work in the 1980s shaping the careers of Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan, Waterman now guides Steps, an act whose ABBA-derived pop had made them chart fixtures and, some claimed, a certain shoo- in for the Best Newcomer gong. Certainly this was the impression Waterman had formed, claiming that before the ceremony Brit insiders briefed him that the award was in the bag. The subsequent events left him splenetic. Belle and Sebastian won, he claimed, because their fans had unfairly influenced the voting, which was done by the public through telephone and internet polls. A cabal of computer-literate Belle & Sebastian fans at Strathclyde University was blamed. The band's donnish demeanour, which had made them the heroes of bedsit-bound adolescents round the world, had been turned against them. The affair has proved the latest bizarre chapter in a career marked by perverse singularity. They had rejected a multi-million pound offer from American recording giants Sire; it was considered too big a challenge to their downbeat lifestyle. Rigorously avoiding publicity, the band prefer to stay in Glasgow's west end, leading the same lifes they had before their rise. Their folksy, whimsical albums are recorded in the nave of a church hall where the front man works as a janitor. Touring is avoided; concerts in community centres are much preferred. The Belle & Sebastian story began four years ago in Glasgow's Grosvenor Cafe, a haven for the city's bohemian fringe of writers and musicians. Here, Murdoch dreamt of forming a band that combined lyrical sophistication with a delicate, wistful musicality. By nature a loner, he would approach likely looking strangers in the cafe with invitations to join his quest. A nucleus eventually coalesced round Murdoch: Stevie Jackson, a veteran of the Glasgow band scene who works as an occupational therapist; Colburn, a former semi-professional snooker player; and Isobel Campbell, a classically trained multi- instrumentalist. Their debut album, Tigermilk, was released thanks to a music project run by Stow College. Two more albums appeared to widespread critical acclaim, compounded by selective live shows and minimal promotion. Musically, the band are wilfully old-fashioned, drawing their inspiration not from guitar rock but forgotten 1980s acts such as Felt, Orange Juice and The Go- Betweens. Album sales have followed an upwards curve: their second collection If You're Feeling Sinister has earned a silver disk for more than 60,000 sales, while its successor The Boy With The Arab Strap recently went gold, reaching no 12 in the album charts. Success at the Brits meant that last week the album re-entered the Top 40 seven months after its release. Their sales worldwide total 300,000, an amazing amount considering the almost word-of-mouth manner in which their reputation has spread. The band's real genius may have been to use the full potential of the internet rather than conventional media to market themselves: their official web site receives 100,000 hits a week. It is complemented by a rash of unofficial sites which dissect Murdoch's lyrics as if they were the first drafts of The Waste Land. There is an interesting paradox in a pastoral entity such as Belle & Sebastian finding themselves at home in cyberspace. Yet the web is a perfect forum for insular, fact-obsessed fans to dissect the objects of their affection, while Belle & Sebastian throw up much that requires dissection. One music biz insider believes that Belle & Sebastian's alliance with the Internet played a part in the Brit debacle. Claims that their fans had weighted the e- mail poll reflect a wider unease within the music community. The insider said: " The music business wants nothing to do with the Internet. They realise it poses a threat to the way they work, the kind of investment that's put into new stereo hardware and reselling back catalogues in new formats. There's a suspicion of bands who are comfortable with the Internet." The point is underlined by Alan McGee, president of Creation Records: "There will be no record companies in five or 10 years' time," says McGee. "Artists will just download their music direct to consumers via the Net." Back at the Brits, Colburn remembers how he went with modest ambitions: "I genuinely thought we were here to make up the numbers," he says. "Obviously, there was the slight hope at the back of my mind that we might just win it. I thought I'd enjoy a night out then return to obscurity the next day, a bit like Cinderella." If Colburn and trumpeter Mick Cooke entertained any hopes winning, they were put into perspective when they entered the Arena. Colburn walked in behind the girl band B*wiched: "I thought that it would be a good policy to sneak in behind them. There was all this noise and fuss. Then as Mick and I walked by, the noise died down, the flashbulbs stopped. There were 100 photographers muttering ' who the hell are those two?' under their breaths. Almost everyone looked utterly confused. One executive apparently thought that we were a music law firm." Alan Parks was among a small band of Scots executives at the awards, there in his capacity as A&R man for All Saints, New Order and Echo and the Bunnymen. He dismisses the idea, however carefully cultivated, of Belle & Sebastian against the world. "It's slightly disingenuous to suggest that nobody knew who they were," he says, "The London Arena is a strange venue where you can't really hear anything. I'm sure that most people were genuinely pleased that they'd won, if perhaps a little surprised. The only people who would be genuinely disappointed are the other nominees in their category." Amongst them, of course, was Waterman. A music industry insider suggests Waterman's ire was provoked because he had his fingers burnt through believing a tip-off from a BBC producer. If he has learnt a lesson it is that, unlike Belle & Sebastian's devoted fan base, the audience for Steps is characterised by teenage fickleness: just 1% of the band's fan membership voted. Belle & Sebastian have refused to hit back at Waterman. They have taken a decision (collectively, of course) to put the row behind them. The band will say only that justice was seen to be done: "Both the Brits organisers and Radio 1 were satisfied that there were no illegalities following their enquiry. The whole thing was scandalous." They remain determined that the award and their curious notoriety will not affect the manner in which they work. "We have this reputation for not playing the game," says bassist Stuart David, "but that's not really the case. Working within a democracy, it's difficult to act as a spokesman for so many points of view. In some cases less is more. Now we've won a Radio 1 award, voted by for their listeners, you'd expect they'd play our records on the radio during the day. I suppose in some ways it's a victory for the small man, and speaking as a relatively small man, I hope people take encouragement from that." Steve Farris, of Sony Music, one of the many majors whose advances the band have rejected, believes Belle & Sebastian were destined for success. "They are under the microscope at the moment, but I can't imagine they'll be ordering dancing girls and drinking champagne," he says. "The recognition will help them sell a few records. I've no doubt that Stuart Murdoch will be hailed as one of the great songwriters of the decade. But there are five exceptionally talented songwriters in the band, and for that reason alone I think that they were always going to be massive." With the band seeming more like a Quaker sect that a conventional rock act, Belle & Sebastian's attitude can infuriate as much as their music delights. Their refusal to gage in self-promotion is explained as a sign of modesty but there is also something slightly precious about it, an elitist reluctance on the band's part to sully themselves by mingling with the unenlightened. If nothing else, their success is proof of something that many have wished for but few have seen: a Scottish band that can prosper outside the clutches of the metropolitan music industry, operating on their own terms in their own place. In this respect, as in several others, Belle & Sebastian are a true one off. Given the controversy that still surrounds their win, they haven't let it rush to their heads. "We haven't really bought anything to celebrate," reflects David, "although I have decided to march boldly into the 1980s and buy a video recorder. I've bought some shelves and some sofas, but they'll take 10 days to come so the excitement will have died down by then." "Does modernising the house count as a celebration? We haven't maxed out the AMEX, but I suppose I've gently battered the Switch card." THE NEWCOMERS AND THEIR PAST 1993-94 - singer/songwriter Stuart Murdoch forms a band by approaching strangers in a Glasgow cafe. Releases several solo demos. 1995 - meets drummer Richard Colburn and bass player Stuart David January 1996 - eight-piece is formed: Isobel Campbell (cello) Sarah Martin (violin) Stuart David (bass) Richard Colburn (drums) Chris Geddes (keyboards) Stevie Jackson (guitar) Mick Cooke (trumpet) Stuart Murdoch (lead vocals and guitar) March 1996 - Limited edition vinyl-only run of 1,000 copies of first album, Tigermilk, released. Radio 1's Mark Radcliffe hears and loves it; he gives the band a session on his show. 1997 - Follow-up release, If You're Feeling Sinister Band turn down Top of the Pops invite and offer of support slot on Radiohead's world tour. Autumn 1998 - Third Album, The Boy with the Arab Strap, is released. February 1999 - Best British Newcomer at Brit Awards. Accused of vote rigging by Pete Waterman, but cleared by the BPI of all charges +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+