Inspiring of both derision and affection the ‘Take That of Indie’ Menswe@r divided opinion in the mid 90s as now. Some see them as the superficial nadir of Britpop the band that were built on more hype than substance. Others are enamored by their sharply suited style and their bright, crafty tunes that followed in Blur‘s slipstream and harked back to the artfulness of Wire to the tuneful classicism of the Kinks. Known primarily for their hit ‘Daydreamer’ that saw a memorable Top of the Pops appearance, Menswe@r’s debut 1995’s ‘Nuisance’ possessed more quality than is sometimes acknowledged, Menswe@r songs like ‘The One’, ‘I’ll Manage Somehow’, ‘Being Brave’, ‘Stardust’ and ‘The One’ are fondly remembered by some. Now there’s even a Britpop club in London called Nuisance in London.
The Menswe@r story was perhaps the biggest distillation of the swift asset quickly followed by a bursting of the ‘Britpop’ bubble. Arriving in Camden around 1994 they were in Select before they were even a fully formed band. With a flurry of hype surrounding them, a showcase at Smashing and one memorable song Menswe@r were everywhere! This swiftly insured a major label battle to sign them, three or four singles (most notably ‘Being Brave’ and ‘Daydreamer’) that graised the charts and a debut album release, before a downward spiral that saw them nursing breakdowns, addictions and a very strangely promoted second album that vanished without a trace.
We caught up with Menswe@r’s enigmatic front man Johnny Dean as he prepares, Menswe@r 3.0 (the newly regenerated Line up of the band) for a special show at Bush Hall this March. This comes off the back of Johnny Dean’s comeback performance of David Bowie songs at Nuisance in aid of the National Autistic Society, last year and a warm up show with the new Menswe@r in Islington.
In this interview Johnny talks about his past, dispels some myths surrounding the Menswe@r story and Britpop. Tells us about his experiences of Depression and autism plus his thoughts on the music business in 2014. …
Hi Johnny, how are you?
Busy. Steve Horry keeps sending stuff at me! Hahaha!
What was your earliest musical memory?
It’s weird this, because back in the 90s, I was being interviewed all the time by some of the biggest music publications in the world, for television, radio, you name it. Not once was I ever asked this question. Seriously. A lot of the time I was being asked about stuff that had little to do with music. Madness! Yet since I’ve stepped back in the ring I’ve been asked at least three times. What is that about? So I’ve had time to think about it, because it’s one of those questions that relies on distant memory… But there are three memories that are quite distinct. When I was a small boy, just coming out of toddlerhood, I lived on a NATO base in Germany. In Nordrhein-Westfalen, a place called RAF Bruggen near the Dutch border. We had forces radio out there, I’m not too sure about TV, but I remember I watched children’s programs that were not English. Forces radio seemed to play older stuff, or stuff that wasn’t exactly current. My mum would play the radio when she cleaned and I have a specific memory of being in the garden and hearing “All I Have To Do Is Dream” by Glen Campbell and Bobbie Gentry wafting out from a window. The second is entirely visual, and was Marc Bolan on television, I think he was performing “Children Of The Revolution”. It left a big impression on me that. I’d never seen a guy in make up like that before. I was simultaneously perplexed and awestruck. In the UK his mainstream career was probably over by that point, so I guess I was lucky to catch it as it was obviously four or so years old. The last memory is me walking up and down the garden banging the hell out of one of those kid’s drums. I can’t play the drums. I am rubbish at it.
What was the first record you bought?
I was six or seven years old when I bought my first “record”. It was a cassette album of “Danny Kaye Sings Hans Christian Andersen and Other Favourites”. Not very rock and roll. My mum was supervising this purchase which may have had something to do with it.
What was the plan in coming to London?
The first time was to study graphic design. The second to escape the brain numbing, mundane existence of signing on in Southend-on-Sea in the early 90s. It was really getting me down. I needed more stimulation, at the time it seemed so backwards compared to what was happening in London. Morrissey used Southend for the “Every Day Is Like Sunday” video, which gives an idea of what it was like at the time. A little dreary. Faded Victorian glamour. That record shop in the video is Golden Discs, I used to go in there on breaks when I was at college. I don’t want to criticise Southend, I think it’s improved now, and everywhere was like that at the time I guess. I’d come to London regularly as a boy to visit my Aunt and Uncle and it always seemed very magical. I was always going to end up here regardless. Although now I’m in the suburbs. After twenty years London gets a bit dreary too!
I’ve read that originally Menswe@r consisted of yourself and Chris Gentry, how did you recruit the other members?
That’s not actually true. It was myself and Stuart Black. I met him at the Blow Up Club in ’93. He’d get drunk… well we both would, and try to persuade me to form a band with him. Eventually I capitulated. I knew Chris through a mutual friend in Southend. He was really awkward and just as scruffy but played guitar, and seemed like a sweet kid. I persuaded Stuart that he (Chris) was cool, he tidied himself up a bit and was “in”. So that was the core. That’s when we started our campaign to woo the music industry. Haha!
We managed to get the interest of a number of record companies and were being written about in the press without a note being heard by anyone. Just by being ruthlessly annoying. We had one song, “Daydreamer”, written in a kitchen in Dartford by the time Simon and Matt joined.
Originally we had a guy on drums called Todd Parmenter, but he was in other bands so couldn’t fully commit. Matt was bought in by me, he knew my girlfriend of the time. Simon was drafted by Chris. Both of them joined weeks before our first gig. They’re both Brummies so knew each other. Chris, Stuart and I had been in a Select Magazine piece which became infamous. It was written by Sian Pattenden, who I guess “discovered” us. It mentioned Menswe@r, an unsigned band, friends of Blur and Pulp etc. That pretty much sealed it.
We had interest from labels, a gig secured at one of the best club nights in London (Smashing), a manager, one song and a few weeks to get a full time drummer. The drummer part was easy. My girlfriend got me to phone Matt who was studying at Middlesex Uni. Not long after that I was approached by Simon in The Good Mixer. He seemed very keen to be friends and kind of freaked me out. I’m not good with that kind of thing. It was a Smashing Club night so I got him in for free as our newly acquired manager ran it. I didn’t see him for the rest of the evening. I think he made a bee line for Chris. I’m not sure whether they had already met. Pretty much at the next rehearsal Chris confided that he felt he couldn’t handle guitar duties on his own. We both agreed that he should ask Simon to join (he probably already had, thinking about it), but that he should tell Stuart and Matt first. He didn’t. We were all at the Good Mixer.
Steaming. Me and Matt were outside when Stuart delivered a message from Chris, inside, that went something like “I’ve asked Simon to join and if he can’t then I’m leaving”. Bit dramatic, and disconcerting. How do you deal with that? Reports by some people have me down as being furious about this, but I wasn’t. Mainly because I knew it was going to happen. I think it has suited people in the past to make out I was appalled to paint me in a certain light, a class piece of manipulation. Nonsense. If anyone was agitated it was Matt. He and Simon had some history from being in bands up in Birmingham. He was not a happy guy. Stuart wasn’t too pleased either. I was just upset about the way Chris went about it. This kind of nonsense went on to become something of a regularity. Eventually it resulted in the sacking of Matt and our demise as a “unit”. But that’s bands… As I’ve said, there are different stories told. But this is how it really went down. God’s honest truth. I have the memory of an elephant. The name Menswe@r was suggested to me by Steve Mackay and his girlfriend. I thought it was funny, but that it worked brilliantly. It seemed to fit just right…pun intended…
Daydreamer, it is claimed, was inspired by Elastica riff, is this true or an apocryphal rumour?
Myth. The worldwide web is an amazing invention. But is it me or is it killing research? It seems to have created what I call “copy and paste viewpoints”. No one seems to “find stuff out” properly anymore. They google a subject. Go to the first result. Copy and paste. Bob’s your uncle. That is some seriously half arsed bullshit. People! Bloggers! Yes, even you journalists! You are misusing the most powerful research tool known to man! Before you write something on any subject, hell, before you even say something, challenge it first. Check it thoroughly. Make sure it’s true. Don’t take another authors seemingly respectable credentials to mean that what they have written is fact. That is lazy. Ok… Rant over haha!
When me and Chris used to come into London to go to Blow Up we’d be stranded at the end of the night. On occasion Graham Coxon would let us crash on his living room floor and sofa. He introduced me to a band called Wire. He’d play Pink Flag a lot. It made an immediate impression. I hadn’t really heard anything like it before. That angular art rock.
“Daydreamer” was influenced by a couple of tracks on Pink Flag. The stop and start thing was influenced by “Lowdown”. And the other heavy influence is “Strange”. At the point of writing “Daydreamer” the only Elastica track I’d heard was “Stutter”, I think. Which is nothing like “Daydreamer”. Obviously, there was a Blur/Elastica connection (another pun). Which is why you hear Wire in both of those band’s music. Quite literally in Elastica’s case. I remember hearing “Connection” for the first time and thinking “Fucking Hell! They won’t get away with that!” There’s a lot of other stuff in “Daydreamer” that people don’t seem to have noticed. A number of influences. Cherry picked. But none of them come from the Elastica tree. Some of them are so obvious it’s a wonder they’ve never been discovered. I don’t think the rest of Menswe@r are even aware of them! I suppose by the time “Daydreamer” was actually released in ’95 Elastica were already pretty well established, and Chris and Donna were often billed as being an item, so people just jump to conclusions. And other people accept those conclusions as being fact. I actually wrote the lyrics to “Daydreamer” waaay before in 1990 when I was 19. On an acid trip. Anyway, simple song, indie dancefloor classic, Britpop standard.
Menswear are often derided as the joke of Britpop why do you think that is? There seems to be another school that feels that Menswear were actually quite under rated and poorly treated in some ways….
There’s a lot of sour grapes out there for Menswe@r. For seemingly infinite reasons. I could not give a flying toss. At the end of the day I’d absolutely hate to be in a band everybody loves. Really. A band should divide opinion. As soon as you’re at the point where you want everybody to love you, you should retire and call yourself Bono. Menswe@r are a pop band. If you don’t like it, it’s not for you. I’m not the kind of guy who unwinds to Philip Glass (although I do like it) with a glass of Pinot Noir (I have no appreciation for wine) and a hefty tome about Napoleon (although I do sometimes read history books) before going to bed and crying myself to sleep. I am also not the kind of guy who owns a suede brush for his Clarke desert boots, has a haircut that appears to be too small for his head, and is ludicrous enough to suggest (let alone believe) that only music made with guitars is “proper”. I am who I am. Menswe@r is what it is. I make no apologies. Go and protest about something that might actually change or save lives. I don’t sit down and think “I’m going to write the kind of song Paul Morley would enjoy”, what kind of maniac would do that?
Who was it who coined the phrase: ‘Menswe@r are the Indie Take that?’
The wonderful Miranda Sawyer. Love her. It was for an interview that made the cover of Select magazine. I completely get it. We happened a little too early I think. Our record label didn’t seem to know how to push us. Teeny pop band, or serious “write your own songs” band? You couldn’t do both at the time. Things are different now. I like to think we helped. What? Let me have my victories!
What were your influences musically in the early 90s?
Blur. Suede. Primal Scream. The Beatles. The Small Faces. The Velvet Underground. Underworld. Lots of stuff. That’s a whole other interview…
What are your memories of your debut gig at Britpop night Smashing?
Not having a toilet backstage. Matt did a poo in the basement. It’s probably still there. I have no idea what he wiped his bum with. Campag Velocet supported us. They used Matt’s bass drum pedal and he was very unhappy. He even told them that they’d never work in this town again. He could be quite dramatic sometimes, could Matt! And he was the sensible one! I thought that was brilliant. Genius. I can’t remember the actual gig. Too discombobulated. But it was heaving. Rammed. Mainly with music industry. It was apparently quite good. Jarvis told me it was anyway. And Jarvis never lies. Does he?
How was it being a buzz band for that brief period was it kind of a whirlwind that you were enjoying initially? The buzz started before you were even a proper band and there was a record label battle of the kind you might not see now, what are your memories of that time?
It escalated so quickly I really didn’t have time, whilst it was happening, to fully appreciate it. It doesn’t happen to many people, that kind of thing. There is no manual on how to act, how to cope, it’s not like other jobs. It was literally fucking madness, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Absolute, unmitigated, glorious chaos. A car speeding down a hill with dodgy breaks, at night, with no headlights, and you know there’s a wall waiting somewhere up ahead. We gate crashed this party and ran with it, made friends, enemies, left our mark and got ejected by the organisers because we dared to turn up and give it a go. We put a lot of noses out of joint. And I’m really pleased with myself about it. Because not only does this not happen to people every day, but a “movement” like that, regardless of your opinions about it, will likely never happen again. And I was part of it. Me. With my big beaming face. A funny thing, but we caught a lot of flak for getting signed after five gigs. But you know who else that happened to? A little band called Blur.
How was recording your debut album Nuisance, many reports claimed that you only had a handful of songs at one time?
Nonsense. We had the whole album written, as well as most of our B sides, when we walked into Real World Studios to record Nuisance. Pow! Another myth bites the dusticles.
What was the inspiration behind songs like ‘Being Brave’ and ‘I’ll Manage Somehow’?
Simon wrote the “Being Brave” lyrics. So I have no idea. It sounds like nonsense to me. Haha! As far as “I’ll Manage Somehow goes”, I wrote the lyrics for the second verse and added the word “jolly” to the chorus. Because that is how I roll. The verse I wrote is about mental illness, and wanting to escape mediocrity before time runs out. Classic rock and roll themes. Tried and tested.
Reader question: Why didn’t Menswe@r put The One out as a single? It should have come out after Stardust, would have been a much bigger hit than Sleeping In which was just a good album track (bizarre single choice)
You have reader’s questions? For real? You didn’t make them up like Smash Hits? I would have loved to have put “The One” out as a single. It’s the dark horse of the album. Quality. “Sleeping In” was a record company choice as far as I know. I was on tour when that gem of a decision was made. It was probably a managerial mistake, or the manager kowtowing to our record label. He did that a LOT. I think he may have been confused about who he represented. Who paid him. Or he may have been a dick. One of those. It’s my fault ultimately for not getting shot of him when just about everyone was telling me to. But yes, “Sleeping In”, at the time I thought it was an odd choice to put out in the middle of winter, it has summer written all over it. Shit happens. Before we parted ways with our record label I was at a Christmas party that they threw, and the head honcho patted me on the back and said “We should have put The One out as a single”. It’s moments like that that can really test a person. You know that face Martin Freeman does all the time? Yeah, that.
Reader Question: Also why did they hide Bones & Red Meat as bonus track when it’s better than almost every other song on the album.
It’s nice that one isn’t it? We hardly ever played it live either. I’m not sure it’s the best song on Nuisance though. I don’t think it’s a good recording. But then I think that about most of Nuisance… Ha! I think we could have done it more justice. I don’t know why we did it. I think it was popular to have a hidden track on CDs at the time. Don’t ask me! I’m just the singer!
In his book on Britpop ‘The Last Party’ John Harris says the rise and fall of Menswe@r was like a distillation of the quick drug fuelled assent and dissent of the whole movement, what do you think?
I think that’s a pretty fair conclusion. Someone should write a book about menswe@r. No one would believe it was real. Anyone want to give me a publishing deal? I did have a quick chat with someone about this not long ago. They said I’d have to change all the names!
There was a hoax story doing the rounds last year that your debut album Nuisance had gone Platinum, did this amuse you?
It might actually have gone gold? At least silver? Bronze? I have no idea. Yes, I thought it was funny. Mainly because a lot of websites reported it without researching it first (see my earlier comment about research). Even the NME website! But some people decided to make up a lot of nonsense about me being unhappy about it, based on a post I made about something unrelated, but in a roundabout way connected. I basically found out, through this hoax, that some people are intent, after so many years, to still make nasty little comments about me. These dreadful little cliques. A bunch of grown men playing “Heathers”. Trying to be social media gangsters but coming across like a bunch of terminally backward, goofy brained, Beavis and Butthead impersonators.
So I went nuclear. But not because of the hoax. Let that be clear. Some wires evidently got crossed. Or more likely, someone crossed them. Someone who needs to get a hobby other than drinking. Maybe even a life. Anyway, a lot of these websites probably felt a bit silly for falling for it, so they deflected any negative attention by scapegoating me using a dubious Holy Moly article, which was definitely fed to them by someone with an axe to grind. I tried to tell the guy who wrote the article, but he was very disparaging, and tried his uttermost to wind me up even more. Even going so far as to belittle the fact I have Asperger Syndrome. Never mind. You can’t win with people like that. It’s not worth it. Well done, you’ve made my ‘shit list’, and these things have a tendency to come around and bite you on the arse. I’m far more careful with social media now. It’s so easy to be misunderstood. To get wound up. Winding up autistic people is like shooting fish in a barrel. Too easy. And not a nice thing to do. But it did result in some positives for sure. I’m all about being true to myself and positivity nowadays. Fuck those guys! Lick my balls! Let’s fucking have it. New Menswe@r. New rules. Love. Let us speak of this no more.
What’s your favourite Menswe@r song to perform live?
Crash. The One. And people singing along to Daydreamer still gives me goosebumps. Even now. Although, since regenerating the band with a new line up, the amount of fun I have when we play Hollywood Girl is notable.
What was your favourite Menswe@r gig?
The new Menswe@r did a gig last year for a mental health charity in a small venue in Islington. It was a toe dipper as far as Menswe@r was concerned. There were technical difficulties. It was a tiny weenie “stage”. But it was undoubtedly the most fun I have ever had. And it convinced me to push on.
Since you were in at the groundfloor so to speak of the rise and fall of Britpop what are your favourite memories of it all now, either good and bad? Were you friends with many of the other bands or was it more of a competitive situation?
There’s really too much. Far too much. Good and bad. It was a special time. I can see why it garnered some criticism. The proliferation of Union Flags, the perceived jingoism. Yeah, I was a little uncomfortable with that. It didn’t work so well in the States either. American culture translates far better with the British than vice versa. Most of America just didn’t get it. It was also a fairly misogynist thing, Britpop, the mid to late nineties. New Lad. The Ladette thing. Again, it made me cringe. I’m sure many of the girls in bands at the time were used to this attitude that they were only doing it to hang out with guys in bands. So there were negative aspects. But obviously it was a positive time for British music. Strangely enough though, during that entire time, other than a couple of bands I really didn’t listen to much Britpop!
There was a lot of competitiveness between bands. Some of it good natured, but much of it less so. It’s a shame really. People should have just concentrated on the music and enjoyed the moment more. This thing that had started really small but captured the world’s attention. A lot of the animosity was often fabricated by the press. It sells, y’know?
Last week you tweeted about the ‘Yuppification of pop’ during the Brits, do you think back in the Britpop days the music industry felt a little bit more democractic and more diverse in terms of the backgrounds of the artists involved?
Put it this way. If it wasn’t for the welfare system, I doubt I could have survived during the genesis of the band. And that’s something most of my peers would agree with. If you want to be a success, you have to be a band 24/7. It’s hard to juggle it with a day job. You may need to have long periods of unemployment. And some people don’t get that. The unemployment services don’t. But the government is happy to take vast quantities of money from you if you do well. Or hang out with you for photo opportunities.
Learning instruments, buying guitars, drum kits. That’s expensive. I think it discourages a lot of kids now. It’s cheaper to download cracked sequencer software and make music that way. And I think that’s fine. It’s almost punk. It is punk! I think music should be made by anyone, anywhere, by any means, with whatever you’ve got. Early hip hop was just turntables and a MC. Music isn’t exclusively the domain of middle class kids whose parents can afford to buy them their instruments and pay for lessons and send them to drama schools. Because that seems to be what’s happening. This split. You can see it. I saw it at the Brits. And it’ll become more prominent if this government continues to dismantle our wonderful welfare system. It boils my piss. David Cameron banging on about The Jam and The Smiths. Intolerable cunt.
What was the point when it all started to fall apart do you think? You have made illusions to various forces around the band being negative?
We started falling apart as soon as we formed. No joke. There was a lot of selfishness, manipulation, hard drug use, bad decisions, stubbornness. Regular band stuff. But it seemed to be amplified with menswe@r. Everything was always full on with us. We weren’t all on the same page. Fuck, we didn’t even go to the same library. It was doomed. Always doomed. I tried to keep things together, make compromises that were ultimately harmful to the band, but it was so detrimental to my health. Far too much to cope with, and it often seemed engineered to be so. My advice to people is be careful who you choose to be in a band with, take some time to find out if they’re on the same wavelength. Get tight, be a gang. It’s “you against them”, don’t forget it. And get a manger who isn’t a total waste of time and money. And if you form the band, be the boss, anyone doesn’t toe the line…? Get rid. Be hard. Have a vision. Stick to it.
I heard several tales of how mentally difficult the chaos of touring/existing as Menswe@r became latterly for some members of the band?
Yeah. But y’know most bands are mentally damaged or indeed deficient. Menswe@r had both in aces. I was an undiagnosed autistic, and the other guys had their problems and demons. Drugs, depression, unbridled narcissism, delusion, arrogance, paranoia, closeted homosexual tendencies. It was all there. Freud would have had a field day on our tour bus. He’d have given up psychology if he had met our manager. Hahahaaaaa! I witnessed a lot of things that could be described as sociopathic behaviour. Mensb@d.
Reader question: We Love You…. just why??
Because sometimes bad things happen, and you have to let them happen, in order to prevent even worse things from happening. I hate that song. It is awful. Truly. I will never play it again. Promise.
How do you feel in hindsight about the band’s lost second album Hay Tiempo? I remember reading a dodgy interview with Menswe@r line up 2.0, with you all in western gear and Cowboy hats!
Seriously, I don’t even….
Last year you performed David Bowie songs at Nuisance was this the genesis of the idea to regenerate Menswe@r as an entity? I’ve seen you get criticism for the decision to perform songs again, but that seems a little mean spirited in a way?!Have you tried to get in touch with any of the original members.
People are entitled to their opinions. But I’ll do what I like with my band. Thanks. There may have been contact with original members. That is between us. It’s nobody else’s business.
I’ve seen you talk openly about how depression has afflicted your life in the period since Menswe@r disbanded. Did it take you a long time to get to the root of your problems? Do you think the Time to Talk campaign can help tackle stigma of mental health issues?
I’ve always struggled with depression. Before, during and after the band. It’s a beast. After the band things came to a head and I eventually ended up on a psychiatric ward. Depression has a root, always. And you have to find out what that is, and you have to accept it and try to move on. To do that you need to be either exceptionally self-aware, or have someone to talk it through with. Be honest about it. Chances are everyone will be affected by depression at some point. Everyone. And we all need to start being open about it. Because keeping it to yourself is detrimental, harmful.
Depression kills more young men than cancer. Fact. So why do we take one seriously and not the other? That really is crazy. Charities like Time to Talk and C.A.L.M. and Mind are essential for the work they do in promoting the dangers of keeping mental health problems to yourself. I have nothing but admiration for them. Big massive props.
Linked to this you also talked about being Autistic and have raised money for the National Autistic society, what are the signs of Autism and when did you realise it was something that was causing you problems?
The signs of autism are manifold. There’s a scale. Autistic people are all very different, just like neurotypical people. There are a lot of characteristics that you may or may not have, but difficulties with social interaction is the common thread. And by that I don’t mean anti-social. People with autism are not all anti-social. Some might be, again like neurotypical people are sometimes anti-social. Autistic people do not recognise social conventions, cues, nuances, changes in a person’s face that communicate how they feel. We have to learn these things. They’re not natural to us. It causes problems.
I always knew I thought differently to other people around me, since I was a kid, but I thought that I might be insane. Or stupid. Because people didn’t seem to understand the things I’d say. And sometimes I wouldn’t understand them. About ten years ago I found out about Asperger’s and had a light bulb moment. Then, when I finally ended up in hospital due to a severe depressive episode, I decided to explore the possibility of having an autistic condition, which led to my diagnosis. Since then things have really improved, I feel I know myself better, understand my limits, and have the strength to deal with the future. I recommend anyone who suspects they may be on the scale to do the same thing. Don’t be fobbed off either. It can happen with adults seeking diagnosis. Be strong. Sometimes you have to fight, but it’s worth it.
Are you looking forward to the debut of Menswe@r 3.0 at Nuisance this March? Who is in the new line up?
Of course. It’s going to be great. It’s a great team. Steve Horry on guitar, Robert “Bobbles” Smith also on guitar, Dexy Klepacz on bass, Jon Sheehan on the ivories, Lee Macey banging the skins. And also the ‘swe@rettes, Mira Manga on backing vocals and Emma Cooper on saxophone, flute, backing vocals and anything else we throw at her.
What do you think of bands like Suede and Blur reforming and performing and recording new material?
I don’t think about it at all it I’m honest. It’s good though, no? Good bands them.
We’ve even heard whispers of a new album from Menswe@r anything written/demoed for it yet?
Stuff may be occurring that shouldn’t be when one reaches my age.
Any other future plans?
I’d like to write a book, make a film, do some acting, visit some places, meet some cool people, have a bit of fun. Any offers out there? Get in touch.
Select or Melody Maker?
Melody Maker gave us our first front cover, but Select wrote about us first. So Select.
Blur or Suede?
Back then Blur, but now Suede. They’ve aged better I think, musically.
Louise or Justine?
Really? A gentleman never tells.
Elastica or Kenickie?
Elastica
Top of the Pops Or the Chart Show?
TOTP
TFI or the Word?
The Tube
Definetly Maybe or Suede? Common People or Parklife?
Suede & Common People & Return of the Rentals
Blow Up or Smashing?
Blow Up. It’s where it all started.
Johnny Dean photo’s the credit of Hannah Goodwin
