Noel Gallagher is worse than his brother at fashion

To be honest, we'd assumed that Pretty Green set the bar so high for 'terrible Oasis related fashion activity' that it was a record which would never be beaten. Like Seb Coe's 800 metres in 1981, it looked like we'd found a marker in human endeavour that would endure.

But like Seb Coe's record, nothing lasts forever.

There's something worse just round the corner:

Noel Gallagher has partnered with Adidas for a new signature shoe.

The former Oasis guitarist has designed his version of the Garwen SPZL trainers as part of Adidas’ 2017 spring SPEZIAL range.

Hang on a moment, though. It's not just Noel Gallagher Has Designed A Plimsole. Because that would be worthy of being terrible in its own right. But it's the design he's come up with that really lifts this to 'world-beatingly godawful':

The shoe comes in indigo leather and is said to be 70s-inspired, featuring a picture of Noel on the shoe’s tongue and his date of birth inside.

Ninety Nine Pounds. For a shoe that only really functions as a way that Liam can remember when he's meant to send Noel a birthday card.

Some of the Adidas celeb tie-ups now are so bad, I suspect they're just an elaborate trolling activity on the part of a company which has frankly grown bored of fiddling with the sleeve length on football jerseys.

Liam Gallagher calls for "mischief"

Liam Gallagher - or, since David Cameron's resignation honours, Baron Gallagher of Burnage - has called for more "mischief" from musicians:

Encouraging today's musicians to cause more mischief, Gallagher said: "There is no excuse for young bands to act like grown men. When you're older and have kids, cool it out a bit, but I get up to more mischief in my butcher’s than [they] do on their fucking tours. Maybe it's just where we're from."

He added: "I guess it goes back to the working-class thing. The shit-kickers aren’t breaking through. A lot of music these days is by middle-class kids."

That's right, a man who is so middle class he still visits a butchers is complaining about the lack of authentic working class voices.

He's doing this in a press junket to promote a film that dredges up the long-cold corpse of Oasis. You wonder, as you try to swim through all the attention this movie is getting, why young bands struggle to get their voices heard, don't you?

Sidenote: what fucking "mischief" does he get up to in his butcher's anyway? Asking how much the venison costs and then saying "that's quite dear?"

What do they know of Brit-pop, who only Britpop know?

Radio X - the radio station that used to be known as XFM - has polled its listeners to find the best song ever.

We wish they hadn't:

"Wonderwall" is the best British song of all time; at least, so say the listeners of Radio X.

More than 50,000 votes were cast for the music station's inaugural Best of British poll (via RadioToday); which saw Oasis utterly dominate the results, occupying all four of the top positions. "Don't Look Back in Anger" came in at number two, "Champagne Supernova" at three, and "Live Forever" at four.

Normally, this sort of thing pukes up a list of Beatles titles so I suppose there's some sort of progress that we've moved on to people pretending to be the Beatles.

Here's the full chart:

1. "Wonderwall", Oasis
2. "Don’t Look Back In Anger", Oasis
3. "Champagne Supernova", Oasis
4. "Live Forever", Oasis
5. "I Am The Resurrection", The Stone Roses
6. "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor", Arctic Monkeys
7. "Heroes", David Bowie
8. "Life On Mars?", David Bowie
9. "Bittersweet Symphony", The Verve
10. "Gimme Shelter", The Rolling Stones
11. "One Day Like This", Elbow
12. "Bohemian Rhapsody", Queen
13. "Hey Jude", The Beatles
14. "Common People", Pulp
15. "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out", The Smiths
16. "Slide Away", Oasis
17. "Fool’s Gold", The Stone Roses
18. "How Soon Is Now", The Smiths
19. "A Day In The Life", The Beatles
20. "Love Will Tear Us Apart", Joy Division

Hang on; don't sob yet. There's worse to come:

The poll also revealed how its presenters voted; DJ Chris Moyles plumping for Coldplay's "Viva La Vida", while Vernon Kay backed The Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the UK"

Vernon Kay. Anarchy In The UK. Obviously, this does make sense - The Sex Pistols and Vernon Kay are both about as threatening to the status quo as each other. But you know that Vernon and his agent probably had a ten minute conversation before deciding to go with such an edgy option.

Liam Gallagher: Will pay to fight

It's perhaps inevitable that Liam Gallagher has been involved in an empty spat - he and Nicole Appleton have burned through £800,000 on divorce lawyers to end up with a judge saying split everything 50/50.

I know this might make the phrase "Liam Gallagher is living off royalties for Never Ever" slightly a stretch, but... Liam Gallagher is living off royalties for Never Ever.

Noel Gallagher seems to think we want an Oasis reunion

If you were told that Noel Gallagher was issuing demands about the possibility of an Oasis reunion, you'd probably assume he was making threats - "give me a knighthood or I swear we'll do a four-night residency at the Albert Hall", that sort of thing.

Instead, it seems like he's convinced it's a thing people want and is trying to negotiate on that basis:

Tell [McCartney] if he writes our comeback single, it's on. Tell him to write an Oasis track and then we'll talk. I'll just put that out there.

Apparently having pretty much written the entire Oasis back catalogue isn't enough; Noel wants McCartney to actually write a song for Oasis instead of just doing all the groundwork.

Coming tomorrow: Gallagher says that if Ringo Starr agrees to do the clean-up, he'll take a dump on your living room carpet.

Noel Gallagher puts a price on an Oasis reunion

Is an Oasis reunion out the question? Not as far as you might hope, as Noel Gallagher has terms:

Noel Gallagher recently sat down for an interview with Vulture, stating he would reform Oasis for a fee of “half a billion”. Gallagher readying the release of his new High Flying Birds album ‘Chasing Yesterday’, which is out Monday 2nd March.

Asked about a possible reformation in the future, Gallagher added: “If somebody puts that on the table, I’ll pack my bags in the morning and say, “How many gigs do you want?”

To paraphrase Churchill: we know what sort of man he is, now we're just haggling about the price.

Liam Gallagher is selling up

Trouser-magnate and former Beatles tribute star Liam Gallagher is selling his home on Central Park:

You can have your own little “oasis,” if you purchase Liam Gallagher’s two-bedroom, 2½-bathroom, 1,575-square-foot condo, which is on the market for $4 million.

The ’90s British rock star who started the band Oasis with his brother Noel is putting his 17th-floor unit at the Essex House at 160 Central Park on the market.

For someone who strutted about believing he was a reboot of John Lennon, you've got to admit that buying a flat on the skirt of Central Park does take a certain degree of guts.

The flat apparently has a 40-bottle wine cooler and maid and valet service. Man of the people.

Damon Albarn not quite the troll he's been presented as

It sounds like a fairly obvious attempt at annoying former Blur fans when seen through the headline prism:

Even the BBC were pushing this line, as that was the line being pulled for the front of the BBC site yesterday.

But... it's not quite what he said, is it? He was jumped at the end of a Newsnight interview and asked the question; first he dismissed it as "not a very grown up question" for the programme (he clearly hasn't seen Newsnight much recently) before answering.

Yes, he did say that Oasis were better. But then, as the film ended...

... he explained that he was saying this in the context of "communicating who they were". Which is actually a pretty clear dig at Oasis' one-dimensional nature rather than a capitulation that the shoddy plod of Be Here Now was of higher cultural value than, say, 13.

Note to the BBC: next time, you should try stipulating what you'd like to know what Oasis might have been better at.

Admitting, tangentially, that nobody's interested in Beady Eye

There's little surprise that Beady Eye are trying to interest fans by the prospect of playing some songs people might know:

The Liam Gallagher-fronted rock band will dust off tracks made famous by the singer's previous band with brother Noel Gallagher on their UK tour, which kicked off in Manchester yesterday (19.06.13).
Pondering which songs they may play, guitarist Gem Archer is quoted by The Sun newspaper as saying: ''They're always there and we know that we can use them. I'm sure a lot of fans would want to hear them. 'Hung in a Bad Place' would be a good one live, as would 'The Meaning of Soul'.

Yeah, or, you know: the hits. The Oasis hits.

You could also try billing yourself like this:
Liam Gallagher out of
Oasis
and the Beady Eyes

The very best of Liam Gallagher

6Music asked their listeners what they'd put on "the Ultimate Liam Gallagher playlist". Probably not a question you should ask an audience who actually care about music.

Gordon in the morning: Liam Gallagher could have deffo written that

Here comes Liam Gallagher. I'll ask him what he thinks about recent records. What do you mean, I shouldn't? What could be the harm?

Liam, did you like Get Lucky by Daft Punk?

“I’d write that in a f***ing hour. I don’t know what the fuss is about, you know what I mean? It’s like f**k off, give me a f**king break.”

To be fair, it might sound like Liam is dismissing Daft Punk here, but given the first Beady Eye album appears to have been written in about fifteen minutes, so he might be suggesting it'd take a lot of work to construct the song.

Still, Liam, the idea of a mysterious band must entertain you, surely?

“I am not going to have people wear disguises."

Oh.

“Take your f**king helmet off. Let’s see what you look like sans helmet, whatever you’re called.”

To which Daft Punk replied "well, why don't you take your helmet off? Oh, because it's your hair." Probably.

Liam Gallagher's kids are, it turns out, typical kids

Here's some heartwarming news: Liam Gallagher's children are like other children:

He said: ''It's got to the stage where my kids sneak off and go, 'You're not walking with me man.' I'm like, 'Hey, I'm a f***ing cool dad!' 'No you're not.' 'I f***ing am. All your mates think I'm cool anyway...' 'They think you're a bit of a d**k actually' It seems I've got a lot of work to do.''

It's not entirely clear what "work" Liam plans to make himself seem cool to thirteen year-olds; I'm hoping it's wearing a baseball cap back-to-front and using teen slang all the time.

Gordon in the morning: We've already established what you are, Liam Gallagher, now we're just haggling about price

Liam Gallagher has opened negotiations for an Oasis comeback:

he said: “Listen, it’ll happen when it happens, but it ain’t a f***ing game — it’s the real deal.

“I read a lot of people going, ‘Oh, it’s just a blag, innit? So they can get some more noughts on their big f***ing comeback.’

“But I’m still me and he’s gonna be him.

“I ain’t changing for a million f***ing pounds... I might do it for £30million.”

So, an opening of thirty million. I'm suggesting a kickstarter to raise forty million, to be used to buy a guarantee of no reunion, and also for Beaky Eye shutting up shop as well.

Blur/Oasis: If they bury that hatchet any deeper, even Tony Robinson won't be able to reach it

Well, it's a happy ending of sorts: A Blur/Oasis crossover edition marking the end of the Britpop wars:

Former Britpop rivals Noel Gallagher and Damon Albarn have buried the hatchet and performed together at a charity concert.

Oasis guitarist Gallagher joined Blur singer Albarn and his bandmate Graham Coxon at a Teenage Cancer Trust gig at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

At long last, they've buried the hatchet.

Except... hadn't they already done that?

According to The Onion's AV Club, the pair buried the hatchet last May, when Albarn offered Noel the chance to sing along with soem Burundian drummers:

Blur's Damon Albarn, Oasis' Noel Gallagher bury the Britpop hatchet, finally

Albarn says he'd be happy to collaborate with the onetime brains behind Oasis who's since gone solo. "Well, why not?" Albarn says. "He should come on the Africa Express train [an Albarn-formed music collective] in September." Self-serving, sure, but a nice sentiment all the same.

Bit harsh to call Noel Gallagher "onetime brains". I'm sure he's used them on at least three occasions.

But hang on, surely the hatchet was buried before that? In February of 2012, when Albarn announced the cessation of hostilities at a post-Brits party:

Gallagher, 44, kissed both hands of Albarn, 43, before planting a smacker on his lips in front of shocked guests including Professor Green, Cesc Fabregas, Adam Deacon and Coldplay's Chris Martin.

Albarn, who had earlier collected the lifetime achievement award with his Blur bandmates, said: "It's funny to think Blur were last here 17 years ago when we were big rivals. Isn't it funny how we've both mellowed after all these years? We've buried the hatchet."

No, hold on. It was back in October 2011, wasn't it? The hatchet was buried back then, when Noel was generous in a Shortlist interview:

"Funnily enough, when I was out last night, I bumped into him," Gallagher told ShortList of Albarn. "I literally haven't seen the guy for 15 f**king years and I bump into him in some club.

"We both went, 'Hey! F**king hell!' and then he said, 'Come on, let's go for a beer'. So, we're sitting there, having a beer, just going, 'What the f**k was all that about 15 years ago? That was mental'.

"Then he said, 'It was a great time, though', and I was like, 'Yeah, it was a f**king good laugh'. It was cool, man."

In fact, Blur and Oasis have been burying the hatchet now for the best part of a decade. Here's The Guardian in 2004:

Just over nine years later, it looks as though Blur frontman Damon Albarn and Oasis songwriter Noel Gallagher will finally bury the hatchet - both have signed up to perform on the new Band Aid charity record, due to be released in time for Christmas.

The Britpop feud might have been a great marketing scam. But, boy, the hatchet-burying is proving to be something of a strong pension scheme.

Bad news for artists who want to sound like a bad Beatles pastiche

How does Noel Gallagher react when people ask him to write a song for them? (No, he claims it happens all the time.)

With good grace, of course:

'I must have been asked to write songs for people about 20 times, 'Hey man, we should write some songs together,' F***ing write your own songs. I spent 46 years busting my a**e to get here, slaving over a line in a song for a month.

So no, I won't f***ing write a song with you, you little prick. F**k off! It just annoys me.''

I think the most telling thing about that - apart from how he sounds more and more like Karl Pilkington - is that he's only been asked 20 times to write for anyone. That's about once a year.

The thought there are lines in Gallagher songs which took him a month to write is also a little bit boggling. "He thought he was King Creole" took as long to construct as a solid two-storey village hall would. Blimey.

Gordon in the morning: Watching David Bowie with Noel Gallagher

Gordon has been reading the NME, and in particular Noel Gallagher talking about the David Bowie comeback:

[T]he HIGH FLYING BIRDS frontman is confused by the video to the legend’s track Where Are We Now?

Confused, you say?

“We’re still talking about that song. The video’s mad – like his f***ing cat directed it.”

That's not actually "confused", is it? It's just Noel saying that it's a bit out there, surely?

However, you can forgive Gordon struggling to make sense of anything Noel says. let's look at that lifted quote in full:

He told NME mag: “It’s great to hear his voice singing something new. The more you hear Where Are We Now? the better it gets.

“We’re still talking about that song. The video’s mad – like his f***ing cat directed it.”

But Noel added: “What it proved to me is that reunions are f***ing s****."

So, it's great to hear Bowie doing new stuff; and the new stuff gets better the more you play t; and it's an exciting talking point. So, er, that proves that reunions are shitty.

Sorry, what?

(Also: can you have a reunion if it's just you?)

Gordon in the morning: He wasn't mod enough for me

I know what leaves you unable to sleep at night. Why, you wonder, why did Robbie Williams ever fall out with Oasis?

Wonder no more. Indeed, if you will, Wonderwall no more. Gordon has the answer:

ROBBIE WILLIAMS says he fell out with OASIS in the Nineties because he wasn’t “mod” enough.

Really? Not being mod enough for Oasis is a bit like not being gourmet enough for Charlie, The Little Chef.

But Robbie, it seems, is convinced - why, how could he hope to fly so close to such a band?

Liam’s voice was the voice of a generation

No, it wasn't.

and Noel seemed to be writing the songs of a generation

It would be churlish to just dimiss this with curt 'no he wasn't'; on the strength of the first album, you could say that Noel did seem to have something of a knack for crystalising something, and at the time Williams was fawning round the band like a bear trying to wrestle his way into a bin full of sausages, you could forgive someone for thinking that might be the case.

They were our Beatles for around 18 months.

Again, the temptation is to just snort at this - but, of course, snorting is what led to a bunch of people believing this to be true in the first place.

However, if you look again at what Williams has just said there, you'll notice that he's turning the knife, which makes that "seemed to" when talking about Noel seem less an accident of phrasing and deliberately, delicately putting the boot in.

Because The Beatles, if they are anything, did not have a time period slapped on them. Being "The Beatles for 18 months" is like being God for a fortnight - if you don't transcend your time, you're doing it wrong.

Gordon seems to think Williams is praising Oasis; in fact, he's very gently, and somewhat sweetly, putting them in their place.

Gordon in the morning: Noel did want what he hadn't got

Gordon's picked up a story from this month's Uncut, in which Sinead O'Connor reveals that Noel Gallagher asked for her hand in marriage.

That does oversell it a little bit:

“Noel once asked me to marry him, just before he married MEG MATHEWS.

“He won’t remember as he was off his face at a festival in Amsterdam.”

So this was a marriage proposal with all the veracity of being told that you're somebody's best mate, then, rather than a striking incident in an unexpected romance.

Even so, it's a pity Sinead didn't call his bluff.

Gordon in the morning: One's kid by our kid

Could there be an "angle" on the pregnancy of Mrs Cambridge that has been left untouched in the slew of non-stories over the last couple of days?

Oh, yes. Here's one: parenting advice from Noel Gallagher:

Noel, who ditched his hardcore party days years ago, said: “They’re not the first people in the country to have a child, are they?

“I’ve got three, you know. Do I have any advice for them? People write books about that s***. Very expensive books — my wife’s got ’em all.

“Tell William he’d be better thinking about rejoining the Army — he’d have a quieter life.”

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Interestingly, there is an increasing trend showing in Noel's "wit" that's started to appear since the Oasis gravy train smashed into the station wall. A lot of his jokes revolve around how much stuff is worth and how much money he could get for doing things - there was the guff about how Beady Eye playing Oasis catalogue earned him cash; now we've got a reluctance to give advice because you could sell that stuff. Maybe Noel's feeling the pinch.

Gordon in the morning: Liam Gallagher at 40

Today, Liam Gallagher turns 40, and Gordon is in a laudatory mood:

THERE is only one man truly qualified to pass comment on Liam Gallagher. His brother Noel.

Despite Gordon kicking off with this claim, he then proceeds to pass comment, and then invites Alan McGee to do the same. Despite admitting that neither he nor McGee are actually qualified so to do.

Smart trots out the usual "one of the best frontmen in music history" line (which, if you're mostly going to see The Spice Girls and Kasabian, is probably the sort of thing you'd genuinely believe) and then shares an anecdote through which we can get the measure of the man:

Jon McClure, from band Reverend And The Makers, told me: “When we supported Oasis, Liam asked me what my favourite type of peas was. I said garden. He said, ‘Don’t you like mushy?’ I said, ‘No, I prefer garden.’ He said, ‘You’re all right, you are.’ I think that’s how he susses folk out.”

It's interesting that although Smart has met Gallagher frequently, he has to fall back on someone else's anecdote. Even if it's one that doesn't really mean anything; a profile built on a throwaway story about a throwaway line.

Gordon does offer one story about meeting Liam. The scene is him, talking with Noel:

By that point I knew Noel quite well. Liam bowled over and said: “You’re mates with arr kid, right? As far as I’m concerned, you’re a c*** in a nice coat.”

Arr kid? Arr kid? Did this happen on talk like a pirate day?

Still, we've at least established that Liam is a pretty good judge of character.

McGee's piece is actually quite sweet, sharing a story about how - after McGee's return from his drug hell - Liam was the first person to talk to him in a normal way:

Even people from my own record company, Creation, didn’t know what to say. But Liam was the one to say, “Are you all right?” For that I will always love him.

He warns us that Gallagher will be playing in a band until he dies. Happy birthday, Liam, and heaven help us all.