As part of alternative/psychedelic folk/lo-fi band The Bordellos, Brian Shea (aka Brian Bordello) has been releasing music for almost a quarter of a century. As he releases his debut album, Oasis Are The Enemy under the name of Idiot Blur Fanboy, Paul has a chat about Morrissey, 80s pop and music blogs.
For those unfamiliar with the sound of The
Bordellos, give us a brief introduction.
The Bordellos are a three piece band (at the moment) from St Helens in Merseyside who have been
together in one form or another for twenty three years and, apart from the
first two albums have been mostly making lo-fi music recording it on anything
from old ghetto blasters and mp3 players up to digital 8 tracks. Making more enemies than friends, poking fun
at both the ridiculousness of life and the ridiculousness of the music
industry and lots of the people in it but also dealing with my deep love and
belief in the magical power of music.
Why the solo album under the alias?
It was not actually meant to be a solo album, it
was going to be myself recording tracks with various other people, on the first
four tracks my son Dan, member of many bands (The Bordellos, Vukovar, and
Beauty Stab), plays various instruments and does harmony vocals. Being a hermit
and impatient like character I could not face meeting up and having to deal
with other people so ended up recording them myself but, I intend to put an
Idiot Blur Fanboy band together ,maybe for the next album and even play some
gigs. The name came about after I wrote a piece in my blog taking the piss out
of the Oasis album Be Hear Now and in truth Oasis themselves who are one of the
most turgid leaden dull bland bands to ever grace (if grace is the right word)
the worlds musical stage. Anyway, as you can imagine the piece did not go down
well with Oasis fans and one of the many online so called insults was Idiot
Blur Fanboy actually it was Retarded Blur fanboy but I changed the ‘retarded’
to idiot so not to cause offence.
Summarise the album in ten words.
Beautiful, dark, funny, lo-fi, heart-breaking, ramshackle, nostalgic, truthful,
hopeless, fun.
Was the intention to shock, wind people up or just
express your feelings?
I never intend to shock or wind people up would you
believe. It just must be a natural
talent or trait in my character that gets peoples back up. I just express my feelings and points of view
and let’s be honest it is not hard to annoy or upset people in this day and
age.
You've been described as anti-music and even no-fi.
Are these fair? Do you care?
I would say I do not quite get the anti-music one
as most of my songs are very musical just recorded in a very basic way and I am
anything but anti-music. The no-fi one I
get especially for my solo stuff and the Idiot Blur Fanboy album but, to be
honest I do not really care as long as people are calling it something.
Your lyrics are often autobiographical or about
true life events and memories, is there anything you wouldn't write about?
I honestly don't think there is anything I would not write about
as half the time I write in such a way people do not have a clue what I am
wittering on about.
Listening to Oasis Are The Enemy you clearly have
fond memories of 80s pop some of which went sour as the album closer Oh Morrissey
shows. What are some of your favourite tracks from the era and the ones you
detest?
I loved the 80s, they were my teenage years and the
music from that time sound tracked so many wonderful times how could you not
love a decade when there where bands like The Fall and orange Juice, The
Smiths, The Go-Betweens all that great post punk music and indie music.
What would be your favourite and least favourite
songs from that era?
10 songs I especially love from the 80s in no
particular order are Crazy Farmyard Animal - Julian Cope, Simply Thrilled
Honey - Orange Juice, This Charming Man - The Smiths, Cruisers Creek - The Fall,
Stray Cat Strut - The Stray Cats, Don’t Bury Me Yet - The Raw Herbs,
Sunday To Saturday - The June Brides, Dive For Your Memory - The Go-Betweens, I
Hope Your Happy Now - Elvis Costello and The Attractions and, Oblivious - Aztec
Camera.
10 songs I especially hate from the 80s – Sledgehammer
- Peter Gabriel, The Lady In Red - Chris De Burgh, Radio Ga Ga - Queen, Born In
The USA – Bruce Springsteen, Invisible Touch - Genesis, So Macho- Sinitta, The
Power Of Love - Jennifer Rush, Bat Out Of Hell – Meatloaf, Lessons In Love - Level
42 and Simply The Best - Tina Turner.
It really is a shame that Morrissey has turned out
to be so disappointing in so many ways, he has gone from the clown prince of
80s alternative pop to the pantomime dame of the far right, the worse his
records get the more he feels the need to spread his bitterness and self-pity
another few bad albums and he will be sporting a Hitler Moustache and bad comb
over.
Many of your tracks are very simplistic affairs,
the occasional dud note or vocal stutter. You clearly feel the need to capture
those moments?
I learnt long ago my first take is always the
best, so I have embraced that mostly and just do it once if that means some
stuttered over lyric or in a lot of cases wrong lyric or bum note or missed
guitar chord ,so be it. I am a man of
little patience with recording and the first to admit a nightmare to be in a
band with and, more than a nightmare to any poor producer which is one of the
reasons I mostly do it myself these days.
Are there any current bands or artists that you
particularly admire and why?
There are so many and so much great new music being made I am lucky
enough to have my own new release round up section in the wonderful Monolith
Cocktail blog and get sent so much stuff that otherwise I may not get to hear about,
as let’s be honest there are getting less and less places to read or hear about
new music today. Blogs seem to be
dropping like flies and the ones that have survived prefer to write about albums
that were released ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty years ago, it for
some reason likes to go up in fives. BBC6 Music has just
become dull and generic especially in the daytime you are more likely to hear a
song from thirty years ago than a song from a new and up and coming band or a
new release but, there are some great artists out there, Bigflower, who are from Liverpool and formed
by Ivor Perry from Easterhouse fame has been releasing some fine free to
download singles on their Bandcamp page, dark intense but beautiful songs that
really should be getting more attention from the blogs and radio. Toxic Chicken, who also has released an album
on Wormhole World records is making attractive fun experimental music and has
just released a 15 minute live mini album which is truly bewitching which again
is available on Bandcamp page. Beauty
Stab could be the saviours of pop music today they could make it dangerous dark
and sleazy, they are young good lucking great songwriters and with Dan probably
have the finest vocalist in new music today without sounding like Louie Walsh
he actually is like a young Scott Walker.
They have only released the one single so far the stunning O Eden on
Metal Postcard Records everyone should check it out and especially blog writers
and radio programmers because they really are that good.
Bloom De Wilde who has released again some stunning pop singles over the
past year or so, a beautiful and strange beguiling quirky artist who along with
Beauty Stab could bring young people back into music and forget about their
smart phones, what’s smart about them I will never know. Occult Character who
writes sharp and very funny songs about life in America today seems to release
a new single or album on a weekly basis,
I call him the modern day Woody Guthrie.
There really are so many great artists and new music today land loads of
fine labels like Small Bear Records, Wormhole World and Metal Postcard Records
who do not have the financial clout to compete today but survive by the
excellence of the music and word of mouth recommendations.
What are your hopes for the album and will there be
more from Idiot Blur Fanboy?
I really hope that the album does well and for
people to discover and enjoy the album.
I am really happy with it and think it deserves a chance to get heard. If people can get over the lo-finess of it
and they love good songs they should enjoy it.
I would love it to inspire other bands artists to try out the lo-fi
method of recording and try something a bit different. I know I am not going to
get much radio play as radio programmers on the whole like their punk rock
recorded in big shiny studios, but if they give it a chance they may discover
that their listeners enjoy it.
I have already started to write the songs for the
second Idiot Blur Fanboy albums this one may be called Britpop
Shenanigans and will feature the song Oasis Are The Enemy which will
explain why they are the enemy and why they put alternative guitar music back
years. I always liked how Julian Cope's
song World Shut Your Mouth was never on the World Shut Your Mouth album but on
the Saint Julian album so that influenced the decision to not having the song
on Oasis Are The Enemy. I am planning to get more musicians involved and
am open to offers of radio sessions and suchlike if anyone is interested. There will be much more from Idiot Blur Fanboy
do not worry. Or do!
Buy Oasis Are The Enemy here.
More from The Bordellos on Bandcamp here. They can be followed on Twitter as @thebordellos and Liked on Facebook.
Published on Louder Than War 15/03/2020 - here.
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