Noel's face from the nose up in black and white is on the front cover; inside a black and white right-side profile; assorted pictures of Noel and band.

pictures by Peter Robathan

"Christ, that's a big profile of Noel Gallagher!" Too right it is. The real story of the thieving 'scandal', the roadie days, and first, on a class act.

First, straight to the point. I'm a bit of an Oasis fan, I admire Noel Gallagher as an artist, and I like him as a person. One of the luxuries for me in not being a journalist is that when I do dabble in it, I can write about people I like and/or admire and simply ignore the rest. So what follows is basically an appreciation of Noel and Oasis rather than a slag-off. If you find that boring, move on to the next article now.

Noel Gallagher is the man that the Student Grant music journos love to hate. In what seems like the blink of an eye, his band have gone from being contenders to the biggest thing in popular culture at the end of this millennium. These critics who dismissed Morning Glory, and there were quite a few, must be feeling a bit inept right now. The lesson which should be learned is not to write off anything by Oasis until you've played it a few times. The music has an insidious charge to it, insinuating itself, building up and getting better all the time. On the first play Morning Glory didn't seem as good as Definitely Maybe, on the second it certainly was, and by the third it was a massive leap forward. Played now, Morning Glory from Definitely Maybe seems as big a jump as Revolver was from Rubber Soul, where the opening bars of 'Taxman' signalled a beautiful, bouncy, confident and menacing progression for the Beatles as a band and a sea change in British pop music.

The reason Noel Gallagher is the most successful songwriter in Britain today is because he has the two most essential qualities any true artist needs: empathy and courage. In other words, he knows where the punters are coming from and he has the bottle to put his vision of it out there. If you listen to Morning Glory, every song is BIG. It takes real guts to go in with both feet every single time and come away with the ball as Mr Gallagher invariably does.

Oasis are the rock'n'roll band the rave kids love; their sound is as big and uplifting as the best house music, yet devoid of the flatulence and pomposity that traditionally affects bands who have the ability to produce a large, emotional sound. For all their undoubted talent, the posturing of U2 or Simple Minds, disguised as showmanship, too often produces that very effect. When the American media said that Liam Gallagher was "just standing there," they weren't getting it at all. He wasn't just standing there, he was getting on with it instead of poncing around like a daft twat. That's why the punters who've been through the house scene love the band, that's why Oasis concerts are such big, tribal collective experiences.

So how did Noel come so far so fast? Having a brother with a charismatic stage presence and a great voice helped, but so did being the most talented songwriter of popular music around. In person I've found Noel G to be a warm and easy-going man, who doesn't take himself too seriously, but who is passionate about his work. It may be surprising to a lot of people but I find him much in the same mould as the writer and Booker Prize winner James Kelman. The media-arrogant or distancing defence mechanism is a common position adopted by successful artists from working class backgrounds, wary of being condescended to by those of less talent but from more privileged homes. It's easier for Noel Gallagher to stick up two fingers at photographers and play up to posh cunts' stereotypes of the gruff northern lad: bunging that particular scarecrow in the field gives him space to get on with what he wants to do. Oasis are smart enough to know that they'll be patronised anyway, just because they're working class and successful, so what's the point of getting into all the bullshit with arseholes? Noel Gallagher is a very bright guy who's far too busy making his intelligence work for him to waste it on affectations, a true creator rather than a critic.

The media circus that followed the band across the States in the hope of a ghoulish Pistols' style self-destruction completely failed to understand the dynamics of the group. In the words of their biographer Paolo Hewitt: "The group are in a permanent state of splitting and reforming." Will they split? Of course. Will they get back together? Of course. They want to tour, they don't want to tour. They don't give a fuck. Why? Not because they can afford to but because they can't afford to. If you start taking a shit and let others control your destiny, you generally go on doing it, then everything goes. The question of being either U2 or The Sex Pistols is something that fans and critics and corporate people address regularly, but it's a redundant one for Oasis. They just get on with it and their career path will be radically different from others. That's what's so sound about the current UK pop icons Noel, Damon and Jarvis: they'll do it on their own terms and not with one eye on the American market. It's from here, it's our party. You're more than welcome, but if you start telling us what we should be doing, then you can fuck off.

My faith in human nature was revived at a party in Cannes where Noel and Damon Albarn avoided each other, standing at opposite ends of the same room. The festival was a celebration of false intimacy and smarm with the air-kiss and phoney handshake almost obligatory. Under these circumstances Noel and Damon's mutual antipathy injected some real humanity into the proceedings and they both rose further in my mind.

If you want to focus on Noel Gallagher's faults, concentrate on the real issues; as Bob Morris of Nice Records points out, he calls a scooter a moped and it's difficult to imagine punters as sage and sussed as the Wellers, Ryders and Cockers of this world getting as hot about Tony Blair as Noel (and Damon for that matter) are reputed to. This could be a generational thing (or perhaps not, because Louise Wener's got our Tone well sussed) and I'm sure such clued up gadges will (unfortunately) tipple to that fucker's bullshit. Blair would have gone down a storm in Cannes; Peter Mandelson take note (NB: Never trust any cunt who refers to rock'n'roll as 'rock'. Hip test failed with Bachman Turner Overdrive colours. Do your fuckin'job Mr Mandelson!) Oh aye, and Noel's also had Paul Reekie and Gary McCornlack [Scottish writer and former Exploited member respectively] ejected from backstage parties on separate occasions. But those are bad boys.

The tabloid hysteria about Liam Gallagher and cocaine busts in Oxford Street provides an illustration about how far removed from social reality the mainstream media has become. I don't know the boy, but as far as I can see he does nothing any 23 year old guy who has a life in Britain doesn't do or wouldn't do if they had the opportunity. It's quite an ugly thought that he is treated as badly or worse than the abuser Paul Gascoigne.

When Noel Gallagher writes about wanting to "be himself, I can't be no one else," it's wrongly construed by some critics as a limiting philosophy, a celebration of slovenly laddism. To me that's a fundamental misunderstanding of what Oasis are about. It's about being proud of who you are, what you like and where you come from, but it's also about reaching for the stars. It's all in you, it just means getting in touch with the infinite possibilities of the self, and one of the ways we do that is through art, or, as Brian Eno would say, through pretension. Before Jimmy Reid of the Clydeside Shipyard workers lost the plot completely he observed that there was a guy on his yard who was a Wimbledon champion but who had never held a tennis racket in his hand. That's what real socialism should be about - opportunity and the maximisation of individual human potential. The Gallagher boys are going for it and are a brilliant example to every kid from every council estate who's had to listen to people telling them for the last 20 years: you're fucking shite, we've got McJobs down for you and that's only if you behave yourself. As Paolo Hewitt observed on the Morning Glory, sleeve notes, the people always know.

Finally, if this seems like an unduly overstated appreciation, I've got my personal reasons for liking Oasis. Before I knew any of them, the Oasis/Creation camp did me a very big favour on behalf of a friend who needed it and to whom it meant more than they could ever know. It was done with the kind of understated self-effacing grace and generosity of spirit which made the media-arrogant image a mockery. That to me is the real measure of the people we're talking about. Did I ever say thanks? If I didn't, I'm saying it now. Yes, keep the faith.

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c 1998 Andrew Turner

aturner@interalpha.co.uk

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