The room collectively sniggers at the sound of three (then) prepubescent
boys in full sickly pop flow.
BM: I actually prefer The Shirehorses' version, which is called 'My
Plums Have Dropped' and is far superior to the original.
SR: A mate of mine worked on the album and he said that when
they were doing it, the two kids' voices started breaking. Them two's voices
are completely f*cking broke now.
BM: So their plums have finally dropped.
S: And their mum and dad sat there all the way through the
session.
SR: Yeah, their mum and dad was there all the time. Yeah, my dad
works with us, but that's different. That's so I can keep an eye on him.
Paul Weller. Friday Street
BM: Older brother music. Paul Weller always comes across as
being incrediably middle-aged.
Huey: He's middle-aged but he can still scoop up the young booty.
We saw him in NY and there was nothing but young girls there, screaming as
if it was Boyzone.
SR: It doesn't sound as bad as people say. If I were driving around
in my car somewhere and it came on the radio, I'd think it sounded alright.
Now that we're seated here it don't sound so good, but the dude's done some
mega stuff.
Fast: Yea, it ain't like Hanson or nothing.
Puff Daddy (Featuring Faith Evans). I'll Be Missing You
The natives are restless again....
BM: O no.
H: You can take that off.
SR: If I died and two weeks later my best friend had got the t-shirts
done and pressed the record and everything, with my with onstage smiling
and sing away I'd be think, 'F*cking hell!'
H: The song was literally out the next week.
SR: The t-shirt was out before he was dead!
Elton John. Candle in the Wind
SR: The Diana one, right? He gets exactly the same publishing as
the A-side, right? Is he going to donate the money to Diana?
BM: I think he is, actually. Come on, Elton's had a really hard time.
He's seen two of his closest friends die in the space of a month or
something.
H: I still think if you make money off people who die you're a piece
of sh*t. When someone's killed, someone who people love and you step right
into the limelight and go, "Look, I love them too, check it out," and do a little
dance, you're a piece of sh*t.
SR: This is a mega tune, though.
S: It's just unfortunate that it's associated with someone who died,
that's all.
H: He should do a record with Puff Daddy. They could call it
'Taking Advantage of My Dead Mates'.
SR: I mean, everyone has that now don't they, music at your funeral.
Not like it used to be.
BM: I wonder how much it would cost to hire Einsturzende
Neubauten for mine?
And on that festive message of family togetherness, our annual orgy of unrestrained critical savagery and knob gags draws to a close. Shaun prepares to jet back home to Ireland. Huey, Fast and Saffron head off in the direction of the International Hotel. And young Brian Molko? Brian sashays off for a night of bad hopping and guestlist blagging, muttering something darkly under his breath. We didn't quite catch it all- that tricky mid-Atlantic drawl caught us out again- but the words 'Chumbawamba' and 'nasty accident' seemed to figure prominently...Toodle pip! back