Wilco

The most eagerly awaited weird CD of 2004

Wilco's 'a ghost is born' a new high for band

Tuesday, June 22, 2004 Posted: 9:37 AM EDT (1337 GMT)

Wilco: John Stirratt, Nels Cline, Pat Sansone, Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Wilco's music is, by turns, enigmatic, compelling, thrilling and absorbing. And it's often -- let's be honest here -- just plain weird.

Sometimes it's many of those things in the same song. But while Wilco's 2002 breakthrough album, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," was self-consciously weird, the follow-up, "a ghost is born," is more confidently weird.

The disc is being released Tuesday, although Wilco has streamed the music on its Web site for the past two months.

The new album's predecessor became a legendary parable for the music industry, even a subject for a movie. Rejected by Wilco's record company -- essentially for being too, uh, weird -- it was released to critical acclaim and became Wilco's biggest seller.

Wilco's growth from a standard alternative country band to a more arty, experimental unit nearly tore the band apart.

"It was a much easier record in terms of band dynamic and the amount of collaboration and investment from everybody involved," said Jeff Tweedy, the chief singer and songwriter. "There was a lot more of a unified vision of what we wanted to do."

The documentary depicting the "Yankee" sessions showed Tweedy and an ex-band member frequently arguing, with Tweedy leaving the studio at one point to vomit.

While it was smoother sailing with the band, Tweedy's health clouded the sessions for "ghost."

"I was feeling so rotten physically and emotionally that it was kind of a bloodbath for me," he said.

Coping with panic

Tweedy had frequent migraines from a panic disorder, which led to an addiction to painkillers. He went to a treatment facility for nearly a month this spring to deal with the problems.

He's sure those troubles are reflected in his songs.

"A lot of things came from my subconscious that made me realize that I did know down deep some of the things I needed to do to get better," he said. "That's not uncommon. I think music exists to help you identify things in your life."

While "Yankee" was an album that looked out at the world and struggles to communicate, "ghost" looks inward, he said. Much of it is about how difficult it is to know and be comfortable with who you are.

The song "Handshake Drugs" is one of the album's most straightforward songs lyrically. But Tweedy often writes in a language that barely approaches English. He comes up with Technicolor imagery -- "a fixed bayonet through the great southwest to forget her"-- that can be difficult to decipher.

Tweedy has a very specific story in his head when he sings "Spiders (Kidsmoke)." He sees rebellious preteens testing their independence on a summer vacation, coping with the emotional unavailability of their white-collar, workaholic parents.

The lyrics: "Spiders are singing in the salty breeze, spiders are filling out tax returns, spinning out webs of deductions and melody, on a private beach in Michigan."

Tweedy has no idea whether listeners will conjure the same story and, like many writers, doesn't particularly care.

"The only way it works is for a listener to come to it and find some shape that fits them, to find some container that's the right size to pour themselves into" he said. "That's the only way art works. At least 50 percent of the equation is the consciousness of the listener."

Inside jokes -- and free will

Wilco's eclecticism extends to the music. "Spiders (Kidsmoke)," is 10 minutes long, driven by a bubbling synthesizer and a guitar riff, that draws hypnotic strength from repetition.

"At Least That's What You Said" is a whisper-quiet love song, accompanied by piano, for two minutes. Then it ends wordlessly with a squalling, Neil Young-like guitar workout.

The ultimate is "Less Than You Think." It's a pretty, conventional song for three minutes then ends with a 12-minute, machine-made drone that would test anyone's patience.

The song is about free will and is partly an inside joke; the band wanted the longest song on the album to be called "Less Than You Think." It also compels audience participation.

"It was another way to encourage listeners to exercise their free will -- to get up and turn it off," Tweedy said.

Tweedy smiles when he hears a phrase that writer Joe Klein, in The New York Times review of Greg Kot's new biography of Wilco, used to describe the music on "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot." He called it "brilliantly annoying" -- a phrase he might extend to "a ghost is born."

"It sounded positive," Tweedy said. "I think that's better than just annoying. I think it's better than just brilliant. Neither one of those would be very descriptive of that record."

If a listener said that he often has no idea what Tweedy is saying in a song but enjoys it anyway, would Tweedy be pleased or insulted?

"I consider that a compliment, because I think they're wrong," he said. "I don't think they don't understand a bloody thing I'm talking about. I just think they might not be able to express it, because it might be something that's not centered around language.

"It's music," he said. "You can't tell someone a melody. You can't tell someone a guitar solo. They're very powerful things."

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

MOJO pop awards

Pomp (and pomposity) at MOJO pop awards

By Ian Burrell Media Editor

23 June 2004

There was pageantry, pomp and - thanks to Sting - not a little pomposity as music's aristocracy gathered in Whitehall yesterday for a long afternoon of exchanging gongs and pickling livers.

In the most sumptuous of settings - Inigo Jones's 17th-century Banqueting House - an almost unprecedented array of musical greats gathered to chew on beef and mash, to quaff wine and occasionally gaze up at ceilings by Rubens.

Across the road from Downing Street, the first MOJO Honours List awards attracted an array of talent that would have had aspirant guitar hero Tony Blair despairing at his inability to throw a tea party that rocks.

They were all there. From the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, to the King of the Mods, Roger Daltrey, and the founder of Ska, Dennis Alcapone.

The event began with the extraordinary sight of four Household Cavalry trumpeters, marching down the central aisle to the sound of reggae. After a fanfare from the cavalrymen, Daltrey climbed on stage to announce that the MOJO Inspiration award - for the band that most inspired the magazine's readers to make music themselves - had been won by The Clash.

Mick Jones, guitarist and songwriter with The Clash, stepped up to join The Who frontman and paid tribute to his fellow band members, Paul (Simenon), Topper (Headon) and "the late, great, Joe" (Strummer). He thanked those who had encouraged The Clash to follow their chosen path and, apparently smitten by the ornate surroundings, observed that "looking here, under Rubens, you know we were right".

Davies was next up, to accept MOJO's Songwriter award, for which The Kinks singer seemed genuinely touched, saying that the votes of readers gave the awards an "aura of authenticity" at a time when "so many things these days are fixed".

Except for a discernible tension, bordering on panic, that accompanied the realisation that the venue was non-smoking, the event passed off rather tamely for what had been billed as an occasion of bacchanalian excess.

Sting, who landed the Mondial award for music that has crossed boundaries, introduced a political dimension by berating the warring factions in the Middle East for failing to heed his message of peace in "Desert Rose", his collaboration with the Algerian artist Cheb Mami.

"Our politicians, our so-called religious leaders, do nothing but separate us," said Sting, advising his fellow musicians to take on their "responsibility" to bring harmony to the world. "Unless we get together we are fucked," he said.

Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin drew the first standing ovation of the afternoon as he was given MOJO's Maestro award for his mould-breaking guitar licks.

James Brown was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement award, presented to him by Marianne Faithfull, who, avoiding understatement, described the handing over of the gong as "one of the greatest moments of my life". Brown responded by thanking "all you beautiful people" in the room.

"When I go home I'm a miserable man. But when I come out here I'm a happy man," he said. "May God bless the world, especially MOJO right here and England. I want to say 'Aaoow!'"

THE WINNERS

* Icon award: Morrissey

* Inspiration award: The Clash

* Songwriter award: Ray Davies

* Hall of Fame: Arthur Lee

* Classic Album award: Television

* Medal: Geoff Travis

* Image award (to music photographer): Bob Gruen

* Lifetime achievement award: James Brown

* Hero award: Roger McGuinn

* Mondial award: Sting

* Special award: The Shadows

* Maestro award: Jimmy Page

* Maverick award: Red Hot Chilli Peppers

* Catalogue release of the year: Muzik City

* Vision award (best music DVD package of the year): Led Zeppelin

Hall of shame

The Who top rock's hall of shame

A history of trashed hotel rooms, exploding drum kits and drugs binges earns the band top spot in a BBC poll

By Anthony Barnes, Arts and Media Correspondent

20 June 2004

Their on-tour indulgences and guitar-smashing antics created the template for a generation of bands. Now The Who have been recognised as the kings of outrageous behaviour in a BBC poll released this week.

They beat off strong competition from Ozzy Osbourne and Jimi Hendrix thanks to a record that includes on-stage punch-ups, prodigious drug-taking and, it is often claimed, driving a Rolls-Royce into a society swimming pool.

The list of 10 favourite moments of "rock excess" has been compiled by the BBC digital station 6 Music from thousands of listener votes

Second position went to the duo KLF, who earned their place for apparently burning £1m in cash on the remote Scottish island of Jura as an "art" stunt. Other antics from the publicity-hungry pair - Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty - included leaving a dead sheep outside the Brit Awards party in 1992, having already fired machine-gun blanks at the ceremony's audience.

"Prince of Darkness" Ozzy Osbourne, the ex-Black Sabbath singer who found a new lease of global fame with his family in the MTV show The Osbournes, takes third place after three decades of punishing his body with a mammoth chemical intake.

He earned his place on the list with a 1982 incident. His wife Sharon had confiscated his clothes to stop him going out drinking, but he solved the problem by donning one of her dresses to head to the bars of San Antonio, Texas. Hours later he was arrested for urinating on the Alamo.

Morrissey is fourth in the chart, not for any bad behaviour on his part but thanks to a wag in the audience for his band, The Smiths. During a rendition of the track "Meat is Murder", the vegetarian campaigner was hit in the face by some sausages. "Part of them got in my mouth. It was horrible. I had to run off the stage and heave," he recalled. "Eating meat is the most disgusting thing I can think of. It's like biting into your grandmother."

Jimi Hendrix was ranked fifth for setting fire to his Fender Stratocaster in Miami in May 1968.

The Who's incendiary drummer Keith Moon was at the cutting edge of the mayhem in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was responsible for many of the most notorious tales, such as the demolition of toilets with "cherry bomb" fireworks, and the detonation of his drum kit, permanently damaging the hearing of bandmate Pete Townshend.

"Moon the Loon", as he became known, showed his appetite for destruction early on by wrecking the drum kit at his audition. His bandmate, bass player John Entwistle, once remarked that tales of Moon's behaviour seemed "really funny when it comes back as legend, but when you were there it was a pain in the arse".

The drummer died in 1978, aged 31, after overdosing on drugs used to treat his drinking. He once arrived at a tennis match in a tank dressed as Rommel. He was also notorious for driving his Rolls-Royce into a swimming pool. The tale, however, is thought to be apocryphal and seems to have stemmed from Moon accidentally backing into a pond.

Hall of shame

'Moon the loon' The Who drummer Keith Moon spent a drug-fuelled lifetime wrecking apartments, hotel rooms and reputations. His top tricks included blowing up his drum kit and dressing as a Nazi. He once arrived at a tennis tournament in a tank.

Money to burn KLF are as well known for their stunts as for their music. They famously claimed to have set £1m of their own money ablaze on a Scottish island, an event filmed for posterity in the name of "art".

Prince of darkness The one-time Black Sabbath front man Ozzy Osbourne, whose stunts include biting off the head of a bat on stage and urinating against an American monument.

Hot rocker Jimi Hendrix could play with his teeth but astonished audiences by setting his Stratocaster guitar on fire in Miami.

Misery man Morrissey, the gloomy Smiths singer, had even less to smile about when fans hurled sausages at the ardent vegetarian on stage.

The Pixies...

Eighties cult band top iTunes download list

By Anthony Barnes

20 June 2004

A cult band from the 1980s, the Pixies - whose influence far outweighed their ability to actually sell records - have finally found themselves at the top of the charts.

The band, which reformed for a series of shows this summer, are playing numerous festivals and are the most popular download on the Apple iTunes music store. The online service launched in the UK on Tuesday and allows fans to buy titles track by track.

The Pixies' track "Bam Thwok" is the first new material recorded by the band for 13 years and is only available on Apple's service.

Overall, there is no pattern to the titles downloaded so far, though the band's comparative lack of current chart hits suggests grownups are battling technology rather than teenagers.

Individual tracks are available on iTunes UK for 79p, while most albums cost £7.99 .

Material by a number of bands on independent labels, such as Franz Ferdinand and The White Stripes, is not yet available for download. Their companies have still to agree terms with Apple.

Number one in the rival Napster chart (now running as a legal service) is Maroon 5's "This Love", which is at number three in the iTunes list. Hip hop act Outkast has two entries in the top 10, at numbers four and 10, with the singles "Roses" and "The Way You Move".

Steve Jones

'And now, it's the Wurzels'

He tore into society as a Sex Pistol: now Steve Jones is tearing up the radio waves as Los Angeles' hottest DJ. He talks to James Brown about his anarchic show

23 June 2004

Steve Jones, the Sex Pistol, was lying prone when the call came that would change his career and propel him to the status of Los Angeles' most-talked-about radio DJ. "I was in bed recovering from back surgery. I'd had a herniated disc, and was mainly on the PlayStation," he recalls. "Anyway, this guy I knew way back calls. And I don't know why I said it because I'd never thought of doing it before, but I said, 'I'd love to be a DJ on that station.'"

The station in question is Indie 103.1, a straightforward outfit that drip-feeds Ramones and Strokes records to an audience of punk junkies. But his show, Jonesy's Jukebox, is now attracting far wider attention.

"The station launched on Christmas Eve," explains the man once described by Iggy Pop as the Robert Mitchum of punk. "I heard about it by word of mouth about two weeks later. I thought: this is good, lots of old stuff, no commercials then. When they approached me I thought: this is a regular job, I'm not doing anything else. So I told them I'm not gonna do it if it's like other stations, playing a list of set songs. None of that bollocks: I said if it comes to that at some point, if the station gets bigger, I'll walk. Three weeks later I was on the air."

American radio is a firestorm of big hits, old classics, in-your-face advertising and endless promotions for multi-lettered channels. Amid this sonic chaos comes Jonesy's Jukebox, broadcasting softly spoken witticisms, laughter and superb music every weekday lunchtime for two hours. The mix of songs could be described as eclectic, or just mental - imagine Harold Steptoe doing the John Peel Show.

In addition to David Bowie, modern bands, punk classics and glam rock, there are the novelty songs Ed Stewart played 30 years ago at weekends on Radio 1. "Be My Wife" by Bowie, "Theme from The Sweeney", "Buffalo Stance" by Neneh Cherry and "White Riot" by The Clash are followed by Mud, The Sweet, Primal Scream, Doves, Franz Ferdinand, The Cure and Third World - and then to confound it all, The Wurzels' "Combine Harvester" or Benny Hill's "Ernie (the Fastest Milkman in the West)".

And, strangely, it works, mainly because Steve Jones has the same nonchalant enthusiasm for what he's doing that has driven John Peel for so many years. "It's a great job. It's great to have the opportunity to have so much fun in music at this stage. I could play Sex Pistols songs all day if I wanted. In the studio the lights are down low, and I'm just listening. I love it."

What about the trashier songs he drops in? "Well, 'Ernie' by Benny Hill is a classic. The film guy, Tarantino, puts songs that are normally cheeseball into his films and makes them cool. I'm doing the same thing on my show. At first, when I dig something out and decide to play it, I wonder if people are gonna think I'm a wally - but fuck it, I like it, so I'm gonna play it. I'm not playing these things to be amusing, it's just what I like." You can only wonder what all the movie stars and aloof social X-rays of Hollywood make of it all.

"I grew up listening to Radio Caroline, Emperor Roscoe, Tony Blackburn, Alan Freeman: they were all kinda amusing at the time. Back then I preferred to listen to them than Peel. He played better stuff, but they were jokers, alluring - plus you saw them on TV. The influence now, though, is John Peel more than anything else. I'm being myself. Mind you, I've probably had more birds than him. People are so starved and sick of the same 10 songs day in day out. Because I'm playing different stuff my show's getting a lot of listeners."

The nearest Jones comes to jingles are his peculiar renderings of lines such as "Jonesy's Jukebox; the cod-liver oil of radio". His enthusiasm peaks with his trademark song introduction: "Take it away, sunshine..." But it's not just his west London accent that's pulling them in, it's his total disregard for the conceit of performance. One minute he's moaning about how fat he is, the next he's recounting the time he robbed the artist he's about to play.

His producer, Mark "Mr Shovel" Slovel, admits: "We expected him to be controversial, being a Sex Pistol, but he's turned out to be charming and hilarious. It's amazing how many good stories he's got and it just all seems to work." Jones adds: "The only thing I can't do is swear."

Of course, he has a significant track record on that front. Back in December 1976, it was Jones who shot the Pistols on to the front pages of the tabloids and had truck drivers kicking in their television screens when he called Bill Grundy "a dirty fucking rotter" live on his teatime show, Today.

Infamously, it was Jones's teenage career choice of kleptomania that provided the band with their earliest equipment. With his drumming mate Paul Cook, Jones was the backbone of the Pistols, inventing the name (QT Jones and The Sex Pistols) and providing their distinctive guitar sound, one that has rarely been bettered. He has (according to legend, press clippings and interviews) stolen stuff from a selection of rock stars and legends almost as complete as the playlist on his show: from Roxy Music came gold discs and fuzzboxes; Bowie lost microphones and the Spiders From Mars lost their amps; Rod Stewart had a couple of guitars nicked; Ronnie Wood lost a fur coat; and Jones helped himself to Keith Richards' TV set.

But there appear to be few hard feelings among his victims. Every Friday on Jonesy's Jukebox he rolls out guests of the highest calibre. They visit the studio or phone in, quite happy to help out.

"Most of the guests are out of my phone book," he says. "It's called 'Fun with a Face on a Friday'. On week one I had Ian Astbury of The Cult, then Johnny Ramone, John McEnroe - I'm getting Pamela Anderson on.

"McEnroe was a real pro. He started interviewing me. I was surprised he was such a big fan of the Pistols; he was asking me things like, 'Why did you play bass on "Never Mind the Bollocks"' - it threw me that he knew stuff like that. Other guests have been Blondie, Vincent Gallo, The Darkness."

Once the Pistols had exploded, Jones and Cook started a new band, The Professionals, and took to touring the States. But, like his former bandmate Sid Vicious, Jones developed a serious heroin habit and after the end of one Professionals tour he simply decided to stay on in the States, thereby breaking the band up.

What do you do after founding the band many music critics consider to be one of the best ever? At the worst of times, Jones, by his own admission, was using heroin, crashing on friends' settees and then robbing them and moving on. I'd guess that the last thing you'd want after making friends with a Sex Pistol would be to come down in the morning and find he'd gone - and so had your stereo.

Since cleaning up 17 years ago, Jones has bobbed along, becoming the man young punk bands want to be produced by and older hands turn to for some lead-guitar credibility. He lives in Beverly Hills and is famously the centre forward with Hollywood United, a Sunday league football team sponsored by Puma, whose line-up includes Jones's friend Billy Duffy of The Cult, and occasionally the actor Vinnie Jones and the former US World Cup and Derby County star John Harkes.

Based as it is in Hollywood, it would be rude for Jonesy's Jukebox not to nod the old Union flag-handkerchiefed head in the direction of the movie industry. One of the best bits of Jonesy's Jukebox is the between-song snippets of movie dialogue that he uses - a snippet from the gang movie The Warriors, for instance, might run into Gary Glitter's "I'm the Leader of the Gang (I am)". It's performed with a precision that contrasts with Jonesy's own deadpan ponderings and laid-back joking.

Who puts them together? "The sound bites I tape myself. Sometimes I give them a theme that makes sense, other times there's no sense at all. A lot of the time I like to keep them English, from the films I liked as a kid, like Alfie, The Long Good Friday, A Clockwork Orange. The music is my own, too. My living room looks like a crack-house full of CDs. I just sit there and go, I'll play that one, play that one, write it down in a book, slip them in a portable CD case and go down the studio. I live on me own, so the mess doesn't bother anyone."

Unlike contemporaries such as The Clash or The Jam, who wrote numerous hit singles and albums, The Sex Pistols only really recorded one iconic album, and for years the radio industry wouldn't play it, so the royalties are probably far lower than people imagine. As a musician, Jones is still a gun for hire. As a guitarist he's worked with everyone from Bob Dylan to Don Johnson to Johnny Depp. He gets together with ex-members of Duran Duran and Guns N' Roses for jamming sessions and is still frequently name-checked and invited to guest on records by whoever this year's new American rock rebels are.

With all this, it would be easy to note his tattoos and 10 years of riding Harleys without a helmet, and to use his iconic status to portray a Beverly Hills yob. But the reality is that Jones has hit middle age and appears comfortable with it, spiritually if not physically. The Jukebox reflects a love of music and an honesty about it that wasn't cool during punk. Back then he namechecked his heroes such as Johnny Thunders and Mick Ronson, but "More Than a Feeling" by Boston or the guitar riffs of Brian May of Queen were unmentionable, no matter how much he liked them.

Jonesy once told Kick Down The Doors, the excellent website dedicated to him and Paul Cook, that the only thing he was sentimental about was money. The strange thing about Jukebox is that it appears to have given the Sex Pistol job satisfaction. He's far more serene than the punk caricature he and the rest of the Pistols have been made out to be.

"I'm 48, not 20," he says. "I'm not a mug doing what I do. I can't be something that I'm not. It takes a long time to find out who you are. I wanna get old gracefully. When I see blokes in England my age, they look 90 years old. It's hard living in England, it's a battle. I've really grown. I love warm weather, the easy lifestyle. I'm not into getting to the train station and it's closed, and this ain't working and that ain't working. It's easy; you get homesick at first, but I've been here a long time. It's 5.45pm now, I think I'll go for a swim in the pool. I live in Beverly Hills. Here there's plenty of work, land of opportunity - but don't tell anybody."

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE SEX PISTOLS?

Steve Jones, guitar

Jones and Paul Cook joined Thin Lizzy members to form The Greedy Bastards. In the 1990s he recorded with Bob Dylan, The Nothings and Don Johnson. In 1996, he joined the surviving members of The Sex Pistols for a brief reunion tour.

John Rotten, vocals

After leaving the Pistols in 1978, John Lydon formed his own group, Public Image Limited. In 1994, he published his autobiography Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs. This year, he appeared on the TV show I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife.

Paul Cook, drums

Cook produced Bananarama's debut single in 1981. After a car accident, he took a break from music until 1988. He worked steadily through the Nineties and rejoined the Sex Pistols for the 1996 reunion tour. He lives in London with his family.

Glen Matlock, bass

Matlock left the Sex Pistols in 1977. In 1979, he joined Iggy Pop's band. His autobiography, I Was a Teenage Sex Pistol, was published in 1990. In 1997, he toured with the "supergroup" Dead Man Walking. He appears at Glastonbury this weekend.

Sid Vicious, bass

Sid moved to New York to live with Nancy Spungen in 1978. On 12 October, Nancy was found dead in their hotel room. Vicious was bailed for $50,000. He was found dead of a heroin overdose on 2 February 1979.

Listen to 'Jonesy's Jukebox' at 7-9pm British summer time at http://indie1031.fm. Steve Jones and Paul Cook's website is at www.cookandjones.co.uk

An angry 16-year-old punk, a sweet girl

Skye Sweetnam a new star from Canada

Saturday, June 19, 2004 Posted: 6:23 AM EDT (1023 GMT)

NEW YORK (AP) -- Teen singer Skye Sweetnam grew up in a quaint Canadian town, but that doesn't stop her from belting out angst-ridden rocker girl songs like she comes from the gritty city.

Sweetnam, who recently turned 16, is very articulate and pleasant, despite the angry music. She was walking by her grandmother's hair salon one day when the hairdresser asked her to come in and sing. She gave an impromptu performance with a brush handle as a microphone, and one of the customers took a demo tape to a family member in the entertainment business. She had a manager within weeks.

Sweetnam headed to Europe in early May to open for Britney Spears on the international leg of Spears' tour. She helped write many of the songs on her upcoming album, "Noise From the Basement" (Capitol), including the single "Tangled up in Me." She likes songwriting best, and hopes to eventually join the ranks of other rock 'n' roll women such as Pat Benatar and Debbie Harry.

Sweetnam has been compared to another young, angst-y Canadian, Avril Lavigne. Although Sweetnam says their music is totally different, it does sound similar; they both use heavy guitars mixed with a young-girl voice chock-full of attitude.

Q: What's your hometown like?

SWEETNAM: Oh, Bolton, it's 45 minutes north of Toronto. It just got its first Wal-Mart. I didn't really have much to do at home except create. I took a bunch of dance lessons and did school theater. We didn't even have cable until recently when they installed a 70-foot tower in the valley. It was cool, though, I wasn't spoiled.

Q: Do you miss high school?

SWEETNAM: Well, I get tutored and home-schooled. I only went to high school for half a year, and I left right at the point before exams so I was fine. It's weird not going to school like a normal kid, but you can't leave this opportunity. It's too amazing. It does get lonely on the road for a long period of time.

Q: What do your friends think of your fame?

SWEETNAM: They think it's an awesome opportunity, being able to go on the road. I hope they're proud of me because I'm having a blast. They always want to know how the shows are going and what I'm up to.

Q: Does everyone want to be your friend?

SWEETNAM: Well, it's not like a normal social situation like it would be at school. It's hard for anyone to get in touch with me since I'm out on the road, so it's usually me calling them. I don't get randoms trying to be my friend after they see me on TV or anything.

Q: What about Britney Spears? What do you think of her?

SWEETNAM: She's a sweetheart, but I rarely see her around. She always had her bodyguards surrounding her and is being escorted and stuff. But she always wants to make sure I am happy and things are going well. When I see her down the hall I'm still kind of star-struck.

Q: Her tour has been panned by lots of media outlets, are you worried it'll rub off on you?

SWEETNAM: I have a totally different vibe. She has a million backup dancers, and it's just me and my band onstage. I think people can see the difference even though I'm opening up for her. Maybe they're expecting something like Britney and getting something totally different, and that's great for me.

Q: You do a cover of "Heart of Glass." How did that happen?

SWEETNAM: I picked it. My manager got me listening to all this old music, like punk and Led Zeppelin, weird things like Bjork and old Madonna stuff that I had never heard. The good thing about being so young is you can hear all sorts of music.

Q: What will you do with the money you make?

SWEETNAM: First of all I'm going to buy a car. Then, I don't know. Save it, spend a bit here or there. I just turned 16 so I don't need to make a living or anything. I guess we'll have to see if the album is successful. My brother really wanted a dirt bike, too ...

Q: Do you get along with your mom?

SWEETNAM: Oh yeah. Well, she has to come with me because as a rule you can't tour without a parent if you're younger than 16, and I just turned 16. She's very supportive, but she doesn't love the spotlight. She lets me get on camera and ham it up, which is what I like to do.

Q: And your dad is at home?

SWEETNAM: Yep, dad's at home taking care of my little brother and sister, playing "Mr. Mom." They think it's great for me. They want to hear new songs that I wrote. It's great having family.

Q: Were you a drama queen when you were little?

SWEETNAM: Oh totally. I loved getting attention, but I wasn't the type to say, "When I grow up I am going to be a superstar." I was kind of always modest. Secretly I wanted more attention.

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Nick Drake's New "Line"

"Tow the Line" was hiding at the end of a tape

Nick Drake died thirty years ago, and, unlike many other late musicians, he has remained unprolific in death. Now, eighteen years after the release of the "four last songs" -- "Rider on the Wheel," "Black Eyed Dog," "Voice From the Mountain," and "Hanging on a Star" -- on the 1986 box set Fruit Tree, comes the very last song: "Tow the Line," to be released June 22nd on the Drake rarities collection Made to Love Magic.
Producer Robert Kirby, who attended school with Drake and arranged the strings on all three albums the folk songwriter released during his lifetime, oversaw the new collection and contributed two other lost gems, the earliest recording of "Mayfair" and the only version of "River Man" sans orchestration.

"I made those tracks on an old reel-to-reel tape back in 1968," Kirby says. "I was never going to exploit those. They were basically going to die with me because they were stuff that Nick came around to my room and played when we were first getting to know each other. But over the years I've kept in very close contact with Gabrielle, his sister. We put our heads together and said, 'What can we come up with that Nick would have been proud for the public to hear?'"

Also involved in the process was John Wood, Drake's old producer/engineer, and it was he who discovered "Tow the Line." "John did the sessions that people call the 'four last songs,'" Kirby says. "There was a vast long bit at the end of the tape after the last song, and no one had ever run it on. John was in the studio listening to hear what could be remixed on the original first four last songs, and -- blow me down -- out comes this song."

The track was recorded in the middle or the latter part of 1974 (Drake died in November of that year), and it displays a harder edge than Drake's typically melancholic material. Kirby thinks that the song's aggressive approach may have been the start of a new direction. "It's almost the first of a whole new set rather than the last of the four," he says. "I think Nick is saying, 'OK, have it your own way. I've tried it my own way and I've not gotten anywhere [commercially], so I'll do it your way. I'll go on the road.' Whenever he sings 'Tow the Line' he sticks in this incredible discord."

As for the possibility of more lost Drake songs surfacing, Kirby is not optimistic. "Never say never," he says, "but there's nothing else studio-wise to find, I'm pretty certain."

Fans should not abandon all hope, however, as there are traces of other songs. "Gabrielle has got certain titles and lyrics that nobody's ever found anything to," he says, "except a list of titles and lyrics."

The plans for the lyrics are still being discussed, but if Gabrielle were to plan a beyond-the-grave collaboration like the Woody Guthrie meets Billy Bragg and Wilco Mermaid Avenue albums, Kirby nominates Elvis Costello and Beth Orton. But he has a more unusual idea: "Nick's stuff could lend itself very well to Nashville-type acts. It'd be very interesting to hear it taken over to the other side of the Atlantic."

STEVE BALTIN(Posted Jun 18, 2004)

Some recs

Album: Kings of Convenience
Riot on an Empty Street, Virgin

By Andy Gill

18 June 2004

Following a brief period as reluctant standard-bearers of the short-lived "New Acoustic Movement", which was kick-started by their 2001 major-label debut Quiet Is the New Loud, Kings Of Convenience duo Eirik Glambek Bøe and Erlend Øye have followed completely different career paths. While Bøe settled back in Bergen to study psychology, Øye moved from city to city, recording with local electronic musicians the techno-pop tracks that made up last year's engaging Unrest album. Back together again, the duo revert to form with Riot on an Empty Street, with delicately picked folk guitars and strings in sedate collusion behind harmonies whose precise arrangement and gentle delivery recalls Simon & Garfunkel on tracks like the opener "Homesick". Here, and subsequently in songs such as "Misread" and "Sorry or Please", their attentions are focused mainly on minutely observed behavioural characteristics. With banjo, piano and trumpet sparingly employed, there's an air of exaggerated politesse about their performances. But there's a discreet charm to their somewhat diffident manner that's ultimately quite winning, aided by melodies that worm their way into one's memory.

Album: Brian Wilson
Gettin' in over My Head, Eastwest / Rhino

Reviewed by Andy Gill

18 June 2004

As much as one loves and admires Brian Wilson and his music, it's getting harder with each release to maintain the pretence that he's still a significant creative force. Since his eponymous 1988 comeback album, Brian's best work has all been retrospective - the I Just Wasn't Made for These Times soundtrack, the Pet Sounds concerts - while his new original material has been either mediocre AOR, as on 1998's Imagination, or deemed too poor to release, as on the abandoned Sweet Insanity project.

Regretfully, Gettin' in over My Head is likewise just a shadow of his former magnificence, a series of limp pastiches propped up by half-hearted collaborations including a weirdly mismatched hook-up with Eric Clapton. Elton John shares vocals on "How Can We Still Be Dancin'?", which opens the album in the corny fairground rock'n'roll style of 15 Big Ones, an earlier, equally doomed attempt to convince fans that "Brian is back". The Paul McCartney duet "A Friend Like You" is no better, its Pepper-esque arrangement a heavy-handed blend of pumping piano, fluting mellotron and glutinous sentiment. As for the Wilson/Clapton collaboration on "City Blues", it's simply impossible to disguise the evident incongruity between the two stars' styles on this organ-driven R&B groove.

The best collaborations are all from another era: Brian's late brother Carl takes a charming lead vocal on the limpid doowop-pop of "Soul Searchin'", one of several songs here spoilt by excessive Spectorisation. The two most balanced pieces, however, date from Wilson's mid-Nineties association with the producer Andy Paley. "Desert Drive" is a competent but hardly inspired return to "Shut Down" car-club territory, while the title track is easily the best actual song on the album and duly accorded Paley's best Pet Sounds-manqué arrangement.

One wonders whether there are other remnants from these sessions, and why Brian didn't just release them as an album in themselves. Certainly, they could hardly be less inspired than the half-dozen songs that complete this project, which simply underscore how badly Wilson has always needed a lyric collaborator to produce his best work. It's hard to credit the ghastly, gushing compliments of "Rainbow Eyes" or the "knights in shining armour" clichés of "Fairy Tale" as the work of an adult; and as for "Satur-day Morning in the City", there's all the depth and maturity of Pee Wee Herman in lines such as: "I see some young people washing down their cars/ Or heading down to the matinée to see some movie stars."

It's a sad, slapdash affair, presumably intended only as a warm-up for the re-recorded Smile set, for release later this year. Best wait for that, I reckon.

Glastonbury 2004

How Green Was My Field?

It's Glastonbury time again. We asked festival veterans to share their memories of the mud, sweat and beers (and the music, of course). Interviews by Isabel Lloyd

19 June 2004

Zoe Ball, Xfm DJ

Around 10 years ago, when I was working on Big Breakfast for Channel 4, I managed to blag a ticket to Glastonbury. I borrowed a tent, persuaded one of the guys I worked with to bring a camera, arranged an interview with the Hothouse Flowers and Suede, and off I went.

Unfortunately - without going into too much detail - I ended up enjoying myself far too much and came back with a grand total of six minutes of footage. I told my boss that because there'd been a bit of violence at the festival that year, I didn't think the footage was suitable for Big Breakfast. It certainly wasn't: the camera shots were completely out of focus, the interview with the Hothouse Flowers was inaudible because we shot it in front of a giant sound system, and I hadn't turned up for my interview with Suede because I was too busy dancing in a field somewhere.

But I absolutely loved it, and I've been going ever since. A whole gang of us all camp together - the authorities, bless 'em, always give us the same spot, where the stage crews for the Dance Stage stay. We get told to turn it down a bit sometimes. Someone I met once told me that the funniest thing he'd ever seen at Glastonbury was me climbing down from the top of a Winnebago, where I'd been dancing. Trouble was, I was holding a drink in my hand at the same time, so I slipped, and ended up hanging from the roof by one hand. I was shouting for help to everyone else on top of the Winnebago, but because the music was so loud they couldn't hear me. Then I swung out, bashed my other hand against the side of the caravan, smashed the glass, and fell on to a post. This man said that he and all his friends couldn't come to my aid because they were laughing so much.

Now I feel it might be time to do Glastonbury a different way: the family way. So next time we go Norman [Cook, aka Fatboy Slim] and I will probably stay in the Tipi Field, and wheel our son Woody around in a wheelbarrow.

Matthew Bellamy, Singer and guitarist with Muse

Though I've been to Glastonbury several times, I've never paid to get in. Now I'm going to be playing there, I feel a bit guilty ... The first time was the festival's 25th anniversary year, in 1995, when I was about 17. I went with a group of friends and we met a man outside who had some wood, rope and a drill. He used it to build a strange kind of ladder up the side of the wall, which we all jumped over. The second time I went was one of the two really wet years - '97 or '98. I bumped into a farmer in Pilton who was taking hay bales into the site to help soak up the mud. The farmer let me hide underneath the hay in his trailer and drove me right into the centre of the site; I hopped out with my bag by the Pyramid Stage, camped up on one of the hills, and lost three pairs of shoes in the mud.

The time after that, one of the locals got me in for a tenner. I went up to the Green Field just as it was getting dark at the end of a beautiful sunny day. Groups of people were sitting playing drums and guitar, jamming along to the same overall rhythm, improvising at the same time. It was the definition of what you expect from Glastonbury: people freeing themselves up from the stress in their life.

Muse play the Pyramid Stage on Sunday night

Johnny Marr, Guitarist, formerly of The Smiths

In 1984, Glastonbury wasn't quite the groovy post-dance rite-of-passage that it became in the mid-Nineties. There were no excitable Radio 1 jocks "bringing the vibe from the Healing Fields" (apparently that year was when the festival added the "Green Field" to the two existing fields, the "Big Muddy One" and the "Shit One With No One In"), and there were no VIP reception tents with Camden lovelies and Soho heads out for a weekend blast. If there were, it wouldn't have made any difference to The Smiths anyway: we intended to get in, lay some frantic three-minute NME anthems on the Elvis Costello fans, and leg it out of there for some De Profundis and a spot of camomile tea.

We'd played at the St Austell Coliseum the night before, and I was driven with Morrissey to the site the next afternoon in a white Mercedes. I had mixed feelings about playing there: feelings mixed somewhere between dread and "Er, I suppose so". The minute we got there it started to cloud over; as we were escorted to our unheated, faux-pine Portakabin, I clocked Costello's tour bus. It looked like a mansion. We hung around in our box while Howard Jones or someone did their thing outside and just before we went on we did a quick photo shoot, which ended up as the inner sleeve of the album Hatful of Hollow.

Our gig started off all right, no disasters, just the usual "Why does my guitar sound like it's coming out of the bass amp?" festival thing. I wasn't sure how we'd get on, as we hadn't done too many festivals before - in fact this might well have been the first - but as it turned out there were a lot of Smiths fans around and we got fairly revved up.

About three-quarters of the way through the set a guy clawed his way up the corrugated iron at the front of the stage and clambered up to join us. Whoopee! Then his mate starts to follow. Now all this seems a good idea to me: it's fun, it breaks up the sterile divide between stage and audience, and it's also a bit of a Smiths tradition. Anyway, the security didn't see it that way, and set about throwing our guests down as fast as they could. As this contravened the first law of the stage - which states that "once the guitar is plugged in, the band makes the rules ..." I got into a tussle with one of the crew, and the fans decided this was the moment to liberate the gig. Ace.

I started to pull 'em up by the armful, while the band kept on going. Sometimes stage invasions at Smiths' gigs were a bit silly, as it was a drag for the rest of the crowd. But this was all right, the sound didn't go off, no one got hurt, and it livened up the day a bit.

After all the jollity, we were again escorted to our box. The sky opened, thunder roared and it poured down. Time to go then, over to the Merc, in the mud ... to find that the stage crew has slashed our tyres.

At that time I hadn't read the small print of the first law of the stage - the bit that says "... and pays the consequences". It didn't matter, though, it was worth it: I'm glad we played, even if we never got the camomile tea.

Alex Paterson, Founder member of The Orb, "inventors" of ambient house

I'm a Londoner, and to be honest I used to stick me nose up at the crusties. For a long time the best thing about Glastonbury, as far as I was concerned, was that it made the area I lived in - Notting Hill - much cleaner and quieter for at least one weekend every June. But I have had my good Glastonbury moments. I reckon my proudest achievement was creating fake lightning, during our first gig there, back in 1993. We were headlining the NME stage, and the lighting crew built a system that would send an electrical bolt up into the sky if I pressed a particular sample key on my keyboard. There was particularly low cloud that evening; I pressed the sample, the majority of the crowd looked up, and boom ... it looked like lightning came out of the sky and hit the stage. Even now some fans aren't sure whether it was a coincidence or not.

These days, it's all getting too middle-aged - I mean, Rolf Harris playing Glastonbury? What's the point?

The Orb's latest album, 'Bicycles and Tricycles', is out now on Hexus/Cooking Vinyl

Rolf Harris, Entertainer

It was after one of my four performances at Glastonbury - the one where they almost had to cancel because too many people were trying to get into the field to see my show. I was sitting signing autographs for a huge long queue of fans. I'd ask each person who I should sign it to, and they'd say "Frieda" or such like, so I'd write "to Frieda, with love from Rolf Harris". Then a chap comes up to the desk and, when I ask him, "Who to?" he says, "Willie Nelson". I looked up and saw this chap all dressed up like Willie Nelson, with the hat and the plaited hair - he was even doing an American accent. I thought he was a bit silly, so I gave him a snide look, wrote "To WN, from Rolf Harris" and off he went.

About half an hour later my musical director grabbed me, very excited, and said: "Wasn't that fantastic!" "Wasn't what fantastic?" "Willie Nelson actually standing in line to get your autograph! He's playing the main stage today but he came over to see your show first!"

I wrote such an apologetic letter to Willie in New York, but I never got an answer. Maybe he'll read this, and forgive me.

Bill Bailey, Comic; has performed at Glastonbury every year since 1993

When it really rains, Glastonbury changes into a Dantean circle of hell, where dreadlocked, filth-spattered, hungover people shuffle along robotically on metal tracking, surrounded by liquid mud. It's like some kind of Orwellian art installation: you'll see a bloke sitting cross-legged on a flattened cardboard box outside his tent, quite literally floating on a lake of mud, while drinking a can of Tennents and looking as pleased with himself as if he was on Blackpool beach.

Even the celebrities don't escape the mud. In 1998, the second consecutive mudfest year, Tony Bennett - unlikely as it may sound - was performing on the main stage. Despite the fact that half the crowd had no idea who he was, this immaculately suited crooner appeared, with great élan, at the top of the access ramp that leads down to the stage. Just as the fantastic old musicians in his Vegas show band struck up his first tune, Tony started to make his big entrance down this ramp - which was of course completely covered in shiny, liquid mud. Inevitably, halfway down Tony slipped - his arms went up, his legs went up - and, as one, 40,000 people took a sharp intake of breath. But miraculously, Tony regained his balance, walked on stage like nothing had happened and stepped up to the microphone to say: "What a night!" - just like he was at the Las Vegas Ballroom. What a man.

Bill Bailey plays the Brighton Dome tonight; for details of other dates visit www.bill-bailey.co.uk

Sister Bliss, DJ and keyboard player with Faithless

The first time I went to Glastonbury was in 1987, and in those days the tickets cost about about £16. I remember getting creamy, unpasteurised milk from Michael Eavis's [the Festival's founder] cows. My first encounter with the Glastonbury toilets was also memorable, but in a different and less pleasurable way.

I went again, as a punter, in the late 1980s, and have since played there three or four times - the first time being 1998, a World Cup year. We were on at the same time as the England vs Columbia match, so it was gratifying that anyone turned up at all - especially as it was also pissing with rain, and everyone was standing there in their wellies.

2002 was a special year for us; I remember it as a kind of homecoming, a vindication of eight years of hard work. It was still daylight when we came on, but night fell as we were performing and the atmosphere just lifted and lifted. We were warming up for Coldplay, so the crowd hadn't even turned up to see us, but they were a real gift. I've got the performance on video and I watch it regularly. I reckon we made Coldplay play better because of it!

Tim Booth, Solo artist, ex-frontman of James

All of our gigs at Glastonbury have been magical, for different reasons. Around 1986, James played it for the first time. It was one of the wet years, and the mud came as something of a shock: we were towed into what looked like a refugee camp. I mean this was meant to be a fun weekend in the English countryside, and instead we were surrounded by people covered head to toe in mud. It's one of those situations, though, where you get so drenched you eventually surrender and start to enjoy yourself. In fact it was kind of romantic, playing in our wellies on a small stage to 20 people, some sheep and a few chickens.

The next time we played was after "Sit Down" had been a hit, in 1989. We had a slot in the afternoon, just before Del Amitri. The Glastonbury authorities wanted to move us to the slot after Del Amitri, because we were bigger than them by then, but they refused - which was fair enough, we would have done the same. So we went on as planned, and had an amazing concert: when we sang "Sit Down", the whole crowd - I don't how many thousands of people - sat down. I think at that point Del Amitri must have really regretted having to follow us. To top it all, afterwards I went to the grassy area backstage, where my 13-month-old son was waiting. He walked 15 steps towards me: those were his first steps. Not so much sit down, as stand up ... what a lovely day.

Tim Booth's début solo album, 'Bone', is out now on Sanctuary/Rough Trade

Attila the Stockbroker, Punk poet, musician and comic; has performed at every Glastonbury since 1981

Last year was the first time I walked the whole site. I walked from where we camped, about two miles to some godforsaken tent in the middle of nowhere to see John Cale play. He's one of my absolute heroes. I've got everything he's ever done, and to see him play in some far-flung tent to a small crowd of devotees at one o'clock in the morning before stumbling back to bed in the dark ... well, that's Glastonbury: it's brilliant at combining the absolute mainstream rrrock! culture with alternative culture.

Glastonbury has become so much bigger and more commercial over the years, but still the heart of the festival is the same. It's still wonderfully diverse, in the sense that you can go as a young indie kid who knows damn all about anything apart from a few trendy bands that he read about in the NME, or as 46-year-old punk poet who's been there and done that, and still have the most fantastic time. The poet is going to get to see an awful lot of bands that he otherwise wouldn't hear - and the young indie kid will, if he's got any gumption at all, get exposed to all sorts of things that he won't encounter in his usual, lager-stewed existence. It's that which I think makes Glastonbury the best festival in the world.

Attila the Stockbroker will be performing in several different shows at Glastonbury this year; details at www.attilathestockbroker.com

Jo Whiley, Radio 1 DJ; regularly presents the BBC's TV coverage of Glastonbury

Radiohead headlined the Saturday night of that apocalyptic Glastonbury in 1997. The weather was just hideous. Stages were literally sinking, bands were being cancelled (I remember Kenickie turning up and just waiting around hopelessly in their wellies), people were saying goodbye as if they were never going to see each other again... it was awful. But while I was finishing off that evening's TV coverage with John Peel, in the distance we heard Radiohead doing "No Surprises", and suddenly all these fireworks started to go off. It was incredible, one of those spine-tingling moments, when against all odds music can transcend its surroundings and take you to another place.

Mind you, Peel's reaction was: "I never could see what people saw in that band." (We were having our usual musical differences.) But he still gave me a piggyback to my caravan was because the mud was so thick. What a gent.

Tim Burgess, Frontman of The Charlatans

In 1986, New Order were the headline act at Glastonbury. I was about 17 or 18, a Manchester kid who spent most of his time just following the band around, and so naturally I went down in my mate's Vauxhall Cavalier to see them.

They were brilliant. They closed with a great cover of "Sister Ray" by the Velvet Underground, a song I was really into at the time; Bernard [Sumner, the band's frontman] smashed his guitars up, which I'd never seen him do before... the whole thing was an amazing experience. It really broadened my horizons: up until then the only thing I knew about music was New Order; but now in a single weekend I saw a blues band called Barrence Whitfield and the Savages, the Weather Prophets, Husker Du and, if I remember rightly, Primal Scream. It took me into another dimension musically, and music's been the most important part of my life ever since.

Plus I met some pretty interesting people - like the bare-chested guy called Gladiator who got everyone's camp fires going. That was something I'd not come across before, either...

The Charlatans' new single, "Try Again Today" (Universal/Island), is out on 26 July

Billy Bragg, Singer-songwriter

In 2000, I took Boris Johnson to Glastonbury on a wheeze. I had got into an argument with him at the Spectator offices one day, and accused him of being not wholly an Englishman because he'd never been to Glastonbury. He was quite taken aback: "My God," he said, "d'you think I've missed something?" So I asked him to come down with me for the day while I did some filming for the BBC.

We had the best time. Boris got a henna tattoo on his forearm (it was still there when he was selected as MP for Henley not long after); we bought some silly hats; then he got up on the poetry stage and recited some of Homer's Iliad in the original, classical Greek - which sounded scarily like he was growling. If the audience weren't on drugs it must have been confusing; if they were on drugs they probably didn't believe what they'd just seen: "Blimey, that last bloke really looked like Boris Johnson..." Also at one point we were standing talking and some nude people came up and invaded Boris's personal space. That freaked him out. He'd never encountered nude people before - not without being formally introduced, anyway.

So then we settled down to do our interview. Just before the cameras rolled, he said: "I hope you're not expecting me to not like this. Because I do." It seemed the Glastonbury spirit had found its way into the heart of Boris Johnson. That shows how powerful it is - damn sure it wouldn't have happened at Reading.

Boris Johnson, Conservative MP and editor of The Spectator magazine

Billy and I had a lovely time. While what Glastonbury most resembles is a Napoleonic battlefield - a great mass of people, moving slowly through the mud, groaning - it rapidly became clear to me that it is also now completely pukkah, an event of the season much like Ascot and Wimbledon. It was immensely pleasing to see so many people who had just been at Henley Royal Regatta pretending that they were getting on down in the dirt like smoke-haired hippies. Hippies don't say: "Oh dahling, hell-owh!"

There was lots of dope-smoking, of course, but I was more impressed by the capitalism of the place. Such vast amounts of tat being for sale at such exorbitant, marked-up prices makes Glastonbury a wonderful lesson in the benefits of the free market. For a theroretically anti-capitalist event, it struck me as being the height of entrepreneurship and kick-ass salesmanship. They were selling the most ludicrous things: tarot-card readings, alternative medicine, the chance to have your hands henna'd, your head henna'd, your pubic hair henna'd... it was the most gigantic festival of consumer credulousness.

Charlotte Hatherley, Guitarist with Ash

I've got pretty hazy memories of Glastonbury. I've never gone there and done the whole four-day camping thing - Ash have been twice and both times we just hung around for the night. But despite all that, it is the place I fell in love!

It happened in 2002 - we played the main stage, and after our set went to see Coldplay, who were amazing. I got quite emotional - I remember welling up when they played "The Scientist", though that could have been the mushrooms. Anyway, afterwards we all decided to go on a midnight ramble and thatís when I met my boyfirend, Edgar [Wright, the director of Shaun of the Dead], in the middle of a field. Iím not really a festival person, but we should really go back to Glastonbury some time and celebrate our anniversary.

Howard Marks, Author and reformed drug smuggler; has been to every festival, bar two, since 1970

The first festival, back in 1970, was a very small affair - about 2,000 people went to Glastonbury Farm to see Al Stewart and the Kinks (though they pulled out in the end). I remember getting milk from the farm, watching a hay cart on fire, and avoiding the Hell's Angels, who were doing security.

What I don't remember is if there were any loos - I think we used the hedgerows. The loos are still the worst thing about it, though I stay in a caravan these days, which has its own facilities. I remember one year a chap turned up with a Winnebago that he'd converted into an extremely posh bathroom. For £20 you could have a shit, which was very popular.

The loos are a problem I can't ever see being solved. One year when I was performing - I think it was 1997 - I got a call from Michael Eavis, asking if I'd come up on the Pyramid stage to make an announcement. I was pretty off it after a day's, er, recreation, so I said yes, of course. I was taken along to the Pyramid stage where I met Michael's deputy, who told me I'd be going on stage straight after Jimmy Cliff finished his set. Apparently they had wanted Fatboy Slim to do the announcement, but he had lost his voice. Michael thought I had authority with the crowd, so they would listen to me instead. Naturally, I loved hearing that, and it wasn't until about two seconds before I went on that I thought to ask what exactly it was they wanted me to say.

"Well," said Michael's deputy, "we don't mind people shitting in the hedges. But when they piss in them, the urine seeps into the ground, runs downhill to the river, and kills the fish. Would you mind explaining this?"

So that was the day I had to follow the great Jimmy Cliff with the words: "Don't piss on the fish."

Howard Marks will be performing "Breakfast with Howard" on the Avalon Stage, Saturday morning

Mike Scott, Lead singer, The Waterboys; has played Glastonbury eight times

I will always remember my first Glastonbury, in 1984, with a lot of affection. It was my first rock festival, we were the first band to play the Pyramid Stage on the opening day, and it was thrilling. After the gig, while the rest of the band went back to London, myself and our drummer, Kevin, stuck around. We had no tent, no way of getting back, so we stayed up all night, roaming around the festival, and had a wonderful adventure. I loved how it was this transient town: even though it was only there for a few days, it had evolved into having main streets, and alleys. One area had one kind of atmosphere, another had a different kind of personality. I just fell in love. I loved all the funny little shops selling Tarot cards or all-day breakfasts at five in the morning, and I loved watching the sun rise over the Tor.

From a performer's point of view there's something special about Glastonbury. It's something to do with the way it impacts on the crowd. Everyone who goes there gets touched by its sense of inclusiveness. It's not a genre festival, it's for everybody. In other words, Glastonbury unifies us. And while I've seen it grow very, very much larger over the years, I still feel that same freedom. Maybe it's not as cosy - but it's still great.

Glastonbury Festival 2004, from Fri to Sun 27 June Glaston All tickets are sold out. Additional reporting by Nisha Lilia Diu

Razorlight rec

Razorlight, Up All Night(Vertigo)

Dorian Lynskey
Friday June 18, 2004
The Guardian

Razorlight's Johnny Borrell emerged from the same East End squat scene as the Libertines, and it's a shame they didn't get a record out first, because the similarities are more than superficial.

To a soundtrack of catchy, fidgety punk, both bands chart a London underworld teeming with urchins and scallywags. But while the Libertines invent their own peculiar mythology, Borrell's is overfamiliar, whether he is name-dropping Bukowski with sixth-form self-consciousness or rhyming "rock'n'roll lies" with "rock'n'roll eyes".

If conviction were all that mattered, however, this would be a masterpiece. Borrell roars through the frenetic Rip It Up and climaxes the Patti Smith-inspired In the City with a thrilling, pop-eyed rant. When he advises "Don't go back to Dalston!", it is with such anguished force that you are left in no doubt that you should stay away from part of London.

Originality may not be Razorlight's strong point, but Borrell's raw charisma carries the day.