THE POUTING OF THE HEAD SEA

THIS ONE'LL sort the lads from the boys. Anyone who choked on The Charlatans because of their ‘over-cute streamlining of The S**** R***S' mannerisms' had better prepare to swallow hard. While drugs ‘n' dance pop was still sounding fresh second time round and there were few enough bands to mean that innovation alone counted, you could get away with being ugly, out of it, and merely droopingly charismatic. As long as you were a sorted lad, and the bass line buzzed, you were alright. The ‘popstar', it was decided once again, was dead.
Well, not really. Try telling that to Tim Burgess' postman. All of a sudden The Mock Blur Highs have crowded into the picture, and the inevitable has happened. It's survival of the prettiest time again and that surly, stoned and idiosyncratic rag-bag "60s—'90s Guitar Pop' has turned itself into a Musical Stage Show. Tonight it arrives at the ICA in the form of the superbly rehearsed Ocean Colour Scene, starring frontman Simon Fowler, the first real ‘performer' that Baggy-delia has thrown up. You may well want to.
The final night of a sponsored week of up and coming bands at the ICA, with the audience split 50/50 between Industry observers and hardcore Oceanographers, is not the place to see OCS. They demand adulation. They need a setting of Ocean Colour Screams (SCWEEEAMS!). And they sort of deserve them.
OCS have reached an end point in the perfecting of the stratospheric-wash-of-meandering-paisley- guitar sound. Crescendos, lilting abstraction, wah-wah pedals —they have it all and they control it beautifully. Brian Jones-faced guitarist Stephen Craddock's backwards-jointed fingers bleed sitar- friendly drones over Oscar Harrison's scatter beats and Damon Minchella's hypno bass lines. Simon ‘not that shirt again' Fowler's voice Is magnificently disembodied, fraying into histrionic screams at all the right moments. They have raspberry ripple key changes and ethereal vocal harmonies of cathedral choir standard. And the tunes are all ultra vividly bold.
Tonight we get the extended versions, allowing ‘Talk On' to untold and ‘Fly Me' to shimmer enticingly. The propulsive ‘Sway', already the band's anthem, is suitably fired up, and ‘Yesterday Today' and ‘Another Girl's Name' from the current EP are dazzling pieces of sunshine pop. So what's the sodding problem then?
The problem is that OCS are a wonderful Hall Of Mirrors reflection of Brit Guitar Pop's most recent obsessions but their music (at this stage) appears to be completely devoid of any personal quirk, twist, deviancy or strangeness that comes directly from the four people in the band. It's all too efficient, it's all too beee-ooootiful... And It's all too vaudeville. That brings us to Simon F. Where OCS do distinguish themselves from the pack of ‘6Os updates is in Si's unabashed determination to act the prettiest star. All pouting lips (McCulloch), fluttering eye-shadowed lids (Bowie) and stilted moves (Jagger), Simon gives a kind of flicker- book Impersonation of Rock Star Androgynous Narcissism through the ages. It is not, it has to be said, a football-terrace-friendly-performance. Which Is entirely healthy. Post-Ryder cool, though, it does come across asa bit over-done. During ‘Fly Me Simon tries unsuccessfully to levitate from the stage by flapping his arms like a lead goose. This is not a good moment. Then, for then coquettish "Don ‘t you want a piece of the action... " hook from ‘Sway', he points Ziggy-ishly at lucky people in the crowd, some of whom, mostly older and male, are already taking the piss out of his theatrics. A lot of the girls, though, are singing along, and looking kind of entranced.
It's not that Simon Fowler's impersonation of a Pop God is all that bad. The ocean will still part for the band and the chart positions will tumble. But it does make it all the harder for OCS to convince that they have much that is mysterious or ingenious to contribute in their own right.
They finish the night with ‘Deep Blue Ocean' which, by their standards of undulating, landscaped sway-pop is a sprawling, vertiginous burnout, complete with Simon sex-grunting his way to the climax. What are the odds, though, that it was a fake orgasm?

Roger Morton

This Review is by Roger Morton

OCEAN Colour Scene are far and away the best of their kind of band since The Stone Roses. And I feel much the same way about them as I do about the Roses: love the wiggy stuff like "Don't" and "Adored", can't see why they bother with the boppy retro of "Bangs The Drums" and "Badman". In the latter camp lie OCS songs like "Yesterday Today" and "Fly Me", are overly couched in the Sixties, with their neat-and-tied lattice of nasal harmonies (vaguely reminiscent of Zager and Evans' "In The Year 2525" or The Electric Prunes). And there seems little excuse in 1990 for "Another Girl's Name", a "Yesterday's Papers" type putdown of a discarded lover.
The irony of Ocean Colour Scene is that, in a reversal of standard thinking, their songs are the least interesting thing they have to offer. What makes them stand out so outstandingly is all the other elements: the boss funk grooves, singer Simon Fowler's fey, petulant persona, and most of all guitarist Stephen Craddock's iridescent virtuosity. His sound recalls all that's most birth-pangs-of-a-baby-whale-like in the playing of Terry Bickers, John Squire and Kurt Ralske. The single "Sway" is typical of OCS at their best a seething funk undertow, over which Craddock cuts between painstripping wah-wah licks and rippling ambient funk reminiscent of John Mautyn or a bad-ass Vini Reilly. The song itself cops the insurgency of a mod anthem, but the chorus "Do you want a piece of the action" is acridly ironic. In a way, it's the first pop deconstruction of the Manchester "movement", as a happening scene that media/public desperation has hallucinated into being.
What elevates OCS is that even their most pithy exercises in "Dear Prudence" classicism are invariably pushed into interstellar overdrive. They start as period pieces, and end as a timeless freak-out, a kaleidoscopic maelstrom of shattered marble and stained glass shrapnel, with Fowler caught up in a kind of effete frenzy, all falsetto shrieks and flailing, spastic gestures. At these high points OCS seem to have reached the same pinnacles of freakbeat dementia as John's Children and The Eyes (key groups from that moment in the mid-Sixties when mod and while R&B went weird under the influence of LSD). The encore, "Blue Deep Ocean", shows OCS inching ever closer to the realm of oceanic rock. It's a sighing hymn of maternal/marine mysticism that climaxes, typically but superbly, as a devout delirium, with the guitars blazing so bright your ears squint, and a crazed Fowler emitting gasps and random exhalations. Dazzled and confused.

Simon Reynolds

This Review is by Simon Reynolds

They always crack eventually, and Ocean Colour Scene's Oscar Harrison, it would seem, is no exception. One of Rhythm's most oft-requested interviews, and a man it's taken us some three years to pin down, talks exclusively to Louise King...

Oscar Harrison isn't looking forward to being interrogated by Rhythm
"I never do interviews, he explains with a nervous grin. Look, my hands are sweating: its so embarrassing."
As we settle down with a cup of coffee at Pearl UK's headquarters in Milton Keynes, and I try to reassure Oscar that the whole process is really quite painless, it turns out that the fact that we've even got film this far is an achievement in itself. The other three members of the band Damon Minchella (bass), Steve Cradock (guitar) and Simon Fowler (vocals) were convinced that he wouldn't actually show up at all. None of them believed I'd go through with this,' he laughs. "And to be honest, I can't quite believe I'm here myself"
Born in Birmingham, the eldest of four children, Oscar was raised in a strict Christian household where pop and rock music were banned. He vividly remembers the euphoria he felt as a child when he was able to catch snippets of prohibited television programs like Top Of The Pops. "I just went wild." he enthuses. "It was love at first sight for me and the drums, you see. Watching groups like The Glitter Band and Queen, all I wanted to do was play." Like so many aspiring young sticksmen. Oscar started tinkering with his mum's pots and pans and, at the age of thirteen, was rewarded with his first set of tubs. Even though they were old and battered, as far as Oscar was concerned, they were perfect. "Music was the only thing that I was ever good at school," he stresses, "and I was fortunate, because I was actively encouraged in that direction. Even though I did play a bit of bass and piano as well, drums were always going to be my main thing."
Ask about lessons and he's quick to describe himself as a self-taught player "I just listened and copied," he declares. "I never had any proper lessons." Because he'd been so restricted in what he was allowed to listen to as a youngster, it wasn't until he left school that Oscar was finally exposed fully to the big wide world of music. While he'd always had the desire to play drums, he believes that he only really began to develop as a player when those musical floodgates were opened "We were brought up on reggae as opposed to The Beatles, The Stones and The Faces," he says, "but once I'd flown the nest, I was suddenly able to listen to whatever I wanted. lt was a case of everything at once; it was really mental." Oscar was influenced more by music as a whole, than by specific drummers. And today, even though he cites a few legendary players as heroes, he confesses that he's still more interested in the overall sound of a band rather than the whoever's behind the kit. "I do love Keith Moon's playing though," he raves, "and Charlie Watts and Ringo are dead wicked. For me personally though, Reni was the one I'm hooked on his playing. I'll always remember seeing The Stone Roses; the band were awesome and Reni's style was amazing, and so different, like a rubber man. I just wish I could play like that." It wasn't until the age of eighteen that Oscar joined his first proper band. At a friend's party the frontman from a local group discovered that he was a drummer and out of the blue invited him to join them for a jam. "I was shit scared," Oscar recalls, "but before I knew it the old drummer was out and I was in a band called Echo Bass. "I never really made a conscious decision to make drumming a career, it just happened," he adds. "All I'd ever wanted to do was play, no matter where it lead me. I know I've been very fortunate, and I give thanks for it every day."
A reggae and soul influenced outfit, Echo Bass were signed to UB4O's label, but after releasing an album, they were unable to maintain the success that their live set had generated and went their separate ways. However, the manager of Echo Bass was also involved with another band, The Fanatics, and Oscar was soon offered the gig with them. The Fanatics, a local Midlands band, had been formed by vocalist Simon Fowler and included Damon Minchella on bass. When The Fanatics split up, a new guitarist, Steve Cradock, joined Oscar, Damon and Simon, and together the four of them formed Ocean Colour Scene. "When we got Ocean Colour Scene together the others introduced me to a whole range of different types of music. The three of them knew so much, but I was the only one that really knew about reggae,' Oscar laughs. "We all ended up sharing bits of music, and my horizons were broadened so much by working with them."
After signing to an independent record label, the quartet were optimistic about their future as the buzz around OCS started to increase. But when their label was sold to a major and the band were sent into the studio to record their first album, what should have been a major turning point for them, turned into a nightmare. Their album was rejected twice by their new record company, and after it was eventually released, a parting of ways with the label left the band without a deal and heavily in debt. Every band gets stung in some way, but I was gutted, Oscar admits. "When I'd released an album with Echo Bass, I really though that I was going to make it at the first bite of the cherry, but then it all fell apart. Then I'd had a second chance with The Fanatics, but that fizzled out too. I couldn't believe it had happened again, just as Ocean Colour Scene were going from strength to strength." Far from splitting the band up though, the experience made the four- piece more determined than ever. "Even when we were going through the bad times, we were still having a good time together," Oscar insists. "Because the four of us are so close. Nothing was ever going to break us. And the fact that we're still here today is a testament to that."
As the band struggled to make ends meet, Damon and Steve were recruited by their hero Paul Weller to play in his backing group. A close- knit relationship between the Modfather and OCS soon developed. "When I first met Steve White I was shaking in my boots," Oscar chuckles. 'What do you say to such an amazing drummer? 'Hello' doesn't seem enough, does it? He's a sound geezer though; I love him, he's ace. If I could play half as well as him I might have thought myself worthy of being mentioned on these pages."
Support slots with the likes of Weller and Oasis, and endless touring helped raise Ocean Colour Scene's profile as they continued to write new material for a second album. Eventually they were able to afford to buy their own studio, and continued to rehearse and record the new tracks. On hearing the tapes, MCA offered them a contract; the end result was Moseley Shoals, an album that spawned the hit singles 'The Riverboat Song', 'You've Got It Bad' and 'The Day We Caught The Train', and blasted into the charts at number two. 'We bought the studio because we wanted somewhere that belonged to us, a place where we could go and do exactly what we wanted, when we wanted," Oscar stresses. "To start with we just had a little unit, but now we own the whole thing and it makes putting an album together so much easier. We have all the people that we want there, and it flows. It's excellent." All four members of Ocean Colour Scene are closely involved in the songwriting process, and Oscar, as well as putting down drum parts, also has gained quite a reputation for composing on the piano.
"I do play piano a lot, and Simon seems to think that I'm quite good at finding the right chords; it's a knack I seem to have, but don't ask me what chords they are... When it comes to technical stuff, leave me out, please. On the drums I lust try to fuse my own style, and what I'm playing most of the time comes straight off the top of my head. I don't read music or anything like that. "Our songs come together in different ways," he continues. "Sometimes Steve and I will have a jam and Simon will get the vibe and start writing down a few lyrics. Or it may work the other way: Simon will have some lyrics and we'll try to come up with a tune. Take '40 Past Midnight': that came together within hours. We were in the studio, just messing about, and Simon came in. I put the piano down, Steve played drums, and by the next day it was a song; everything was there."

OCEAN COLOUR SCENE ARE CURRENTLY writing tracks for their fifth album. The compilation B-Sides, Seasides & Freerides and the fourth proper album, Marchin' Already, both hit big last year.. Analysing Ocean Colour Scene's back catalogue, Oscar feels that there's been a big progression from album to album. "There's different sounds and styles of playing on each release," he comments, "and of course we've all been influenced by different types of music over the years and that's reflected in our songs. "I can't wait to get back with the lads to work on some new tracks. When I hear Simon's voice and Steve on guitar and Damon on bass, it really motivates me. It's amazing the way we gel together as a band." And that closeness as a band extends to deep friendship on a personal level too. "They're like brothers to me, man. I'm the oldest one in the group and I love them all. The last ten years of my life have been spent with the three of them; we are a very tight bunch." After a decade together, the band still relish takin their music out on the road, and are looking forward to their three sell-out dates at Stirling Castle later this summer. "I love playing live," Oscar beams. "The biggest buzz ever is playing in front of thousands of people and hearing them singing your songs right to the back."
Oscar readily admits that even now he still suffen from the jitters before he takes to the stage. To help him relax before a performance, he always takes a stroll round the venue, to check out the vibe and see what everyone is up to. "People are amazed to see me, but it's what I like to do. I try to get Simon to have a wander round a well, but because he's the lead singer, he tends to attract all the girls, so it's harder for him. They don't go for the drummer so much, do they? " His fondest memories of a live gig are from the sell-out concert the band performed at The Royal Albert Hall, with special guest support in the shape of Paul Weller. The band came on to a string quartet playing an instrumental version of 'The Riverboat Song', and Oscar vividly recalls his feelings as he stood waiting at the side of the stage. "All of us were shitting ourselves," he remembers. "I can still remember my heart going 'bang, bang, bang' as we waited to walk out. I couldn't breathe. and I was starting to feel quite ill, actually. But as soon as we got out there and heard the crowd going mad, it was fantastic. Just thinking about that night now gives me goosebumps." Oscar still finds it hard to comprehend the dramatic rise of Ocean Colour Scene over the last few years. and explains how the band used to monitor their own progress by the vans they travelled to gigs in. "To start with they were old and crap, and I always got stuck in the back with my kit." he laughs. "Now of course we have artic trucks! I find the progression quite mad really; the security, the police, the medics... all because people are coming to watch our band play. In some ways it still feels like a dream - I'm a lad that's never had anything. and it's still hard to believe that all this has happened." Much as he appreciates the opportunities to travel abroad that touring gives him. Oscar always encounters one big problem when he's away from home. food. "I'm very fortunate to be able to go to nice countries, and I love looking at different places." he volunteers. "but I hate foreign food. People laugh at me. but when I go away I take as much British food as is feasibly possible with me. When we were in Japan recently, I just ended up in McDonalds and KFC every day..."

AS THE DRUMMER IN A HIGH PROFILE BAND Oscar is continually asked for help and advice by budding players eager to hit the big time themselves. While he is happy to offer guidance. the first thing he always tries to find out is how dedicated the individual really is. "Most of them just want to get into music for the money side." he sighs. "but as you and I know, it goes much further than that and most of them aren't prepared to put the work in. It's important for them to understand that I might be doing well now. but I've worked hard to get here. I've played hundreds of gigs in dodgy places. I've lugged my gear about for years and stuck at it. and it hasn't been easy. In some kids though you can immediately see the dedication and I try to help them as much as I can..." It's well over an hour since Oscar and I sat down for a chat and as we draw to a close I venture to enquire why he's been the silent member of the band totally shunning interviews up until now I could never understand why drummers wanted to talk about drumming, he says 'All I want to do is play, and if someone likes what I'm doing, I say thank you I don't seek attention and I'm not like Steve Simon or Damon; they can handle themselves in front of a group of people. Me, I crumble and rush off to hide in the toilet." To say that Ocean Colour Scene have had a volatile relationship with the mainstream music press would be an understatement and Oscar admits that that's another reason why he's shield away from media exposure I don't let the press affect me it all now. I just don't read it good or bad. I have enough to worry about as it is and I don't have time to be concerned about one person who maybe doesn't like our music or is goind to misinterpret what we say. If you let it, it can fuck your head right up. All I'm interested in is making music and playing drums with the band. I was very nervous about doing this today; it's easily the longest interview I've ever done in my life. But, if they could all he like this, I'd do one every day..."

This Review is by Louise King

Last year, OCEAN COLOUR SCENE supported the likes of Ride and The Charlatans. With a six-figure major record deal and a headline tour under their belts, the boys from Solihull look like being the next guitar crusaders to storm the charts. TED MICO finds out why the band want to turn their back on Midlands mundaneness and head into surreal harmony. Pic: KEVIN WESTENBERG

OCEAN COLOUR SCENE KNEW THAT THEY MUST BE doing something right when, last month, the owner of the Bedford club they were playing in asked the band to try and calm the audience down. The 500-strong crowd who'd been coaxed into dance delirium in the upstairs club were damaging the structure of the building, the band were told. Downstairs, the ceiling plaster was beginning to crack and, as the band hit their intoxicating beat, the audience responded, sending chunks of stucco crashing to the floor. The club had been going for four years, the proprietor explained, and nothing like this had ever happened before. Something had definitely clicked. It was a very different story at the beginning of last year, when, under the name The Fanatics, the four-piece played their first gig in Solihull supporting some heavy metal band and virtually got canned off the stage. At the time, singer Simon Fowler says Ocean Colour Scene sounded like a cross between The Ramones, Velvet Underground and The Buzzcocks. All that changed the day the band wrote "One Of These Days", a groovy and infectious slice of Sixties harmony buoyed by Nineties funk undercarriage. It was the first time the band actually realised they may have stumbled across something unique. From that moment to this, things moved a pretty pace: they signed too local record label, Phffft(named after a 1954 film), which was run by former Fine Young Cannibals' manager John Mostyn. Before their stunning debut single "Sway" was even released, the Maker wrote about the band and fuelled such feverish interest the group appeared on "The Word" within three weeks, followed by appearances on "The Late Show" and "SNUB TV".
'We started to realise things were taking off when we performed 'Sway' on 'The Word' last October," Fowler recalls. "Suddenly, people would becoming to our gigs in far-flung places and going mad when we played 'Sway'. We did gigs in toilets around the country. We played the same set we'd played before, but this time people went mad and started clawing at us. I almost lost my arm at one gig. We were the same band they'd seen only two months ago and ignored" More rabidly enthusiastic write-ups followed their live shows and the band's enlarged reputation meant major record companies started flapping cheque books in their direction, but Ocean Colour Scene insisted on a label deal, which they felt would still give them some semblance of independence. Three weeks ago, Phffft signed with Fontana, alias Phonogram, for monies rumoured to be around £800,000. "The money doesn't really affect us," Simon says, mimicking a Pools winner. "It could be good, though, because we might get to sleep with more readers if they think we're really rich. Money equals power..." And power equals sex. Fowler is a charming and entertaining wag, half court jester, half garbled pop analyst. He knows the band's sudden fortune has as much to do with the current chart climate that allows even My Bloody Valentine into the once forbidden Top 30 as his band's esteemed talent, but he's also eager to point out that Ocean Colour Scene are not sons of The Stone Roses. "The Stone Roses kicked open a lot of doors in this country," he explains. "It suddenly became a realistic option to play outside your local pub because bands of a similar ilk were becoming important and valid. That's important because we needed to feel that it wasn't just for ourselves, that we could play outside our bedrooms. We were lucky the way things worked out. "We always thought we were doing something worthwhile, so didn't spend a lot of time hoping and praying that Mr Big would pull up in a limo at the Hare & Hounds and say, 'You shall go to the ball'."

The band decide that our interview should take place in a pub in Woodstock, just outside Oxford. The location sparked off speculation that Ocean Colour Scene were a mite over-infatuated with the Sixties, but in fact, they chose the place because it's halfway between London and their hometown of Solihull. "Also," Simon claims, "we couldn't find a town called Altamont."
The chosen venue is, however, quite apt, considering the first track on their new EP is called "Yesterday Today" .The song title also suggests Ocean Colour Scene's ambition to collide past melodies with future shocks. Guitarist Stephen Craddock and bassist Damon Minchella are so incensed by the suggestion that they might be too retrogressive at times, they fetch more drinks. I keep insulting them and get pissed. Throughout the day, Oscar Harrison, the drummer says nothing. I think it's taken on a life of its own, really," says Simon. "I wrote that song when I was on a bicycle and I certainly wasn't thinking about how music from the past can be rejuvenated. I was thinking about road signs and whether or not I was going to get knocked over. The theme of the song is about fear of change, whether it be music or everyday life"
To be honest, the EP shows amazing potential, but isn't about to shake the pillars of the Parthenon. They've yet to capture the delicious poison of the live shows, but it does prove the bond are evolving fast and loose. Next month they start recording their debut album and plan to use former Rolling Stones' producer Jimmy Miller ("Sticky Fingers" and "Beggars Banquet") for a few tracks.
Although Fowler is well aware that people will think Ocean Colour Scene may be merely trying to replicate the Stones' sound by seeking out Miller, he says they met the producer by accident after their show at the Borderline. "He's deaf as well," Damon offers.
"No, he's not deaf," counters Simon. "We may end up with the loudest record ever made, but he's not deaf."

People who read history can choose how to use the information: they can ignore it, embrace it, reject it, or repeat it. Pop history, on the other hand, is impossible to avoid simply because it's everywhere, in shops, in lifts, in cars, on TV. All groups are subjected to over 30 years of pop history. It's unavoidable if unwanted. Ocean Colour Scene are well-versed in the past and are smart enough to speculate on pop culture, but they're also bright enough and idealistic enough to use what they've heard and add their own signature - "Respray the second hand boots," as they say, just as Marc Bolan did when he tried to copy Chuck Berry's "Little Queenie" and ended up with "Get It On", or The Pixies' Black Francis did when he used T. Rex's "Get It On" and "The Groover" to create "Cactus" on "Surfer Rosa".
The band's roll call of influences is immaculate: from The Small Faces to R.E.M., from The Kinks to early Bunnymen, from "The Notorious Byrd Brothers" to Primal Scream's "Loaded". They also rate The Who's "I'm A Boy", which proves their mistakes are as big as their dreams. They're utterly unashamed of saying they want to be pop stars. Their music isn't lads music and definitely isn't baggy. The band belong to no particular sect, but the one salient feature that separates Ocean Colour Scene from the likes of Moose or Chapterhouse is Fowler's voice, which is both strong and lush enough to counter the howl of wah-wah guitars. The singer can even perform a flawless and hysterical impersonation a David Bowie singing "Tin Machine".
"Obviously one of the reasons you start a band is to be like the people that have inspired you - for me that was David Bowie," he says, slipping out of character. 'We write in an Anglo-American style, like almost all pop and rock'n'roll, and that style isn't boundless. So you're likely to duplicate parts that have been written before. We're writing in an accepted and known language - music.
"If you write something that's alien to that, people won't understand it. It'd be so easy to write something which sounds like Philip Glass on LSD just to be different, but no-one would really get off on it and you wouldn't get off on it either.
"All you can do is put your own personality on what you do. Like the Pixies, who take things that have happened and turn them on their head - or at least turn them up.
"We came to people's attention by complete fluke last year, at a time when every one was being classified by what everyone else was doing .We've dropped quite a few songs because they sound too much like other people. I once wrote this brilliant guitar riff, only to find out later that day that it was the guitar part to 'Ticket To Ride'. The Beatles always seem to nick my ideas."

Ocean Colour Scene's main goal is to escape the ordinary. Fowler claims to be terrified of the mundane and says he'll go to any lengths to avoid it. Despite stating on numerous occasions that they've never even been into solvent abuse, let alone taken hallucinogens, the band's desire to eschew normality has led to them being described as a psychedelic group, even if the only trips they've taken are from Birmingham to London.
"Musically, we have a sense of nirvana, where everything comes together and you feel you're watching yourself," says the singer. "We can engender a trance-like feel by repetition. The whole essence of music is an ensemble, not four individuals. To do that, you have to lose your individuality and reach a point where something happens that takes you away from yourself. It's like Zen with bubblegum, where you can negate your being."
But psychedelia is the last refuge for the uninspired - mutton dressed as fish. 'Yeah," he concedes, "but this is not a self-conscious 'Pipers At The Gates Of Dawn' psychedelia. You can only tap something that's in you and I think anyone who's writing psychedelia is writing in a musical style and doesn't need to take drugs to do it. In the same way that you don't need to be black and be born near a railroad track to write the blues. Hendrix didn't grow up in a one-horse town. The only reason why we're discussing drugs is because it's now on the agenda. We're out of joint with what's going on because it's not in a joint."
"People use the word psychedelia because it's an easy comment, but it's not accurate," says Steve. "When we play live, there are moments of madness. We react to something that happens, but it's physical not drug-related."
"You don't have to be tripping to lose yourself in music," adds Damon. "There's a certain flow, repetition and strong groove in our music that can create that warmth."

Although this warmth is a direct result of the band's fascination with Acid House clubs, Ocean Colour Scene are far removed from The Manchester scene, partly because they come from a middle class town in the middle of nowhere. Solihull is at least 30 minutes from somewhere you'd want to be.
"It's definitely a good place to react against," says Steve. "It's an awful place. People work in boring jobs for five days a week and on the sixth day, they get dressed up in the best duds, go out, get pissed, get into a fight and puke up and spend the seventh day recovering." "The area we come from has very little sub-culture," Simon explains. "The Face isn't about to do a feature on all the great clubs in Solihull - there aren't any. But it does breed radical people who are disillusioned with the mundaneness. The chief motivating force in Solihull is what you don't want to do. Everyone wants to escape. If you grow up in a place that's happening, like Manchester for instance, then there's a good chance you're going to enter someone else's ideas and someone else's culture. In Solihull, you have to make your own fun. The only scene is Ocean Colour. We're generation terrorists."
Simon Fowler is a star entering the pop world at a time when most of the competition are mere 25 watt light bulbs. The 23-year-old may once have had a career as a journalist for the Birmingham Post & Mail (the only highlight was interviewing Mohammed Ali), but from the moment he, his dad and his brother started singing music hall harmonies at home when he was nine, Fowler's ambition was to star in a band. "I always knew I was going to do something different to the rest of the people in my class at school," he says. "I always knew I could sing and felt that was wonderful. I remember when I was nine, used to go home to have my dinner and look forward to singing and playing my guitar. I just thought, 'No-one else at school has this to look forward to'. It gave me a malicious sort of high."

In 1917, Max Ernst turned to surrealism because he couldn't make sense of his horrific experiences in World War 1. In 1989, Fowler turned to surrealism to escape the horror of living in a place like Solihull. "I just read 'Alice In Wonderland' and I knew there was this drugs link," he says, "but it reminds me of a lot of our songs and also dreams, inasmuch as you've not got your normal logical perceptions. Our lyrics are quite self-conscious I suppose, because we don't sing songs like, 'I shagged this bird last night and it was great'. It's more like, "I shagged this bird last night and it was an eaglet'." The rest of the band draw breath and try to squeeze the odd syllable into the conversation, but Fowler is holding court and the only thing that could stop him now is a sharp hammer-blow to the hinge of his jaw.

"One way I've found very easy to write lyrics is to imagine yourself watching a film so you can see the song on the screen from start to finish," he continues "It's like being a medium because the idea is so strong, it's not interrupted by the physical means of creating that idea - once you start writing it all down, you forget half of it. I've tried automatic writing after reading the surrealist manifesto of 1924 and my interest in William Burroughs - the random juxtaposition of disparate images," he says, realising the pretension, but soldiering on nonetheless. "I want that form of unusual expression, the unexpected and wild, but I also find songs about the everyday like 'The Kids Are Alright' entertaining." The Who again. And it was all going so swimmingly. Fowler is one part Bowie (who was one part Tony Newley), one part Julian Cope and two parts Mike D'Abo. He has the looks of Paul Jones and the confidence of Jagger, which makes his occasional brush with all things Mod about as welcome as Norman Bates entering my shower room. He briefly tussles between the exotic and the everyday, by describing practical things like PAs and gigs. But eventually surrealism wins the day. "I see surrealism as the desire to disassociate yourself from logical thought," Fowler continues. "Like surrealist painting, most of our songs are based on dream experiences. I read the other day that Keith Richards woke up with the riff to 'Satisfaction' in his head. If I could write a song as exciting as 'Satisfaction' that would be it for me. We might do it tomorrow, you never know and that's what's exciting. "Andre Breton once said that the most surrealist thing you could do would be to walk down a street and open fire on people, because no-one is expecting that," he says, "What a great idea! l find surrealism really funny." How does harnessing this lethal dreamworld relate to Ocean Colour Scene?
"You mean our desire to be mass murderers?" asks Simon. "We don't want to own automatic gun licences. Perhaps automatic writing licences." Three drinks later, Fowler finally gives upon the idea of defining what makes great pop and why the end of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" still sizzles the nerve endings.
"You can analyze pop all you like, but in the end, great pop is like a good wank: a thrill that builds up to a spectacular climax, but it's not something you want to talk about afterwards."
Any man who can leap from masterplan to masturbation in the space of a few lines can water my aspidistra anytime. Like I say, Simon Fowler is a star.

In the photo studio an hour later, the band dandy themselves up, apply make-up, brush their teeth and prepare to throw shapes in front of the camera. Click, click, click. Fowler raises his hands high above his head and stares intently into the lens. Click, click, click. He stands motionless, waiting for the world to revolve around him.

Ocean Colour Scene's EP is out now on Phffft.

This Review is by Ted Mico

No pretty boys, no fey lyrics and lots of hard-living rock'n'roll - Ocean Colour Scene were a man's band, until singer Simon Fowler was outed. James Bennett finds a group unchanged and a man unchained

Of all the stereotypes applied to gay man, Simon Fowler fits into none. We are talking about the singer with a lad's band, one of the top lad's bands in Britain. It could hardly be more surprising if Liam Gallagher turned out to be gay.
Fowler loves football, cars and the wall of he-man guitar. He sweats on stage. He probably can't dance, definitely can't dress and, judging by our surroundings, knows nothing of interior design. Yet according to a Sun report earlier this year, 33-year-old Simon "Foxy" Fowler of red-blooded Brummie rockers Ocean Colour Scene, bats for the other side. So, is this a coming out interview, Simon? "Why not?" he replies, with a grin.
It turns out that Simon has been gay half his life. The rest of the band knew, his friends knew. But his fans and, most critically, his family didn't. "My parents - that was the real problem," he admits. "The day that story came out in The Sun was initially a nightmare for me - what I'd always feared. But it forced me finally to approach my mum and dad... and they are ace. It went from being the worst day in my life to one of the best.
"Now I feel there's this incredible weight off my shoulders. I felt... like a real person at last. I expected it to destroy my parents, but some of the things they said to me that night, after I told them, made me think 'why have you been hiding this for half your life?'"
So does this mean we will now get a Marc Almond or Boy George-type fronting Ocean Colour Scene? Will this please the thousands of straight Scots lads who will be swarming the place when the band play three gigs at Stirling Castle next weekend?
Simon explains patiently: "You're suggesting that if you're gay you're automatically into..." Barbara Streisand? I suggest. "Yeah - although actually she's very good. But what I'm saying is I'm not a gay singer. I'm Simon, who's a singer, who's also gay. I like rock music and folk music. I loathe hi-NRG."
He is, of course, not the only gay man who doesn't like Kylie Minogue, nor the only one who has spent years in the closet. Now he feels he can be something of a positive role model to others in the same situation. "There are thousands and thousands of people out there who are not archetypal gays who perhaps don't realise that you don't have to be part of the gay scene. That you can be yourself and also gay. If my example can help them, then that's a good thing."
That's a relief to hear, because the other big tabloid story on OCS this year came in July when the Daily Star reported that, after nearly ten years together, the band were splitting up. Anyone who read both The Sun and the Daily Star could be forgiven for linking the two: Simon gay, band splits. I ask each member about the supposed split and all deny it vehemently. Even more convincingly, I spend the day with them at Moseley Shoals - their Birmingham Studio-cum-rehearsal-rooms-cum-den - and find the band totally into their music and at ease with one another. I also hear a clutch of excellent new tracks from their next album, due in the spring, which hardly speaks of a band at the end of the road.
In the den Simon opens another beer and talks about his new-found liberation: "I could never be myself before. Now I feel like I can finally breathe. I feel like my body just grew a quarter of an inch. I've bought a house and I'm about to move in with ... my boyfriend [these last words with a dramatic flourish]."
Simon has been with his boyfriend, Robert, a set designer, for ten years - his first and only lover following a teenage dalliance with a vicar's daughter. How did Robert react to his partner being outed? "He was so shook up by it that he crashed his car. Luckily he was OK, but if something bad had happened I'd be feeling very different about The Sun now."
A big problem for Simon - apart from hiding the existence of his partner from his family for ten years must surely have been dealing with the girl groupies. Lead singers of million-selling rock bands undoubtedly get plenty of offers. "It's true, says Simon. "You could have a girl in every port if you wanted to"
Whereas you'd rather have a boy in every port? Simon's too wily to fall for that; he was once a reporter for The Birmingham Post. "But I'm 'married' aren't I? And you're trying to lead me on here," he says.
Groupies should know that tile rest of the band are attached too. Guitarist Steve Cradock got married last year and lives with his wife in Birmingham near the studio. Bass player Damon Minchella, the only non-Brummie, lives with his girlfriend in Notting Hill. And Oscar, the drummer, is married with two children, the only dad in the band that has been unfairly saddled with the label Dad Rock, simply because they don't use computers, samples or hip-hop rhythms and have a fondness for things Sixties.
In fact, the most important father associated with Ocean Colour Scene is Steve's dad, former policeman Chris Cradock, who manages the band and during the dark days of 1993 - a time of flop releases and record company squabbles - went bankrupt to keep his son's group alive. Then there's the father figure, Paul Weller, conspicuous by the posters and record covers dotted around the studio. Weller has championed the band ever since Steve played guitar on his album Wild Wood; while other friends in high places include Oasis, with whom OCS have shared many stages. The walls vibrate as bass booms up from the studio. "That's a track we've just done with Liam Gallagher. a Jam song called Carnation," says Simon.
It's clear that music means everything to this band. Aretha Franklin is blaring out now. Steve and Oscar are dancing. Simon is telling me how much he loves Bob Dylan. Later, when we're listening to the new album, they can't contain their enthusiasm: Simon mimes to his own voice and Steve plays a mean air guitar.
I an hearing what will be the forth album, following their eponymously titled 1992 debut, 1996's Moseley Shoals, which sold over a million copies in Britain, and last year's Marchin' Already, which entered the chart at No. 1.
Simon arrived at the studio driving his new toy: a 1965 Karmen Ghia. Very nice, but hardly the way to go about losing the "retro" tag. Steve and Damon say that they "couldn't care less" what the critics think, but critically maligned musicians always say that. Simon, however, admits: "Of course we'd like to have critical acclaim, and some of the things people have said do hurt. But I'm not going to deny my influences just to please the critics. I'd defy anyone to come up with an umbrella term to cover all our music because each album has had loads of different stuff on it, from heavy rock to string quartets."
Certainly the individual band members display disparate musical influences. Steve loves Northern soul. Damon says he's into hip hop. Simon proudly shows me a box-set of American folk recordings.
The Daily Star cited "musical differences" as the reason for the band's break-up and it's true enough that opposing interests can kill off bands. Yet that unique magic that results from individuals bringing their own styles to the musical process is what great bands have always been about. In the case of OCS, that magic shows no sign of dissipating - regardless of one man's sexuality.

This Review is by James Bennett

They are retro and populist. So, asks Anthony Thornton, are Ocean Colour Scene destined to be hated?

"This is my retro car," says Simon Fowler pointedly, singer and songwriter of Ocean Colour Scene, as he picks me up from New Street Station in Birmingham in a beautiful 1965 British sports car to take me to his flat. It's a joke but he's goading me. Ah, yes, retro. That's always been the problem hasn't it? In their turbulent relationship with the press as they effortlessly notched up a million sales of their debut album, Moseley Shoals, tens of critics whined that they just weren't modern enough unlike, say, Oasis. Dadrock, ladrock and a clutch of other shallow insults were intended to bury Ocean Colour Scene for good. But singer Simon "Foxy" Fowler, guitarist Steve Cradock, bassist Damon Minchella and drummer Oscar Harrison have just celebrated a top five single, the first from their imminent album, Marchin 'Already.
The last time I interviewed Ocean Colour Scene they were about to release their first single and I was working for the local newspaper, The Birmingham Post, that was also home to Simon Fowler for five years. The band were fired up with ambition but expected a difficult fight. Steve Cradock, who at the time was doubling guitar duties for Paul Weller, declared that they couldn't fail. And despite the overwhelming odds, they won hands down. How did they do it?
Simon Fowler explains, "We thought 'The Riverboat Song' was pretty uncommercial.
We knew it would chart, though, because Chris Evans played it on the breakfast show. We didn't know it would go in at number 15. The rest of the year just wrote itself."
Of course, it wasn't that simple - they undertook a gruelling schedule of 120 gigs in a year - but their success put a few noses out of joint. "The weekly music press were particularly annoyed because all they'd tried to do was derail it and they had absolutely no credit for our success," says Fowler. "Yet we were in a good position. I think we're pretty much the second biggest rock band now." The biggest rock band, Oasis, are friends of Ocean Colour Scene. Oasis cannot be criticised by the music press for fear of losing thousands of sales, so the brunt of criticism has been borne by the likes of Ocean Colour Scene, Cast and even Paul Weller.
The new single, "Travellers Tune", out later this month, is classic early psychedelic pop with touches of harpsichord and backwards guitar. Marchin' Already follows a few weeks later. It's not a radical change of direction but, with less to prove, this album sees them become more comfortable with the idea of being pop stars.
There are less obvious homages to their heroes of the past - the verse of "Spark and Cindy" resembles The Small Faces' "Song of a Baker" - but, that aside, it's gripping pop of the best kind: simple and enthralling.
The songs on Marchin 'Already are half old and half new. Some were written at soundchecks, others were born, painfully, during a week in a Birmingham hotel.
Fowler confesses to me that recently the band all tried to grow moustaches so they could appear as Sergeant Pepper-era Beatles:
"We did it in Norway so that no one would know. But we were rubbish. It was a sad, sad episode." This self-confessed wayward act makes it an appropriate time to pop the question... How does he answer some people's criticism that Ocean Colour Scene are just retro?
"I think they're right in a way. But these people like house music and ambient music which, of course, sounds exactly like what was being done in the 1970s by Kraftwerk... Yet they don't see themselves as retro... so they're all right. I'm proud to be part of the musical heritage of this country."
So are Ocean Colour Scene part of the national heritage? "I don't know if that can be judged at the present time, but we're part of the current culture and we have taken the line on from the 1960s and 1970s."
Is there any danger of Ocean Colour Scene eclipsing Paul Weller? "No, because he's the most important recording artist of the past 20 years. I mean only Elvis Costello would come close. Or Sting. But, no, it's Paul isn't it? He's consistently given us stylishly interesting music. He's sort of like Tucker Jenkins from Grange Hill but hard."
What was playing Knebworth like in front of 125,000 people?
"It was amazing... things like that don't happen but it wasn't our gig, it was Oasis's. When we last played Glasgow, there were 70,000 applications so we could do the Loch Lomond gig on our own. Scotland have really taken to us. I think they identify with us being the underdogs but maybe it's the Celtic thing - Ireland have taken to us too."
How has Fowler dealt with the sudden fame and the changes it brings? "I don't know if it's because we live in Birmingham or live very self-contained lives, but I still go to the same pub in Moseley I've been going to for years," he says.
That evening we go to check out local singer/songwriter Micky Greaney in a small pub in the centre of town. Walking to get a taxi, a drunk takes exception to him and starts shouting "Foxy, Foxy" at him. "Foxy" Fowler deals with it calmly, before the drunk's friends pull him away. Within a few months, going to the pub in his home city is going to be, like his band, a thing of the past

'Travellers Tune' is released 25 Aug on MCA

This Review is by Anthony Thornton

Ocean Colour Scene have been around for 12 years - and there's still no stopping them. Mates of Paul Weller and Noel Gallagher, the boys are just about to release their fifth album and are performing a string of live dates nationwide, including Brixton Academy tomorrow night. Kellie Redmond spoke to frontman Simon Fowler....

Simon Fowler says that Ocean Colour Scene would like to play Chris Evans' rumoured showbiz wedding to teen popstar Billie Piper later this month. He says its the least they can do to thank Evans after the ginger star used The Riverboat Song - which then became their first hit as the walk on theme for celebrity guests every week on the now defunct TV show TFI Friday. "We enjoyed our time with Chris," Fowler reflects. "He broke the band on Radio 1 - we will always be indebted to him. We'd love to play at the wedding" they should also play The Riverboat Song as they walk down the aisle."
He says the band are meeting up with the TV/radio presenter next week in Dublin, where they are playing for five nights, so perhaps he'll take the opportunity then to offer Ocean Colour Scene's services as the wedding band. Speaking to me via his mobile, Fowler is on the tour bus travelling from Birmingham to Cambridge for their next gig as part of a 35-date UK tour. It seems the bands hectic schedule is starting to take it's toll on the lead singer who makes an off-the-wall comment during our interview. "Billie should change her name to Evans," he adds wistfully. "Billie Evans sounds like a '50s footballer." He then puts on a sports commentator voice and repeats the name Billie Evans over and over giggling.
The behaviour comes as something of a surprise" i'd always imagined the OCS lads as permanently serious 'artists', who hung out in cool circles with the likes of Paul Weller and the Gallaghers earnestly talking for hours about music.
"Permanently pissed more like," laughs fowler. "No, not really. We'd been to a few parties with the Gallaghers, it was a party which lasted three years. Then it all came to a horrible end with divorces and that." Making an impression in the right circles though, has certainly helped OCS establish themselves as one of today's major bands.
Their big break came in 1993, when they got a gig supporting Paul Weller's new band. OCS guitarist Steve Craddock then played on Weller's single The Weaver, and he Fowler and the groups bassist Damon Minchella all gradually became part of Weller's backing band.
Then Noel Gallagher invited them (with drummer Oscar Harrison) to be the opening band on Oasis' 1994 tour, after he heard an OCS tape at his record label offices. A year later Fowler and co had signed to MCA. But it was in 1996 when it finally all came together. Thanks to Evans giving The Riverboat Song constant airplay and Noel Gallagher proclaiming OCS as "the best band in Britain", the single entered the charts at number 15, and their album Moseley Shoals at number two.
They gained a faithful following thanks to their trad-rock sounds, fusing soul, R&B and blues-rock. "We were given a gradual grounding by associating with Weller. By the time we had our own album out, we'd already played the Albert Hall and were used to the lifestyle."
However, it hasn't all been plain sailing for the band, who first formed back in 1989 (and who, contrary to press reports, didn't all meet at a Stone Roses concert, according to Fowler).
A costly disagreement with their first label Fontana in early 1993 left the group in debt and the lads on the dole, with Craddock's dad Chris (also the band's manager) re-mortgaging his house to help the band along. Fowler assures me that now they've made a few bob, they've long since paid back papa Craddock. Fowler reflects: "We'd been on the dole for five years. I was living in a rented flat in Moseley with a hole in the window by my bed and I woke up with frost on my duvet. As long as we had enough cash to get off our faces we were okay."
Fowler adds: "I always thought we would make a living out of it â€" but I couldn't ever imagine something like selling 1.2 million copies of Moseley Shoals." From there came the B-sides compilation B-sides, Seasides and Free Rides (March '97) Marchin' Already (September '97), which knocked Oasis' Be Here Now off the top slot in the album charts, and One From the Modern (Sept '99). Their last single, July, which became the them tune to the Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels TV spin off, was released June last year. So, haven't they been away for ages?
"Everyone keeps saying that to us," says Fowler. "But it doesn't feel like it. We did the last album, played Europe, and we had most of last year at home where I started writing the new album."
Although briefly away from the music scene, OCS continued to grab media attention with Fowler coming out of the closet; eventually writing the single I Am The News about his gay revelations. Another big change, he tells me, is moving away from his Midlands roots, and finally succumbing to the London pull.
"I've just got a place near Richmond, so life's going to be a bit different. I'll be living with my boyfriend who works in the film industry."
But back to the new album. He says Mechanical Wonder, recorded in Wales, took three months to complete. As a result, he believes this one is much more faithful to the band's sound compared to the last one which took nine months. "It sounds very much like us if we were playing really well live." The first single off the album, Up on the Downside is due for release in a fortnight. "It was originally going to be called something else," confides Fowler. "But as it referred to an old enemy of ours, we had to change it, as it would be very expensive for us."
What has been the high point of their career so far? "I could go on forever," says Fowler "Playing the Albert Hall; Knebworth supporting Oasis; our first album... it's all downhill from now on." OCS have been together 12 years now, and are still going strong - is there anything they still want to achieve?
"America," Fowler says without hesitation. "We're going there at the end of April and May, but that's a lifetime of work. And we;ll continue playing Europe."
However he denies rumours that OCS are appearing as special guests alongside the elder Gallagher at a special tribute to Small Faces' frontman Steve Marriot at the Astoria next month.
But he says they've been involved in another tribute project, this time to the Who, recording a version of their Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere hit for a tribute album, which also includes major artists such as David Bowie, Stereophonics and, you've guessed it, Oasis and Paul Weller.
"We toured with the Who before," says Fowler. "My weirdest experience was probably going to John Entwistle's house - it was amazing more like a castle. He had 25 eight foot plastic fish hanging from the roof, and when you turn the lights out it's like being under water. it's the sort of thing someone with too much money would have." Even though he mixes in the coolest celebrity circles, Fowler himself admits there are times when he is taken aback by it all.
"I remember once when we were playing in Camden around 97/98. I went into the changing room and there was no room for me on the sofa - as sitting there were Johnny Depp, Kate Moss, Stella McCartney, Noel and Liam and their wives, and I thought 'what the fuck am I doing here?' It was mad."
"I met Paul McCartney for the War Child thing I called him sir - even though he hadn't been knighted yet. Linda was there and we talked about Neil Young as he was a mutual hero. Johnny Depp was there too I remember he was stuffing cigarette butts into his turn-ups. He then had a band thing, and their album was something about sticking butts in your turn-ups." What's the most rock and roll thing Fowler has done? " I can't spill the beans." When I press for more information he teasingly adds: "There are hundreds of stories - we are always getting into trouble."

This Review is by Anthony Thornton

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