Look who it is!

Hi fans! Sorry for being away so long, this is because Maximo Park has been all around the world playing to billions of people at festivals! Festivals are amazing, because unlike normal gigs, they are OUTDOORS.

What’s all the fuss, I hear you say? Surely that just makes them freezing cold with shit sound and grass. Well, yes. But it also gives you the opportunity to connect with thousands of people at once. Like at Glastonbury 1997 when Thom Yorke got them to turn the lights off so he could see the crowd - he was connecting then, with THOUSANDS of people.

I’ve connected with many people this summer. True, a lot of them have chosen to ‘connect’ with me via the medium of the piss-filled missile (usually a bottle, although there have been some water bombs) but that is just down to festival hi-jinks! I know, in that moment, as a stranger’s urine runs down the back of my neck, that I’ve really connected with them. Really made them feel something about my music.

Anyway, an old track that I’ve been feeling things about recently is ‘He’s A Rebel’ by The Crystals. It’s an old girl group song, with plinky piano, horns, and lyrics about a boy - just like all the best girl group songs. I like to listen to it on my ipod as I walk down the street and pretend they are singing about me.

‘He’s a rebel ‘cos he
Never ever does what he should
But just because he doesn’t do what everybody else does
That’s no reason we can’t share love’

That’s right, fans, just like the boy in the song, Paul Smith is uniquely dangerous, but loved by all the girls. I often whistle along and do a little skip when the song comes on my ipod.

I have heard that some young people are trying now to emulate the old sound of these girl groups, including Amy Winehouse and ‘The Pipettes’. I haven’t heard any songs by these people, but I can’t imagine them being any good.

I don’t see the point in rehashing old sounds. In an ideal world, all bands would be innovative, dangerous and FUTURISTIC - just like Maximo Park.

Bye for now, pop pickers.

Paul

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