by Martin Roach
Meanwhile, Damon Albarn was heading for an ominous anniversary – could it really be nearly ten years since Blur picked the most famous fight in rock and the Great Battle of Britpop was fought? But there would be no celebrations to mark one of the daftest moments of the 1990s. Oasis were treading water after another dry album, 2002’s Heathen Chemistry. Still a hefty live draw and a tabloid favourite, the former rivals’ careers could not have been more different. Damon Albarn and Oasis were world’s apart – further than they’d ever been – and the last thing Albarn wanted to do was remind people about the events of 1995. Instead, he donned a disguise – a familiar, slightly hairy mask to ensure that 2005 would not be just a year of nostalgia. “The further I can retreat the better,” he told The New York Times. “Something happened to me which made me distrust the cult of the personality in music. I don’t for one second think that realistically I can completely and utterly become anonymous, because people like to know who’s doing what they’re doing. But when you look in a kind of book of folk music or written music, and the personality of whoever wrote it comes through in the music, there’s not a picture of them next to it, is there? There’s just the notes. That’s the reason for music.”
Gorillaz – seen by many as a one-off prank, albeit a globally effective one – were shaping up a return to the fray. As work began on a new album, the question was asked: what would a follow-up album be like? “It sounds like someone has taken the first record and coloured it in,” was how ‘frontman’ 2D summed up the situation. That task could be said to have been achieved by producer Danger Mouse – otherwise known as New York musician and producer Brian Burton. The Anglophile Burton – another cartoon fan as his pseudonym suggests – had lived in London in the early Noughties where he got his first musical break, but burst onto the international scene via his mixing of The Beatles’ White Album with rapper Jay-Z’s The Black Album to create the internet sensation The Grey Album. The project caught the attention of a worldwide audience on the internet, not to mention a gaggle of lawyers and also one Damon Albarn of West London. 2D also claimed that the new album would be called We Are Happy Landfill, but that’s what happens when you allow a gap-toothed animated simian to be your spokesman. Wisely, 2D was overruled and the subsequent album was given the name Demon Days; it would prove to be a creative pinnacle for the Gorillaz project, both as a recording and a live experience – as well as a serious contender for the position of career highlight for Damon Albarn.
Released in the spring, Demon Days was a critical winner – the cultural opposite of Albarn’s last outing with Democrazy. Wide ranging with a broader roster of collaborators and a greater mastery of technology, it’s a better record than Gorillaz on virtually all counts. Uncut would judge it to be, “a dazzlingly clever record – great beats, brilliant production, top tunes and some of Albarn’s best singing” … praise in any language, simian or otherwise. The album would go straight in at No.1 in the UK, France, Switzerland and Honk Kong, enter the charts in the Top Five in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Slovenia, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Canada, Iceland, Italy and Japan and prove a Top Ten smash in America. Any final doubts that Albarn was anything other than an international contender would be banished for good.
From the intro – called ‘Intro’ – there’s enough to keep in touch with the last album – another sample from a George A. Romero film if nothing else, this time Dawn Of The Dead -while taking the concept one step further. It’s a borderline concept album, as the characters roam a post-apocalyptic world populated by kids with guns, lawless cops and most frightening of all, Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays. The beats of the first real track, ‘Last Living Souls’, are crisper and the bass smoother and more fluid than before. The guitar work has more musicality than the last Blur album too, probably down to the presence of Simon Tong. The computer tools have been mastered and the ride is a slicker one with all the tracks of a manageable length and more or less jam free. ‘Kids With Guns’ explores a theme that runs through Demon Days – everything’s going to shit unless we do something about it, with the terrible days of the title here to serve as a warning. ‘O Green World’ sports some Oriental themes alongside its bleeping, calculator tones that would prove useful in Albarn’s upcoming experiments, before ‘Dirty Harry’ stakes an early claim as the album’s stand out track. It’s got a kiddie chorus, Kraftwerk synth runs, cellos and not that much Albarn. Then ‘Feel Good Inc’ comes along and outdoes it. Damon is brimming with such confidence he even offers a borderline rap before being comprehensively outdone by De La Soul, as they shimmy across a bassline that’s a first cousin to Rick James’s ‘Superfreak’. The ‘After the Armageddon’ feel was bolstered by a superb video featuring the ‘band’ surveying a bombed out world – in every sense – from the safety of their windmills and towers. In a beautifully packaged book that followed the album, called Rise of the Ogre, 2D explained what the song and the visuals were all about: “I think Gorillaz built a tower around themselves that they couldn’t get out of; of excess and debauchery. The video is based on this feeling.”
Most of the stuff attributed to the cartoon characters is errant nonsense, but in this case 2D sounds uncannily like a post-Britpop Damon Albarn. The lead single from the album, ‘Feel Good Inc’ was a No.2 UK hit and got to No.14 in the US charts, proving beyond all doubt that this was no prank, this was British music on a global scale. Wise scheduling means that ‘El Manana’ and ‘Every Planet We Reach Is Dead’ slip by easily while you’re still getting over the two previous tracks before the heavy rap from UK-born, US-raised rapper MF Doom. His presence – or Daniel Dumile to use his given name – puts a nice extra layer on proceedings as he is also a real guy masquerading as a cartoon character, Marvel Comics’ metal faced villain Dr Doom. ‘All Alone’ pulls out the stops for classy collaborations with Roots Manuva and Martina Topley-Bird up front and Albarn relegated to backing vocals. Strictly speaking there’s no punk rock moment here, but the closest is ‘White Light’ – it’s really short, features a fuzztone guitar and makes no sense, so most of the Albarn trademark boxes are ticked. Then, gloriously, Shaun William Ryder comes on board with ‘Dare’ a tune so catchy that even the task of having to look up Ryder’s nose for a large part of the video couldn’t stop it reaching No.1 in the UK. ‘Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey’s Head’ offers useful clues towards Damon’s next offerings on a simian theme – the opera Monkey – but it’s the closest thing on offer to a duff track with a pretentious storyteller voiceover from actor Dennis Hopper. Shuffle forward to – of all things, a Beach Boys pastiche – ‘Don’t Get Lost In Heaven’ and just as you start thinking the album should have been cut at ‘Dare’, there’s a return gig for the London Community Gospel Choir from Blur’s ‘Tender’ to provide the title track and the whole album with a skanking outro. As is often the case with Damon’s work, he leaves us on a hopeful high and the promise of better things to come. Just as it was about to drop to four stars, the ‘Demon Days’ track grabs one back and Albarn provides a five star experience. Reviews glowed: NME, who by rights should have been slagging Albarn off in this stage of his career said, “Before you even consider the sonic and melodic innovation paraded through the album, there’s so much crammed into each of these fifteen songs (without any one of them sounding overproduced or cluttered) that repeated listening is a must.” The Los Angeles Times decided that, “It’s Albarn’s evocative words, compelling if understated melodic sense and subdued vocals that are the emotional centre, transcending the gimmick even more than on the first Gorillaz album.” “First impressions could not be more wrong,” said The Guardian, “Demon Days goes boldly against the current trend for brash immediacy and instead repays time and effort on the part of the listener.” Getting into the spirit of the situation, Mojo played their critique just right: “funky, playful but sinister like the best children’s stories.”
Presenting such a sinister story live would always be a challenge and various methods had been used in the pa
st to parade Gorillaz in front of an audience. The summer 2005 Gorillaz tour of US radio stations wasn’t likely to fool anyone. Such a visual project was wasted in such an environment. In terms of visual trickery, the peak was reached at the MTV Awards in Lisbon in November 2005. Billed as the ‘world’s first 3D hologram performance’ – Gorillaz would be named as ‘Best Group’ too – images of the band were beamed onto the stage using a projection technique called the Musion Eyeliner System, which allowed 2D to walk onto the stage at the ceremony, high five a few of the audience, grab the microphone and launch into ‘Feel Good Inc’ while Murdoc plays along – bass note for bass note – in his underpants. Then up pop the real De La Soul. A treat for the eyes and a wonder of technology and creative graft. But the heart and soul of Gorillaz – and possibly Damon Albarn’s finest hour – was to be found at the very same time as the MTV extravaganza, with a series of live performances at the Manchester Opera House. As part of a pre-cursor to the Manchester International Festival, a delightful conceit for the gigs to take place over a five night period was constructed. It would be a tribute to Gorillaz, performed by Damon Albarn and Company. Albarn and Hewlett even wheeled out Murdoc to explain the concept. “The way I look at this gig is kinda like the Pope giving his blessing to another Parish,” was the official statement given by the pant-flashing bass player. “Gorillaz whole-heartedly condone these Manchester concerts and I’m sure musically it’ll be top-notch, especially with the original guests. You should look at it like a great orchestra performing the works of, say, Beethoven. These gigs will be the only ‘Gorillaz Approved’ renditions we ever allow, so catch it while you can.” Total nonsense, of course … yet more genius.
The stage of the Opera House is not the biggest in the world – it’s not even the biggest in Manchester – so space was tight for the singers, guitarists (including Simon Tong), drums and percussion, DJs and string sections that accompanied Albarn. Playing in front of seven screens that threw out such bright colours that the main musicians were rendered as virtual silhouettes, Albarn was clearly identifiable at an upright Joanna, thanks to the familiar profile offered by his retroussé nose … and because he was centre stage. It got tighter still as a series of guests joined the ensemble – Neneh Cherry was up first for an ominous version of ‘Kids With Guns’ and had to dance on the spot through lack of space. Somehow they managed to squeeze thirty kids from two schools in Wythenshawe – a notoriously tough area of Manchester that has long enjoyed the honour of being the biggest housing estate in Europe – for ‘Dirty Harry.’ As the kids whooped it up and sang of needing a gun to keep themselves from harm, some of the audience got up to follow the groove … but were forced back into their seats by the Opera House’s security staff. De La Soul – managing to be on two stages in separate countries at the same time – Ike Turner, MF Doom and Roots Manuva all followed; fantastic each and every one, but none quite equalled the burst of pleasure around the theatre that the kids generated when they all begin to shimmy in unison. The playing, sound reproduction and Albarn’s singing were all first class – this was no improvised gang show; this was a world-class musical performance. But when Shaun Ryder appeared, Manchester was back in the house to mess with the slickness a touch; the bouncers really started to struggle and several people were ejected from the building. “Scumminoop, scumminoop, scumminoop … it’s DARE!” Bottle in hand and lollipop in mouth, Ryder stopped the show from getting too showbiz. Things chilled out when Dennis Hopper (on tape) intoned ‘Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey’s Head’ and there was genuine poignancy when Ibrahim Ferrer appeared in video form for ‘Latin Simone’ – he’d died three months earlier aged 78.
Demon Days was a truly special event. You could dance to it, fight a bouncer to it and shed a tear to it. It was quite a show. “Extraordinary,” was The Daily Telegraph’s view. “Top performers have struggled for decades to find a comfortable marriage between sound and vision, but here they were perfectly matched. There was a coherence behind the whole presentation – the colour- changing panels of light that threw many of the performers, including Albarn himself, seated mostly at the piano, into semi-silhouette; the subdued lighting; the look of the thing. It just worked.” “Doesn’t so much re-invent the album as underline what a remarkable piece of work it is, a kaleidoscope of disparate musical influences held together by a very singular vision,” was The Guardian’s take; local team the Manchester Evening News gave it the full five stars: “The show demonstrated that the group has cast off at least some of the shackles of anonymity to bring their spectacular second album to life. It’s a decision the talented Mr Albarn won’t regret.”
In fact, the talented Mr Albarn would allow this extraordinary show out of its cage again … then he did what he’s done in the past. He stopped it in its tracks. The full ensemble – including a real life Dennis Hopper – staged Demon Days at the legendary Apollo Theatre in Harlem in April the following year. Albarn was clear that he was doing it for the challenge as there was no money to be made. “It involves hundreds of people being very dedicated,” he told Q. “We work with a stadium-sized crew for what is a very small theatre. It’s financial suicide.” Demon Days in Harlem – despite the graphics being a no-show on the first night – was a triumph. The notoriously picky showbiz bible, Variety said, “the full-scale presentation proved most engaging when the flesh-and-blood performers were capable of getting in sync with their animated duet partners … a three-sheets-to-the-wind Shaun Ryder (late of Happy Mondays and Black Grape) earned extra credit by doing his best to morph into a cartoon character himself, fashioning himself as an odd hybrid of W.C. Fields and Mister Magoo for an unsteadily undulating ‘Dare’.”
It was all such a triumph that Damon decided it would perhaps be wise to go out at the top. Despite plans for a tour along the lines of the MTV performance and even a Gorillaz film Damon decided it was the end. “At the moment, we’re like, that’s probably the last album we make,” he told the BBC’s 6 Music backstage at the Apollo. “I don’t think we could make a better album than Demon Days really, for what this is and how it works.” That night he went off to celebrate the show’s success with supermodel Kate Moss and Paul Simonon, formerly of The Clash.
Demon Days had got to the parts that other Albarn projects just couldn’t reach. “Demon Days had a real point to being made,” he reflected to The Independent, as the sales figures pushed past six million. “I really wanted to create a piece that was a provocative reflection on the world I see out there. I’m surprised we’ve managed to get so successful considering how bleak it is.”
Point proven. With the second Gorillaz album, Damon had financially and creatively outstripped his rivals. And then some. That should do the trick – a job well done, dust your hands off and take a break. Yet astonishingly, just weeks before Demon Days was even released, Damon Albarn had gone back into Studio 13 to don yet another disguise: this time a black top hat. Accompanied by a pensioner, a replacement guitarist and a ‘south London thicko’, he had somehow managed to create an entirely new persona accompanied by a new set of songs and a new direction. With all that creative energy to spare, you’d think that he’d have enough left over to at least come up with a name for it.
Apparently not.
Chapter 18
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE PUB
There’s a cheery welcome to be had from the website of the Pig’s Nose Inn – plus a hint of how the pub would find its own place in music history and in the story of Damon Albarn.
Hi! We are Peter and Lesley Webber who own The Pig’s Nose Inn, East Prawle, Kingsbridge, Devon. The pub is the most southerly pub in Devon and was once a smugglers inn that dates back 500 years. It overlooks the sea and village green. We sell real ale straight from the barrel and also provide a scrumptious varied menu with the help of Carlo, our amazing Italian chef. There is an adjoining hall where we hold live music events.
The band that would perform in the adjoining hall – the latest in a baffling array of guises over and a
bove his ‘lead singer of Blur’ persona – helped Damon reconnect with the place that had previously provided him with so much lyrical and musical inspiration. The place that he’d felt uncomfortable about revisiting on record since the heady days of Parklife: London, England.
The roots of the new project went back a fair way. Tony Allen, Nigerian-born drummer, songwriter and pioneer of Afrobeat music – where jazz meets more traditional highlife sounds – was an unusual early recruit to what was initially an Albarn solo project. The veteran player, impressed by being name-checked in Blur’s ‘Music Is My Radar’ single, invited Albarn over to Paris where he was playing a gig, with a view to some onstage collaborations. Enjoying himself and drunk on high octane rum, Albarn was too refreshed to do much good. “I just could not find the beat at all!” he recalled to Time Out. “It was terrible. And about halfway through, I just wandered over and started hugging Tony while he was drumming. Funnily enough, though, we made some kind of bond there. He just laughed, he could see that I’d just got carried away with how exciting it all was, and he invited me over to Nigeria.” Accompanied by Demon Days producer Danger Mouse, Damon headed for Lagos; sessions took place – enough for an album – but Damon felt his mojo was elsewhere. Simon Tong was also on board and had accompanied Damon on the Lagos sessions. “We recorded in an old Decca studio that had been built in the 1960s,” recalled Tong during interviews recorded for a DVD to accompany a special edition of the eventual album. “I don’t think anyone had cleaned it since, it was absolutely filthy. Nothing worked, we had to take every bit of equipment we needed. We had quite a big band, we did some really good stuff.” As an honorary member of Gorillaz, Albarn had shown great loyalty to Tong, perhaps by way of a thank you for taking on the potentially fraught job of filling in for Graham Coxon in Blur.