Unlock The Secrets Of Bad Vibes: Britpop And My Part In Its Downfall Devised By Luke Haines Accessible Through Physical Edition

the endless vitriol there's a lot to like about Luke Haines, He's worked with Steve Albini and Chris Cunningham and his grumpy shtick is entertaining when targeting bands and people you always knew were shits his chapter on Chris Evans is fantastic as are his numerous barbs at The Verve.
I can even relate to the selfdestructive instinct to fight the burgeoning scene around you when everyone else seems to want to join the bandwagon.
However, by the way he goes on about it, you would be forgiven for thinking that New Wave is a lost classic of an album when it isn't.
Damon Albarn might be a big famehungry anus of a human being but at least he could write a decent tune.
An eyeopening but deeply personal account of the Britpop era, The thought occurs to me that this reads an awful lot like a kind of darkly comic novel about a cartoon misanthrope of a rock singer becoming steadily more frustrated at how the world is overlooking his obvious genius and repeatedly sabotaging his own career.
Or perhaps that it is a Half Man Half Biscuit song in prose,

Which is a roundabout way of saying I think it would be perfectly possible to enjoy this book without caring in the slightest about who the Auteurs were, because it's very funny.
In fact, it might even help, because it would leave open the possibility that they really were as good as Luke Haines says they were they weren't or else alternatively that they were comically awful and his entire career was an act of utter folly they weren't.


Maybe it's the distance that the near twenty years between when all this happened and his getting around to writing it, but he appears wryly amused by his own misfortune.
And the utter lack of a sense of proportion is a comic affectation isn't it I mean "Hut releases After Murder Park by the Auteurs onMarch.
Twelve days later onMarch, Thomas Hamilton murderschildren and one adult at Dunblane Primary School, Timing is everything" is intended as a joke, isn't it It's fun to have some of my prejudices confirmed he appears on the pilot episode of TFI Friday and finds Chris Evans every bits as objectionable as I'd assumed him to be.
If the Luke Haines of this book really is as he says, and is not just a comic creation, I'm not sure I'd ever want to meet him, but it's certainly fun to read about his exploits.

Luke Haines was

never a star, never really wanted to be, which is just as well because if you asked your average Joe on the high street they'd most definitely say,'Luke who' However Mr Haines is a mighty fine songsmith and has recorded some excellent albums over the years, that no one listened to.
Bad Vibes is a painfully honest account of Mr Haines' rise from indie wannabe to established recording artiste on a major record label, through his first foray with 'The Servants,' three albums with The Auteurs, one Baader Meinhof album and the inception of 'Black Box Flight Recorder' we receive an unflinching view of the music scene ins Britain, which, not unsurprisingly, turns out to be one fool of fools, bile, hatred and incompetence.
I read this book in a day, I simply could not put it down, not because I've heard of all the people he talks about, or because I've also been in a band, or because of the sheer joy of reading something so honest and uncompromising, of reading something that doesn't worship at the feet of Alan McGee or the Manc Ape Brothers, but because it's riotously funny and had me spitting my tea out on a number of occasions.
Luke Haines is witty, scathing, surreal, determined and unafraid of the past, In the intro Haines tells us that he will spare us the benefit of hindsight and just write it as he remembers it, write it as it happened as if he was writing it at the time.
I think it is a brave thing to do but my does it pay off,
So if you like reading about the music industry, want to know what Britpop was really all about, want to have your suspicions about Chris Evans being a dick confirmed or simply need to have the inside info on how to do your own Trepanning then this is the book for you.
Buy it, read it, love it, read this a couple months back, quite liked it, apparently people on here find his personality offputting which seems insane to me, dude rules. he was right to be bothered by everything he was bothered by, his assessments of other groups are accurate, and his own work still holds up today.
highly recommended if you're into making an ass of yourself at parties w/open bars Was handed this to read by a friend.
Now, in theory this should be my cup of tea, I'm the right age to remember all of this, I was immersed in the scene, so to speak, But very quickly I found myself skipping anecdotes and not really paying attention,

Which, when I think about it, was how I felt about the Auteurs back in the day,

In my not finished pile This is great fun a thoroughly nasty, articulate take on the Britpop era from an insider, written with eager malice and lancing wit.
I'm not a fan of The Auteurs' music I remember Haines as a rentagob even back then, but this is a lovely antedote to the usual drippy lookatmefamousmatesandtheusualsignpostsdrivel of the "look back bores" Mark E.
Smith who write about those times, Just great fun especially if you lived through it all or have any interest in Suede, TFI Friday, the NME, Melody Maker and the other flotsam.
Bar one bum note the farmhouse acid chapter this was a brilliant read, This is great. If you're interested in the whole Brit Pop period and the work of Luke Haines, I must admit The Auteurs passed me by but this book has made me want to investigate further I did like Blur, elastica and very early Oasis.
He's particularly scaborous about all of them and the second and third division bands of the time, But he also reserves plenty of ire for himself,



I would have prefered more on Black Box Recorder, but hey,



More please, Whether's it's music or books,



Further reading: That John Harris book on Britpop that tries to link it with the whole Blair New Labour vision thang.
However it would seem way too earnest after reading Bad Vibes, Can't say I paid much attention to Britpop as it did nothing for me, But good to see a lot of really dull bands blasted in this book although I was disappointed LH seems to have a weak spot for early The Fall, Nirvana and David Bowie, as well as being polite and friendly about a real pretentious dimwit he describes as a Scottish songwriter.
Grumpy but on in these four instances maybe a few more should have been grumpier, We share some tastes having got into the Modern Lovers at the same age but as I'm older for me that was in thes not thes as it was for Haines.
The whole book is an odd but delightful way to be reminded of an era when I was listening to techno and seeing riot grrrl and garage bands and bascially totally ignored Britpop.
The New Wave of New Wave is even mentioned, I'd totally forgotten about SMASH but I saw them at the time can't remember why.
I also caught the Auteurs and even supported them as a spoken word act but most of the stuff slagged off here just passed me by, so good to have it confirmed I was right all along to ignore it.
Luke always struck me as having both feet planted firmly on the ground, so odd too that he presents himself as rather unstable poetic licence or maybe by the time I got to know him he'd really got himself together and was less stable earlier on.
Anyway I laughed along a winning triplethreat a blokey rock biography about thes, the auteurs are a pretty shit band, but as you peel through the seemingly endless layers of haines' ceaseless braggartry, you end up with a winning portrait of an angry young man who cashed in early, made just enough of a ruckus while he could, and carved a lucrative niche out of his sour, sacredcow slaughtering cynicism.
that's a whole lot more honest than noel and liams pathetic cokedout middle age dithering, so fair play to the chap.
For the past fifteen years Luke Haines has been producing a solid body of music in a number of different guises, the best known of which is the Auteurs.
If you havent heard of him, its because his musical destiny is to forever sit on the periphery of the British music scene.
There was a time, in the early days, however, where he sought success but saw the ascending star of his band cruelly bumped aside in favour of the musical phenomenon of the midnineties, Britpop.


Since then Haines career has been willfully contrarian, turning out radio friendly ditties about missing children, airplane accidents, and the rotten underbelly of British life, all served up with a dose of irony and venom.
That he has taken that venom and placed it in a memoir, Bad Vibesis an exciting prospect, and its subtitle, Britpop and My Part in its Downfall, practically guarantees he wont mince his words, given previous soundbites on the movement in the press.


Read my full review sitelinkhere, This is really brilliant! Very very sharp, funny and dark in places, Luke Haines is definitely 'a fully fledged cunt', I'm really interested in who the unmentionable rock band are, Google suggests Reef. Would be interested in any other theories,

I have to admit to not being a huge Auteurs fan, I lived and breathed Britpop, I was born in lateso from midonwards I listened to the Evening Session every night bought both NME and Melody Maker each week Select too and saw as many bands as possible mostly which are mentioned in this book.
Obviously events in the book around/explain why The Auteurs weren't on my radar more I was too young for New Wave really.
I've been listening to a lot of The Auteurs whilst reading this and I do really like them, Not sure I would have liked them much as ayear old though! First, you fail, After four years of gigs no one attends, songs no one hears, perfect haircuts no one sees, . . London in the late eighties where the pubs still close in the afternoon and dance music rules is no place for an avantgarde songwriter like Luke Haines to be.
Luke Haines, after all, has never been to a rave, One neardeath experience later and there's nothing left to lose, With just a ruined piano and a couple of cardboard boxes, you record a demo in your flat, form a new band and give it a pretentious name.
Forget Blur/Oasis and Cool Britannia, none of that actually happened, This is the real story of English Rock in the nineties, Luke Haines has the inside line: from the teenage rampage of the early tours with Suede, mainstream success in France and failure in America, to the breakup of The Auteurs, the death of Britpop the idiot runtchild of all music genres and the birth of strange and frightening new projects Baader Meinhof and Black Box Recorder.
In scathing and worryingly funny prose, Haines presents the evidence: Pulp, Elastica, Iggy Pop, Kurt Cobain and his hatred of mushrooms, and the dark studio magic of Steve Albini.
Plus the sackings, the surreal selfmedicating procedures, how to be a bad loser at theMercury Music Prize, and what it's like to be attacked on stage by a vicious, drunken dwarf.
Bad Vibes is a pitchblack comic memoir from a legendary figure in the music world, variously described as pioneer, godfather or forgotten man of Britpop.
At the time, I always had the Auteurs down as the unassuming, nonattention seeking band in the Britpop litter, Their "New Wave" album included some great songs even though you had to check if you were wearing ear muffs when listening to it.
Later, Black Box Recorder produced a few albums of literate, clever pop, However, this book sees lead singer Haines exposed as a monstrous egotist by his own admission, Some great one liners at the expense of some deserving targets the Verve, Chris Evans fail to smooth over a fairly unmemorable trawl through the highlights of his career, although it is a well written piece and presumably honest.
Not a patch on John Harris's masterly account of the same period, Πικρόχολο αλλά και αφάνταστα διασκεδαστικό, γεμάτο ανεκδοτολογικές σκηνές από τη βρετανική μουσική σκηνή τωνς. Η αξιοπιστία του συγγραφέαμουσικού, όπως και οι προθέσεις του, ελέγχονται γράφει πολύ καλά ωστόσο. Απαραίτητη προϋπόθεση, βέβαια, για να τα ευχαριστηθείς όλα αυτά, να σε ενδιαφέρει κάπως η μουσική σκηνή στην οποία αναφέρεται. Luke Haines is a psychopath who has written a number of interesting songs, and, exactly like his albums, you start this book enjoying the scathing tone, the vindictive wit, but Haines' voice eventually becomes wearing.


No messing around, Haines pretty much kicks the book off with him forming The Auteurs and charges forward through thes, relishing his bitter rivalry with Suede, Blur, Oasis, Elastica and anyone else who came near his orbit.
Haines overplays his selfaggrandising snide bastard role a bit he's unrepentant about the cruel mindgames he played on his hapless cohorts and violent temper tantrums he threw.
Even so, when he lays the boot in on his contemporaries it's often hilarious, although his targets are usually obvious and easy.


It has what you want from a pop memoir, but don't always get: it's bitchy, intelligent, forthright and indiscreet full of hairraising anecdotes about disastrous tours, infighting and actual fighting, record label wrangles, as well as being light but informative on the songwriting and recording process.
I was interested in what inspired him to make the sideproject album abouts terrorism, Baader Meinhof, Oddly, although he appears to have an actual warmth for the subject, he claims it was essentially because the urban guerrillas of the Red Army Faction looked cool.


Despite threatening to, he never really gets to grips with his problem with Britpop or his alleged part in its 'downfall' beyond the usual harrumphing.
To be fair, apart from being namechecked on that 'Yanks Go Home'Select cover, his band were never really on board the Britpop bandwagon, and, as such, it's only a sideshow in his book.


Where the writing in Morrissey's recent memoir was lyrical and flowing, here it comes in spitting, staccato bursts of short sentences.
The end result is the same, however: you come away having been greatly amused, but worn down somewhat by the cold, sour arrogance.
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