Ten years ago something happened. But it didn’t happen over
here – at least I don’t think it did. There was a musical explosion taking
place in the U.K. That’s always been a hotbed of pop music. The Detroit radio
stations weren’t covering it because they were still playing the Stone Temple
Pilots and LIVE – it sounds insane but it is true. Totally true…..and totally sad
too.
I found out about guitarist Pete Doherty on the web and I
was somewhat taken by him and all of his drug problems. He also had some
serious problems with the media. Amidst his numerous court appearances and
bouts with the paparazzi he was also dating super model Kate Moss. She too had
her problems with drugs and in 2005 and was dropped by several brands including Burberry, Rimmel, and
H&M just to name a few. There was talk about Pete Doherty’s court case and
his probation and difficulties of him getting into the United States. He had
problems with some hardcore drugs like heroin and cocaine.
One snippet of news from the early 2000’s featured Doherty
coming out of a court building being hounded by photographers. He hopped over
an iron fence and scampered off. The pictures of him looked different every
time he was photographed and he rarely looked well. Some pictures showed him looking stylish and
proper while others looked like he had been out all night. Doherty had the same
kind of dizzying public image as the late Amy Winehouse. I grabbed any kind of
info I could about him at the time and knew of another band he was in called
The Babyshambles. What little I heard from them sounded intriguing. Their music
was very interesting and liked it immensely.
I had to go on the web to read about them and scour through
UK pop music magazines to read about them. They were not really well thought of
in American music channels or on social media. The Libertines were usually met
with ….. “Who?” and they got very little
airplay. If you wanted to hear the Libertines, The Babyshambles or The Arctic
Monkeys then you had to go on music trading services like Kazaa and Limewire.
Even our American record stores didn’t really carry any of their music yet and
Youtube was still a few years away.
I could pick up that this whole circle of people were riddled
with serious problems. The Libertines and The Arctic Monkeys tricked in on the
US airwaves eventually and some of the smaller independent alternative radio
stations would play them. The Arctic Monkeys would eventually make an appearance
as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live in 2006. They were singing about
their own culture, the violent streets where they came from to an American
audience who was very foreign and oblivious. Lead singer, Alex Turner, pointed
at an audience member and blurted out, “That man yawned !!” while going into
the close of, “A Certain Romance”.
Carl Barat would later grab the mic on the, “David Letterman
Show” around that same period to do, “I Get Along” with a very enthusiastic
Pete Doherty yelling in the background on the soundstage. The American audience
was getting just a taste of what these musicians were all about but never
really getting the full experience.
It was clear there as some very serious underground music
scene going on in the UK. Even with the Internet that message got very
misconstrued in the states. It wasn’t until online video sites like Youtube.com
and Itunes would give us a more inside view of what was really going on. The
content that came forth from 2006 to present was very revealing. One thing
remains quite obvious – the Libertines were one hell of a band!
There was an underground buzz and some hints on BBC Radio 1
that Pete Doherty was a big deal. This was a revolution in sound and magazines
like MOJO and the NME really picked up on it. The layouts of the stories and
live concert shots screamed one thing loud and clear, “You should have been
here….”. They were hyped up so nice and I totally felt left out. Then I didn’t’
really hear much about them after that as other bands stepped up to the
limelight.
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| THE LIBERTINES - Live In Hyde Park, UK |
THE LIBERTINES ARE BACK IN 2014
Well, I know they are back and I was very glad to find out
about this. Since YouTube was created a lot of songs were released by the
Libertines including some brilliant Beatle covers. I had read that Pete Doherty
had left the band and didn’t find out what the deal was with any of that….
Until recently.
Pete Doherty was involved with a hit and run which left a
man critically injured. Then later he
had to serve a 6 months jail sentence. Longtime girlfriend Kate Moss has left
the scene and Pete ended up having a kid with singer Lisa Moorish. To make it
all simple I am going to leave out the rest of the ups and downs including a
very intense chapter with the late Peaches Geldolf.
The Libertines did a reunion tour at the British Summer Time
Festival in Hyde Park in July 2014. They would also play an outside show with
the Manic Street Preachers, The Example and Lily Allen.
We haven’t really seen this much drama since The Sex Pistols
in 1977-78. Now, it’s all about the music. Singer and songwriter Carl Barat has
admitted recently to having depression and rightly so. There was a lot of drugs
and some serious drama going on behind the scenes. In some ways it has made the
songs more real and given them real impact. For Pete this means getting new
amps and guitars because he destroyed a lot of what he owns in domestic
squabbles.
The Hyde Park show drew 60,000 people and it had to be
stopped twice due to the screaming crowd. The fans were rushing the stage and
were smashing up the barricades. The fans were also scaling a tower and
shooting off flares into the audience which is actually quite dangerous. This
is definitely a Euro thing and I remember this happening to a Cure concert in
France. This is a very different kind of mania that that states have yet to
experience.
The Libertines have become very much of a cult like band in
the UK. The shows were very successful and the band has since added on some
more shows in London. We can only hope that they will end up touring the U.S.
in the very near future. They are incredible and bring a lot of uniqueness and
energy into pop music making it fun again. If anything the rock music they
produce is very real. Its personal and it is very – very , interesting.
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| THE LIBERTINES - Live In Hyde Park, UK |
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