Life is absurd. You must either laugh at it or go mad.

I am pinning this post, because it has come to my attention over the past month that I’ve been informed that there are people who took my scanned pics to post on X (fka Twitter) and didn’t credit me. Particularly, it was from a Blur fan and a couple of Coldplay fans.

Specifically, here are their usernames, their posts which they’ve posted my scans, and my own posts to as the source:

Blur - coxonauts (My scanned pic of Graham Coxon and coxonauts’ post that appeared 2 days later)

Bellamy at home in Lake Como (stash of beans and dead chickens out of shot).

Matt Bellamy - Muse [Q Magazine (October 2009)]

'We're doomed, doomed I tell you...'

Muse [Q Magazine (October 2009)]

Recording new album The Resistance in Milan.

Muse [Q Magazine (October 2009)]

An oven-ready Matt Bellamy conducts the music in his head.

Matt Bellamy - Muse [Q Magazine (October 2009)]

Matt Bellamy of Muse on the contents page of Q Magazine (October 2009)

MUSE

MATT BELLAMY IS OUT OF CONTROL

Matt Bellamy of Muse on the front cover of a Subscribers-Only issue of Q Magazine (October 2009)

Disclaimer: Please do not repost my scans or translated interviews outside of Tumblr. If you do, please actually credit me, the journalist, and the photographer. Hell, put a link to my Tumblr posts. That’ll make it easier. If you do take my pics or articles to be posted elsewhere and don’t put in the credit or source, please be aware that I will find you and I will duly inform you of what you’ve done. I worked hard enough to research, scan, and translate the magazine articles, so tracking you down wouldn’t be too hard for me. That includes you, coxonauts. I know what you did.

Graham Coxon

GUNS. VAGRANCY. FEAR OF PRAWNS.

HAS BLUR’S GRAHAM COXON LOST THE PLOT?

TEXT: MARK BEAUMONT PHOTOGRAPHY: STEVE GULLICK

“Gorillaz stuff is obviously going to be more popular than Blur stuff because it’s of a substandard nature to Blur.”

NME: Aren’t you a bit old for this skateboarding lark? “I’m probably a bit old for a lot of things I do and for lots of ways I feel. I don’t think you’re ever too old, contrary to what Luke Haines might think. He’s far too young to be going on like he does. He said something very boring about me being as charismatic as a sick pet in a car.”

What are the best and worst things about fatherhood? “The worst things are becoming worried sick about your child’s safety and whether you’re being a good parent. Those awful adverts on TV – ‘This car is going 35mph, if it was going 30 it would’ve stopped here’. It’s very upsetting because you immediately put your child in the position of this dummy-toddler.

“The best is when they’re asleep. And now she holds out her hand so you can help her walk along. I suppose it’s the things where you feel needed by them that make you happiest. I can walk down the road with her, holding her hand. She’s like a little chimp but with blonde hair.”

Are you squeamish? “I’m squeamish about seafood. I can’t pull the heads off shrimps and things like that; get me fingers all mucky in their eggs and peel the armour off. I don’t like that. And there are some of those skate videos with people dropping from great heights onto their groins. There was a great one where this guy was doing a rail slide and he lands on his eye. They filmed him going to hospital and having this big vacuumy type thing washing it out then this great big syringe needle being stuck in the middle of it.”

Which reality game show would you win? “Big Brother, easy. I’d have a guitar with me but I wouldn’t fucking use it. I couldn’t be arsed being on Survivor. If I can’t pull the heads off shrimps I wouldn’t last a second on that. It’d be the lack of privacy I couldn’t deal with, and no TV.”

What would have to happen to make you move out of Camden? “If the river (Thames) moved north of it. Nothing against south London at all, but Camden isn’t there, is it? Or I suppose if Luke (Haines) moved there.”

Who’s the most fun: Sober Graham or Drunk Graham? “I think I’m quite fun for a while when I’m a bit drunk but often quite scary because I do get over-excited and gravitate toward speeding cars. I’m only probably more fun when I’m sober because I’m a happier person and not so flaky. I’m really badly flaky when I drink, which I really hate in others. I really love the mornings and I can only enjoy those when I’m not drinking. I get dreadful hangovers. I can’t even move my eyeballs so I’m just staring at a section of the ceiling for hours with these inner hallucinations of death and insanity leaping around my psyche. I get obsessed with death and insanity.”

Are you pissed off with Gorillaz. becoming more popular than Blur? “No I’m not, although I’d like to know who’s buying Gorillaz. But it’s good because it’s Damon’s. He’s doing what he wants to do. I think it’s obviously going to be more popular than Blur stuff because it’s of a substandard nature to Blur stuff. The music is pretty good but the more popular a thing is in this country the more rubbish it is. It’d be best if people listened to simpler music, stuff that resonates more soulfully. I’ve seen the way my baby reacts and she does react to pop music, Steps-y type music, but it’s an automaton reaction. But Shirley Collins (’60s folk singer) or the odd Steeleye Span record, it makes her smile and lighten up. Pop music now just pushes buttons. It’s made of plastic not wood; it isn’t real music. Good music isn’t anything to do with commerce. Bad music is all to do with commerce.”

Who or what is the “scum” you’d like “washed from the streets” on ‘Thank God For The Rain’ on your new album, ‘Crow Sit In Blood Tree’? “I kind of wanted to make a social comment in a kind of protesty type song but I wanted to make the lyrics about things I’ve experienced around Camden. The scum are the people who are fucking pushing drugs to everybody who walks past them on the street corners, I hate them. And people who spit on the floor and have such a huge amount of disrespect for everything that it brings general quality of life down. The four-year-old trying to kick your door down because you didn’t give him a quid at Halloween. I’m gonna put turrets up on my house, put some guns up there, loads of trip-wires and a moat might be good, some of those lovely Dobermans. You instantly see so many more scumbags when you have a baby. Millions of them! You need Robocop!”

Do you have any phobias? “I used to not be able to walk up Parkway (busy Camden thoroughfare). I’d completely avoid it because I thought people would be making comments about me. I suppose that’s what comes with being a slightly recognisable figure around here; you wonder what people are gonna be saying. I’m over that, but I’m very phobic about knives and violence. If I’m ever having any sleepless or restless nights it’s usually something to do with dreams of violence.”

Have you ever killed an animal for fun? “Yeah, ants. I was a kid and I was watching some ants do their thing. I was about eight and I was fascinated by watching them doing what they were doing. Then suddenly I thought they shouldn’t be allowed to do what they were doing because it was far too weird. So I decided I’d get a kettle full of hot water and pour it down their nest and stamp on them. It wasn’t a pleasure, it was a duty. It was painful to do it but I had to, otherwise they’d take over the world. And I put a safety pin in a caterpillar once. All its blood was black.”

If you were Prime Minister, what would you do? “Change the national anthem to nothing. I don’t like nationality. I hate being in cabs with St George crosses everywhere and some gobshite in the front who wants to spout his bigotry all over your face, I’d lock them all up until they grew up. Bigots and pop music fans, I’d lock them all up.”

What was the last romantic thing you did? “Dressing up in really, really ancient work jeans, a really, really ancient, valuable grandad shirt and some really old braces. Then I went to a roadside, covered myself in dirt and tried to hitch a lift. I sort of like the idea of vagrancy; I think that’s kind of romantic. For a second I felt like some itinerant folk hero. It was near Dungeness. It’d been a long day and I’d been driving and I thought, ‘There’s no way I’m driving back to London’, so I parked my car up, covered myself in dirt and thought I’d hitch a lift. Dirt is very romantic. No-one picked me up. I was very close to a golf club and there were lots of people staring as they went past in their Range Rovers. I looked like I’d just appeared from out of the 1920s.”

Are you good in bed? “Absolutely. Not. I’m very good at sleeping, I go to sleep very quick. I don’t know about shagging. I can be good, I can be awful. I think I’m quite selfless.”

Radiohead: art or arse? “That’s art, innit?”

Translator's Note: Yes, I have put a watermark specifically for this scan. In the future, I think I will put watermarks only on Blur-related scans, specifically on anything related to Graham Coxon on it.

Do I want to do it? Admittedly, no. But so long as people like coxonauts exist, I won't let my guard down.

COLDPLAY’S USA CHARM OFFENSIVE

“British bands don’t break America, you have to kiss a lot of arse.” – Chris Martin

US touring has taken its toll, says Chris Martin

Coldplay’s Chris Martin has spoken exclusively to NME about the band’s success in the USA and the pressure of constant touring.

The band's set at T In The Park showed them to be re-energised and featured a handful of new songs including ‘Idiot’ and ‘God Put A Smile Upon Your Face’. Coldplay are currently enjoying success in the USA, and the heavier material NME has heard suggests they can make further in-roads. They have already played a massive gig at New York’s Radio City Hall, appeared on key TV shows like Letterman and attracted Hollywood stars like Winona Ryder to their US gigs.

Despite such success, reports from the USA have suggested that the band are starting to crack under the pressure.

“Yeah, it was getting to us,” Martin told NME. “Three months ago I was worried we wouldn’t be able to continue doing anything, I couldn’t sing. In March I lost my voice completely; we didn’t really have any new songs in the set and we were getting the big backlash. It was pretty trendy to slag us off. But then I had a break; I had some singing lessons and there were all these new songs to get on with. Then I started getting dressed for gigs, just the whole Rambo thing of getting prepared and not caring about people who aren't into it. I was bored of not enjoying it. Now I love it.”

Asked about US success, the Coldplay frontman told NME: “It’s taken us by surprise. We’re playing our biggest gigs there. The reason British bands don’t break America is that it’s highly political. You have to kiss a lot of arse – even we were struggling with that. We had a one-hit wonder with ‘Yellow’ but we are doing really well. We took a lot of shit in America, though. We were playing these radio festivals with all these really heavy bands. We were getting bottled at some of them just because we weren’t Marilyn Manson.”

The Coldplay singer said that new song, ‘In My Place’, was a likely single, but that a new album is not likely to be released for at least 12 months.

“There are a lot of songs written but we’re aware we’ve got to come up with something amazing,” he said. “Not all our new songs are hard, though. Some of our new songs sound weedy, we just don’t play them at T In The Park!”

Coldplay: ‘We’re like The Beatles in America!’

CHRIS MARTIN AND CO CONTINUE TO STORM THE STATES WITH MASSIVE ALBUM SALES AND STADIUM GIGS

“Madison Square Gardens is a huge leap-but of any British band, they can do it” Jonathan Cohen, Billboard

As Coldplay prepare for superstardom in the US – the first British band to achieve that status in a generation – they have told NME: “We’re like The Beatles there now.”

Last week it was announced that Coldplay, who have been touring the US relentlessly for the last eight months, were stepping up a league with gigs at the vast Madison Square Garden in New York and the Los Angeles Hollywood Bowl. The shows, part of Coldplay’s biggest US tour, see them follow in the footsteps of mammoth acts such as Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.

“We’re like The Beatles there now,” Coldplay guitarist Jonny Buckland said last week.

“Actually, we’re definitely not the biggest thing in America. I think Shania Twain is the biggest thing in America, but it’s exciting at the moment. It’s weird.”

Oasis and Blur both struggled to repeat any of their European success in the US. Radiohead managed to score significant album sales, but have never played the sort of venues Coldplay are stepping up to now. Robbie Williams has continually struggled, and despite costly promotional campaigns and setting up a home in Los Angeles, he still shows no sign of becoming a star in the States.

Industry insiders in the US are now beginning to talk about Coldplay as a band that could become the new U2. Jonathan Cohen, reviews editor on industry bible Billboard, told NME that Coldplay had succeeded because they built on a solid fanbase established with their debut album, and also because they toured and toured.

“They have spent oodles and oodles of time here,” Cohen said. “They’ve done club shows and radio station shows and bigger venue events – they worked and worked. And for ‘Clocks’ to be in the rock chart Top Ten (calculated through radio airplay) is significant. They’re sitting alongside acts like Foo Fighters and Nirvana. The quality of their album across the board has carried them.”

‘A Rush Of Blood To The Head’ is still in the US Top 30 six months after its release. It has just been certified platinum in the States, having shifted a million copies.

“Madison Square Garden is a huge leap for them,” said Cohen. “But of any British band, they can do it. They have the potential to have a long and interesting career. Chris Martin has a little bit of Bono about him.”

Some thanks for Coldplay’s success should go to Capitol, their US label, he added.

“They know something the rest of the industry doesn’t. Their track record for English bands is unparalleled. They seem to sign acts who develop and grow over time.”

Capitol is the same label responsible for Radiohead in the US. They are also looking to The Music to lead a new wave of young British bands.

Chris Martin’s symphony to ‘Beethoven’ Liam

Chris Martin has revealed he thinks Liam Gallagher is like Beethoven. Speaking last week, the Coldplay frontman rhapsodised about ‘Songbird’ – the first song that Liam had penned for Oasis to be released as single.

“I think it is the most beautiful song in the world,” Martin said on Radio 1. “It makes me cry, that song – that is such a heartfelt, beautiful song. Liam Gallagher always gets some bad stuff but it’s like that film about Beethoven… his girlfriend says, ‘How could I not love him ’cos he writes such beautiful music’… anyone who can write something like ‘Songbird’ is basically alright by me.”

Meanwhile, Noel Gallagher has revealed that Liam and Oasis guitarist Gem Archer are in the studio writing new songs, while he plans to take a year off.

“I’m officially on holidays until this time next year. I’m a lazy little shit! If I can get out of doing anything I will, y’know,” Noel told Channel 4. “I can wangle a year out of the management company before they say get back to work.”

He said that after ten months on the road, he’s planned how to fill his time: “I’m going travelling, holidays, catch the end of the football season which I never get to do, go to New York for a bit.”

Noel said he’d be happy for Liam to take a lead in songwriting after the success of ‘Songbird’.

“Liam and Gem are doing demos in the studio, and if it’s anything like the stuff he was playing on tour with his little acoustic guitar it’s really good.

“In an ideal world, he’ll write 15 mega, mega tunes and he can pay my way for a while! If at the end of a year off he’s written 15 songs, I’ll be, ‘Alright!’.”

Noel also said it’s time for a new rock maverick to emerge in the UK, and predicted how the end will come for Oasis. “We’ve got Travis and Coldplay, who are fantastic. They’re nice boys, they write great songs, but we need another Liam or another lan Brown or another Bobby Gillespie.

“It will happen sooner or later. Somebody was saying to me, ‘Will there be a symbolic passing of the baton?’ What will happen is somebody will come and take it from me, and in one album will make me obsolete. And when that happens, we’ll bow out.”