Theories, rants, etc.
MOJO welcomes correspondence for publication. Write to us at: MOJO, H Bauer Publishing, The Lantern, 75 Hampstead Road, London, NW1 2PL . E-mail to: mojoreaders@bauermedia .co.uk
THERE IS, AS EVER, AN ADMIRABLE
candour to Liam Gallagher when you get past the provocations. This month, he tells MOJO of his new partnership with John Squire, talking about the Stone Roses guitarist with touchingly fannish ardour. The Liam Gallagher John Squire album might well be the finest record either of them has made for nearly 30 years, but Gallagher is also pragmatic enough to address the question of an Oasis reunion, and the summer solo shows where he’ll perform Definitely Maybe in its entirety. “People say it’s the comfort zone,” he notes, “I want to be in the comfort zone! Life’s stressful enough.”
The comfort zone isn’t traditionally a place where we hardcore music fans see ourselves spending much time: the radical, the obscure, the neglected and unknown are what give us our bona fides as serious heads. Nevertheless, the familiar can provide great solace, and our favourite music can reveal infinite hidden nuance to us over the years and decades. It’s why we all keep coming back and taking fresh pleasure from a record we’ve heard thousands of times, and why MOJO – as well as locating dozens of valuable new records each month – keeps digging away to find the new angles on songs and stories you thought you knew by heart. “Me, I love nostalgia,” says Liam. And while our relationship with histor y is hopefully a bit more complicated than that – well, maybe he has a point?