Death sells

"Mr McGee, we are now on the air!” pipes up the inimitable BP Fallon as I switch on my tape recorder. The Fallon and Alan show are in town nursing hangovers and enthusing about kicking out the jams the previous night at their raucous Deathdisco Irish debut at Switch.

Prior to Deathdisco, BP Fallon and Alan McGee have been airing their record collections in New York, Detroit and Tokyo and are now bringing it all back home with regular soirees in London and Dublin. “

What we are doing now and what all sorts of people will be doing over the next few weeks is heralding the end of the cult of the celebrity DJ,” muses McGee. “Because you know what, it could be Pelle or Vigilante (The Hives), it could be Gillespie and Innes (Primal Scream), it could be me and BP, but it’s just four hours of rock ’n’ roll punk music.”

“It goes off in London once a month now and it’s going to go off once a month in Dublin because no other club at the moment gives people that four hours of punk rock ’n’ roll which is not about who is spinning the discs. Its just about giving people a good night. In England, Deathdisco is me and a guy from Pinnacle – a guy called Danny Watson.

“Outside England, it’s me and BP. Basically, this is just me and my two pals.”

How did this peculiar pair of rock ’n’ roll brothers first bond?

“I’ve known BP on and off for maybe 20 years now,” explains Alan. “But I kinda started running into him a bit more after ’92. I used to meet when I’d be in Ireland with the Mary Chain or the Primals. After he did the U2 tour, I bought his book when I was in a drug rehabilitation centre. I also bought the Julian Cope book, which was fucking nonsense because he is a fraud. Any guy who says, “I lay down on the road and I thought I was a motorway system” has never taken any real drugs in his fucking life.”

“Julian Cope is one of the biggest frauds in the music business. Everyone says I’ve got this thing against Coldplay, but you know what, at least the kid is what he is. He’s a middle-class kid who has a great sense of melody and I don’t like his records. But that’s what he is, he doesn’t kid on that he is Syd Barret. Julian Cope is a middle-class guitar buff who wants to be Syd Barret and y’know what? He’s more like fucking Jeffrey Archer.”

Anyways, back to Deathdisco rather than Death to the Archdrude. What’s the essence of the Deathdisco experience? “We try and keep the energy level 110 miles an hour,” McGee replies. “Deathdisco has only been around a couple of months but in London it is already the club of the moment.” “Also, whenever someone like Liam Gallagher, Bobby Gillespie or Julian Casablancas come in, there’s no aggravation or any big deal,” notes BP.

“The people that come are very warm and loving,” BP continues. “People letting it all hang out. I did an interview on the radio the other day and somebody said; ‘Well BP, its all nostalgia isn’t it?’ I said, ‘If you don’t mind me correcting you, it’s actually the reverse. People are hearing the Hives, BRMC, White Stripes and that’s the music they’re getting off on. The music that those bands are getting off on is much older. When these people are dancing to a Stooges song or a Ramones song or something by Ministry, it’s not nostalgia, it’s discovery’.”

“The dance thing is dribbling,” Fallon reflects. “People who were pushing the envelope are now not so keen on going out and taking 17 and a half Es and getting tranced out to the noise of a tractor backfiring, and I do love that music and I’ve heard some very fine tractors in my time. People are now re-realising that you can rock out to guitar music. And not only that, it’s the old thing that what the blues is, the blues heals. Dancing to that music is very uplifting. Because it undoes all the knots in your mind. It’s a very pure thing.”

“The other key to it is volume,” Alan says. “You come into a club and everything is up to the maximum because that is where that music has most effect. You either come to get blasted or else you fuck off out of the club. We don’t take it too seriously. We just play it. It’s like Danny Rampling becoming a bigger name than Kevin Shields. I’m sorry, you just play the records. Kevin Shields makes them. When he can be bothered.”

Speaking of the great elusive Irish genius. Any sign of him releasing material aside from Scream Team duties? “There is a great Kevin Shields story that involves Bobby Gillespie and Bono and Primal Scream’s former manager Alex Nightingale about two or three years ago,” recalls McGee. “It was in New York and Gillespie and Nightingale met Bono. He’s got a lot of influence at Island, so Alex was trying to get Kevin Shields released from his contract. Bono turned round to him and said, ‘Fucking hell, I’m trying to sort out the Third world debt’.

“We’ve started this club and we know that it is really about to go overground,” Alan continues now in full stride. “Kids don’t fucking want dance music anymore. They don’t give a fuck about Timo fucking Maas. Its like Courtney Love is the Queen in waiting and Pelle is the King in waiting and that’s what’s going on. What’s good about this culture that’s going on now is that you put out the records and it’s going to happen or its not.”

“You can feel at the moment that there is a revolution upon us,” BP offers. “There is a changing of the guard.”

How will Deathdisco herald the changing of the guard? “Whatever happened to that sweet sensation,” eulogizes McGee. “Whatever happened to that simple chord. Whatever happened to that new religion. Whatever happened to you…my rock n’ roll.”

“Its also to do with a very simple three letter word,” adds BP. It is spelt.. F...U…N...”