It s A Wonderful Life

If you re looking for a description, it d be orchestral stadium pop: that s what I like to call My Life Story. I want us to be the world s first stadium pop band.
In an age when the ambition of most English bands goes no further than the cover of Melody Maker and a window seat on the Bratbus, the words of Jake Shillingford, bleached-blond singer, songsmith and unreformed PJ Proby fan, come as a breath of fresh air amidst the rank odour of Sleeperbloke mediocrity.
All these new guitar bands look so grey. None of them bother looking after their image. They just stand there wearing jumpers. What people neglect to point out about punk is what an incredible fashion coup it was. Everyone always concentrates on the music but look at those clothes, those haircuts and nose-rings: that was as much a part of it as the guitar riffs, observes the velvet-jacketed, leather-booted Shillingford over a coffee in the distinctly unglamorous surroundings of the UCD restaurant. Later, he will lithely reel around the stage with a coquettishness pitched somewhere between Morrissey and Liza Minnelli in a gold lami suit, and even slip into something more comfortable mid-way through.
This man should be a star. For the moment, My Life Story an eleven-piece band that include violins, cello, trumpets, saxophone, keyboards and, take note, no electric guitar remain an orchestral stadium pop act without the stadium. But while there s more than a hint of the aristocratic foppish dandy about Shillingford, he believes comparisons with the Alfie Romeo, Neil Hannon, to be slightly wide of the mark.
We always get compared to all the other bands who use strings on their records, like The Divine Comedy and Tindersticks but I don t think we re doing the same thing at all. We ve a lot more in common with someone like PJ Proby than Tindersticks.
sleaze factor
Ironically, the string fellows and ladies of My Life Story have in fact worked with both Stuart Staples and his merry men and the legendary 60s trouser-splitting mooner sorry crooner, as well acts of such stature as Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue, Marc Almond, Dubstar and Morrissey himself, who has been spotted at MLS gigs in the past, wouldn t you know.
It s getting to the stage where if a band need a string section for their appearance on Top Of The Pops, they contact us, says Shillingford, but My Life Story is a full-time band. Because there s so many members in the group, it s a healthily diverse collective. There s a lot of different personalities in the group and there s room for all of them.
Some of the band members are gay, for instance: you should see the fan mail they receive. You would not believe some of the things these people write, smiles Shillingford, knowingly.
In March, My Life Story release their second album, The Golden Mile. The follow-up to the inestimably gorgeous Mornington Crescent (1995), the new record is brimming with lush, larger-than-life perfect pop vignettes. It is nothing less than The Lexicon Of Love for the 90s: Shillingford takes the orchestral swoon and the romantic glamour of Martin Fry and cohorts, and puts a modern-day spin on it, adding a crucial sleaze factor. Songs such as the forthcoming single, King Of Kissingdom , for example, has references to going to work on an E .
I ve tried most drugs once. I want to leave myself open to different experiences but it s not as if I write all the songs tripping on LSD or anything, says Shillingford.
Then there s Mr. Boyd : a song about how ridiculous it is to have to call into my girlfriend s house and ask her father s permission to suck her off, is how he introduces it on stage to a few hundred bewildered students in the UCD Bar.
Shillingford, though, is far from flippant about his band or the records they produce.
The first album, Mornington Crescent, is named after the tube station in London which they closed down. I see it as a metaphor for the destruction brought upon society by our Thatcherite overlords. The Golden Mile is named after the pier in Southend-on-Sea where I m from (and so is my mum! NK) which is the largest pleasure pier in the world. But it also has connotations of a journey, of a poetic voyage, which could apply to the band. The third album will also be named after a place, to complete the trilogy.
By then, one hopes, the name of My Life Story will proudly hang from above the stadium turnstiles. n
The Golden Mile is released next month on Parlophone.