« Won’t You Take Me With You When You Go… | Home | Ginger Says – Sobriety And The Real 12 Steps »
Ginger Says – I swear to you that you know the future of The Wildhearts as well as I do
By Ginger | July 13, 2001
Well, where do we start? Trying to put the last couple of months into perspective is kinda like feeding a camel through the eye of a needle. You could eventually do it but it’d be really messy and take a helluva long time. And would it even be worth it? Probably not.
The Wildhearts started off proceedings in fine style, and then the much-documented drama saw the disintegration of something designed to self-combust in the first place. Was the reunion a bad idea? I think so, yes. That’s not to say that bad ideas don’t work themselves out.
Naturally (despite certain magazine-sponsored rumours), I didn’t see the problems clearly enough until they were on top of me. Blind faith or just a love of ‘bad boy rock ‘n’ roll’? Maybe both. Thinking things out never really came naturally to me. I prefer the ‘chaos of improbability’ method. If it’s gonna blow, let’s get the marshmallows out. Enough has been written about the problems to make encyclopaedias look wafer thin, but enough to last a lifetime? Nahhh, I’m still perversely curious about where this could go from here. And I swear to you that you know the future of The Wildhearts as well as I do.
Favourite rumour? “Ginger bought Danny a bag of smack when the band reformed as a kind of welcome.” That’s so good I almost wish it were true.
Favourite bit of blatant bullshit? “Ginger, the man regarded by many as the person responsible for Danny McCormack’s problems.”
I just want to know how you can make someone take drugs for ten years? Even when you’re not in their lives? God can’t control people as well as that. I dunno, maybe it’s a compliment of sorts?
The first release of the singles club came and went in a blur of apathy. Admittedly, the original idea for this little club was to let the fans hear some material that didn’t fit in with The Wildhearts or SG5. The result? Many people complaining that it didn’t sound like The Wildhearts or SG5!
The production was supposed to be ‘garagey’, ‘raw’ and ‘quick’. The main point of concern? The production. I never attended the mix due to the fact that my son was sick, and I also didn’t want too much of my ‘stamp’ on the sound, preferring to let other people show me how they think it should sound. A wrong move, perhaps? Like the feathers at the Astoria, it wasn’t to everyone’s taste. But hey, we lived through that too, remember? Let’s look forward and not dwell too much on criticism.
Don’t forget, criticism is as sexy as Y-fronts.
I know I haven’t made things easy for myself. I realise how good my past records have sounded and how good your taste is. Just please, please, don’t go into this expecting rock anthems or punk / rock n’ roll harmonies and riffs. It’s not meant to sound like anything else, that’s the whole point. Let’s see what you think in 12 months’ time and we’ll compare notes then, OK?
SilverGinger 5 are releasing the new version of Black Leather Mojo in October (complete with an extra CD of live stuff and rare demos, including the barnstorming Walk Like A Motherfucker), with a tour of Britain to follow in November. The good news for everyone that shelled out a fortune on import copies is that the version you hold in your hands right now will become an instant collectors item, deleted in Japan and with a different running order, different artwork and extra tracks not available on the UK version. Keep hold of that sucker, it’s only gonna go up in value.
The Sonic Shake video will be ready to view on this very site soon and it’s a live extravaganza featuring all the highlights of last Christmas’s London Astoria show – a treat for anyone that wasn’t there, and a hint of what to expect in November.
So, June came and went. The impossible got done and no one died. Three different tours with three different outfits, during which I saw a disturbing side of some fans / listees / friends that I was shocked and disappointed with – the criticism that stemmed from watching something stumble and have to regain its posture in public.
Don’t let criticism get in the way of your enjoyment of this thing we’ve got going. We do things. We dream. Not many people do that, but it seems that there are thousands of critics on every block, anywhere you go. I really hope that we don’t turn this into something that anyone else could simply do. If this thing stops being special I’m outta here. The last couple of months have shown me a face of some people that I would happily kick into mush.
You are running this thing. You can make anything of it that you want. It’s your ball. I’m just a guy trying my best, y’know. If that’s good enough to live with then I’m right with ya all the way. If not, then good luck finding something else out there to believe in.
Trust me, you got it good.
Stay cool, throughout.
Love…
Ginger
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.