Off the record

Evening Standard   31.08.07

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David Smyth talks to Paul Weller's son, Natt, about London's club scene and casts his eye over what's new on the net.

NOW WELLER JR IS IN THE CLUB

London's club scene is moribund, unimaginative and severely lacking in thrills. So says 19-year-old Natt Weller. With that surname (Dad is Paul, Mum is Style Council singer Dee C Lee) you might expect him to be strapping on a guitar and faithfully following in father's footsteps but a glance at this strikingly glam teenager tells you that he's got a more individual furrow to plough.

There is a music career in the offing, of course - young Weller is currently recording his first EP but cites the theatrical rock and pop of My Chemical Romance, Marilyn Manson and Gwen Stefani as influences rather than The Jam. In the meantime, he's putting his glitzy stamp on the capital's clubland with his own monthly clubnight, Dangerous to Know. It takes place for the second time at Camouf lage on Soho's Wardour Street next Friday, with Sophie Ellis-Bextor DJing and a crowd of heavily made-up boys and girls already getting excited (www.myspace.com/clubd2k).

So what's wrong with other late night events? "Clubs are either really super gay or pure indie," Natt tells me. "Everything is one thing, there's no mixture. I want to mix a lot of genres into one club - indies, emos, trannies and gays all under one roof, in a cool way."

And that's not all: "People don't try hard enough in London. There's all that 'new rave' crap but putting on a fluorescent T-shirt is not making an effort in my mind. Image isn't everything, but it does say a lot about who you are. I'm all for high finish. I'd like to see more really individual looks."

So speaks a man who spent a few months last year modelling on the catwalks of Japan. Tokyo, particularly its ultra-hip Harajuku-area where every teenager dresses as if they've just landed from Neptune, is the place that most excites him.

"I'd like to start an English Harajuku. The clubs there are just fantastic, amazing, so bright and in your face. When I go out in London I get bored really quickly, I never stay anywhere for that long. And there's nowhere in London I find myself thinking, 'Wow, I've got to go back there again.'"

Dangerous to Know may be that place, for Weller and his highly styled friends at least. Dirty Pretty Things and cool comedian Noel Fielding have already DJed there, and while his rock heritage may help to pull in the familiar faces, he's more interested in his lipstick than his surname. Even his famously dapper dad may not be stylish enough to gain entry.

LEAVE OUR BOBS ALONE

What's come over our music legends? A sudden fit of generosity has meant that a few have opened their precious vaults and permitted upstarts to play around with some previously untouchable songs.

Brit geeks Hot Chip are remixing two Kraftwerk tracks, which is just about fair enough - they were the pioneers of dance music and dance is all about remixes. More surprisingly, Bob Dylan has allowed omnipresent producer Mark Ronson to do the first ever remix of one of his classics, and Bob Marley's family has given its first official approval to an entire album of reworkings by little-known acts, including Afrodisiac Sound System and DJ Spooky. All are released in mid-September.

Of course, the Bobs have been covered to death but it's different when their original vocals remain over more modern sounds. Their direct involvement adds pressure for the song to be as amazing as the original but the fear is of an effect more like a respected elder statesman being forced to wear a backwards baseball cap.

Ronson, in particular, must have a button on his computer that adds instant parping funk horns to everything he touches, making his take on Dylan's Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine sound more generic than it ever did on Blonde on Blonde.

None of the above needs this kind of stunt to attract a younger audience, so what's the point? When a song is already great, let's just leave it at that.

AN EARLY LISTEN TO ...
Katie Melua
Pictures (Dramatico)

The biggest selling British female artist in the world last year, Radio 2 favourite Katie Melua (below) continues to comfort the music world like an unstoppable giant cardigan.

This third album, due on 1 October, demonstrates that she is still in possession of a voice that could send you to sleep at 10am, though she branches out with mariachi horns on Dirty Dice and reggae rhythms on Ghost Town (not a Specials cover).

A few lyrical clangers stand out, such as the rhyming of "moustache" with "much cash" on Mary Pickford (Used to Eat Roses) and the lovesick quoting from a Ronseal ad on What It Says on the Tin. But mostly it's inoffensively pleasant and another guaranteed million seller.

NEW ON THE NET

As her spooky pop alias, Bat For Lashes, Natasha Khan (right) started out as 10/1 outsider but is now joint favourite with Amy Winehouse to take Tuesday's Nationwide Mercury Prize. Amy's father-inlaw has been telling the organisers that the troubled singer doesn't deserve to win, which bodes very well for the Lashes. The increased interest in Khan's minimal balladry is indicated by her song, What's a Girl to Do?, currently being given away for free as single of the week in the iTunes store.

Arty Canadian band Stars, Montreal contemporaries of Arcade Fire, don't release their fourth album until 1 October but claim to be the first group to make the whole thing available in download stores at the same time as preview copies are sent to press and radio. The frequently very lovely In Our Bedroom After the War has already been a Canadian number one as a result, and is in UK download stores now for £7.99.

 

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