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Graham Coxon -
The Golden D
Reviewed
by NME,
June 2000
 Dad?
Damon? Diana? Alas, the D in question refers,
somewhat prosaically, to the chord, so we can ditch any
hopes we might have held of Graham Coxon: Enigma
In Expensive Skatewear, and concentrate instead on the
rather more obvious business at hand. Namely, that the
32-year-old millionaire skateboard fanatic and celebrity
little-boy-lost Blur guitarist has again nailed
his hardcore post-punk colours to the mast, and hammered
them a great deal harder than he did on 1998's
decreasingly memorable solo debut 'The Sky Is Too
High'.
If that album suggested that here was a
diffident man with several Fugazi bootlegs, a
week's worth of studio time and his own record label,
then this one articulates a similarly keen sense of
desperation and general bafflement with the modern world
as 'expressed' by yer bloke on his skateboard
whose girlfriend is expecting their first child.
Fatherhood looms: quick! Document feelings on record!
There might never be another chance. Question it all
later.
You could call 'The Golden D' a
vanity project, but then you'd have to qualify it with
sharp Wildean wit: for it paints crudely and
schematically a portrait of the artist as messed-up,
disillusioned, self-indulgent twerp with an unhealthy
appreciation of the mid-'80s US guitar underground, whose
demo-quality doodlings (Graham plays, sings,
produces and paints everything. And all to a rather
average standard) should probably have never seen the
light of day. But such is the likeable lo-fi allure of Coxo,
and such is the man's straightforward professional
competence, that most of his record is, well, it's
alright. If he'd taken his time, who knows? It might've
been listenable.
Just as the amateur psychologist could have
a field day with several of Graham's song titles ('The
Fear', 'My Idea Of Hell', 'Fags + Failure',
'Leave Me Alone'), so the delivery and execution
of said songs says a lot about their author's state of
mind: basically, this is regressive, sinewy, sub-'Song
2' nihilist grunge, cathartic and disposable. Music
for jumping down flights of stairs to on your skateboard,
and little else. More interesting are 'Satan I Gatan'
and 'Oochy Woochy', the former a streak of sampled
glitchmanship and malevolent riffage, the latter a
playful exercise in slippery jazz loops and hip-hop
skiffle. Plainly, Coxon is enormously talented.
But equally plainly, he doesn't really give a shit.
So why should we? Maybe because this is
musically fresher and contains more ideas than the last Blur
album. Maybe because Coxon has dedicated a
horrible thrash-metal track to his favourite
skateboarder, Jamie Thomas. Maybe because he's
covered, pretty amusingly, two songs by ancient Boston
post-punks Mission Of Burma ('Fame + Fortune' and
the excellent 'That's When I Reach For My Revolver',
which Moby once did during his rock phase). But
mainly, we don't care much either. This is Graham's
thing. On occasion, he rocks hard.
6/10 Piers
Martin
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