ME AND A MONKEY ON THE MOON

Tastes for better or for worse change through the years, Last decade’s year’s favorite flavour might be not be our cup of tea. For what’s it’s worth we grow and in the process things that we had taken as reference age with us giving way to new obsessions that sit more firmly in our lives for coming years. That is the case with my favorite Felt album. The crown on Felt’s discography took many years for me to become my reference. Since listening to Felt for the first time during the early 90’s and a compilation of their first two albums ‘‘Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty and ‘‘The splendour of Fear’’ and Maurice Deebank’s guitar era, I came to appreciate through the years their Lawerence/Martin Duffy era as my definitive one in their career. A band that lasted almost 10 years and made almost 10 albums like Lawrence had planned ended up their story with their finest record ‘‘Me and a Monkey on the Moon, that took the best bits from their other masterpiece Poem of the River and took it one step further to a more personal more MOR approach that led the way for Lawrence next magnus opus Denim’s first record which might be Felt’s best record in a way. At least Osmonds is my favorite songs of his.

A friend sent me this review article of the album by Bob Stanley from Saint Etienne (one of the finest music critiques ever) in which to sum up it up he thinks it’s a masterpiece in it’s own right.

An album that starts with the finest song Felt Lawrence ever wrote the candid ‘‘I can’t make love to you anymore’’ which continues where ‘‘Riding on the Equator’’ left off can’t be anything less than a masterpiece. A quiet one indeed that to be appreciated took years for me and was overshadowed by other delights the band had to offer. In its sheer sincerity this is the album that Lawrence was looking for in a decade. How many songwriters can claim such deeds? In my own modest opinion Lawrence is the biggest pop star that ever was. A man who drove his band in second gear to a gig, a man who did not let me use his toilet when I interviewed him in London back in 2016. A man who fired someone from the band becase they had curloy hair. Lawrence finest moment when he came close to being Tom Verlaine or Lou Reed is this little pop gem, as a band departed. Tim Burgess said in an interview once that Felt are better than Television. Verlaine himself was once observed chasing Lawrence after a gig to shake his hand in appreciation.

Lawrence in his flat in London shot by me for Kennedy.

So many songs I love on this album. ‘‘Free’’ and ‘‘Never Let you go’’ are probably as good as it gets but there is not a single dull moment on this album. So many songs that are meant to just be there. Lawrence said to me in our interview that playing with the La’s and the Stone Roses in 1989 made him feel old fashioned. He is so much better than them in my book. His music paved the way for the Brit Pop onslaught, a genre that unlike Felt never aged well. The Lynyrd Skynyrd style solo in ‘‘New Day Dawing’’ is probably the song that Oasis never managed to write.

Lawrence is one of the most special people I have met, whatever that means. He designed his life meticulously but failed to live it. he did not leave anything to luck. He think he failed but he did not. His own piece of history is written in this album, one of the overlooked moments of modern pop culture. The person who said ‘‘ I will be the fist person to die of boredom’’ reminded me always of a modern day ‘‘Jean des Esseintes’’ the character of A Rebours.

Lawrence wrote me a postcard a few years ago that I never managed to reply too. He was a bit upset I used his last name on our Kennedy interview. A perfectionist always, a control freak of a life that is slipping away.

Listening to Me and a Monkey on the Moon last night I felt content with life. In love with the world, with my wife and son, with myself and I transported myself to his cold estate flat in London where the dust was piling up on the radiators. He looked down hiding behind his big glasses, hiding from time that treated his beautiful face unfairly. Hiding from a world that doesn’t understand genious. Or when it does it deems as madness.

Me and a Monkey on the on the Moon is my favorite Felt record, a record that reconciles me with the vanity of life, my own existence and the is reassuring me of the fact that life can be unfair at times but still what is more fun than being alive.