He may have given the world Oasis and Primal Scream, but Alan McGee's career has been littered with whimsical gambles and noble failures. He has released records by Leonard Nimoy, Nick Heyward and his own father, backed Malcolm McLaren in his bid to become London mayor and issued a comeback album by a frock-wearing Kevin Rowland, which went on to sell less than 500 copies. And as for Mishka? Don't even go there.
Now the latest in McGee's attempts at career-resurrection is ex-Flowered Up singer Liam Maher, who has just signed to the former Creation boss's Poptones record label.
Flowered Up were London's answer to the Happy Mondays. Cocker-nee wideboy baggy chancers, who looked like they'd been schooled on benefit fraud and acid house all-nighters. Best-known for the bona fide classic that was their 1992 hit 'Weekender', the groove hooligans split up in 1993 after one album. Lead singer Liam Maher went to recuperate at a French chateau, before slopping off into the rock'n'roll wilderness, destined to become the Syd Barrett of baggy.
Or so everybody thought. Diminutive Liam Maher stands on the stage at McGee's increasingly legendary Radio 4 night, giving surly glances at the audience, and sporting a council-estate crop, which gives him the semblance of a micro-Ian Brown. It's his first gig in eight years and two songs into the set, things are not going well.
"F**k off you freaks…a horrible f**kin' sort, the lot of yer!" he shouts at the audience after the intro to 'Crazy Kids' has stalled. Trying to appease the predominantly bald crowd, who are bellowing football terrace chants of "Go on Liam, go on my son", Maher then decides to tell a joke. Cue much unintelligible Cockney ranting and something about Eminem sh**ting himself. Tonight was always going to be more about Maher's anarchic stage-show than what his new material sounds like.
Maher's backing band tonight reads like a supergroup of Creation failures. McGee's best mate Ed Ball is on bass and an ex-Republica member is on guitar, with both of them giving Maher's lunatic baggy scatting an urban-scuzz groove and a brazen punk edge.
Or in other words they sound indistinguishable from the Regular Fries and Campag Velocet, both of whom owe Flowered Up a huge debt. 'Crazy Kids' is a messy superlout anthem, 'Dark Side Of The Spoon' sounds like REM on a day-trip to Madchester while 'Chilling' echoes the slack-arsed vibe of the Happy Monday's 'Step On'. But it's the lysergic freaky-dancing of Maher, which really separates him from these skunk-funk chancers. Not even Bez would attempt a dance move as silly as Maher's patting-an-imaginary-dog-with-your-eyes-closed cavorting.
Whether destined for baggy-nostalgia shows or a genuine comeback, Liam Maher is an urchin-rock maverick bursting with a bolshiness that will alienate and intrigue any audience he comes across. Scruffy, messed-up, rude and yobbish, Maher may be, but that's probably why McGee signed him in the first place.
