The Method

The Method, a stuttering, confused collection of posh, common, stupid, talentless geniuses has had a career notable for its massive, crashing failures. Destroyed record companies, destroyed studios, nearly burned down tower blocks, torn banjos, smashed ukuleles, furious publicity witches and some of the worst gigs ever seen in the UK this was always a band to be relied upon for gross indecency and the occasional bit of gross vandalism.

So yes an outfit with character, though perhaps not necessarily an interesting attractive or in any way pleasant character, the Method had character nonetheless. And it was this character that sustained the band in its infancy. The band a foursome was brought up semi-feral in a series of flats in the great capital of Scotland, Edinburgh, a town famed for its football violence, terrible weather and almost pathological love of deep fried food. This very much suited the occasionally violent, cold-resistant and splendidly fat members of The Method who, inspired by the nourishing surroundings of that great city, set up a night club in one that towns most hopping night spots which sadly, though very much in keeping with what was to come later, has since been destroyed by fire.

London beckoned. The fleshpots of the English capital were too fleshy and potty for the Method to ignore, and, newly-received record contract in hand (though crucially never signed) the four for want of a better word boys went down to a studio in West London where they set about alienating people, stealing valuable equipment, being rude abusive smelly and disgusting, and pulling their arse hair out with pliers. Several band members lived in the basement of a large post-industrial nightmare tower block in Camden which, by general consensus, was the best place for them. (Incidentally, this basement of the post-industrial nightmare tower block came close to going the same way as the Edinburgh club, nearly burned down due to one band member cooking up a large stove-full of ketamine over a bonfire. An indoor bonfire. Fortunately disaster was, in this case, avoided, though God knows how. The post-industrial nightmare tower block still stands).

Then came the music. There was one particular piece of medialand vermin who once referred to the Method as The best piss take band in Britain. The sight of this review of the bands first album put three of them in hospital and another on a downward spiral towards alcoholism. How could the band have been so misunderstood? A piss take band? How could the music have been so misunderstood? How could the world have looked squarely into the eyes of earnest, pouting, smelly genius and seen nothing but a joke?

The bands oeuvre demands a closer inspection than the half-man, half ballbag journo nincompoop was capable of giving. Of course, running a club in the Scotland demands one thing, and that thing is Techno. This style of popular robo-oriented dance noise was very much en vogue in the late 90s, and it was to this that the Method, influenced heavily by the likes of Richie Hawtin, Carl Craig, Juan Atkins, Cecil B de Mille, Tokyo Ghetto Pussy and Huey Lewis set about translating the sound into their own vision of 303-ness. The result was Slot (a.k.a. Stomper) a brutal tale of dance floor woe dished up and served red hot using the simple ingredients of sampler, 303 and bass station. This mess of submarine diving horns, acid and break beats was completely unnoticed by all but one DJ Mimi, an enthusiast from across the pond who had an ear for music prone to exciting youth to dance, and a show on popular radio station XFM. She liked Slot. She played Slot. Lots.

Quickly bored with techno and having no real vision of what type of music best suited the band, attention quickly turned to rock and roll, and the making thereof. Now rock and roll is always, culturally at least, something of a minefield. This is in the main due to its having been ripped off black people in the 1950s in order for it to be sold back to white youth in a safe, non-threatening way, leaving the poor innovators scrabbling round in ditches, and living off excrescence, rats, mud and the bodies of other rock and roll musicians. The Method therefore decided to cross rock and roll with the beloved techno of its youth. This, the Method thought, would at least be the culturally conscious thing to do. And it was with goodness and cultural respect at the front of its mind that the Method came up with a really rather nasty porno-punk electro song about a nightmare in which the lead protagonist has his hands cut off and ends up playing the piano with a pencil on his head. It was, to all intents and purposes, a song about wanking, and it was called Alleluia.

There were several plus points garnered from this foray into rock and roll. The first was that the Method had hit upon the guitar revival thing approximately four years too early; the second was that songs about firing the one gun salute seemed to amuse; the third was that nobody before or since had made anything that had ever sounded anything like it; and finally that if you stick a photo of a woman snogging a large cock on the front cover of a record, people will at the very least, take an interest in you, though quite possibly from a psychiatric point of view. The B-Side to Alleluia was called Two Heads. The less said about this awful, AWFUL nonsense the better, but in short the song involves a protagonist showing off about having two heads, whereas others, of course, only have one. The piece was followed up by Three Heads (much worse that Two Heads) and then One Head (much MUCH worse than either of the other two), and then finally Four Heads which thankfully was never recorded. The record is now deleted, though sadly, the memory of it is not.

But if these initial forays into the music world seemed like failures, or rather like damp squibs, then the Method had barely seen the half of it. Recordings in the West London studio were coming apace (as it were) and the band managed a consistently middle to middle-low quality of material. Several of those recordings are found here on this website. Highlights of the period recorded before the nice lady from the bank turned up to kick them all out and repossess all the equipment included such gems as The New Emperor (a curious canal boat / house fittings crossover break beat stompathon) Fat Hair another curio, and a raft of more regular and not at all embarrassingly-named dollops of spodge such as Oooh Baby, Youre So Funky, Yeah, and various others, all of them too unremarkable to remember. Studio highlights included a guest appearance on Nee-Narr by a man who once auditioned for 80s soul horror show androgynoids The Pasadenas, and during one eternally-memorable recording session, the insertion by the lead singer (of the Method) of a whole, eight inch long screwdriver handle into his anus.

But, as mentioned in brief above, the fun was soon to come to an end. The knock at the studio door came, and a nice fat lady from the bank announced to the Method who were in mid session that they had five minutes to get out, and that the bank was taking ownership of all record company equipment. The arrangement with this first record company at an end, the Method went off in search of more fools to con into giving it money, studio time and attention, and eventually it happened upon a very nice lady who lived in an archway on an industrial estate in North London. She looked at the Method, and the Method looked at her. She offered the Method a record deal and they accepted. Little did they know how much they would come to urinate over each others chips. Lots.

Which is not to say that, out the outset, the Method did not do extremely well at its new place of work. It did. Very well. Work was done, all screwdrivers were removed from the studio, a steady diet of lager and sandwiches were thrown at the malcontents and music was generated. Most successfully, a song about a cat was popularised throughout France which made the Method something it had never seen before and throughout its short and terrible history it had never really got to grips with or understood some money. This cat-based windfall was swiftly and comprehensively spent on something, though after a thorough grilling, none of the band members was able to remember what. Remixes were also done, DJ-ing was undertaken and a series of gigs were given, the most memorable of which were; at a cross-dressing evening held at a regional technical college; at a transvestite bar in Soho; and at a Christian theme bar in north London to an audience of children in wheelchairs, one of which was assaulted by the lead singer as he made his way to the toilets during their set.

But as is the way of all things, the tide turned against the hapless troop. With a large, relieved grin on her face, the nice lady from the archway on the industrial estate in North London called the Method into her office one day to announce that the record label had run out of money and that the four had five seconds to get their fat stupid faces out of her office before she called the police. And so with heavy hearts, but with the bonus of a fully-recorded and printed (though sadly not publicised or distributed) album, the Method were, once again cast onto the street. And there the story ends.

In short, the Method; ran a club night at a club that burned down; were signed by a record company that got shut down by a bank; were then signed to another record label that ran out of money; recorded an album that was never released. This run of hilarious luck prompted the bands one-time A&R man and now internationally famous production-meister, (who we shall refer to merely as Mr. X) to state, quite straight-facedly: I think youve got to be the unluckiest band in the world. Mr. X the Method salutes thee.

And so now here the Method is, for your delectation. It has brought nothing but shame, destruction, fire and insolvency everywhere it has travelled. And now it is on the Rupert Murdoch-owned and controlled website MySpace so who knows maybe something positive will come of it.

The Method is Charles, James, Wallace and William. They live in India, London, the French Alps and Bristol respectively.