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Unblurred
A rejuvenated Graham Coxon re-embraces his inner Brit
BY MATT ASHARE
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Graham Coxon's official Web site

Graham Coxon doesn’t want to erase his past. But like someone who’s finally freed himself from a long relationship that just wasn’t working out, he’s not keen to dwell on it. He’d prefer to distance himself, look to the future, and revel in his new-found freedom as he does his best to acclimate himself to a role he’s shied away from for the past decade: solo artist. Here in the US, where Coxon will arrive next month to support his new Happiness in Magazines (Astralwerks) with a full backing band (the tour brings him to the Paradise on March 28), that’s likely to be much easier than it’s been in Europe, Japan, and especially his native England. Because until two years ago, Graham Coxon was the founding guitarist and right-hand man to Damon Albarn in Blur, who pretty much defined Britpop in the ’90s. Yet as huge as Blur were outside the US in the early ’90s, that yielded little in the way of notoriety here until Coxon turned up the distortion and allowed his affinity for Amerindie bands like Pavement to infiltrate 1997’s Blur (Virgin). After years of false starts and frustrations, the band finally broke through in the US with "Song 2," a noisy little anthem with a "woo-hoo!" chorus that to this day remains a football-stadium staple.

Still, if the mild-mannered Coxon, who began releasing lo-fi solo albums way back when "Song 2" was storming the US charts, is aiming to keep a low profile on this side of the Atlantic, he’s got little to fear from Blur. Millions may be familiar with what they probably think of as the "woo-hoo" song. But it’s doubtful that even a small fraction of those people know the name of that song or of the band, much less the guitarist responsible for its gritty sound. It’s no surprise that Coxon has already scored a hit with Happiness in Magazines overseas, where "Graham from Blur" means something. On American turf, however, it’s back to square one.

Yet if it was Coxon’s love of American indie rock that gave Blur their big break, it’s his new-found fondness for a sound that embraces, among other influences, the crisp Britpop ¾sthetic he rejected almost a decade ago that’s made Happiness in Magazines a success overseas. After four homemade albums, he’s taken a sharp turn toward the mainstream with an anything-but-lo-fi CD produced by the very same Stephen Street responsible for the slick Blur discs Parklife, Modern Life Is Rubbish, and The Great Escape. It’s a surprising development from Coxon, who seemed determined to be England’s answer to Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus when he first started releasing solo albums.

"I wish it was 10 years ago now," he says with a laugh when I reach him by phone at an English studio. "Because 10 years ago, British music was boring: you know, sort of plodding, anthemic, baroque, and really, really sort of exaggerated in its Englishness, which is pretty appalling . . . grotesque, really. But it’s a completely different situation now. We had to exaggerate the Englishness on records like Parklife to cope with the big powerful American sounds. And I think the production stands up today much better than Nevermind. But at the time, Jesus, I thought the sound was awful on that album."

Nirvana comparisons aside, Parklife is something of a ’90s classic in the sense that it established Blur as the rightful inheritors of a very British musical legacy that could be traced back through the Smiths, the Jam, the Kinks, and plenty of other lesser-knowns who distilled their experience into a pop paradigm of sharp hooks, wry social critique, and a distinctly English sense of humor. Unfortunately, that’s rarely if ever been a recipe for anything more than cult success among American Anglophiles. Which is why once Coxon’s predilection for Pavement was such a boon for Blur, even if he was seldom a very vocal member of the band.

"I don’t want to be known as Graham from Blur," he says today. "It’s embarrassing, really. So when people say ‘Graham from Blur,’ I’m like, ‘Urg, come on . . . ’ But I am still proud of Blur. And I like the album Blur. Because, really, it was ‘Song 2’ and a load of distortion that did it for us. And I guess I steered that song into a noisier area than the original demo. In the ’90s, though, there wasn’t much else to listen to but American stuff. And I suppose my guitars have been influenced by all kinds of American music and English music. So when the guitars became more of a force with the music, I guess it gave Americans more of a chance to appreciate it."

As is often the case, success didn’t bring happiness to Coxon. And as he tells it, the situation was one that deteriorated steadily over the years. "In Blur, I did as I was told, really, begrudgingly. And because of that and because of drinking, I became very resentful. There was never much camaraderie in Blur. Basically, we did what bloody Damon said. It got to a point where I wasn’t allowing myself to have a good life for a long, long time. Then I decided that I should start to look after myself and have a nice life. Part of that process was cleaning up on alcohol, getting some counseling, getting my priorities in order, putting my mental health first, getting more healthy and domesticated, spending more time with my daughter, and leaving the group."

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Issue Date: February 25 - March 3, 2005
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