BANDWAGGON OF HATE

Every so often I find myself deliciously slumped on Annette's creamy white leather sofa, shouting at the television. The NME chart show is probably on and a bunch of no-hoper indie tramps are unconvincingly miming playing their instruments on screen. This is indie in 2005. Identikit boy bands, shabbily dressed in the best of Urban Outfitters' 'regenerative chic', 'singing' (it's difficult to write anything outside inverted commas these days)in fake cockney accents about weekends and paper rounds and office jobs. The problem is they're all in their thirties, playing at being the britpop bands they idolised in sixth form. Luckily the kids in sixth form right now haven't got a clue about Mansun or Pulp or even Blur and these pathetic 'pop pastiches can get them to spend their pocket money on 'downloading tracks' and pseudo-riotous gigs at the Astoria.

Which brings me neatly onto THE RAKES. oh god. I hate most things about them. their stupidly catchy boring job song, their faux-NHS spex, their shameful London posturings and the rumours about their suburban provenance. THAT SONG. Is it meant to be a satirical comment on the modest aspirations of a generation of hopeless 20-somethings? A tragicomic nursery rhyme about failure and expectation? Did they go to my brothers' college 4 years before the eldest and 10 years before the youngest?

Am I still indie???

And doesn't Alex sound like Jack Skeleton on the new Franz single?