Here’s a slightly longer version of the piece published by the Guardian on 27 December 2007:

The Fascination of Phantom Bands

Remember that time you opened the NME and chanced upon a picture of The Perfect Band? The one that was going to save your life? And then you read that they sounded like the roar on the other side of silence — only better? And then you rushed out the next day to buy their single (a limited pressing on 4’33” Records) but it had already sold out? And then you had to wait several long months for their eagerly-anticipated debut album that turned out to be…well…just ok? Tired of musicians who fail to live up to their hairstyles? Why not dance to the spirit ditties of no tone?

You see, when it comes to music, I take my cue from Keats: heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter, hence my infatuation with L.U.V. or the Flowers of Romance. Even the greatest bands are mere approximations of the impossible dreams that conjured them up in the first place. However brilliant The Clash or The Smiths may have been, they often fell short of their own Platonic Ideal. More recently, The Libertines‘ music never did justice to the Arcadian rhetoric that made them so damn exciting.

Releasing a record is, ipso facto, a compromise whereas an unreleased (preferably unrecorded and strictly imaginary) record remains pure potentiality. In the final analysis, music can never compete with the silence it comes from and returns to — the silence inhabited by phantom bands.

In Rip It Up and Start Again, Simon Reynolds defines phantom bands as ones that exist “mostly as a figment of bragging and gossip”. The archetype is Liverpool’s The Nova Mob which included Julian Cope, Pete Wylie and Budgie. Cope explains that they had decided to form a purely conceptual group “that didn’t make music at all” but simply sat in cafés discussing imaginary songs — a practice they called “rehearsing”. Of course, they eventually went and spoilt it all by playing a disastrous headline gig at Eric’s following which they did the honourable thing and disbanded. Others, though, never sold out.

Designed to subvert showbiz from the inside, the proto-Pistols Chris Gray Band never existed beyond a few daubings in the vicinity of Victoria Coach Station. What they would have sounded like is anybody’s guess, but in my mind’s ear they are a gloriously shambolic cross between T.Rex and the MC5.

Talking of glammed-up rabble-rousers, no survey of phantom bands would be complete without a mention of London SS — probably the most influential group never to have released a record or played a single gig. Revolving around Mick Jones and Tony James (who are reunited today), their short existence was one long audition that brought together most of the major players on the future London punk scene. Legend has it that a demo tape exists somewhere, but the two founders have vowed, in true phantom band style, never to release it. Don’t you just wish more musicans followed their example? No Music Day would never sound the same again.

****

Here is the version that appeared in Guardian Unlimited:

The Fascination of Phantom Bands

From a ghostly Sex Pistols’ forerunner to Julian Cope’s conceptual collective, some of the greatest groups of all time were the ones that never happened

Remember that time you opened the NME and chanced upon a picture of The Perfect Band? The one that was going to save your life? And then you read that they sounded like the roar on the other side of silence – only better? And then you rushed out the next day to buy their single (a limited pressing on 4’33” Records) which had already sold out? And then you had to wait several long months for their eagerly-anticipated debut album that turned out to be … well … just OK?

If this sounds familiar — if you’re tired of musicians who fail to live up to their hairstyles – why not dance to the spirit ditties of no tone? In other words, when it comes to music, I take my cue from Keats: heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter. Hence my infatuation with phantom bands, such as L.U.V. or the Flowers of Romance. The appeal of semi-real or imagined groups is obvious, as even the greatest bands are mere approximations of the dreams that conjured them up in the first place. However brilliant the Clash or the Smiths may have been, they often fell short of their own Platonic Ideal. More recently, the Libertines‘ music never did justice to the Arcadian rhetoric that made them so damn exciting.

In Rip It Up and Start Again, Simon Reynolds defines phantom bands as ones that exist “mostly as a figment of bragging and gossip”. The archetype is Liverpool’s the Nova Mob, which included Julian Cope, Pete Wylie and Budgie. Cope explained that they had decided to form a purely conceptual group “that didn’t make music at all” but simply sat in cafés discussing imaginary songs – a practice they called “rehearsing”. Of course, they eventually went and spoilt it all by playing a disastrous headline gig at Eric’s, following which they did the honourable thing and disbanded. Others, though, never sold out.

Designed to subvert showbiz from the inside, the proto-Pistols Chris Gray Band never existed beyond a few daubings in the vicinity of Victoria Coach Station. What they would have sounded like is anybody’s guess, but in my mind they are a gloriously shambolic cross between T Rex and the MC5.

Talking of glammed-up rabble-rousers, no survey of phantom bands would be complete without a mention of London SS — probably the most influential group never to have released a record or played a single gig. Revolving around Mick Jones and Tony James (who are reunited today), their short existence was one long audition that brought together most of the major players on the future London punk scene. Legend has it that a demo tape exists somewhere, but the two founders have vowed, in true phantom band style, never to release it. Don’t you just wish more musicans did the same? No Music Day would never sound the same again.