In a rare display of normalcy from a politician, Andy Burnham, Britain’s young Culture Secretary, has apparently told Q Magazine: “I would trade in the whole political career tomorrow if I could join the Wedding Present.” Global Dashboard’s less musically sophisticated (or less aged) readers can find out what they’ve been missing since the Leeds-based band shuffled onto the scene in the late 1980s by watching the seminal ‘Kennedy’ here (complete with ropey 80s haircuts), or even by joining me and fellow dinosaurs at their Southampton Joiners gig tomorrow night.
Burnham went on to argue that all MPs are failed rock stars: “We start with football, find we can’t do that, try rock’n’roll, then end up in politics.” The out of touch Sunday Times is sniffy about Burnham’s dream (it has the temerity to liken listening to the band – one of the great John Peel‘s favourites – to “sandpapering your ears”). For my part, I think most of us, if we were honest, would really rather be in a band, and am delighted that British culture is in such safe hands.
