Alex James

Slow Life | 24 January 2009

Opportunity knocks

issue 24 January 2009

I said ‘bollocks’ on live daytime television last week, on a Sunday of all days. My children were watching, too. There were complaints, and quite right. I felt bad about it, even though it was absolutely the mot juste. I got rather carried away, frustrated that a good-looking boy with a lot of potential had apparently missed the point of everything so completely, and chosen to spend his three-and-a-half-minute stab at glory yodelling. And how far he had come to stand there, live, live, live in front of 12 cameras and a million people watching, stand there and blow it so utterly.

Back in October we’d set out with a field of 1,600 bands that we’ve narrowed down over the past few months to a mere handful. This coming weekend, the outright winner of Orange Unsigned Act, the TV show in question, will be decided by public vote and receive an album deal with A&M records, to include a cash advance, marketing and video budgets, endless taxis and the special blessing of my fellow judge, label boss Simon Gavin.

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