End the love-ins and let the ruckers rock on

Brian Boydon music

You can't beat a good rock ruck. Sadly, these days the ruck is terribly out of fashion, and the newer bands on the block are all disgustingly nice and supportive of each other. They guest on each other's albums, recommend the same producers and are always bigging each other up in the media. It just won't do.

There were high hopes for The Killers when they began a feud with The Bravery two years ago. Brandon Flowers poured scorn over The Bravery's previous incarnation as a ska band and accused them of riding on his band's success. This had good potential but it was somewhat undermined by the fact that nobody really gave a toss who The Bravery were, or that The Killers' drummer was once in a ska band, or that Flowers later phoned The Bravery to apologise for his remarks.

Lily Allen has a good gob on her and she showed early promise by calling Bob Geldof a "c**t" and then going on to spit on Peaches Geldof's feet after Peaches allegedly called Allen a "cokehead". Allen went on to give rather a pithy review of Peaches Geldof's television documentary about Islam, asking: "What do you know about Islam, you useless oaf?" Later, in a radio interview, she informed listeners that if ever she came across Peaches Geldof in the flesh she would "kick her over then kick her even harder when she was down . . . I would probably stamp on my can of Magners and then stab her in the ear". Bonus point there for the Magners reference.

Tragically, though, Lily and Peaches are now new best friends. And now that Allen has also made up with Amy Winehouse, she's beginning to lose whatever appeal she had.

It's back to the past masters of the rock feud, the brothers Gallagher, for help. They've duly obliged with a bit of handbag twirling at both Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party. Liam was first out of the traps with his curious observation that Franz Ferdinand were simply "Right Said Fred on the Atkins diet" and that their "nonsense music" was too "quirky and weird" to be taken seriously.

The slightly more articulate Alex Kapranos replied by saying "I'm not particularly bothered by him . . . he sounds like an extremely neurotic young girl at a high school who thought that she had younger, better-looking competition and was just bitching about everything."

After not getting much of a rise out of FF, brother Noel decided to wade in with some observations about Bloc Party. It wasn't a lengthy discourse - he just summed Bloc Party up as "indie shit", with Liam adding that "they look like a band off University Challenge".

Again, the Gallaghers were picking on the wrong band. Not that their observations about Franz Ferdinand or Bloc Party are necessarily wrong, it's just that neither of these bands are the type to enter into the true spirit of the rock feud.

Bloc Party's Kele Okereke opted for the mini-essay reply in which he said, "Oasis are the most overrated and pernicious band of all time. They have had a totally negative and dangerous impact on the state of British music. They are repetitive Luddites."

This is ridiculous. Okereke is undermining the whole intent of the rock feud by coming over all eloquent and wordy. Next it will be an exchange of letters in Granta magazine. It is far more effective (not to mention strategically efficient) to reply to Oasis in kind. Instead of throwing words at them, take a "route one" approach.

Back in the days of the classic Blur vs Oasis feud, the former had to put up with taunts about "chimney sweep music", references to Chas 'n' Dave and frequent use of the epithet "wankers". Blur bade their time, didn't reply with the words "pernicious" or "Luddite" but when the moment was right, simply referred to their rivals as "Status Quoasis". Hitting them where it hurts.