In July 1994, Ian McNabb, leader of Liverpudlian alt.rockers the Icicle Works, released his second solo album, Head Like a Rock. Recorded in Los Angeles with serial Neil Young collaborators Crazy Horse, the album was well-received and was nominated for that year’s Mercury Prize.
To mark the album’s release, McNabb and Crazy Horse played at that year’s Glastonbury Festival, with a pair of warm-up shows scheduled at Manchester Academy and at King’s College London Student Union.
At the latter show, Noel Gallagher joined the band onstage, riding a wave of critical acclaim as Oasis geared up for the release of the debut album, Definitely Maybe, the following month.
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“We played Pushin’ Too Hard by the Seeds, which has two chords (Am and G),” says McNabb, posting on Facebook. “He struggled to fit into this basic pattern, and when I told him to take a solo, he royalled [messed up] his Callards [‘trousers’ in Cockney rhyming slang].
“The show was recorded. When he learned I was releasing it, he demanded he be allowed to redo his performance. When I said it was a live album, and that’s what was going out, he ordered his name be taken off the credits as I was ‘cashing in.’ Formidable songwriter, entry-level strummer (still). Bit of a dick.”
McNabb’s story appears to have been inspired by footage from an old interview with Gallagher, which has recently gone viral. In the interview, filmed in Tokyo on Oasis’s Standing on the Shoulder of Giants tour in 2000, Gallagher describes Eric Clapton as “fucking awful.”
“Eric Clapton is not ‘fucking awful’, advises McNabb. “He’s nowhere near the rapture afforded him, but his work with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Cream, The Beatles, Plastic Ono Band, Blind Faith and Roger Waters was sterling. After Blind Faith, he changed beyond recognition, seduced by the minimalism of The Band, J.J. Cale and Jamaican music.”
The version of Pushin’ Too Hard recorded with the uncredited Gallagher was eventually released on Ian McNabb’s Merseybeast album in 1996. McNabb’s latest solo album, 65, was released in April.
