The Language of Chindie

Chindie: An arse-splutteringly boring genre of music that gives horrible chavs an excuse to 'get into' guitar music.

Steve Craddock: Human ballsack

Flamboyance in music is anathema to the working man.

A trumpet is the knife in the retina, a backing vocalist the snapped coccyx. Drum machines? “I’d rather spray paraffin over my scratch cards and burn them to Hades”.

The words “passion”, “belief” and the oft-gushed colloquial phrase “meaning it” - on the other hand - are tantamount to the lost Incan cities and their hoards of unfettered treasures in the Golden Virginia stained palms of a veteran, chindie wife-beater.

To those who spend inordinately long hours – often a lifetime – pissing on their chips and fluffing their lines in a notorious Midlands hick-town, “respect” is all, particularly within the music hall tradition.

However, while respect, for most, refers to an appreciation of the architecture behind Ornette Coleman’s pioneering Free Jazz, to the chindie-rati, it simply defines the act of apologising before you kick somebody’s face off and not after.

That Jimi Goodwin, chindie’s very own fat-tongued squealer, spells his name in the same way as Jimi Hendrix, is enough for your amoebic chindie jejune to dish out props at the same rate as he hoovers up Argos jewellery.

May I additionally cite Steve Craddock, and his penchant for medals and a sporran. “That guy looks just like Pete Townshend, and he plays like him too” one chindie enthusiast whispers to another at an OCS gig, cleft-pallet and boss-eyes bright and shining. That Craddock, a sweaty ballsack of a man, also probably shares Townshend’s proclivity for one or two other more unsavoury acts is lost on these poor, degenerate fucks.

So, in an inglorious nutshell…

Passion – When Richard Archer from Hard-Fi, a man with a face like an open wound, describes his whole fallacy as “passionate”, that means he’s about to “passionately” take the works of The Specials, The Beat and The Bodysnatchers, and plagiarise them with the intensity of Harvey Price fucking a doorknob.

Belief – Jack Penate believes that one day, one remarkable day, we’ll forgive him for that George Formby meets Rod, Jane and Freddy first record of his, and embrace his David Byrne-raping (Alan Pardew’s words, not mine) sophomore effort. It’s a misplaced belief.

Meaning it – When Paul Weller sang “You’ll see kidney machines replaced by rockets and guns”, he meant it. Sadly, he also meant it when he sang “when we play, we play, we play momma, from the floorboards up” and “I’ve got a grapefruit matter, it’s as sour as shit”. When Weller starts talking grapefruits, you prick up your ears boy, and you listen good.

Next time: Fuck knows.

Have you seen a band whose 'fans' have destroyed the town centre after the show? Have you been to a gig that was populated almost entirely by young, white males called Kev? If so, you're dangerously close to Chindie territory. Let us know at chindiewatch@gmail.com 

How to tell if a band is Chindie

Chindie: An arse-splutteringly boring genre of music that gives horrible chavs an excuse to 'get into' guitar music. 

The Enemy: Christ.

Want to know if a band is Chindie or not? See below:


- They will have been endorsed, at some point, by either Noel Gallagher or Paul Weller. Or even both.


- Their music will be listened to by young men who have no awareness of who XTC are.


- They will likely come from a  provincial backwater, somewhere in England or Scotland.


- If they have a new record out, the advert will be voiced by either Andrew Lincoln or the fella that played Brick Top in Guy Ritchie's Snatch. Their advert MAY be voiced by Jo Whiley, but only if she has asked personally to voice it for nothing, in another woeful attempt to appear relevant or 'edgy'.


- The lead singer will be mind-blowingly obnoxious. The sort of chap (and it will always be a chap) who you wouldn't even want in your town on a Sunday, let alone have him over for Sunday lunch.


- This band will also have no chance WHATSOEVER of breaking America, even with a song called 'America' (I'm looking at you, Razorlight).


- They will have at least one appearance on T4 under their belt, probably more. And whilst they spent the entire interview/s trying to appear 'cool', they would subsequently have no qualms with performing at annual shit-in-your-hat-and-punch-it borefest T4 on the Beach. They'd probably mime.


- At least one of their members would have appeared on Never Mind the Buzzcocks and made one-man smug machine Simon Amstell appear intelligent and funny.


- They will have been styled (secretly or otherwise) by Bellend-in-Chief Henry Holland.


- The lead singer will sing in a regional accent so broad, it will make your earlobes turn up and try to actually block your own ear canals on behalf of your brain. 




Next time: The Top Ten Chindie Bands. Ever.


Have you seen a band whose 'fans' have destroyed the town centre after the show? Have you been to a gig that was populated almost entirely by young, white males called Kev? If so, you're dangerously close to Chindie territory. Let us know at chindiewatch@gmail.com