Franz Ferdinand 'You Could Have It So Much Better' album

Some time around the end of 2001, Bob was sitting in Alex's kitchen. Alex had just been given a bass by his friend Mick, on the condition that he did 'something useful' with it.

"Do you want to learn to play the bass then, Bob?" "No, I'm an artist, not a musician." "It's the same thing." "OK then."

So Bob learned the bass and they planned a band. It had to be something big. Bob wanted it to be on the level of Field Marshall Haig's tears that fell as he counted the statistics of the men he had sent over the top. Alex wanted to make music that girls could dance to.

Alex met Nick in Jo and Celias' kitchen. Nick was dressed like a young Adam Ant and was stealing Alex's Vodka. They were about to batter each others brains in when Alex asked if he could play drums. Nick lied and said that he could. They agreed to meet up in Nick's South Side mansion.

Nick could hit the drums, but not in any particularly coherent order. He was a classical pianist and double bassist and had come to Glasgow because a friend in Munich had said it was a laugh. Although he couldn't drum, he liked the idea of music for girls to dance to, and they found that they could write songs together.

Paul was the best drummer in Glasgow, but nobody wanted to hear drums, now that 808s had been discovered. Paul had pawned his kit, but liked the idea of playing the guitar, so started coming down to Nick's South Side mansion. One day he and Nick swapped over, on the condition that Paul still got to sing and didn't have to use rack toms, as they stopped the audience getting a decent view of him.

Girl Art was an exhibition organised by a group of students at GSA. They heard the plan for music that girls could dance to, so asked the boys to play their first gig. It was in Celias bedroom which was lit by neon. At least 80 people watched and most of them danced.

Nick and Alex decided that they needed somewhere bigger than Nick's South Side mansion to play music in. Hunting for real estate, they went for a walk along the disused railway line that crosses over Paddy's market and the Clyde. They discovered two things: that the line wasn't disused after all and a huge abandoned art-deco warehouse overlooking the Clyde. They tracked down the landlord, persuaded him to give them the keys to the 6th floor, christened it the Chateau and made it their home.

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Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better