This is a review of "Weather Girl" recorded by Being 747. The review was written by Sam Saunders in 2001.

Dave Cooke takes his material from the wistful, listless and mundane corners of pop vernacular. He dries it out, tidies up the lyrics, gives it a tune and then mocks it with delicious and subtle cruelty. He is a Bad Man, come to deride the Ordinary by pretending to be their friend. He just can't help himself. The CD's title "Peeling the Finch" says it all. Dave's had a sticky patch: he's left the best band Leeds ever had (the Landspeed Loungers) and is borrowing the guts of another (the Scaramanga Six) as accomplices. He's feeling the pinch, for sure. But the cliche gets twisted by the evil Dr Spooner into a sweet cover picture of a multicoloured goldfinch menaced by a cheap potato peeler. It's savage.

"Weather Girl" is the opener. It echoes the melodic bathos of "Paul" and "Black Out Boy" from late period Loungers, adding a self assured trip into the Death Valley of Metaphor that nearly comes to grief in a repeated "shower me with kisses .". It ends triumphantly with a two fingered salute of a chord on a very silly keyboard.

"Mind of a 12 Year Old" and "Lover Number 1" are almost-routine slaps across the airbrushed jaw of this year's masculinity. "Love Number 1" is easily the most ambitious track on the CD. It takes the kind of risks that have made names for Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev. It wanders through the polyester VIP lounge at Leeds Bradford airport like Alan Partridge on Testosterone Supplement and does a drama queen psychotic breakdown in the coda of Baggage Handling. Nearly a masterpiece.

"Use Your Friends" is a much more straight ahead, radio playlist shot in the arse for the self serving. It's a sharp comment on friendship abuse. Being 747 do it with style, wit and a great riff. Buy shares in the publishing rights now. It's excellent.

The two borrowed Morricone's who make up the band of Being 747 sometimes revert to polite accompaniment of the man (and terrific voice) in charge. Next time a bit more obstructive and quirky intelligence from the band might lift this very good stuff to another level altogether. It will then, of course, be as far over the heads of most punters as a Boeing 747 doing lunch on the Atlantic.

Oh, hell, you can't give stuff like this numbers...