#katty's ruminations

[misskattylashes]

Alex... Miles and the AM machine– some ruminations

I have been doing some more thinking about the PR machine that surrounds AM...

These people who perpetually feed the straight image (the LA/NY set) with the exception of Matt and Louise, we never see Alex hanging out with socially. On saying that, yes, he was seen with Matt at the Fontaine’s gig the other week, but AM and the Fontaine’s share management, so technically this could still go under work. As for Louise, all we see are staged pap walks or photos taken by Zackery Michael (who is part of the LA/NY set anyway), the only exception being the grainy picture of Alex and Louise taken by Roscoe (JapanDuran) earlier this year in the pub....in London.

So, looking at the bigger picture there are this group of people all on social media who comment and like Louise’s PR posts, drawing attention to her, and at the same time, these people openly shun Miles (who let’s face it is the thorn in their side and the constant reminder that Alex isn’t the person they’re trying to promote), as a Brit this looks weird to me because to us, love him or hate him, Miles has always been in the picture. Even for the few hours the pap holiday photos were up on the Daily Fail website last year, British people were commenting ‘he’d prefer it if it were Miles Kane’ ‘he’d be happier with Miles Kane’, but I am assured that in the US in particular very little is known about Miles, so therefore all people see is this smoke and mirrors effect of people who are supposed to be close to Alex (although we never see him with them) blowing smoke up Louise’s backside so it must be real..

Which brings me to another couple of points

Is it a deliberate act on management’s part that Miles never plays the US? Okay his fanbase is small but are you telling me Miles would pass up the chance of playing to a sweaty club that held 200 people? Is he discouraged by management from playing the US because too much exposure would lead to fans looking more into his relationship with Alex? Including the fact that Alex gave up the LA lifestyle to move back to London within months of Miles moving back.

And Alex. How much control does he really have? I think he has control creatively (ie what the songs are about) and things like stage design. But I think he has less control than we imagine. Why is it we got one B side from TBHC and none from The Car? Are you telling me every song they wrote and recorded was good enough to make the cuts of both albums, or was it both albums are deeply personal and they didn’t want us hearing ones that were possibly more revealing?

On tour why didn’t we get Jet Skis (but Alex starts Star Treatment by singing ‘I just wanted a jet ski for the moat), no Golden Trunks...Mr Schwartz... too personal? Too gay? Why the ‘I don’t wanna be hers’ outbursts, quite often when the ‘her’ is in the audience.

Who was it who conveniently broadcast that AM were on their way to Glastonbury? Louise...but once again she was not seen with Alex once during the whole festival.

What was his pay off for having Miles with him for the final dates of the tour? No collaborations? No grand gestures during 505 only a hug in the dark...(let’s not forget the pic of Miles meeting the manager days before the gig).

What I am trying to get at is that I don’t think Alex has as much control over AM as we think. The public image is out of his hands and I think that is why when he is forced to play the game, that’s why he looks so miserable.