NEW ITEMS

MY LIFE STORY
WALK/DON’T WALK
IT RECORDS
Jake Shillingford is a man with self-belief the size of a planet. Despite the critical bitch-slapping his every thought provokes, despite being dropped by Parlophone after having five Top 40 hits, he still drags his wheezing gangshow onward. A lovesick vignette in the style of Squeeze with knocked-off dancey beats, 'Walk Don’t Walk’ carries on the kind of furious punning and retro pastiches that MLS have always gorged themselves on. Nowhere near as bad as the titanically execrable ‘Golden Mile’ album and, therefore, a strange kind of let-down.
Select Magazine - January 2000

My Life Story
Joined Up Talking IT RECORDS ITRCD3
Third album from Essex campaigners. Now with vastly reduced line-up.
On discovering that his l2-strong outfit had been dropped by Parlophone aFter two albums, My Life Story frontman Jake Shillingford wisely reduced his overheads by slimming the line-up down to four. Fun though they could be, the original My Life Story were a less convincing version of The Divine Comedy, and while Joined Up Talking suggests that Shillingford has sharpened his songwriting nib, there are still echoes of other acts. Current single Empire Line could be The Lightning Seeds, but notwithstanding the electronic rush of Nothing For Nobody, it's clear that Shillingford hasn't kicked the Britpop spirit into touch. Walk Don't Walk could have been written for Sandy Shaw while Elvis Costello's melodic metre, phrasing and playful couplets reign heavy throughout. Disappointingly, given both singles' modest chart ratings, it seems unlikely that My Life Story's fortunes will change along with their image. ***
Q Magazine - January 2000

My Life Story
Joined Up Talking IT ***
My Life Story’s Jake Shillingford is so desperate to be famous, he makes Gail Porter seem camera-shy. So having tried (and failed) to make hit records with an 11-piece orchestra, he's now trekking the conventional pop route. It's actually OK, especially the Costello-pastiche of It’s A Girl Thing, but it still reminds you of a five-year-old screaming ‘Look at me!’ www.virtual-pc.com/mls/ A potted history of the foppish favourites, plus press, news and pictures.
The Net Magazine - December 1999

MY LIFE STORY
"Walk Don't Walk"
(from IT Records album sampler)
Could be better than Cibo Matto's album. Evidence so far suggests genetically modified pop brilliance. Antidote to Shack.
Melody Maker - 19/06/99

Occupying a strange space among the other glam takes on British rock, somewhere between the suaveness of Suede, the energy of Supergrass and the glitter of My Life Story, "Shiney On The Inside" is dissapointingly dull from the outside.
Review of David Devant & His Spirit Wife's new album
Melody Maker - 27/10 /99

MY LIFE STORY
THE SCALA, LONDON
DID anyone else feel that My Life Story's recent comeback single, "It's A Girl Thing", plodded when it should have glided? That it wasn't the flamboyant, orchestrated pop we were used to? Where once, say about five years ago, they were the next big thing, now they're looking like also-rans. Tonight, though, they're sounding great when they start off with new song "If You Can't Live Without Me Why Aren't You Dead Yet". It has all the swagger, wit and ambition of vintage My Life Story. In fact, they sound great when they play vintage My Life Story - it's the other new songs that don't sound so great. l don't want to trample on your parade ground, Jake Shillingford, but you're fast becoming part of the cabaret circuit. No longer the back- street glamour of "the greatest living singer, stuck inside a damp bedsitter" you sing of on "You Don't Sparkle", but an old star trading on former glories. Ironically, Jake rants about how bad the charts are, how "Wallpaper" is a call to form a band and change things, "like we did". Hello? Straight in at Number 32 and straight out again for the most part changed nothing. Sure, those songs are bold, gold and audacious, they offered romance and glitter in the harsh domain of Britpop, but what are ycu offering tonight? Some fantastic old songs, some hints that the beauty's still there and a suggestion that your best days have gone. More fantastic new songs, please.
Melody Maker - 16/10/99

BACKSTAGE at Aberystwyth University, the 106 members of My Life Story mill around waiting to play, while yours truly sits in a heap sorting out CDs. Welcome back to the second leg of the Steve Lamacq Sideshow tour.
As far as I can make out, Aberystwyth is the furthest flung date on this trip, a Welsh coastal town which goes about its life with its collar turned up, occasionally stopping to greet tourists or the incoming freshers students. Interesting fact one: students make up something like a quarter of Aberystwyth’s population (might be more, but the PA was up full blast when I was being imparted with this information).
Interesting fact two: Aberystwyth has more model shops per square mile than any place I've ever visited. Every street you go down, there’s - another Airfix display, or shopkeeper offering up role-playing games, Star Wars models and World War II aircraft. Odd.
Interesting fact three: Aberystwyth Uni has an "Indie Society". I know this because I met a few at them at the gig. Very nice folk, who gave me a lighter, which doubles up as a flyer (the Indie Society meet to dance the night away every Thursday at the Angel lan. So if you’re in the area....). Anyway tonight's gig is a stormer. The aforementioned backstage is in fact the promoter's office and a meeting room, but a good place to wind down after miles of A road and arguements between myself, Emma B and driver Liam over whether the countryside is any cop or not. The guy who booked us is one Pat Smith, a man I first met nearly 10 years ago when he was promoting gigs in the north west - and one of the famous few who was with us, when band, crew and journalists were snowed in at a hotel in Wolverhampton for two days after a Ned's Atomic Dustbin gig. Smith's now managing some local bands (including Scuba who have a perky little single out on the ffvinyl label).
Interesting fact four: the next wave of new Welsh groups appears to be building, and its sweepingin in off the coast. Aberystwth is responsible Murry The Hump - tipped by virtually everyone in the local media and championed by Peel and the Session In Wales. By an annoying twist of fate The Hump are actually playing in town on the same night as us, at a hotel two minutes from where we’re staying, which sounds good till we find out they're on at exactly the same time we are. Further proof that the Gods are cruel bastards.
lnstead, after a quick interview with the good folk from The Courier magazine, It's Emma’s set, then an hour of chaos from yours truly. Of the requests that rain down on the DJ booth, there's all the usual ones plus shouts for Hefner and the Vandals (neither of which, distressingly, I had with me, but the thought was there). Thanks go to everyone who heaved onto the danceloor and didn’t storm the barricades when I accidentally stopped the CD that was playing - a trick which is fast becoming my version of Peel playing records at the wrong speed.
My Life Story ended up going on quite late, but were an eye-opener on the night. Not so much for the music which most of you will knew of already- but for Jake Shillingford’s between song rhetoric. Shillingford, as someone who's lived through several eras in pop, is a man on a mission. Roughly summarised, it’s don’t settle for second best, don't follow the wrong leaders, and most importantly, Reclaim The Charts. All of a sudden, he is head of the Pap police. Maybe, you had to be there, but it was compelling, and rabble-rousing stuff both on and off stage.
Afterwards, back in the meeting room, he shows me a few Xeroxed copies of the punk/new wave mag Zigaag (an energetic aad anarchic publication from the late '70s which one of the band has given to him). Is this a clue to the current defiant mood of the singer? Don’t know. We had to leave for Newcastle.
Next week, Jake Shillingford for Pop Shock Jock.
Melody Maker - 16/10/99

WET WET WET/MY LIFE STORY
London Wembley Arena
"BRING ME THE HEAD OF MARTI PELLOW!"
"Jawohl, mein Livefuhrer!"
But first we've got smaller fish to fry in the Bacofoil-suited shape of the tune-free dead-zone that IS My Life Story. Backstage the documentary cameras whizz about like wasps on methamphetamine, interviewing anything with a pulse about Wet Wet Wet. But our Jake (who is, after all, an artist) refuses to be interviewed because, an impeccable source tells NME, he's ashamed to be doing these support slots and apparently feels that his "credibility" will be compromised if the news leaks out! Which is daft, Jake, because you (amazingly) earn a living doing exactly what Wet Wet Wet do (churning out bland MOR songs for a bland MOR audience), with the sole difference being that you are totally SHIT at it whereas the Wets, goddamn them, excel. All of which begs the question: how the f*** did My Life Story ever get a record deal in the first place?! Conspiracy theories on a postcard, please.
NME - September 13th 1997

My Life Story - Mornington Crescent
With the jury still out on Electric Light Orchestra, the pedigree of the large-format pop group is open to debate. My Life Story, roughly the size of a small World Cup squad, are an assemblage of strings, horns and more conventional rock players who have gathered around the individualistic vision of Jake Shillingford. In a modish way, Shillingford intends to capture the shabby romance of modern life and modern London in a series of musical vignettes that can bring to mind everyone from Carter The Unstoppable Sex... to Lionel Bart and still, healthily, be its own music. The high camp and low drama of it all can become a little relentless but the singles Girl A, Girl B, Boy C and Funny Ha Ha are buoyantly likable and Angel is a superb piece that suggests My Life Story may be more than just a cute idea.
Stuart Maconie
Q Website

JAKE

JAKE SHILLINGFORD from MY LIFE STORY was recently seen abandoning his usual cool by moonstomping (ancient skinhead/reggae dance) like a bastard in front of 3,000 drunken shagging students as he joined two-tone kings THE SPECIALS for a few high kicks and pork-pie hats at the Cambridge University summer ball.
Melody Maker, 28/06/97

JAKE SHIILLINGFORD - MY LIFE STORY "Me and my friends would take it in turns to go into Woolworths, and order 58 bags of sunflower seeds. Everybody thought I was a keen horticulturist! They do absolutely nothing for you except make you go to the loo. We thought maybe we didn't take enough of them, so we'd swig back bags of them. They were supposed to be mildly hallucinogenic. Someone told me you could get really high if you put dope in garlic bread, covered it in silver foil, and put it in the oven to bake. So we did, and through capillary action, the bread actually absorbs the dope. It was spot on; I just had two slices, and I went down to the pits of hell."
NME STUDENT GUIDE '97, 27/09/97, 'Make a fool of yourself trying to get 'high'.

MY LIFE STORY's Jake Shillingford has explained the band's decision to re-release the album "Mornington Crescent", reissued by Parlophone on January 26. He said: "The going rate for a second-hand copy now is £75. We wanted to put a stop to such extortionate prices, but equally we didn't want to upset any fans who had bought the original by just releasing an exact replica. So we made changes to the artwork and added the five B-sides from the three singles." The album will be the last release on Parlophone for My Life Story, who are now working on new material and looking for a new label. Jake explained: "After the release of 'Duchess', things weren't moving in the direction that we'd all hoped. Even though My Life Story's personal relationship with Parlophone has been an excellent one, we've always seen ourselves as more than just a perfect pop product. "I'm not worried in the slightest. It is like the end of a relationship, so it's time to start courting again. I think that the more experimental aspect of our sound has been left to flounder on the B-sides of the last five singles, and that's something that I'd like to bring to the fore. I've always loved the extremes of pop."
Melody Maker, 24/01/98

ON THE VERVE'S SPLIT: My Life Story's Jake Shillingford, "We are absolutely mortified and we couldn't even come to the phone"
Melody Maker, 08/05/99

ON WET WET WET'S SPLIT: My Life Story's Jake Shillingford told The Maker: "Now Marti has gone solo, Richard Ashcroft should join the rest of the Wets. They would provide the solid and mature musical backing that he's always so richly deserved."
Melody Maker, 22/05/99

JAKE'S STORY
The band that was once threatened with legal action by London Underground for using 'Mornington Crescent' as the title for their first album, MY LIFE STORY are back and on tour with a new album of songs. Jenny Appleton talked to Jake Shillingford, the lead singer of the band and the man behind those skin tight jeans!!
Why are you called 'My Life Story'? Well, the short answer would be that it was the most obvious name considering that most of the songs are written as an autobiography using personal experiences or experiences of other members of the band, but slightly disguised so they don't recognise themselves. I take personal experiences and exaggerate them, like a Hollywood movie.
You've slightly calmed down the orchestration on the new record, can you tell me why?
We still use the orchestra in some of our new songs and we still take the orchestra with us when we tour. After 2 albums and 50 B sides of continuous strings and brass which we put in because we were famous for doing it, we started taking each song on its ownmerits, adding the orchestra only if it needed it.
Has this caused and problems within the band?
No, not at all. The are all classical musicians and they are used to interpreting songs and know what is required. They can hear when the songs don't need the strings and brass and now they get to spend more time backstage watching TV and playing table tennis.
Are you trying to appeal to a new audience?
It seems to have happened, though we never set out to. The 'Golden Mile' was very much about escapism and as a lyricist other interesting topics were around with the coming of the millenium. There is a kind of finality in the way that people are acting. We wanted people to be able to listen to the music and know that it was written in the year 1999.
Most of the songs on the 'Golden Mile' are big anthems, will we see the same thing with the new ones?
A few songs are, but we've made a conscious decision to go for a new sound. We didn't want to say that our last songs were shit and we didn't want to lose our old sound. But we're still the same musicians and we still have the same inherent nature, the soul and background of the band hasn't changed but the music is a lot more urgent, harder and I suppose more urban, it's not so grand. The 'Golden Mile' was us showing off, with big grand gestures, silver suits and starriness, it wasn't real, it was an escape.
Have you found it easier to write new stuff without a record company on your back, without someone pestering you to write another 40 '12 Reason's Why's?>br> Yeah, you've hit the nail on the head really. We were the first of millions of bands who were sacked from their record company and we were shocked. We needed to stop and take stock, we were left high and dry. 'Sparkle' seemed like a prophetic statement. I was then the bedsit poet, no pressure, that was probably why a lot of the songs had no violins, I felt lonely, isolated, and we didn't feel like showing off, we were no longer the big boys in town.
You put on quite a performance in your live shows, with high kicks and wind machines. Do you enjoy playing to a live audience?
Yes, I do. I think it is one of our strengths. There are a lot of bands that don't do live tours, there are too many of them doing 5 huge European festivals, trying to maximise the people for as little playing as possible. We've been touring for 7 years in the UK and Europe, we like to take the mountain to Mohammed, with live performances for people who don't see gigs. There's no atmosphere in a festival, whereas, in your own show you can create your own atmosphere. Our fans especially, with all the dressing up, seem to create a party atmosphere. I enjoy entertaining.
You often get quite a harsh reception from the music press, how do you feel about this?
Yeah, we do, but some quarters are very positive. I couldn't say why, maybe it's because we're slightly on the outside of Britpop, but we've managed to last, we're individuals, you either love us or hate us, but I don't mind. All my favourite bands are like that, it was the same with The Smiths, people either loved or hated Morrisey's voice. It's not a bad thing, I'd rather create a reaction and get ten stars out of ten from some people and none off others, rather than getting five stars all the time. It shows that you are creating strong opinions.
Are you happy at the moment?
Yes, happy and tired. In fact, tired of being happy, it's hard to write stuff when you're happy.
Access All Areas, October 1999 - University of Sheffield Union of Students Publication

GIGS

20.10 MY LIFE STORY! Ah, such sweet elegance! Ah, such supple violin players. Oh, such sensitivity and pomp and epic emotions where every half-remembered thought, every last snatched kiss, takes on grand meanings. Where the smallest of details takes on heartbreaking significance. Jake sings "King of Kissingdom" and we swoon. Stylishly.
Melody Maker, 31/05/97, Essential Festival

..the real kings of the knowing leer are MY LIFE STORY, who make romance sparkle, hand out feather boas to the crowd and have a singer who's hilariously in love with himself. He's so vain he probably thinks this review is about him. And it is. Him and his flyaway pop with added soul.
Melody Maker, 26/07/97, Phoenix Festival.

No problem with dressing the part for Jake Shillingford. Even though he correctly describes MY LIFE STORY's appearance at this hour of the day as a "breakfast set", he's still bothered to make it to the wardrobe marked "evening leather". Giving us something to look at during those less-than-compelling Bowie-does-Brel-style acoustic ballads as Jake's occasional wayward gargle sends people around me into fits of giggles. Until, and not a moment too soon, he whips off his jacket, and "Twelve Reasons" and "Sparkle" come whooping in. With delirious kitchen-sink arrangements like this, Dramatic Pop's most determined amateurs make bum notes almost irrelevant.
Melody Maker, 30/08/97, Reading Festival

When My Life Story burst onto the scene six years ago with the sumptuous, symphonic "Girl A, Girl B, Boy C", they gave a shot in the arm to a music scene obsessed with guitars and rock posturing. The single announced a new breed of ambition and swagger, an orchestrated pop nous that was soaked in John Barr soundtracks, big band sounds and glamour.
Sadly, My Life Story's life story soon became a catalogue of misfortune. Their debut album, "Mornington Crescent", ran into trouble over copyright with London Underground and died a swift death. Soon after this mess, their label went under and they were left with a justifiably large and loyal live following, but no record deal. Parlophone stepped in, waved the cash and released "The Golden Mile" album and no less than five hit singles. And then dropped them.
Now, however, a re-grouped, revamped and re-signed My Life Story are back, and this can only be a good thing. Put the glitter back on your face, dust down the feather boa, roll out the red carpet and welcome back the original kings of anthemic swing.
Melody Maker, 22/05/99

My Life Story - PORTSMOUTH WEDGEWOOD ROOMS
Jake Shillingford has a dream. He covets a Parental Advisory sticker. In an attempt to obtain one he's written a song containing over 15 variations of the word fuck. It simply proves what your parents always said - swearing really isn't big or clever.
Dropped by Parlophone, MLS were saved from oblivion by Andrew Lloyd-Webber's It Records. Why remains unclear. Because even on their older songs, the use of any instrument available only temporarily hides the paucity of imagination lurking in their soul.
'Stutter' and the rest might plausibly be called orchestral pop, but really aren't fit to dry-clean one of Neil Hannon's little suits. Next to their new material, though, it seems like a work of peerless genius. Now they want to rock, attempting to ape anyone from Oasis to Kula Shaker and resulting in a sound so crushingly unsexy it could be used to treat Viagra overdoses.
It gets worse - 'Walk/Don't Walk' is a truly hideous abomination that tries to merge soul, reggae and baggy, while new single 'It's A Girl Thing' is a clod-hopping account of being dumped. Although sadly not by their new record company. Until that day comes and MLS are terminally put out of their misery, Andrew Lloyd-Webber, we salute you. The greatest sadist of our time. - Jim Alexander
NME, 05/06/99

My Life Story - THE LEADMILL, SHEFFIELD
Like John Cleese playing Inspector Gadget, Jake Shillingford positively bounds onto the stage. Hair flailing, he high-kicks his way through grinding opener "Nothing 4 Nobody" like a man possessed. Mid-career doldrums vanquished, clearly Mr Shillingford wants it. A lot.
Not too long ago, MLS were dangerously close to self-parody, an inch away from being hoisted by their own feather boa. Tonight, in contrast, the string and brass sections are deployed when necessary, the new songs draw on broad musical experience, Jake sporting an Evel Knieval-style jacket that's just plain crap, rather than calculated, and occasionally, guitars not servants are thrashed.
The scuzzy trip-hop of "Yes To Everything" proves that they can still do a Geri Halliwell (lots upfront, not a lot upstairs), but elsewhere they evoke the spiky, eclectic spirit of -gulp!- Elvis Costello And The Attractions. You already love the crafty, new wave drama of single "It's A Girl Thing", while "Walk/Don't Walk" is all clenched-fist emotion, almost funky drums and a chorus with a debt to Fifties doo-wop. It i, however, "Neverland" that'll kill you. A mis-paced, string-swaddled ballad, its seize-the-moment sentiments, while hardly original, are deftly expressed.
Proof, should you need it, that there's more to Jake than good puns (see "If You Can't Live Without Me Then Why Aren't You Dead Yet?").
Jake, though, is never going to be effortlessly ironic, so he opts instead for slightly ridiculous. A point somewhere between the self-absorption of Tim Booth, Roddy Idlewild's pop-up gymnastics and in the case of a teased and primped "Girl A, Girl B, Boy C", Shirley Bassey's glorious lily-guilding.
It's an emotionally complex peformance, and one uninhibited and funny enough to lure everyone into a delirious, non-stop sing-along scrum. Finally, in a moment heavy with synbolism, the ancient regime - tonight represented by the fan-fluttering intro to "12 Reasons Why" - gives way to an increasingly rough and ravaged declaration of love. Offstage and on.
Those who would dismiss MLS as colourful flourishes and tricks better take stock. The baroque elements are under control, imagination runs riot, and suddenly MLS matter.
Melody Maker, 12/06/99

MLS @ Gloucester
The Night Before
"one of the best backing orchestra's in the business - the My Life Story string and brass section - will be proving their rock 'n' roll stamina tomorrow when they hit the road at full speed to play two very different shows in one day - one in London and the other at Gloucester's own Guildhall. The outfit will be interrupting their 25-date tour with My Life Story to record a slot on the National Lottery Stars show, performing alongside former Eastenders chanteuse Martine 'Tiffany' McCutcheon. Then, before those big money balls drop, the orchestra will be speeding back over to Gloucester and hitting the Guildhall's stage at around 10.30pm."

A Wee While After
"...there's a much more exciting prospect at the Eastgate Street venue in the shape of Younger Younger 28s and My Life Story. Probably the closest you'll get to a Premier League Saturday night line up, the two bands are both puveyors of soaring, widescreen, no-holds-barred pop. Younger Younger 28s are like a slightly drunken version of S Club 7 for the over 14s. Headliners at this hedonistic gathering are My Life Story, the bouyant four piece who brought us the perky 'Strumpet' and epic 'Ten Reasons Why I Love Her'[sic] singles. Fronted by the charismatic Jake Shillingford and boasting a live orchestra on stage, the band are a delicious combination of Pulp, The Divine Comedy and the Lightning Seeds. If you want a non-challenging, shameless guitar pop night out, don't miss this one."
Gloucester Citizen - from the Megaphone Theology message board

MLS @ Guildford
My Life Story: clever-clever bastards
Jake Shillingford must pray for moments like this. In the midst of feather boas, cheap beer and drunken snogs, he stretches his arms wide and silently basks in feeling deliciously right. After all, he's waited for stardom through shoegazing, Britpop and a hundred other fads and it seemed as if My Life Story's time would never come.

Tonight, though, they fit in perfectly. It's the last night of Freshers' Week in Guildford and the kids are still bright-eyed and freshly ironed in new clothes. Every single one of them knows the drill by now: look happy at all costs, dance at every opportunity and remember, you are having fun.

It's exactly what My Life Story need - an audience who don't think looking cool means slouching at the back or that trumpets are naff. They won't smirk when the ferocious-looking violinists strike up the indie disco classic '12 Reasons Why' and they refuse to baulk at Jake's ultra-tiny, very rude Vivienne Westwood T-shirt. Because My Life Story can't survive under even the gentlest glare of cynicism.

Unfortunately, if you're not fuelled by subsidised beer, it's difficult to remain so joyfully enthusiastic. The clever-clever lyrical mentions of Viagra, Pret A Manger and, in new single 'Empire Line', heroin-taking models are tediously dated, useless attempts to rewrite 'Oliver's Army' for the '90s. The strings and trumpets are temporarily entertaining but also appear to be an elaborate (and expensive) overcompensation for real substance. And while Jake certainly knows how to keep a crowd amused with his flamboyant gestures and old-fashioned showmanship, he's never sufficiently unique to make anyone care once the lights come back on.

Jake's certainly a pop star-wannabe, dripping with catchy choruses, and the band are ready for the big time. Only, like a lot of things in Freshers' Week, they won't seem half as special in the morning.
NME Gig Review - 15th October 1999

ALBUM REVIEWS

The Golden Mile: Q Magazine
My Life Story's Jake Shillingford is plainly partial to a bit of glamour as befits a native Southender with a penchant for silver suits. His grand design for pop firmly dispenses with the need for grubby guitars, preferring instead a grander canvas that positively demands the use of labour-intensive strings and brass to underpin his very English affection for the absurd, the mundane and the vernacular. Yet, with the exception of the two singles, Sparkle and 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, the execution never quite lives up to the billing, not least because, lyrically, he's nowhere near as acidic as obvious peer such as Baby Bird's Stephen Jones or the Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon. With no real bite to the songs, all the orchestral pomp in the world can't make The Golden Mile much more than a fitfully entertaining parade of largely empty gestures.
**

The Golden Mile: Select
How difficult is it to make a dreadful album? Not just a bad one, poorly played or badly sung, but an album so relentlessly abysmal, so irredeemably worthless, that it causes you to sit alone by a pond for a while, reassessing your whole value system.
Ideally there should be a large gap between the artist's perception, what they think they're up to, and the final numbing result. In Jake Shillingford's case it's a yawning eternity, the space between two stars. He's been trawling this ersatz charabanc aroud for years now and clearly thinks he's some kind of artist. In fact, all he does is steal from some - Scott Walker, Lionel Bart, The Divine Comedy. And like some dribbling remedial cutpurse he doesn't even know what to do once he's nicked this stuff. So he breaks it. With his grating howl and the feigned expertise of brass 'n' string arrangements, "Golden Mile" would be atrocity enough, but coupled with such alarming lyrical stupidity as "Claret" - "Vineyards crying for your wasted years/Hear the vineyrads cry" - the whole experience comes close to sounding like some artless tone-deaf Cockney operatta performed by the inmates of Bedlam Asylum. Under the direction of Lionel Blair.

My Life Story Fact: This is the worst album ever made. But much, much worse. 0/5. Soundbit: "Golden Showers".

The Golden Mile: Smash Hits
Opening with 12 Reasons Why (the best pop single of last year not to feature the Spice Girls), My Life Story's second album declares its musical intentions right from the start. Vocalist Jake Shillingford does not do things by halves, not only can he boast more shiny suits than Burton's, he is the captain of the only pop outfit who could field a football team. And they are all here, so if you like your pop to feature lush strings and bouncy brass then look no further. More importantly, Jake is a great pop star and though he is still to capture the live sizzle completely, this album may get him the audience he deserves.
4/5

The Golden Mile: Vox
Jake Shillingford has waited ages to take his pop orchestra into the mainstream. But string-soaked flamboyance is his calling, not a passing novelty and, after all the record-company hold-ups, all the ground lost to lesser talents, his time seems to have come.
With richer production and a much stroinger set of songs than the band's patchy 1995 debut "Mornington Crescent", "The Golden Mile" is packed with hooks and epic choruses, and comes closer to recreating the technicolour spectacle of their live shows.
The lyrics may be slice-of-life seducytions and melodramas, but the real love-match here is between Shillingford and showbiz itself.
There's a lot of Marc Almond touches, a yearning for the Kinks/Small Faces' dandy mod-world and enough mood changes to keep the dramatic orchestral swoops from getting formulaic. "The Golden Mile" does fade a little after a stomping first half, but still comes close to realising Shillingford's sparkly fop-pop masterplan.
8/10

"The Golden Mile" - My Life Story Even more than the fantastic glitter romps for which Jake is famed, it is the ballads ("Claret", "You Can't Uneat The Apple") that make "Golden Mile" such satisfying escapism. Taking life's mundanities and making them magical.
Melody Maker, 20/12/97, 'Albums of the Year 1997

SINGLE REVIEWS

The King Of Kissingdom: Melody Maker and Noddy Holder
"Jake Shillingford mines such a fine vein of Manilow camp that a silver staircase must soon be a requisite feature of any My Life Story show.
Noddy (counting the number of MLS band members on the sleve with growing amazement): Are they all in the band? 7-8-9-10-11 people? Bloody Hell! They'll have to sell a good few records to make any money! That record couldn't be anything but English, could it? It's a great single though. It reminds me of what The Small Faces and The Kinks used to do in the sixties. Very quaint. I do like a nice orchestral section. Even Slade used to occasionally dabble in 'em. Our first number one single in 1971, "Coz I Luv You", had a violin solo..."

The King Of Kissingdom: New Musical Express
Sometimes, it's the people who care the most about pop that get it the most wrong. Just look at Oasis: they're not even trying, yet classic song after classic song drips from Noel's Union Jack guitar. Then look at Jake Shillingford. He tries so hard - brass bands! Strings! Spangly suits! - but couldn't write a classic if you locked him in an attic for 30 years. And believe me, the thought has occurred.
To whit: 'The King of Kissingdom' sees Jake scurry into the jaunty, music-hall barrowboy pitch on pop's marketplace hastily vacated by Blur. Which would be a good thing of course, if only MLS hadn't missed all the great things about 'Parklife' and instead taken all the irritating bits and magnified them 150 times.
We're on your side, Jake, we really are. It's just you've been playing rubbish for a long time now, so we've decided to drop you.

Dannii Minogue reviews DUCHESS
MM: Yes, The Strangler's song. Brave, very brave. Remember that dancey version of "Golden Brown"? Rule number one, never cover great songs unless you can do them justice...or unless your record label asks you to do it for some kind of back-slapping centenary charity type celebration album. Cor...and as if by magic.
DANNII: "I don't know the Strangler's version but I do quite like My Life Story. I kissed Jake at Gay Pride for one of your lovely photographers."
MM: Is he any good at kissing?
DANNII: "He was a...erm, very passionate kisser."
MM: Was there tongues?
DANNII: "Noooooo, it wasn't tongues but he was getting close hahahahahahahaha."
Melody Maker, 16/08/97

MY LIFE STORY
Murray Lachlan Young reviews the singles.
Duchess
The much-maligned pop orchestra assail the Stranglers tune, and then turn it into Euro-disco. Let God judge them... Murray: My Life Story have some of the ingredients I like in a pop band. They don't take themselves too seriously, which is obvious. It's by the Stranglers originally? I like the lyrics – "She says she's an heiress... sits in a terrace". They go in for epic pop and there's not that many people trying that. It's committed and humorous, doing it with a disco beat then a cheesy techno beat. I like the orchestral sound and the brass. It gives it a certain dynamism.
Vox, 10/97

My Life Story
It's a Girl Thing (It Records)
A delicious four minute slice of summer pop cake. The absence of the trademark orchestration may disappoint - or at least surprise - the band's cult (read: small) following, not least puffy-faced record label-backer Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Still the simple guitar and synth-led arrangement works well while the sing-along chorus - replete with what seems like a million na, na, nas - should make it a favourite among singing milkmen. Or at least it would if it got on any radio playlists. The CD cover shows a young lady quite literally photocopying her, um, "girl's thing" but the song is essentially about how fickle women can be in relationships - a notion which only one half of the population may truly understand. It's a boy's record.
This single was reviewed by Warren Chrismas
Q Online (www.qonline.co.uk), June 1999

MY LIFE STORY - It's A Girl Thing (IT Records)
After being reviled for sounding like a fairground carousel fronted by Kilroy, MLS have wisely re-invented themselves as an electro-pop outfit. It's a less risable development than it sounds, with a naggingly insistent hook reminiscent of the much-lamented romo lairds Orlando. The only remnants of the bad old My Life Sentence days are lyrics that name-check Viagra. Watch out for Jake Shillingford's forthcoming odes to Sunny Delight and GM Nosh.
Select, July 1999

MY LIFE STORY - IT'S A GIRL THING (IT)
Women - hardest game in the world, as any bloke would testify.
Jake Shillingford sums it up perfectly when he opens: "She removed your name from the speed-dialler screen and now you don't exist" - sad, but oh so true.
We thought we'd seen the last of Jake and co. but Parlophone's loss is It's gain if this is anything to go by.
This is the song Squeeze never wrote - instant pop at it's best, complete with 80s synth and a chorus to die for.
Women - doncha just love 'em?!
BBC Ceefax, 09/06/99

My Life Story - It's A Girl Thing (It)
Difficult not to be slightly disappointed with this. My Life Story are the chrysanthemums in pop's Hanging Gardens Of Babylon and this pirouettes in all the right places, but after so much expectation it's a pretty average comeback, a bit like planning a raid on Fort Knox only to discover they've replaced all the gold with aubergines. The Maker folds its arms cautiously, but the Youngers (well, three of them) are swinging freely from the chandeliers.
GI Jimmy D: "It's cool. It sounds just like Elvis Costello."
Joe Northern: "It just passed me by. It's no my Single Of The Week. I was outvoted by the rest of them. (Studying sleeve very closely) Is she photocopying her arse or her minge, that's the question."
Andi: "Both."
JD: "But it's not one continuous thing between the arse and minge. You've got Biffin's Bridge in between the two..."
Liz: "Urrrgh, don't be disgusting."
A: "Ha ha ha, I don't even know it had a name."
JD: "They're a bit mental cos we did a gig with them the other day..."
Who? Biffin Bridge?
JD: "No. My Life Story! And this is a brave record. They do their own thing."
L: "It's very catchy. After one listen you know it well enough to sing. 'La-la-la-la, laa-la-la-la-la, la-la-laa'."
All: "La-la-la-la, laa-la-la-la."
Melody Maker - Younger Younger 28's review the singles, 12/06/99

IT'S A GIRL THING - My Life Story
My Life Story are back with a new twist to their unique brand of literate pop. 'It's A Girl Thing' mixes new wave and contemporary sounds with Jake Shillingford's spot-on acerbic lyrics. Available on 2xCD, My Life Story deliver another brilliant single - a classic summer song
HMV Advert, 12/06/99

My Life Story
It’s A Girl Thing (It)
If the cover art on this single is anything to go by, 'it', in this case, would appear to be photocopying one's fanny on the office copier. If, instead, you're paying any heed to the lyrics (printed on the sleeve in an incomprehensible act of hubris), it would appear that My Life Story are revisiting that playful theme in pop where (snurk, yip) girls are marvelled at for sometimes liking you, then - the fickle temptresses! - sometimes not liking you; a devilish problem previously explored with infinitely more suss and melody by Space’s ‘Female Of The Species’. Jake Shillingford- a Divine Comedy for those unbothered by wit or taste - may be many things: an artist resoundingly dropped by a major, a failure and not very good at all, but he is also probably very, very lonely. Laugh at him.
NME - 19/06/99

Dilly Osbahr in Birmingham writes on the e-mail:
I heard a great new single a couple of days ago called "It's a girl thing" and I'm pretty sure it was on your show. Who is it by, and when is it out, because it was brilliant!
'It's A Girl Thing' is the comeback single from My Life Story who have shed their more usual orchestrations and signed to It Records. The single which has become something of a session favourite over the last few weeks makes it into your local record stores on the 7th June, with an album to follow in late summer or early autumn. And if you want to see the new My Life Story Experience they'll be playing the Evening Session stage at Reading on Saturday the 28th of August and Leeds on the 29th August. And you can hear them in session with tracks from their new album here on the Evening Session and Lamacq Live in the last week in June.
A listener's letter to Steve Lamaq's Evening Session webpage, June 1999

My Life Story - EMPIRE LINE (from forthcoming album)
Oh. My. God. My Life Story used to be one of the worst bands in the history of pop. If things can change this much, I expect to have breasts by Friday.
Melody Maker - The Hit List, 12/06/99

MY LIFE STORY - Empire Line
Speaking of strings, these boys have been using 'em for years, less immediate than their last song. Ermi gets dead cross if anyone has a go at this lot. So, er, catchy chorus... rating (2 udders = creamy)
Moo-sic by Daisy the Cow - Teletext Review, October 14th 1999

TV SIGHTINGS

The White Room: Channel 4, Saturday 27th July
My Life Story's TV debut. 2 Songs, 12 Reasons Why and Sparkle - or You Don't Sparkle (In My Eye's) as it was still then. And it was absolutely fantastic. They pulled out all the stops, in fact rumour has it that the reason they re-released Sparkle as their second single on Parlophone was because of the fantastic reception it received on The White Room.

The Big Breakfast: Channel 4, Wednesday 31st July 1996
Fortunately My Life Story had the good sense to release 12 Reasons Why during the summer. If they hadn't would I have been foolish enough to stand on the banks of the Lee Navigation at 6 o'clock in the morning to see the filming of the big breakfast. Very probably, yes! The one consolation was that most of the orchestra looked even more unhappy than I did at seeing what the world really looked like at such an unearthly hour. And then I found out that they weren't actually performing until 9 o'clock, God, I could still be asleep now, argh! Still I spent the next few hours chatting to Kumar, who didn't seem to be invited to mingle with the celebrities, instead being left outside to make sure everything was set up correctly. Not that there was much to set up as they were going to be miming. The time for them to perform finally arrived and I found myself on the other side of a 12 foot brick wall from where they were performing. So I went home and back to bed whilst they all had breakfast with Zoe Ball and Keith Chegwin

Live and Kicking: BBC1, Saturday 22nd February 1997
What better way to start your Saturday morning off than with My Life Story miming along to the "Radio Friendly" version of The King Of Kissingdom. Jake was a star (as usual), Paul was looking scary enough to frighten anyone under the age of 12 watching, (mummy mummy who's that man with the creepy eyes) and Lucy was practically inside camera 2!! Zoe Ball seemed quite taken by Ollie (apparently she's been asking for his phone number ever since) although she said they all thought he looked like Steve Coogan. And just incase you didn't know who was who by now, a roll call at the end of the song to make sure everyone was present! Later on in the show we were treated to an acoustic version of 12 Reasons Why (which was repeated later in the week as part of Transmission Impossible). I can't help thinking though, that if Jake was hoping to woo the teenage girls watching he choose the wrong show as he was up against Peter Andre.

Live Internet Chat and Live Interview: GLR, 10:30PM Thursday 6th March 1997
Billed as a "Live webcast and radio broadcast" Jake actually devoted most of his time to the radio side of things, chatting to Gary Crowely and playing records, either My Life Story songs (April 1st, November 5th and The King of Kissingdom) or his some of his favourite records. He also talked about The Golden Mile which will be released the following monday and answered some of the questions posed to him over the internet.
The Live Web Chat on the other hand was a far more entertaining experience. Jake was not on line for very long periods having to swap between the radio and the web broadcast, and seemed to have trouble keeping up with the constant stream of questions being aimed at him. He also seemed quite amused that someone had logged on to the internet chat as "Jake_Shillingford", to which he replied over the airwaves "There's someone logged on as a fake Jake Shillingford, believe me, you don't want to be me!" Other participants included "Ms Boyd", "Mr Sparkle", "Angel", "Kissingdom" and "Lovely_Lucy_Lifestory", who my dear friend Adrian (bless him) actually thought was Lucy for the first five minutes! All in all there were between 10 and 15 people logged onto the chat at any one time, although some of them seemed far more interested in slagging each other off than chatting to Jake.

The Show: Channel 4, Friday 7th March 1997
The Bob Mills Show (or is it just "The Show") is a chat show, what makes it different from most other chat shows is the fact that they show you footage of the recording process interspersed between guests. This alone transformed what would have been a rather dull performance of 12 Reasons Why into a far more entertaining episode....
The star guest for that episode was Norman Wisdom who before the show decided to have a go at playing some of My Life Story's instruments. He was actually quite good as well. Norman, when he met Lucy, did the thing every man wants to do, and gave her a kiss, to which Lucy retorted, "That'll make my dad's day!". Unfortunately the performance of 12 Reasons Why didn't live up to the high standards we're all used to from My Life Story. The sound mix was terrible, Jake sounding too flat and hollow to really do the song any justice. I think the reasoning behind playing 12 Reasons Why when The King of Kissingdom was their last release was to promote The Golden Mile which is due for release 2 days after the show goes on air, and after all 12 Reasons Why has achieved the highest chart position of all their releases to date. However 12 Reasons is really a live song that works best in front of a supportive audience, which seem to bring out the showman in Jake. Unfortunately studio audiences these days seem to lack any animation whatsoever, although one lady in the audience was dancing along, everybody else was just sitting stone still.

Interview and Live Concert: Radio 1, Wednesday 12th March 1997
As part of their "On Campus" series, Radio 1's Evening Session broadcast a live My Life Story gig from the Lemon Grove, Exeter University, preceeded by snippets of information about Jake and the Orchestra and an interview with Jake in a local cafe.

TFI Friday: Channel 4, Friday 2nd May 1997
Everybody who was lucky enough to be present at the recording of TFI Friday said that My Life Story sounded great. Unfortunatly they didn't come accross that way on air. The sound was terrible and the entire orchestra seemed rather nervous. Mark had given up the Trumpet for the evening to join the strings on vocals and as a consequense Roxanna sounded rather thin on her own. Rather dissapointing after all the anticipation.

MISC

Hot Tickets, October 3rd 1996
London Underground should really give Jake Shillingford, My Life Story's frontman, a free Tube pass for life. He's doing more to improve their street cred than any number of Sheryl Crow posters. And he's not even a busker. Unsure of how to recruit string and brass players to perform his orchestral pop songs, he simpley propositioned musicians with the right-shaped cases as they commuted on the Northern Line. Some hid behind newspapers, but others were curious enough to audition for him. By autumn 1993 there were no more vacancies, and later that year the band released a single 'Girl A, Girl B, Boy C'. Produced by George Martin's son Giles, it came across like a Bond theme sung by Tommy Steele.
Then in a further homage to LT's notorious Misery Line, Mornington Crescent, the bands debut album reached number two in the indie chart in February 1995.
Shillingford, 30, was brought up in Southend-on-Sea by his artistic father. 'Dad taught an evening class and if he couldn't get a baby sitter he'd take me along', he remebers. 'It was great. I learned to screen print - though Dad wasn't too pleased when the cover of Lou Reed's Rock'n'Roll Animal appeared on my school shirt.'
Nowadays, Jake's personal tailer, a Mr Gammon, takes care of his sartorial extravagances, supplying everything from the 'little black leather Elvis numbers to 'suits like the ones John Steed wore in the Avengers'. Such attention to detail, coupled with the visual and musical shenanigans of a band the size of a football team minus the goalie, make My Life Story's live shows quite an event.
Recently, the band signed a prestigious deal with the legendary Parlophone label, once home to The Beatles. Shillingford is enjoying the kudos and the cash flow speculations: 'I think it's a good omen when your record company has a pound sign for a logo'he quips.
'12 Reasons Why', the band's first single for Parlophone, took them straight to number 32 in the charts, and Shillingford is confident that their new single 'Sparkle', will do even better: 'It's the perfect autumnal song; quite cheerful on the face of it, but with a darker undercurrent.' The band are also putting the finishing touches to their new album, tentatively entitled The Golden Mile. 'Its's where I was born in Southend,' explains Jake. 'I'm hoping our fourth album will be called 5th and Broadway.'

The Big Issue, March 17th 1997
Flamboyant popsters My Life story came close to closing the book on themselves last year, now they're at the beginning of a whole new chapter,
"When you get the 'best unsigned band' in Britain tag, the day after you've signed everyone's watching to see if you really deserve that title." Jake Shillingford, head honcho with spledid orchestral popsters My Life Story, doesn't seem perturbed by the pressure.
But then it's hard to imagine the be-leathered dandy ever losing his self-belief or confidence in his huge, string-swathed musical vision. So who would have thought that last March, after six years on noble struggle and a well-received, independently released album, My Life Story looked like they'd reached their final chapter.
The 11-strong combo were playing a month of Sundays at Dingwalls in north London and vowed that if they weren't signed by the final gig, they would put away the gold glitter, the confetti and their shiny lame suits forever. Enter, stage left, Parlophone Records with that all-important piece of paper. Talk about cutting it fine.
A year on comes the release of My Life Story's second opus The Golden Mile. The follow-up to '95's marvellous Mornington Crescent still finds My Life Story wallowing in the flamboyance, romance, drama and camp kitsch favoured by ABC, The Divine Comedy, Marc Almond and Scott Walker.
It also finds Shillingford in fine fettle. "Getting signed has been really good for me as a person," he says "I had so many songs that I wanted to get onto record. I'd been habouring up all these thoughts, lyrics and ideas in my head or on a dictophone by my bed. Like any artist I need to exorcise my spirit all the time and was so frustrated. All I genuinely wanted was to be able to do my job, the thing I do best. I feel a lot less of a burden on me now.
Shillingford says he doesn't feel weighed down by having to live up to expectations either. "I don't feel the need to prove why I'm doing what I'm doing what I'm doing," he says "If you start to think about that kind of thing too much you can overdo it and be too keen. Trying too hard can sometimes be as bad as not trying at all."
Hailed by Shillingford as an "album to get dressed up to before a big night on the town", The Golden Mile is the glorious sound of a band finding it ridiculously easy to craft larger-than-life, cinematic, glitzy pop. But they have more strings to their bows. Echoes of Eighties popsters Pyschadelic Furs and trippy Sixties combo Love can also be heard.
"I wanted to put little pointers as to where alse the band could go'" says Shillingford. "There was a period when we were getting lumped in with easy listening and I though 'you're joking, this is a rock'n'roll band. I want to make music that's not easy to listen to. I want people to wake up'."
Lyrically, Shillingford says he wanted to "cover every human emotion and experience. Comedy, tragedy, love, death. I found it very hard." he certainly doesn't shy away from painfull issues. The sombre cellos of Novenmber 5th power the tape of a friend who died from AIDS. "She went out one night and slept with the wrong guy," he says. "She died two years ago in November. I remember thinking as I was watching the fireworks soaring into the sky that it would be a good way to go out. In a burst of colour and glory.
The most personal song on The Golden Mile is Claret. "It was a nightmare for me to write," says Shillingord. "It's about my mother. She's been a outrageous alchoholic since I was 11. I've tried to help her come to terms with it but she just wouldn't listen."
It's not all doom and gloom, though. Our Jake hasn't lost his way with uplifting words. The King of Kissingdom's regal brassy stomp and the driving 12 Reasons Why I Love Her are touching and witty odes d'amour, while You Can't Uneat the Apple is a timely reminder that theres no looking back.
The concisely titled I Dive (Unanswered Questions & Questionable Answers) adds to the positive romantic mood with it's wear-your heart on your sleeve, act-first-think-later approach.
"My philosophy has been always step over the cliff and if there's a mattress at the bottom then great. If there's a load of jagged rock's then so be it. And if it doesn't work out then get out. Life's too short"

AS THE CROW FLIES... MY LIFE STORY bassist The Crow has become the latest on-the-road injury victim, after jumping off stage at Bristol University on October 3. MLS singer Jake Shillingford said last week: "He's got several torn ankle ligaments. His whole leg is so bloated and swollen that it reminds me of Emma Spice's legs! What he's got is actually worse than a broken leg, because a broken leg can heal. Once it's healed, it's as good as new, but when you've done those ankle ligaments in, it's something you have to be careful with over a period of years. So The Crow's wings have been clipped!"
Asked how the injury happened, Jake said: "He jumped six or seven feet into the no-man's land between the stage and the barrier. His eyes were rapidly flickering and he looked like he was going to pass out, but he actually completed the set note-perfect lying on his back! I was the only person unprofessional enough to fail to be unable to complete the set, and that was only because I was laughing so much!"
The Crow's short flight forced MLS to cancel one show at Leeds Metropolitan Theatre on October 4. However, they returned to action with a date at Coventry University on October 9, with The Crow seated at the back of the stage. The band's new single, "You Can't Uneat The Apple", is released by Parlophone on November 3.
Melody Maker, 18/10/97

MY LIFE STORY have added more tour dates....meanwhile, their new single, 'You Can't Uneat The Apple', has been delayed by problems with the artwork. It'll now be released by Parlophone early in the New Year.
Melody Maker, 08/11/97

"We all love guitar music, even us poncy classical types." Jake Shillingford
"At night, I like to cuddle up and be a human bra with my hands." Jake Shillingford
"We're queer and we're here." Jake Shillingford getting carried away at this year's Pride festival
"It was as if they'd just hung Atilla the Hun in Soho Square." Jake Shillingford on central London's reaction to Michael Portillo's defeat
Melody Maker, 20/12/97, 'Quotes of '97'

Try the highly accomplished SPARKLE No. 6 (14 Sherrock Gdns, Hendon, London NW4 4JJ), an effervescent tribute to My Life Story. With 2,000-word reviews and a slave-like devotion, it is as obsessive and detailed as a fanzine gets. Avoid at all costs, however, if dreamy musings on Jake Shillingford's barnet is not your thing.
Melody Maker, 17/01/98, Suited & Booted 'Fanzines'

This pagehttps://members.tripod.com/~Mr_Boyd/mlsmedia.html
was created and is maintained by Richard Harrison

Last modified on Sunday, 9th January 2000.