You used to be cool Nick Valensi.

I remember being at Oxegen music festival in 2004. I was a teenager. I had made my way to the front of the crowd to see The Strokes. They were the reason I had gone. When they walked on stage guitarist Nick Valensi was dressed in white jeans, a sleeveless denim jacket and hoodie. He looked cool, not many people could have pulled that off. He spent most of the gig with his hood up and just pulling riffs out of his guitar. I haven't forgotten it and I don't think I will for a while.

In a previous post I reported on the fraught nature of the recording sessions for The Strokes fourth album Angles. Lead singer and sole songwriter Julian Casablancas was banned from recording sessions, the rest of the band contributed to the songwriting process and rumours that they were only doing it for the money. Particularly outspoken during the whole process was Nick Valensi. As the only member of The Strokes who had not released a solo album during their five year gap between records, he felt he had a large creative contribution to offer during the Angles sessions. He was quite outspoken about the fractious nature of the sessions and the relationships in the band. Despite this, the record was completed and released to a mild reception. Lead single Under The Cover Of Darkness appeared to have "promising return to form" written all over it. Very little of what followed on the full album matched this, it was a disjointed and somewhat indulgent affair.

Shortly afterward it was announced that the band had started working on their follow up. It was then announced that Julian Casablancas had scrapped the sessions. In an interview with the band in this months Q magazine, Valensi stated that Julian kept stopping the sessions. In a phone interview with Casablancas, he said that Valensi had tried to use unfinished Strokes songs for a solo album he wanted to release. This breached their contract and led to Casablancas cancelling the sessions. Valensi also pointed the finger at guitarist Albert Hammond Jr's former drug problem as a big factor in the bands troubled relationship since their last record, it allegedly "started the whole thing off." He was also consuming drugs during the same period but was "having a great time...different people took it in different directions."

When The Strokes first appeared Valensi was probably considered the coolest and most understated member of the group. He was an excellent guitarist who played some of their most memorable riffs, he was handsome and he had mystique due to his brooding stage presence. In the time since then he appears to have bought into the idea that he is a rock legend. His performances reek of wannabe Slash posing and his image has grown to match it. All of this wouldn't really matter though if he hadn't started acting the way he has. It is small, petty and destructive. He has shown no ability to exist in the music world without the rest of the band and is seemingly fueling the destruction of it.

When he was cool.

...Now...