"The prettiness thing has been a problem. Damon Albarn is one of those people who is supernaturally handsome. He has the upturned nose of an aristocratic 16-year-old girl and big lips, which he licks a lot with a big, fleshy tongue. And, of course, there’s the eyes: fields of bluebells on a summer’s day.
But people have a natural distrust of the unbearably pretty. So, in an effort to override the looks issue and get taken seriously, Damon took the objectionable route. In the early days he’d throw up on stage; he’d clamber like a deranged chimp over towering speakers and amps before hurling himself kamikaze-style into audiences; he’d come out with outrageous statements.
As Dave Rowntree, Blur’s drummer, once contemplated, “We should’ve taken a Stanley knife to him in the beginning and things would’ve been oh-so-different."

"

It changed everything definitely when he left. But all changes have good effects and bad effects. So I think if he hadn’t left, we wouldn’t have got to play with such an extraordinary range of musicians as we are now in the live shows. There’s nine of us on-stage now, backing vocals, percussion, keyboards, brass.

It’s kind of — so that was definitely a good effect. But he’s one of our oldest friends, so if you’re losing one of your oldest friends, there’s always going to be a bad effect. Well, we haven’t lost him. We know where he is. We know where to find him.

"

"I remember us walking round Lake Ontario and seeing all these Canadian flags outside people’s houses. The British flag had been so tainted by the neo-Nazis in the 80s. Now apparently Doc Martens, which I’d been wearing since I was fourteen, were a Nazi symbol too. Only the very stupidest people got upset and the ones who wanted to fight with us and we took ‘em on. Half the fun is winding up the right people. It was a load of wank. What we were saying was wank and what they were saying was wank. It was a lot of fun."

"Our favourite Blur member is Dave. We all love Dave”, spoke a crowd of girls, “I’m going to ask him if he wants my autograph”, said Beth Richardson. This was unfortunate because Dave was unable to attend the signing due to an abscess he had on his tooth. Somewhat surprisently we encounter more Dave fans than you’d expect to find outside of the Rowntree family; “There’s more and more Dave fans than I thought possible really”, commented one girl. Maybe his enigmatic nature and wry humour is taking effect. A more expected favorite was Graham. “He’s lovely, he wears good v-necks, and I think that’s important”, said Kerry Sutch. “Everyone likes Damon so you go for the underdog, and he always looks so sad."