Burn Hollywood burn ... a flaming US passport. Photograph: PA
"The Brits are coming!" recently screamed a number of headlines of US music industry trade magazines in anticipation of a number of forthcoming tours by rising UK artists.
Though it is hardly on a par with the legendary British invasion of the mid 60s, and late summer is generally acknowledged to be a "quiet" time for the industry, in-roads are nevertheless currently being made by a number of UK musicians. And for once it is not a bunch of lad bands who you just know are going to be sloping back home with their tails between their parkas after the obligatory Letterman appearance, claiming that Americans "don't get them".
For once, the charge is being lead by relatively non-traditional artists, including Lily Allen, MIA and Klaxons. When I say non-traditional, I mean artists who, when compared to Maroon 5, Kelly Clarkson and High School Musical, are errant, unapologetic and unconventional.
The downfall of the Brit band abroad is generally perceived to be due to an inability to shake hands with radio programmers and regional pluggers five times a day for, say, 90 days on the trot, or it might be the fact that - despite what they tell you - Americans are more polite and courteous than the British; in the US, kissing ass is just a part of the daily process of making money, whereas in the UK it can be confined to a half hour NME cover interview in January, with the rest of the year free to get drunk and "be rock 'n' roll".
As reported yesterday a new threat to hinder the current British music invasion are the ever-tightening US immigration and work visa laws. Lily Allen this week had her visa revoked and missed a potentially career-making MTV Awards appearance, while 12 months ago Klaxons cancelled their crucial CMJ performances because the press clippings they submitted suggested they hadn't been going very long. Which, of course, they hadn't. But then this is pop music - no one goes for very long. And if longevity is the criteria by which incoming touring artists are judged, then the US can have nothing but the boring white rock of Elton John and The Police tours to look forward to for the next - ooh - decade, when they could have the pan-international flavours of MIA. It's not just the hip young guns suffering either - Holly Golightly, New Model Army and Mystery Jets are some of the artists whose tours have been nixed by the authorities.
It's a Catch-22 situation. To guarantee an easy passage stateside artists have to fill a P-1 visa, requiring acts to prove that they have been "internationally recognized" for a "sustained and substantial" amount of time. But can someone really be internationally recognized if they have never performed in the US?
Such red tape is standard practice for a country run by lawyers, but it will surely have a detrimental effect. America will be deprived of new foreign culture from abroad, an existing suspicion that the US government are not very nice will fester even further and everyone from venues to concert promoters to merchandise vendors - people who thrive on live shows rather than record sales - will lose out if tours are cancelled at the last minute.
It's no conspiracy to say that this is all a by-product of the paranoia, fear of outsiders and strict border control that has been present since the white man first took over the country, and which has permeated deeper since September 2001. Any non-famous person who has attempted to enter the US either for a short stay or under the guise of work will likely have similar stories.
As it stands, anglophile US music fans are facing government-endorsed rock 'n' roll.
On the upside, though, they may be spared Razorlight.
