This land of hope and American glory

It seems that US bands can't wait to come here to kick start their careers

Much has been said and written about the failure of British bands to crack the US market these days. Very little attention has been focused on the traffic coming the other way. Yet it seems that new American bands can't wait to come over to kick start their careers. The Wall Street Journal has been speaking to American acts and their record company bosses. The resulting article has the odd amusingly patronising touch – "Owing to the UK's relatively compact size, bands can be vaulted to prominence literally overnight," it enthuses. Many a British band might wish it was that easy.

Nevertheless, it does seem that there is a quiet musical invasion taking place. American bands have noted the success in Britain of the Strokes and the White Stripes from the US, the Hives from Sweden and the Vines from Australia. In this, the American record companies show up their British counterparts.

But I don't necessarily recognise Britain as the land of musical opportunity that The Wall Street Journal portrays. The paper quotes a former head of the music industry conglomerate BMG who says: "It's all very concentrated; you do the right show in Camden and the word just spreads." The Wall Street Journal helpfully adds that Camden is "a hip area of north London".

Equally hip, when viewed from the other side of the Atlantic, is the British music press. According to Bob Jamieson, chairman of RCA Music Group: "People in our business who want to see what's going to happen, rather than what did happen, are anxious to hear what the UK press has to say."

It gets better. The Wall Street Journal informs its American and European readers that in the UK "acts need only air time on the youth-oriented BBC 1 radio station to fuel a countrywide craze". I must listen to that BBC1 radio station more closely to find out where the next countrywide craze is being fuelled, and who is fuelling it.

Even the corporate bosses of American music are now being painted with a rosy hue. Bernard Doherty, the rock publicist who handles the Brit Awards and the Rolling Stones, says: "It does appear that British record companies are not committing to bands in the American way by giving them three album deals and allowing them to set out their store."

But I fear that the euphoria of American bands, record company bosses and the normally measured Wall Street Journal may be misplaced.

A much talked about gig in London did catapault the Strokes to fame both here and in their home country; but there are thousands of other gigs, even in the hippest areas of north London, which do not translate into record sales. And it is doubtful that airplay on Radio One is as effective as a spot on MTV.

If it really were the case that a gig and an airplay in Britain can be the launch pad for American success, then why has it proved so hard for Robbie Williams to make it big in America? But don't let me discourage the American invasion. They might even find that the old country has hip areas beyond Camden.

* It is interesting to see which stars pull in the crowds to theatres outside London. They can be ones we see infrequently in the capital. Richard Briers has just finished a tour as Prospero in The Tempest.

From Norwich to Edinburgh, he drew full houses and by all accounts was excellent in the role, although the national papers largely ignored the production. I hear that Briers's children wondered aloud to him why he hadn't spent all his life doing Shakespeare. He responded that if he had, they wouldn't have enjoyed such a large house or such an expensive education.

* Meanwhile, on the West End stage American stars are wooed to appear, no matter how suitable or unsuitable the role. So, in What The Night Is For, Gillian Anderson of The X-Files plays a middle-aged mother. At one point she says to her co-star Roger Allam: "You don't want to see me in a bathing suit, you really don't."

As 34-year-old Anderson was once voted by a men's magazine the sexiest woman alive, this is not the most convincing line spoken on the stage this year.

d.lister@independent.co.uk