Originally rather cheekily billed as coming from the "creators of AIOTM" (soon changed to "production team - ie : bloke that presses record), this pilot podcast is the brainchild of comedian, musician, and Dave Gorman sidekick, Danielle Ward.
Now, I'm not sure what a pilot podcast is. Perhaps it has to go through some sort of podcast authority these days. That's political correctness gone mad! Anyway, as it is a pilot, I'm not sure whether this is going to be released or not. I would assume it will, because all in all it was a rather fun night.
I met up with Simon and Paul at the venue (The Phoenix - surprised?) where they had ordered two huge plates of cheese. We were soon joined by Neal and said hello to comedy stalwarts Rob and Kate. (At their table there was a lady whose trousers were so low when she leaned forward that we could see most of her flowery pants. Unfortunately I was told by my more sensible tablemates that it would be inappropriate to take a picture of this for my blog.
Thom Tuck
Opening tonight was Thom Tuck; one of The Penny Dreadfuls. They are a sketch troupe that I don't know very much about. They had headlined at All Day Edinburgh but it was a long day and I didn't get to see them. Anyway, he performed a preview of his new Edinburgh show for around 40 minutes or so, and was an absolute joy. I do love seeing an act for the first time and being completely blown away by them. His show revolved around his obsession with Disney straight to DVD movies and the fact that virtually no one in the audience had seen them didn't make it any less funny. There were also occasions when he told us of when he had his heart broken... by a girl, as well as a fantastic 3D joke, involving Paul, some special glasses and a lightly tossed ball of paper at his face. Thom was rather surprised later when it turns out Paul had seen as many Lilo and Stitch movies as him.
Michael, Jim Bob, Danielle, Margaret & Dan
After a short break, Danielle introduced the panellists for the podcast. Michael Legge, Jim Bob, (from the fantastic Carter USM), TV Burp writer Dan Maier, and Margaret Cabourn-Smith. The format was similar to many panel shows, this time the questions were (as you probably guessed from the title) about what the right thing to do is for a given situation. What's the right thing to do when plummeting in a lift? What to do if you get chased by a bear? Audience members contributed their own problems at the start of the show which the panel gave very funny, if slightly unwise advice for, as well as trawling through the problem pages of the tabloids.
Michael, was his usual shouty self, which of course we all like. We know Jim Bob writes extremely witty and pun laden lyrics, and in a live comedy situation he was very very funny indeed. Dan reminded me a little of Andy Hamilton. He didn't say much, but whenever he opened his mouth a fantastic line came out of it.
The show was occasionally interrupted by the occasional shout of "libel!" from Ben, and perhaps too much good natured heckling from the man in the front row who thought I was Kevin Eldon (???) but other than that it all ran rather smoothly shambolic.
This was a fun night. In order to ensure a good audience the price was an astonishing £2.50, but I think most people would be willing to pay twice as much in order for the team to at least cover their costs. Danielle had mentioned this would be unedited, but with a little editing this could be tightened up nicely.
Oh, I had a little chat with Thom afterwards and he is playing at The New Red Lion in Angel on Tuesday 3rd April. I'm planning to be there. Come along.
Since it's move to The New Red Lion, The Fortnight Club seems to have gone from strength to strength. Gone seem to be the days of gigs being cancelled at The Camden Head and now, every 2 weeks, there always seems to be a healthy crowd.
I had arranged to meet Bob at The King Eddie for a beer first, and we headed down to the venue around 8 and were joined by Rob and Richard. Ronnie Rigsby as ever was our host, celebrating 58 years in show business. Ronnie is an old music hall entertainer who has worked with all the greats, and contains just the right amount of charm and bitterness to be one of the best comperes I have seen on the circuit. His creator, Logan Murray used to work with Jerry Sadowitz, and it really shows. Logan now runs a well respected comedy course that some comedians that were on tonight had attended, which he said later makes him feel rather proud. For me, I don't really mind what acts are on. I'd happily watch Ronnie rant and tell us tales of Princess Margaret and the grinning head of death all night.
Paddy Lennox came on first and was a good opening act. There was a slightly hack routine about the difference between cats and dogs (cats are bastards - dogs are stupid), but this was rescued by the observation that cats like to show their arseholes, and dogs will do anything to hide it.
I noticed on Twitter that Wendy Wason is playing with Tara Flynn tonight (Tuesday) but hadn't heard her name before. Well, she was up next and she was Richard's favourite act of the night. I thought she was pretty excellent too. Definitely someone I'll see again.
Fortnight Club regular Tony Cowards came on next. He is best described as a west country version of Milton Jones or Gary Delaney, and as you can imagine, someone that relies on that many one liners has to write a hell of a lot of them, and on a new material night there's no guarantee they'll all work. They didn't. But when a run of one liners fall flat, that's funny in itself!
We had an interval. A good interval. A solid 3 stars.
Nathan Caton
In the second half we had Nathan Caton opening. I have seen him before, and he has a particular charm that makes him extremely likeable. He tried out a new routine about his West Indian grandmother coming to school to tell his teacher off in front of his class for giving the lactose-intolerant Nathan milk. All good stuff and I'd definitely recommend you see him.
Mark Swan
Irish comedian Mark Swan was on next. This was also his first ever UK gig. He had spoken to Bob during the interval and asked if he minded being used in his act as his old headmaster. Bob had already attracted the attention of all the previous comedians so one more wasn't going to hurt. So he pointed out his surprise that his old headmaster had turned up and that he was thrilled to see him. There were no other headmaster references till right at the end, and eventually the gag paid off. Oh, he did also show us that if you look at a map of Ireland on it's side that it looks like a little dog.
Finally it was tonight's headline act - Steve Hall. I had seen him a couple of times before. Once, I think as Fat Tuesday and once more recently at Sunday Hullabaloo at The Wilmington Arms. He's a funny guy. His gag about telling people he was in a very low rated show on BBC3 went down well, as the lack of response or recognition of it had proved his point. I think there were about three We Are Klang fans who quietly whooped at that point. Anyway Steve is an excellent comedian and would definitely be worth the admission price alone.
Steve Hall
Unusually for The Fortnight Club, it seemed very male tonight. Usually the performers are pretty evenly split between the sexes, and I think we like it like that. A slight disappointment at the lack of the advertised Holly Walsh, though I think the nature of new material nights mean that the line up can be rather fluid. People can drop out, and of course people can play unannounced. Ronnie mentioned that Lenny Henry had played before, but "never again - his autocue was terrible" - yes this is a true story. Lenny Henry has indeed done little gigs with autocues and a team of writers in attendance.
I'm sidetracked now. Oh yes, the lack of ladies. Mary Bourke wasn't on tonight - another disappointment, but she has been bragging on Facebook that she is working in Bali so we'll forgive her for that. So yes - more female comics next time please if you can please chaps.
Perhaps they've entered so many Funny Women competitions that they can't afford the bus fare.
These were the words of Lost Quattros Cvnts' first ever walk out! Michael announced this to the packed out venue with a certain matter of pride towards the end of the show. To be honest, I've seen worse. I thought the Cvnts were relatively mild. And in any case, what did that lady expect to see. There's a clue in the title. And the quote will look good on the next poster.
So another month has arrived, and it was time to head down to Cvnts once more. Could it top last month's awesome gig here by Al Murray? This month we had the legendary Stephen Merchant to look forward to. I had seen him once before a year or two at The Old Queen's Head (handily situated less than 5 minutes walk from my house) as he was a secret guest at the Comedy Gold night which also featured Richard Herring and he was astounding. Michael Legge has said he was the best comedian he has ever seen when he did the circuit in the days before "The Office".
Also on the bill was Tara Flynn, who I have usually seen as one of the core performers of The London Comedy Improv, but more recently has had some success with her "Big Noise" show. OK, so Michael had announced that it would be Catie Wilkins, but there had been a terrible admin error, and Tara bravely stepped in at the last minute. We have however been promised Catie in May.
My friend Marco had to organise his works night out and asked me for some suggestions. After discounting London Comedy Improv (as it was 2 days before pay day) I told him about this, and he seemed keen. Anyway, he was running late but texted me a description of his workmates for me to say hello to. I think he underestimated the amount of people, as well as my willingness to speak to strangers.
I decided to walk to the venue. It was such a nice day and i had an hour to kill. I remember walking to town a lot last summer and will probably do this more. It gives me the illusion that I'm being healthy. Outside I met Rob, Bob, 2 of Rob's friends, Jack, and we headed downstairs. The queue took a long time to move but once we were in, I found that the always lovely Muki had organised a table for four of us right at the front. Unfortunately (logistically) 2 more people had turned up so we couldn't all fit together. I was trying to work out how to fill these seats the best I could and there was a slight awkwardness as people saw 2 empty seats at the front and kept trying to sit in them, so I decided to grab Jack and Misha from the bar and plonk them beside us.
The gig was sold out tonight. I'm quite sure this is the first time this has happened and they had to turn 40 people away. So a quick tip; if you're coming to LQC, especially when a name comedian is on, get to the venue for 7pm.
LQC came on with air flutes, passing it from one to another as the song went on. It was finally passed to a front row audience member who, judging by the sound of it, clearly had no idea how to play the air flute. Silly person. They then explained that they hadn't written any sketches (which I think turned out to be true!), but decided to plow ahead anyway. Paul and Jeremy's baby characters were both cute and funny as ever, with Jeremy's occasional ear piercing shriek taking Paul by surprise. We were also promised Elizabeth Taylor's "last ever sketch". When this arrived, the Cvnts quickly decided which roles they should play, and as they had never seen it before, excitedly launched into it. However we soon found out that Liz wasn't the Michael Jackson hugging, gay-loving superstar we thought she was, unleashing a torrent of foul language and homophobic abuse, much to The Cvnts embarrassment. I think it was as this point the "digusted" lady left. We got Sean Goldsworthy again, this time reading his classic "homoeroticker", which was equally hilarious and arousing, no matter what your sexual orientation.
Tara Flynn was the first guest, and as usual, her charm shone through. She played four songs: Bjork Song, The Fog From The Film The Fog, Custard, and a fantastic (thought slightly shambolic) Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue parody, backed by Precious Little's James Hingley on guitar, and joined by Michael on vocals. As Michael said later when I asked about this video, it was something "you had to be there" for, but I think it's worth preserving this in people's memories. By the way, sorry about the enormous glass but it was a hot night!
Landfill Hill
Custard
The interval was next. To be honest, I've had better. I felt I didn't make the most of it, and will definitely try harder next month.
It was time to announce the special guest. It wasn't a huge secret so hardly a surprise, but Stephen Merchant got a huge round of applause. He started by talking about when he first became famous, and the various articles he had appeared on, showing us his first ever picture in a national newspaper (he had disappeared out of the top of the frame) and his first interview, where he was called Stephen Mitchell. He also told us about an article after he had been spotted dancing. Unfortunately this was rather spoiled by someone shouting out "albatross". If you're going to heckle, make it funny. Don't just say the punchline to the joke! Twat.
He explained that the purpose of his upcoming tour was to find a wife, and told us all about the difficulties he has in his sex life at the moment, mainly related to his height.
A super night out indeed. Michael gave us clues at the end who the special guest for next month is. I won't repeat them here, mainly because Paul doesn't seem as confident that they'll get him. (Damn - that's a clue - he's a man. Or is he?) Suffice to say that if they manage it, for me, this will be the bext special guest they have ever had (bear in mind they've already had Jason Manford, Al Murray, Richard Herring and now Stephen Merchant)
Buy Tara Flynn's album, and to finish, here is her video clip of "The Fog From The Film The Fog"
I think I might become a Buddhist. Karma is real. I found this out after giving my Rock Band drum kit to my old pal Matt. He offered me cash, but I honourably declined. He said he would buy me a pint next time I saw him, but he only went and won a competition for 2 guest list tickets to see Gary Numan at The Troxy and gave one to me.
Now Matt likes to get a good spot as he has filmed some great live footage in the past. He said he would be there around 3pm. Doors didn't open till 6pm and Gary wasn't due on till 10:30. Now I don't trust myself in that situation and would have probably got drunk and leg cramps if I had gone that early. No one else on the bill really interested me, although I wouldn't have minded seeing John Foxx.
As I've said before I've been a big fan of Gary Numan for many years. "Are 'Friends' Electric?" came out in 1979 and I've followed him ever since, seeing him live on a number of occasions. I managed to meet Gary a couple of times: once outside the STV studios in Glasgow when he was there to do an interview and again at the launch party for the "Random" tribute album. He's a nice guy, and remarkably approachable. I met him again at Reading Festival a few years later. I was there with my ex, who had banned me from playing his music when he was round, but at the time he had a local radio show and wanted me to get an interview. I had a chat with his wife who introduced Greg to Gary and they had a lovely little chat, while I sat on the side lines with the wife, seething with jealousy.
Anyway, after a dreadful journey on the Hammersmith & City line I got to the venue. It was a brilliant venue. Much nicer than the likes of the Shepherds Bush Empire that I've seen him more often than any others. My mate and also my flat mate had been to see Morrissey there last year and both of them said the same.
Matt was right down the front so there was no hope of seeing him, but he texted me to say that a couple of people I haven't seen for many years, possibly the 90s were in attendance. I sent Jon a message and managed to meet up with him and Karen and we managed to get a fairly good vantage point front right.
Gary opened with an epic version of Down In The Park, which was the single before AFE that has since been covered by the likes of Foo Fighters and Marilyn Manson. The stage looked amazing with huge LED screens that showed some pretty awesome images, but best appreciated towards the end of the gig when i had moved to the back of the room. A few other older tracks were played, such as That's Too Bad and Zero Bars, and of course AFE.
Some new songs from the upcoming Splinter album were played, such as Captured Underground Noise Transmission and The Fall, and he even through in a new song that he had only written on Monday (Everything Comes Down To This?), which was a brave move. Out of the new songs, this one was probably the weakest and could do with a little more work, although Gary did tell us in advance it was going to be rough!
Gary was energetic as usual, banging his head, thumping the stage with his mic stand and throwing some shapes. He seemed to be having a great time too. Anyway, my hangover from the morning was really catching up with me, and I felt sad to be leaving early, but I was exhausted. All in all, a great night out and even though he has been performing now for 33 years still as fresh as ever.
There was a documentary on Sky Arts about Gary that I couldn't see because I was at the gig. And I don't have Sky, but hopefully I'll be able to track it down somewhere. Any ideas?
I recorded a few videos on my phone which were not too bad, but they suffer from rather poor sound quality. I have put a couple of them after Matt's much better quality movies. Thanks to him for putting these up, and thanks again for the ticket!
1. Crash
2. Films
3. Haunted
4. Everything Comes Down To This
5. Zero Bars (Mr Smith)
6. Pure
7. Halo
8. Down In The Park (poor phone camera quality)
9. Captured Underground Noise Transmission (poor phone camera quality)
A couple more tracks - this time from supilangweilig on youtube:
10. I Die: You Die
11. Are "Friends" Electric?
Update: Thanks to AK on the comments below I have found the Re:Invention documentary. OK, it's recorded off the telly and there are Danish subtitles, but if you want to check it out, it's here
Los Quattros Cvnts is one of my favourite comedy nights on the first Wednesday of the month at The Phoenix in central London. I've written about it before here and here. Fun, silly, and extremely friendly. I brought along Cvnts virgins Ken, my big brother, and Priscilla who I work with as well as meeting up with a couple of Cvnts stalwarts - Sir Bob, Graham, Neal and Rob.
After a now traditional bit of grub in the Old Explorer opposite, we headed into the extremely busy Phoenix and lurked by the door. We were called downstairs at 7:15, which was remarkably early, although we soon realised this was so we could stand on the stairs. This was actually lovely as it was a lot cooler and less noisy here.
Thanks to the ever lovely Muki, we got seats right at the front. This worried my brother and I reassured him that it was safe and he wouldn't be picked on! Although having watched an Al Murray DVD earlier in the day, he didn't believe me.
The Cvnts opened with a sketch about the film Inception, but having never seen the film, it went a little over my head. Michael had said before the gig that he was exhausted from his travel to the far east but luckily had to drink a can of Red Bull in this sketch. What a stroke of luck. It's almost like he wrote that in deliberately! The moved on to a job interview sketch where the job being interviewed for was job interviewer. This was pretty intricate involving Dan and Jeremy playing three characters at once. I think I mentioned before about some of The Trap's sketches reminding me of The Two Ronnies, and this was another great ronniesque sketch.
Paul and Jeremy's jaded babies were back, and then it was the turn of the extremely erotic Sean Goldsworthy, with another attempt at "choose your own" erotica where he asked a member of the audience to pick from the options he had written. When I saw Paul do this last month I had assumed he had scripted it so it would always be the same, but he has in fact written pages of it, and his "jump to page 44" instructions are totally genuine.
Jo Neary closed the first half with some character based comedy, my favourite of which was the new comedian who had just finished a comedy course.
Interval time next, and it was so good I can't figure out words to describe it. But quite possibly the best interval ever. Then again, there was that interval in the late '90s I remember so clearly, so scratch that. The interval was alright I guess though.
During the interval, Paul had mentioned it was a shame they didn't have time to do one of the sketches, but luckily they managed to fit it in for the second half. Dan was reading us a story from Fiesta to let us know the literary merit of such porn stories, while Paul was revising his London A-Z. This was a lot of fun with Tourettes style interjections of "Cockfosters" and "Mudchute". Very very silly, and a lot of fun.
Finally it was time for Al Murray to perform. I think everyone in the room was very excited. Usually at LQC the headline act will be someone known in the comedy scene, but it's rare they get a household name. I guess the only person as big as Al that's been on there would be Jason Manford quite a long time ago (He was superb by the way)
Al confirmed to us that he's one of the best comedians around to riff off the audience and the first 40 minutes or so was just him talking to us and obviously giving us some cheeky abuse. He noticed Priscilla's pint, asked her what it is, and told her that it was unacceptable. He picked it up, and to Priscilla's astonishment, downed it! He also cnofiscated a glass of white wine from a lad in the second row. He sent a young lad with emo type hair that he had already nicknamed "Crowboy" to the bar with a tenner out of his own pocket to get a replacement and came back with a white wine for Priscilla, although I ended up sneakily drinking it when Al wasn't looking. After abusing people for their lack of "proper" jobs (such as marketing, publishing, and writing for Torchwood - or Touchcloth as Al named it) he went on to ask us to name any country in the world and he would explain why Britain was better which he managed to do with an impressive knowledge of history!
After the gig we had a brief chat with Mr Murray at the bar, who by now had changed out of his landlord's uniform and was now sporting a rather dapper hat, and I mentioned to him that Priscilla was unaware of "the rules" and he told us that for the landlord, there are no exceptions. Very funny man and a true gent.
Next month the special guest will be a rather tall man who works with "extras" in movies and used to have an "office job. You'd be totally mental not to come. See you there!
The Fortnight Club has been running for around 20 years in various venues near Angel, Islington. It was set up by such comedians as Lee Hurst and Alan Davies in order to try out new material, and is the longest running new material night in London. Until recently, it was situated at The Camden Head in Angel (not Camden). I had visited there a number of times and was always struck by the venues disinterest in the club. There were never any posters, or even an arrow pointing up the stairs, and the staff never seemed to know when the show started or even if there was one.
The first time I came here, the show didn't go ahead as there just wasn't anyone there. Another time, Milton Jones and Tony Law amongst others performed to just two of us. Anyway, a month or two ago, it was announced that The Camden Head were no longer going to do entertainment, so The Fortnight Club were on the move. This, I thought had to be a good thing. I was not keen on that particular pub as either a bar or a venue, and recently a new comedy club in Angel, The New Red Lion Theatre has opened, which to me seemed like an ideal venue.
This was announced on Facebook and I managed to win a couple of free tickets. I took my friend Richard, who had been to this venue before to see Richard Herring, probably because it's less than 20 seconds walk from his house.
Announced on the bill tonight were Fortnight Club stalwarts Mary Bourke, Tony Law and around 7 others. The compere was the fantastic Ronnie Rigsby (aka Logan Murray). As it turned out I was disappointed that there was no Tony Law, and poor Logan was ill, however that was made up for later.
I had two awkward moments before the gig. The first was when I wanted to visit the loo. The only signs to tell me which was which was a picture of a lion on one door, and a panther on the other. I looked from one to the other before confidently striding into the panther door. I quickly left! (Richard pointed out to me later that the panther was probably a lioness.)
Outside I met Nick Helm outside having a cigarette: "It's Nick isn't it?"
"Andy" he said
"Good to see you again Nick"
"No, I'm Andy"
It was getting confusing.
I said "Sorry I thought you were Nick Helm"
"Who's he?"
"A comedian"
"I'm a comedian called Andy Onions"
Well that was the second awkward moment of the evening. I said hello to Mary as she walked in and she mentioned that there was something in her set inspired by me. This was worrying and I wondered which of my idiotic Facebook updates she had seen!
Simon Clayton took over as compere for the evening and introduced our first act, Dylan Bray. I had seen Dylan before and enjoyed his set, especially the joke where he said that he didn't mind if his unborn child was a boy or a girl "just as long as it was straight". He explained that this joke went badly yesterday and made two girls cry and spent some time explaining the thought processes behind it.
Simon introduced a comedian by the name of "Adam Tempest" - I whispered to Richard that he sounded like a superhero. He was a rather tall skinny lad in glasses that didn't quite fit the name but he was rather funny.
Sanderson Jones (and Richard)
Jo Romero was up next but I couldn't take my eyes off her boots. I really don't want to be unkind but I did whisper (very quietly) to Richard that it looked like she had forgotten to take the back half of a pantomime horse off. However, her material soon distracted my attention from the boots! Luke Benson closed the first half with what I think was a very funny set. Unfortunately his Geordie accent was so incredibly strong that I probably only understood about 3 minutes out of the 10 he was on stage for! I have no problems with Sarah Millican or even Ross Noble, but I found that I really had to concentrate hard.
After the rather uneventful break things moved up a notch with Tony Cowards. Not someone I'd seen before, but he rattled off a host of one liners that Milton Jones or Gary Delaney would be proud of.
Ivor Dembina. Not a name I was familiar with, but certainly an unusual performance. Not many words were spoken at first, but he looked round the back of each side of the curtain, before slowly coming back to the microphone and declaring "Well I don't know where Maddie is.", then putting comedy to one side and lecturing the audience about how Live At The Apollo is filmed and why comedy audiences were stupid to go to DVD recordings and pay for the privilege. An interesting, if one sided discussion punctuated by one man standing up, muttering "Fucking shit" and walking out.
Mary Bourke was up next and had come up with some "mum cusses" as she didn't think the ones that the teenage boys on the bus told were good enough, mentioning one that she had heard where one boy claimed his friend's mum had "wooden legs and real feet". At a previous gig she had applauded the wit of the boy, but since I had pointed out on Facebook to her that it was an old Steven Wright joke, derided him for his plagiarism.
Marian Pashley was the penultimate act and she certainly tickled Richard with a quip about her retort to mothers with pushchairs ramming them into the back of her ankles: "Do that again and I'll punch your child in the face."
The Fortnight Club, and I'm sure other new material nights, are great places to see comedians that you haven't seen, or even heard of before, trying out new material. Yes, some of it isn't polished; some of it might not work. but it's a chance to discover people that you'd willingly go to see again. So far at this club I've stumbled across both Tony Law and Mary Bourke and tonight I have found another great comic to add to my list. Sanderson Jones.
Sanderson Jones
He was our headliner tonight and as soon as he came on had the audience in stiches. He remarked on his remarkable resemblance to Jesus and even got Richard to be his lectern (for no apparent reason) to hold his notes. We spoke to him after and in October he is planning a big gig in October at Union Chapel with no tickets advertised in the press, no tickets available on the phone, no tickets available on the internet. The only way to buy a ticket is through him directly as he will be flyering his own show. Now I don't know if I've broken a rule of comedy by telling you this or not, but I didn't sign any contract.
Now, on an unrelated note, if you've read this before Wednesday 2nd March you have no excuse not to go to Los Quattros Cvnts at The Phoenix, Cavendish Square at 8pm to see LQC (The Trap + Michael Legge) with special guests Joanna Neary and AL MURRAY ! For only £7. And they even give you £2 off if you say "Bum" at them on the door!
I thought I'd write a blog today about music. Not musical comedy. In fact, nothing to do with comedy at all (though you may think different when I mention some of the bands I like)
I started going to comedy gigs around 2 years ago when I looked at the bands playing my local venue (Islington O2) and realised I hadn't heard of any of them. Most of my favourite bands didn't exist any more and I had no gigs to go to. I'm still rather out of touch with contemporary music now. I followed The Brits a little on Twitter last night and saw Mumford & Sons being slagged off, and I couldn't even join in because I have no idea who they are. The Kings Of Leon, Kasabian, The Killers.. I mean, I've HEARD of them all but wouldn't recognise them walking down the street. I have probably heard their songs and would know the song when I heard it on the radio, but I can't possibly match it to the band.
I think this must be a general thing that happens to 40-somethings. Pop music is not for us. But all the same, pop music today is SO BORING. Where are the current Sex Pistols, the new Nirvana, the contemporary Beastie Boys? The closest we can come to NWA seems to by Tiny Tempah (can't be bothered to check if I've spelled that right) - and he's a hip-hop guy that your mum would like.
Music is extremely important to me, and whenever I'm on a the move. I'm constantly plugged in and if I've run out of podcasts to listen to I have my iPhone set to shuffle on my carefully considered playlist. (I used to have whole albums on my phone but now I only have songs that I'm not tempted to skip)
Until I was 11 I wasn't that bothered about music. I remember liking Space Oddity and Long Haired Lover From Liverpool when I was about 5 and I would hear my big brother playing his Queen and Status Quo, and my step sister playing her ELO and Elton John and quite liked it, but never took much of an interest. I was too young to remember punk. In fact I don't think punk happened in the little Scottish seaside town where I grew up.
I can probably break down my musical education into specific sections, and there are certain people who have shaped this.
Gary Numan
1. The Numan years
This all changed in May 1979 when I saw Gary Numan (then performing under the name of Tubeway Army) performing "Are 'Friends' Electric?" on Top Of The Pops. (See, I even got the punctuation right!). He was so different to what I'd ever seen. He looked nervous, cold, he barely moved, and the music was unlike anything I'd ever heard with it's booming synths. Me and my friend Leslie were instantly hooked and would run home at lunchtime every Tuesday to see where he was in the charts. This was when a song would usually enter the charts at number 30 or so, then next week might get to 20, and it would take 4 or 5 weeks to get to number 1.
I became obsessed with Numan, but wasn't allowed to buy his records (or any records). This changed when I was 15 and spent a few months in a children's home - another story - where I bought 3 Gary Numan albums for £2 each from another boy. I played them constantly, analysing the lyrics, writing my own Numanesque songs.
Gary Numan - Are 'Friends' Electric? - Top of The Pops
2. New Wave
Bowie
A boy at school called Spencer saw the latest Numan LP (Warriors) in a slightly see through John Menzies bag and wanted to become my friend. He lived about a 20 minute bus ride from me and I would go round his house a lot and listen to his records. He had a lot more than me, and rather more diverse. He told me that Gary Numan wasn't the best, and played me albums by David Bowie, Japan and Talking Heads. He told me that Numan was trying to copy Bowie which meant Bowie was better. OK, technically Bowie IS better than Numan, and although I liked him, I still preferred Gary. However my musical taste was beginning to broaden.
3. Thrash!
Slayer
I was round at "Spenny"'s house another time (I guess 1987 when I was 18) and he told me he had to play me something really funny. t was Slayer's "Reign In Blood". We laughed so much - it was ridiculous - it was so fast, the guitar solos seemed completely random, and they were singing about Satan. For a Christian boy like me, it seemed so dangerous! I asked Spenny to tape it for me, and I would play a great joke on my cousin (I was sharing a room with him at the time as I was living with my Aunt and Uncle). When I got home I would play it really loud and pretend to him I liked it. Haha - this was gonna be great! I listened to it on the bus... and I actually started to like it! I was a thrasher! A few weeks later I was at Spenny's again and he let me hear Master Of Puppets by Metallica and Into The Pandemonium by Celtic Frost and the deal was complete.
Tom G Warrior - Celtic Frost
When I moved to England in 1987 I saw a poster advertising a thrash band called Dross (with an amusing Bros style logo) who were playing in a pub nearby. Now I had no idea that you could see bands in pubs, so I went along and loved it. They changed their name to Killing Faith and never got famous, but it was then that I realised that you didn't have to be famous to be in a band, or that you could happily be in a band without getting famous. I still have their demo tapes at home and still play them.
4. Punk Rock - Nirvana & Husker Du
In 1988 I had started my first job, working for the Meteorological Office, and I shared an office (yes in those days we didn't have open plan - it was amazing) with a younger lad called Simon Osborne. He was pretty geeky with a big mop of curly hair, but sort of awkwardly cute, and he knew SO much about music. He played guitar - jazz guitar mind, and thought nothing of spending nearly £1000 on a Paul Reed Smith. He also talked a lot about American punk rock. Now, this eventually became to be known as grunge, but I didn't and still don't like that term, so I'm gonna stick with punk.
Nirvana
He mocked me for my devotion to thrash metal. I would play him an AMAZING Megadeth guitar solo and he would look non-plussed. He would ask me where the emotion was, he would explain that there were no dynamics in the music and eventually he made me a mix tape. This mix tape would change my musical life again.
I wish I could remember exactly what was on it, but it certainly contained Negative Creep by Nirvana, some Mudhoney, Jesus Lizard, Sugar, Nomeansno as well as others. I would play this over and over again but couldn't find any of these band's records anywhere. They were the first group of bands I got into that just weren't famous enough for Our Price to stock their records. Simon told me of an independent record shop in Camberley (where I lived) called Rock Box that I visited, where I bought an album from my favourite band on the tape - "Bleach" by Nirvana. I wore this record out, and when I found they were about to release "Nevermind" I pre-ordered it and became a HUGE Nirvana fan. They soon became huge, and I would visit Camden Market looking for the latest bootlegs of their gigs that you could buy on cassettes of varying quality from stallholders there - this was in the years before YouTube, or even the Internet.
Simon asked what I thought of Sugar and I told him I wasn't that keen because the singer's voice reminded me of Phil Collins. Looking back I can't see that any more, but he persisted and told me that if it wasn't for Bob Mould's previous band Husker Du, then Nirvana would never have existed. He taped me the whole Husker Du back catalogue and for over a year Husker Du were my favourite band of all time.
Husker Du - Live 1981
5. Industrial and Alternative
For a few years I was seeing this lad called Greg and he would ban me from playing my beloved Gary Numan or Nirvana whenever he was round. At the time he would play Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Meat Beat Manifesto, Nitzer Ebb and other bands I considered a racket. Again though, my musical tastes started to expand as I appreciated what NIN were doing.
Trent Reznor - NIN
I think I was converted to industrial music when, as a birthday treat, I bought Greg tickets to see Consolidated at a venue somewhere in London. I fully expected to be bored by this, because as well as being industrial-based, they also incorporated hip hop and dance.
Fuck - I loved it!
Again through Greg and his friends I discovered bands such as Faith No More and Alice Donut. A whole world of bands were opening up - Primus, Green Day, Rage Against The Machine, Revolting Cocks, and Sheep On Drugs, leading me to rediscover the greatest and funniest Canadian punk band ever - Nomeansno.
Nomeansno - It's Catching Up - live
The Jesus Lizard - Puss (live)
Now through all this time, I still loved all the other music I had discovered. I hadn't cast it aside, though I put thrash metal on the back burner until about 3 years ago. I formed my own band, Mouthfull and we played together for around 5 years. We were a "queercore" band, which was a scene which had splintered from the Riot Grrrl movement and we played with bands such as Sister George, Pansy Division, and even Tom Robinson. We almost had a residency at the only gay alternative club in the UK at the time, Club V - again remember this was way before clubs such as Popstarz, and before it became acceptable for gay lads to be into any sort of indie music.
Mouthfull - No Limit (live)
I discovered a plethora (good word!) of little bands that no one had ever heard of, and probably never will. - Sleater Kinney, Team Dresch, Gertrude...When that band ended in 1999 I started losing touch with the music scene, and didn't see my band friends as much as I used to.
These days I'm stuck in the 90s. I'm happy with this. I have a great combination of New wave, industrial, thrash, alternative and punk on my phone, and don't HAVE to listen, know about or even acknowledge the dreary dreary dreary mum loving music that passes for pop today. Big thanks to Spencer, Simon, and Greg!
Finally, a little Spotify playlist for you all so you know what the hell I'm on about !
