Committed Fraud

The Italian Job of 2001

Pete Barton is a classic loveable rogue, he is Clitheroe’s musical impresario. I worked for him first when I was in the Denny Laine band and over the years I’d do many gigs with the broken off, knackered and leftover parts of the 60s and 70s that the rest of the music business had discarded but Pete somehow found a use for. He’s always been weighty and his wife was a hairdresser who quit after learning to do feathered 70s rock cuts so at his peak he looked like Benny Hill in a Rod Stewart wig. Nowadays he’s the Earl of Bath on Angel Dust. I tell you all this to set the scene and let you know that I really ought to know better.

He rang me up on a Monday and said “Madden, I’ve got a function gig for you, Saturday in Italy, a thousand quid. They’ll pay fort’ flights. They want soul stuff, you know Commitments type shite.” Too good to be true, is what I should’ve stopped to say. I jumped at it and quickly rallied together Nicky for sax, Richard for drums, Neil on bass, Ben on guitar and vocals and Dave Smith who’d been at university with the Young brothers on trumpet. The flights were rather inconveniently from Stanstead but we still figured we could make it out with £150 each.

We knew a fair bit of soul from all having played with my Dad at various points but we rounded the set out with Otis and Aretha and things we generally loved. We didn’t sound like we were from Memphis but we had a sort of tryer’s charm, like British beat groups of the 60s having a crack at soul. Everybody dug out a suit to put on, mine was a brown Next one I’d borrowed off Danny. Everybody’s suit was cheap but we looked like we cared a bit. We did a few rehearsals during the week and then all jumped in Ben’s bricklaying van and drove to Stanstead.

We flew to Pescara, I don’t think we had any idea where the gig was, we just knew an Italian agent was picking us up at the other end. The flight was an hour and a half late so the day was well behind schedule when we rolled out of Pescara airport a few cans in. The Italian promoter Bruno and his sidekick, a kickboxing champion named Stefan met us, both slightly put out by how late we were. It turns out the gig was in Naples, the other side of the boot.

We jumped in their van with our suits and a couple of instruments, just brass and guitars as me and Richard’s kit was to be provided. We then had a two and a half hour hellride as Stefan drove like a maniac through admittedly scenic mountain ranges, overtaking people on single lane, cliff top tracks and beeping and shouting in Italian. We were young so the fact that we might die didn’t bum us out as much as it might if I endured such a drive today.

We got into Naples at about 8, as chaotic a city as you’ll ever see anywhere in Europe. Five lanes of interweaving, noisy and reckless traffic throughout the city with teenager laden mopeds pestering cars like wasps. It was dizzying and exciting, check out us lot- international fucking musicians no less! We drove and drove, deeper into this crackpot city built on the side of a volcano. By now it was past 9 o’clock.

It was about quarter past nine when Neil said to me “er, we’re not by any chance the Commitments on this gig are we?” I was confident and resolute, “Oh no, no. It’s just a function gig.” Barely placated Neil said “I’m just seeing a lot of Commitments posters.” Like when you buy a car and then you start noticing the same model everywhere, or when your family is interested in a certain breed of dog and suddenly your eyes latch onto them in the park, I was certainly starting to see Commitments posters. They started gaining in frequency, from swirling isolated snowflakes to full blown “get your hat and coat” blizzard. We were now looking at full walls of Commitments posters. The full cast of the film on there, Italian words but the date and the time (21.30) was readable.

Just like that it was time to get out of the van, the venue was Napoli City Hall, there were 1000 restless, excited soul fans and a soundman rushed to greet us “Ah, Commitments you are late- no time for soundcheck, you must play!” I turned to my gang and apologised, “Sorry lads. It seems that we are indeed the Commitments. Barton has had me. Just, you know, let’s get our heads down and just do it. We sound good anyway right?” We were all at least ten years too young to have been in the Commitments film, without even accounting for the fact that we had completely different faces and weren’t from Ireland. We put our polyester suits on in a portacabin and got on the stage. I’d been told I’d have a Hammond but instead I had some comical sub-Bontempi atrocity that sounded a bit like an accordian. Richard had been given some kind of child’s kit with cymbals from a company called Spizz that sounded like velcro being pulled. Once I realised how shit the equipment was and how awful we were going to sound I just started pouring with sweat. I went to the microphone to apologise for being late, Ben was whispering to me to do an Irish accent but I couldn’t pull one off. A few people booed and then we cracked on, playing an hour of seriously below-par soul music. The audience were indifferent at best, annoyed at the worst. They didn’t clap much apart from about 6 people in the far left corner who were really dancing, whatever their night was I was trying to be a part of that and ignore the rest of this calamity.

I came off stage and furiously went up to Bruno, “You can’t just book us for a gig and call us the fucking Commitments, it’s illegal!” He shrugged and said “Eh it’s a-eetaly, nobody know here nobody care here…” His story seemed to check out, nobody seemed to care. I later found out he’s also sent a pub band from Burnley called Badger out as Status Quo the same weekend, they were playing to 20,000 people. Nobody was happy with what we’d done but then nobody was lynching us. Then he asked us if we wanted to come back the week after and do it again, twice for two grand.

And we said yes.

The following weekend was completely different, being tricked into committing a crime is awful but being asked to commit one upfront is completely different. Richard Neil and Dave Smith couldn’t make it so Nathan, Chris Lewis and Ben Goffee were drafted in. On the plane over we discussed how we needed to sound more Irish. Nobody could do Dublin but it turned out Nathan could do a passable David Trimble accent so when we got to the gigs Nathan just got on the microphone and said “Clap your fucking hands- NOI!” in a fairly decent paramilitary bastard’s voice. He even recorded a sample of it this week so that you can hear it:

That was that. He did it before every song. He did it after every song. He even did it in the middle of some songs where we were trying to spin them out for length, by getting the audience to clap their fucking hands noi. Ben joined in saying it but his accent wasn’t quite as good. He might’ve sounded a bit Indian.

Just having a catch phrase to hang the whole ugly business on completely changed the dynamic for us. We had a spring in our step. We had a great time, everybody made another 300 quid and Chris Lewis met his wife. We even ended up on telly, the full gig was broadcast on terrestrial television. The gall of us all! We were interviewed. In Italian.

When we got back to Burnley we heard that Dave Finnegan from the actual Commitments had heard what we’d been up to and he was furious.

His breath smells like dogshit though so who gives a fuck?

One More Year of Madden

It was my birthday again this week. It happens every damn year no matter what I do. We’re all decaying at exactly the same pace but when you consider yourself getting older you feel like you’ve somehow fucked the job up. I feel like I’ve been a bit reckless and now I’ve ended up being 48. In reality even if I’d been careful I’d be 48. It’s just 48 years since I appeared.

I grew up listening to and idolising all those people who died when they were 27- Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison etc etc. It’s all a bit romantic and mysterious isn’t it? I do remember turning 27 myself though and thinking “But I haven’t done anything yet!” The first Earlies album came out when I was 27 but it seemed like it was going to be a bit overly dramatic to check out within two months of its release. So I kept an eye on myself and made absolutely sure that I didn’t die. Next thing you know I was 28, it was easy really, I couldn’t afford a drug habit and I didn’t even know how to drive a car so I was barely in any jeopardy.

On my 28th birthday the Earlies did an instore, the only one we ever did in the UK. It was fittingly at Piccadilly Records in Manchester, an amazing place with devoted staff who adore the music they sell and support it in a very personal way. They’d been behind us from the very first 7” singles and we felt good to be appearing there. We took everything with us, 11 people and a van full of gear. I had my Hammond, Rhodes, clavinet and a bunch of synths all set up behind the counter. I think we did a full gig. Some footage of it turned up in this rather cheaply made video for Bring It Back Again.

You don’t need to watch that, we look pretty atrocious throughout, like a twenty-two legged car boot sale. If you want to re-live the Piccadilly Records instore though that’s the only place you can do it.

It was a good day to turn twenty eight. Billy brought me a gift, a green coloured vinyl 7”single of Wonderful. It’s somewhere in this house.

The Secret Life of Plants

I finished the podcast series on Stevie Wonder that I mentioned last week. Even though the narrator was a bit insufferable the subject matter just dragged me on. I totally came round to the guy when he said that for him Stevie’s classic period doesn’t end with Songs In the Key of Life and that it absolutely includes Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants. He had Janelle Monae on there talking about being a kid and listening to Earth’s Creation, experiencing some sense of primordial connection and imagining plants growing out of her own scalp. I’ve always liked her anyway but I could really relate to that. It might be the Stevie Wonder album I’ve listened to most of all and there’s honestly not much that you could do that’d be better on this fine Saturday.

I’ve always laid there listening to this soundtrack and imagining the film that inspired it. Stevie had them describe every scene to him in painstaking detail so that he could hit all the cues. Listen to it and you’ll be imagining your own psychedelic plant based movie.

Obviously it’s 2024 and the internet means that you don’t have to use your imagination anymore. The full film of Secret Life of Plants is on Youtube for you. I haven’t dared watch it yet because I know these delicate visuals in the corners of my memory will collapse in on themselves when the actual film replaces them. I like the film in my head a lot. You might not give a shit yourself though so here it is:

Suzanne Ciani

I couldn’t believe my luck when I ended up stuck in London on the same night that Suzanne Ciani was doing one of her improvised Buchla concerts at Union Chapel, in quadrophonic sound no less. I eagerly peered at the stage hoping to wires, wood, knobs and sliders but there was nothing there. She came onstage to announce there was some good news and some bad news. She was here but her Buchla system hadn’t made it so she was going to play one of last year’s concerts to us. I was just watching a 79 year old woman press the space bar on her Mac. I should’ve asked for my thirty quid back but then I thought “Fuck it, what difference does it make if it’s happening now or last year.” So I listened to an hour of arpeggiators and patterned white noise in quadrophonic sound in a beautiful church on my own. I enjoyed it a lot as it goes. Here’s one of her classic 70s Buchla concert. She’s a genius and she’s welcome to my 30 quid.