Stagecraft

Sooner or later when we’re sending messages back and forth, Jimi Goodwin will recall the time that I crossed a line of decency. This sentence, from a largely complimentary exchange we had a couple of years, is the perfect example:

“…However…I still have some incredulity and wry rueful feelings about the time you ate a packet of prawn cocktail crisps during a gig so don’t get too carried away.”

I remember it too, it was in Belfast and I must’ve been a couple of drinks along because I do remember playing the theme from Cheers at one point too, accompanying a joyously rowdy Irish crowd. I don’t know why I started eating crisps, they were just there. That might seem odd but I’ll fill you in a little, Cromi who is the Doves main backline tech does tend to leave snacks about the place. Here’s my keyboard set up from last year’s UK tour:

You can clearly see a selection a sweets and a small nodding dog. The latter is another story, Cromi does tend to go out in the afternoon scouring new cities for second hand toys but let’s stay on food for now. I’ll eat all those fruit pastilles and Fox’s glacier mints without even stopping to think, I am a plague that consumes all around me. I reckon Cromi left some crisps around my keyboard, it’s in character. Jimi started talking to the audience between songs and I just started absentmindedly eating some crisps that were lying around. I only realised it was improper behaviour when Jimi stopped what he was doing and said “I’m sorry, are you eating prawn cocktail crisps?”

I didn’t mean to end up in the lineage of stage eating but here I am. Nobody really did it better than Rick Wakeman with his full curry order being delivered to the top of the organ. I’m always way back in his slipstream doing a shitter version of whatever we’re talking about. He wore capes, I once self-consciously sported a child sized magician’s cloak. He ordered a chicken vindaloo and trappings, I ate a bag of Walkers. I think the whole story of his Topographic curry is an exaggeration like, he tells finely honed tales. Fair play to him.

I didn’t have much of an opinion on eating on stage, I couldn’t really understand why Jimi had been so aggrieved by my snacking, but it all changed when I was confronted by Chris Farlowe. Farlowe is famous to all fans of Joe Madden’s incredible Uptown Band as he recorded Out of Time and topped the charts with it in 1966. Every gig he would ask the audience “Does anybody know what was number one when England won the World Cup?” For decades I sat behind him and listened, nobody ever seemed to know either, regardless of how old they were. I’ve googled it now though, checked a few websites, checked Wikipedia’s list of top ten singles for 1966. It checks out, Out of Time was at number one for that week and that week alone. Imagine if he’d been wrong, banging on about it all these years? I’d have kept it to myself, he’s not big on “the internet.”

After his one hit wonder with backing band the Thunderbirds, Chris Farlowe joined a couple of major 70s bands for their back end albums. He joined Colosseum for Daughter of Time and he joined Atomic Rooster for both Made In England and Nice ‘n’ Greasy. He’s a good singer and I’m not here to argue against that, but this clip of him wolfing down a ham sandwich the minute it’s time for Vincent Crane’s organ solo is sordid enough to condemn stage eaters in perpetuity.

Sorry Jimi, never again.

Defiance

It’s thirty years since the BRIT awards show where Michael Jackson performed and Jarvis Cocker was moved to stand up and make a bizarre and never since seen gesture which sort of featured his arse. I get it too, he was clearly moved to act and hadn’t fully planned his moves out. It was spontaneous. I can be spontaneous myself but it’s often detrimental, I’d have probably bared my arse and ended up on genuine criminal charges for public indecency. I enjoyed watching this little compilation of news stories from the aftermath, what drama!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the whole affair in Bob Mortimer’s autobiography the other year. Bob was drafted in by Jarvis’ friends due to his legal expertise, he went to see Jarvis in a room where he’d been detained by Jacko’s “goons.” Imagine the shoe on the other foot, a British act playing in America and their security team apprehending an American. Imagine them detaining Michael Jackson! You can’t can you, it wouldn’t happen. Michael Jackson and his people tried claiming that Jarvis had harmed some of the children which was a bit fucking rich coming from their camp at that time. He was exonerated by the unlikeliest celebrity benefactor, David Bowie’s camera team had been filming so had all the up close footage needed to prove Jarvis hadn’t “bothered” any kids. Basically Michael Jackson and his whole camp were annoyed at somebody behaving in an unpredictable nature while the spotlight was theirs. Jarvis was forced to act because, noncery and messianic bullshit aside, Jackson was guilty of that most criminally un-British of behaviours- he was taking himself far too seriously.

Watching the BRIT awards in 1996 I thought it looked like the centre of the musical universe, all the biggest stars and most interesting people behind closed doors together having the most amazing party. If I could’ve told myself that in 2022 I’d be in that very room I’d have probably responded with “What? I’ll get to the BRITS when I’m forty five?” Fair point younger me, I’d have had to tell him “Yes, you’ll be there when you’re a forty-five year old father of two. You’ll be playing behind a forty-nine year old and other than him and the small group of friends gathered around you on stage you won’t have a clue who anybody in the building is. Not the presenters, not the celebrities sitting near the front and certainly not the other acts. They will all be to do with something called Tiktok and you’ll feel confused. You’ll leave as soon as your job is done and go to sit drinking in a hotel bar with Drew.” You can’t talk to your 19 year old self though and it’s just as well, I’d be putting him off the whole damn game.

All that said I watched this the other day and I think it looked and sounded pretty great. There are laser beams everywhere and we all know laser beams are the business. Plus I’ve always loved the fact that after going to the trouble of pre-filming a dramatic helicopter entrance Liam stuck two fingers up at continuity and common sense by walking on in a previously unseen hat.

I’m going back in there next week too, though this time it’s through Kate’s work rather than my own. Presumably I’ll be even more confused than last time but it least this time it’s in the North, where everything is brilliant.

Mahna Mahna

This song has become so synonymous with the Muppets that it’s difficult to imagine it had a life beforehand but it did, Mahna Mahna was originally seen in Sweden Heaven and Hell. Everyone seems to describe it as a softcore documentary, often with “documentary” in inverted commas. It’s testament to Jim Henson’s always working, always creative brain, that whilst he was watching a load of Swedish lasses strip down to their bikinis and pile into a sauna together he thought, “That tune’s a cracker, I’ve got an idea for that…”

Premier League Modulations

If you’re not a musician you might find this podcast a bit like swimming through old porridge, the hosts aren’t entirely likeable but Larry Goldings is one of the greatest musicians alive and a very funny man to boot so it’s worth a crack. If you can’t be arsed I’ll tell you, they’re talking about modulations, key changes in pop music. In the freely available part they talk about Paul Simon’s Still Crazy After All These Years and Chicago’s You’re The Inspiration. Everyone knows Paul Simon’s a genius but it was refreshing to watch people bowled over by the effortless elegance with which Peter Cetera’s seemingly innocuous soft rock ballad soars through multiple keys. I’m going to drop Chicago’s goofy original video here so you can pile in and listen to this compositional masterpiece. Whilst you're listening you might as well enjoy what a set of ballbags they look at the same time. Rough with the smooth and all that.

Genuine Yorkshire

If you’re looking at all the hype around Emerald Fennell’s new “Wuthering Heights” and wondering to yourself “was the original so steamy, so lusty, so recklessly sexual?” than let me pose another counter question to you: Would Cliff Richard have gone anywhere near it if it was? Mike sent me this small compilation of clips from Cliff’s 1996 musical adaptation Heathcliff and I nearly choked on my chip butty. His Yorkshire accent, good lord! I can’t stop watching this, I think I’d pay good money for the whole damn thing too.