I wasn't sure about whether or not I wanted to actually hear Morrissey choosing his
Desert Island Discs this morning but I was glad I did.
At least he resisted the temptation to impress us with very esoteric or ironic choices. I suppose Morrissey long ago stopped worrying about impressing people although it was good to hear him say he would be 'beaming' if Radio 2 played his new record. He sounded as uncomfortable in the presence of Kirsty Young as you would imagine, expect and hope him to be and his answers were sometimes very short, although I suspect there's some industrial strength editing going on every week on that show to make the answers sound 'snappy'.
He chose the New York Dolls 'Showdown' and the Velvet Underground's 'The Black Angels Death Song' and said he loves his bed.
That's possibly not the greatest summary of the programme, so you'd better listen to it yourself. I never met Morrissey but I do think he's a top man. I remember about fifteen years ago his name was mentioned in the same paragraph as The Undertones in the NME. Normally that would be something I would be proud of but not on that occasion. It was about ten years after we had split up, and suddenly we were offered what to us was a very large and tempting sum of money to reform for a few shows.
Our singer Feargal said 'no' much to the relief of our guitar player and songwriter John who had said 'yes' but kind of regretted it because even though he would have liked the money he didn't like the idea of performing with the singer. (We did reform a few years later without Feargal which made everyone happier all round). Anyway. The rest of the band thought that was the end of the idea of doing those shows. All except our drummer Billy. He had the idea that, if Feargal wasn't going to do it, he'd ask someone else. He'd ask Morrissey. Not that he knew him or anything like that. He simply rang his record company at the time, EMI, and asked if Morrissey would be interested in singing with The Undertones for some live shows. I only knew about it when I read it in the NME. I thought it was so mad it was brilliant. Obviously Morrissey , or his manager, or the receptionist , or a passing builder, said 'No'. And that was the end of it.
I told Billy afterwards that he should have asked EMI if Cliff Richard was busy.
I have a confession to make about Shane MacGowan. I haven't signed up to the "MacGowan Is A Genius" newsletter yet and don't think I ever will. Didn't get the Pogues, apart from the obvious Christmas record and , well, that's it. I haven't tried very hard to listen to them so it's definitely a case of 'It's not you, it's me'.
But I do like his Nips/Nipple Erectors incarnations, especially the first record tonight. 'All The Time In The World' sounds like a beat boom classic, like 'Leaving Here' as done by the Who.
Apart from that there's Missouri's finest, The Trend and half a performance by Steppes. You have to love a record called 'God's Got Religion' even if half of it is spoiled by the guitar player who obviously sneaked back into the studio when the rest of the band had finished for the day and overdubbed an awful guitar solo that's almost a parody of poodlerock.
Tonight's specials ........
The Nips - All The Time In The World
Ian Dury - My Old Man
The Trend - Girl On TVÂ
The Beat - Sole Salvation
Destroy All Monsters - 22 November 1963
X Ray Spex - Identity
Outcasts - Love You For Never
Delta 5 - Colour
Madness - Bed And Breakfast Man
Rezillos - It Gets Me
Electric Eels - Spin Age Blasters Â
The Scientists - Last Night
Steppes - God's Got Religion
Soup Dragons - I Know Everything
Sex Pistols - I Wanna Be Me
I don't think there's anything special about a 33rd anniversary (why not ? is it somehow less of a number than 25 ?) but this Thursday marks thirty three years since the release of 'Anarchy In The UK' by the Sex Pistols. I know there have been doctorates based on that record and somewhere in the Channel Four warehouse there's probably a whole hour's worth of comedians, reality tv show veterans and former NME writers giving their thoughts on the significance of the event, but can I just direct you to a of the band miming to it in an anonymous studio somewhere in London ? In 1976 music videos were fairly basic for bands on EMI who weren't Queen but the Sex Pistols didn't need trick photography. They had Johnny Rotten , who in this incarnation was a cross between the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz who needs to go to the toilet reaally badly and Oor Wullie from the Sunday Post . They also had the great idea of putting the drummer, Paul Cook, in front of the rest of the band. Why this is such a great idea, I don't know, but it means that the camera catches the drummer trying not to laugh as clearly as it picks up the guitar player Steve Jones and bass player Glen Matlock in their own contest to see who could throw the rockingest of shapes. I think Steve Jones just about shades it , especially when he drops his plectrum and picks it up as coolly as picking up a fag butt in the street.
The shock of the single may have disappeared over the decades but look at it not as an excuse to kick in your colour tv in protest, but as an appreciation of the other 'four lads who shook the world'.Â
I came away from the Ian Dury biopic , ,
finding that , nine years after his death, I'm not sure if I like Ian
Dury. I still like the records, but it turns out he wasn't that nice a
man. Self centred and not a good father were two of the impressions I
got at the screening
last night. The film itself is great, from the opening titles, designed
by Peter 'I only got £200 for Sgt Pepper" Blake to the performance of
Andy Serkis as the adult Ian. I would use the term 'impressionistic' to
describe the film but I'm not sure what that means and I've already
used 'impression' two sentences ago. It's not a straight run through
the man's life, is what I mean. Flashbacks, animation, scenes which are
set on a theatre stage, all combine to paint a picture of the man who
gave us Billericay Dickie, Clever Trevor and the razor blade as an
earring. There's one scene, slightly clunky to my ears but let's give
it the benefit of the doubt and say it actually happened, where Dury is
listening to the radio where someone's talking about the Sex Pistols
and the Grundy incident. 'Johnny Rotten's nicked my razor blade idea'
was the gist of the comment from Ian.
I can see no sign of when the film will be more widely available - I
think the Foyle Film Festival got a (very) advance copy but see it if
you ever get the chance. One more thing - I've said Andy Serkis does a
great job, a brilliant job, in fact, but he's also the one to hire if
there's ever a film to be made about Charlie Harper from the UK Subs.
He was the spitting image of him, during the scenes set when Ian Dury
grew out the shaven head and let his locks go luscious. Keep that curly
wig handy, Andy.
The man responsible for (fictional) murders in Ramelton and Camden Town was in Derry last week, telling us stories about Ray Davies, Jackson Browne and The Buzzcocks. is a music agent and a crime writer, two separate careers squeezed into one working day. On the face of it, agents and authors have little in common, apart from being on the same page of "The A to Z of Careers", although I'm sure the ability
to spin a yarn comes in handy when faced with a reluctant promoter and
an unknown band. He was in the Central Library for a book reading and a
Q&A session, with me having the task of interviewing him on account
of my sister works in the library and is older than me and I know
what's good for me. To be honest, she only asked because I know Paul
for longer than he or I care to remember, as The Undertones were
represented by his Asgard Agency from our first tour in 1978 until we
broke up in 1983.
Paul's own career started at the age of fifteen
when he managed his schoolfriends' band 'Blues By Five' in Magherafelt.
His office was the local phone box (that was the number on his business
card) and he told us how someone would always call up to his house with
a message when a promoter was looking for the band. He would run down
to take the call, apart from those occasions when his mother wouldn't
let him out until he finished his tea.
As well as the modus operandi of his detectives , Christy Kennedy and Inspector Starrett, I also asked him about his
relationship with Van Morrison, who Paul has represented over the years
and who he seems to get on well with.
What do you talk to Van about ? Irish music, it seems, as well as other folk artists that Van likes - and as long as you
steer clear of asking about Astral Weeks you'll be fine.
Paul made another
interesting point about artists of that generation , like Van
and Ray Davies. They seem to have never lost that early discipline
about the live show - being punctual on stage, looking the part, and
giving all in the performance. For an old punk rocker like me , it was
interesting to learn that sometimes showbusiness isn't such a dirty
word.
The  starts next Friday and once again I have a growing list of films that I am definitely going to see. I make this list every year and end up being lucky to see one. Luck has nothing to do with it , of course. Its a scheduling matter. Work, family, amnesia. Trying to fit films into that combination defeats me every year. But I will definitely go to the new biopic of Ian Dury. (How do you pronounce biopic , by the way ? Bio-pic or bi-opic ? When I learn the correct pronounciation I may use it in conversation. Until then its confined to paper.) I know little about the film which is inevitably titled Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, the phrase which Dury came up with for his first solo single in 1977. I saw him in Derry in 1978 just as 'Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick' was going to number one. It was St Columbs Hall, an old temperance hall owned by the Catholic Church. I'm sure Ian would have thought it the ideal place to hear someone singing 'Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll'. I used to think the hall had a sloping stage but Ian managed to negotiate it quite easily for a man still limping from childhood polio. Derry hasn't been lucky over the years in bands appearing here just as they reach their artistic heights. It was that night and I was lucky to be there.
It really is a pleasure to hear the Buzzcocks on the
show tonight, especially from their first LP. Another Music In A Different Kitchen. What a title! Haven't a baldy notion what it means but it's impressive even thirty odd years later. What I didn't know was that , technically speaking, they're not a Manchester band as I had always believed. They were actually formed at Bolton Institute by Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley , who returned to the Institute (now the University) this summer for in the company of Gary Neville.
Genuine Manchester band The Smiths also feature tonight, with a nod in the direction of the bottle thrower. Just a nod , mind you. Until recently I'd never heard of the Jangletties or the Psychotic Turnbuckles or The Rosemount Trees but they have records on the show. Well, to tell the truth, one of those three is imaginary. You would think there'd be a prize for guessing which one but my terms and conditions are just so unreasonable. You'd be as well to listen to the show.
I once met Duran Duran bass player John Taylor and, being a bass player myself, I realised we had nothing in common. It was at a club in London in 1984 during a period of my life when I forgot that I hate clubs in London. Our respective bands once appeared on the same edition of Top Of The Pops, just as Duran's star was on the rise, and ours was rapidly falling back to Derry. Standing beside them in the same studio, we felt like the younger brothers of Harold Steptoe who had strayed from around the corner in Shepherds Bush.
But I read a John gave in Los Angeles recently that summed up a lot of what I feel about the over abundance of music today. There's too much of it too readily available and he illustrated his point by talking about the first time he saw Roxy Music on TV in 1972. Three minutes of them, performing Virginia Plain, and when it was over, it was over. No video recorder, no YouTube clip, no download to a phone. The flash of brilliance was made brighter by not having it in your possession. It took an hour or so of cycling round the shops to even find a copy of the single, so that he could listen to it again. If he saw the equivalent today he would be reading every utterance of the band, watching every performance online, reading every tweet. He makes some very interesting points about the effect of all that on the creativity of today's impressionable minds. It's worth a look.
Still doesn't excuse him for Hungry Like The Wolf, of course.
The best photo of the week so far is that of the plastic bottle as it hit the side of the head onstage in Liverpool. At least, I thought I saw it today but when I went to look for it again, it was gone. There's still some mobile phone footage of the bottle (beer, according to the announcement ending the show) on the internet, along with many comments about whether he was right to stop the show after only two songs. It's not pleasant being at the receiving end of an object aimed at your skull, although sometimes there's an upside.
In 1980 The Undertones played at a club in Washington DC, in a show which was up to our usual high standard of punk rockin' party hits. But towards the end, while we were coming back for an encore, someone threw coins on to the stage. Not being historians of American showbusiness traditions, we didn't know whether this was because the crowd didn't like our songs or because someone wanted us to phone them. We gathered up the coins, with such excitement and gratitude that we started pushing each other out of the way to get them. This led to us openly encouraging more currency to be thrown. Not quite Chuck Berry wanting cash in hand before an encore, but not far off it. We ended up with several dollars in small change, dirty hands from scrabbling in the dust and a reputation in Washington as poverty stricken refugees from the war torn streets of Northern Ireland. Maybe that's why we never broke America.
