If you read this
with any regularity you may have noticed, perhaps with some disdain, that you
are here far more regularly than I am. I apologise. The whole point of a blog
is to be regular. 'Regularly and in small doses' writer Tony Fletcher
once advised me about blogging and it looks like I have completely ignored him.
If I have an excuse
it's not because I've been spending time with the telly. Although I was of
course glued to it last night watching the Mercurys. Benjamin Clementine,
eh?
 |
Benjamin Clementine graciously invited the other eleven nominees up onto the stage with him after the announcement that he'd won. It was a genuinely moving moment, topped only when he almost broke down honouring those affected by the atrocities in Paris. |
The attraction of
the Mercury Prize
is that it is about what is happening NOW. There is little thought for
posterity in the judges' voting which is a good thing; they
always go for what feels right precisely at the time of voting. This
accounts for Gomez beating Massive Attack or The Verve, Roni Size trouncing Radiohead
and of course famously M People triumphing over the combined muscle of Blur,
Pulp, The Prodigy and Paul Weller. If anything - and I have to confess to
preferring Clementine's cheekbones over his voice - this year's
winner pipped the others to the post because of his Parisian backstory. PJ Harvey's win in 2001 was partly because of Stories
From The City, Stories From The Sea's connection to a
grieving New York.
I was due to go to
Paris the weekend the atrocities happened. My brother had never been to
Paris and is a massive fan of Motörhead who happened to be playing at the Zenith that weekend in the
19th Arrondissement.
 |
| Motörhead went on to cancel the show despite the venue initially claiming all shows there would go ahead. |
I'd booked the tickets, Eurostar and hotel months before and we'd both been looking forward to seeing Lemmy barking out Ace Of Spades as well as doing a quick once around the beautiful city. As I travelled down to London to stay with him on Friday night, the news bulletins started coming in and by the time I arrived at his in Cricklewood, it was clear that even if we did get there, our weekend in Paris would be a very different one to the one we'd planned.
I'd booked the
tickets, Eurostar and hotel months before and we'd both been looking forward to
seeing Lemmy barking out Ace Of Spades as well as doing a quick once around
the beautiful city. As I travelled down to London to stay with him on
Friday night, the news bulletins started coming in and by the time I arrived at
his in Cricklewood, it was clear that even if we did get there, our weekend in
Paris would be a very different one to the one we'd planned.
In the end, after a
day spent watching the driving London rain whilst checking Twitter, Facebook
and BBC updates (and watching Spectre - more international terrorism, thanks),
we gave up and I travelled back home. I felt the luckiest man to be alive and
shortly to be able to see my family. The target could just as easily have been
the show we were due to attend.
Going to a gig is such a magical, freeing thing to be able to do and to know that something like that can happen in a the capital city of a country whose entire ethos is based on liberty is truly tragic. My sympathies are with anyone affected by the events.
To briefly sink to
bathos: that's another reason why the blog never happened.
Other reasons are
that I've been travelling. I went to L.A. for the first time in 20 years to
conduct interviews for a book I'm putting together on Devo. For those of you who aren't sure what I'm talking about, just
click on that link and watch the clip for their film (produced by
themselves incredibly in 1976) and you'll get a sense of just what a remarkably
odd, influential and yet always melodic group they were.
 |
| I struggled picking a photo of the band that encapsulates them because they changed their look with every album release. However this one (despite being a mirror image of the actual picture I think) does it better than most as it features not only their legendary Energy Dome hats, but also their collective facial expression, self designed clothes and also, remarkably, self designed fabric behind them. Sweating the small stuff, that's what it's all about. |
I'm not going to
band on about Devo now though, because I suspect I'll be bringing the subject
up again in the course of the next few months. Suffice to say, that both
founder members Jerry Casale
and Mark Mothersbaugh were incredibly
gracious with their time and also brilliant fun. Plus, visiting Mark in his
office/studio was a bonus because it looks like this:
 |
| This roman amphitheatre style office on Sunset Boulevard was originally built in 1967 by a plastic surgeon. Mark painted it green ostensibly to offset the gold tinted windows but really I suspect because it makes it entirely Him. |
While I was there I
also had the opportunity to do a little shopping. Blimey, there are a lot of
second hand record shops in L.A. I think I went to all of them.
 |
| I took this shot outside Gimme Gimme just after emerging with my mate Jason (who shares my vinyl addiction and knows every record shop in LA) laden with albums including Sly And The Family Stone's There's a Riot Going On ($1!) and Mandrill's first album ($15). I was jealous of this passer-by, partly because she'd found a trolley to match her top but also because I needed something to cart my booty around in. |
On the flight back I had an odd serendipitous experience: The overhead lockers on VS23 were all stuffed full of hand luggage and I was trying to add mine to it at the eleventh hour. Sat next to my window seat was a middle-aged man who looked all toothy and charming - a bit like the actor Phil Davies.
He stood and
offered to move his coat and make room.
"haven’t got
anything fragile in there have you?” he asked about the Amoeba Records
bag I was shoving in on top.
“Actually, yes,
I’ve got a couple of vinyl records ..”
His eyes lit up,
“Really? What you got?”
As I finished
loading the locker and sat down next to him I prepared myself for his deflated
reaction to the ancient obscurity in the bag.
“Well, I was in
Amoeba earlier today and I found an original copy of a record by Patrick
Fitzgerald”
“Patrick
Fitzgerald!”
I don’t usually
write the word ‘exclaimed’ but there is no better verb to describe how he
repeated the name. Fellow passengers’ heads turned. He continued, “what,
the punk troubadour? Safety Pin Stuck In Heart? Genius!”
 |
| If you want to hear what my fellow passenger got so excited about here it is |
The Virgin check-in
person had not only sat me next to the only person on the flight to have heard
of Patrick Fitzgerald but quite possibly the only person in L.A. to have hear
of him.
“What a treat to
sit next to fan of punk wave,” I replied , “Pleased to meet you, I’m Ben, “ I
said offering my hand.
He took it and gave
a toothy grin, “Kid.”
It turned out that
I was sitting next to the drummer from Clockwork Orange-clad punk chancers, The Adicts.
 |
| Kid is the fella sitting on the far right. He's actually much cooler looking than this pic gives him credit for. |
He proceeded to tell me some amazing stories about
his early life, growing up in a family where dad was the entertainment promoter
for military bases where the itinerant family lived. Kid - or Michael as he was
then known - would often wake up in the morning and discover members of The
Kinks or whoever had played the previous evening, sleeping sitting
room.
I must confess to
having been almost entirely ignorant of the band's work other than their
Alex Droog-look, but listening to the stuff on Spotify the songs are witty and
pretty powerful, kind of like early Adam And The Ants without the
whips and leather. What was genuinely inspiring to hear from Kid (still can't
quite resolve that name with my 50-something fellow passenger) is that their
longevity and popularity has earned them a real respect from fellow bands young
and old. They now headline punk festivals all over the world and
have a seriously devoted fanbase. Lemmy's a fan apparently.
Kid had been in
L.A. writing and recording new stuff with his brother Pete Dee and singer
Monkey who both live there now. Kid has remained true to the band's hometown of
Ipswich and was returning there to wife and kids. "We're still
popular because we're still the same - I mean, no offence, right (he points at
my shaven head) but we've all kept this (pointing at his own) and Monkey still
looks the same in his make up. But when I get home, I'm not Kid anymore, I'm
Michael Davison, just out walking the dogs..."
And so we sat there, two fellas of a certain ago talking about music and enjoying the inflight hospitality. Kid seemed remarkably adept at persuading the initially reluctant staff to keep us refreshed, something he put down to the 35 years of punk rock international travel he's had. It struck me that like The Adicts, Devo could in theory have gone on without pause given that their image was about costume and disguise too.
 |
| The reformed Devo in the noughties. Older, wiser.. |
And that's all pop
music is isn't it? Just dressing up and making up songs. Some artists use
their own life experiences like Benjamin Clementine, others dress up and
sing about imaginary events people or invented
worlds like Motörhead, The Adicts or Devo. Jerry from Devo was
at Kent State University when State troopers opened fire on students
protesting against the US invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam War. His
friend Allison Krause was one of those killed and he witnessed it. The trauma
part inspired Devo.
Let's hope the
events in Paris last weekend go on to inspire something positive.
