No offence...know the face, just can't.....

March 11th – Is there anything worse than being a celebrity that no one can remember? I mean, surely the whole point of doing the job in the first place was to gain a place in the minds of the public, wasn't it? To have your words of wisdom, your pearls of musical extravagance float on long after you've shuffled off this mortal coil? And I'm not talking Big Brother contestants here; ten-a-penny and about as useful to society as a bag of sparks...name me more than two... See? And I'll bet they were Shilpa Shetty and what's-her-name...? her from the tabloids....

I guess recording stuff gives one a level of immortality; films, music…that folk can still hear your voice and see your work? So, quiz for a Tuesday night. Absolutely no Googling, no pop/music catalogues, just rely on your memory and see if you can drag up ANYTHING about the following – and I’d like to say here and now, if you can draw anything from your memory…anything, then you’re 100% better at this than I am. Me?

Zilch.

Nada.

Nothing.

OK, your famous four are:

Geraldine Farrar – Born 1882/Died 1967 on this day.

Stacey Guess – Died 1998 on this day.

The Squirrel Nut Zippers – Fill in the blanks.

Edmund Sylvers – Died 2004 on this day.

Now, these four instances are what made me wonder about this whole fame thing. I mean, here are four pieces of information that were deemed important enough to make the music press and other such periodicals and yet I've never heard of them. I know, I know, who am I to demand that all musical endeavours need to be run past me before they get the seal of approval, but that’s not what I’m saying. What I am saying is that in addition to these four, there’s hundreds, nay thousands, nay, probably millions of supposedly famous bands and performers that I and millions of others know nothing about, not even people who live in the same country as the forgotten fellows, so the question has to be asked;

“What was their point?”

We know that, in many cases of artistic trial and tribulation the need for the creator to be successful (whatever that word means) is the last thing in their reasoning (so they would have us believe) but you can’t live on fresh air…well you can but you have to have food and drink, those and a certain level of warmth to go with them. So we can all agree there’s a necessity to make money from your art so that you can continue to make the art, and you can only do that by becoming well known so that folk buy your art to allow you to get food and drink and a certain level of warmth. But does that mean the meaning of your art is lost if you don’t become well known…? As you can see, I’m confused (not difficult) just as I’m puzzled by the phrase;

“I don’t do it for the money and fame; I just do it for the art.”

And that begs the question, again; “Well then, what was the point?”

I’ll report back tomorrow on the four instances above. Not that it’ll make any difference; I mean, they’re dead so any recognition from you or I is pretty useless to them now.