Arthur Brown and the Art of Getting Noticed

June 13th – There’s lots of ways to attract attention to yourself in this world; rob a bank wearing a clown’s outfit and a pair of very long shoes and still get away from the pursuing police or be the CEO of a bank and after some serious law-breaking leave with a pension that’s as big as the GDP of many a small African state (oh, sorry, I seem to have repeated myself); paint a picture of the queen…sorry, spray-paint a picture of the queen…in a very public place and then turn out to be a subject of doubtful credence when around children; turn up to collect your OBE wearing nothing but a strategically positioned halibut and false moustache…the possibilities are endless. 

In the pop/rock industry the feverish mind of the dreaded promoter has to work overtime in order to get one’s protégé’s noticed, mainly because most stunts and shock-tactics have already been used. Dress like a big girl? Bowie’s done it. Tear off the clothing of fellow group members? Fucks Bizz won a contest with it. Take the life of small mammals on stage? Step forward Mr. Osbourne. Send a number of parcels, each containing a dead rat, to the top agents in the country? The mistake Slade made. Have the audacity to go on stage sporting absolutely zero talent? There’s a queue. Set light to your head? There’s only one candidate.

Psychedelia was reaching new heights of sophistication in 1968. The Beatles had released Lady Madonna, with its subtle references to religion, mortality and the welfare state, such as it was back then. Status Quo had given us Pictures of Matchstick Men and introduced us to the stunning and sometime disturbing creations of L. S. Lowry and the world according to H. G. Wells, Donovan had recorded Hurdy Gurdy Man making folk aware of Eastern European and ethnic cleansing and Fleetwood Mac had stunned with their descriptive instrumental, Albatross, showing us all the beauty of flight, of loneliness and of longing. OK, OK, so Leapy Lee had set light to the genre with Little Arrows, and Ohio Express had pissed it out with Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, but there was a real feeling of exploration of the hidden creative arts, of self analysis and of questioning the status quo (not Status Quo, we knew what they doing, I'm on about the status quo; the way things were kept because they’d always been this way) and then, of course, there was setting light to your head.

Arthur Brown, of The Crazy World of... fame seemed to corner the market in this particular form of exhibitionism when he leapt onto the Top of the Pops stage to sing his eponymous hit, Fire. The bare chest (probably where Iggy got his idea from) the make-up (probably where KISS got their idea from) and the flaming crown (probably where…erm…any takers? No? No, probably not...) were all part of a stage persona that, I would think, has haunted him to this day…that reminds me, I can recall one of the bands I was in back around then and our jaunts into the crazy world of setting fire to things. It would seem our reputation had preceded us as to our antics concerning setting fire to cymbals and such (see earlier posts) and this meant we were headed off at the pass by the management of a dance hall somewhere in Brum and we were threatened, on pain of death, not to create a conflagration on stage. At the appointed time in the gig, we set light to just one cymbal (our nod to health and safety) then our vocalist, the lovely and late lamented Brian, grabbed the flaming disc and, like a modern-day Olympic torch-bearer, jumped off the stage and ran through the audience with it. Ultra safe, I’d say, removing the blaze from performers on stage and transporting it through reams of polyester and chiffon….excellent. I believe we were banned for life from there…fuckem’; their loss…

Sorry, off on one again.

As you can imagine, Arthur Brown, too, has had some pretty close squeaks during his time doing his number, setting fire to himself, to other people, becoming uninsurable…being kicked off the Jimi Hendrix tour…?!? Now there’s the pot calling the kettle. Kicked off a tour where the star attraction poured lighter fuel over his Fender Strat and set it ablaze…there’s rich; jealousy? Whatever, Arthur Brown continued to run the gamut of permanent disfigurement until, on this day in 1969, the band split up.

They did reform in 2000 to grace us with their presence, though my guess is the rest of the band still viewed possible death by flames as a pretty high price to pay for their pension tour.

Forget Bruce Springsteen, we're all enemies of the state

June 12th – Why does the establishment walk in such fear of the rock music genre and its proponents? I mean, it’s only rock ‘n’ roll…isn't it?
Not this shite we see each and every day (or is just that it seems that way) this shite we see each and every day on the talent (loose term) shows that are the staple of telly-on-the-cheap these days, where some twelve year old kid is singing a cover version of a song about the hardships of life (?) and kidding us that he/she has wanted to be singer all their life…yeah, all twelve long, hard years of it; yeah, right…right…OK, sorry, off on one; start again. Try and make it sensible; sorry about that last bit…

An unarmed Amadou Bailo Diallo was standing outside his flat early one morning when he was approached by four plain-clothes cops who thought he was another, completely different person who, they had been told from the covert surveillance bods, was highly dangerous. In the mother-of-all cases of mistaken ID they challenged him, he ran to his front door (they were plain-clothes remember) he ran to his front door, pulled out his wallet from his jacket and the cops shot him to death on the front porch. 19 bullets hit him. In total 41 were fired by four cops who, it can only be said, made several catastrophic decisions in the brief time of the event. You can read the rest, if you’re interested that is, in the reports of the day (February 4th 1999) ‘cos, although I've given the gist I expect you to be curious enough to read ‘em and weep; that’s not what I wanted to write about, although I expect you to follow it through to the conclusion of the trial of the four cops on the 25th February 2000. Guess what?

No, what I wanted to put down was how Bruce Springsteen was treated by the audience when he debuted his new song American Skin (41 shots) at a concert at Madison Square Garden on this day in 2000. 
The A. B. Diallo shooting was an incident that sparked off all sorts of discussions about police brutality, about poor police training, about racial profiling, about the treatment of suspects, about the dissemination of police surveillance information, about the accuracy of intelligence gathering…ringing any bells with recent news events anybody? 

Then a rock singer gets up to put his own take on it and he, Mr. Springsteen, was roundly booed by a large segment of the audience. Now, one assumes they were fans of his (that’s why they bought the ticket; no?) and so of a similar mindset. I mean, why would you buy a ticket to show given by a band that you didn't like…and they aint cheap, so…?

So; picture it. Fans of Mr. Springsteen booing him for singing a song about something they knew he would have a concern about, I mean, that’s why they buy his stuff, isn't it, to hear like-minded statements? Summat’s not kosher here, is it? Do you think, heavens to Betsy, that they could have been a plant? To find that out, of course, you’d need to be able to tap into the electronics of the watchers and get a look at the round-robin E-mails, the txts and missives that were passed around leading up to that particular night’s gig, but we can’t do that, can we? That’d be  anti-social, illegal even…wouldn't it?

You too U2?

June 11th – There’s a lot of stuff that happens in the general swing of living a life that, when I hear or find out about them, I say to myself;

“No surprises there then”.

In fact it’s often that I also think;

“Wonder why it’s took ‘em so long.”

Like when Mussolini joined forces with Hitler; tailor made for each other, I’d say, megalomaniacs in charge of a frightened and pliable populace both. Or when Blair took on Bush as his fuck-buddy; two egomaniacs under the thumb of the conglomerates. Or when Paul McCartney married whassername…her, with the leg-thing…Trevor…not Trevor; Heather! That’s it, Heather; Mills, was it? Anyway, whatever, I thought at the time, ‘Well that saves four people being miserable’.

You all know by now I'm not a Bono/U2 fan, not their fiercest champion one could say. Think his charity work awesome-but his fiscal nous sometimes questionable, his roots reflected in his work honourable but his swaggering arrogance unpleasant, his profile complete but his sincerity lacking, his understanding of how important he is watertight but his understanding of what the wee folk do in need of adjustment. Would be glad to chat it over with him at anytime so’s he can disabuse me of my thinking but, until then, my nomination for him stands; Grand Order of the Caring but Superannuated Rock-Star.

You all know by now, too, I'm not an ABBA fan, not their fiercest champion one could say. Think their production values, when one looks at when they were most active in the recording industry, were the benchmark and they still stand up to inspection now. There’s also a high level of, for want of a better word, songsmithing going on too. They remind me in some ways of Fleetwood Mac, not necessarily in the quality of their music (I don’t think ABBA is fit to walk under the same sun – pers. comm.) but certainly in the recording quality and production values and it has to be said in the documentary honesty of their life and loves too. Both bands reported personal pain and malice circling their respective liaisons dangerous with a clarity and perception that made for uncomfortable listening, but as for their kitschness and slavery to disco/dance? Sorry, would rather fill my own teeth.

So it was with some sage nodding of the head and muttering of;

“Wonder why it’s took ‘em so long”

that I read, on this day in 1992 at a U2 concert, ABBA united on stage with them to give a rendition of Dancing Queen. The perfect song for Bono to sing, I think, and the thought replayed in a slightly different vein as I considered upwards of 20,000 people being miserable…or at least they would be when they sobered up in the morning and realised what it was they were screaming and yelling for.

Tamla Motown - You could get arrested for that.

June 10th – Are there many Soul lovers out there? That reads like an advert for Beelzebubbians to come calling so, to rephrase; are there many Tamla Motown (TM) lovers out there?

I was never a devotee, never really got it. I was too much into the psychedelic music scene; Hendrix had captured me heart and vitals. I think the difficulty I had with Soul was that it seemed to be too much about the performer and not about the music. That seems a bit of a foolish statement (this is me writing this stuff, y’know, so foolish is a given) for if Jimi Hendrix or Black Sabbath or, heaven forbid, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown can't be classed as showmen then the word doesn't exist; Arthur Brown…now there’s a suitable case for treatment. 

Some of the TM singles, I guess, can be given the moniker of classic. Singles like, Hold On (I’m Comin’) by Sam and Dave or Knock On Wood by Eddie Floyd; great dance tunes that have stood the test of time. I don’t, however, put Try A Little Tenderness by Otis Redding or My Girl by The Temptations…or anything by Gino Washington and the Ram-Jam Band...into that bracket. No, thank you; way, way, way too much Soul for me, I'm afraid. 

I used to go to a pub/club called The Wilson’s Arms...in Knowle, I think it was… I can remember it was where I first discovered the effect of UV light on a mouth full of capped teeth; not a pretty sight…where the whole night of dancing was filled to the gunnels with Tamla… Hundreds of what seemed like thousands of bodies’ were boogieing the night away to Sam and Dave or The Four Tops or The Supremes as I stood on the periphery of the dance floor saying to myself;

“Look at ‘em. Don’t know good music from bad…if they’d play summat decent, I’d go and ask that lass, the one dancing round her green handbag with her two mates, I’d go and ask her for dance…if they’d play summat decent”,

knowing all the time that the possibility of this DJ playing anything even approaching what I’d class as decent music was as rare as rocking-horse poo, and that also removed the almost certain outcome of me being embarrassed by a refusal, so a lose-lose situation really.

The other thing about Tamla stuff was that it spawned a whole new set of dance moves. Dance moves perpetuated and refined by the various groups of the time, all twisting, turning and clapping in unison as if they were con-joined marionettes. As an addition to this, I also think they did a disservice to their ilk and provided the world with a stereotype they’re still hauling around after all this time, but that’s for another discussion and needs to be done face-to-face. This meta-movement black-extravaganza meant I was never quite at home on the dance floor as I was with rock ‘n’ roll or jiving. For me, I’d happily have melted all those records down and turned them into vases.

However, I have to say that when Eddie Kendricks of The Temptations was arrested by the cops, on this day in 1991for non-payment of child support, that it was taking a dislike of Tamla Motown and soul music general a little too far; the arrest took place at the funeral of fellow Temptations star David Ruffin (was he Jimmy’s brother?).

Lisa Lopes - Not the person to take shoe-shopping

June 9th – It was the events that followed the burning of the tennis shoe by Lisa ‘Left-Eye’ Lopes that stirred the embers of my crassness into a raging inferno. I know we've all probably done it or know someone who has. It’s those stop digging moments in your life where a simple demonstration of just how pissed off you are with someone or how in love with them you are, or how you just wanted to help effort spirals off into farce and fantasy. You feel unable to do anything else other than help it along to its final crashing, excruciating, squirmingly embarrassing conclusion. Can you recall one of yours…or worse, more than one? OK, here’s my starter for 10.

Meeting people and selling my books is one of my chief delights. I find chatting to people interesting, stimulating and often surprising. Courage, brilliance and bravery wear the strangest overcoats and that’s really the stock-in trade of the stories that I write, those tales that form the backbone of Ladies of the Shire and The Quarry of ordinary people living extraordinary lives. So, I meet people and whether they buy a book or not are secondary to having the opportunity to meet them and chat.  Cut to a working horse yard where the book Ladies… was on sale to the visitors it attracts. It’s a sunny day and these visitors are roaming in to look at the various working horses on the farm and I'm on hand on this particular day (unusually) to sign books and chat.

A late middle-aged man and an early twenties woman come into the vestibule that leads into the stable yard and, having looked around at the various horsey stuff on display and for sale, opt to buy a copy of Ladies… I get the call and come into to do the deed and, as I take the book off him, I open up with the spiel.

Me. “Thank you. Who shall I dedicate it to?”

Woman. “Me, please. Michelle.”

Me. “Right. Michelle. Two ‘l’s?”

Woman. “Yes.”

Me. “Right.” I begin to sign. “Are you down here on holiday?”

Woman. “Yes. We used to come down this way a couple of years ago. We had a break and have just started visiting again.”

Me. “What do you? For a living I mean.”

Woman. “I'm a teacher. I've just started, after getting my PGCE.” She indicates the man. “We both teach.”

Me. (to man) “You didn't think enough of your daughter to tell her to keep well clear then?” To woman as I finish my signature with flourish. “He obviously doesn't love you enough!”

Silence.

More silence.

Man. “She’s my wife.”

Me. “Oh…really! But... I mean, not that...no... Sorry, I just thought, you know, with the age difference… not that it’s that noticeable, just…”  There’s a pause as I frantically try to think of something to say to rescue the situation. “Did you get together in school?” was all I came up with.

This is what came to mind when reading the Lisa Lopes tale. That some people, oftentimes the lady in the partnership, don’t know how to draw a line and move on from a disagreement; my above verbal conflagration compared to Lisa Lopes physical one. 
On this day in 1994 after a fight with her boyfriend and NFL star, Andre Rison, Lisa doused Rison's tennis shoes with lighter fluid and set them on fire in their bathtub. The fire quickly melted the Plexiglas tub and caught onto the frame of the family home. Rison's mansion was burned to the ground and Lopes was charged with first degree arson, sentenced to five years probation and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. Sorry really does seem to be the hardest word.

Star Wars - What passes as a joke in space.

June 8th – How to cut down your FaceBook friends by half in one fell swoop.
If you type it into Google, what gets 708,000,000 results?

Nope, not Debbie Does Dallas (11,400,000)…or Jesus (it gets more results – 806,000,000 – but only just)…or Porn, that’s just stupid, of course it’s gonna get more results (1,520,000,000 to be precise) but only a monk would have trouble figuring that out.

So, back to the original.

What runs Jesus a close race and beats Debbie Does Dallas hand over fist…? That reads all wrong but you know what I meant.

I have to say, in all honesty, I never jumped on the franchise bandwagon that became Star Wars (I hear the snapping shut of laptops countrywide). It passed me by and I have to say, I'm not sorry; here’s just two reasons why.

Reason 1) the level of humour that surrounds those in the know about the minutiae of both character and plot (there’s a plot?) is insipid to the point of anti-panto. I offer you:

Q. Why is Han Solo a loner? 

A: Because he’s solo (why would you put the punch line answer in the question then expect to get a laugh?

Or:
Q. Why did the crazy Angrallian Toobir cross the nebula? 

A: To get to the other dementia (I don’t only not understand the punch-line, I don’t understand the question).

Or:
Q. Why did the Ewok fall out of the tree? 

A: Because he was dead… (Isn't the point of a joke to be funny?) 
I could go on but I’ll not as I feel the above death of comedy is sufficient slaughter for one session.

Reason 2) IMHO the attention span and social skills of avid devotee’s verges on the Cro-Magnon. How have I come to this seeming, sweeping understanding?

When I was Production Managing a show in a large city not unlike Swansea (I’d rather not divulge the name of the place in order to protect the innocent) I had to go see some council bods about various permissions to use various spaces for various rehearsals. After jumping through the usual hoops set up by job’s-worth’s’ in order for them to avoid even the appearance of actually doing something with impunity or  becoming responsible for making a decision, I was finally directed to an office that contained three men (I use that last word in its widest possible sense) in the company of my Stage Manager; if she’s reading this she’ll already have her head in her hands. We stood in front of them, these three Droogs, for around three or four minutes before they accepted that there was indeed someone else in the room besides them and that they’d better say something before we expired from lack of food, water or tolerance.

One raised its head and said, in a voice that held all the welcome and encouragement of a dead ferret;

“Yes, can I help?”

And we were immediately aware that helping us was the last thing on his mind.

I mentioned the name of the person we’d been sent to see and they, all three, exchanged glances before deciding that they would have to identify the named person as, with only three of them in the room it wouldn't be much of a game of ‘identify the tosser’. The person bearing the correct name was, indeed the person sitting at the desk in front of us and we should have clicked that he was the boss because there on his desk were a series of Star Wars figurines, five in all, which he constantly touched, fondled and moved around. He was in possession of three more figurines than his compatriots either side of him; there were obviously perks attached to his position. Suffice to say we came out of that office, the Stage Manager and I, after forty minutes complete with their one-syllable answers; no decision made, no offer of support and no future possibility of there being any…ever…no avenue to pursue in order to gain further insight or knowledge that brought making a decision any closer and a realisation that we'd been in the company of three people (sub-species) who had a level of personal contact that would have stiff competition from a wilted lettuce and a love affair with a film franchise that challenges the understanding of ‘a joke’. I reaffirm my earlier assessment:-

Q. Why should you never tell jokes on the Falcon? 

A: The ship might crack up.

Oh, there’s more where that came from.

So it was with some surprise I found something about Star Wars that actually made me laugh, not loudly, a sort of snicker, but still, for a dyed-in-the-wool miserable bastard like me it wasn't bad.

On this day in 2004 the band called Bad Religion released their 13th full-length album and it was called? The Empire Strikes First. Now that’s almost funny…huh? Geddit? No? Oh, OK, how about;

Q. Why do vornksrs stop slowly? 

A: They’re afraid of whiplash.

Or:

Q. Why did Yoda cross the road? 

A: Because the chickens forced him to.

Or: 

Q. What do Star Destroyers wear to parties? 

A: A bow TIE

Laugh? I almost cut my own throat.

Alice Cooper meets Jane's Addiction...and me

June 7th – Don’t you find that in the most unexpected places a gem often lurks?
In past rock bands I've known of and done covers of some of Alice Cooper’s back catalogue. Never been much of fan, but was aware of his influence from the time when Frank Zappa, on walking past the theatre where Mr. Cooper was performing saw the audience leaving with the show only a half-hour in with the words

“That’s gross!”

forming most of their critique.

‘Gotta go see this!’

He said.

He did, got on their case, promoted them and the rest is herstory all leading to the present state of affairs; a snake-loving mascara-ed golfing fanatic who does occasional rock concerts.

Desert Island Discs has cropped up here before (and yes, I will list mine at some point) and it’s still required listening for me if I'm in the car of a Sunday morning. Sometimes bad (mathematicians, nuclear scientists, top surgeons) sometimes good (risqué actors, high-class madams, 60’s photographers) one of the guests, our friend Mr. Cooper proved to have, against my jaundiced expectations, an interesting back-story and a level of musical nous that was refreshingly honest…and he was the guy who first drew my attention to Jane’s Addiction, one of whom, Dave Navarro, was born on this day in 1967. 

There’s a truncated version of the DID remit that I play (I was a lonely child) where I pick my favourite openings of a track; just the opening, the hook that snatches you up and locks you away for the duration of the recording. When Mr. Cooper was on DID he named a Jane’s Addiction track, Been Caught Stealin’ as one of his eight, citing the fact that it stopped him driving when he first heard it. I listened to the snippet and thought;

‘Want to know a bit more ‘bout these guys’.

I made enquiries and stumbled on Just Because off their Strays album which immediately entered my top 20 of the best openings. I've listed them below in no particular order, not because you’ll all agree with my selection but because you won’t. Enjoy.

1) Just Because – Jane’s Addiction – If you play this and don’t know why I chose it you’re in the wrong arena.

2) Sin City – AC/DC – What’s not to like? 

3) One Night Stand – The Aloof – Filmic in the extreme, the vast air of the opening soon segues into a real palette of sound and vision. Just excellent from the get-go.

4) Blackbird – Alter Bridge – There’s something menacingly restrained about the opening that keeps you on the edge, as if the horses are about to bolt. When they do, the vocals and detuned guitar keep the carriage rolling…and such a great lead break for the journey.

5) John Lennon’s Guitar – Barclay James Harvest – Those swelling, verging on religious chords give way to a simple chanting playout; very flower-power and Beatles-esque. Clever lyrics and an excellent true story.

6) Caoineadh Cu Chulainn (Lament) – Bill Whelan (writer) – Riverdance – This is the one that you can play at my funeral. You’ll see my soul soar.

7) Hearts Burst Into Fire – Bullet For My Valentine – Faultless both in promise and delivery.

8) Say Goodbye to it All – Chris de Burgh – I know, I know, “What, the ‘Lady in Red’ guy? Are you serious!?’ Still think it’s an excellent track from start to finish…and I bet you can’t resist joining in with the harmonies…betcha!

9) Get Your Hands off My Woman – Darkness – The opening that’s like the first shove you get as you begin your tin-tray ride down the ski slope, and its not often you find the word ‘Motherfucker’ in a song by whitey.

10) Puttin’’ On The Ritz – Fred Astaire – Such a great dance tune opening; even if you can’t you want to.

11) American Idiot – Green Day – I rest my case.

12) Money to Burn – Gun – Great restraint and tension sliding into a quality piece of song writing.

13) Late Night Walks – Just Like Pictures – Such an excellent build full of clever tricks and delivered promises.

14) Dead Cell – Papa Roach – An opening that tells no lies, leaves no promise unfulfilled; you know exactly what you’re going to get.

15) The Lark Ascending – Ralph Vaughan Williams – No room for manoeuvre, it just picks you up and takes you away from the first note.

16) I Wanna Go Where the People Go – The Wildhearts – Got it all, and the machine-gun entry into the first verse is epic.

17) God Only Knows – Beachboys – 1966 f’r Chrissakes! Clever, clever teaser to an unexpected, multi-layered closing section.

18) Speed of Light - Joe Satriani - Just makes me want to pick up a set of sticks and play.

19) Our Kate/The Welcome Home - Kathryn Tickell - A looking-glass opening through which the listener's landscape of childhood, love and loss is laid out all leading to the happy days when you could skip and not fall.

20) Puttin' on the Ritz - Fred Astaire - If you don't want to dance by the second bar you're probably dead.

Now, go find your own.