My Exciting Life In ROCK (part 1): 24/4/00 - The Star & Garter, Manchester

< previous

next>

The first thing I ever had released as a Solo Artiste was on Fortuna Pop records and so for several years afterwards I got counted as one of their ARTISTES, despite the fact that every time I spoke to Sean Fortuna Pop about putting something else out he'd get a dreamy kind of look in his eyes and either have to go somewhere else very quickly or would become poorly. Maybe the excitement of the idea was too much for him?

Anyway, this association occasionally led me to getting booked with other bands on the label, one such being The Butterflies Of Love. The Butterflies Of Love - or The ButtLove, for a) short b) never ending hilarity - are an American Band who were forever coming over and touring the UK. You might think it's a long way to go for a gig but LOADS of American bands do it for one very good reason: no matter how much we'd like to claim otherwise, the British Indie Kids absolutely LOVE Americans. We'll be as surly as you LIKE, cursing George Bush and sneering at New York's claims to have originated Punk (THEY DIDN'T), but the very instant we hear an American Accent we are like so many Wartime housewives, waving our pinnies at them in the hope of getting some nylons.

And so it was with The Buttlove - they needn't really have bothered to learn any songs, all they had to do was say "Why... hello there" like some kind of TWEE PRIVATE EYE and every heart was a flutter, every mind EAGER to hang around outside the gig afterwards to see if they'd bought any bubble gum, comics or BANANAS over for us. GEE WHILLACKERS we sure dug them yanks!

This time they were touring the country with the marvellous band The Chemistry Experiment, back in the days when they were an Indie Band rather than the PROG JAZZ Collective they've since morphed into - I don't know why I'm always so surprised about that happening, it's not like Lee (FLAUTIST) was INVISIBLE, and I even helped CARRY the glockenspiel a few times. Anyway, the pull of these two acts together was too much for me to miss, so I went to SEVERAL gigs they were playing and managed to get myself booked on for the Manchester leg.

For some reason I was booked SPECIFICALLY as a solo act - maybe Sean had been talking to Half Man Half Biscuit fans? - and it was my first one in a long old time. I practiced a LOT and even learnt up "Seymour Stein" by Belle & Sebastian especially for the occasion, which seemed to go down OK. The whole gig was actually quite pleasant - I sat down (as I rather foolishly DID for solo gigs at that time) and sang and had a lovely chat with the audience. It was DELIGHTFUL.

SO delightful in fact that I didn't want to leave. I trudged off sorrowfully to the station, only to find that I'd missed the last train home... well, actually, that's NOT what happened, that's just what I told everybody. Yes, the TRUTH can now be told - I told a BIG FIB just so I could stay and watch the gig and CADGE a lift home! YEARS of hiding the TRUTH at last are ended - I stood on the platform MISERABLE, thinking "But I wanted to stay! that was brilliant!" Very slowly my Naughty Brain (as opposed to my Well-Behaved one) whispered "Just go back! What's the worse that can happen? GO BACK!" and as I did so I felt a RUSH of JOY. The further I got from the station and the less the chance I'd have of changing my mind, the MORE excited I got, so much so that I had to stand around outside the pub trying to calm down so I could re-enter looking suitable UPSET and ANNOYED about missing the train.

I was glad to be back, as the building was FULL of lovely people, and also MJ HIBBERT. I was stood around watching a band when a SCARY geezer came over and said "ARE YOU MJ Hibbett? HERE! LOOK at THIS!" and he THRUST his bank card at me. "Hello MJ Hibbert!" I said. "Hello MJ Hibbett!" he replied, and we EMBRACED. He'd kept seeing the poster for this gig around town saying HE was playing (my name is CONSTANTLY getting misspelt, and Hibbert is far and away the most popular version) so he'd thought he'd best come along and have a look. I wondered, at the time, why so many people were looking on at us GOGGLE EYED. Had they never seen two men in a MANLY EMBRACE before I wondered? It turns out he was Notoriously Hard, and people thought we were about to have a FITE!

Violence did NOT occur on this occasion, and I managed to get a VAN ride back to the East Midlands with the touring party. I stayed at one of their houses, where the only sleeping space available was a mattress in the front room also occupied by Mr John Jervis, of the independent record label Where It's At Is Where You Are. I can highly recommend him as a sleeping partner - we lay in the dark and LARFED like two GIDDY schoolchildren, as the combination of BEER, AMERICANS, and Jerv's general HILARITY meant we were awake into the early hours GIGGLING like nanas about all sorts of things. I distinctly remember a conversation about EYEBROWS making me TITTER for about ten minutes.

I know there's not been MUCH mattress bothering or night-time hi-jinks so far in this series, but come on, EYEBROWS! It was worth waiting for!

< previous

next>