Tag Archives: music

Broken Biscuits No.2.

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Upwards and onwards. On Saturday 26th June, the second BB will spring into action at the superb Observer Building in Hastings. And oh my stars, what a line-up! The mighty David Quantick, one of the finest comedy writers in the UK (or anywhere, for that matter), has agreed to do a turn; that bunch of gypsy tramps and thieves Ingrid Pitt Orchestra will chuck up some Transylvanian Glam/Punk/Folk (for easy accordian); St Leonards’ very own performance powerhouse Kate Tym is gonna kick arse because…well, you’ll see, and Idle Eye will try to keep up. And somewhere in all of the above, we’ll be showing three of Dan Laidler‘s magnificently bizarre animated mini-episodes Windy’s Farm.

A night to remember, then. Or, as the New York Times recently described it, “something to do if Game of Thrones isn’t on.” We’ve been advised by the Observer Building that there is a strong possibility it will sell out, so in order to avoid disappointment a link will appear somewhere below this. Use it and relax, safe in the knowledge that you will be a small cog in the history of stuff. Because that’s what you wanted, right?

http://bit.ly/BrokenBiscuitOB

Broken Biscuits No.1.

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What a brilliant night! Top notch entertainment across the board, lovely audience, amazing space and my own birth mother giving out free crisps to all and sundry. And we smashed the £150 bar deposit within a few minutes of opening! There’s a selection of highlights below, but more will be going up on the Facebook page any day now (please ‘like’ it or whatever it is you people do to pages). I’ve been told I have to monetise my content better, but as I don’t know what that means, I’m putting it up here instead. The next BB will be in July, same place, same time etc… and I’ll do my best to match the quality here, gonna be a tough call. Thanks to everyone who came, to everyone who performed, and to everyone who drank me back into the black: I am not worthy x

Broken Biscuits No.1.

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I’ve not been good, granted: next to no (no) updates on this ‘ere book and biblio-silence on the blog. But there is a reason for this, albeit rather tenuous. Saturday 23rd April sees the first of what I hope will be a quarterly event at Crystal Palace’s magnificent Antenna Studios, featuring some of the finest local talent IE can muster without resorting to bribery. Flame Proof is back with an exclusive last ever solo performance (my fervent prayer is that we can persuade him otherwise); Ron McElroy and Andrew Burke are gonna kick up some of that dirty blues direct from the CP Delta; Helen Thorn‘s taking five from the brilliant Scummy Mummies to help wannabe parents get more Chablis in without spoiling the child, and then you’ve got Me and Donald. Early enough in the evening for you to pop out and lance the cat’s boils or somesuch. It’s probably for the best.

There’s a few more big changes afoot which I’m not yet at liberty to disclose. But potentially exciting stuff, I’ll let you know as and when. In the meantime, there are several more live shows on the horizon and a festival. Yes, a festival! With mud and young people, can you imagine? There was a time I’d have given my right arm to be even considered for one. These days, I instruct my solicitors to include a BUPA proximity clause and a guaranteed airlift to and from the arena. What have I become?

Idle Eye 158 : The Magnetic Fields

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‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more’

Early doors post this week ‘cos I’ll be heading back to the undulating hills of Glastonbury tomorrow. Long-term readers of this stuff and nonsense may remember I reluctantly did something similar last year, hauled kicking and screaming into the furore by those who would not take no for an answer, and yet I came out relatively unscathed. Perhaps this time around the relentless assault of life will have conclusively exacted its toll, leaving me unable to manage much more than a couple of juniper-based sharpeners at dusk and a premature nosedown in whatever wigwam they have in mind for me. Or not. We shall see.

It hasn’t always been thus. There was a brief spell when I could gambol across the site, unfettered and nimble as a ballerina, drinking in the madness and whatever my tipple of choice was back then in equal measures. I would stay up all night, every night, insane with joy and totally beyond caring what was happening elsewhere. Music and adrenalin were my co-pilots, and when they were on board I owned the very core of those vast magnetic fields. You should have seen me, I was superb: I burned like magnesium, radiating like gamma and blistering in the sun like the Violent Femmes. Really, I did.

It didn’t last long though. When being grown-up became a thing instead of a distant concept, I gave in and learned the rules of the everyday. I did jobs I didn’t want to do. I went out with sensible people I didn’t really want to go out with. I feigned interest in all of the trappings of being an adult, when all I wanted to do was the polar opposite. I trod on a few toes along the way, which I’m not proud of but it happened. And then, a good decade after most regular folk are preparing for the final chapter, I decided to piss away whatever minuscule security I had mustered to date in favour of a much riskier, but ultimately more satisfying goal: to write. In an era when writers have less chance of staying afloat than ever. Because there are more writers than cockroaches these days.

This is what draws me back. Glastonbury, despite its inevitable nod to commerce, still represents the troubadour spirit. Anything seems possible here if you have a dream and the balls to see it through. And if it’s just an illusion, it is a magnificent one. Who cares who’s playing on the big stage? It matters not one jot. Someone in a tiny tent way out on the fringes has the potential to make an incalculable difference, and that’s what makes it special. That’s why I’m going in one last time. To suck at the marrow of a sprawling collective unconscious which can turn your life around on a sixpence. Even at its most desperate, outermost ebb.

Idle Eye 138 : The Windows to the Soul

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When he put his mind to it, my father had a great smile. It was one of those magnificently craggy ones, as pioneered by WH Auden towards the end of his own years, which dug huge trenchlines into the soft tundra of his face and suggested, whether it were true or not, that he was kind and genuinely delighted to have you as company. Yorkshire Television was quick to pick up on this most saleable of assets, so in pretty much every publicity shot taken from the 1980s onwards, you can see him attempting to squash his nose hard into the well of his cheekbones, like some sort of demented human Corby trouser press, whilst simultaneously keeping his eyes open and looking sexy. And, unlikely though this may sound, for the most part he pulled it off.

As the firstborn of four, I have inherited (to a lesser extent) something similar. When it first appeared I was horrified, so desperate was I to preserve the illusion of perpetual youth, and those appalling fissures, snaking their way across my cheeks like levees towards the ocean, became impertinent reminders of my own mortality. Which I bitterly resented. But as the years rolled on, I kind of grew into them, accepted them, and now I shall ruthlessly exploit them for my own financial gain. Hear me out:

I’ve only ever had publicity shots done once. It was back in the day, when I was trying to look moody and angst-ridden for an art-rock band which I fronted. The fact that we never got picked up, and that the photographs fell into the dustbin of insignificance, was clearly down to the fact that I was not yet ready to face the full-frontal glare of fame and fortune. And possibly because a previous night’s drinking had made my eyes look like pissholes in the snow. But now I am older, wiser and sly as you like. So, what if I harness Dad’s old ruse for the back cover of this book that I’m doing? That, instead of going all Charles Bukowski on you, I could make you believe I’m enormous fun to hang out with? Simply by wrinkling up my face! It works across the board: The oldies will think they can trust me, and the young people will find me endearing. Sexy, even.

Now, I’ve been practicing in front of the bathroom mirror, but I think the silver must have buckled. When I scrunch up one side (leaving the other unwrinkled and all come hither), it looks like I’m having a stroke. Yet if I go for both at once, the eyes are lost in a sea of unsightly crevices. And the eyes, as any fule kno, are the windows to the soul. I’ve even tried the direct approach, looking straight into camera with just a hint of crumpled world-weariness. But I just come across as a massive tool. And we can’t have that, can we?

Idle Eye 104 : The Big Music

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1986 – Still a stripling and finding my path. And despite making it onto the impossibly hip Psalter Lane Communication Arts course at Sheffield City Poly and waving a hand-held 16mm film camera about for months on end (making certain the subject matter was obscure and out of focus), I struggled. Struggled with the introspective claptrap we were expected to churn out in order to get the grades, struggled with being a rudderless imposter from Surrey in a melting pot of strident student politics, and struggled with the notion that my most cherished art form was considered ephemeral and insignificant unless it was waving a banner. In short, I was a bit lost.

Two years earlier, the Waterboys had released their second album, ’A Pagan Place’. By the time I had cottoned on to it they had already recorded and were touring their third, but this one struck me like a bolt from the blue. The title track, which closed the record, soared its way through the cloud layer with a cacophony of trumpets, guitars and a rasping, bruised vocal from Mike Scott, all of which layered themselves into a crescendo that almost made me feel like I was levitating, tears being the only physical release I could muster to bring myself back down to earth. And it happened every time, like turning on a tap. Where was art that could come anywhere near this, I wondered? Here there was no artifice, no pretence, nothing to prove. Just a direct line to the heart that made me want to burst, probably for the first time in my life. This was the Big Music.

Having access to cameras (and a seemingly carte blanche as to where I pointed them) allowed me to head out into the Yorkshire Moors and make a nascent home-grown promo for said song. It featured my then girlfriend Shirley in an earth-coloured dress, blowing into a recorder on top of a rock that looked a bit Celtic, rough-cut in amongst other stuff I thought rural, romantic and quasi-religious. A bit pants, in fact, but the sentiment was there. But then, in one of those rare moments when fate intervenes, I contacted Ensign Records in London and asked if I could film them at Leeds Polytechnic. And, for reasons which I am still unclear, I was granted unlimited access to make a live video. I shuddered with the profundity of it but made out I was a young professional finding my way, just grateful for the opportunity.

Surely, somewhere in the process there would be a bonding moment with the musicians that had shaped my present so completely? That perhaps they could see past the quivering kid sent to document their evening and recognise something beyond the fan? But this is where reality bites. They never did. Crippling shyness put paid to that, my fault not theirs. But I still have the mastered result and it’s great. Huge, in fact.