Bass Slapping, Trouserflappingtastic!

Memoirs Of A Geezer, The Autobiography of Jah Wobble, Music, Mayhem, Life, Serpent's Tail, 335 pp.

What was Sid Vicious really like? Did Malcolm McLaren have any redeeming qualities? What was it like to be in Public Image Limited and how much did you earn? How has Wobble managed to keep ahead of the music game despite alcoholism, depression and stint on the London Underground?

All these questions and more are answered in Wobble's comprehensive, unputdownable memoir of his life since his birth in Stepney in 1958. Memoirs Of A Geezer is a fairly traditional autobiography, beginning with his birth into a working class, Catholic family and then moving on through punk to PIL, to solo success via the odd brush with the Law, haunted houses, Alcoholics Anonymous, Bangladeshi racists and Brian Eno.

The real story begins when Wobble met John Lydon (Rotten) and John Beverley (Sid Vicious) at Kingsway College where they were all trying to get some badly needed O Level qualifications. All faces on the very nascent punk scene, they didn't do terribly well at Kingsway - Lydon leaving to join Sex Pistols, closely followed by Vicious and then Wobble who dropped out to do one of his stop gap stints driving vans and and teaching himself bass. To some extent Wobble plays down his friendship with Vicious, who he describes as "lost soul" who "struggled to connect with anyone or anything." Notably, Wobble does not mention Vicious' death.

The most gripping and revealing part of Memoirs is the chapter devoted to Wobble's time with Public Image Limited. It started well, with Wobble laying down PIL's deep bass lines, making a successful first album, appearing on TOTP and going abroad for the first time, but it wasn't to last. Keith Levine's heroin addiction led to lost time (and money), non musician Jeanette Lee joining the band created ructions, the fact that Lydon had two flats while Wobble was on only £60 per week with no publishing rights does not make for a happy band. Lydon is not criticised directly by Wobble, but you do get the impression of a person who will drop you if someone more interesting, useful or richer comes along. Wobble was no saint either though, and to his credit he discusses his violent episodes, or "skirmishes" as he puts it, very frankly. There must have been a lot as: "I was surprised to recall the number of fights...I was involved in, they took far longer to tally up than I had expected."

Of course, PIL was thirty years ago and since then we have seen the auto didact Wobble go from strength to strength with a few deep dips in between. There is no doubt that he has made an original contribution to the canon of thoughtful popular music, and for me he kick-started the interest and popularity of so called World music. Wobble obviously has a very strong will and this has sustained him during times of no money, no prospects and no interest. I for one, am glad that he didn't throw in the towel.

Jah Wobble: you are somebody, I repeat, you are somebody.

Five Thousand Analogue Edits

Holger Czukay - Movies

This album - made in 1980 by Can's ex-front man Holger Czukay - is one of the first to use sampling techniques. It must have taken many, many hours of listening to shortwave radio to find the music clips, funny noises, speeches and so on that populate Holger Czukay's classically influenced, sublime, world music breakthrough album.

I used to have a copy of Movies on cassette and played it to death in the 80s and early 90s, then I lost it and forgot all about it until I read Jah Wobbles' autobiography last week. Wobble describes working with Czukay and, of course, Movies gets a big up from the inventor of trouser flapping bass. Apparently it took over five thousand edits to make Movies - this was in the days when an edit meant physically cutting and splicing bits of tape together. It must have taken months to produce.

I found Movies on Spotify last week and I've played bits of it most days since then. It is funny, a bit German and achingly beautiful in parts.

The link to my Spotify playlist of Movies is here. If the link doesn't work, then find it on Spotify.

If you haven't got a free Spotify account yet, then get it here.

Have a laugh and listen to Cool In The Pool. If you're in love or if you've just lost one, then try Persian Love - I dare you not to cry or at least get a lump in your throat.

Jah Wobble's Memoirs of a Geezer will be reviewed here next week after I've read it again.

Mein Kampf For The Hollyoaks Generation

Renegade: The Lives and Tales of Mark E. Smith, Penguin Books

For me Mark E. Smith is bit like Morrissey - more interesting to read about than listen to at length. If you’ve ever seen Mark E. Smith being interviewed, you will have noticed that he’s difficult, unpredictable, seemingly not very nice and not very lucid . He’s defensively aggressive, funny, original, willfully inconsistent and very hard work. See for yourself - here’s Mark being interviewedby Lauren Laverne.

Those expecting a potted history of life and times of Mark E. Smith and The Fall will be disappointed by The Lives and Tales. It does contain some facts, anecdotes and stories, but it is mainly a book that selectively settles scores, and presents Smith’s views on everything from football, media graduates, pubs and young people to computers, journalists and the cult of personality.

The book was not written by Smith (annoyingly ghost writer, Austin Collings, is not credited on the cover). It seems to me that Smith dictated/ranted and Collings recorded it, transcribed it then and then tidied up the prose.

Strangely, it does read as if Smith wrote it though as the wit and invective are firmly in place. Here’s Mark on a range of topics:

On John Peel
“We never depended on John Peel for our livelihood. I don’t put my career down to him.”

On Dress
“Nobody takes a scruff seriously, that’s one thing I’ve learned.......imagine doing business with with a berk dressed like a vagrant....It just doesn’t work.”

On Oasis
“I’ve never really liked Noel Gallagher. Liam’s alright...I feel sorry for him actually - it’s always our kid this our kid that, always his fault. I’d hate to have a brother like Noel.”

On Bob Geldof
“Geldof’s a brilliant chancer. He’s built a whole career on Live Aid and do-gooding; a whole career that wasn’t there before. I mean, who listens to The BoomTown Rats and who buys his albums.”

The list goes on: Jo Strummer, Mojo, Factory Records, Stone Roses, Madonna, Through The Keyhole and Paul Morley.

I’ll stop there and say it’s a good book, even if you don’t like The Fall.

Hold The M&Ms! - Bands & Their Riders - Answers

I posted this quiz about bands and their riders recently and here are answers:

Question 1 - A vitamin B-12 injection in the butt + 3 Oxygen tanks

a) Diana Ross
b) Elton John
c) Smokey Robinson
d) Ozzy Osbourne

Answer d) Ozzy Osbourne

Question 2 - One bottle of Bombay Gin (but only on Tuesdays)

a) Marilyn Manson
b) Pearl Jam
c) Sheryl Crow
d) Peter Gabriel

Answer c) Sheryl Crow

Question 3 - A hotel suite located no higher than the 5th floor

a) Aretha Franklin
b) Jennifer Lopez
c) Rihanna
d) Bruce Springsteen

Answer a) Aretha Franklin

Question 4 - A private games room to play table football (artiste supplies table football)

a) Eric Clapton
b) Rod Stewart
c) Boy George
d) Rolling Stones

Answer a) Eric Clapton

Question 5 - Ten pairs of boxer shorts

a) Sting
b) Moby
c) Cher
d) Jay-Z

Answer b) Moby

Awesome Tapes From Africa

Music From Africa You Might Not Have Heard

Thanks to my friend Jon in Scotland for putting me on to this blog about African music. There's very little in the way of comment or criticism about artistes who appear on the site, but there are lots of clips of music to play. And not a single Youssou N'Dour track among them!

The site's author, thursdayborn (don't think that's his real name), has collected dozens of cassettes from across the continent and sampled them and then put them on his blog. I'm not sure if this is dodgy or not, but you certainly can't download the tracks, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. To some extent I guess he's giving worldwide exposure to musicians who otherwise have to rely on word of mouth and sales of cassettes from local market stalls.

For me, African music (well, the stuff that comes out of Mali and Senegal) is in the doldrums at the moment - it's all getting a bit samey. I'm not taken with the current wave of 'Desert Blues' as, to me, it just sounds like stoned blues bands from the early 70s going off on an overlong jam - Grateful Dead in Tuareg robes as far as I'm concerned. It's refreshing then to be able to listen to other sounds coming out of Africa - sounds from Morocco, Egypt, Ghana, Zambia and Ethiopia.

I thought I knew a fair bit about 'other' music from Africa, but on looking at the listings here, there are very few I've ever heard of. There's some early Oum Koulsoum I've seen before but that's about it.

I'm going to play a track a day from this site (it streams Quick Time clips). Should keep me going for a while!

Check out Awesome Tapes From Africa here.

Devon Sproule & The Amazing Mantler

Devon Sproule + Mantler, Norwich Arts Centre, 16th October 2009

This was an interesting evening's entertainment. You certainly got your money's worth, but I think I'm getting too old to stand in one place for 2+ hours these days!

First up, and introduced by Devon Sproule, was Mantler, aka Chris A. Cummings, a singer and electric pianist from Canada. I was bit worried when a dumpy, balding bloke (yeah, like me, I know), dressed in an ill fitting white dinner suit, frilly orange shirt and white shoes then came on stage and sat at a small Bontempi like keyboard with a very battered beat box.

To me, he looked like the offspring of Tiny Tim, Van Morrison and The Penguin (Danny DeVito vintage) and I waited for a set comprising of ironic, cod 60s nightclub standards sung off key by someone well past his prime - alright for a few minutes and then a little bit wearing.

I was very, very wrong indeed. Mantler plays and sings grown up, jazz influenced, complex and beautiful ballards. There are bits of Roy Ayers, Big Star, Donald Byrd, Gil Scott-Heron and Steely Dan in the mix, but he is very much his own man. I'm not sure how successful he'll be, but I wish him well as he's original, well prepared and has a sweet voice. Here's a video link to his song, Childman - notice the very creative use of cheap props to create an incredible atmosphere.

I hadn't seen Devon Sproule live before, but had seen her and her husband on Jools Holland (here) last year and was taken with the swing influenced, Appalachian, roots Americana song they played. I was expecting an acoustic set tonight, but Devon now has a band with bass, drums, guitar and later keyboards when Mantler joined them on stage. I'm not sure that this is a good thing as, at times, she was too far back in the mix. See her sing solo here and make up your own mind.

Devon has a wonderful voice very much like Laura Cantrell and the songs are lyrically well structured. She is note perfect. The set was little slow in getting grooving as they seemed a bit nervous, but they did have the audience (quite a large audience for NAC) with them though for the entire set. There is no doubt that Devon Sproule is on the way up - it's deserved, but I would have preferred something with fewer musicians getting in the way of her voice. Loved the Black Uhuru influenced reggae song a lot though.

There's are link to Devon's MySpace page here. If you get the chance, go and see her.

Hold The Brown M&Ms!

They Asked for What? Bands and Their Riders

I've written before about how difficult it is to make it in the music business. You spend years slogging around the country playing what are technically termed 'toilets' and, if you're talented (and lucky!), you make it. And if you make it, you get a rider - the technical set up you want, the hotel you want and the kind of backstage catering you just can't do without.

I guess we've all heard the (true) urban myth that rock band Van Halen insist that all brown M&Ms be removed from bowls of sweets. At first it seems unreasonable for the band to ask some backstage person to pick out the all the brown M&Ms by hand (yuck), but In actual fact, Van Halen's rider is not as childish as it first appears - the clause is in the contract to ensure that promoters read the entire specification very carefully. Van Halen's stage equipment, lighting and special effects are so heavy that unless the stage is fit for purpose, the floor gives way as it did once in Pueblo, Colorado - the promoters had not checked the contract and neither did they remove the brown M&Ms.

So, there is method in having a rigid, non-negotaible rider, but is this always the case? I've been looking through the Smoking Gun's scans of dozens of riders (here) and I'm not sure that many of them are there to ensure due diligence on the part of the promoter. Some of them are understandable - Aretha Franklin insists that air con is shut off and the vents in her dressing room are covered because air con dries out the throat and vocal cords. But some of them are a bit outrageous - Bjork must have one of the following available whenever she wants: masseuse, acupuncturist and reflexologist, for example.

I've had a lot of fun looking through the riders, so who do you think demands the ones below? A blue M&M for anyone who gets them all right (and no looking at the Smoking Gun site).

Question 1 - A vitamin B-12 injection in the butt + 3 Oxygen tanks

a) Diana Ross
b) Elton John
c) Smokey Robinson
d) Ozzy Osbourne

Question 2 - One bottle of Bombay Gin (but only on Tuesdays)

a) Marilyn Manson
b) Pearl Jam
c) Sheryl Crow
d) Peter Gabriel

Question 3 - A hotel suite located no higher than the 5th floor

a) Aretha Franklin
b) Jennifer Lopez
c) Rihanna
d) Bruce Springsteen

Question 4 - A private games room to play table football (artiste supplies table football)

a) Eric Clapton
b) Rod Stewart
c) Boy George
d) Rolling Stones

Question 5 - Ten pairs of boxer shorts

a) Sting
b) Moby
c) Cher
d) Jay-Z

Good luck!