Writer · Performer · Label Director
Last year I was interviewed as part of Serious Feather‘s documentary “Manchester: Beyond Oasis” (which also features my song “Mother”). The film is now available to stream and download for free at this website: http://www.beyondseries.co.uk/manchester.
Hope you enjoy it, there’s a pretty impressive cross-section of new music, definitely worth a look if you have an interest in Manchester’s emerging artists.
Here is the trailer:
Like many relatively privileged Westerners visiting foreign lands I spend a lot of my time searching for something I already know about the place, rather than being swept up in the things I don’t. But the known “something” will be exotic, while the unknown “nothing” mundane. My emails home will be about famously strange customs rather than unexpected similarities, recognised examples of “the other” rather than common threads; my photos will be of red earth and barefooted children, not the bar where I sat and checked Twitter.
If the country in question falls under the category of “developing nation” then it’s time to get on the trail of what one might call academic tourism, eschewing typical hotspots (like the source of the Nile in Uganda’s case) and going on the hunt for examples of poster-boy globalization, usually poetic juxtapositions that could double as a metaphor for our muddled era – the prize being a collection of smug little snapshots depicting rickety huts next to international logos, that sort of thing. It helps if you have one eyebrow raised when you take the photo, that way you can hide behind a veil of irony if questioned by the locals.
The Bedlam Six and I were in London recently and met a couple of Blockheads.
That sentence came out a little too easy. If there’s one thing that every member of my band can agree on it is that The Blockheads are among the very best live acts on the circuit (and have been, off and on, for over thirty years). It was a real pleasure hanging out with vocalist Derek and manager/guitarist Lee, swapping gig anecdotes and personal bugbears. Lovely people.
Recently I sent a message out on Facebook and Twitter asking if there were any existing songs that people would like The Bedlam Six to put a new swing on (our rearrangement of Relight My Fire, commissioned by BBC Manchester in 2010, became an instant favourite – though one we refuse to play live as Dan Hartman’s estate is already rich enough!).
We had a great response.
Here’s a few of our favourites: “Closing Time” (Leonard Cohen), “Nobody Hurts You” (Graham Parker and the Rumour), “Sweet Child O’ Mine” (Guns n Roses), “The Man Comes Around” (Johnny Cash), “Knock On Wood” (Eddie Floyd), “The Tail Of The Giant Stone Eater” (Sensational Alex Harvey Band), “Officer Krupke” (from West Side Story), “God Help You Dumb Boy” (Reverend Glasseye), “Biology” (Girls Aloud)…
If you have any more titles email me (no suggestion too ridiculous!). There is no deadline, just send word whenever inspiration hits you.
These aren’t for potential release (can’t be bothered with the paperwork attached to covering established artists), it’s just for fun. We’ll include a new cover or two each time we send a message to the mailing list. If you’re not on the mailing list and would like to be, just email me. I don’t spam, generally the news letter comes out quarterly. Nothing worse than bands constantly bleating on about their tours and what-not, most of which tend to be nowhere nearby – boring!
Enjoying a special place in the book of popular cliché is the story of the dream that comes true but then fails to measure up to the dreamer’s expectations. This is what makes the human such a poetic clown. We are amateur dreamers – anything attainable is somehow flawed, anything unattainable is a joke. It is this pattern that makes tragedy so much more entertaining than comedy.
The seminal rock stars that didn’t die young are now dying old. Those of us who followed in their footsteps can now look back on the Rock & Roll myth in its entirety, we can make judgements based on the full span of those that carved life-long careers out of what is essentially a fragile, duplicitous and unpredictable industry. We are in a position to make informed decisions. But, for the most part, we don’t.
