There’s a BBC Radio 4 series called ‘Chain Reaction‘ where a celebrity gets to interview someone of their choice for an hour, then that person interviews someone else the next week and so on. At last years ‘Ilkley Literature Festival’ we saw John Cooper Clarke who was the ‘chain reaction’ guest of one of this years highlights – Peter Hook. There was a lot of love in the room when Hooky came on to talk about his new book ‘Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division‘ We knew he’d turned up as his 4×4 with a personalised ‘Hooky’ registration was outside. Flanked by 2 big photos of Ian Curtis (as used in the ‘Atmosphere‘ video) he looked a little nervous but soon got going with tales of Joy Division, New Order and his love of all things Manchester…….he was even glad to get back to Salford after living in Jamaica as a kid! He lived near us in Little Hulton……give me Jamaica any day of the week.

My love for JD and NO is no secret and was lucky enough to see JD play once (I was 15 at the time) and NO a shedful of times. Peters low slung bass and high notes always being a highlight “My mum told me I need a gimmick”. The division between him and the rest of New Order is more bitter and obviously painful than it’s ever been (which is saying something) and seemed to start when Hooky started to play Unknown Pleasures with a new band featuring his son on bass “Who was the same age I was when I first played it”.

Great stories about Ian joining “we’d never heard him sing” and Steve “Ian said ‘I’ve found a drummer’ and we said great – never asked if he was any good!” It was all a happy accident for 4 Salford scuffers. He talked about doing ‘Transmission’ at a sound check and having everyone in the room stop and listen as the first time they knew they had something special. When asked about the sublime bassline for ‘Atmosphere’ he noted that ‘Angels’ by Robbie Williams is the most played track at weddings, and ‘Atmosphere’ the most played at funerals – a song of 2 halves “Me and Steve had this great bass and drums part and Ian and Bernard had written a song on a little Woolies organ – listen to this, no listen to this….so we put them together and it was Atmosphere”.

I could have listened to him all night – he’d be one of my 10 guests for an ultimate dinner party any day of the week. There was a book signing after but everyone who’d attended was in the queue so we went for a pint first…..which turned into a couple and by the time we got back, the 4×4 Hooky-mobile was winding its way across the Pennines. Ah well, a top evening all round anyway.

Bob the Chiropodist

We arrived at the O2 to see Lisa Hannigan singing her heart out – almost drowned by knobheads at the bar (£6 for a pint of lager and a half of coke!!!!). She was fantastic. Afterwards we bumped into QUIMS regular Roger who had sensibly gone to the Victoria for a couple of pints first (but foolishly missed Lisa’s set – “Fancy writing this one up Rog?” and here it is…..

HEAD MUSIC FOR DADS (AND MUMS)

I’m ambivalent about South Yorkshire. It’s part of my home county but not part of me, somewhere that I pass through on the M1 to the world that lies beyond the broad acres. In the sixties Sheffield outshone Leeds, it had a bigger Schofields for starters and a steel industry that was the envy of the world. Nowadays Schofields has gone and been replaced by Meadowhell and the the cooling towers and industry that they supported are dead (or at least diminished)………and yet

Sheffield has in my musical lifetime been the provider of much joy from the Human League (pre Dare of course) through the industrial (that word again) rhythms of Cabaret Voltaire to the more intelligent than Brit pop collective, Pulp and the envy of youth that the Arctic Monkeys provided.

In my current musical ennui where new stuff really isn’t doing it for me, not ‘their’ fault it’s an age thing, could Sheffield provide some salvation? I’ll be honest if I hear one more eighties inspired, skinny jeaned pop combo or a drony, falsetto back woods, bearded Americana outfit I will curl up in a corner and give up!

Richard Hawley has been around the musical block, in a very good way for quite a while taking in the Long Pigs and the aforementioned Pulp along the way. A few years ago and after a couple of false starts (still good albums though), he received a Mercury award nomination for the lovely Coles Corner, he was pipped by fellow steelers the Monkeys, and since then has released beautiful late night albums of crooned love and loss. Very nice but not world shattering and the earlier this year he released ‘Standing at the sky’s edge’, all throbbing guitar and dense walls of sound, with that voice and those words. Its received a mercury award nomination, is named after another place in Sheffield and I love it.

I last saw him at Kegworth services on the M1, buying a sandwich in M&S, he wasn’t singing but cut an admirable, music industry shape, I was hoping for more from his appearance at the Leeds Academy on a rainy night at the end of September. I received much more.

The demographic attending was very similar to myself, curmudgeonly, middle-aged blokes still harbouring desires to be on that stage, some with partners, others sadly abandoned to their middle aged fantasies. The t-shirt stand reflected the market perfectly selling Hawley branded tins of sweets for the car and bottles of sauce, both from Sheffield manufacturers and preferable to a moob highlighting skinny ‘t’.

Hawley came on stage dressed as the man in black with requisite quiff and played a set full of joy and wonder (with ballads thrown in for good measure). He began with the title song from the album and maintained the magic from there with ‘don’t stare at the sun’, ‘she brings the sunlight’ and ‘before’ being real highlights. He introduced ‘ Leave your body behind you’ (see the picture of the sweets tin lid) as being a song about flying a kite with your kids…on acid, it was fabulous. ‘Before’ was as heart breaking as it is on the album and even ‘Seek it’, the album’s weakest point was enhanced by it’s live setting. He finished with the lively ‘Down in the woods’, before leaving us with ‘The Ocean’ from Coles Corner. An emotional highlight, spoiled by the screeching, stoned pair in front of us. As he mentioned in one of his many, dry and funny asides ‘ who buy’s a f***Ing ticket and then talks through it, you must have more money than sense’.

In his aforementioned stories between songs, he comes across like a slightly younger version of his compatriot John Shuttleworth as he covers stories of his home life and receiving calls whilst drunk from Banksy requesting the use of ‘Tonight these streets are ours’ in a film he was making.

The stage was set like a Sylvain, wooden glade on acid, the guitar roady wore a ‘Let’s ballad’ t-shirt and the band looked like the audience, they were magnificent (the band obviously), it was a great night.

Hawley is fabulous and Northern, see him while you can, it may even be worth going to Sheffield to do it.

The Brudenell Social Club Facebook Page ran a ‘competition’ to get free tickets for this gig and I managed to bag a couple (Thanks Nathan!). Neighbour John came along despite the rain that had been so persistent that we might have needed a boat to attend.

First up were the wonderful ‘Eyes & No Eyes‘ – a great four piece who sound more like a 7 piece, mainly thanks to the cello player who over-lays sounds both melodic and scratchy and intense. Quiet with an undercurrent that they could erupt at any point – I was most impressed. Got a copy of their stylish home made tour CD…..these are the things we love about small bands

I’d not come across ‘Gravenhurst‘ before but main man Nick Talbot has quite a back catalogue to explore. He plays quiet guitar lead songs and has got a beautiful picking style that puts you in a dreamy state. The harmonies by his 2 female band mates were just gorgeous and had me thinking I was in the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks. He apologised for his constant guitar tuning which reminded me of why Mike Harding got into telling funny stories – he was in a band with a guitarist who was ‘a tone deaf perfectionist’ & he had to make up stuff to fill in the gaps……

A Great night – go see them

Bob the Chiropodist

01/10/12 – Nick Talbot was on Radio 4’s today programme – have a listen

For his birthday, Mike’s misses Sharon bought him a UK Subs ticket and asked me if I’d join him – “Of course I will!” and Boy-Lee came along for the ride.

As we entered we were met by a wall of electro noise of an almost happy house variety. ‘Petrol Bastard‘ are a 3 piece who were just extraordinary! They were dangerous, scarey, funny, joyous and repulsive all at the same time – the most foul mouthed band I’ve ever seen “Gerbil Fuck” a case in point. Shouting “2006!” with alarming regularity our bare chested hero eventually got his kit off…..which didn’t really suprise anyone. We’d enjoyed them so much we bought 2 copies of their CD (for a quid each). “You can download it for free from our facebook page” I was told with a nod & a wink and when we looked at the CD’s we realised why…..one of them had written on it “This isn’t a music disc but has 1096 of my photo’s on” – PUNK’s NOT DEAD!

I wouldn’t have wanted to follow that but someone had to and ‘The Drastics‘ from Bradford did a good job. The band were very tight and managed to squeeze in a T Rex and a Ramones cover in at high speed (even for the Ramones!). They were obviously enjoying themselves but the stage was a bit small for the lead singer who managed to accidentally bash the guitar player in the mush with his mike – PUNK’s NOT DEAD!

Barnsley’s ‘Total Confusion‘ looked like they’d been around the block once or twice. They had the best merchandice of the night. “This one’s about when Margaret Thatcher dies!” – PUNK’s NOT DEAD!

UK Subs main man Charlie Harper (now 68) is such a lovely bloke – you can just tell. He’s still up for a good time and breaks into the odd bit of pogoing from time to time. “I’m glad you’re all keeping to the rules cos there’s no dancing allowed y’know” which obviously starts the dancing off with something of a stage invasion by adoring females. His band were fantastic with the guitarist’s riffs reaching breakneck speed. “We’re practicing this one for Newcastle it’s called Worr Heeed”. ‘Warhead‘ and ‘Stranglehold‘ were great crowd pleasers and everyone left with big smiles on their faces……honestly folks…… PUNK’s NOT DEAD!

Happy Birthday Mike!

Bob the Chiropodist