I love that big talk, give me some more A personal history of Ivor Cutler

It was summer 1984 when I went for a drink with my cousin Digger and he couldn’t stop singing this song he’d heard on Peel the night before: “I spied a Jelly Mountain, and I chased it to the sea. I waded in with a banana skin and had it for my tea. I swam the English channel, and climbed up onto France. I said the 12 times table, the French for gloves is gants.”

It’s fantastic when something like that enters your life, a magical moment I’ll never forget. It was so bizarre, so funny…….so Ivor Cutler.

The challenge then was to find some stuff by him. There were 3 of his LPs on the virgin label, going cheap (£3.49) in Virgin records in town. I started with the one that had him on the cover, this odd looking old man, bare to the waist looking ready to box ‘Jammy Smears’ (1976).

ivor+cutler+Jammy+Smears

It was instant hero worship. Within days I could recite chunks of ‘Life in a scotch sitting room’, sing his odd little ditties about men with woolen eyes who couldn’t see very well and clever lemon flower juice that burned my foot.

It wasn’t all laugh a minute either. Some of it was quite sinister, some of it quite dreamy and the Phyllis April King poems were just deeply odd. The LP was produced by David Vorhaus the man behind another (odd) masterpiece An Electric Storm by White Noise……… but thats another story.

The coming weeks meant more trips to town to get Velvet Donkey (1975) and Dandruff (1974). There then appeared a new LP on the shelves Privilege (1983 Rough Trade records), all of which followed the same formula of 30 or so tracks, some songs, some monologues, some poems and 2 episodes of Life in a Scotch sitting room: Volume 2 (there is, of course, not a volume 1).

“Ivor is a bit like sex – Every generation likes to think it discovered it” – Roger McGough

I was always making tapes for friends and Ivor was always on those tapes. There’d be other stuff people liked, but they ALWAYS commented on Ivor. Around that time Dig recalls coming down to Little Hulton for a drink in The White Lion (a working mans pub in a working class area) and there would be the likes of our mate Spud, spontaneously reciting poetry “a moth landed on my canvas shoe”.

In 85 Ivor came to Manchester to perform as part of a music festival. What an experience! I started giggling as he walked onto the stage. At first I was the only one who seemed to find it funny – The audience were almost afraid to laugh, not sure if we should due to his stern looks of disapproval. After the interval it was different as he whipped everybody into hysterics. This pattern seemed to be repeated at all the gigs I saw him do.

It was great to see his harmonium, the odd wind piano that pervades his LPs. This was on one side of the stage, a real piano on the other side and a microphone in the middle for his poems. He would occasionally crack up whilst reading, unable to keep up the po-faced fascade.

After the gig finished, I left him a letter on top of the Harmonium with a stamp addressed envelope for a reply and god bless him, he sent me a letter with a bunch of little golden stickers with Ivors witticisms on them. Some of the stickers were funny “This label can be removed and used as the source of a nutritious meal” some unfathomable “Patella hammers where are you?”.

My brother Dave was a medical student in Edinburgh so there was always somewhere to stay when the Fringe Festival was on. In August 86 Ivor played there at the Assembly Rooms. He was in the mood for audience participation and got us to do trumpet sounds in ‘Sing to the Moon’ – “Lovely, sounds like flugel horns. I prefer flugelhorn but if I’d have asked you to do them you’d think I was being pretentious “DONT YA MEAN TRUMPETS IVOR!?”” .

I moved to London in September 1986 to start work in central London at Bloomsbury Health Authority. There were 4 of us who trained together (Julie, Shirley, Debbie + I) who kept in touch. I used to go up to Newcastle to see Julie and made my first trip up there in November 86 to see an Ivor gig with her. He just released the GRUTS LP and book.

That month, I also got to see The Stranglers, Xmal Deutschland, Pop Will Eat Itself, The Shop Assistants, My Bloody Valentine, The Dragsters, Cocteau Twins, Dif Juz, Alice Cooper, Spizz Sexual & the last ever Smiths gig in December (with Pete Shelley supporting). London has always been the place to be for gigging.

I went out for a drink with my boss Sandra and her husband Tony over that Christmas and they gave me a lift back to my nursing home accommodation in Mecklenburgh Square and came in for a coffee. I had a poster of Ivor on my wall advertising his GRUTS gig. “I’ve seen him as a patient at Kentish Town” announces Tony “You’re Joking!” “Honest – I remember him because when I asked what his profession was he said ‘Humourist’ with such a deadpan face I didnt know what to make of him”.

I looked him up next time I was at the clinic and sure enough, he was a patient there. I made sure he was booked in to see me on his next and subsequent visits. He was the same off stage as on, deadpan with a twinkle in his eye and a pocketful of stickers. Patients had to ring up for appointments at that clinic and I picked up the phone a couple of times to hear his unmistakable voice “I’d like to make an appointment please” “MR CUTLER!” “Is that Bob?” “Yes Mr Cutler” “I think we know each other well enough for you to call me ‘Ivor’ now”. What a Privilege!

I put one of his stickers ‘Slightly Inperfect’ on the phone at work and people didn’t use it for days thinking it was broken! Another one I stuck up “Thatcher is an 8 letter word” had “So is Scargill” scrawled under it by a Tory colleague. There was a receptionist at the clinic with an odd taste in music (she liked to be called ‘The Madam’) and I made her a tape of Ivors stuff. One time when he came she said “I really like your stuff, Bob made me a tape” “You shouldn’t do that!” he admonished me with a stern look – Ivor did not like bootlegs!

There were lots of arty people who had their feet done in Kentish Town. One lady did this picture for me and when I commented that it looked like Ivors work she gave me a rather disapproving look and said “I was on a course with him once and he was rather vulgar” and we left it at that. Another of the artists there was Harry Baines who I met after returning from a year out to India. He’d done a lot of art that was inspired by his trips to India and would happily give you bits of signed artwork if you were interested.

It was June 87 before Ivor played again, this time at Londons Shaw Theatre, then again 18 months later at The Hackney Empire. Another colleague (Julie) was dragged to these events (and the odd Frank Sidebottom gig) in return for rather more up market theatre trips with her (if you can call Dame Edna Everidge ‘up market’ that is).

I once saw him cycling near Covent Garden and had a chat with him. You could tell it was his bike due to the sit up handlebars and the stickers on it. My favourite was ‘Fresh Air Machine’ – he gave me one for my bike, which was pride of place until it got nicked.

I wrote to him on a couple of occasions after leaving London, the last time in 2000, and always got a cheery reply usually on the back of some promotional material or other.

There’s an excellent on-line Ivor Yahoo group (thanks to John Gibbin and an army of really nice Ivor fans) that I joined a few years back. There are extensive files of old Peel and Kershaw sessions to download there and I finally got a copy of ‘Jelly Mountain’ – Fantasitic!

I was unable to make it to Ivors last gig in 2004 (bits from it were on the excellent BBC4 documentary looking for truth with a pin) partly cos I couldn’t be bothered with the hasstle of going to London mid-week. A guy from Texas admonished me on the Yahoo group as he’d just done a 600 mile round trip to watch Paul McCartney.

I wrote to Andy Kershaw saying it was about time for another session early in 2006 to be told that he was too ill to perform nowadays, so it wasnt a huge surprise then when news filtered through of Ivors death in March 2006, still made me incredibly sad. Our Dig summed it up for me:

“Middle-age is shit isn’t it. It’s when all your favourite people die!”.

Bob the Chiropodist

Nice You tube vid here

All the gigs Ive been to recently seem to have been by old bands. It started a few years ago when I was dragged to see the Undertones by Sledge. Who wants to see a fave old band who now have re-formed with a new singer? I didnt Id seen the re-formed Stranglers some years back and like all of the late 30/40something crowd had jumped around to the old numbers (especially the ones JJ sang) and politely tapped my foot to the rest. Still, it was Sledges birthday and the Undertones were in town and he wanted to see them so..we enter The Cockpit just as theyre starting up with the intension of going to the bar but hearing the first few bars of Ive gotta getta we ran to the front and moshed with the oldies. Everyone had the broadest smiles on their faces and the evening was a great success. There was no sense of in it for the money.

Sledge and myself went to see the Damned at the Irish Centre a few months later and the entrance fee was worth it just to hear the supporting Wreckless Eric sing his missive on 45s Theyre just bits of plastic to you, but theyre slices of my life Wonderful! The Damned were in effect Capt Sensibles backing band. Dave Vanian still has a fantastic voice – if youre an electronic duo looking for a distinctive voice to front your next project get him on the blower now! but it was obviously Sensible who was calling the shots. His re-living the glory days of Happy Talk gave the event a distinct cabaret feel.

For my stag do in March 2006, 25 of us went to see the Buzzcocks in Manchester. There was nothing cabaret about that, just full speed cranked up guitars with a dizzying energy. There new LP Flat pack philosophy (14 songs in 36 minutes) is a cracker, fizzing with riffs to plicate any punk air-guitarist. I managed to last for nearly an hour in the mosh pit before retreating exhausted but happy to the rear of the venue (where Stuart Pierce and Bez were spotted amongst the crowd). By the time they did Ever fallen in love with someone you shouldntve I was only able to watch and smile as the crowd went ballistic. A wonderful evening.

My mate Si and I went to see ex-Stranglers front man Hugh Cornwell at the city varieties in Leeds. I was a HUGE fan of the Stranglers (see 40th Birthay report) and loyally bought everything they produced for years. Being devoted to a band like that, you end up buying things like dodgy 12 versions of below par tunes – things that if they were by any other band youd give a wide berth.but when that male trait for collecting kicks in you find a load of very average, hardly played stuff in your collection. The last few LPs the Stranglers did with Hugh were definitely in the category. Id stopped buying them as they came out after Aural Sculpture, waiting till they were in a bargain bin. I still havent bothered getting a copy of 10. The rocking tunes with wild bass lines up front in the mix were gone and Jet Blacks banal drumming style was beginning to do my head in.

Si had bought me Hughs song by song book for my 40th an interview book with Hughs take on what all the songs on the Stranglers LPs were about. It makes very interesting reading for Stranglers anoraks like myself.

When he saw the poster for Hughs gig, billed as being based on the book (whilst at a Chumbawumba gig – still waiting for that review Si) .he got us tickets. After a pint in North Bar we got there just after it had started. It was poorly attended and I was the only bloke in there not dressed in black! Hugh was on stage being interviewed by Jim, the books co-author. After a wooden start, they both relaxed into it and it was quite entertaining.

Hughs song writing process, Tony Visconti and his bass clarinet, his excitement when the Kinks from just down the road made it to number one, his disappointment at Jet Blacks insistence on programming the drums (Jet felt it gave a better sound to their latter albums!) The Gospel According To The Meninblack was his favourite Stranglers LP to record (the revelation that La Folie was his least favourite LP was met with a startled Youre Joking! by one punter!).

When they opened up the mike to the audience, it became apparent that everyone in there was a Stranglers obsessive, only asking questions about his days with them. Do you miss them? Of course I do.I always read interviews they do and theyve never said anything complimentary about me. If they did itd give me the opportunity to phone them up and say Thanks for that but they never have. Hed done a track on a recent Mojo magazine CD of Dylan covers I asked him how much you get for doing that sort of thing Nothing it actually cost me money. My agent rang Ive got some good news and some bad news. The good is you can do all 11 verses of Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again 7 minutes, but youre not getting paid for it

There was a break and in the 2nd half hed changed from his T-shirt and jeans into a snazzy oversized black zoot suit and with acoustic guitar in hand, did a set of songs alternating a Stranglers song with a solo song. There were a few gems, Midnight summers dream from Feline that Id totally forgotten about sounded great and when he did the guitar solo from Hanging around it was so familiar that Id never noticed how intricate it was before. Overall however, his song writing limitations were rather exposed in the solo setting. A series of awful rhyming couplets had us trying to second guess what was going to end the next sentence Who gets the job, of pushing the knob

We left agreeing that it had been an interesting evening although Si commented it was a bit of an endurance event for me!. I came out vowing to see some new bands in the future..then went to the Falls 30th anniversary gig

Bob the Chiropodist

I got my first computer, a purple iMac, in 1999 and have been a Mac fan since – Im writing this on a small but beautifully formed iBook. For years I resisted the lure of the iPod, for 3 main reasons: 1) The expense with 3 kids in the house, 2 under the age of 3, I have to negotiate spending that kind of cash & a personnel MP3 player was never going to get priority over a drier/ shed/ new bedroom wardrobesetc. 2) The technology changes so fast my iBook has been superseded umpteen times since it emerged from its box, and 3) What do I need a posh walkman for anyway? It would have been handy during my globe trotting days but now, I dont use a walkman!

So when my brother Ste got me a 40GB iPod for my 40th birthday I was chuft to bits but still thought it an extravagance I didnt need..how wrong I wasIts now my constant companion in the car on shuffle mode where you never know whats going to come on next, but you know youll like it.

The weird thing is, it has somehow tuned into my neural network in Borg-like fashion. The first time it happened I was driving along in my CBGBs T-shirt when on comes Blondie Pretty Baby. Ah thinks I wouldnt it have been great to be at CBGBs in the late 70s. The fantastic bands that grew in that environment, The Ramones, Talking Heads on comes Cities by Talking Heads..spooky!

I was driving to Sheffield & just as I got off the Motorway an entered the city limits Hard Times by the Human League came on followed by Cabaret Voltaires Nag Nag NagHmmmmm

My other half has thought this notion ridiculous until…we were driving form my mums in Swinton near Manchester, to my mates in Chorlton, chatting about our impending wedding when My Bride to Be by Winston Samuels comes on (Id never heard it before – its from one of those Trojan 3 disc box sets that I loaded up and hadnt got round to hearing) but odder than that, we then drive past Old Trafford and Manchester United Calypso by Edrich Connor* comes on!!!! Sideways glances to each other with raises eyebrows.

I remember talking to a friend Matt who lectures in philosophy about million to one occurrences

How many millions of people are there in the world?

About 5 billion?

Well million to one events should be happening to 5 million people all the time

Which kind of takes the mystery out of life

Bob the Chiropodist

*For the record, Im a Man City fan but I still love this track. My folks are from Salford and were Roman Catholics and so should, by rights, be United fans. My Dad + Grandad (Jim) used to take my older brothers Ste and later Dave when they were old enough to the football on a Saturday (after they finished work at 12). Somewhere in the mists of time, United put up their prices and Grandad decided we would support City instead (thanks Jim!). By the time I started going we were a true blue family and I hate that more than United is still a family saying. Being a City fan was great in the 70s, not bad in the 80s, a joke in the 90s and thanks to Keegan and Psycho, becoming respectable again in the naughties. As the games become obsessed by money Ive become less and less interested it (even Blackburn could win the championship with enough cash). I hate to say it, but I even like to see Man U do well, except on Derby day of course

Why is it that with hundreds of pounds worth of hifi that Ive amassed over the years, I spend most of my time at home, listening to music on the cheap (but not too nasty) micro system we inherited from Lees mum? Because its in the kitchen of course. I was told many moons ago at a party the best vibes are in the kitchen and at our house, its undoubtedly true.

You dont want anything too expensive when its going to get covered in grease eventually and what with the inevitable spills of orange juice or stray marmitey fingers on it at some point, youd be mad to splash out on a fancy system for the kitchen. Jammy Smears is my favourite Ivor Cutler LP but I dont want them on my Denon amp or my beechwood Mission speakers!

Which brings me to an article I read in the Guardian recently about special power supply cables for your hifi to make it sound better. The article suggests its a nonsensical idea and I must agree that I could never get to grips with this one, even in the days when I was single and relatively loaded, when I would look seriously into all aspects of hifi before buying.

Quality speaker cable has always been a must – my present ones are from a hifi buff colleague who claims theyre platinum and from a fighter aircraft (cheers Andy). Speaker and hifi stands that have spikes on the bottom to isolate vibrations that improves sound I could understand and invested in (although the parquet flooring now means we are a spikeless home).

But power cables..I remember seeing David Baddiel talking about how hed bought into the idea (I think it was on Room 101) and has subsequently felt foolish.

When I was 13 I got a mono portable Radio/Tape recorder. It meant I could tape Peel shows in the evening after Id gone to bed (only 45 minutes worth as the technology for recording both sides of a C90 was way out of reach). It was my pride and joy and I still posses some of those tapes I made on it. I remember taking it along to a birthday party in the local church so the kids could play pass the parcel. I turned it up full blast thinking it would fill the place & all you could hear was a distorted wail. Lesson if you have a big room, you need a big sound system, unless youre Jonathan Richman who Ive seen perform to big venues with the tiniest of amps and even then sing most of his songs off mike.

Unfortunately Ive never lived anywhere big enough thats warranted a huge stereo but that hasnt stopped me from spending cash on hifi that would fill it if needed! My first proper system was thanks to my cousin Johnny. He was about to get married to Trish and realising that this may be his last opportunity, he sold me his excellent Rotel amp + Wharfedale speakers and bought an even better ones.

That was around 1986-87 and I had recently moved to London village to start my first ever job, working for Bloomsbury Health Authority. Tottenham Court Road was in my patch and with the spare cash I had (ie that not spent on gigs and booze) I trawled the hifi shops to put together a top quality system. A Revolver turntable (£250.00 a beautiful thing) A Yamaha double tape deck (£150.00 – you could record both sides of both tapes one after another.amazing) and a Sony receiver (£80.00 – cos it was cheap in the sales).

When CDs came in a few years later, I was determined not to buy into them, until I borrowed my cousin Diggers one time when he was in Jamaica on holiday and then I just HAD to have one myself bought an ex demo Onkyo that was in the sales for only £250.00.

This system was my pride and joy until I moved to Leeds in 1995. I was burgled (well I was living in Harehills) and the whole lot went, along with most of my (rather large collection of) CDs. The insurance people did me proud & I took my money to Richer sounds and got another great system, this time with a Digital Audio Converter (DAC) that makes your CD player sound better honest!…but it never really felt like mine anymore, and they no longer made Revolver turntables.

When that got burgled too (I no longer live in Harehills) the insurance company replaced everything with of like quality and I had no say in the matter*. Its the system I have today and whilst at first I thought the sound was too clinical, it does the job.

Elderly neighbours and small siblings means I rarely let the system rip these days (do your kids tell you to turn the music down too?) so having clean electricity into the system to make the sound that much better doesnt really enter the equation.

Bob the Chiropodist

*They replaced the DAC with a DAT (Digital Audio Tape recorder) which I still have, unused. If anyone wants to buy one..

PS hours after writing this I opened an email from Dr Peacock whos just got a sonos system.

This was the first year I worked at Glastonbury. The previous years festival had been the wettest so far and seen Britains first case of Trench Foot since the war. Amber, the lone Podiatrist in the medical tent, was so busy that she was asked to put a team together for future festivals. I applied as soon as I saw the ad in our professional magazine.

The phone interview with Amber was along the lines of: “Do you know what the Glastonbury Festival is like? Some of the patients can be a bit dirty there are some tricky situations to deal with….” “Well, I’ve been to 6 previous festivals, worked with Londons homeless for 9 years and with Leprosy patients on a street clinic in Calcutta…..” – I’m very proud to say I became part of the team.

Working the festival has its pros and cons. Obvious pros were free entry and in those days, you could take a guest for free. The major Con is that you have to work and so miss 2 half days of the festival and (obviously) be sober and fit for work, which is not usually on your mind when you’re there as a punter!

It probably wouldn’t happen now, but at that time it was really difficult to get someone to come along. The usual suspects in Leeds and Manchester were all working and couldn’t make it…..until I asked my friend Helen, who said she couldn’t, but her husband Jim could. Jim’s a writer (novelist, Radio 4 plays, script editor on the 3rd series of Shameless…etc.) and in their pre-twins days had a much more flexible life than most.

On the drive down, as we got closer to Glastonbury, Jim noticed all these towns names that were characters in a classic radio series The strange world of Gurney Slade (on the drive back it took us 6 hours to leave the site! “Well, I suppose you’ve got to be in the longest traffic jam of your life at some point!”).

We got to camp in the medical campsite, a secure part of the site that you needed your pass to get into. We found out we could also use our passes to go to the backstage areas. One of the Podiatrists had wangled himself onstage during Fatboy Slims set the night before……so after a few beers for dutch courage, we tentatively tried to get backstage at the pyramid and were let through no problem. As we wandered to the beer tent, who did we see coming up the path ahead of us? John Peel.

Like many others, my early musical tastes were greatly shaped by John Peel. The old cliches of listening to him under the bed covers late at night, so your folks wouldnt know, certainly apply to me. Midweek, 10pm til midnight was way past my bedtime!

I first wrote to him in 1983 when I was a Chiropody student in my late teens. When you’re doing feet its a good thing to chat to your patients and you can end up talking about allsorts. I got chatting to one patient about music “My sons the drummer in a band” he says “Who?” I ask “Oh you won’t have heard of them, they’re called The Fall” “THE FALL!!!”. So I sent John a letter along the lines of “I know you love the Fall so here’s some memorabilia I bet you dont have……the drummers dads toenail clippings”. I signed myself ‘Bob the Chiropodist’ – he read it out and that’s been my moniker since.

Over the next 20 years I used to write to him fairly regularly – not in a stalker type way, more “what was that track you played” or a postcard from holidays abroad, and became known as one of his ‘Regular correspondents’. I once enquired about a band I’d heard in session (Onward International) lamenting that I couldn’t find any of their stuff and he sent me this…

peel letter

A few weeks later a 12″ package arrived from the BBC hed sent me his copy of their single with a note “A present from a nice old man”.

peel package

As so often happened – the record wasn’t a patch on the session they’d done!

In 1995 I got a job in Leeds and initially lived with my Brother Dave in York.  This meant a lot of driving between York, Otley, Wetherby, Wakefield……and as I find daytime radio unlistenable – I used to tape Peelie and Mark+Lard at night and listen to them during whilst driving.

In 1996, Radio 1 came to Leeds and I was rather stunned to come home one day and find a message on my answering machine “Hello Bob the chiropodist, music loving John Peel here. I’m in the Queens Hotel, give me a ring and we’ll have a drink” – and we did, after his interview with David Gedge at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

Peel interviews Gedge

They say you should never meet your heroes, but he didn’t disappoint! Ironically we didn’t talk about music at all, just how Sheila was from nearby Shipley and how his kids were doing and the virtues of German cars and his fear of flying…etc…etc. In the couple of hours I spent with him, about a dozen people came up to him with demo discs/tapes and a line about “If it wasnt for you…..”. He was very gracious and self deprecating: “John! Meeting you is the highlight of my life!” “Well you should get out more”.

So when Jim and I saw him heading our way at Glastonbury, I made a beeline for him: “Hi John, I’m Bob the Chiropodist” I announced shaking him by the hand. “I was just thinking about you! My foots killing me!”. Unfortunately, having been enjoying myself, I was in no fit state to look at his foot and suggested he see one of the team in the Medical tent. All I could think about afterwards was “I’m in his consciousness Wow!”. I was most excited when he wrote about the meeting in the Radio Times (see below).

I bumped into him and his producer Harmeet at the 2004 festival too. Harmeet now produces ‘Slash Music’ a programme by Johns son Tom Ravenscroft  (a chip off the old block!). Its on ‘4Radio’ and available as a Podcast. My friend Mel took this shot of Peelie having a snooze backstage at that festival and that’s what I like to think, not that he’s gone for good but that he’s still backstage somewhere, just having 40 winks
peel 04

radio times