The BBC Blast project has returned to Belfast and is currently sprawling, like a giant bug colony, across Custom House Square. Last year I worked on the Derry event and now I’m taking a course in music journalism. It’s not an occupation that leads itself easily to a teaching format, but I’ll do what I can.
When I worked at NME, we had to de-programme the college kids with their journalist certificates. The academies had turned them into terrible squares. Our job was cultivate in them a sense of adventure, a bit of posturing, a hint of anarchy and the ability to type “cathedrals of sound” without blushing.
I took great delight in watching the Cameron Crowe yarn, ‘Almost Famous’ a few years ago. While it didn’t exactly fit with my experiences, I could remember many of the same moments. How a greenhorn kid from the sticks could hitch a ride on the rock and rollercoaster, with all the perks. How people could suddenly take your opinions seriously. And how you would strike up unusual friendships with famous figures – relationships that were often founded on mutual self-interest. That said, I’ve emerged from that caper with some very solid friends.
I always tell people that music journalism is badly paid and terribly fickle. But it’s also tremendous fun, and if you’re that way inclined, you really should give it a try. It really could be your type.
After watching lots of Glastonbury on TV, my youngest daughter Betsy is feeling creative. Her favourites are the naughty girls on the stage, like Lily Allen. And she has another singer in mind when she starts to draw a picture. This picture has a strangely shaped head and what appears to be a little door and a window on her face. There is a roar of laughter as we realise that she’s drawn a home in the shape of a bottle. Why it’s… Amy Winehouse!
You don’t realise how much Belfast needs colour until the carnival hits town. Suddenly, Royal Avenue on a drab Saturday afternoon becomes lit with magenta and lime, crimson and turquoise. There are giant butterflies, pursued by catchers with massive nets. We see princesses on stilts, a towering bloke with his guitar and Bootsy Collins glasses and all manner of bugs and fauna. The theme is ‘Flower Power’ and there’s little place for shrinking violets.
And of course the music is ace. Thanks to the Beat Initiative and their pals in Scotland, Brazil and beyond, the samba beat is rousing the main drag, challenging us not to smile, not to shake our limbs to the tremendous rhythm. While we’re digging all this, a float moves past, disguised as a VW camper van. On the top is BBC supremo Joe Lindsay. He wears a blue wig and he’s at the decks, spinning ‘It’s Not Unusual’.
The carnival spirit brings a kind of delirium that’s all good. It fits with the midsummer feeling and it reminds us that we’re connected to other cities and looser cultures. Little kids are bashing their instruments and parading with immense joy. Nobody is out of step – or not in any way that matters.
Tonight on the Late Show, Radio Ulster, 10pm, a tribute to Joe Strummer. It’s not like we need much of an excuse to load up on old Clash tunes, but a magnificent film: ‘Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten’ opens at the Queen’s Film Theatre this evening. It’s in town for a week, and it really is a thrill, an education and a reminder of how far a bit of humanity can take you in rock and roll.
We’ve also got a world exclusive, a Joe track called ‘Divorcing Jack’ which has never been played before. It was written to the film of the same name and writer Colin Bateman has been keeping it to himself for many years. We’ll also be hearing testimonies from the likes of David Holmes and Brian Young of Rudi fame, while I’ll be dusting down an old interview with Joe and myself from 1999. Don’t touch that dial!
Only last week I was musing on this blog about Bernard Manning and his offensive routines about “thick Paddies”. I’ve only glanced at his obits in the tabloids, but in many cases he’s been excused as a man of his time, a loveable rogue, a blunt northerner and the last example of a true comedic era.
I still empathise with the cartoon - used on the sleeve of a That Petrol Emotion single - that shows Manning telling one of his mean gags. Behind him are the names of the Irish literary greats : Oscar Wilde, Brendan Behan, Sean O’Casey, James Joyce, Bernard Shaw. This list actually inspired a piece of music by Dexy’s Midnight Runners – ‘Dance Stance’ which basically repeated the roll call with increasing noise and pride.
In several cases, people have claimed that Bernard Manning was far superior to the alternative comedians who came afterwards, with their politics, their anti-professionalism and their obsession with “Thatch”. And so I was keen to read the response of Alexei Sayle in today’s Independent. Thankfully Alexei hasn’t gone the way of Loaded magazine, nor has he written a rotten rock opera based on the music of Queen. No, the fella is unforgiving: “Bernard Manning was just a half-way decent comic with a horrible act”.
Anyone see Titanic Town on TV last night? I had a couple of reservations. Firstly, Glenn Patterson is criminally well preserved for a man of his age. Secondly, the plans for Belfast’s new quarter seem rather clinical.
Yes I know, architectural plans make everything look pristine and gleaming, but the vision of so many yachts tethered by the island where my grandfather laboured in oil and dirt seems mildly blasphemous. Maybe the real deal will have soul and humour and scruffy dimensions. If not, then it will become a kind of gated community, detached from the city life.
What killed the dream for me was architect who talked of setting in a chic café in the finished project, sipping on his frappuccino. I’m sorry, but that sounds like a bourgeois nightmare to me. Where’s the friction, the intensity, the clang of ideas? There’s always the danger that our new city will become overly smug about its sudden prosperity. And as Glenn pointed out, that’s the very moment that an unwelcome iceberg arrives to make another appointment with destiny and the Titanic myth.
Dr Who is hurtling to the end of the third series, lashed on by the arrival of John Barrowman, John Simm and Derek Jacobi. Everyone one of them has eyebrows askew and is grandstanding with gusto. Barrowman is heroically camp in the face of a collapsing universe, but David Tennant is never knowingly upstaged, and so they’re hurling lines at each other like broadswords, keeping it busy and witty and fun.
The Bailie kids are transfixed, the adults are enjoying the cosmic vigour and the double meanings. Meantime, there’s a giant rocket aiming for Utopia, and a mob of badly tattooed underlings are roaming the old planet. They look like members of the Anti Nowhere League, and in a sense, they are.
Like many veterans, I was aghast at the return of Dr Who, while the Christopher Eccleston casting in the first series didn’t move me. But the show is now a necessary spectacle every Saturday, and the previous programme, with the nasty statues, was wonderful value. The Doctor is emphatically in the house.
There’s a legendary scene in To Have And Have Not when Lauren Bacall is showing Humphrey Bogart how to whistle properly. “You just put your lips together and blow,” she purrs, as Bogie holds it all together and plays it absurdly cool.
I’ve never met too many women who could make the art of whistling seem sexy. Not too many men, either. Maybe Otis Redding during the final moments of ‘Dock Of The Bay’, when he can’t remember the lyrics but busks it, beautifully. Or John Lennon on ‘Jealous Guy’. Oh, and I guess we could commend The Bangles for that perky line in the chorus of ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’. Or more recently, Peter, Bjorn And John for the excellent ‘Young Folks’. People, I can feel a radio special coming on…
But no marks whatsoever to the average Ulster male. During my occasional visits to the local gym, I have to endure scores of hairy, naked blokes in the changing room, whistling along to the commercial radio station that constantly blares. This station seems to run on a cycle of Robbie Williams, Bryan McFadden, The Sugababes and Oasis. And to hear a whistling version of ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ is almost too much to endure.
Ulster boy whistlers take awful liberties with the melody of a given song. They also remove the natural cadences and make it sound stupid and “jaunty”. You would think they had all been reared on terrible flute bands…
While I’m not saying that you should re-route the flute, can’t we somehow muffle the whistle?
During the final minutes of the Ash gig on Saturday, Tim Wheeler closed a chapter of the Ash book. He told his audience at the Isle Of Wight festival that their new album, ‘Twilight Of the Innocents’ would be their last.
Blimey, we thought. If that’s the end of Ash, then we’re gonna have a significant hole in the tapestry of Ulster rock. Here was a band that had racked up 17 hits in the top 40, which brought humour, big tunes and unfiltered teenage awe to the party. I was thinking of songs like ‘Girl From Mars’ and ‘Angel Interceptor’ and ‘Shining Light’ - all roaring out of the radio in that classic, shaky-voiced manner.
In my head, I was already writing the obit. About their critical first surge from Downpatrick High, and the international rock action before the school exams were even over. Their first ‘proper’ album goes to number one, and so does ‘Free All Angels’, their mighty comeback release. Charlotte Hatherley played on some peppy releases while the band supported U2 at the memorable ‘Yes’ gig in the Waterfront Hall.
Ash have cool history in their DNA and the new songs are also full of intent. So we were all rather relieved when a Tim statement, issued last night, said that the band was not done yet. Instead, they’re moving their operation to digital only, using broadband to deliver great songs, rather than pressing, printing and shipping. Essentially, it’s another life less ordinary.
The Big Brother debate over the ’n’ word shows how critical the context of a word is. Used by the likes of Chuck D from Public Enemy, the word is a spear sharpened at both ends, jibing and provoking and forcing the listener to see a long history of subjugation and common pain. But when the speaker is a blonde and mildly posh 19 year from Bristol - former slavery centre of the Empire - people aren’t happy.
The closest thing we’ve got to it here is the term Paddy. Again there’s a history there – a long tradition of repellent Bernard Manning jokes, calling us thick and uncultured and deserving of colonial abuse. I remember the first time an English guy called me Paddy. I was working as a post boy in a computer firm in Whitechapel when he saluted me in the lift with this name. And while he wasn’t actively malicious, I was furious. All of my individuality had been stripped away. I had become generic in his eyes. By the end of a very short journey, he had been encouraged to say sorry.
A few years later and a cool T-shirt arrived in London. It was all green apart from three huge letters: P.W.A. Music biz people, in particular the Irish crowd (sometimes referred to as The Murphia) knew that it stood for Paddies With Attitude. It became such a popular item that U2 bassist Adam Clayton wore his onstage, with pride. And he’s basically an Anglo. But hey, there was some dispensation involved.
If in doubt, bury the racial insults. Sly Stone who led an amazing, multi-cultural act The Family Stone expressed it thus: “Don’t call me nigger, whitey/ don’t call me whitey, nigger.” Amen.
Shane MacGowan is in the Sugar Club in Dublin, shuffling like Boris Karloff. His face is waxy and his features are strangely frozen. On the other side of the room, Moya Brennan is talking to Julie Feeney, two astonishing voices in perfect accord. Declan O’ Rourke is on the stage, doing his best to inspire the crowd with ‘Galileo’. Some people are plainly thrilled but hey, this is a media launch and there’s a lot of plugging and flesh-pressing required.
This is a celebration of Hot Press and its 30 year history as Ireland’s premier rock magazine. Images from the old cover stories are flashing on the screen above the stage – from Rory Gallagher and Phil Lynott to Bono, Van, Geldof and Sinead. It’s a story we’ve all got a stake in, and so the mood is exceedingly up-beat.
As the bottles clink, there’s also talk of the annual Who’s Who publication – another Hot Press project that identifies the major music industry names on the island. This is a competitive crew, and so there is talk of column inches, billings and photo inserts. And as the night grows ever more fluid, the entire posse decamps to the roof garden, where those legendary voices are doused in nicotine.
We steer around the corner to the Crawdaddy, where the discussions start to falter and the captains of industry are drooling Guinness and blackcurrant down their expensive suits. No matter. The stars are out, the evening is balmy and this is still a tremendous alternative to civvy street.
The freelance life is a mixture of freedom and chaos, self-reliance and anxiety. It’s been this way for over ten years now, when I swapped a staff job at the NME in London for an irregular livelihood in the hometown. On a good week, the work-life balance is decent, the work pays well and there’s space for a bit of fun. Then again, there are times when it feels like you’re being shot from a cannon.
Last week, for instance, was a chronic rush. There were spur-of-the moment calls from a bloke over from Helsinki who has a huge multimedia centre and wanted to compare notes with the Belfast scene. A day later and a posse of musicians from Novia Scotia had hauled into town and they also wanted to know the score. Meantime there was a filming session with the Sonic DJ Academy, a documentary edit to view in Bangor, reviews to write for the Saturday Magazine show and a request from Arts Extra to talk music festivals.
The freelancer doesn’t want to say no to a paying gig because the phone may not ring again for a while. The work may go to someone else and may never return. So you keep running on the giant hamster wheel and hope that stability will follow.
On Friday there was also the issue of an outside broadcast from Mullan’s Bar in Downpatrick. A load of blues players had been booked, the BBC engineers were on site and another deadline was looming. So I was on my pushbike, heading into town and worried that I might miss an important slot. Instead of crossing the road outside the house, I took a short detour along the footpath. This was a dumb idea as a bloke came striding out of a Chinese take away, directly into my path. I clipped him, and he spun around.
He wasn’t hurt, but his food was on the road and he was justifiably angry. I tried my best to resolve the mess and his order was replaced. But there was a very plain conclusion to the story, a truth that’s often declared by every granny in the land. If you work yourself into a frenzy, the results aren’t likely to be great. You might want to increase your productivity, but too much haste is really uncool.
Tonight at 10pm, we’ll be broadcasting live from Mullan’s Bar in Downpatrick, aided by some premier musicians, some great tunes and a bunch of people who are working to make the Saturday Blues festival a success. This Radio Ulster special will feature the likes of Rab McCullough, 18 Roses, Whitey Johnson and Rev Doc. We’ll be in conversation with Paul Jones of Manfred Mann and The Blues Band fame, and the playlist already includes the likes of John Lee Hooker, The White Stripes, Bonnie Raitt, Muddy Waters and Bessie Smith.
If the proceedings get you as excited as we hope, then you should check out the Saturday festival at the Balydugan Mill, from 3pm until midnight.
