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THE MUSICIAN’S FEAR OF THE MUSIC SHOP RETURNS |
posted by jim on 13/01/06
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http://newsfeed.tcm.ie/images/people/JadeBigBroPA.jpg
So, here’s what happened. When I was rehearsing for the School Orchestra gig, my guitar started making farting sounds. I swapped guitar leads and the flatulent sounds stayed. I diagnosed a broken pick-up. For the Islington gig I taped an emergency pick-up to my guitar, which I’d take back to the shop after Christmas. It was still under its 12-month guarantee and I was also entitled to a free ‘set up’, which for the non musos is like getting your car serviced (of course for the yes musos, it’s nothing like that at all).
I’ve talked here before about my phobia of music shops and the people who work there and how I got over this somewhat when I successfully bought my new guitar last year. Anyway, I went back to the shop yesterday and after being ignored by the six people behind the counter for five minutes I was ‘served’ by a grumpy bloke who reluctantly took my details and then reluctantly tried to find the phone number of the guitar’s manufacturer for the next 30 minutes, until he got bored and handed me over to somebody else. This new assistant took my details again because the grumpy geezer hadn’t saved them on the computer.
To cut what’s a pretty boring story that I wish I hadn’t started short: after one hour in the music shop, with my details taken twice, the guitar maker’s phone number finally found and telephoned, all to the accompaniment of some kid playing Coldplay songs on a piano keyboard, we found the battery. There’s a fucking battery? I had a flat battery in my guitar. I felt stupid. I felt like someone who’d put petrol in his diesel car, like the man who took his fax machine back to the shop because every time he fed a fax message into the machine it came back out the other end, I felt like Jade Goody. To add a little insult to my injury it was then pointed out via the shop assistant’s guitar twiddling, diddling, harmonics and showing off – playing the guitar so much better than I ever would – it was pointed out to me that it didn’t need a free set up either. And so I left the music shop with my guitar between my legs. As I climbed the stairs I swear I could hear all the many, many staff pissing themselves laughing at the nob jockey who’d just been in the shop, they’d dine out on the story for years. I’d never go into a music shop ever again. My only consolation was that I was a sort of pop star and they all worked in a shop.
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WHEN IS AN ORDINARY BOY A CELEBRITY? |
posted by jim on 7/01/06
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By the end of 2005 I’d recorded my next album, mastered it, designed the sleeve and given it all to the record label. I’d finished writing what I’ve been calling my new book and I’d posted that to a literary agent. My next tour was booked and the tickets were on sale. And now I find myself waiting for something to happen. Waiting for everyone else to do their bit. To manufacture my album and offer me a fabulous book deal, sell my gig tickets. It’s all out of my hands now. I’m getting impatient. I’m probably bored. Maybe I should just give in and make the most of my free time: Read more books, learn a new language, take piano lessons. I’ve got three whole series of Seinfeld to watch, along with all the commentaries, interviews and other extra stuff. There’s the first series of Peep Show as well and then of course I could just sit on my arse and try to get a better score on the Bop-it game that my manager bought me for Christmas, I’m the crap one at Bop-it in my house, I think it’s a ladies’ game. http://mimish.org/pg_friends/bopit_tim.jpg
But instead of any of that, I’m browsing the world wide web, finding nothing, listening to radio talk shows talk about the same thing for hours on end. I’m wasting time being dumfounded by an MP in the Big Brother house and I’m worrying endlessly about whether anyone will show up at my March live dates or buy my new record if it ever gets made. And is my ‘book’ actually just 80,000 shit words, poorly and naively strung together by somebody whose ambition is bigger than his talent?
I want to spend 2006 making acceptance speeches. I want to win the Mercury Music Prize, or better still, be nominated and then make a big song and dance about how I’m not going to show up. I want my ‘lifetime achievement to song writing’ Ivor Novello. Presented to me by Rod Stewart in a wanky but swanky West End hotel.
I had to leave the house. Before I went mad or my acne from all the seasonal chocolates and pickled onions suffocated me. I took a bus to Croydon to do some bank duties and have a coffee in Marks & Spencer’s with all the old ladies. The bus fares have gone up, from £1.20 to £1.50. Surely that’s an unreasonable leap. What about £1.30 and £1.40 for God’s sake? I suppose I’ll have to get an oyster card, there’s little choice in the matter. What about casual travellers? Those without credit cards and the Internet? People who live at the bottom of a hill, far from a sweet shop, or with better things to do with their time than buy bus passes or understand the complicated oyster card system. I wish I was a teenager so I could jump on the bus through the back exit doors, without any need to pay, scratch my name on the window and then hop off at the next stop a couple of hundred of feet later.
Michael Barrymore’s crying in the Big Brother house, you can hardly blame him.
I’m currently reading Deadkidsongs by Toby Litt, bought for me by Fruitbat and his girlfriend for Christmas.
I’m listening to the Bright Eyes live album and watching Three Men In A Boat.
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TEAM JIM BOB'S END OF YEAR LISTS |
posted by jim on 21/12/05
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I thought I might do this all in lower case like I’m phone texting, which is something that I have yet to have tried. So that’s what I did, but my Microsoft Word wouldn’t let me do such a thing and while I was looking down at the keyboard that I was tapping away on, Microsoft Word automatically changed every lower case i into a capital one and every new sentence now began all capitalised and grammatically correct. Anyway, I’ve never been much of a mobile phone enthusiast, in particular I hate the person who thought it would be a great idea to fit the latest phones with speakers and then people can listen to shit music on the bus and watch GMTV – the first TV programme to go live on your mobile – on the train. Now I can’t think straight or read my book on the bus because someone’s watching Fiona Phillips giving dumb blondes a bad name and playing Fiddy Cent on their poxy telephones at a too loud and too tinny volume and tone.
Anyway again, played a brief set in Brixton at the Offline Christmas party. I’m a sucker for a well organised event with my stage time set in a big piece of stone. So I didn’t like going onstage about an hour and a half late and then for some reason I managed to lose my voice during my short twenty five minutes of singing. So I went to Ireland at the craic (do you see what I did there) of the next dawn to support the reformed Sultans Of Ping with the fear. Terrified I wouldn’t make it through the two Irish gigs. And do you know what? I did. There were a lot of squeaks and silent notes but with the help of the audience I made it to the end of my two Irish sets. In time to watch the Sultans and get drunk. They were utterly superb by the way. A good end to an interesting and ambitious year. Happy Christmas everybody, thanks for all the support, see you on the other side.
Here are the results from the Team Jim Bob jury:
TEAM JIM BOB’S TOP STUFF OF 2005
JIM BOB
Top 5 Albums Of The Year
1. Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake It's Morning/Digital Ash In A Digital Urn
2. Arcade Fire - Funeral
3. Babyshambles - Down In Albion
4. Chris T-T - 9 Red Songs
5. Rufus Wainwright – Want Two
Top 5 Gigs Of The Year
1. Bright Eyes – Somerset House
2. Jimmy Webb – Hammersmith Lyric
3. Sultans Of Ping - Dublin Village
4. Beck – Hammersmith Apollo
5. League Of Gentlemen Are Behind You – Croydon Fairfield Halls
TV Programmes Of The Year
1. Peep Show
2. Still Game
3. QI
4. Arrested Development
5. Casanova
Films Of The Year
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
Goodbye Lenin – DVD
Book Of The Year
In The Miso Soup – Ryu Murakami
MARCUS T OLLINGTON (Jim’s manager)
Top 5 Albums Of The Year
1. Arcade Fire - Funeral
2. Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake It's Morning
3. British Sea Power - Open Season
4. Chris T-T - 9 Red Songs
5. Tennant/Lowe - Battleship Potemkin
Top 5 Gigs Of The Year
1. Jim Bob's Christmas Concert - Islington Academy
2. Arcade Fire @ Reading Festival
3. Sultans Of Ping/ Jim Bob - Dublin Village
4. British Sea Power - The Forum
5. A-ha - Brighton Centre
Special Mention - Kylie @ Earls Court
TV Programmes Of The Year
1. Doctor Who
2. Peep Show
3. Lost
4. Without A Trace
5. The X-Factor
Film Of The Year
The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe
Book Of The Year
The Miracle Life Of Edgar Mint - Brady Udall
NEIL MR SPOONS WITHEROW (jim Bob’s uber roadie)
Top Albums
9 Red Songs - Chris TT
Employment - Kaiser Cheifs
Fine Art of Surfacing - Boomtown Rats (re-issue)
Top Gigs
Sultans/Jim in Dublin Dec
IDou/JSSW at Water Rats London
Cat Empire - Sheps Bush London July
Pixies - Ally Pally Aug
Top TV
Doctor Who
West Wing Series 6
Coast
Film and Book of the Year
Only saw Revenge of the Sith at cinema and that was shocking.
Didn't read anything particularly outstanding either.
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AFTER SCHOOL |
posted by jim on 11/12/05
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I woke up on the Thursday feeling like I’d been run over by a bus, the last Routemaster perhaps. That 159 from Streatham to Oxford Street. http://www.aidan.co.uk/md/Lon159OldBusV4801.jpg
The one on the telly with the jolly clippie in the uniform with the whistle and the smile.
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Not the usual 159 with the old misery guts who can’t be arsed to walk the four feet or so down the bus to look at my travelcard and rings the bell when the old lady with the heavy shopping has almost got her arthritic foot on the platform. Anyway, I woke with a neck ache from all the headbanging that took place the night before during the greatest ever performance of ‘Angelstrike!’. There was the back pain from carrying those heavy amplifiers and that piano and then my legs – my poor old man’s legs which throbbed from walking up and down those many flights of stairs from the dressing room to the stage of the Islington Academy.
What a gig. What a truly wonderful gig that was. It seemed like a good idea at the time: to form a 12-piece band and perform a dozen songs that nobody had ever heard before. And it was. A bloody good idea. I had these dreams that we’d be booed off, or of a bored audience checking their watches for Five to Sheriff Fatman. But no, it was all a dream. Everyone seemed to love it. It’s mad to leave it at that of course. All the stress of putting together such a large band for an hour or so onstage is insane. I expect the Jim Bob School Orchestra will perform again before too long.
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I don’t want to blow my own trumpet – Lindsay played trumpet by the way – but I thought the gig was so good that I’m a bit miffed that nobody would be there to review it and that they aren’t sitting around on comfy but stiff chairs talking about it on the Late Review on BBC2. We aren’t performing a couple of numbers on Jools Holland’s Hootananny. It probably won’t be endlessly played on the radio. All this should happen. All this stuff on the TV about bullying in schools should have ‘Back To School’ playing in the background, they could’ve taken ‘The Revenge Of The School Bullied’ from the ‘Angelstrike!’ album as a hint of what was to come. Instead, it’ll be Keane and Coldplay for the sad bits and Arctic Monkeys for the exciting violent happy slapper re-enactments.
As I type this James Blunt is about to appear on his own BBC special. There is so little justice in the world.
The Jim Bob School Orchestra were and are: Chris T-T, Jon Clayton, Simon Henry, Kate Grimaldi, Holly Morrison, Damo Waters, Arran J Lovechild, Jason Powerdrill, Richy Crockford, Lindsey Lowe and Vicky Johnson.
Peep Show is brilliant.
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I Hope Gwyneth Wasn't Listening |
posted by jim on 30/11/05
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Friday 25th November – Roundtable BBC 6Music
I always feel a bit dirty after I’ve reviewed records.
I used to love ranting about how much I couldn’t stand other bands, but then I mellowed and started to feel that being negative about everybody all the time was a bit…negative. Not good for my karma. So when I go on a review show these days, I always intend to be entertaining and hopefully funny and plug my new DVD http://www.carterusm.co.uk/shop.htm
and my next gig http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/user/?region=uk&query=detail&event=132308
So I can only apologise to the bands I cheaply took the piss out of on the BBC, there’s enough bitchiness in the media without me joining in. I may write to them all to say sorry, I didn’t mean it, I was trying to be amusing and plug my stuff
http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/user/?region=uk&query=detail&event=132308
I went to see the League Of Gentlemen’s panto at Fairfield Halls in Croydon and again I felt a bit guilty, having so strongly criticised the venue in my book
http://www.jim-bob.co.uk/book.shtml
I should be barred from the place. Anyway, I got in and the show was brilliant. Juvenile, lots of pooh and sex gags, great festive fun, even if some Scrooge at the Evening Standard tells us it was rubbish.
I’m reading the Contortionist’s Handbook, recommended by somebody on the Carter message board, it’s very good.
Listening to the Babyshambles album a hell of a lot, it’s very good. Comments like this usually provoke a few responses of ‘junkie scumbag’ and that sort of thing, but at the risk of getting all bitchy again, if dirty is Babyshambles and clean is Coldplay, then give me the junkie scumbag.
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JACK REGAN'S JACKET |
posted by jim on 17/11/05
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When I was in Devon I visited a few charity shops with my girlfriend. This is something I used to do in London but don’t bother anymore as some of the shops have got a bit up themselves and think they’re Knightsbridge boutiques. Selling you moth ball stinking tat at over inflated prices, refusing to let you buy things cheaper as the charity’s Internet department have looked the item up on eBay and that’s what it costs there.
In Devon there were still things on the racks worth buying, not all snapped up by dealers and ponces. I bought myself a jacket http://johnthaw.topcities.com/images/Thaw/Sweeney-80.jpg
that has been commented on as being: a) a Sweeney jacket and b) a paedophile’s coat. I also bought a book by Douglas Coupland called ‘Life After God’, which is superb. It has a lot of drawings in it and just a few words on each page. Reading it on the train I was aware that anyone looking might have presumed I was reading a children’s book. A sort of Harry Potter-children’s-book-in-adult-cover in reverse situation.
That ‘Girls and Boys’ or was it ‘Boys and Girls’? pop music sex and gender bending programme on BBC2 was entertaining. Up until we reached the nineteen nineties and the present day. I should have guessed really, will I never learn? Another documentary where the early nineteen nineties didn’t exist, jumping a few years from The Stone Roses straight to Oasis. A couple of references to under achieving bands – which always means Carter by the way – and how we were all saved by Suede’s androgyny and artiness.
And then of course, after a decent kissing of Oasis’ arse it descended – as all British music docs must – into the Robbie Williams show. The entire premise for the programme was thrown out of the window to play us some Williams and for the usual: ‘what a great performer’, ‘the obviously talented one in Take That’, ‘Robbie cures cancer’ etc, etc.
Went to see the Frank & Walters, who were brilliant.
My DVDs arrived http://www.carterusm.co.uk/shop.htm
Watched the Take That doc, which bizarrely enough didn’t descend into a Robbie Williams – or ‘Bob’ as Gary Barlow likes to call him – hagiography. Jason Orange was a bit strange though.
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PASTIES |
posted by jim on 6/11/05
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It was nice to get away from London. To go somewhere quiet, where my best chance of getting myself shot would be if I strayed onto a farmer’s land and he thought I was trying to worry his sheep. I wanted to look up and see stars in a clear night sky. To not be woken up early in the morning by the shouts of the neighbours.
This was my working holiday in Devon, in the ironically named Ringmore (there was no phone signal), I was going away to finish a version of my new ‘book’, a version that I wouldn’t be too embarrassed to send to a few publishers. In spite of all the distractions – the sea, the cliffs, the starry skies, the relations, the sheep, the pubs and the pasties, the wind and the rain – I managed to get a fair bit done and should print and post a copy to a few people soon.
Do you remember that TV gardens programme with those two old gay dudes, it was called, I think, ‘The Curious Gardeners’. Anyway, the place where I stayed was owned by a couple whose garden had featured on that prog as well as on ‘Gardener’s World’, an amazing garden with sculptures made out of wine bottles and lots of crazy stuff, reminded me of Barcelona, apart from the weather.
On the way to Devon, passing Stonehenge is always the point when I feel like we’re getting somewhere, a halfway point and time to stop for an overpriced, tepid and freshly cooked yesterday vegetarian breakfast at a Little Chef. I’m no hippy but I like the ‘Henge and was alarmed to see that some kind of large business park is being built nearby, I expect it’ll be a bunch of fast food restaurants and a cinema, maybe a TK Maxx, the alarming aspect is that it’s called Solstice Park. Like I said, I’m no hippy but isn’t that a bit tasteless and insensitive?
Saw the family, avoided Halloween by going to a Halloween party with them. Found 6 different vegetarian pies in a small Devon Co-Op, bought a jacket in a charity shop, that’s both old man chic and also a bit James Dean, which I like to think sums me up. Had Dean not died I think he would have turned out just like me. Came home for fireworks, expect them to still be going off till Christmas.
Did you hear me on Radio 2 with Andrew Collins? I thought it went really well. I passed Alex from Blur on the way in. I used to know him slightly and he triple took me as we passed. I think he knew he knew me from somewhere but couldn’t work out where. I suspect he’s sat at home even now, going: a film? Is he in politics? Newsreader? Playing Botticelli with himself. Who was that enigmatic looking and handsome young man I saw at the BBC?
Which reminds me, on that ‘where in the world…PC World’ advert, is that Danny from Mega City 4? He’s also in an advert for car insurance or something. Answers on a postcard.
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WHERE WILL I SHOPLIFT NOW? |
posted by jim on 21/10/05
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I don’t like to bad mouth the family but, my local Safeways which is now a Morrisons is closing down. Just in time to avoid the Christmas rush. About a week before the big day all the staff will be jobless and I’ll have nowhere to buy my potatoes and cheese from. Those bloody Morrisons. And it’s no use mum going to Iceland because I hear that’s also closing down. I shall starve to death.
My manager and the shady character from Eldorado, Marcus Tandy is moving into the area soon, he’ll starve to death as well http://www.geocities.com/cyberrobert/birdsall.jpg
It’s a funny old world don’t you think?
Michael Jackson has been called up for jury service, he is expected to get out of it on a technicality. A copper put an unruly boy in a waste paper bin.
The bloke who dressed up us the rozzer in The Village People is wanted by the police http://a.abclocal.go.com/images/071505_victor_willis.jpg
On the other hand, if anybody believes that truth is stranger than fiction, they obviously haven’t read any Chuck Palahniuk.
My ears and the state of them is driving me up the wall, going to the doctors is such a frustrating exercise and something I’ve avoided like the bird flu for years, so I shouldn’t really complain. Both ears are muffled now, me and Beethoven and Eric Sykes. Don’t heckle me, I probably can’t hear you.
Played a triumphant gig in Bedford – never thought that was a sentence I’d use. The last time I played the town, everyone sat with their backs to me and had a chat, half the girls were sick outside and the other half were crying, it was like all my bad teenager party experiences in one big Bedfordshire flashback lump.
I’m on Radio 2 next week. This means various things to me: Firstly, I deserve to be on the radio more, so I’m happy about that. And Radio 2 is the very radio to be on, it’s got bulk listeners but most importantly of all, I got my name in the Radio Times this week. It's one of the two magazines I buy and read religiously every week and have done for years. The other mag is Time Out, who in spite of my loyal subscription, have never had a kind word to say about me.
Reading Rik Mayall, or rather, The Rik Mayall’s ‘Bigger Than Hitler, Better Than Christ’ book. If my manager, or the dude from Eldorado, wrote a book I would expect it to be like this.
Listening to John Lennon at the moment, there’s a reason other than sheer pleasure.
Find out at Christmas.
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STUDIO DIARY PART TWO |
posted by jim on 10/10/05
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So I went on back to the recording studio and, in what in these self indulgent days could be considered record quick time, Tears For Fears would have turned over in their graves – if they were dead of course – we finished the first nine songs of the ‘School’ album, we recorded my vocals and mixed into the night and early morning and the songs now sound wicki wicki wah wah west. I went home to record the simpler 3 remaining tunes at the less spectacular Stereoworld Studios and with a dozen songs recorded and sounding to me like the greatest album ever made, I went to Stanstead Airport.
In the adjacent airport check-in queue to Team Jim Bob, there was a very hairy David Baddiel checking in for a Spanish bound flight…oh and look, Clive Anderson…and Angus Deaton and various other recognisable TV faces, all going to the same mysterious place, I wonder where and why they were going.
I forgot to say, I’ve seen a rough version of the live DVD and it’s looking pretty damn good, particularly happy with the look of my suit, my only regret is that I swore so much, at least eleven effings, effs or effers. My mum is going to see this.
Team JB’s first night in Berlin was to be a planned quiet night with a few beers and a chat and no hangover to muss up the following day’s sightseeing and Jim Bob show. Of course this would turn into many more beers and then some cocktails and another great plan scuppered by our weakness for the juice of a good time.
The following day we walked our hangovers around the streets of Berlin and in spite of it being my fumftieth visit I still have no sense of direction and follow Mr Spoons around like something that follows something else around.
The gig was not for me one of my best performances, it was pretty late into the next morning when I stepped onto the stage, without my self-confidence, basic guitar skills, the lyrics to the second verse of ‘The Music That Nobody Likes’ and a bit of a silly set list. A set list with maybe too many Carter hit singles on it, not enough ‘Angelstrike!’ tunes and I really should know the words to ‘Sheriff Fatso’ by now, surely to goodness.
That same evening Robbie Williams was also in town,
http://www.leeds.gov.uk/GrandTheatre/graphics/fs.jpg
playing his one and only European show this year to 8 thousand lucky Berliners, he showed up at my gig and caught the second half of my set and then we had a big fist fight, which I won, I broke two of his teeth and Mr Spoons knocked out three burly Williams bodyguards, while Marc O beat the shit out of his manager with a baby football table.
Anyway, I felt a tad ashamed of myself for my below par musical performance but the audience were kind enough to tell me I wasn’t as bad as I thought I was and that made me feel better so I had a gin and tonic. This is the drink that I first tried when I was in Holland with Richy from Abdou/Idou, up till then it was a drink I thought I didn’t like but now I’ve sort of taken to it, even if I can still taste the mothers’ ruin a good two days later.
Flew back to London at stupid O’clock in the morning and forced myself to stay awake all day, or at least until I’d watched Midsummer Murders, which I’m watching as I type this. It’s got the Welsh dude from ‘This Life’ in it, what happened to the other of Bergerac’s copper sidekick’s? Have I missed something? Can you imagine living in a village with so many horrific and violent homicides? Lambeth shmambeth. Now I’m thinking, shall I watch the ep of ‘Arrested Development’ I’ve just videoed (I love that programme)? Or I could go for the first of a two-parter of ‘Waking The Dead’ that I’ve also taped, or I may just plump for the Alan Bennett South Bank Show, because I’m a vulture for a spot of culture.
I’m forming the live version of the Jim Bob School Orchestra for the Islington Academy gig, there should be ten or twelve people on stage that night, it’s going to be amazing. Christ I hope it’s going to be amazing. I think the new album is going to knock people’s socks off. Blow them away. Probably really piss a few critics off as well.
The German for hiccups is schluckaufs, travel really does broaden the mind.
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STUDIO DIARY PART 1 |
posted by jim on 27/09/05
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It’s time to enter the recording studio to realise my ‘School’ project. Various musicians and friends – and combinations of the two – will be popping in and out to record their parts over the course of the sessions and hopefully I’d be able to sit there on my producer’s throne and watch the whole thing take wonderful shape.
The recording studio is, compared to where I live, in the middle of nowhere. http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B000001ES7.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg I won’t see anybody who isn’t involved in the recording for a whole week and once again I’ll be thinking about escaping London for good. The studio is in a converted oast house, they used to cook hops in the room we’re recording in. I’m there with my mates, Mr Spoons is cooking lovely food and the weather is my favourite kind: that sort of sunshine, but not too hot, with a nice breeze weather. Outdoor Sunday newspaper reading weather. At night we relax and some of us maybe get a bit drunk and we talk rubbish till the early hours. I’m going back to sing the lead vocals this week and hopefully mix the album which, and I may have said this sort of thing before, but it really is sounding abso-fucking-lutely extraordinary.
Taking the advice of the Carter message-board I’m reading Haruki Murakami’s ‘South of The Border West of The Sun’.
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