Where Are All the Weirdos?
I first met Monty the Moron at “performance night” at a dingy club in the UK’s bohemian (i.e. sleazy) Brighton–a place where literally anything goes…and that’s the way we like it down here. The place is rammed to the rafters with winos, weirdos, junkies and poets, all of whom are welcome in my book, as they each play their part in keeping Brighton well and truly off the straight and narrow.
Anyway, the first glimpse I had of my future band-mate Monty was as he was called to the stage to give it his all for the alloted five minutes that the participants were rationed to–not enough in some cases and rather more than truly necessary for others! Boy did he go for it, getting some pretty impressive noises out of a cheap and battered Casio keyboard. A quick flurry of Bach was followed by a smidge of jazz. Then, most impressively he suddenly freaked out–something had gone untoward with the equipment which instigated a cacophony of loud cursing and swearing from the stage–and a stunned silence from the audience. This was my kind of musician I thought, but on purchasing him a pint later I was surprised to find that he was actually quite shy and unassuming, the demented stage persona being reserved solely for performances.
Basically, if anything goes wrong with his keyboards he loses it big time. It’s a nightmare for the roadies but hilarious for the fans as the air rapidly turns blue with a dazzling array of foul-mouthed invectives (I could also mention that the onstage air has turned brown over on Monty’s side of the stage on occasion, but that might have more to do with his love of all things curry…if you get my drift).
Anyway, you should have heard him the night we arrived at our extremely dodgy San Francisco motel after a harrowing 24 hour drive across country from God knows where. Some dubious fellow residents of the drug dealer persuasion made the mistake of attempting to sell our keyboardist some of their produce and it didn’t seem like they were willing to accept no for an answer. Well, they got a whole lot more than they bargained for, and deservedly so. The fact that he woke the whole place up at 3am-ish didn’t bother our manic hero as he fired off a choice selection of w***ers, f**k offs, and b***cks in the general direction of these hoodlums, convincing them that they were potentially dealing with a dangerous psycho. An assumption not 100% away from the truth.
In this day and age of slickly coached TV talent show contestants and punk band clones with nary a spiky hair out of place, might it not be the weirdos and flawed genii who could be the saviors of a music business that doesn’t seem to know talent when it hears it? So what if a performer is good looking and can put over a tune to a standard that might appeal to the likes of Simon Cowell. How much longer will it be before even the fans of his turgid shows start hankering for a bit of spontaneity and madness in their entertainment?
Frank Zappa wouldn’t get through the first audition on American Idol (or whatever it’s called these days) let alone be offered a record contract. I can hear them now, “Not commercial enough…too controversial…where’s the hit?”
The quote he came out with about the ubiquitous nature of mainstream pap went something like this: “95% of all music, from whatever genre you care to mention, is garbage. But after a little investigation it’s easy enough to find the real stuff, you just won’t get to hear it on radio that often.”
When young punk bands ask me for advice I tell them to do something different…like find themselves a bassoon player, or paint themselves green or whatever.
Is there any likelihood of a resurgence in the experimentation of the ’70s that brought us Krautrock, punk and psychedelia? Well, if the likes of the UK’s determinedly left field Colour Out of Space and All Tomorrow’s Parties festivals are anything to go by, things look promising.
And at the end of the day, wouldn’t you rather witness some lunatic muso losing their cool onstage, tangled up in cables and broken equipment screaming “C**TS!” into the microphone than some tediously normal act well versed in their stagecraft, doing everything by numbers–and thereby boring everyone to death? The likes of James Blunt spring to mind–do you have him in the USA? I can only apologise on behalf of the British nation–we’re not all like that.
Oh, and to any of the many labels currently churning out the same old dross that might be listening–do us all a favor and sign the occasional unpredictable genius type…a future Syd Barrett, Brian Wilson or Frank Zappa. You never know, you might even start selling some records you’d be proud to actually listen to!
Pip pip,
Captain S.
PS - Here’s the worst joke I’ve heard this week
I went to see the nurse this morning for my annual check-up,
She said I have to stop w**king
I said “Why?”
She said, “Because I’m trying to examine you.”
Captain Sensible is the guitarist of rabble rousers the Damned who kick started the UK punk scene of 1977 along with the Clash and the Sex Pistols, with whom they shared many a stage. Highly rated examples of the Damned on vinyl are “Damned Damned Damned” and “Machine Gun Etiquette”, the latter of which combined their rifftastic version of punk rock with a generous dollop of pysychedelia–a common theme in Mr. Sensible’s work. Mr. S also had a successful (if unlikely) solo career in the ’80s and toured the USA as a rap artist (I kid you not…) when his single “Wot” found itself high in the Billboard Dance Charts. He recently formed his own political organisation, The Blah! Party, as a direct result of Tony Blair’s warmongering. Captain is still touring with the Damned who are planning some recording soon–so if there’s any labels out there……
www.captainsensible.com