Chris Abrahams from The Necks is currently in the room next to me being interviewed. I plan on bailing him up when he walks past to heap praise on him, as I’m a fan of all that he does. Stay tuned for updates.
Edit - what a lovely lovely guy! They say don’t meet your heroes, but this time the saying was proved incorrect. Got to chat about the time the Necks played an underground salt mine in Krakow, the influence his music had on me as a teenage kid living in a boring rural town and more.
When I was 17 I went to my cousin’s (an actor) birthday party and the first person I was introduced to when I went in the front door was Nicole Kidman. She was making herself a strawberry daquiri and proceeded to make me one. I got quite drunk that night and chewed her boyfriend of the time’s ear off with a million questions and statements about how cool Top Gun was, etc. etc. The boyfriend (I’m sure you can guess who it was) took it pretty well and completely humoured a clueless, starstruck teenage me. Quite embarrassing in hindsight.
Was in Manchrster city centre earlier, going down a quiet back street, saw a bit of a commotion with a group of people (mainly blokes) surrounding someone, walking past I realised it was Russell Crowe signing lots of fully grown men’s Gladiator toys and artwork
They were like flies on sh1t as someone walking past remarked.
Credit to him he seemed to be signing everyone’s stuff
Sade Small Claims Update….
You may recall my earlier Sade post: my father in law’s security/alarm company had Sade as a customer in the 90s.
He told me another story yesterday. some of the work they were doing was related to her studio at her (then) house in Islington. As part of the project she asked them to contract via the electrician she used. After it was completed, the electrician owed them a lot of money and refused to pay. Eventually he had to go to Sade, very embarrassed, and say her sparky wasn’t going to pay him. She said don’t worry, he will come and pay you on Monday.
On Monday the spark turned up WITH BOTH HANDS IN PLASTER!!! Very sheepish and apologetic and paid in full.
Don’t fuck with the Smooth Operator!!
I studied at the university next to her house and it was common knowledge the the bottom half of the studio windows were obscured so Sade had some privacy. Could or couldn’t be true but I admire her all the more for it
The recent death of Duke Fakir, the last remaining Four Top, reminded me that I’d met them in surreal circumstances the early 90s.
I was tour managing a little act called Lunarci for a long weekend of gigs at the rave barn BCM (Biggest Club Majorca / Bank of Cocaine Majorca) in Magaluf. We were shown into a tiny broom-cupboard dressing room in the basement and there they were!
It took us completely by surprise as they weren’t anywhere on any of the publicity (headliners were Jon Pleased and Darren Emerson), but they didn’t seem to care. In fact they were having an absolute ball, probably having spent too much time upstairs in the office of legendary owner Tolo.
They were completely spangled and clearly more than interested in my young male charges, but when it came time to perform they absolutely smashed it - no stage, in the middle of the room 2 dancefloor.
True gents, absolutely hilarious, and very generous with their supplies 
That’s a great story 
(British Cattle Market) was my favourite
Was out in The Phoenix last night (Dundee folks will know) and Jack Loudon, Saoirse Ronan, and Sean Gilder were all in for a drink 
Here’s a story that just been brought to mind by the news that my son who is at Reading festival has lost the car keys…
I think it was Glastonbury 2007, it was the last year of Lost Vagueness, it was the wettest, most horribly muddy, flowing wood-chip slurry year I’ve ever experienced.
The gig was this…by day it was a roller disco on an old fairground dodgem car rink. Punters could hire skates and we DJ’d stuff for them to skate to. Every hour the crack rollerskate team from Streatham did a display and they would only perform if the plywood surface was immaculate.
By night it was a full on rave for 700 people. Innerfield soundsystem (remember the cardboard tubes).
Each morning we had to clear a full 12 inches of mud from the surface and jetwash it ready for the skaters. All to do it again for 4 nights. It was the definition of insanity.
Against the other end of the tent was a stage dressed to look like the performers/dates/guests were on a huge TV. It was sponsored by Match.com, remember that? It was so bloody awful I can’t even begin to describe it. It wasn’t funny or clever. It was shit.
Tucked away ‘backstage’ was a boudoir TV studio which was the domain of Latvian pornographer Lazlo Panaflex. He wasn’t really any of those things, his name was Dan and he came from Essex.
Punters were invited back to feature in their own little movie which was filmed by an actual Dutch porno camerawoman. I forget her name.
The bed used in this setup was created by my friend Tim who was running this whole show and, first small claim alert, featured in the video to a cover of Laidback’s White Horse. I shall try and link it here if I can find it.
Anyway, my van (sleeping, living, escaping vessel) was parked a short wade away in the back stage area. It was also used to stash the rider (slabs of Stella) for the crew.
At the end of the Saturday night I couldn’t find my van keys so I had to kick a couple out of the porn bed so I could try and get some kip.
It was virtually impossible being that the red velour gave no protection against the cold and anyway it was all a bit damp with what I wishfully hoped was moisture from the air.
After a restless hour or two, now daylight, I wandered out and the first person I bumped into was Keith Allen. I asked him if he knew how to break into a Sprinter? “Try the guys down in Strummerville” he said, “they’re bound to know”.
Well I didn’t, I toughed it out and began shovelling the mud off the roller rink. Eventually my mate Tim joined me, he looked a bit sheepish and then as if by magic he pulled my van keys from the mud “oh look what I’ve found!”, yeah right, he’d had them all along after fetching some beer earlier on. Bastard.
There is another element to this story which involves Stella McCartney, the band Blue and 1000 blue glow sticks, but I don’t think anyone’s got the energy for that.
Reminded of this by Sound Gas posting about Real World studios on Insta. I did a weekend recording there in 2016 with a bunch of people at some boot camp thing for electronic musicians (Matt Black from Coldcut/Ninja Tunes came down to listen and didn’t like anything, but that’s another story). Most people left on the Sunday evening but as I’d gone down on my bike I decided to stay an extra night as I didn’t fancy riding back home in the dark.
The next morning I was having breakfast at the communal table when some guy walked in, got himself some Granola or whatever and sat down. I continued head down reading the morning’s news on my phone. It was only when I got up to leave I realised it was Peter Gabriel. I didn’t know what to do, whether to say hello or good morning, so I left to go back upstairs to my room.
I wonder if he’s ever got over me blanking him?! 
Whole lotta Lead on that studio. Cue jokes about heavy metal…
The What Don’t You Get discussion about Bjork has reminded me of when…
I was lodging a room in an old school friend’s big house in Brixton in the early 90s. She ran the international dept at One Little Indian, so having done numerous trips with their acts had got to know them all quite well.
The Sugarcubes had been supporting U2 on their 1992 US tour, and had a few days in London on their way home. Bjork had already told the band she was leaving to go solo so the label put her up in a decent hotel, but there was obviously no budget for the now redundant rest of the band and they ended up sleeping on our living room floor (even the heavily pregnant keyboard player!).
They were determined to enjoy their last few days of that lifestyle so went on a 48hr bender and drank everything we had right down to the cooking sherry.
When my parnter was younger, she was trying to get some sleep on an international flight, and a socked toe started prodding and tickling her. She was somewhat horrified at this behaviour from a fellow passenger, and after politely pushing the foot away a couple of times she turned around to remonstrate. The owner of the foot was none other than a mischevious, giggling Bjork who had booked 4 seats of an economy row, and had taken a shining to my partner.
Be a bit weird if it was a bjloke behind. Cue police at landing.
You can see me as the chicken eating, wine drinking and silver handed black faced dad of Oscar from 1:39 on in this track by Charlotte De Witte, formerly known as Raving George. It was great to be allowed to eat rotisserie chicken while everyone else on the set was starving to death 
