Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was the more established ‘writers’ who delivered the goods most promptly, increasing the literary merit of my letterbox before I could say Smokey Robinson. I am baffled as to how they found the time when they should be doing proper joiny-up writing, but hey, in the world of rock’n’roll there’s no sleep till the typewriter ribbon gets all snaggled. Dreams of Sex and Stagediving author Martin Millar compares and contrasts his experiences attending noisy hairy gigs seventeen years apart, discovering in the process that the Pixies pummel the sweat glands as ferociously as Led Zeppelin fired the awe. After sending me this he rang to see if I could get him on the guest list for Smashing Pumpkins, which proves his reborn zeal knows no bounds. Fever Pitch author Nick Hornby’s secret admiration for the very great Rod Stewart is long overdue for exposure, especially since he once made a veiled reference in a popular magazine to my owning a Genesis album. Still, no-one twigged except me. Any jibes about the Johnny Cougar debut album will however be matched by a ruthless description of the neo-Rod haircut sported in his days as midfield dynamo for the college Third XI. Ah, the joys of the old school tie set-up. When I first discussed this book with Desperadoes author Joseph O’Connor, whose sister is no stranger to the slings and arrows of pop fortune, I was myopic enough to mumble, ‘Hmm, I don’t know if Bob Geldof’s very topical.’ Reading his masterful evocation of a troubled Dublin childhood and adolescence amid a traumatised family I can only humbly admire his sangfroid.
Then strange things arrived from the land that God is asked to bless rather frequently. The golden words of Stephen J. Malkmus, of the intriguing Californian band Pavement, narrate a futuristic fantasy wherein Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam is a visionary monk, while lampooning most living artists in any medium. Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth gives us a thoroughly uplifting tale of sex and drugs (and possibly some rock’n’roll too) in New York City. ‘It’s fiction,’ he informs me. ‘I suspect you may have to censor the “dirty” language by using asterisks but hopefully this won’t be the case.’ The first time I read this frank take on Breakfast at Tiffany’s filtered through Charles Bukowski, I thought: shame we can’t use it. Then good taste prevailed. The lyrics that close the story come from the Experimental Jet-Set, Trash and No Star LP. Kristin Hersh of Boston’s Throwing Muses recalls how a chronic fear of her father’s Patti Smith records gave way to a fascination with armpits and fingers …
Caitlin Moran has been described as ‘precocious’ more times than she’s been described as ‘an orgasm octopus’, allegedly. The presenter of Channel 4’s ‘Naked City’ testifies to the quivering, jutting, throbbing joys of Suede, as so many young people today are wont to do. What with comedy being the new rock’n’roll (at least at the time of writing, 11.56pm), Robert Newman’s teenage recollection of a chance meeting with the mothers of proto-punk band Crass works on about nine levels, by my reckoning. Cosmic link: the first words Robert ever spoke to me (come to think of it, the only words he’s ever spoken to me) were: ‘You get mentioned in Fever Pitch, don’t you?’ See, it’s all coming together. Which is exactly what I thought when the final part of a serial rant from the inimitable Mark E. Smith of evergreen Manchester mavericks The Fall reached my filing cabinet, the aforementioned dysfunctional stove.
The side-splitting pun of the title Idle Worship attempts to raise the question of whether the growing pains involved in venerating rock gods and goddesses are worth the bother. Should we adore or abhor? Is what we see in our early pop role models a mirror, a mirage or a miracle? There is a war between romance and cynicism in this book, between faith and disillusionment. So it’s just like Tender Is the Night really, okay?
It may have been André Breton who wrote ‘Beauty will be convulsive or not at all,’ but it was Patti Smith who put it on an album cover. It may have been Blondie who sang ‘Dreaming is free,’ but it was me who decided it would be a resonant end to this introduction. Go on, inspire yourself.
CHRIS ROBERTS, April 1994
You Gotta Have Lost a Couple o’ Fights
im still starstruck, it doesn’t wear off … frank sinatra gave me a solid gold cartier pasha watch with sapphires and an inscription … to bono with thanks FRANCIS A SINATRA … WATER RESISTANT … im not gonna get over this … Frank likes me … hell ive hung out with him, drunk at his bar, eaten at his table, watched a movie at his place … in his own screening room … dig that asshole … i usually drink j.d. straight up without ice, its a tennessee sipping whiskey, so why did i go and blow it by ordering ginger ale … ‘jack and ginger’ a girls drink’ … FRANK looks at me and my two earrings and for the first time in my life i felt effeminate … i drank quickly to compensate and worse i mixed my drinks … over dinner (mexican not italian) we drank tequila in huge fishbowl glasses, never drink anything bigger than your head i thought as FRANK pushed his nose up against the glass like it was a hall of mirrors …
later asleep on the snowwhite of FRANK and BARBARA’S screening room sofa i had a real fright i woke up to wetness, a damp sensation between my legs … hmm … dreams of dean martin gave way to panic … first thought: ive pissed myself. second: don’t tell anyone. third: dont move theyll see the stain … yellow on white. fourth: make a plan … and so i sat in my shame for twenty minutes, mute, waiting for the movie to end, wondering as to how i would explain this … this … irish defeat to italy … this sign that what was once just verbal incontinence has matured … and grown to conclusive proof that i didn’t belong there/here. i am a jerk. i am a tourist, i am back in my cot age 4 … before i knew how to fail – mama – ive pissed myself … again.
well i hadnt, id spilt my drink. i was drunk, high on him, a shrinking shadow boxing dwarf following in his footsteps … badly … STARSTRUCK … “what now my love? now that its over?” i went back to the hotel … (turn left on frank sinatra boulevard), i would never drink in the company of the great man again … i would never be asked to. wrong, twice.
NOTE: IF YOU’RE GONNA DROP ONE, DROP A BIG ONE … A NAME … A NAME TO HANG ON YOUR WALL. EPISODE NO. 1. december 93, u2 had just got back from TOKYO, the capitol of zoo tv, it was all over … i felt wonderful. i felt like shit. my TV had been turned off … it was christmas … there was a parcel from FRANK a large parcel … i opened it … a PAINTING, a painting by FRANK SINATRA and a note … ‘you mentioned the jazz vibes in this piece well its called JAZZ and we’d like you to have it. yours Frank and Barbara’ this is getting silly … there is a SANTA CLAUS and hes Italian … (opera, Fellini, food, wine, Positano, the sexy end of religion, football, now grace and generosity?) … heroes are supposed to let you down … but here i am blown away by this 78 year-old saloon singer and his royal family … starstruck … a skunk on the outskirts of las vegas with my very own Frank Sinatra, last seen in his very own living room, on the edge of his very own desert, in palm springs … THE PAINTING, a luminous piece as complex as its title, as its author … circles closed yet interlocking, like glass stains on a beermat … circles with the diameter of a horn … Miles Davis … Buddy Rich … rhythm … the desert … theyre all in there … on yellow … to keep it mad … fly yourself to the moon!
EPISODE NO. 2 MARCH 1. im not an alcoholic im irish, i dont drink to get drunk do i? i drink because i like the taste dont i? so why am i drunk? im drunk because Frank has just fixed me another stiffy thats why! jack daniels this time straight up and in a pint glass.
its the ‘Grammys’