A few words on 2009
A few words on the subject
A few words on the subject
The collected
ill-informed drivel
of
Richard Asplin
A few words on 2010
A few words on 2011
A Few Words On January 2012
A few words on The Dodge Brothers, Neil Brand and Beggars Of Life
Sunday 22nd April 2012
A few words on February and March 2012
Well hello once more dear readers and welcome back to the most sporadic discourse on this here interweb. Sadly gone it appears are the days of one-or-two-posts-per-week to bother you with. It appears I am now in the business of getting down to this crap about every four weeks. A monthly appearance. I don’t imagine this concerns you much, idle feeble-pun-filled musings that these are.
But I’ve got you here now so I may as well crack-on, as Pete Doherty likes to say.
Not much going on within my noggin to be honest, dear readers. My days are full to the brimmington of a handful of concerns which I offer now in no particular order:
1. Wisdom Teeth. Now Every three or four months I get wisdom tooth panic. The insides of my mouth, towards the back, where the tendons or whatever they are that work the jaw are, begin to ache like fuck. If you can imagine biting the inside of your cheek by accident (which I’m sure we’ve all done) – well imagine that, but not letting go and sort of clamping down with your teeth on the inner fleshy bit of mouth until it hurts not inconsiderably. Well, that’s what I’m getting at the moment. As I say, it normally passes after a few days and I forget all about it. But whilst it’s going on I become eerily aware of my mouth – my teeth, my gums, my jaw, my tongue, my inner cheeks, my saliva glands – and can spend panicky paranoiac hyperchondrious minutes staring into space, shoving my fingers in my mouth, clicking my jaw, clenching my teeth and generally being a bit of a worry boots.
I should go to the dentist, I suppose. But I haven’t been, as their crookedness, stainage and general British-ness would suggest – since about 1976. It crosses my mind to get them straightened and cleaned up and whitened and suchlike from time to time. Normally when I’m spitting gobby blood and spitty pink toothpaste onto porcelain morning and night. Oh well. That’s being nearly 40 for you.
2. Exercise. Yeahhhhh, my alternate-day British Army Fitness Programme has decidedly gone for something of a burton, as I discovered this very afternoon when I attempted to do 4mins-running-90-seconds-walking rpt 6 times between my home, Elephant & Castle and back. The return journey became somewhat beetroot faced and wheezy and more like 90-seconds-running, four minutes walking. So that’s knocked my spirit a bit. But, tomorrow is another week so I’ll be back to it.
3. The novel. I guess this is taking up most of my brain-time, walking to work time, staring into space time, lying on the bed trying to fall asleep at midnight time and “the bit between dinner and bed” time. I’m 41/80ths (or “about halfway”) through my first run at it. It’s coming along pretty well, but throwing up lots of plot holes and inconsistencies which frankly are the 2nd Draft’s problem. One can spend too long trying to fiddle and correct and rewrite and perfect the first draft. Which can be counter-productive as it makes one overly fond of what one has slaved over and less willing to cut it all and bin it, despite it
a. slowing the plot down
b. being a bit shit
“Kill your darlings” I believe Faulkner said. I am also under the illusion that it was the screenwriter William Goldman who said something along the lines of “when you find the bit you’ve written that you love, adore, worship and is absolutely your favourite bit, put a line through it.”
So I continue to bash out 2000 words a day, 5 days a week (or as many as my hectic social whirl of a life/wife will spare me). Which means, all things being equal (which they never fucking are and never fucking have been which I guess is why Rosa Parks got so het up and beeped her Oyster Card and refused to budge), means I’ll be done with this draft in 4 weeks. At which point I will bask in a month off and no doubt have more time to spend farting out this guff.
4. Facebook. Yeah, I don’t know why I suddenly found myself double clicking the log-in page and scouring posts up and down and inserting dumb-ass comments to other people’s dumb-ass posts and photos. I joined FB, I think, about 5 years ago and have probably twerped about on it more this year than in the last 4 combined. I have a mixed bunch of “friends” on FB (I think the inverted commas speak for themselves). They fall, sadly not fatally, into the following sets (I expect you’re the same):
i. Massive bunch of people under the age of 25 I knew the week I set up my account.
ii. Tiny smattering of actual people I have actually spent time with
iii. Work colleagues whose friendship one is obliged to accept as one is likely to meet them on the stairs the afternoon one has rejected them.
iv. About 2 dozen folk I used to be at primary/middle school with, all of whom appear to have – like us all – got fat and unrecognisable and yet, about the eyes, somehow keep a spark of that 7yrs old magic.
v. A handful of stand-up comics who splurt their one-liners and observations at the world as a sort of cyber “sounding board.”
So that’s the Facebook crowd. But here’s the conundrum, the etiquette of which I am unaware of and is unlikely to exist in such a modern environment. (Now I’m sounding like Woody Allen talking to Annie Hall about photography. If you don’t know what this is, I can’t imagine why I know you. I certainly, in all honesty, can’t like you very much. Annie Hall? C’mon. Went arm in arm with Star Wars at the 1978 Academy Awards and pretty much cleaned up. Annie Hall: Best Director, Picture, Actress and Screenplay; Star Wars: Best...well, pretty much everything else. But not actor, obviously. Anthony Daniels robbed for the first of 6 occasions.
Oh look for fuck’s sake, here’s a link to what I’m talking about. It’s 84 seconds. Do yourself a favour.
Sorry, I was talking about etiquette. I’ll posit this: Is it acceptable to “unfriend” someone, or whatever the fucking expression is, who you like as a human being, but can’t abide as a “facebooker?” I mean there are people I like, who I would happily watch drink a beer I had bought them while I enviously sip at a warm Appletizer, and shoot the breeze. But if ALL THEY ARE GOING TO POST IS HOW FAR THEY’VE RUN, HOW MUCH THEY CAN BENCH, HOW MANY CALORIES THEY EAT, HOW MANY POUNDS THEY’VE LOST OR MEANINGLESS LIVE NON-SEQUITURS ABOUT THE STATE OF FUCKING PLAY OF A SOCCER GAME I COULDN’T GIVE A CUNT ABOUT, then I’m wondering if I could speed up my evening facebook-review by politely removing them?
Some help on this please, people.
And if you’re one of the people who make these posts and are reading this: I love you, I just don’t care about your weight-loss, fitness level or the football team you like. That’s not why we are friends.
Okay, here’s pretty much the only thing that’s happened to me that I want to share a-few-words-on before I finish up with my now regular book reviews of classics you can’t be arsed to read yourself.
I was queuing up in the branch of Office, the shoe retailer, in Kingston Upon Thames one lunchtime. I had to purchase a £20 gift card to award to a member of staff at work who had entered a competition in the work newsletter. That’s not really important, but explains why I was in the queue in the branch of Office, the shoe retailer, in Kingston Upon Thames one lunchtime.
So I’m queuing up and there is a young woman – not older than 21 – in the queue ahead. She reaches the counter, points to a pair of shoes in a box that have been set aside for her (seems to be how it works in these places) and asks to pay for them. The functional but frankly dull-witted sales assistant proceeds to ring up the purchase. The exchange goes something like this:
OFFICE GIRL: These yours?
CUSTOMER: Yes.
OFFICE GIRL: There’s no refunds on these, just so as you know.
CUSTOMER: That’s fine.
OFFICE GIRL: Okay so that’s thirty-one ninety nine.
CUSTOMER: I’ve got some money on a gift card, can I use that?
OFFICE GIRL: Sure.
Customer hands over gift card, Office girl rings it through. As she is doing so...
CUSTOMER: Oh, sorry, I have a student card.
OFFICE GIRL: Right.
CUSTOMER: I can get ten percent off, right.
OFFICE GIRL: I’ve rung it through now.
CUSTOMER: Right. But I’ve got this card?
OFFICE GIRL: Yeah, but I’ve rung it through. It’s taken thirty one ninety nine off your gift card.
CUSTOMER: Right. So...can you go back or cancel it or something?
OFFICE GIRL: I can’t.
CUSTOMER: You can’t?
OFFICE GIRL: No, I’ve rung it through. The money’s been taken off your card. Thirty one ninety nine.
CUSTOMER: So I can’t get the discount?
OFFICE GIRL: No. Sorry. I can’t go back on the till.
CUSTOMER: Can’t we cancel the whole thing and start again?
OFFICE GIRL: I can’t I’m afraid. It won’t let me.
CUSTOMER: Can you just put the money back on the card? Or give me the three pounds nineteen?
OFFICE GIRL: No.
CUSTOMER: So what happens to the discount?
OFFICE GIRL: You should have told me before. If you’d told me before, I could have run it through. But you didn’t tell me until now.
CUSTOMER: So it’s too late.
OFFICE GIRL: Yes.
CUSTOMER: And if I decided to forget the whole thing and not buy them?
OFFICE GIRL: No refunds. It’s like I said.
Massively awkward pause.
OFFICE GIRL: So that’s thirty one ninety nine
CUSTOMER: There’s nothing you can do?
OFFICE GIRL: I can’t go back, the till won’t let me. I would if I could.
CUSTOMER: Fine. Forget it then.
OFFICE GIRL: So that’s thirty one ninety nine.
The bagging up, till work and receipt handing over is now conducted in furious silence.
OFFICE GIRL: Thank you.
Customer leaves.
So something to bare in mind if you’re shopping in Office. Their tills are much like HAL in 2001. You don’t argue with them. There is no going back. There is no escape. No delete. No cancel. Once you’ve said “i’d like to buy these” then that’s that.
Can I recommend everyone goes into Office, chooses some shoes, waits until the cashier has rung up the purchase and then changes their mind. Non violent direct action. It’s the future.
But not if I’m queuing behind you in my lunch hour, obviously.
Now some reviews of what I’ve been reading on my BBC BIG READ TOP 200 list that won’t be of any interest:
A Prayer For Owen Meany John Irving (Black Swan, 1989)
Yep, enjoyed this very much. It was a monster to get through, being a weighty 720 pages but by and large worth the work I had to put in. Owen is a charming, likeable and stubborn son of a bitch and enormously enjoyable to be around. For those who don’t know it, it’s a sprawling epic about what happens to a young religious boy after he accidentally kills his best friend’s mother with a baseball. It is full of marvellous people, all quirky but just the right side of not-irritating. In fact the only reason I didn’t love it is that the finale event, which the book pretty much spends 719 pages building up to, is a preposterous collision of fate, coincidence and pay-off – a conceit utterly ruined by the 2002 M. Knight Shyamalan movie Signs in which, if you recall the water-fearing aliens arrive on earth (contents: 71% water) and all Mel Gibson’s kids’ casual habits combine in defeating the foe in a frankly crappy way. This isn’t John Irving’s fault. But I saw Signs first, so that sort of fucked that up for me.
The Shell Seekers Rosamund Pilcher (Hodder & Stoughton 1987)
Oh now this? Let’s get this straight. This is my mother’s favourite book. A 671 family epic about love, loss, regret, family, struggles, strife, heartbreak, friendship and lots of people standing around scrubbed kitchen tables eating ploughman’s lunches, smelling the honeysuckle and arguing about inheritance. The appeal of this is clear. If you’ve ever been a middle aged woman who has, at any point, felt you have missed out on the true love of your life, passion, art, freedom and some kind of luxurious sun-washed beach house and the sand between your toes and get misty eyed for what-might-have-been and love your children but often can’t stand the mewling spoilt fuckers and long to return to your youth and make different choices and decisions then this is your goddamned bible right here. Long and luxurious and made for a good holiday read. Get it down your neck.
The Green Mile Stephen King (Orion 1996)
Yeahhhh, not so sure on this one Stevey baby. I remember this being published when I was a poor shop worker at Hammicks on St Anne’s Road in Harrow. It was King’s attempt to have a go at the Dickensy Victorian “chapter” novel. If I recall, each chapter was published separately over 6 months during the summer of ’96. I didn’t read it then, but I remember selling a cock lot of copies.
According to Wikipedia, The Green Mile is an example of “Magical Realism” – which, to be honest, I’m not sure it is. And if I’d known this in advance, I wouldn’t have picked it up. (Note, the professional arsewit and cumugeonly nerdlinger Terry “I’d forget my head if I didn’t have it screwed on...and altzheimers” Pratchett has gone on record to say: Saying you write Magical Realism is like a polite way of saying you write fantasy.” Which it fucking isn’t. I mean say what you like about Gabriel Garcia Marquez, not a lot of his book jackets have elves in pointy little boots on them. Dick.
But the book is set in the “real” world and yet have “miracles” in it. All performed by a gentle giant of a man locked up on death row. So it’s kind of “Of Mice And Men” meets E.T. Sort of. The writing is marvellous, as almost all of King is. True, he falls back on hokey idioms instead of characterisation. So the fact someone says, “well ah-say gee Mister, ain’t this a tootin’ doo-hickey of a pig fart?” means he doesn’t need to tell us anything about the character and that does the job for him. A classic King technique.
Not my fave of his. That’s still “Christine.” Well ah-say gee Mister, ain’t this a tootin’ doo-hickey of a possessed 1958 Plymouth Fury, yes siree etc.
Oh, if you want to know why I don’t drive, it’s because unless you’re driving THIS, you’re not really driving, let’s face it.
Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier (Victor Gollancz 1938)
Marvellous. From beginning to end to the beginning again, if you decide to read it twice. I only knew it from the Hitchcock movie, but even then I only really had flashback memories of, I think, Lawrence Olivier looking very pale and staring off at the Ocean. But the novel is fantastic. A gothic horror tale of love and hatred and despair and solitude and spooky trees, all buttoned up tight in starchy collars. When the unnamed-heroine of the novel (completely no name, did you know this? Whole book, no name. Very unsettling) is dressing for the party and Mrs Danvers is encouraging her and she can’t wait for everyone to see her, I swear you couldn’t have got a credit card between the cheeks of my bottom.
Great Expectations Charles Dickens (1860-61)
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh Charlie. Charlie Charlie Charlie, give over mate. Enough already.
Now I don’t know much about Dickens. In fact, apart from a rather lovely edition of Oliver Twist - (when I say lovely edition, I of course mean that dark red with gold pattern effect that VHS video boxes used to ape when they wanted to look like olde worlde books) – this is the only other Dickens I’ve read. And I am in no fucking hurry to read another one, thanks very much.
Here’s my problem:
Firstly, when I was young and impressionable, the comedian David Baddiel said this about Dickens: “Dont let anyone tell you hes good. he not. hes a crap story teller and i'll tell you why. He ALWAYS gives away the plot to his stories by giving the heroine a name like "Miss Lovely" and the villains names like "Mr Complete-Bastard."
Now I was always under the impression that this was lazy university-student-union-bar clever-clever nonsense. But having waded through 432 pages of Mr Pumblechook, Herbert Pocket, Abel Magwitch, Mrs & Mrs Hubble and, for Chrissakes, Mr Wopsle, I’m inclined to agree. Mr Pumblechook? Oh do fuck off.
This suffers sadly from my reading habits of trying to get through tedious exposition as fast as possible, eager as I am for something to actually fucking HAPPEN. As a consequence, what with people having three names and the never ending run of coincidences, I became rather muddled over who was whose benefactor, dad, adopted daughter, maid, lawyer or gun drinking buddy. So with 200 pages to go I frankly couldn’t give a stuff how it came out.
Interestingly, Great Expectations was given a “test screening” and nobody much liked the original ending, so a happy-ever-after was tacked on bringing Miss Lovely together with Pip Expectationbury.
The movie’s better.
Anyhoo, “Homeland” is about to start so I’d better post this nonsense and find out whether Brody is or isn’t or is or isn’t an Al-Qaeda operative. Or not.
Then it’s off to bed for a few pages of “Day Of The Triffids.” Or as Dickens would have called it, “A Tale Of Mr Honest McStruggle and Planty O’Shuffley-Sting.”
Toodle pip.
Rx
Howdy pardoners
(insert a joke about corrupt High Court Judges there if you can be bothered).
How the devil are you? Enjoying the grey wintery weather and slate grey Victorian skies I imagine (Copyright Morrissey “Come Back To Camden” 2004 No Rights Reserved Whatsoever)
For those of a mind to recall such things, you will be itching to know the details of my adventure to Bradford this weekend. For others, itching will be due to:
a. Not being choosy enough about your sexual liaisons
b. A three day build up of Dax hair products
c. Both, you rockabilly slut you.
Anyhow, previously on “a few words on the subject...”
Way back when, before Pippa Middleton started wielding
Glock’s about the place and Spanish tourists were lemming
themselves from balconies, the nice people at The Bradford
Film Festival announced that they would be screening a much
loved, but little repeated on Channel 5, b/w silent movie from
1928 entitled “Beggars Of Life.” Not only this, but – providing
twangy, rusty, thumping, mute-stringed, steely backing –
everybody’s favourite skiffle act The Dodge Brothers,
featuring plinky saloon-bar roller pianist extraordinaire Neil
Brand, would be doing their stuff live over the top. To win
2 tickets to this plaid shirted dusty tea-chest fest, one merely
had to send a photo of one’s quiff to the nice folk at the BFF.
Best quiff wins.
Never one to shirk an opportunity to shove my greasy pomp
in the face of unsuspecting do-gooders, I jpeged my bad-boy
across the interwebulator.
Important note: This was not a specially prepared quiff for
the competition. As all folks who have arsed about wi’in my
ken will know, award winning Ayres Rock sized cranial slickness is very much my day to day get up. (Insert an appalling joke about Ayres Rock-a-billy there, again, if you can be bothered).
So the tremendously charming types at the BFF spotted a masterpiece when they saw it and two tickets were duely reserved for yours true-lee (to be pronounced in the staccato style of Adam Ant in the 1981 No.3 smash hit single “Ant Rap.” If you are unfamiliar with this record you can
a. enjoy it here:
b. spend a long night of the soul questioning what the hell you’ve been doing in your spare time for Chrissakes).
Quandary 1.
Okay, so The Dodge Bros are one of my favourite, if not the favourite gigging bands of the moment. Having seen them twang their twangs, hiccup and yodel, slap howl and generally cause jug band mayhem at The Borderline and then at The Blues Kitchen, you’d have to go a long way in Redwing Engineer boots to find a more enjoyable live act. My fondness stretches even to a DB button badge on my check-lined red Harrington.
(Again, if you are unfamiliar with check lined r-h’s, then I direct you to option b. above).
But lawks McFuck, Bradford? On a Saturday? From Camberwell? For 100 measly minutes of movieola wine-bottle-tappin’ howling harmonici? That’s a commitment, involving as it will a return journey of 6 trains and a possible overnight stay.
But then I figured, hey - as literary festival organisers often will - (see, saved you the trouble of inserting your own feeble pun there. Am all heart) - if a man is going to balk at spending time hopping trains to see a Skiffle act, then he really don’t get what Skiffle is all about.
NOTE: Skiffle, you twitwits, is pretty much about trains. Oh and murder and lost love and dirt and colt 45s and gin and dames. But pretty much, it would appear, trains.
So this weekend I slung my Dax and Shockwaves and a sturdy comb into a gunny sack, tugged on my best shirt-with-cowboys-on-it and chucked myself Bradfordwards.
Quandary 2.
The DB, never shy of bringin’ their twangs to the masses, had arranged to be busking outside the National Media Museum afore the show. Catching this, however, would involve me getting the 10.04 train from Kings Cross and then having cock-all to do between busk and screening. Having been to Bradford, I knew the options were
a. eat the best curry in the world
b. hang about on a bmx and/or skateboard making a nuisance of myself.
I was not in the mood for either. So I got a later train which gave me enough time to dump my whatnot at a Travelodge, shower and shave, and get to the screening for 5pm.
The National Media Museum is marvellous, their staff are a delight and the whole place is worth the trip. The trip was made doubly worth it as, to mark the event, they had laid on foyer-based hair-stylists who would provide a shiny quiff to all comers that fancied sporting such a thing.
NOTE: If it were up to me, and thank the heavenly Lord, his hosts, angelic choirs and policy advisors it isn’t, such hairstylists would be available at every screening of every movie in every town in every multiplex, art house carrot-cake fest or flea-pit scum-o-rama. Not, please understand, to offer “movie themed” haircuts to punters. I’m not suggesting on-demand Mohawk sheering at Taxi Driver retrospectives, afro-teasing seminars at Shaft re-runs or mullet-implants at Big Trouble In Little China sing-a-longs. No, I just mean you should be able to get a quiff in a cinema foyer. Simple as that.
Quandary 3.
On top of everything else, the BFF were giving away free tins of Dax hair wax to all attendees of “Beggars Of Life.” Now, I am a newcomer to Dax and the uncombable, sticky, pillowcase ruining, greasy hand pomade fun that it offers. Prior to about 3 months ago, I was following my hairdresser’s advice (Matt, at Mr Toppers, Goodge Street. Thurs-Sat. Just £7 for the neatest quiff this side of Memphis) and employing Fish Wax mixed with Shockwaves Styling Steel most mornings.
But fuck it, Dax tins are nicer and my dressing table is all about the look. (Why else, dear readers, would I have, propped up next to my cufflink tray, a Pifco Trouser Press still in it’s box?)
However the BFF were offering a free tin of Dax Red OR a tin of Dax Blue.
Red is thicker, I believe, and designed to “Wave and Groom.” (Which
would be an excellent title of a movie about surfing paedos, should you
wish to make one. My gift to you).
Whereas blue is “Short and Neat.”
The quandary here is that, as any fule no, a well cut quiff is short and neat
at the sides, and wavy n groomed on the top. And you can kiss my Edwin
sheathed ass if you think I’m mixing two waxes 7 mornings a fucking week.
Anyhow, as it was free, I’ve taken the Blue one to experiment with. I’ll let you
know what happens. Unless you know me, and then I won’t need to. You’ll say “Jeez Rich, what the fuck happened to your hair,” and I’ll say, “grrrr, lousy blue Dax short and neat, grumble mumble grumble,” in the manner of a rockabilly Mutley in Wacky Races.
NOTE: For those who’ve joined me for a review of the Dodge Bros + Neil Brand gig, it is coming, I promise. I just like a long run-up. In fact, whoah, hold your horses and stop your stallions, 1191 words too late, here it is...
At just after 5pm, The Dodge Brothers (Mike Hammond, gruff smoky lonesome vocals and fine slide/dobro-bothering guitarist; Aly Hirji, solid acoustic guitar vampy muted backup; Mark Kermode, upright bass slapper and train-impersonating harp-blower and Alex “you know what, if you can hit it with sticks, then I’ll hit it with sticks” Hammond on percussion) clambered onto the stage among the bric-a-brac Midwest antique-store clutter of their set-up. All sporting obligatory turn-ups and plaid, gone were the black and silver rhinestone sequin shirts of previous live shows. This was working man threads and work was on their mind. Pianist Neil Brand promptly joined them and there was much squeezing in between lamps and cables and chairs and music stands, banging elbows and saying “ow” as they set up.
Dull muso that I am, I particularly enjoyed the Peavey Classic tweed amp which did a fine job of sounding pretty much like a 1959 Fender Bassman.
Intros and gags supplied by Kermode and M. Hammond, lights dimmed and we got a vintage 1953 Daffy Duck classic “Duck Amuck” – watch it here although you’ll have seen it 138 times as a kid – as a b-movie.
Then...well what to say about Beggars Of Life with live skiffle accompaniment that hasn’t been said already? This:
For most of us, silent movies are the following:
1. Irritating childhoods of flickering swoony hammy nonsense that cluttered up BBC2 summer holiday viewing and were dumb and daft and not as good as Condorman.
2. Charlie Chaplin/Buster Keaton/Harold Lloyd/Keystone cops silliness that pre-dated Jackie Chan by about 100 years and, while delightful, seemed too distant, too lost, too viewed through the wrong end of the cinematic telescope to be engaging, history.
3. What Mark Curry and later Paul Merton, used to enthuse about a lot.
4. The (fucking) Artist
Which is to not really understand them at all. After 5 mins of Beggars Of Life, all preconceptions and prejudice and pompousness about the silent era promptly vanishes. The crackly grey graininess of the print, the flickering blink of the exclamation-heavy captions, the odd black faded framing haze about the edges all vanish and one is thrust deep deep deep into an old fashioned thing called story. Now story, apart from a rather excellent book on screenwriting by Robert McKee, isn’t something someone like me – corn-fed on multiplex shoot-em ups, superhero CGI extravaganza and Picture House quirk-a-thons that I am – is troubled by too often. You can’t get story into a trailer, you can only get explosions, barked non-sequiturs and ADHD-cutting-room frenzy. When I lean over to my dear wife after a trailer and mutter the obligatory, “that looks good,” what I essentially mean is “those effects look expensive.” (Or, occasionally, “it’s got Jeff Goldblum in it, and therefore is a must-see”).
What “Beggars” has is nothing but story. Not complex, not twisty, not original, not clever-clever. But for all that, utterly compelling. Like the wheezing locomotives that make up most of its setting, the damned thing hauls you along without stopping for breath. Essentially a boy-meets-girl story set amongst hoboes, it has villains to boo, heroes to cheer and an utterly spellbinding performance by one of the most beautiful women ever to grace screens that were silver – Louise Brooks. Gunfire, campfire singalongs, train wrecks, fist-fights, crusts of bread wrapped up in hankies, cops in hot-pursuit, kindly negroes, dust, jalopies and daring car-hopping stunts – the whole thing is a thrill ride action drama weepie western joy from the fade in to the fade out.
Bringing an actual 3rd dimension to the show - rather than a computer generated phoney would-you-mind-wearing-these-market-stall-raybans-throughout-the-movie Cash-in Of The Titans 3D effect – was the band.
Neil Brand was all over the ivories throughout. Rinkly tinkling, thudding and slamming, noodling and dancing over the keyboard, his extraordinary improvisations conjured chases & clinches, shoot outs and suspense, death-defying derring do and damp-eyed drama.
Gravel voiced Mike Hammond gave us a soulful and pining open title theme and continued to pluck and pick western twangs, slinky-stair-slides and clawhammer chords so resonant you could smell the grits.
Mark Kermode is far far too accomplished a bass player to be a professional movie-writer. The wire-on-wood slaps of the upright box gave jumpy, hiccuping pace to chases and railroads. His harmonica, possibly (harp aficionados, a custom Dannecker Blues Optimus but could be wrong) brought the trains howling into the cinema in a manner not seen since 1895’s L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat.
On back-up, Aly Hirji sat filling out the strong vamping chord work that he’s brought to TDB live work and the excellent “Louisa & The Devil” album. Muted strings and a pumping right hand added clattering rails and iron wheels to the steam trains.
Mark Hammond, with the shiniest parting since Michael Caine upended a kilo of gel on Steve Martin’s head in “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” worked his snare drum and washboard to cover gunshots, typewriters, door knocks and telegraph messages as well as pushing the beat along with galloping brushy shuffles.
100 minutes later, as the good lay dying in the dust and the wreck of the train belched smoke and steam at the bottom of a ravine and our lovers headed North, the lights came up and the audience whooped train whistles of appreciation. Bows were taken, guitar cables unplugged (unlike CDs which were very much plugged as available in the foyer now) and we left, exhausted and moved and smiling tired, stretching smiles into Bradfords welcoming drizzle.
You’ll be pissed off to know that The Barbican showing of Beggars of Life, complete with DB and Neil Brand accompaniment on April 29th has sold out. I know I am, as it’s an experience I would submerge myself in over and over.
A huge thankyou to The Bradford Film Festival for the tickets and the Dax, a massive congrats to The Dodge Brothers and Neil Brand for sterling, inspiring and boot-tapping work. For those who’ve got interest piqued by this, enjoy clips from “Beggars Of Life” here. And for more info on the finest live night out available, The Dodge Brother’s official site is here.
Me, I’m off to plug in my Gretsch 6120, shove a thumb-pick on my right hand and get some 7ths going.
So long...
Rx
A few words on gums, darlings, Office frustration and...what the Dickens?
Sunday 15th April 2012
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