Je suis une rock star!
(Or, what happens when you meet Karma on a slippery slope while wearing impractical shoes)
The most important thing you will ever learn in life is that it doesn’t matter how much dosh you throw at a therapist, you will never escape your childhood. Like black bullets to paper, the precepts that you were brought up with will stick to you for the rest of your days. Some that I grew up with are as follows: “if you control the head you control the man” is a piece of advice I’ve found works on so many levels. “If you can’t do the time then don’t do the crime” has kept me on the straight and narrow through many a decision while the direct instruction that “a lady can never have too many shoes or clothes” is a simple precept that I try to live my whole life by.
Now I realise that some people might disagree with this last proverb. For example, some (misguided) people may think that if, when you’re tidying out your shoe cupboard and you discover three pairs of shoes that you’d bought, stashed and then forgotten about, this means that you are an extravagant hussy who has too many shoes. These (sad) people are wrong and should be sent to a (tooled leather with jingling spurs and diamante heels natch) bootcamp for re-education post haste. (Although, if you live in Edinburgh then it should be a damn sight haster than the post as the mail service in this town has kind of grasped the concept of putting the mail through the letterbox but hasn’t yet figured out that the address of the mailbox and the funny squiggly lines on the envelope should match up. Still, never mind, other peoples bank statements make much more uplifting reading than your own) However, sane people with a proper aesthetic sensibility know that finding three pairs of shoes whose existence you’d been hitherto unaware of is symbolic of the fact that the Gods are not just smiling on you - you’re practically the new messiah. I mean, even Jesus only got to wear sandals.
This is possibly the reason that I’m typing this while wearing a pair of wooden soled, Perspex heeled, incredibly strappy, slave girl shoes. I could have worn the distressed leather and bronze ankle straps or the scarlet patent leather Bally heeled mules which also miraculously materialised from the depths of the closet but, lovely as both pairs are, they paled into insignificance before this particular pair. Not only is the heel constructed out of the sort of clear Perspex so beloved of pole dancers but in his infinite wisdom, the shoemaker decided to make the heel a perfect circle set into the middle and not the end of the sole. This gives the impression that the wearing is walking on tiptoes (I know this because I’ve been parading up and down in front of my shoe mirror while wearing them.). The whole effect is quite cyber geisha, or it would be if I weren’t wearing flared jeans, a stripy cheesecloth shirt and a pale lilac and green tweedy cardie (hand knitted by the MC Grandma of the WI posse’s little OAP sweatshop)
You may be wondering why I’m talking about shoes. It’s a metaphor, or at least it will be in a moment. You see when it comes to shoes I believe that they should be the stuff of fairy tales and not morality plays. Cinderella did not go to the ball in Polyvelts, Dorothy didn’t trip down the yellow brick road in a pair of Doc Martens and Posy Simmons could never have become a prima ballerina in a pair of flip flops. But the beauty of my shoes does not alter the fact that, there are some things that they just aren’t designed to do. Anything that involves putting one foot in front of another should be avoided for starters.
So it goes without saying that slippery slopes aren’t a good idea either (Watch out, here comes the metaphor). Dancing blithely down the primrose path to eternal damnation? No problem. Slippery slopes? Forget it. These boots weren’t made for walking on anything other than on someone’s back.
It’s this avoidance of slippery slopes which means that the one thing I never do is “help” F with his work. I’m in a minority on this one. When confronted by a musician, people who wouldn’t dream of offering advice to a member of any other profession, be it artistic or otherwise, will blithely and on no more authority than the fact that they have ears suddenly think that they’re Mutt Lange and start making “suggestions”.
This is dangerous for 2 reasons. Firstly, any artist asking you what you think of the thing that they’re working on is a question as loaded as a Gestapos Luger. Like the infamous “does my bum look big in this?” there is no right answer. However, and as note to any girls who may be reading this – bitter experience has taught me that if you have to ask “does my bum look big in this?” then the answer’s an unequivocal yes.
Secondly, those that preach that everyones opinion is valid speak out of their ass. It’s not. Your opinion is only as valid as the amount you know about a subject. It stands to reason therefore that if you know jack shit about a subject, then your opinion is worth jack shit. The only exception to this rule is fucking awful modern art when three black lines and a used tampax are supposed to represent the mystical cycle of womanhood (or an orange, or the city or any other word chosen at random by the perpetrator of the crime). In that case the art is worth jack shit and you are quite entitled to say so.
Now despite the fact that on a good day I’m an egocentric, opinionated, arrogant, stubborn bitch (and that’s just what my immediate family call me. Don’t worry, they meant it as a compliment), I’m a great believer in Karma. Not in the sense as one particularly moronic lead singer once told me – after sniffing up the entire GNP of a medium sized South American country - that if you give to Mother Earth, then she will give to you. In his case, Mother Earth (in the unlikely manifestation of the short arsed Alice Cooper look alike that was managing the band – and several high class escort girls –at the time) had given him the GNP of a medium sized South American country to shove up his rather unpatrician nose. Posterity waits with bated breath to see what he will give to her. I met his wife and it sure as hell won’t be brilliant progeny. No. The Karma I know is the one that has really sharp teeth and a propensity to bite you in the butt. So, if you write such things as:
“…if you are trying decapitate a member of your band then its probably best to do so with a silver guitar…lead singers don’t mind physical violence too much so long as it’s with something that glitters, they’re a bit like magpies in that respect and tend to be mesmerised by anything that sparkles”
Or
“the exquisite delight of stripping a lead singers carefully constructed ego down to bare id may be a more subtle joy than merely socking him one but is infinitely more pleasurable”
Or even
“…The lead singer (having that killer combination of insecurity and egoism without which he wouldn’t be a lead singer) hates the guitarists girlfriend because she’s taken his new best friend away from him and is convinced that the reason she’s stopped them going out on the piss together is because she knows either of the plot to put the singers girlfriend in the band, or for the singer to go solo (she does - she learnt it from the bass players girlfriend whom the singers girlfriend confided in after a drunken argument with the singer, although the reason she’s stopped the benders is that after paying for all the bloody uninsured guitars they’re skint), is staring at the guitarist and not the singer during the shows (and what’s more is bringing her friends to the shows to stare at him too) - or, she’s better looking than the singers girlfriend and isn’t falling at his feet (which his ego can’t deal with), has a sneaking suspicion that she’s laughing at his lyrics (she is) and has already worked out that there’s a plot afoot which will ensure that the singer gets all the publishing royalties (she did).”
Then it’s a sure fire bet that somewhere the big K is getting out the dental floss. If you then go on to write things such as…
“when it comes to rock woman don’t have balls. … I’ll allow that a few of the fairer sex have made an OK-ish stab at it for a single or two but usually once they stopped shagging the lead singer/chief writer of another group their creative juices very quickly dry up.”
…then just paint a target on your bum and hang it out the window. It’s better to get it over with quickly.
I’m sure you can see where this is going can’t you? Not difficult. I don’t help F with his work, in the past I’ve been wildly uncomplimentary to lead singers and I believe that Karma always gets you in the end. (It’ll be a full moon over Edinburgh this evening then.)
In fact forget the teeth. Just give me the gun and I’ll shoot myself. Because about 6 months ago F was recording. Nothing unusual about that. Playing things, recording things, remixing things and generally making noise of some description is after all his job. What was slightly unusual about this particular recording was the fact that it was with two members of one of his ex bands. Not the most fucked up band he’d ever played with – just the most fucked up band he played with in England. It spent 3 years in London as the band most likely to…and then imploded over a broken mirror, a Spanish tour and a creative paranoia of the sort that usually gives the people concerned a beautifully upholstered room of their very own.
As is usual when F records, he needs all of the bloody computers in the house: Macs. PC’s, digital watches, anything with screens and buttons really. He’s the only person I know that can not only get Apples and PCs to talk to each other but actually get on and so I was mooching around, as I do when I can’t plug my brain into the mainframe, trying and failing to kill time.
“Come here” said F, like the spider to the fly. (NB – I can’t write F’s accent so you’re just going to have to imagine it. Not only is he French but he learnt English in LA Think of the sort of voice that a really expensive bar of dark chocolate would have and now imagine it carrying a surfboard)
“Why” said I
“Because I need a voice and you’re the only one who can do it.” Saith he.
Note that he didn’t mention that I was the only one in the house other than the real Hendrix Cat at the time. While the real Hendrix Cat has an amazing vocal range, it is somewhat limited when it comes to lyrics. Put it this way – she could do Robert Plant but she’d get stuck covering any singer who gets past ow, eeow, meow, aaaaaaaeow and ick. She’s probably be great in an early Aerosmith tribute band (all those ikkkkkkkya eeeeeeeeow’s) if her tastes didn’t run more to Santana (and they do- she sits on the CD player when I put Oye Como Va on – sad but true. Sad because not only does a cat called Hendrix prefer Santana but she lives in a house where Santana is played)
“What do you want me to do” I asked extremely suspiciously - visions of pink cowboy hats and puppet shows dancing before my eyes.
At this point he went into a long and detailed explanation of why the problem with computer voices was that they didn’t have nuances and dynamics that changed with each time that they said something so that if they repeated a word it sounded exactly the same as the first time they said it…but I tend to switch off when he starts on this track.
Basically though it boiled down to the following request.
“All I need you to do is say a few words and then I’ll sync you with the computer voice and it will sound better”
“But I don’t want to be recorded” I said.
“I’m not going to use you” said F “Just combine you with the computer “
Leaving aside any suspicions I may have had that this is his plan for the perfect girlfriend, I was still less than convinced.
“That’s all? “ I said. “You won’t hear me?”
“Not at all” said F “It’ll take you 2 minutes”
It was about half an hour later that we discovered that I suffer from red light fever. This is where quite normal, sane and intelligent people become tongue tied, thick voiced idiots when confronted with a microphone.
“Get with the beat” says F trying (and failing) to stay patient.
“Sync me” said I, trying (and succeeding) to make it sound as insulting as possible.
“Sound sexy” said F, 2 hours later.
“Fuck you “I said
“You don’t have to move like Jagger while you’re doing it” he suggested a little later, soon after I’d knocked over several of the guitars…
“I need to feel the rhythm” I said taking off my sunglasses.
“Can we move the mirror” he asked an hour later “It’s not really convenient to have it propped on the keyboard while I’m playing?”
“I find gazing at the transience of my physicality enables me to tap into my creative centre” I said, casually inspecting a strand of tinsel I’d draped around my neck a la Jim Morrison.
“You only have to fucking count” he said. “Its not white rabbit”
“I don’t like the lyrics” I said handing him a piece of paper “I think mine get the feeling across so much better”
F took them, looked at them, scrumpled them up and threw them on the floor. “I’m not working with another fucking singer who’s obsessed with rats, butterflies and vampire kisses” he said “Just do it”.
“It’s a wrap” he whispered hollowly some hours after that. “And I’m never working with you again. Get out”
“It my computer” I said. But at that point I knew I’d lost the fight. Nominally the PC’s mine and the Apple belong to F. However he’s added so much stuff to the PC that the sodding thing now needs to be strapped to the floor to make sure it doesn’t take off. In any case, after the red wine over the Apple incident and then again after the red wine over the Apple replaced by the insurance company incident I did tell him that I’d swap computers and I’d have the one with the waterlogged pink screen (back to childhood programming – you bend it, you mend it)
“Get out” said F
I went and stood not upon the order of my going. F wrote and recorded the rest of the song. He sent the song to London. The bastards discarded the track that used the computer and went with my voice. The album got a deal. The song became a single. So here you go. Available from all good record shops, or online at Amazon, Rough Trade or Pure Groove. It’s also available from itunes but I can’t figure out how to work that so you’ll have to do it yourself. I will warn you now that you’ll either love it or hate it but either way it’s extremely catchy and will drive you round the bend.
Hoisted on my own petard. Guest appearance on a redneck disco ditty. That’ll teach me to be mean about bloody musicians