'Dont Talk To Me About Slash' A Feature By David Evans (Slash Feature)
Monday, 27 June 2011
Written by David Evans
I know I’m not the first to come up with the idea, but after this last fortnight I’m seriously thinking about getting my jaw wired. First off, it would stop me stuffing my face with chocolate fudge cake … and yes I know I could always liquidize a few slabs with a half-bottle of brandy and drink it through a straw; I’d already thought of that. But no matter what lengths I’d go to satisfy my cravings, at least there would be no chance of me saying anything that would make me look a fool...
I won’t bother explaining how I found myself keeping company with this gaggle of youngsters; suffice to say they all seemed to know a lot about a lot of things.
Despite feeling intellectually challenged, I was quite flattered when this guy with a I-read-Kerouac look spread across his pimply face said that he followed my articles.
With his hen-like features, he looked and even sounded a bit like Andy Murray, and although he didn’t strike me as the sort who dished the compliments willy-nilly, I wasn’t expecting him to come right out and ask me if I felt a fool for predicting that Bing Ji Ling’s album would be a smash hit.
I laughed a laugh so forced it hurt my face and said something about it not being the only time, when all I felt like doing was rolling up the first two dozen pages of On The Road and shoving ’em where the sun don’t shine, like a giant rectal tampon.
Now I think about it, I suppose I shouldn’t have hung around; and were it not for this spiky-haired brunette winking in my direction, maybe I would have made some excuse and left.
She was more plain Jane than foxy, and judging by the way she was dressed, she could have been taking a quick break from the local Slut March, but it wasn’t until she screwed up her nose in response to my cool-dude smile that I realised she was giving the come-on to this Fyfe Dangerfield lookalike standing right behind me.
Now whether or not old smarty pants picked up on my red-faced moment, I can’t say for certain, but once he’d made sure everyone was paying attention, he came gunning for me a second time….
‘Why don’t you ever write about indie music or alternative rock bands?’
Now, if I was of a mind to tell the truth, I could have said that I didn’t know enough to pen a paragraph let alone a full-length feature. Or if I was looking to be evasive yet trendy, I could have tried to sound like Pete Doherty and drawled: ‘It’s not my bag, man.’
But – yes, you’ve guessed it – I didn’t.
‘Broad subject,’ I said knowingly.
‘So why don’t you just major on the most influential bands …?’
‘Like who?’
‘Like who? You mean you don’t know …’ he shook his head. ‘… Ever heard of British Sea Power or Interpol? … Obviously not. So how about Radiohead? Ever heard of them?’
‘Cheeky sod.’ I smiled like I did when that little brat from next-door-but-one said I was fatter than his dad. ‘Course I’ve heard of Radiohead. They’re one of my favourite bands.’
Only one of those statements was true, and as I racked my brains for something that might make the lie seem more plausible, I could sense the crowd waiting for an answer….
Now, if this story were to have a less embarrassing ending, this is where two medics armed with a length of surgical wire would appear out of nowhere and frogmarch me away … no such luck.
‘Creep was a great record … great.’ The repetition masked my surprise at dredging up the first big hit for a band I’d never much cared for nor followed. ‘I was working in France when it was released. As luck would have it, we had no problem picking up Radio One … heureusement, comme on dit.’
Working on the assumption that old spotty face had a first class honours degree in French, I was hoping my Gallic turn of phrase would take his mind off Radiohead.
It wasn’t long before I realised that Lady Luck was otherwise engaged….
‘Thom Yorke didn’t think Creep was great,’ he said in an offhand kind of way. ‘In their follow-up record, he sings: “This is our new song – just like the last one, a total waste of time” … oh, and by the way …’ he sneered ‘… Creep was banned by the BBC. They never played it, not even in France … malheureusement.’
I remembered reading somewhere that Jack Kerouac first started writing On The Road in French … as far as rectal tampons are concerned, it suddenly seemed more fitting.
And talk about going from bad to worse….
Last week started well enough; an invitation from a local commercial radio station helped put the Radiohead fiasco behind me, and for obvious reasons, revised my thinking on jaw wiring.
Now, for the benefit of those unfamiliar with our local commercial radio, or anyone who might be envying my shortcut to stardom, let me set the record straight….
Although some of prime-time shows have been known to attract a four-figure audience, listeners to any of the evening phone-in shows were more often limited to people who knew the studio guests, and live-alone old folk all vying to get on air and boast about their garden or complain about the council … depending on the static interference, ratings were sometimes boosted by drivers whose car radios couldn’t pick up any of the mainstream stations.
Needless to say there were a few quite well-known people who appeared on the more popular daytime programs, but on that early-evening phone-in show, my fellow guests were a man who bred worms for recycling kitchen waste and a mutton-dressed-as-lamb spinster who was suing the authorities for ageism after failing her driving test for the ninth time … there was also a woman who was an expert on growing quinces, but because they only had enough chairs and headphones for the three of us, she had to wait her turn in the vending alcove.
Needless to say, this wouldn’t be my first choice of guests, but with a soon-to-be-published book to promote and an agent whose wife was clamouring for a new Mercedes convertible, it was pretty much a case of beggars can’t be choosers.
Mirroring the liberal obsession with green issues, the grub-hugger was given the opening spot … my shot at the big time came after a couple of phone-in questions – one from a caller who had won two gold medals for his shallots – and a jingle for an eco-friendly carpet cleaner which ended with the line: ‘Brings smiles to your piles.’
Pretty much as planned, the compere introduced me as a former chef and author of 3 books, including Bitter Taste, and my latest novel, Sour Grapes … she even made mention of me writing for Stereoboard; but what I wasn’t expecting was to see her holding up a copy of my first tome … and I don’t mean I was surprised she could lift it with one hand.
Now, I’m not going to admit that I’m ashamed of the work, but let’s just say that I’m pleased it never landed on a critic’s desk. To start with, not only is it over-long and over-written, but by omitting the h, I even managed to mis-spell Pete Townshend’s name … inexcusable when you think that Empty Glass is one of my favourite rock albums; I’ve even got a signed copy of his book, Horse’s Neck.
And that’s not all: in what should serve as a warning to those who think they are a better writer with a bottle-and-a-half of Chablis swilling around their bellies, I wrote about Syd Vicious taking Steve Jones’ place in the Sex Pistols. Yikes.
And yet, as if to rubber stamp that adage about not judging a book by it’s cover, the design on the front – comprising a golden chef’s hat and a Gibson ‘Les Paul’ Cherry Sunburst – is the bee’s knees.
And obviously the compere thought as much: she described the artwork as clever, which was good to hear, but more importantly, when she started swooning over the guitar and its stunning red and yellow colour combination, I could see a way of bypassing any comment on the content.
Although she didn’t come across as a rock 'n' roll sort of woman, when I mentioned that Slash had recorded one of the all-time great guitar riffs on a Cherry Sunburst, her eyes lit up.
‘Sweet Child O’ Mine … I love Guns N’ Roses,’ she said by way of explanation.
Through the soundproof glass partition I could see the producer looking like he’d just wriggled into a pair of damp swimming trunks … if he motioned the compere to stop waffling, I never saw it, but there was a more business-like tone when she next spoke.
‘And you were born in Stoke-on-Trent, is that right, David?’
‘That’s right,’ I chirped, ‘Just like Slash.’
Although her wry smile seemed to signal an end to the sidetracking, I knew I was on safe ground when she asked me for a synopsis of Sour Grapes.
With my little pile of idiot cards all peppered with some nifty marketing sound bites I was happy enough with the way the potted storyline came across, and when she announced that the lines were open for questions, I was chompin’ at the bit.
The first caller was a lady, and judging by the sound of her voice she was easily the wrong side of seventy; which is why I tried not to sound overly snarky when she asked me if I had a favourite recipe for rich fruit cake.
And lo-and-behold, the next caller turned out to be the gardener. I wasn’t altogether sure when I first heard his voice, and if he had questioned me about my book I probably wouldn’t have made the connection, but as soon as he asked if I thought shallots were better than onions, I had him sussed.
Hacked off as I was with all this cookery yak-yak, my spirits soared when the third caller came straight out and agreed with me about Slash’s Sweet Child O’ Mine guitar riff … he even pointed out that in 2004, Total Guitar magazine had it as their number one all-time greatest guitar riff. Clever sod.
I made a feeble joke about how being born in the same place as Slash was no guarantee of being born with any musical ability, which wasn’t particularly funny until I tagged on: ‘Just ask Robbie Williams.’
The old spinster made one of those shock-horror ooh-ing noises and while both me and the grub-hugger giggled like a couple of schoolboys sneaking a peak at a top-shelf lad’s mag, the compere ignored us all and calmly asked the caller to carry on with his question.
‘I don’t have one,’ he said off-handedly, ‘I only called to say that Slash wasn’t born in Stoke-on-Trent. For what it’s worth, he was born in Hampstead.’
With my head spinning like the Hadron Collider, I wasn’t giggling any more.
‘Oh, and one more thing … Slash didn’t play that riff on a Cherry Sunburst. He used a Tobacco Sunburst. Check the MTV video.’
Call me paranoid if you like, but as soon as the line went dead I couldn’t help wondering if I’d picked up on a faintly Scottish accent.
Now this is probably the wrong time to tell you that one of my dearest friends is amongst the best guitarists in the business.
Okay, by his own admission he’s not up there with Eddie Van Halen or Jeff Beck or John McLaughlin, but there’s a lot of folk in the know who rate him as good, if not better than the best of the rest.
His name is Pete Bullick and he plucks his stuff with The Deborah Bonham Band, and although he’s one helluva nice guy, when it comes to guitars and guitarists he’s not one to tolerate fools … and I can only thank my lucky stars that he’s heading for the south of France and the music festival in Lyon.
Goodness only knows what he would have done if he’d heard me making such a chump of myself … and believe you me, some of those guitar strings look an awful lot like surgical wire.
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Last week started well enough; an invitation from a local commercial radio station helped put the Radiohead fiasco behind me, and for obvious reasons, revised my thinking on jaw wiring.
