Mime and Lindsay Kemp...

One of the happiest times in my career was that spent working with internationally renowned mime artiste and cat throttler Lindsay Kemp. Oh what fun we'd have, whiling away the hours pretending to be trapped behind a plate of glass or attempting to stave off being crushed between two sliding doors with only the palms of our hands and a doorstop. I was only dipping my toe in the water though, in a dilletante Chameleon-changing-to-suit-the-needs-of-his-environment type dilly dallying, flibbertygibbety sort of way - Linds was the real Master (or should that be Mistress?? I was never too sure...) I mean, he could do stuff I couldn't even dream of - like that one where you pretend you've cut your thumb off and wiggle it about between two of your fingers. Such deft sleight of hand for a man of eighty!

It was Lindsay who choreographed all the shows on the Mongy Spondulick and the Milliners from Jupiter tour and, if I'm honest, he's the one who deserves most of the credIt for the stunning visuals we achieved on stage, taking rock theatre to new heights - and Arbroath, if memory serves. They still talking about it at the Ruislip Community Centre, I'm told. Such fun I'd have, dressing up as Mongy, getting into character by groping a few of the soundcrew, mincing around in a tutu *completely* wrecked on Brass-o before bounding on stage in my trademark lyotard and stack heeled boots. I'd get so nervous before shows, you see, that I'd even forget to put my ruddy trousers on!

Lindsay may be the least well known of the Kemp brothers - most likely because Gary insisted on shunting him off to the side of the stage to play percussion wearing a daft kilt or miming to a session saxophonist's solo on 'True' - but no one could have been more pleased for the lad than I was when he finally reached the audience he deserved in that film about the Krays. He's brilliant as Phil in Eastenders too, isn't he? Face only a mother could love...

Ah the New Romantics! That takes me back. You see, it wasn't all mass unemployment, Thatcherism and Rick Astley in the 1980s. There *was* actually something even worse. Spendo Ballenedo and Utra-Volox were probably my favourites, but even they couldn't match the epic grandeur and austere majesty of Blancminge singing "I'm up the Cocking Tree". Oh for the day when someone will launch a full scale revival of that fabulous, innocent time. Hurry up lads, while I can still squeeze into me leg warmers!!



L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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The New Look...

Thanks to all of you who've mailed in to comment on my new hairdo. The reaction's been mixed, I have to say - ranging from the unconvinced ("Get yer 'air cut, yer great lolloping poofter!") to the downright rude ("Get yer 'air cut and die, die, die, you great big pansy!") A few of you though were kind enough to ask how the overall effect was achieved, so I thought I'd fill you in on the day I spent with top London stylist, Keith, and how we managed to get that 'ruptured Saluki in a force nine gale look' that *everyone* will be asking for this summer...

The first thing to say about Keith is that he's an *absolute* perfectionist. Everything has to be just so - even down to the tongs in the sugar bowl....though why he doesn't just use scissors like everyone else is a bit of a mystery. He's *so* dedicated to the maintenance of his own impossibly high standards that he won't even *consider* cutting your hair unless it's virtually flawless to begin with. So it's often best to turn up at his bo-bo with a soupcon of Regency-style salon having already had a trim or, better still, wearing a wig that looks pretty much as you'd like the end result to be - as I did. But, assuming you've passed his stringent once over and he agrees to soiling his clippers on your mangy, flea ridden locks, I can't think of anyone I'd rather have let loose on my collection of hideously unrealistic made man fibres attached to a mesh backing and masquerading as human hair.

"So, what can we do for madam today?" Asks Keith. It's OK, he can see perfectly well once he takes the comedy eyes-on-a-pair-of-spring-style spectacles off. (Although they're no excuse for pinching a chaps buttocks, it has to be said. Is it just my ever-so-sensitive skin, or do curling tong burns take a bugger of a long time to scab up?) The initial skirmishes complete - "Something for the weekend sir? And would you like me to throw in some contraceptives and a vat of vaginal lubricant? It's on special offer and comes with free hosepipe applicator for an unmatchably sensual, snag-free shafting action....??") I put my fate in the hands of the maestro. He opts for a Byronesque twist on the Dandy style, with a little Urban Masseev, ironed out Afro - a twist of modernity thrown in to spice up the whole arrangement. That's the CD multichanger sorted - now for the *haircut*!

All told, I'm in there for seven and a half hours, but it's worth every penny (.....I do wish he'd get rid of that bloody meter....) as Keith painstakingly glues each strand of hair together. This must be costing me a *fortune* in u-hu, I think, but after a few minutes, I'm so off my bonce from the contact high of the adhesives that I'd willingly give him my house and half its contents in exchange for a short back and sides and a quickie behind the passport booth at Kings Cross St. Pancras. I do wish he'd trim his nostril hairs though...




L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Tramp Smash...

I'm delighted with the way my latest video has turned out. As you'll already know, I really think that the new crop of songs I'm working on with Eno, Visconti, Fripp and the Brotherhood of Man are my most potent since Gestapo Gizzard - and *that's* praise indeed! So you can imagine my even greater delight when we managed to secure the services of none other than Ms. Alison Goldfarpp to play the lead role in the little promo piece we've done for it...



(We were hoping to get Helena Bonham Carter, but sadly she was unavaliable as she's currently being used to frighten off crows in a field in Derbyshire. She says the hours are long and the work's a bit dull, but other than that at least she's out in the open air and, besides, what more could a girl want than to have a ruddy great pole up her arse from dusk 'til dawn....least, I *think* he's from Poland....)

L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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The Victoria Station Incident...

I'm pleased to report that RCA have unearthed yet another lost gem from the vaults. "Tramp Smash" is an out-take from the Freikorps Clambake sessions that took place at Hansa-by-the-Wall studios sometime in the late 1970s. The song was written with Iggy Pop in Berlin on a banjolele - shame that, it was brand new one too....just couldn't stand the combined weight of his six pack and my stack heels... My, my, it's great to hear Eno's sublime two note synth riff again. 3 weeks he spent working on that. Then, in an inspired Eureka moment, he decided to turn the synthesizer on. The rest, as they say, is history. Can't believe we got away with all that top on the tambourine either. Still, that Visconti's a genius with percussion...and has a rarely acknowledged flair for embroidery too, as it goes...

Sadly, the release of FreiKorps Clambake was somewhat overshadowed by my return to Britain from Bavaria. Of course the press made a meal of it as per, and blew the whole thing *completely* out of proportion. I was just on my way to lend a hand at the Unity Mitford Shelter for Underprivileged Blond(e) Haired, Blue-eyed Orphans, and just happened to be wearing fancy dress for a little party we were throwing for the kids in celebration of the anniversary of the Anschluss with Austria and the re-militarization of the Ruhr. Happy days. Poor old Unity though - *so* misunderstood. Born in a small town in Canada called Swastika, and christened Unity Valkyrie Mitford by her demented, extreme right-wing, Jew-hating parents, she became a member of the British Union of Fascists, holidayed with Adolf Hitler and tried to blow her brains out when war was declared in 1939, her long cherished dream of unifying Hitler's Germany and Britain to form an Aryan super power left entirely in ruins. And from that, people have somehow made her out to be some ... I dunno, Nazi Sympathiser or something. That's journalists for you.

And so it was with me - a harmless attempt at recreating John Cleese's Ministry for Silly Walks skit whilst dressed in fullblown Waffen SS uniform, interspersed with the odd Seig Heil and cries of "He had *TWO* actually* was somehow massaged by a spiteful media into an embarrassing display of neo-Nazi fascist posturing.

Last time I buy the Daily Mail.

L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Drugs...

It saddens me, if I'm honest, when I see yet another young pop artiste falling into the time-honoured pitfalls of the entertainment industry. Not a day passes by without another glaring headline screaming out from one of the red-tops; "Amy's Fresh Shocker - exclusive", or "My Day of Shame, by Cell-Bound Winehouse". Now, personally, I didn't think Back to Black was that bad, but I'm sure she herself would agree that it would have been even an better platter if young Amy had been able to keep her nose out of the Evo-stick tub long enough to do a few final drop-ins on the vocal tracks.

And don't get me started on Pete Doherty. My life, have I've tried! I even tracked him down and had a word with him myself - my God, prison visiting hours drag, don't they? They never seemed that long when I was on the other side of the table. Anyway, after I'd snuck the cake with a file in it past security and spent half an hour trying to offload several grams of barbiturates out of the sole of my stack heeled boots without attracting the attention of the prison guards (you try doing *that* in a gold lame body stocking and matching cape, buster...), I told him all about my own drug hell in the 1970s.

You see, at one point there wasn't a hardware store within a five mile radius of Sigma Sound studio that hadn't seen its shelves completely cleared of its entire stock of adhesives. Sometimes I have to confess, I was so desperate for a hit that I I'd even try a quick fix of polyfilla - yes, I know. It doesn't fill me with any pride, I can tell you. And worse - it just doesn't have the hold of a proper fixative. Oh, I'm completely clean now, of course - apart from the odd grouting flashback and the fact that, on a blustery day, I can still seal an envelope without my tongue from 100 metres away. *That's* an addiction, sonny. But will he listen? Still, youth, as they say, is wasted on the young; which is probably why old letch's like me can get away with it, I suppose. "Of course I can help you with your exams Eliza - why, I can still remember the day I took *my* 11-plus. Which reminds me, I must give old Gaz Glitter a buzz - he still has a large assortment of my Bunty Annuals. He's due out in twenty years....

Must dash - Grange Hill's just about to start.




L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Live Aid...

I was one of the first to be approached, of course. The phone goes just as Michael Buerk's heart-rending report is coming to an end, so I don't get to find out if Chinese scientists have had any luck artificially inseminating Cha-Chi with Chin-Chu's sperm. Ah, bless! I pick up. "Bob?? Id's me - Bob" "Oh, hi Bob." "Focken shuddit and lisden willya? Midge and me are puddn a show dogedder and yer'd bedder focken well do it - We've got Bowie, Queen, Macca, Ferry, de Who, Dire Straits, U2 - Springsdeen's donadin' his PA and we've god Harvey Goldsmid in charge of de dickeding - sorry I've god a focken derrible cold, I hope yer geddin' all dis. Sdadus Quo have said dey'll open - well, dere'll be no boggers dere, will dere, so whad harb cad id do? - and Phil Collins has already bagged de firsd class on Concorde, play ad bodh shows gig, but dere's sdill a space so some old hasbeen can dwang dheir way troo a few old prodesd songs backed by a couple of very pissed Rolling Stones. So Bob, will yer focken well do id or whad, y'old eejit???" Well, what could I say? Although I have to admit I was a bit confused when he signed off by asking me if I'd mind doing him a special favour and including a couple of numbers from Nashville Skyline...

Still, a gig's a gig.

L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Berlin, with Fripp & Eno...

"...I think what this section needs is a bathtub half-filled with kedgeree to liven it up a bit...", muses Brian, pulling thoughtfully on a duty-free Camel light. "What do you reckon Bob?" But Fripp's miles away, mumbling away tartly to himself, when he isn't singing The Wurzels then current hit, "Oi am a Zyder Drinker" that is. "Beck? Oi'll shittim! Page? Oi'll shittim! Weedon? Oi'll shittim! Ooo arr-ooo-arr-ay, Ooo-arr-ooooh-arr-ayyyyy!!!" and so he rambles on like an Alzheimered cretin until Eno tugs at his beard with a tuning fork and yells "Eh? Eh? Kedgeree Bob? Kedgeree!!??

The initial sessions have been a bit of a washout - not helped by my having been completely off my face on Harpic since the middle of 1975. They really shouldn't be allowed to sell it to 12 year olds, should they? Eno's been grappling with the white noise introduction to "I Left Some Kippers at the Nuremburg Rally" while Fripp's supposed to be working out a tortuous guitar figure for the, as yet, untitled instrumental ("Greasy Plinth") that will open the sequence of lengthy mood pieces that make up side two of "Heron Pickling in the Weimar Republic". It's not easy being seminal.

I stroll outside with Visconti for a crafty joint and leave the two giants of progressive rock arguing over guitar parts. "For the billionth and the last time Brian, it's called the fecking *bridge*...." I ask after Tony's then-wife, the singer Mary Hopkin. "Oh she's alright, I suppose..." he shrugs. "Still Welsh...." He tails off with a helpless sigh and I give him an apologetic pat on the shoulder. "Maybe we could get her in to do some Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doos on the the middle eight of "My Teutonic Espadrille"? Or has that incontinence of hers cleared up?"...


L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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