4.1.22 Caught up in this big rhythm

songs-they-never-play-on-the-radio-scotland-the-brave

I'm writing a press release.

I *hate* writing press releases. It might be my least favourite part of the whole gig. Dialogue. I love writing dialogue. It's truly the single thing I'm best at. It's what I do. I make characters talk. I know this anyway but I've had enough people tell me how good I am at this part of the job that I'm more than prepared to take it as a thing. I'm not going to assume any false modesty on this one; I put people in a room and I make them talk to each other.

With simple rules: nothing that wouldn't be said in conversation can be said on stage, anything that would be said, can be said. Sounds obvious, sounds simple; think about the time you've heard character speak and your reaction has been, "people don't talk like that."

I make characters talk in the way people talk in the real world. 

They'll never explain to each other things that you wouldn't explain to each other in the real world. 

These are easy rules.

My characters are realistic, even if they happen to be speaking to the ghost of an Elvis impersonator killed by a Blackpool tram (in an obvious nod to the fate of Corrie's Alan Bradley - another rule, I can do anything that amuses me.)

And that's the show I'm writing the press release for. Trying to explain exactly why people need to see this version of the show (bigger, better, faster, more etc. but also other things that we're keeping secret for the moment).

It's a simple task. I hate it.

So I'm avoiding doing it by doing this, in the hope that it'll clear the palate a little.

Quick note - that show, up at the top, that's what I'm listening to (click where it says Scotland The Brave, I'm not clever enough to put the link *in* the photo) - I'll explain further in a second. I'm up to Loyd Cole & The Commotions' Forest Fire and there are weird ghost noises going on in the background of the track; a firework sizzling, children talking. It's not even vaguely freaky. Honest.

Hold on. Simple Minds '30 Frames A Second'. How bloody good is this?

So, the show. My mate Stu was involved with an online radio station, asked me if I'd fancy doing a show. Based on the fact he'd read the lists of great songs in the first version of this blog.

(Might have these speakers too loud, the tinnitus was back last night, like ocean waves creeping at the edge of sleep, like a sea on the other side of the duvet.)

So I did a show, called it Songs They Never Play On The Radio after the book on Nico's time in Manchester (another thing designed to be referential only to those who'd definitely spot it, another thing to amuse myself). And every so often I'd produce a themed show: a Liverpool Special (or 4), a Manchester special, a Righteous Anger edition on the morning after another election where this bloody country handed itself to the Tories.

(Just realised, it's not the speakers, it's the Mac - I haven't plugged the cable to the amp back in, has the loose wire been receiving signals from the beyond? That'd work with The Comeback Special.)

This was the Scottish themed show. And it's great. Every show I did was great. Particularly the ones where I didn't speak. The shows where I linked the songs with clips from films, TV and interviews were brilliant. I don't fancy myself as a presenter of any kind but I produce bloody good shows.

Anyway. The point. It's a story I tell near the start of this show but I'll tell it again now:

We went to see The Housemartins. So it's got to be late 86, maybe 87, possibly 88. They're gone by 89. 

And the way I remember it is that the show was booked in somewhere small (as part of a BBC week in Liverpool if I recall correctly and sold so fast they had to move it. I remember it being in the Playhouse but I could be making that up. Don't recall it being the Royal Court but suppose it might have been.

Packed house. Full house. And the support act walk out.

Two lads. One guitar. Two pairs of glasses, a sweater each. Thoroughly unprepossessing. 

The whole place is looking at them with a "what the **** is that?" attitude. 

Which they completely ignore and start playing their first song. A song sung in broad Scottish accents. 

By the third song, this totally unknown act has the theatre on its feet, eating out of the duos hands.

And that's how Liverpool discovered The Proclaimers. It's the fastest I've ever seen an act turn an audience around. 

Utterly joyful.

There's no moral to that story, just something that happened. And that's what this is about. 

That show at the top of the page (if the embed link's worked), that first song, put me right back there. Made me happy.

And now I'm on The Blue Nile's Tinseltown In The Rain which is simply one of the greatest things that's happened in the history of humanity.

You might want to press play. Me? I've no excuse left, I have to get back to my press release.