8200/21119
Humbling to realise that I am probably older than the next pope.
In spite of concerns that I might get sucked off by a ghost last night, I survived and woke up on this earthly realm.
It felt good to be on the final day of this slightly brutal fortnight of work and gigs and tonight I would be home. First I had to spend a day pinballing round Northampton, which is a slightly less concerning prospect than 24 hours in Wolves. And there was no hotel to rill in (that's my version of chillax combining relax and chill), but luckily I didn't feel quite as wiped out as yesterday.
I had a look round Northampton Museum and discovered that the town is responsible for the creation of the space hopper. So it can do no wrong in my eyes. I loved my space hopper, who I called Boono for some reason. I think of him every night in the show when I talk about bouncing around on testicles the size of space hoppers. I fucking loved that bouncy orange prick. He was close to being my best friend. I feel I still had him when I lived in Cheddar which means I was still playing with him when I was 8. Maybe even 28. I don't know what happened to him in the end. He's not in the shed at my mum and dad's any more and if he was I'd definitely blow him up and have a go. It was nice to see one of his brothers, rightly preserved in a museum.
There was also an exhibition of bad album covers, which was a bit of fun. Creating an image for your piece of art is an important moment in any project. Obviously I have to do it every time I tour and you want something that will draw attention, give some indication of what people might be getting and where the intent is (usually) clear to the viewer. Obviously you can go for ambiguity or something with deliberately obtuse meaning.
My favourite ones were where it wasn't clear what the artist was aiming for. With the triangular haired Norman Castle and the surnameless Gill there's certainly some ambiguity to the image. Norman is looking very happy with himself, whilst it's unclear what Gill is feeling - horror? invasion? has she just seen a mouse? The album is called Boney Fingers and it's hard not to come to the conclusion that Norman's boney fingers have been inserted somewhere and Gill doesn't like it. The fact that Norman loves it does not make the conceit any better. It makes it a lot worse.
Until you spot the boney fingers on Gill's shoulder, which are not prominent enough and realise that that's what's perturbing her. Do the fingers belong to Norman or are they coming from somewhere else. So many questions. It doesn't make me want to listen to the record, though I am at least relieved that those boney fingers aren't inside Gill -unless there's a second hand.
I enjoyed Taco's cover for "Under My Tight Skin", which plays around with the idea that the artist wears a mask in their work. What sets Taco apart from the others who've thought of this idea is that the mask of Taco's face is exactly the same as Taco's face and has a pretty much identical expression. So his mask is masking what is on the mask anyway. Which is a weird mask. Under his tight skin is just another identical version of himself.
I didn't generally enjoy the ones that showed people who don't really look like rock stars daring to put out a record. Music is for us all and you don't have to be glamorous or cool or have weirdly tight skin or boney fingers to take part. However, I was taken by Ray Franky partly because I liked him name and partly because he looked the least like a person who would put out an album that it was possible to be.
Surely in 70 years time someone might look at a Richard Herring poster that they've found in their grandparents' attic and wonder what the fuck was going on with that. Someone Likes Yoghurt? What?
It felt like an end of tour show tonight, as there were times that I wasn't sure if I'd get through these last eight gigs and now there's only three left and they're a bit more spaced out (and one is very close to my house). I had the energy to do a good performance and the Northampton crowd were excellent value.
I was home by just after 11pm. Everyone was asleep.
