Anthony Newley’s ‘The Man Who Makes You Laugh’ by Paul Hamilton

THE BUSINESS OF PLEASURE

The hoariest of commonplace banalities must be the one about the sad comedian. The tears of a clown. The face of tragedy ever-present behind the mask of comedy. And, yes, there are many contenders for the coupled crown of King of Comedy and Heir of Sorrow; Robin Williams, Michael Barrymore, Chris Langham, Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Tony Hancock, Richard Pryor… Of course, it’s more than the indisputable yin/yang contrast in emotional states (although they are connected by hysteria). Just as one would never ask why a gas fitter uses electricity, likewise no-one need query the emotional extremities of a comic. The professional comedian is so often an amateur human being, so often failing to find an equilibrium. The mania within him, when harnessed consummately, produces comic fireworks - brilliant, breath-taking, surprising - illuminating the everyday in a new light and at an off-centre angle. But when it overpowers him, the gunpowder is damp and the matches won’t strike, and the darkness clouds his vision. There’s no audience. There’s only his voice in the darkness. And it bores him. And boredom is unendurable.

Drugs and drink and sex are not a comedian’s substitutes for an audience’s love and laughter. They are used to blot out the need. They are there to stop the comedian from thinking. Comedy is the drug they are hopelessly addicted to. So often, they got the taste for it at school, and quickly learnt that it was preferable to have a bully laugh at you than thump you. Comedy became their shield, their protective layer, but there is a danger: A joke has been likened to a parachute - and there is always going to be the time it fails to open in time. And comedy’s always about timing. Will he land on his feet or his face? A comedian needs the love and acceptance of an audience - more than he needs his wife and family - but every time he steps on to that stage, he is in peril. If they don’t laugh at him, they don’t want him. And he’s lost. (Forever, in the case of Michael Richards.)

Of course, there are comedians such as Steve Martin, who has managed to tame his comic muse and produce comic nonsensical gems over the 35 years after he quit being The Wild & Crazy Guy. He is now the Sensible & Crazy-Only-When-I-Choose-To-Be Guy. He’s a lucky one. Most comedians, after finding security in their life, lose the danger in their art. Some never attain a level of maturity: Tommy Cooper was cursed by his gift, unable to converse about the myriad of mundanities life has to threaten without making everything into a joke. He was a man-child.

There are two tragedies concerning Anthony Newley. The first is, rather than being remembered as a one-man-band (actor, singer, composer, dancer, stage and film director) and a truly ground-breaking artist, he is known primarily as the influence on David Bowie’s silly song ‘The Laughing Gnome’. The second tragedy is that any article about Newley always mentions the aforesaid ‘fact’, thereby rubbing his face in Bowie’s crap a little bit more and wiping away his true cultural significance. Newley’s humour was peculiar - self-deprecating to the point of laceration in interviews, detached and self-mocking in his onstage between song banter. His ‘Strange World Of Gurney Slade’ TV series from the early 1960s was less a comedy series than a thorough demystification of the entertainment business (it was like a bizarre collision of Hancock, Freud and David Lynch); it was a notorious commercial flop, the viewing figures halving with each successive episode. ‘Fool Britannia’, his full-length comedy album from 1963 performed with Sellers and Joan Collins and co-written with Leslie Bricusse, is his non-Oxbridge contribution to the satire boom. Unfortunately, because it is exclusively about the Profumo affair, it has dated terribly; any giggles to be derived from it now are purely on the strength of the performances.

He was unafraid of over-extending himself, pushing the form (singing, acting, comedy) and format (stage, screen, TV) to snapping point, just to see what would happen. Sometimes his talent and audience would go with him; occasionally, they would be left behind, waving goodbye. One of his personal quirks was referring to himself in the third person (“Yes, I think Newley could do that”) and, though Dudley Moore said it was Newley who introduced him and Peter Cook to opium, Newley preferred sex to drink and drugs as a relaxant and escape.

Although he co-wrote many songs with Bricusse (look it up; you may be pleasantly surprised to find that you know quite a few), ‘The Man Who Makes You Laugh’ is a rare Newley solo composition. Written for a 1978 American TV show honouring comedians, it is the quintessential Newley masterpiece, taking that Showbiz cliché about the Grock-like sad funnyman and making it real: The pressure from the stagestruck mother, shining her boy’s tap shoes and pushing him on to the stage; the pressure to grab and hold the audience’s attention; the pressure to slay the crowd, then slay ‘em again; the pressure to get to the top and stay there; the pressure to be funny offstage as well as on; pressure from all sides, even a rave review is more pressure to up his game. And this ‘funnyman’ he sings of; is he ‘funny’ because he is unlike the rest of us? He becomes freakish. Alien and alienated, he loses contact with reality, becomes meat for the laughter machine, as the audience he slays ends up slaying him.

There is a great 1993 live recording of ‘The Man Who Makes You Laugh’ on ‘The Last Song’ (STAGE 9031), a posthumous release of variable quality (wayward genius was never dependable mediocrity’s bedfellow), but there is, on YouTube, an epic performance of it on Michael Parkinson’s chat show: 

Touchingly dedicating it to “all those lovable fruitcakes”, he eases himself into the song which, as it unfolds, becomes a multi-dimensional psychodrama and you see the brilliance of Newley’s stagecraft. With deft, balletic gestures he paints the scenes - the comedian’s name in lights, the fat guy working in the delicatessen, the pushy mum, the nervous son, the fan at the foot of the stage holding up an autograph book which miraculously transmogrifies into the optic where the nervous wreck of a comic fills his whisky glass, the clown fixing his make-up in the mirror… It’s an unforgettable performance, and the spirits of the comics who gave their sanities and souls - from Tony Hancock (who would weep to Newley’s ballad ‘What Kind Of Fool Am I?’) down, down, down the years to Dan Leno - are summoned by charms and escorted safely home. 

12 questions for... Bernard Wrigley

Bernard Wrigley is a much loved comedy actor, writer and folk singer. He played the teacher in Alan Clark's film "Rita, Sue & Bob Too" and also featured in several plays Alan Bennett wrote for TV such as "A Day Out", "Sunset Across The Bay" and "Afternoon Off". You may also have seen him in TV soaps such as Emmerdale and Coronation Street, or his guest appearances in comedy classics such as "Phoenix Nights", "Dinner Ladies", and (Steve) "Coogan's Run". Superbad asked him 12 questions...

Superbad Magazine: Has life been kind to you - Have you had good health and been lucky in love?

Bernard: "Touch wood - no complaints so far."

Superbad: Almost all school children do a bit of acting and learn an instrument - why do you think you carried on rather than getting a 9 to 5 job? Did you have encouragement from your family?

Bernard: "When I left school I worked for the Customs & Excise for 2 1/2 years until it started interfering with the singing. I was away in places such as Southend and Suffolk, whilst Dave (with whom I sang) was up here doing a 9 to 5 he wasn’t that interested in. When Robin Pemberton-Billing at the brand new Octagon Theatre asked us to write and perform songs in their documentary we packed the jobs in. Not much encouragement was needed!"

Superbad: What can you tell me about Bob Williamson? I only recently discovered some comedy records he made many years ago and was impressed. Are you still in contact with him?

Bernard: "I remember meeting Bob in the bar at the Octagon Theatre in 68/69. We’d heard of him because he ran a folk club at the Cattlemarket pub in Bolton. He went on to become nationally known in the north west. We’re very much in contact with him (he’s in a nursing home near us) and a few years ago I asked him to pick his fave tracks off his 3 LPs. We made this into a CD called “Born, Bred & Buttered” which is a great tribute to him."

Superbad: You've performed on stage in Waiting For Godot. Are you a Samuel Beckett fan and do any lines from his plays stay with you?

Bernard: "I was intrigued by Beckett, and that strange world in his head. When Mike Harding and I did Godot it was just as Beckett ordained - he recommended that comedians or variety performers should undertake the roles as opposed to serious actors. It seemed to work really well. Perhaps the line I most remember is the climax of insults that Estragon & Vladimir verbally threw at each other. It was topped with the word “Critic,” being the greatest insult one could give another person. It shows what a low opinion Beckett had of such people - he’d obviously had a lot of criticism levelled against him."

Superbad: Did you ever get to know the late Colin Welland? Were you impressed by his writing or acting?

Bernard: "I met Colin in the bar at the Octagon (again!) when I was asked to sing the "Jute Mill Song” at the start of “Roll On Four o’Clock” in 1970. I kept saying my voice wouldn’t suit it, but he and Kenith Trodd (producer) insisted it would. God bless them! Colin was a great writer, and an inspiration to many."

Superbad: You've worked with Peter Kay, Victoria Wood and many other comedians over the years. Are most comedy writers and performers much fun when they're off stage? Do they tend to be shy and reserved?

Bernard: "It varies. Some love the limelight, others try and avoid the over exposure. Then again, I met them when I was working on their programmes, so our relationship was different to someone who is only a fan. Despite the fact that I am a fan!"

Superbad: Alan Clark made his name with very hard hitting films like Scum, and The Firm. You acted in his last film "Rita, Sue, and Bob Too" which has some very funny moments. What kind of director was he? What was special about him?

Bernard: "I didn’t know how revered Alan was until afterwards. At the time he was just another director to me, as I would have been just another actor to him. As often happens, a person’s death can seriously heighten their profile. He was a maverick who made a serious contribution to the content of film in Britain."

Superbad: Do you worry about the future of the BBC? Bennett, Potter, Welland, Leigh and many others got their big break with The Wensday Play and Play For Today. Is there money around to find the next generation of writers and performers?

Bernard: "As with so much these days, the future is in the hands of the money men. It will be difficult to function as the independent BBC in the face of multi national companies which have more clout than governments. The money’s there but it’s increasingly in the hands of the wrong people."

Superbad: Which current comedy performers impress you - who would you like to see given more exposure?

Bernard: "There are too many comedians all trying to do the same approach. The public always miss the point that the best and most talented performers are in a club or hall or theatre near them - not on the telly. My favourites are Jeremy Hardy, Tony Hawkes, Ross Noble, Andy Hamilton, Jack Dee and such. What they have in common is that they’ve all guested on the greatest comedy programme ever - “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue.”

Superbad: What are you working on at the moment?

Bernard: "Trying to dry out during this bloody awful wet November."

>

Superbad: Are you looking forward to Christmas?

Bernard: "Yes. I like Christmas. I completely ignore the media’s part in it and make it advert free."

Superbad: What are your dreams for 2016?

Bernard: "Apart from the obvious end to terror crime, my dream is to keep on keeping on. When people say “Oh, I don’t want to be old” I remind them that it’s a privilege denied to many. That usually shuts them up!"

For more on Bernard visit http://bernardwrigley.com
Drawing of Bernard by Adrian R. Shaw

When Brian Cox met Joey Essex

By Matt Russell

Hi Joey

Hi Brian, is space big?

Yes ...space is fucking massive

What bigger than a bread bin?

Yes much bigger

Bigger than Kanye’s ego?

No, scientists agree that's unlikely

So tell me how big?

Well let's start off small do you know what a solar system is?

Is it a toilet? is it a toilet with solar panels?

Er no.. not really... planet Earth is part of the solar system with the sun at the centre, and orbiting planets Mercury Venus Earth Mars Saturn Jupiter ...Uranus

This joke is too easy... shall we just move on here Brian?

Yes. Then onto Neptune and Pluto. Pluto is so far away even in our fastest spaceship it took 8 years

Well how fast was it going?

You know when your mates are driving their Golf GTI flat out and a bit of poo is coming out of your bum?

Yes

Well the spaceship was going 350 times faster than that... you’d shit yourself inside out

Did they stop at a parking meteor?

So even when we get to Pluto, we're not even halfway across the Solar System we’re only now in the kuiper belt

Belt? I've heard of a kipper tie?

Joey why are you so brown?

People said I should get well red before I met you.

The Kuiper belt is 30 astronomical units away and is 20 astronomical units wide

My uncle bought a unit in Billericay he said that that was astronomical!

Ah .. an astronomical unit is a distance of about 93 Million Miles basically from here to the sun and Pluto is 30 x further away And the kuiper belt carries on for a further 50 times further away.

Crikey Kuiper was some Fat Bastard to wear a belt like that

Joey how did your barber get your hair like that?

Eclipse it

So you've traveled 4.7 billion miles to pluto , now Voyager 1 has been traveling since the time of Kipper ties, and after 35 years it made it to 133 astronomical units and has finally reached the other side of the kuiper belt, which even takes light 7 hours to get to.

So is that it? has it reached the edge of the universe?

Oh no we haven't got to the oort cloud yet! that's where some comets come from

I bought a washing machine at comet and it didn't take that long to get there

We're now 3000 times further the away from the Sun and on it's present course Voyager should get past the Oort Cloud in 28000 years

Get out of town, but we’re near the edge of the universe right?

No we haven't even got to the nearest star, Voyager would take 76000 years to get to the nearest star and that's going 430 times faster than Concord, it's 270,000 times further away from the sun so we’re getting into silly far away now ...it takes 4 years for light to get there... the star is called Proxima centauri

Was it named after a Roman? I'm sure I dressed up as him once, is that what people mean when they say I'm a star?

I wouldn't like to comet. Now ALL the Stars we see in the night sky are revolving around a massive black hole at the centre of our Galaxy called the milky way, there's hundreds of billions of them ...more stars than grains of sand on all the beaches in all the world, and the space between each of them is about 30 trillion miles! and nothing in between... just the vacuum of Space.

What... there is a cleaner of space?

Other than Ajax no. The Galaxy is 100,000 light years across and it's a spinning disc of stars!

But correct me if I'm wrong Brian, if was to travel near the speed of light, it would only take me a few years to cross the Galaxy due to Einstein's time dilation effect

Go on...

But observers on earth would see me travelling for 1000s of generations. Peter Andre told me that!

I think he is right Joey.

Pete is well cool. The galaxy. that's it ...that's the edge of the universe right?

That's what everyone thought it turns out in the last century we discovered that it's just the start, there are hundreds of millions of galaxies stretching out 13.8 billion light years in every direction.

Is that it?

No one knows, the universe is only 13.8 billion years old so we can only see this far, as light has only had that long to travel. But also space is expanding so fast, maybe faster than light in some places, we can never see the edge!

My head hurts now

I know ...so does mine

Brian you've taught me space is fucking massive. but also it's not very funny is it?

No

I feel sorry for anyone reading this conversation. But I will say this, I was up all night wondering where the Sun had gone… then it dawned on me!

30 Jokes For November selected by Simone Hoffs

November is a month where a lot of people feel blue so here's a joke for each day of the month to help put a spring in your step and help you get through.

Illustrations by Erica MacArthur

1) "A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it." (Bob Hope)

2) "I believe in equality. Equality for everybody. No matter how stupid they are or how superior I am to them." (Steve Martin)

3) "Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that who cares? He's a mile away and you've got his shoes." (Billy Connolly)

4) "There are only two things in this world I hate. People who are intolerant to other people's cultures and The Dutch" (Micheal Caine)

5) "I once went to one of those parties where everyone throws their car keys into the middle of the room. I don't know who got my moped, but I drove that Peugeot for years." (Victoria Wood)

6) "I went to the head office of the RSPCA today. It's absolutely tiny. You couldn't swing a cat in there." (Tim Vine)

7) "Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now." (Steve Wright)

8) "Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them" (David Brent)

9) "What use is happiness? It can't buy you money." (Chic Murray)

10) "I was doing some decorating, so I got out my stepladder. I don't get on with my real ladder." (Harry Hill)

11) "Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps." (Emo Philips)

12) "Laughter is the best medicine, though it tends not to work in the case of impotence." (Jo Brand)

13) "My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She's 97 now and we don't know where the hell she is" (Ellen DeGeneres)

14) "A man can sleep around, no questions asked, but if a woman makes nineteen or twenty mistakes she's a tramp." (Joan Rivers)

15) "Do you know how many middle-aged men go out for a pint of milk and never come home? Not enough." (Jenny Eclair)

16) "My ability to turn good news into anxiety is rivalled only by my ability to turn anxiety into chin acne."(Tina Fey)

17) "Whoever said nothing is impossible obviously hasn't tried nailing jelly to a tree." (John Candy)

18) "I waited an hour for my starter so I complained: ‘It's not rocket salad." (Lou Sanders )

19) "I like Jesus, but he loves me, so it's awkward" – (Tom Stade)

20) On having sex with men in their thirties: "Generally much better, but you've got to rub their legs afterwards for cramp" – (Sarah Millican)

21) "The Scots invented hypnosis, chloroform and the hypodermic syringe. Wouldn't it just be easier to talk to a woman?" – (Stephen Brown)

22) “My boyfriend likes role play. He likes to pretend we're married. He waits until I go to bed, then he looks at porn and has a wank” – (Joanna Neary)

23) "Hedgehogs - why can't they just share the hedge?" – (Dan Antopolski)

24) "I'm sure wherever my dad is; he's looking down on us. He's not dead, just very condescending." – (Jack Whitehall)

25) "My mum and dad are Scottish but they moved down to Wolverhampton when I was two, 'cause they wanted me to sound like a twat." (Susan Murray)

26) "My dad is Irish and my mum is Iranian, which meant that we spent most of our family holidays in Customs". (Patrick Monahan)

27) "Sleeping with prostitutes is like making your cat dance with you on its hind legs. You know it's wrong, but you try to convince yourself that they're enjoying it as well." (Scott Capurro)

28) "I read a book called The Secret Life of Adolf Hitler. It told me things that I never knew. For instance, when Hitler was having sex he liked to pee on people. That put me right off him." (Martin "Bigpig" Mor)

29) "My friend died doing what he loved … Heroin." – (DeAnne Smith)

30) "I was walking the streets of Glasgow the other week and I saw this sign: "This door is alarmed." I said to myself: "How do you think I feel?" – (Arnold Brown)

Hüsker Dü by Paul Hamilton

WHOOP-DE-DÜ!
Paul Hamilton is a drummer, songwriter, and film critic for The Idler magazine. He is also a massive fan of Hüsker Dü, the seminal American post-punk trio who split acrimoniously in 1988.

For seven years they had been a brilliant self-sustaining firework and then it simply, quietly, conked out. What follows is Hamilton's personal take on the past adventures and achievements of Grant Hart, Greg Norton and Bob Mould.

Two months ago a, if you will, Dücumentary DVD entitled "EVERY EVERYTHING: The Music, Life & Times Of Grant Hart" was released, and then on Tuesday an official website for Hüsker Dü appeared. Take a look at the website and it seems to be is a shop for t-shirts. Are they hoping to become the next Ramones or Rolling Stones? It's so commonplace to see someone in a Ramones t-shirt and it's plain that they've never heard ‘Rockaway Beach' or ‘Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue'. Yesterday's revolution is tomorrow's fashion accessory.

But it's early days, of course. The exciting - or potentially disappointing - revelation is that all three ex-members are "talking". What about, who knows? Maybe they've attained the rights to their back catalogue and they are going to get their records mixed properly - because some of them are atrociously produced - and re-released. A DVD of live footage and video and interview clips may be in the offing.

Maybe some fans will be excited about the possibility of them reforming and going out on the road again, like Pixies. Not me. I'm agoraphobic, so I couldn't go to a gig if I wanted to. But a few years ago, I had a crackpipe-dream. You know the Meltdown festival they have on London's South Bank every summer where they have curators like David Byrne, Elvis Costello, Robert Wyatt, Patti Smith, putting together their dream itinerary of funtertainment? One year Morrissey was in charge and he had what's left of The New York Dolls reform. Well, I thought, when they eventually get around to asking me, I would have Hüsker Dü reform for one night - but they wouldn't play any of their own songs. I would have them play my favourite Who album, ‘The Who By Numbers'. And then I would have The Who perform my favourite Hüsker Dü album, ‘Warehouse: Songs And Stories'. The evening would be called ‘Hüskered Who' or ‘Go Dü The Who Dü That You Dü So Well'.

Hüsker Dü, after all these years, are still pretty much under-the-radar, aren't they? Your average person will not be aware of them - their name or their music. Quite distinct from The Velvet Underground, for example. Even professional fogies like Ian Hislop know of the Velvets. But their influence is enormous, though. They were the bridge connecting Buzzcocks power pop of the late '70s to Pixies, and then on to Nirvana and all that mob. When you look back at what was around - and good - in the mid-'80s in the field of white rock, there really wasn't much about. Over here we had The Fall and The Smiths, and in America there was R.E.M. and Hüsker Dü.

Hüsker Dü were signed to a major label - Warners - two years before the same label snapped up R.E.M. The reason I think R.E.M. lasted the course while Hüsker Dü fell at the second hurdle is that the Dü could not break through to mass acceptance because they were not pretty boys. Body fascism was as rife then as it is now, for males as well as females, and Bob and Grant were plumpingly porktastic whilst Greg had that enormous soup-strainer Biggles moustache. R.E.M. were blessed with the wasp-waisted, shape-shifting, charismatic and beautiful Michael Stipe. R.E.M. also had the benefit of managers and a back-up team dealing with tour bookings, fan club administration. They had sympathetic record producers and graphic designers. Delegation - that's what you need. Hüsker Dü was an entirely self-sufficient outfit; self-managing, self-producing the records, booking their own tours, Greg the bass player also having to drive the van to the gigs, Grant designing all the posters and record sleeves. And consider the output of releases: Between 1981 and early 1987, they produced five albums, two double albums, an E.P. and a couple of non-album singles. They were excessive in both quantity and quality.

Another reason they burned out was because they were absolute road hogs. And when you're living together in such close proximity with barely a day off, nerves will fray. There will be savage tournaments of blame tennis.

In the documentary, Grant talks about how incensed Bob Mould was when Warners chose ‘I Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely' and ‘Sorry Somehow' as singles. These were both songs written by Grant. The fact is, on that first album for Warners - ‘Candy Apple Grey' - Hart wrote all the best songs. This was the first time that Mould's ever-improving songwriting talent stalled (or just plain floundered). One song of his was a direct and very poor re-write of his excellent ‘Makes No Sense At All' from the previous album. Who was he trying to kid? Did he think no-one would notice? None of his songs on that album have any melodies or memorable lyrics, except one - ‘Hardly Getting Over It', a heartbreaking masterpiece, the most profoundly moving song about mortality.

And it's so touching that, despite all the friction and enmity between them, Grant plays that song in live gigs. But where Bob got it so right with that song, he got so wrong with ‘Too Far Down' - a tuneless, navel-gazing, acoustic dirge with no redeeming qualities at all. It's that awful, misguided belief that dredging one's hurt up and displaying it for all to see is somehow Art and Worthwhile. It's not. It's the musical version of being collared in a pub by a stranger who's droning on and on about his crap job and his wife doesn't understand him. Just fuck off!

Happily, though, those lapses are very rare in their catalogue. The best thing about the ‘New Day Rising' album, I thought, was their putting the two or three rubbish tracks, where they're just pissing about and making a racket, at the end of the record so you can just turn it off.
Viewers watching Grant in that film, especially where he's walking around the empty space where his house used to be before it was burnt down, saying, "Oh, and here's my bookcase with all my signed first-edition Burroughs novels", will find it all very sad but maybe that's because they buy into the capitalist notion of success. If he was swanning around in a vast palace with Dufys and Hockneys on the walls and pontificating about how much Bono was praising him over dinner last night, you would say he was a hypocrite and a sell-out. He can't win. I like the fact his teeth are as grey and manky as they ever were. I admire him for not working out at the gym. If there were a dramatised film about the band, you just know he'd be played by Steve Buscemi. Bob Mould would be Alec Baldwin. Or Philip Seymour Hoffman, if he wasn't turned-up of toe. It's a courageous film, choosing to centre entirely on Grant Hart and not have anyone else contribute any comment. I don't know whether it's a wholly successful venture. I mean, Grant Hart is a sub-cult within a sub-cult within a cult. Like Howard Devoto, he is an interesting, vital, restless artist who has made a splash. The problem is, the everyday record consumers are happy with the ripples at the edge of the water. They aren't overly concerned with what caused them. It's not an easy film to get into - you will have to do a bit of homework beforehand - and, even when you're in, it can be just as difficult, because Grant is not a person readily giving of anecdote. He is a serious person, preferring to discuss theory and method rather than tell hilarious tour stories and kiss-and-tell sour-grapes rants about Bob Mould.

Some may find it disappointing that he chose to be unrevealing about the band split. Or who the mother of his child is. But I can understand his reason for this: For 11 years I ran a fan club dedicated to Peter Cook and had obtained an interview with one of his collaborators who chose only to discuss aspects of the work they produced but with no intimate revelations regarding their offstage relationship. When asked why this was a no-go zone, he said, "When you start telling, and then re-telling, those stories, they become edited in your memory, they lose all the incidental details, they are no longer part of you and your private, inner self; it becomes a pale reflection of what once was. You will, in reality, gain nothing from my telling you what we got up to after a show, but I will lose everything. And because I treasure those moments, I can not share them. And I'm not sorry."

Although they were not a frivolous band, his ‘Keep Hanging On' track makes me laugh because, as it continues and he gets madder and madder, he sounds like Barney Gumble, Homer's dypso chum in ‘The Simpsons'.

 When I finally got Hüsker Dü - or when they finally got me - it was total. This was the band I had dreamed of playing in. Horrible Head, the band I was playing and writing for in the mid-'80s, were in the same postcode - the attitude of playing sweet melodic pop songs as loud and fast as possible - but they were masters of the game; we were strictly Sunday pub league amateurs. Their music was liberating, the lyrics inspirational - yes, they didn't shy from the frailties that can destroy us, but they had a rare compassion. Most other bands playing in that style would be screaming "KILL! KILL! KILL!" but their message was "LIVE! LIVE! LIVE!" Their breakthrough song, in terms of college radio airplay and recognition, was ‘Diane' in 1983, based on the actual abduction, rape and murder of a local waitress Diane Edwards by Joseph Ture in 1980. It is moving to hear Grant in the film admit his regret at using someone's tragic murder as the basis for a song, and his confusion and mixed feelings when his audience shout requests for him to sing it.

There was a time in the early '90s when everything was falling apart - another Hüsker Dü song title! My hoped-for music career has stalled, I was stuck in a shit job, living in a shit bedsit, my relationship was falling to bits, my best mate was emigrating. I could not see any way out or any way of carrying on. It sounds corny and trite but playing Sides 3 and 4 of ‘Warehouse' at speaker-shredding volume exorcised those demons and inspired me, gave me hope. They were like a brotherly arm over my shoulder, giving me comfort in extremely difficult circumstances. It wouldn't be an overstatement to say that Hüsker Dü saved my life. Probably drove the neighbours to suicide, though…

Should I mention that I once met one of the band? All right. I know this sounds like I'm living the jet-set life, and I assure you I'm not!, but in 2003 I had saved up for a holiday, going to New York City. There was a huge indie festival going on, zillions of bands - I think Bathtub Shitter were on; Black Box Recorder, Killing Joke - and I managed to get in for free, being chummy with John Moore out of the ol' Black Box Recorder there. In one of the halls in this enormous building was a 20-foot long sign on the stage saying ‘BLOWOFF'. Of course, me being English as Hell and never quite getting over toilet training, I got the giggles badly about a band that had called itself after a botty burp. A huge bald bloke enters and yells, "Have you got any business being on that stage?" so I get off it and say sorry. Then I realise it's Bob Mould. I do the usual fan thing and crumble and burble, "You saved my life". He's "OK, glad to have been of service" but then it transpires that BLOWOFF is his DJ name and he is playing some records a bit later. "Your name is BLOWOFF?" I keep asking him. "Yes, I am BLOWOFF", he keeps answering (in some weird parallel-universe version of ‘Spartacus'): "Why? What is your problem with that?" Then I tell him what a blow-off means in Britain and he pauses for a moment… I thought, "Well, legend has it he has a bit of a temper. Is he going to clump me?" But then he lets out this enormous single laugh: "HAW!!! I'm a fart!"

In circuses of metal, arcades of Zen and story-stuffed warehouses, they made the new day rise. Consider wig permanently flipped.

Hüsker Dü's website is here: http://officialhuskerdumerchandise.bigcartel.com

"EVERY EVERYTHING: The Music, Life & Times Of Grant Hart" is available from Amazon

Paul Hamilton is the drummer/co-writer of Yellowjack's ‘Godot Woz Ere' CD: http://www.smokingantrecords.com/shop

Auerbach V Crystal. Harry Pye asks Who's Best?

Jim Davidson hasn’t brought me much happiness over the years but he did once make me chuckle over his gag about the portraits of Pablo Picasso: “Picasso was a terrific painter but he didn’t 'alf know some ugly women!” We have little control over which jokes make us laugh and which tunes make us tap a toe. Likewise, when it comes to looking at a painting in a gallery – we all know what we like – even if we can’t explain why. When it comes to making a connection with an art work it doesn’t really matter what any journalist or critic argues or claims. One person’s take on a painting is never the definitive analysis because, ultimately, our preferences are merely subjective opinions. Obviously what I’m saying is nothing new. The phrase, “There’s no accounting for taste” has been around a lot longer than any of the paintings in Tate Britain.

This week I have mostly been looking at the paintings of Frank Auerbach. Frank, who was born in 1931, has a greatest hits-style show which runs at the Tate till March of next year. A couple of art critics have awarded the show 5-star reviews and attendances have been very good but would Frank be that bothered? Would worrying about viewing figures or reading glowing reviews really be his thing?

Mr. Auerbach lives to paint. He paints 7 days a week and 3 evenings a week. Sometimes he’ll do over 50 separate versions of the same portrait until he thinks he’s nailed it. I know a lot about him as I’ve read the excellent book about him by Catherine Lampert called “Speaking and Painting.” One thing I learned is that, in Frank’s studio, there is a reproduction of Pablo Picasso’s portrait of Dora Marr. In the book Frank tells Catherine that when he sees a Picasso that “it feels like an owl blinking its eyes coming into the light.” Frank explains he thinks Pab is fab because his paintings make him see things that he hasn’t thought of before. He also says that Picasso's portrait of Dora is always "exhorting me to be naughtier".

Frank’s had the same studio near Mornington Crescent since 1954 and he has made paintings of that part of North London on many occasions. His late friend and fellow painter, Lucian Freud admired a painting completed in 1991 called “Mornington Crescent – Early Morning”. Freud said: “The mastery of these compositions is such that in spite of their often precarious balance, like a waiter pretending to slip while carrying a huge pile of plates, the structure never falters. It is the viewer who has to hold tight.”

The show at the Tate features portraits of Frank’s friend William Feaver, who is an important art critic. There are also paintings of his wife, his son Jake and a woman called Ruth Bromberg. Frank began painting her Ruth in 1992. He painted her every Thursday afternoon for 17 years. For the first 45 minutes of the session Frank would scrape off the paint of a previous painting of her whilst discussing art and artists and then he would paint her in total silence for one hour. Frank thanked his models for their patience and described what he was doing as being a “slow fumble towards the truth.”

Jake Auerbach has made a DVD featuring his father talking about his work. I read a comment from one of Jake’s colleagues that, during the making of the documentary, he obtained one rare fact about Frank that isn’t mentioned in Catherine Lambert’s book. Apparently, when they weren’t talking about his paintings, the only other subject that came up was Frank’s interest in the films of Billy Crystal.As a child I loved watching SOAP – the spoof soap opera that made Crystal famous - but I’ve never considered him to be up there with the all-time greats. I’m not bad-mouthing Billy – I thought Mr Saturday Night was quite moving in places and he was great as the devil in Deconstructing Harry but I just never saw him as hilariously funny or particularly talented.

It’s a funny thing to admit to but although I know Frank Auerbach put a lot of hours in and I know that he’s sincere and believes in painting... If I’m being honest, most of the paintings in his Tate Britain show don’t really do anything for me. I like the work in the first 2 rooms but after that I think it gets a bit patchy. I certainly don’t feel like a blinking owl “watching a waiter pretend to slip over” when I look at Frank’s later stuff.

The fact is, just because a painting is brimming with information conveyed with an underlying delicacy – it doesn’t mean I have to appreciate it in the same way I don’t have to appreciate Throw Mamma From The Train. A lot of Frank’s painting don’t excite me but what does fascinate me though is the idea of Frank coming home from the studio, watching “When Harry Met Sally” and laughing at the famous Meg Ryan scene in the cafe. I also can’t help my mind wondering if Frank owns either a VHS video or a DVD of City Slickers. It’s such an unimportant thing and yet it’s of interest to me.

Frank and Lucian Freud were known to have long conversations about art - I also wonder if Frank had ever mentioned to Lucian that his grandfather (Sigmund Freud) gets a mention in Analyse This? In an early scene where a mobster boss (played by Robert De Niro) is having Freud’s Oedipal Theory explained to him by a psychiatrist (played by Crystal) we hear the line: “Well, Freud was a sick fuck... and so are you for bringing it up!” Wouldn’t it have been great if Frank had re-enacted the scene and did all the voices?

Some time ago I read an interview with Billy Crystal in the London freebie newspaper Metro. There were two things he said that stayed with me and that I’d like you to think about. One was about working on Analyse This – he said that Robert De Niro was the best actor he knew because he got closer to the truth than anyone else. And the other thing was Billy’s advice to young comics who want to make it in show business. He said: “If you hang around the kitchen long enough – someone will probably give you a sandwich.”

Introduction to Superbad Magazine by Simone Hoffs

Well, Hello There!
Superbad is a new monthly magazine for rum coves and comedy bores.
The November 2015 issue
will feature contributions from
Dan Connor
Paul Hamilton
Asrid Horkheimer
Erica Macarthur
Karen Morden
Harry Pye
Matthew Russell
Sinead Wheeler
Superbad Magazine is edited by Simone Hoffs.

simonehoffs1981@gmail.com