Glom of Nit #32: Soul Cake Duck Special: The problems of tomorrow
Touring and existential questions
Hello there.
“Where,” as W. Axl Rose once famously asked, “do we go now?” That’s the question that’s been preoccupying me lately. Because something marvellous has happened: my live stand-up comedy show, The Magic of Terry Pratchett (based roughly on my biography of the same name, but you probably knew that) is currently 17 dates into a roughly 60-date tour, and I have found myself making a living from performing and writing. It’s not a living that’s going to last forever. I can only tour this show for so long. But for now, my primary income, for the first time in my entire life, is from standing on a stage and making people laugh (and also cry. And nerd out a lot.)
I did my first comedy gig sixteen years ago, in 2008, during a night off at the Edinburgh Fringe, where I was filming daily content for MySpace (no, really) at the famously riotous late-night show SPANK! I wrote a blog about it at the time, which you can read here. “Wanting to do stand up” was a dirty secret I had kept to myself for years, though the desire had been bubbling closer and closer to the surface until it had reached a point of high-pressure inevitability and spewed out of my face and straight over an audience. I’d moved to London and got a job working in comedy specifically so I could see as much of it as possible and make connections in preparation for an inevitable leap to the other side of the microphone. I didn’t tell anyone that this was the plan. Not my bosses. Not my girlfriend. Not my friends. No-one. Largely because I assumed people would talk me out of it. Some people do courses in comedy to get themselves started — I considered a year of watching stand-up every night for work, from tiny open mics to arena shows, to be far more useful than any comedy course available. And I’d be paid to do it.
That first gig went okay, but for some reason, it took me a while to do a second. I kept putting it off. My second gig was in March 2009, at a night in Waterloo ran by then-unknown comedy upstarts Sara Pascoe and Jessica Fostekew. That’s the point that I got the bug. After that I was off. Doing every open mic in London, and using every connection I’d made in the industry.
Here’s my third or possibly fourth ever gig, somewhere in the Spring of 2009 at an open mic night in Stoke Newington. I wrote that set that day and performed it that night. I used to do that a lot. It’s not amazing, it’s very Stewart Lee-indebted (as every new comic was back then) and it makes me cringe horribly, but it’s also not actually bad:
I lost my job shortly after that. Fine by me … it meant now I was, technically, a full-time stand-up comedian. Admittedly one that was literally never paid to perform, but for a while, writing and performing was all I did between signing on. I gigged heavily and I got … pretty good? Not reliably amazing on every try, but pretty good. This is me, two years later, at Brighton’s excellent Komedia:
I miss being that thin.
And I thought, back then, that I could make a career of it. I really did. I was making a reasonable secondary living, but it wasn’t enough to live on. By then, I’d got a job in the music industry, though my professionalism was rather hampered by turning up for 9am meetings thirty minutes late and completely exhausted because I’d gotten back home to London at 4am from a gig in Taunton or Leeds or, on one occasion, genuinely, Carlisle. Eventually, I got the sack because of it. (And also because I said that Lee Ryan’s fans thought his new single “was sh*t” in a meeting with his management and record label. In fairness, it was. But anyway … )I was still young. In my 20s, just about. I had energy. And I could just about keep it going because eventually I was sure I was going to break through the rubbery membrane that blocked me from full-time success and i’d be making my living from telling jokes and could jack in the other stuff.
It never happened. It wasn’t that I wasn’t good — though I could be inconsistent, on my good days I think I could be genuinely great. But it wasn’t enough. The constant gigging and travelling for tiny amounts of money. The time I had to commit to hustling for shows and chasing them up. The late nights and subsequently wiped-out next days. In the end it just burnt me out. After a couple of years of four or five gigs a week plus holding other jobs down to keep the roof above my head and the food on the table, I lost my love for it. I didn’t have the energy to sustain that level anymore, and every time I felt I got close to a real career it seemed to slip away again. I was exhausted.
Around 2013, I made a decision to slow down. I accepted that comedy would never be a full-time job, and I focussed on it as a purely creative outlet instead, which felt healthier. I focussed on writing one-man shows for the Edinburgh Fringe, and I threw my efforts into journalism and writing in the meantime. It was the right decision. I never stopped performing, but five-gigs-a-week became one gig a month, or sometimes one gig in six months, spiking again when I was running in stuff for the Fringe. I watched people who’d started at the same time as me, Rob Beckett, Angela Barnes, Harriet Kelmsley, Joel Dommet, Ivo Graham, Rachel Paris, Matt Richardson and tons more, people I’d shared stages, countless car journeys and hotel rooms with, go on to mainstream careers. And I was happy for them, honestly. They had the stamina that I didn’t, and that extra … something that pushed them over the top. I hate calling it an ‘X Factor’, because Simon Cowell has ruined that phrase, but that something … indecipherable. Ephemeral. The thing that makes someone look great on TV. That makes them a star. I have a sort of flickering and inconsistent version of that; like a hurried lover, it comes and goes (thank you for that gag, Sir Terry), but those kids glow with it. I was happy for them. Did I say I was happy for them? I was. Honesty. I mean it. Super happy. For sure. Yeah.
Anyway. It’s 2024, sixteen years after I first told jokes on a stage, and suddenly I’m on tour, and people are coming, and venues are selling out, and for the first time, most of my income in a year is going to come from stand-up comedy. And … I think I love it again. I think i’ve fallen completely back in love, hard. And that’s a problem. Because, to get back to Axl Rose, where do I go from here? I know it’s Sir Terry’s name that’s selling the tickets, though I remind myself that it’s me who earns the applause at the end. The show is good. I know that. But what the hell do I do next? How can I keep up the momentum? Because anything else is going to be a climb down, isn’t it? I have tons of ideas for one-man shows, but none of them can bring in the audience that this has. This, I might have to accept, is a one-time thing. And that’s maddening.
I think this is part of the imposter syndrome. I don’t feel I deserve this, on some level, so I’m trying to find reasons to pull it apart. “No-one will come”. They come. “No-one will laugh.” They laugh. “Okay, well it’s not going to work on tour.” It works. “Okay. Well, you’re never going to pull this off again.” Damn.
Maybe, just maybe, I should just tour this one forever? I guess time will tell.
Anyway. Here’s a clip of me telling Terry Pratchett’s favourite joke at the Glee Club in Birmingham, last month.
Tour update
The Magic of Terry Pratchett 2024 Tour (WITH NEW DATES)
The tour is going on until the end of the year and then … FURTHER. But more of that later. I’m bringing it back to the Edinburgh Fringe; this year it’s at the Assembly George Square Studios, then Wales, the North West, Yorkshire and a bunch of other places people have complained at me for not visiting. And we’re not done yet … Click here, or the poster below to buy tickets to any of the shows.
Other gigs
Thursday April 4 I’ll be performing a FREE new material night in LONDON with Juliette Burton, who is utterly marvelous. It kicks off at 5pm. DETAILS.
My band BEFORE VICTORIA is returning to action this summer.
FRIDAY JUNE 14 — LEICESTER, FIREBUG (with Frenchy & The Punk) TICKETS
SATURDAY JUNE 15 — LONDON, DUBLIN CASTLE (With Frenchy & The Punk, Flesh Tetris and Head Hunters) TICKETS
I’ll also be doing a new material standup gig with the luminous Juliette Burton in London on April 4th - details tba.
Recommendations
New music:
My beloved Manic Street Preachers are re-releasing their overlooked classic Lifeblood this month. Full write up in the next issue.
TV Shows:
Like most kids my age, I spent the 90s mainlining the Saturday morning cartoon version of X-Men. It’s really this version that pulled me into the world of those characters. The revival on Disney+ is exactly what I wanted it to be.
The excellent Turning Point series on Netflix has returned with this rivetting nine-part series on the Cold War
Work in Progress
An excerpt from my forthcoming book Nirvana: A Detailed Guide to the Band that Changed Everything, available later this year through White Owl Books. The book is a detailed timeline of Nirvana’s career with footnotes that give EXTREMELY detailed context on the era. This all may change, of course …
1990
January 2-3
Nirvana reconvene at Reciprical to record new song with Jack Endino. The song, ‘Sappy’, had been debuted on the recent European tour. Kurt pushes Endino to create a more ‘Steve Albini’ style sound1, especially to the drums. Kurt’s insistence on micing the room in the way Albini would and getting an ‘Albini’ drum sound means that most of the session is spent on mic placement and set-up2. No-one is 100% happy with the recording, and since there is no planned upcoming Nirvana release, the track is shelved3. The session for this one single song, which has no release plan, costs around $500 — almost as much as the whole of Bleach.4
January 6
Nirvana and TAD reunite to play their first show of the year, at the Husky Union Building (HUB) Ballroom at the University of Washington, playing a ‘four bands for four bucks’ night, with The Gits5 and Crunchbird filling out the bill. This time there is no questions of who would headline — Kurt and Krist quietly, but definitively inform the members of TAD that Nirvana would close the show and, what’s more, be the closing act on the forthcoming West Coast tour, which the two bands were due to undertake the following month.6 Following a ferocious performance, Nirvana are given a lifetime ban from the venue for engaging in an orgy of destruction at the close of their set.7
January 12
Nirvana join the Melvins for the first of three North West shows, starting at Satyricon, Portland. Kurt and Krist insist on headlining, claiming that ‘things were really taking off’ for them, and implying they were now the bigger band.8
January 19
It’s back to business as usual as Nirvana drop down to main support and the Melvins headline at a gig in Olympia. Calvin Johnson’s Beat Happening open the show.9 Making good on plot he had hatched with TAD’s Kurt Danielson back in Europe, Kurt plays the show with mock needlemarks on his arms, drawn on with fake costum blood, jokingly implying that he was doing heroin. Some in the crowd believe him.10
January 20
Nirvana are back at the top of the bill for their show with the Melvins at Legends in Tacoma.11
February 9
TAD and Nirvana’s west-coast US tour beings at the 1,000+ capacity Pine Street Theatre, Portland, where both bands are the opening acts for Screaming Trees.12 The tour then winds its way down the coast through California, down into Mexico, back up through Phoenix, Arizona and then back home via Chica in California. It’s a much more successful and much more fun tour than the 1989 dates.
March 12
Nirvana and TAD head north for a one-off date in Canada, at The Town Pump in Vancouver, British Columbia.
March 20
A video shoot takes place at Evergreen College, Olympia, using borrowed gear and student filmmakers, filmed on the sly during Spring Break, with the intention of creating a VHS that could be sold at shows. The band are shot on multiple cameras, edited on the fly in the control room, as they perform versions of ‘School’, ‘Big Cheese’, ‘Floyd The Barber’ and a new song, ‘Lithium’, against a blue screen, onto which is inserted footage Kurt has taped from the TV, including cheesy disco dancing footage, body builders, commercials and an out-of-copyright silent horror movie, Häxan, aka Witchcraft Through the Ages. Also in the mix is home movie footage shot by Kurt on Super-8 film, including melting wax, burning toys and stop-motion animations of dolls.13
Steve Albini had obviously been hovering in the back of Kurt’s head for a few years at this point. Albini, who claims his full name is technically ‘Steven None Albini’, since his father refused to leave the ‘middle name’ section of his birth certificate blank, was and indeed is one of the most respected studio engineers in alternative music, with impeccable punk rock credibility. Born in 1961, he spent his childhood roaming the country since his father researched wildfires for a living. Eventually he settled in Illinois, close to Chicago, and became besotted with the more sonically unpalatable end of punk rock. He formed Big Black, the band that made his name, in 1981, creating an uncompromising and jagged post punk noise based around a drum machine and Albini’s slashing, discordant guitars. Their 1987 masterpiece, Songs About F*cking, remains one of the 80s US underground’s touchstone recordings. It was so definitive, in fact, that the band split up as soon as they’d done touring it, having pretty much done what they’d set out to do. Kurt was also a fan of Albini’s next band, the probably-wouldn’t-be-called-that-these-days R*peman (‘god damn, they were f*cking cool live’, as he wrote in his journal), formed with members of another Cobain-touchstone, Scratch Acid. In 1992 Albini would form the post-rock outfit Shellac, with whom he still plays and tours. He’s best known, though, as a recording engineer (never a ‘producer’, since to his mind all he’s doing is recording a band to the best of his, and their, abilities). Shortly before Nirvana went into Reciprocal to record Bleach the Pixies’ Albini-recorded Surfer Rosa had been released, which quickly became one of Kurt’s favourite albums of all time. He was completely obsessed with the production, particularly the wallop and pound of David Lovering’s snare and kick drum — a sound he was chasing for the rest of Nirvana’s career, ultimately leading to Albini recording In Utero in 1993. Albini’s philosphy, as summed up in the liner notes to Big Black’s Pigpile live album could have been a playbook for Nirvana themselves: ‘Treat everyone with as much respect as he deserves (and no more), avoid people who appeal to our vanity (they always have an angle), operate as much as possible apart from the "music scene" (which was never our stomping ground), and take no sh*t from anyone in the process.’
Endino, interviewed for Gillian G. Gaar’s book on In Utero, suggests that Reciprocal studios was just the wrong size and shape for the sounds Kurt was trying to get.
Jack Endino was a little baffled as to why the session ever took place, since Sub Pop hadn’t fired the starting pistol on a new Nirvana album yet. He was also less than impressed with the song, which he felt fell below the band’s usual standards, though this feels a little harsh listening to it now. There’s something melonchly in its heart that gives it a nagging and compulsive charm, present on Kurt’s achingly simple home demo recorded the previous year, and just as clear in this first studio version. Chad’s propulsive drums certainly help. This recording of ‘Sappy’ would eventually see release on the 2004 compilation Sliver: The Best of the Box, but Nirvana would attempt another version of almost every time they were in a studio between 1990 and 1993. It was clearly a track they believed in. ‘Something just drove Kurt to keep busting it out’, as Krist told Gillian G. Gaar. ‘Maybe he thought he was going to put that song over the top. He had some kind of unattainable expectations for it. I don’t know.’ As for why the January recording? Having just come back from a tour where he was asked constantly in interviews about the next Nivana album (he would usually promise it was coming in 1990), and having written (in ‘Immodium’, ‘Polly’, ‘Sappy’ and ‘Dive’) some of the best songs of his life, with a clear pop-orientated direction, he was obviously itching for some forward momentum.
It’s unclear who paid for this recording, since it seems unlikely that the perpetually broke Sub Pop would finance a session ad-hoc, the band certainly couldn’t afford it and Endino wasn’t in the habit of giving out freebies.
The Gits were a mid-western band, playing bluesy, Clash-influenced punk, who had relocated to Seattle the previous year and quickly found a following among the city’s waifs and strays. By the early 1990s they would be teetering on the edge of real success, and having released two great records through C/Z, were poised to follow Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam and sign to a major (Atlantic in this case). They had the world at their feet. Tragically it would never happen — firebrand singer Mia Zapatta was raped and murdered on her way home from a show in July 1993. It took nine years to bring her killer to justice, with the case having grown cold until new DNA evidence came to light. Following Mia’s murder, a non-profit organisation called Home Alive was set up in Seattle in her name, with a brief to give women affordable self-defence lessons. The group was formally wound down in 2010, after 17 years, but survives as a volunteer collective.
Losing the coin-toss in London hadn’t sat right with Kurt and Krist. For all of their punk rock ethics and local-scene camaraderie, they (and especially Kurt) were also hugely ambitious. Despite the great reviews, it was felt that Lame Fest UK had been a missed opportunity. Kurt wasn’t about to let fate rob him of his chance again. It was also clear to a lot of people that Kurt was right — Something was happening with Nirvana. ‘Tad was not happy’, the band’s Kurt Danielson told Gillian G. Gaar, ‘but I could see the writing on the wall.’
The venue management should have known what they were getting themselves into. A preview of the show ran in the local press, stating that ‘Tad will collapse the stage about 10:00 p.m. and Nirvana will destroy the rest of the Ballroom about 11:00 p.m … Slam-dance neophytes curious to try the favorite sport of the Sub Pop showcases can call The Daily Slam Dance Hotline, 543-2702, for instructional consultation and protective gear tips.’ The unhinged spirit of the show was captured by photographer Charles Peterson, who snapped the majestic sight of an uninhibited stage diver, soaring overhead. The shot can be found on the rear cover of the 1996 Nirvana live album, From The Muddy Banks of the Wishkah.
They were also, apparently, ‘really weird about splitting up the money’, according to the Melvin’s Buzz Osborne, talking in Mark Yarm’s Everybody Loves Our Town. ‘That was when I knew that things were not the same with these guys. They had become exactly what I had always tried to avoid’.
Nirvana being the meat in a Melvins/Beat Happening Sandwich is absolutely appropriate. They were the centre of the Venn diagram. The two band’s were among Kurt’s primary influences, and his ability to meld the sludgey volume of Melvins and the catchy, messy pop of Beat Happening was pretty much his super power.
Kurt, by this point had already done heroin at least once, in 1986 or 87 (his story changed depending on the telling), having called Krist and proudly told him about it —only to be warned off. (‘Don't do it man’, he apparently told him,’ ‘you're playing with dynamite’, as Krist told the Washington State Legacy department in 2009), though he hadn’t yet made any sort of habit of it or, seemingly, returned to it again. Seattle had a reputation for the drug, especially amongst its musician community, that went back to the early 80s (‘[we] thought Seattle bands were drunks and heroin addicts without any convictions or creativity’, as Olympia musician Slim Moon told Nicholas Soulsby). It was a reputation that had some basis in fact. ‘In Seattle, heroin was fast becoming a staple in pretty much everyones’s diet … I watched it take over the city’, wrote Seattle native and Guns ‘N’ Roses bassplayer Duff McKagen of his hometown in the early 80s. ‘I witnessed my first overdose when I was 18’ he wrote in his memoir, It’s So Easy (and Other Lies). ‘By the time I was 23, two of my best friends had died from heroin overdoses.’ Smack was plentiful and easy to get hold of — Seattle was a port city and an international trading hub, so the drug came in cheap, and was deeply attractive amid rising poverty and miserable weather. For the young punks it also held a dark glamour — associations with Iggy Pop, Sid Vicious and seedy decadence. The two Kurts, Cobain and Danielson, had been making fun of the idea of becoming junkies on tour in Europe, treating them as tragic figures of fun. Both would become addicts. In March of 1990, Mother Love Bone’s Andy Wood, widely predicted to be the scene's first mainstream star, would die from an overdose. Heroin would blight the careers of pretty much every one of the key, first wave grunge bands. Often fatally. It was everywhere. Kurt’s reaction, as ever, was to make light of it.
It’s unknown why the headliners switched back for the Olympia show on the 19th. Maybe Buzz Osborne had put his foot down? Nirvana’s re-appearance at the top of the bill the next night in Tacoma suggests the audience reaction in Olympia had proven Kurt right — Nirvana had overtaken and outpaced their mentors. Possibly, of course, they were just taking it in turns, though Osborne’s rather shirty response to the idea he play main support suggests a less cordial arrangement. A breathlessly enthusiastic review of the Tacoma gig, appearing in local paper The Current, is a pretty clear indication that Kurt, Krist and Chad were absolutely accepted as headliners.
According to Eric Moore of local openers Rawhead Rex, the venue was oversold and packed to the rafters, and there was a genuine buzz in the air. A recording of Nirvana’s set was later released as the bonus disc for an anniversary edition of Bleach. It’s a corking show … messily energetic, and ear-splittingly loud. There’s always an element of chaos to Nirvana performances, especially during this era, but at the core of the show, rock solid as chaos roars around them, Nirvana are sharp as a tack and tight as a drum. It's a definitive post-Bleach, post-Jason, pre-Grohl performance. Also on the bill was a short spot by The Legend!, aka Melody Maker’s Everett True, who performed his forthcoming, Syd-Barretish novelty single ‘Do Nuts’, which he had (somehow) convinced Sub Pop to release. True even managed to vaguely review himself in his write-up without giving away who ‘The Legend!’ Actually was.
Kurt and the band lose interest in this project and the tapes are never formally released. It’s possible they’re unhappy with the footage, which looks amateurish and sounds pretty bad, though even through that you can see that the performance is great — in spite of Chad Channings ‘rock star’ sunglasses. Kurt had originally wanted the footage projected behind the band, but the student filmmakers instead opted for a ‘chroma key’ blue-screen. It looks very 1986. The recursive, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ effects on ‘Floyd The Barber’ look especially bad.