Book Review: Withnail & I (From Cult To Classic) by Toby Benjamin

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The ‘Withnail’ cult shows no sign of waning. Writer/director of the 1987 movie Bruce Robinson spent some of lockdown discussing the film while co-star Richard E Grant posted regular line-readings on social media. And now there’s news of a long-awaited, Robinson-endorsed stage play.

So Toby Benjamin’s excellent ‘From Cult To Classic’ seems to have arrived at the perfect time. Authorised by Robinson and written with his full co-operation, it assembles a veritable cornucopia of ‘Withnail’ info.

The brilliantly blunt Robinson foreword almost had movingtheriver punching the air with excitement. Elsewhere letters from his personal collection show correspondence around the film’s financing and script editing. There are anotated script pages, detailed location administration and premiere tickets. We even see Robinson’s London to Cumbria train tickets for the shoot. Richard Curtis and Richard E also donate personal letters.

There are brilliant on-set photos, many by official snapper Murray Close, some donated by Robinson and the cast (including a great one of a clearly mullered Ringo Starr). All the main cast members give long, interesting interviews, as do many key bit-part players (The Irishman, the ‘Get in the back of the van!’ cop, Farmer Parkin) and the hairdresser, stills photographer, makeup artist, cinematographer, production manager, costume designer and soundtrack composers Rick Wentworth and David Dundas. We even hear from the owner of Crow Crag (Sleddale Hall).

There are a few minor quibbles – the book is dotted with ‘celebrity’ endorsements of the film but you’d be hard pressed to recognise any of them, outside of Matt Johnson, Charlie Higson and Diane Morgan, and no biographies are provided. Also the book’s ‘distressed’ interior design will probably divide opinion.

But if you’ve seen ‘Withnail’ more than once, you have to have this book. Absolutely unreservedly recommended to scrubbers and terrible c*nts everywhere.

The Samantha Fox/Mick Fleetwood BRIT Awards Fiasco: 35 Years On

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Memorable for all the wrong reasons, the 1989 BRIT awards, broadcast live 35 years ago this month, has long gone down as one of the most shambolic, embarrassing  TV shows ever.

It took place at the Royal Albert Hall during the Jason/Kylie/Rick Astley/Brother Beyond/Bros-inspired pop peak of the late 1980s, less than six months after the first Smash Hits Poll Winners Party at the same venue. Madchester was just around the corner but it seemed like another world.

Cool Britannia this wasn’t. Firstly, there was the the two presenters (wasn’t Phillip Schofield available?). Apart from anything else, Fox is 5’1” and Mick 6’6”. Then there was their extremely unnatural, awkward presentation styles, though, to this day, Fox swears that the autocue was broken.

Various bad-tempered Stones came and went, Boy George was introduced as The Four Tops, Tina Turner and Annie Lennox looked desperately awkward, other ‘dignitaries’ were wheeled out and MPs were booed.

Rounding things off perfectly, Cliff Richard was then given a Lifetime Achievement Award and delivered a brilliantly sniffy speech for the plebs. All in all, it’s no surprise that this was the last time the BRITS went out live on TV for 18 years…

 

Arvo Pärt: Tractus (2023)

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Can music bring about social change, get people to put down their guns, retire their drones? Can ‘religious’ music affect the atheist/agnostic as powerfully as it affects the ‘believer’?

Ted Gioia may have some answers but in the meantime the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt has been making special music for decades.

His work was particularly revered in the 1980s as ambient/minimalism gained a bigger following than ever before, his ‘Fratres’ becoming a classic, performed by everything from a string quartet to cello octet and featuring on countless movie soundtracks.

Pärt’s mesmerising new ECM New Series album Tractus – probably movingtheriver’s album of 2023 – was recorded during September 2022 in Tallinn’s Methodist Church. It features music written between 1988 and 2019 for string orchestra, soprano voice, choir, piano and assorted percussion.

The title refers to a series of theological writings published between 1833 and 1845 by
English cardinal John Henry Newman, and also an ancient form of singing first noted as early as the third century AD. There are other historical precedents to both the title and compositional style, outlined in great detail within the CD’s liner notes.

Sadly the people who should listen to Tractus will probably never get to hear it.

Culture Club: ‘Karma Chameleon’ Hits US #1 40 Years Ago Today

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The Second British Invasion hit its imperial phase 40 years ago today, a week after Newsweek had put Annie Lennox and Boy George on its cover.

Off the back of Eurythmics’ ‘Sweet Dreams’ hitting #1 in the US during September 1983, ‘Here Comes The Rain Again’ peaked at #4 at the beginning of February 1984.

In the same week, Culture Club’s ‘Karma Chameleon’ hit #1, their only American chart-topper to date. The band then won Best New Artist at the 1984 Grammy Awards on 28 February, Boy George giving one of the most famous music-award thank-yous of all time:

Regarding the Newsweek photoshoot, George later reported in his autobiography ‘Take It Like A Man’: ‘I heard Annie telling the make-up artist Lynne Easton not to make her look like Boy George. Annie was my female counterpart, the tomboy to my tomgirl. I enjoyed the irony of my being photographed with her; I was the fan made good, even if she didn’t want Boy George eyebrows.’

Both Culture Club and Eurythmics then toured the US during April 1984, the latter enjoying a famous residency at The Ritz in New York City. Did you see either of them live in ’84? Let us know your memories below.

John Lennon/Yoko Ono: Milk and Honey @ 40

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Milk and Honey – planned as the followup to Double Fantasy long before John Lennon’s death on 8 December 1980 – was finally released 40 years ago this weekend, on 27 January 1984.

I believe it was the second vinyl album owned by movingtheriver – the first was The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour soundtrack.

Polydor did John and Yoko proud, with striking front/back photos and a gatefold sleeve complete with Ono’s liner notes, Lennon’s ‘Grow Old With Me’ lyrics and some Robert/Elizabeth Barrett Browning poetry.

But Milk and Honey was somewhat of a commercial disappointment, reaching #3 in the UK and just #11 in the US. And it seems one of the least remembered Lennon-related albums these days. Why? Listening again after a few years this weekend was a pleasurable experience, with a few exceptions, and the breadth of musical styles (reggae, calypso, new-wave, piano balladry, rock’n’roll) is impressive.

Six John solo tracks recorded during and before the Double Fantasy sessions made it onto the album. They’re all pretty good, a few classic, mostly tougher than the previous material. John sounds on great form. His spoken-word moments and count-ins are amusing and he’s frequently heard ‘coaching’ the band (and studio staff) through the songs, Prince-style, with various instructions: ‘Boogie!’, ‘Hold it down’, ‘Groove!’, ‘All right, you can get out now’ etc.

The Lennon tracks also showcase a great band playing pretty much live in the studio. John plays lots of guitar – in that famous Jann Wenner interview, he said ‘I can make a guitar speak’, and you can hear it here. Drummer Andy Newmark lays off the hi-hat most of the time, letting the rhythm guitars fill in the top end.

Three UK singles were released from the album, with diminishing returns: ‘Nobody Told Me’ got to #6, ‘Borrowed Time’ (studio sessions reveal that John used an interesting reference source for the song) #32 and ‘I’m Stepping Out’ #88.

Yoko recorded her tracks during 1982 and 1983, mostly with a very good NYC rhythm section (Neil Jason on bass, Yogi Horton on drums), and they range from the intriguing to extremely corny. ‘Don’t Be Scared’ possibly influenced David Bowie, particularly the title track of Tonight, recorded three months after Milk and Honey was released:

Yoko also enlisted some ‘remix engineers’ who apparently added a lot of post-production effects to John’s vocals, the drums and guitars (she had fallen out with Double Fantasy producer Jack Douglas over unpaid royalties and refused to credit him on the album).

Revisiting Milk and Honey was certainly a bittersweet experience, but it’s an easy album to recommend, and it only makes you miss John all the more. The dunderheaded/ill-informed contemporary critical reactions are explored in this very good video:

Nik Kershaw: Wouldn’t It Be Good @ 40

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Bristol-born, Ipswich-raised Nik Kershaw had a spiffing 1984 – no other solo artist spent more time on the UK singles charts during the year.

‘Wouldn’t It Be Good’, released 40 years ago this weekend (on the same day as Echo & The Bunnymen’s ‘The Killing Moon’) and reaching #4, was his second single – ‘I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’ initially flopped in September 1983.

‘Wouldn’t It Be Good’ was predominantly recorded at Sarm East studios on Osborn Street, Aldgate (don’t look for it – it’s not there any more). Peter Collins produced soon after helming Musical Youth’s ‘Pass The Dutchie’ and Tracy Ullman’s solo output (he later worked with Rush, Alice Cooper and Queensryche). The song’s original title was ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ – Collins demanded a better word than ‘nice’.

It’s a great single, the beginning of movingtheriver’s love affair with Kershaw’s music, and its ominous lyrics have the slight whiff of ‘In The Air Tonight’ about them, as well as a subtle social conscience. I also always liked the weird emphases he placed on some words/syllables – ‘You must be JOKING/You don’t know A thing about it/You got no probLEM‘ etc…

I distinctly remember watching him perform the song on ‘Top Of The Pops’ for the first time – who was this tramp on telly, with the snood and fingerless gloves? My parents liked the track too, which was a bit disarming.

The song’s overdriven guitars were layered/overdubbed, Brian May-style (best heard on the 12” remix), and their major-seventh chords create some strange timbres. Its structure is seriously weird too – the second chorus comes right at the end, after a lengthy guitar/horn solo. The delayed gratification is clever and totally outside the norm.

The video was directed by Storm Thorgersen, mostly filmed in a large, disused building opposite Buckingham Palace, apart from a bit at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory in Cambridge. An extremely odd cover version features on the ‘Pretty In Pink’ movie soundtrack. Nik fluffed the words at Live Aid but hardly anyone noticed.

Happy birthday to another classic single from 1984.

Big Country: ‘Wonderland’ Kicks Off One Of The Greatest Ever Pop Years

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Big Country kicked off 1984 – one of the greatest ever pop years – with their between-album, standalone A-side ‘Wonderland’. It reached #8, their second most successful single in the UK.

Also 40 years ago this week, Radio 1 DJ Mike Read ‘banned’ Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘Relax’ and the Second British Invasion was sweeping the States, led by Eurythmics, Duran Duran, Culture Club, A Flock Of Seagulls and The Police (a remarkable Hot 100 chart of April 1984 featured 40% British acts).

Meanwhile, Big Music of a distinctly Celtic hue was sweeping the UK: The Waterboys, Simple Minds, U2, Echo & The Bunnymen and Big Country. They made ‘elemental’ music, as the cliché goes, with lots of space and lyrics about wars, work, glaciers, mountains, seas and skies.

You could make the case that Big Country were the best musicians of the lot (see the live clip below). And they had an extraordinary run of singles success between 1983 and 1986 – after their debut (‘Harvest Home’) missed the top 40, all the next ten reached the top 30. They also made some serious inroads into the US market.

Tommy Vance liked ‘Wonderland’, reviewing it in Kerrang! magazine thus: ‘Should be heard by anyone who likes fine music. I’m a real fan of Steve Lillywhite’s productions and he’s done a superb job here. The guitar sound is good and the drumming superb.’ Indeedy. Ver Country’s second album Steeltown (sans ‘Wonderland’) emerged in October 1984 and went to #1 in the UK. Cool times.

RIP the terrific Annie Nightingale.

Greg Osby: Season Of Renewal

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Of all the musical scenes that emerged during the 1980s, M-BASE – a Brooklyn-originated fusion of jazz and funk with many other influences thrown in – may be the least understood/remembered.

The term was co-authored by saxophonists Greg Osby and Steve Coleman. The M stands for ‘Macro’, BASE is an acronym for ‘Basic Array of Structured Extemporizations’.

The music’s other key practitioners were saxophonists Gary Thomas, vocalist Cassandra Wilson, keyboard player Geri Allen, guitarists Kevin Eubanks, David Gilmore and Kelvyn Bell, bassist Lonnie Plaxico and many more.

M-BASE was an attempt to draw attention away from ‘jazz’ as a catch-all term, and also showcase original material over standards and show tunes. But it certainly has its own sound once you hear a few key albums, totally different to ‘fusion’ or ‘jazz/funk’, relying on tightly structured drum patterns (often in odd-time signatures), funk bass, ‘modal’ keyboards, chattering rhythm guitars and Charlie Parker-influenced horn improvisations.

A key artefact was Osby’s arresting album Season Of Renewal, released 35 years ago on now-defunkt German-based label JMT (which also released many other key M-BASE recordings). Checking it out again now for the first time in a few years, it makes for fascinating, rewarding listening.

Themes are mainly outlined by the bass (Plaxico) and/or keyboards (Renee Rosnes and Edward Simon). Osby’s alto or soprano saxes generally only enter during solo sections. The guitarists (Eubanks and Kevin McNeal) are superb. The synths may bring to mind the 1980s music of Mark Isham. Drummer Paul Samuels produces solid grooves and seems to have been issued with a ‘no tom-toms’ decree by Osby.

‘Dialogue X’, featuring just synths and Osby, hints at the political animus always underlying the M-BASE movement. The closing ‘Spirit Hour’ is absolutely spellbinding, like a waking dream, its haunting melody expertly outlined by Cassandra Wilson.

Osby has gone on to a varied, impressive career, including a well-regarded period on Blue Note Records. But none of his JMT albums are currently on streaming platforms (except for a fairly good quality burn on YouTube, see below) – in fact M-BASE is poorly served there, though a so-so compilation has recently surfaced. Best to search for Osby’s 1980s music via CD marketplaces – a fruitful voyage for the uninitiated.

In Memoriam: movingtheriver salutes the fallen of 2023

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Wayne at Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, 1989. Photo by William Ellis

Tony Oxley (drummer for John McLaughlin, Cecil Taylor, Derek Bailey, Gavin Bryars etc.)

William Friedkin

Les McCann

Trugoy the Dove (De La Soul rapper/co-founder)

Kevin ‘Geordie’ Walker (Killing Joke guitarist)

Trevor Francis

John Pilger

Jean Boht

Fred White (drummer with Earth, Wind & Fire)

Dick Fontaine (pioneering documentary director)

Paul Watson (documentary pioneer and director of ‘The Family’, ‘The Fishing Party’, ‘Rain In My Heart’ etc.)

Shane MacGowan

Mark Stewart

Brian Tufano (‘Quadrophenia’/’Blade Runner’/’Shallow Grave’ cinematographer)

Burt Bacharach

Wayne Shorter

Jerry Moss (co-founder of A&M Records)

Alan Rankine

Barrett Strong (co-composer of ‘Money’, ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’, ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone’, ‘Wherever I Lay My Hat That’s My Home’)

Bruce Gowers (video and documentary director)

Carlos Garnett (saxophonist with Miles Davis, Art Blakey etc.)

Jim Gordon (drummer with Steely Dan, Frank Zappa, Derek And The Dominoes etc.)

Sinéad O’Connor

Tom Verlaine

Jeff Beck

Hugh Hudson

Sylvia Syms

Shirley Anne Field

Tony Coe (saxophonist)

Fuzzy Haskins (Parliament/Funkadelic vocalist/drummer)

Ryuichi Sakamoto

Fay Weldon

Ahmad Jamal

Carl Davis

Dickie Davies

Piper Laurie

Barry Humphries

Francis Monkman (keyboardist for Sky/Kate Bush, ‘The Long Good Friday’ soundtrack composer)

Tina Turner

John Giblin

Terry Venables

Pete Brown (poet, musician and lyricist of Cream’s ‘Sunshine Of Your Love’/’I Feel Free’/’White Room’)

John Motson

Astrud Gilberto

Baroness Betty Boothroyd

Benjamin Zephaniah

Ray Shulman (Gentle Giant bassist, producer of The Sundays, Sugarcubes and Ian McCulloch)

Ryan O’Neal

Seymour Stein

Mo Foster (bassist with Jeff Beck, Phil Collins, Ringo, Gerry Rafferty etc.)

Glenda Jackson

Martin Amis

Bishan Singh Bedi (cricketer)

George Winston (Windham Hill pianist)

Robbie Robertson

Michael Lerner

Raquel Welch

Frances Sternhagen

Joseph ‘Amp’ Fiddler (keyboardist with George Clinton, Prince, Seal, Maxwell, Charles & Eddie)

Peter Brötzmann

Richard Roundtree

Richard Davis (jazz bassist)

David McCallum

Sir Michael Gambon

Jamie Reid (punk pioneer and designer of The Sex Pistols’ iconic covers)

John Marshall (drummer for Soft Machine, Nucleus, Eberhard Weber etc.)

Carla Bley

Alan Arkin

Michael Baker (drummer/vocalist for Whitney Houston, Joe Zawinul, Billy Childs)

Don Sebesky

Wishing all of my readers a healthy 2024, with loads of cash.

The Cult Movie Club: The Exorcist @ 50

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William Friedkin and William Peter Blatty’s horror masterpiece received its premiere 50 years ago today – Boxing Day, 1973.

I’ll never forget my first viewing of the film. My dad suggested we go to a late-night Friday screening at a nightclub-cum-cinema called Options in deepest Kingston-upon-Thames sometime during late summer 1988.

I was 15 years old. I didn’t have a clue what lay in store for me. I’d seen ‘The Fog’, ‘Halloween’ and ‘An American Werewolf In London’ but this was a completely different kettle of fish.

The house was absolutely packed and the print was awful – this was years before ‘The Exorcist’ got a posh Warner Bros. re-release. But the graininess of the picture actually suited this truly ‘forbidden’ movie; it was still banned on video in 1988 and had the cache of a lost cult classic.

If memory serves, I spent most of the film completely terrified while my dad frequently laughed at it, possibly to mitigate my reactions and make me realise ‘it’s only a movie’ – or because he was scared too.

I still vividly recall the hideous demon face (which haunted my dreams for a few weeks afterwards) and the scraping/scratching soundtrack. And then the panic of the penultimate scene followed by moving/disturbing denouement, with Regan’s very visible facial scars, before being cut loose from the film, battered and bleeding, and hearing Salt-N-Pepa’s ‘Push It’ incongruously booming out from the nightclub below as we left the cinema. It also wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the movie got me thinking seriously about spiritual matters for the first time.

Watching ‘The Exorcist’ recently for the first time in five years or so, I was again mesmerised by the masterful first hour, with Friedkin’s documentary-style brilliance, fast pacing and wonderful performances from Jason Miller, Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair and Lee J Cobb. It still makes the likes of ‘The Omen’ and ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ look fairly ridiculous.

But a few things rankled – the abuse of Regan by various male ‘authority’ figures. And, speaking from experience, in my view it would still be madness to show this film to under-18s.
Also where were the press/paparazzi at the McNeil house while all of this hooey was going on? After all, Ellen Burstyn is supposed to be playing a world-famous actress.

And take your pick of the scenes controversially excised by Friedkin to trim the film down to two hours, but I really could have done with the so-called ‘Casablanca’ ending. But the power of ‘The Exorcist’ is undiminished after 50 years. Happy birthday to a classic and RIP director William Friedkin.