Why Rock Stars Should Behave Like Rock Stars
One of my podcast pleasures is A Word in Your Ear, hosted by David Hepworth and Mark Ellen, purveyors of many a finely tuned word on rock and pop and who have followed me throughout my life, with their work in Smash Hits, Q and The Word magazines.
They also hosted the Whistle Test at some point in the 80s, following in the long shadow of Whispering Bob.
As a side-thought, during this era, I also recollect them hosting an all-night music extravaganza on BBC2 entitled Rock Around the Clock. This was a collection of music videos, interviews and concert footage that was broadcast until around 6am. An unheard of time in the mid-80s to actually have half-decent stuff on the telly. This rock-marathon boasted as its glorious climax Lynyrd Skynrd playing Freebird. By that time I was too tired to care.
Anyway, A Word in Your Ear podcast simply involves Hepworth and Ellen sharing memories and stories from the time on the front-line, which frequently revolve around either Dylan or The Beatles or both. A recent edition featured a long and glorious interview with Bob Geldof, revealing stories of growing up in Dublin and his musical journey.
However, this Zoom interview via his home started with Geldof saying that he had just come in from the garden, where he had been weeding. What? Weeding?
This is Bob Geldof. What right does he have to be … weeding? The lead singer of The Boomtown Rats. The man who wrote Rat Trap and I Don’t Like Mondays. As a 12 year in 1978 I virtually wore out from over-playing my copy of A Tonic for the Troops. This dishevelled Irish activist was to quickly prove himself as a highly provocative and charismatic lead singer and the 2020 documentary Citizens of Boomtown demonstrates just how good and important The Boomtown Rats were.
Oh, and he also created Live Aid.
Now, Bob Geldof is weeding. He even admitted to owning a pair of weeding gloves, for Christ’s sake!
Geldof is nearly 70. Of course he should be weeding, and just generally pottering about in his garden., but I simply find it difficult to envisage my rock heroes engaging in ordinary mundane tasks, that us lesser mortals routinely do.
It’s akin to when you were at school and you see your teacher out shopping at the weekend. These compartmentalised worlds should never collide.
The absolute apogee of my irrational struggle with this concerns David Bowie. I once interviewed writer Dylan Jones about his seminal oral history, David Bowie: A Life. In the book, long-time Bowie guitarist and Tin Machinist Reeves Gabrels states:
“If you ask me what David’s Rosebud was, I’d say Weetabix, about an hour before going to bed. I have this image of David sitting in a recording studio in various parts of the world, wearing cargo shorts, a short-sleeved shirt, and white athletic socks, one leg perched on the other, watching television and eating Weetabix” [1]
In the interview, I raise this with Dylan Jones, stating what I saw as the incongruity of Bowie eating Weetabix. Jones stared at me, clearly thinking this idiot could have asked me a million things about Bowie and instead focuses on the great man’s preferred choice of cereal.
“What’s wrong with Weetabix?”, Jones replied. “Erm, nothing”, I mumble, and then ask him a random question about Diamond Dogs or something.
In 2006 I directed a production of The Hundred and One Dalmatians at the Theatre Royal Nottingham, starring Toyah Willcox. She was great fun to work with and gave a delicious performance as Cruella de Vil. Arriving early one day during the run, I discovered her and a few other cast members watching Countdown in a dressing room.
Toyah, punk icon, star of Quadrophenia and Jarman’s iconic Jubilee, partner to Robert Fripp of King Crimson, now watching and enjoying a TV quiz show. How dare she!
Actually, she may not have been enjoying it. This was the year when Des Lynam hosted Countdown. But there it was again, normality invading my gilded world of rock stars. As Toyah herself once declared, “It’s a mystery.”
It continues to crop up. Paul McCartney in his 2020 interview with Adam Buxton talked about his enjoyment of Would I Lie To You?
I keep thinking who’s next? Iggy Pop declares his love for Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly? Debbie Harry listens to past recordings of The Organist Entertains? John Lydon never misses Celebrity Antiques Trip? That may be true, as John Cooper Clarke actually appeared on a recent episode of this.
So, where does my irrationality lie? I put it down to desiring our icons to live the rock legend life. The sex & drugs & rock & roll cliché. When one starts to introduce daytime TV, light gardening and breakfast cereals into this world, the fragile edifice comes tumbling down to reveal just normal people, leading normal lives. Their cover has been broken and they’re just like us, except with probably a few more quid in the bank.
Of course it doesn’t lessen my appreciation of their work and art, and to be honest hearing Geldof mid-podcast interview ask his daughter to “go and do the fucking weeding” shows that he hasn’t lost any of his famous attitude or vocabulary. It’s just now directed towards rogue dandelions.
[1] David Bowie: A Life, by Dylan Jones, Windmill Books, 2017.
