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Release Type: compilation
Media: CD
Released: 2003-10-20
Catalogue: CRREV54

1. Mr. Odd
2. She's On Drugs
3. Girl-Go
4. Looking For Lot 49
5. She's A Yo-Yo
6. Shirley Maclaine
7. Still & All
8. Monkeyface
9. Bakersfield
10. Vodka Girls

11. President Chang
12. Scarlett
13. Cops And Hospitals
14. Sister Death
15. True Stories
16. President Chang

Paul Mulreany - drums, guitar, vocals on Mr. Odd , She's On Drugs , Girl-Go , She's A Yo-Yo , Shirley Maclaine , Still & All , Monkeyface , Sister Death
Blair MacDonald - drums on Looking For Lot 49
Nick Burson - drums on Bakersfield , Vodka Girls , President Chang
Gabriel Turner - drums, vocals on Scarlett , Cops And Hospitals
Laurence O'Keefe - bass guitar, vocals on Mr. Odd , She's On Drugs , Girl-Go , Sister Death
Erol Suleyman - bass guitar on Looking For Lot 49
Joe Allen - bass guitar on She's A Yo-Yo , Shirley Maclaine , Still & All , Monkeyface
Dooj Wilkinson - bass guitar, vocals on Bakersfield , Vodka Girls , President Chang , Scarlett , Cops And Hospitals , Sister Death , True Stories
Richard Formby - guitar on Mr. Odd , Girl-Go , Shirley Maclaine , Still & All , Bakersfield , Vodka Girls , President Chang
Alex Lee - guitar on She's On Drugs , She's A Yo-Yo , Shirley Maclaine , Monkeyface , Scarlett , Sister Death , Looking For Lot 49
Peter Crouch - guitar on Bakersfield , Vodka Girls , President Chang
Dave Henderson - guitar on Scarlett , Cops And Hospitals
Dave Felce - guitar on True Stories
Alex Green - saxophones
Martin Stebbing (Rev. Botus Whiteblood Fleming) - producer on Mr. Odd , She's On Drugs , Girl-Go , Sister Death
Iain O'Higgins - producer on Looking For Lot 49
Pat Fish - producer on She's A Yo-Yo , Shirley Maclaine , Still & All , Monkeyface - guitar, keyboards, percussion, vocals
Richard Formby - producer on Bakersfield , Vodka Girls , President Chang
David J. - producer on Scarlett , Cops And Hospitals , True Stories
David Whittemore - photography
L. J. Renfield - photography
Mick Mercer - photography

Paul Mulreany and Laurence O'Keefe riot, The Star of India NN1, September

Credit: Pat Fish 1988-01-01 (Friday, 1^st of January 1988 - 36 years 330 days ago)

Heartfelt and unending thanks to Alan McGee, Deirdre O'Donoghue, David Whittemore, and Tim Burrell

FREE LUNCH

Curtis E. Johnson once said to me about the JBC: "You're not a band. You're a crack team of international restaurant critics." Guilty as charged. Stevie G and I were talking about it just the other day. All over the world you can meet people, who, in a desperate attempt to let you know that they're bang up to date with what's going on out there, will tell you: "There's no such thing as a free lunch"; whereas to us musicians the free lunch is a central shaft of our cosmology.

Next time some patronising time-server feels like letting you in on the Big Secret and tells you "there's no such thing as a free lunch", buy him one. Take him to a restaurant, sit him down, wine him and dine him. Then send him on his way with the Star of India's finest dhansak in his belly and a flea in his ear. Who knows? You might just have tweaked his worldview a point or two towards the sunnier side of the street. You'll certainly have shown him that he didn't know what he was talking about.

There is the remote possibility that, once the espressos have been drained and it's time for you to shell out, your new companion might try to go for his wallet. "No, no, I couldn't possibly let you pay the bill," he declaims. Waving of hands may be involved. Here is a man in particular need of your immediate and practical help. Here you are, trying to pay for his lunch, but his personal Weltanschauung won't permit it. How far up himself? All the way, I'm afraid, season ticket holder, sits on the board of the Consumers' Action Council, organises the knees-up every Christmas, salt-of- the-earth. Oh, I'm sorry. Remain firm. Pay the bill for both of you.

Alan McGee, in his foreword to Jackie Young's book "Backward Glances" (Creation 1995), wrote that whenever one of his deluded pop singers phoned up from abroad to moan about life on the road, he'd remind them that they could always try working down a mine. Right on the money once again, Mister President.

A lot of the stuff you read about little rock bands touring the globe is foolish myth. The expected tales of wild excess, for example, perpetuated by writers who could barely handle the lifestyle for more than a couple of days at some cushy location carefully selected by the record company, which is paying their fare and their minibar bill. Then we have to wrestle with the myths of Dreadful Squalor. These tend to be perpetuated by a certain kind of musician, who can't handle the lifestyle either, God bless, but who has sublimated this beneath a preening self-importance which renders perfectly good gigs, hotels, vehicles and restaurants into an unending slough of Things Which Are Not Good Enough For Him. (Or Her, Miss Carey.) For example, has anybody ever read "Nico; Songs They Never Play On The Radio" without having, ever so fleetingly, the feeling that something is up? If things are truly as vile and debased as the author likes to make out, doesn't that make him just a bit of mug for being a part of it? Or is he taking a hypocritical pot-shot at his old touring companions?

He does, it must be said, paint a glorious picture of The Great Paolo Bedini.

Paolo Bedini is one of the truly wonderful things about touring what the ignorant, the ungrateful and the chemically-dependent like to describe as "the toilets". A chess prodigy, he was thwarted when his mother wouldn't permit him to go to an important championship in the Soviet Union, so somehow he became a music promoter. Paolo stirs two teaspoonfuls of sugar into a small glass of orange juice. For some time the windscreen of his car was held on by gaffa tape.

When you work for Paolo you enter a zone of un-knowingness, where matters like time and space are seen from a completely different, serenely detached viewpoint high in the foothills of modern Italian consciousness. If you persist on trying to follow your normal, sadly materialist agenda, you will find yourself growing ever more confused and frustrated, as you try to establish

Where you are now; The relationship between where you are now and where you are, in fact, supposed to be now; Where you are supposed to be later on; When that might be; and What you should be doing to ensure that it might be so.

It is hot in Italy and if you think this way you will go mad. Your brain will shrivel to the size of a walnut and you will die alone and insane in a sanatorium just outside of Guildford as the crows on the plane tree outside your window say vile things about your evil, useless life.

The truth is that there is learning, enlightenment and many free lunches to be had from a Bedini Special. In September 1985 the JBC were flattered to land a show in the ancient Greek ampthitheatre in Syracusa in Sicily. (Call that a toilet, if you dare.) The PA caught fire and the show ended in enthusiastic pointless shouting and the singer getting a visit from Jesus. The following morning all the members of the JBC and their hangovers were told that they could not fly home on the appointed aeroplane, something of a nuisance, which the bass player darkly intimated to be work of the Mafia. "So, if they don't like us.why do they want to keep us here on their manor?" reasoned the marginally more logical players. We sat and drank coffee in the airport while Bedini was sent for.

We knew that Paolo would have a scheme. On this occasion it turned out that the first step was to book the entire band onto a flight to Milan. This was achieved without too much difficulty. Arrived at Milan, we watched open- mouthed as a van was rented. We then drove through the gathering twilight across hill roads to Genoa. A plane would take us home from Genoa airport: this was the not-entirely-convincing official line from our promoter. Of course, we arrived to find Genoa's tiny airport closed up for the night. It must have been at least eight thirty in the evening.

Entirely unphazed, Paolo had us drive on into Genoa where he booked the whole crew into a downtown hotel before taking us out to dinner. We could not believe our luck. He was acting as though it was the most normal thing in the world.

Over dinner, which, being Italian, was exceptionally fine, Plan B was revealed to a shell-shocked and disbelieving band. Pretty self-evidently, all this piling around Italy in various forms of transport had taken something of a toll on the finances, and Paolo explained that it would be a lot easier and cheaper for him to send the band home in separate groups of two or three by train. One or two could go tomorrow, the others a day or two later when Paolo had sorted out the necessary wedge. It was decided that Max and Owen would be the first to set off, the following morning. The rest of us got to stay in the hotel for two or three days, milling around Genoa (which is lovely) and meeting up regularly with Paolo for endless free lunches and dinners. I still can't believe my luck.

Later, back in the UK, I found out that the reason that Paolo acted so calmly, as though everything was normal, was that - as far as he was concerned - it was. My pal Rolo had had an almost identical experience with Il Gran Bedini only a few months before. Days of free lunches! What a gentleman! The JBC loved him so much that we named an Award after him, specifically the Award for local promoter of the year, which from 1985 on became known as The Golden Bedini.

And while I'm talking about Italy, a big shout must go out to our friends and supporters, Giancarlo Susanna and Leo Mansueto, without whom all our Italian adventures would probably never have come to pass, and I would never have met Paolo Bedini. We love you!

The great truth of all this is that life on the road is positively luxurious in comparison to the lives that most musicians live when they are not working. You get to stay in hotels, eat out in restaurants, learn languages, history and politics. You get to show off, you drink stupid quantities of free liquor, you get into nightclubs for free. You get to DJ on foreign radio stations (Once, in Wisconsin, they even let me read the news), the gas stations sell beer, cigarettes are cheap and the drugs are free. Let's face it, the only people you ever meet are the ones that either like your music or have to pretend to as part of their job. (Well, them and The Authorities.) All you have to worry about is where you are supposed to be at six o'clock tomorrow evening.

All right: strictly, the touring musician adventurer tends to enjoy a lot more free dinners than lunches, when kindly local promoters try to feed you up in readiness for el gran espectacolo del rock. I once knew a German tour promoter who thought it was a very dubious idea for the drummer to be a vegetarian. And, yes, it's probably true that these luxurious dinners out are accounted for in some contingency fund among the promoter's expertly and cautiously calculated expenses; but it's not as though you, the musician, will ever see any of that paperwork. No, from where you're sitting, that is near enough to a free lunch for jazz. And over the years, the JBC have enjoyed some very good ones.

I've heard and read terrible stories about British bands going abroad and complaining incessantly about the absence of good old Kwiksave favourites like Captain Birdseye or canned beans. There are the tales, almost too sad to be told, of allegedly creative people dragging a massive tea urn around with them wherever they play. Just about everybody in the JBC was happy to make do and mend with whatever came along in the way of food and drink, and, having gazed thereupon, I'm not surprised.

Years after the event, certain dinners stand out every bit as strongly as certain shows. It is time to give credit where it has been due.

Taberna Bar Bajamar, Calle Gorbea, Gasteiz - Spring 88

Simple, unpretentious, endless dining delight, served by a telepath. A legendary dining experience, universally agreed by all who were there to be the finest meal that this band has ever been served.

Restaurant Kalash, Clermont-Ferrand - Spring 94

A Pakistani restaurant of staggering sophistication in a back street in France's answer to Sheffield. An unexpected oasis of calm and civilisation, to be sure, but the food was so delicate, so delicious, so plentiful that it remains unforgettable.

The Opera Nutter, Reggio nell' Emilia - December 1986

Somewhere in the countryside the Red Bus pulled up at a barn. A barn with flashing disco lights and opera playing at brain-crushing volume. In these unlikely surroundings we were served endless courses of transcendentally good Italian peasant cooking by a dangerous maniac. I can hardly believe it really happened.

God-Fearing Erie, Pa. - Spring 2000

In a guerilla-booking operation, a pack of JBC lovers invited us to play their local pub, using their flat as a base camp. Here they installed their pal, who just happened to the head chef at the best restaurant in town. Roasted elephant garlic with brie and custom-made quesadillas, all accompanied by beers of the highest quality, Polish vodka and jazz cheroots, while watching Premiership football on TV - in America! Superb!

Vereinhaus, Dornbirn - Mar 88

When the JBC first stumbled upon this fine Austrian dining room at Easter 1985 we discovered that they did a rather wonderful thing with deep-fried mushrooms. We have been going back there ever since. Of course, these days "breaded mushrooms" have come to the pubs and restaurants of the UK. But what a nasty little mess of microwaved cack they truly are when compared with the Real Thing. Available only at the Vereinhaus, a JBC classic!

Honorary mentions must surely also go to:

The Star of India, NN1
Indian Veg, Chapel Market, Islington (the two great originals for us lot)
Scholars Inn, Bloomington, Indiana (well classy)
Himalaya, Madrid (our base over three mental days in 1991)
Seoul Restaurant, Druselplatz 2, Kassel (surprise fruit a speciality)
Weinstein, Aachen (snakes on the piss!)
Scenic India, San Francisco (featuring Flying Horse beer)
Mr. Jones' & Fraulein Nudow's Kitchen, Hamburg (too right!)
Restaurant Tibet, Hamburg (wear clean socks)
Elmer's Diner, Portland Oregon (chilli relleno omelette of the millennium)
Black Bear Diner, Eureka, California ("I could handle a logger right now.")
Joseph's,Yucca & Ivar, LA, California (breakfasts of genius)
Citrouille, Morlaix, Brittany, France (it's all about the pumpkins)
Hotel Regina, Vienna (imperial breakfasts)

Thank you all. You have made us truly happy and often we did not even pay. We love you!

© Pat Fish NN1 2003

Written Warning:

The next time that I find myself called upon to provide sleeve notes for yet another instalment of the ongoing JBC Pointless Compilation Library, I shall feel myself compelled to relate the story of what happened in the Empire Diner in October 1990. Record companies (especially Chrysalis), BBC employees and former members of the Blue Aeroplanes band should approach their legal representatives now. Not that it will do them any good. The Red Bus sped on long ago.

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