http://www.iludicrous.co.uk

I, LUDICROUS

Ice Cream for Quo - web magazine - March 2009

Hello. How are you?
Will. Hello, very very tired
John. Very well thank you. How are you?

How would you describe I, Ludicrous to someone who has never heard them?
Will. A mix between the Les Alanos and the Proclaimers
John. Smart Alec observational lyrics over stolen riffs.
Brett. "Quite good" now I've joined the band.

Are you the first and only band to use a comma in your name?
Will. Yes, grammar is very important to us along with: good manners; self-deprecation and non-league football
John. Quite possibly, although Blood, Sweat and Tears may have had one. The comma is a double-edged sword. While it might make us unique, I’m sure it prevents people listing us among their favourite bands on Myspace and whatnot, as it looks like two bands, "I" and "Ludicrous".
Brett. Didn't The, Beatles use one ?

What’s the first gig you went to?
Will. Alice Cooper/Roxy Music – Wembley Arena circa 72 – it remains the biggest gig I’ve been to
Brett. T.REX - Wembley Empire Pool 1973
John. Ah! Cockney Rebel at Ewell Technical College in 1973. This was before they became the whipping-boys of the music press. "Judy Teen" was always my favourite, much better than "Come up and see me". Epsom was a good place to be for gigs in those days. The night in question was a toss-up between Cockney Rebel at Ewell Tech and Atomic Rooster in Epsom.
Actually, thinking about it, this may have been my second gig. The first was Vinegar Joe, also at Ewell Tech, a few weeks earlier. But they never turned up, so it doesn’t count. Cockney Rebel, by the way, were supporting Man, who I didn’t like much.
Look at this, from the magic of the internet! 60p to get in!
Rebel.jpg

Do you ever feel your importance has been overlooked? Do people dismiss you as a novelty band because your songs are funny and satirical?
Will. Yes, yes
We didn’t aim to become a funny band it just happened, I still think we’re more an art band. (I used to think a sense of humour was a good thing, but I now realise most people despise humour)
John. We have been criminally overlooked, although as consolation from time to time there will be a reference to us in one of the broadsheets, or a snippet of a song will appear on the telly. We’ve even been a punchline in a radio comedy show. We are often dismissed not just as a novelty band, but as a joke band. Some people think we do it as some sort of dare.
Brett. Being the only band member who has followed the band as a friend & fan over the years, I have always thought the lyrical content has been the most important part. If people really listen even the humorous elements have a real statement of observation. Of course the originality of the music adds to the whole thing. Different has always been good. I think the people who don't get that don't like the band. They may find it a bit threatening or outside their mind set. A lot of these people just think the band is a comedy band.

Is it difficult recording and performing topical songs when you don’t know how they’ll date?
Will. I find it difficult not to write topical songs, it does sometimes affect what we do live but then history repeats itself so if you keep going long enough things come round again, eg, Trevor Barker is now very topical
John. Strangely, some songs remain topical years after they were written. The more specific ones, such as "Moynihan brings out the hooligan in me", are clearly of their time. The references in "Three English Football Grounds" are pretty dated too, what with two of the grounds having closed, not to mention the admission prices quoted. But this is still a live stalwart though, and Will introduces it as a history lesson.
Brett. Luckily with the recession songs like "Trevor Barker" are relevant again. We just wait for one to come round. Even "Stuck in a lift with Noel Edmonds" is relevant thanks to "Deal or no Deal". There is so much old & new material you can still pick a "set list" for the moment. The new songs like "Argument In the laundrette" & "We're the support band" will always be relevant to the moment. There's another new song called "Chinese business man" which should be topical for a while seeing as China already owns the world.

The Fall are obviously a musical and lyrical influence. How do you feel about their last few records?
Will. Honestly I haven’t heard much of their stuff except for Country on the Click (someone sent me the original mix which is brilliant) since the Information Scan. Personally I think the Fall’s zenith was in the 1980s, I like almost everything they did in that decade
John. Oh dear. The most recent ones I’ve heard are Country on the Click, which I loved, and Fall Heads Roll, which I didn’t think that much of, to be honest. I think they’ve had a couple since then, but I’ve not heard them. I bought that "Where’s the taxi" CD. That was a mistake. These days when I think about the Fall I’m more likely to think about the fall I had outside Waitrose just before Christmas. I didn’t half go down – made an ugly mess of my ankle.
Brett. I'm not a massive "Fall" fan. More "Captain Beefheart". Sorry. (You can delete all this now !)

Did you really get kicked off the Fall tour because of comments in your Guardian blog, or was there more to it than that?
Will. Not sure, I was told that by the tour manager and I have no reason to think otherwise. I’m sorry about how things ended up but it does have its funny side and I do remember saying to JP driving home after the Liverpool show I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t last the whole tour - due to some bad vibes after that show. I’ve apologised to Mark but I don’t expect ever to see or hear from him again. One thing I’d advise any band supporting the Fall, is know your place
John. Difficult to know, really. We only got word of our demotion from the road manager (not Alan Wise). It would have been interesting if we’d turned up at the Astoria regardless. If it was about the Guardian thing then perhaps we could have settled it with a manly fight. Apparently the roadie chap said we could always try asking Mark if he’d change his mind, but frankly we weren’t up for those sort of games. I’ve heard that Mark was annoyed that the articles mentioned the hotels the Fall were staying in, but they didn’t actually, only the hotels we were staying in. And besides, the pieces weren’t published until well after we’d all left town.
When we did four dates with the Fall back in 1990 I remember Saffron saying after one of the gigs that Mark was thinking of kicking us off then because we were going down too well. It’s all a bit of a mystery really, and a bit sad, as I haven’t really listened to the Fall since then, and I used to be an hour-a-day man.
Brett. I would guess it was because "I, Ludicrous" are a bit of a threat live.

Your song ‘Ludicrous’ is astonishingly like Slates-era Fall. Is this a way of paying tribute or were you just exploring that style?
Brett. I can't really answer this one.
Will. It was one of the first songs we wrote and was a deliberate rip-off/tribute to Slates, I was blown away be that EP and loved the relentlessness of the song so I suppose we were exploring that style, afterwards we began to find our own voice. At the time it was written we never expected to even play live let alone record anything. When we started out it was something to do on Saturday afternoons when Palace were playing away
John. Just nicking the riff, basically. We certainly wanted that sort of feel as we were very much into Slates, it was where Will and I had common ground musically. I tried to make the riff as different as I could, but failed.

You’re probably tired of being asked this, but was there a real Ken MacKenzie and were his tales truly preposterous?
Brett. There was.
Will. Yes Ken was a bloke I worked with when John and me first started writing, he was a raconteur and a funny guy, not a bullshitter in real life, and none of the tales are his, in fact most are made up. Some are true (4 out of 12). If you can guess which 4 I’ll buy you a pint
John. Oh yes. Ken is the only man I’ve ever seen eat a pickled egg. Out of a jar in a pub. I was also with him the night he apprehended the mugger in Brixton. It was an act of heroism. The mugger was about six foot four. He snatched a handbag from a woman at a bus stop. Ken grabbed him by the lapels, but the mugger fought back by trying to throttle Ken. It was at this point that I stepped in, landing a blow on the chap’s upper arm, a blow so feeble and limp that it had less force than you would use to stroke a kitten. I think the mugger found this so embarrassing that he decided to run for it.

Is there anything else you wish you’d mentioned in the song ‘My Favourite Records’?
Brett. Ask Will & John.
Will. This is mainly JP’s song, my favourites would include early Roxy Music, some obscure punk singles (eg Love Story by the Lurkers, Orphans - Lydia Lunch), more recently the Woog Riots’ Working with Computers and the soon-to-be-great Kooler Kings
John. Yes there is, but at this very moment it slips my mind. Roxy Music deserved a mention, though I think Eno is in there somewhere. Really I just wish I hadn’t made a couple of mistakes with song titles.

Do you feel any kinship with Half Man Half Biscuit?
Will. Not really, they weren’t an influence and I don’t know too much about them, we played a gig years ago with them but the sound (engineer) was so bad it was difficult to hear the words
John. Well, yes, although we had been going quite a while before we had even heard of them. I remember dozing off in bed one night listening to Peel and hearing Nigel (he is the singer, isn’t he?) uttering the lyric about "the beautiful spa town of Bath, in Avon", which kind of grabbed me. I’ve only got their first record, but I do love them, and it was a pleasure to do a gig with them way back when.
Brett. With the name but that's it.

What’s the strangest thing that ever happened to you on stage?
Will. A dog running on stage when we played a squat in Germany
John. A dog joined us on stage in Germany. Also, playing the Boardwalk in Manchester years ago, there were a couple of Japanes girls in the audience who were mouthing the words to all the songs. Which is more than we can do.
Brett. The drum machine worked all the way through a live set.

What’s your favourite Bob Dylan song?
Will. Not a big fan personally, I’d go for something like Sarah or the one about the Hurricane
John. "Bob Dylan Blues" by Syd Barrett, which is obviously not by Bob Dylan, but about him, and is both hilarious and poignant.
I’m of that boring school that feels Bob’s songs are better covered by other people. I don’t really like his voice. Although I did once buy a bob Dylan single: Watching the River Flow, mainly for the piano playing of Leon Russell.
Brett. Positively 4th Street.

Bono wants to record with you. It could earn you millions but lose you all your credibility. Plus, you would be remembered as ‘the band that Bono sang with’. What do you do?
Will. If it was millions of course I’d do it but from my experience of the industry we’d be lucky to make a £100
John. No question, give me the money. Eno has worked with Bono so I wouldn’t have a problem. I’d have to change my name to Johno. Blimey, give me a million and I’d sing a duet with Craig David.
Brett. Sing with Bono. U2 could do with an Edge.

What are you reading at the moment?
Will. The Great American Novel by Philip Roth
John. Just finished "The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman" by J P Donleavy. I think it’s better then "The Ginger Man", very funny.
Brett. The Racing Post.

Grotesque (After The Gramme) or Perverted By Language?
Will. Difficult one, gramme is funnier but I’ll go for perverted as it has garden on it
John. Now that’s a stinker of a question, these are probably my two favourite Fall LPs. Grotesque was the first I bought, I think (or it may have been Early Years). I loved it because I believed there couldn’t be anybody else in the world who could possibly like it. Sometimes you introduce music to other people because you want them to like it. With Grotesque, I wanted to play it to people as an act of defiance, to say "this is what I really listen to, you’ll hate it". This is the sort of music that led one journalist, unfortunately I can’t remember who, to proclaim that "compared to the Fall everything else sounds soppy", an accurate comment. PBL of course marks the first big shift in the Fall, with Brix coming along, although I don’t believe her influence is all that great here. Two LPs without a dull moment.
Brett. Always perverted.

Finally, do you have a message for the readers of Ice Cream For Quo?
Will. Enjoy the recession
John. Yes, you are people of impeccable taste, now buy our records.
Brett. There is a quote from "Time Out Magazine" which is my favourite. They said " No-one should die before seeing this legendary outfit " I think that sums it up.