The Ritz

It’s impossible to park in Manchester even on a Sunday but I manage it somehow. I’m playing an acoustic gig for Oxjam here and expecting the customary chaos that so often comes of such events. I needn’t have worried. I am meeted and greeted by Lindsey the hairdresser who is wonderful and shows me around and prevents me getting lost. I'd like to dedicate my opening poem to her retrospectively. I meet up with Damian who’s also playing, we're in a third floor dressing room with a trouser press and a walk in wardrobe. We discuss failing health, broken hearts and The Italian Job. I go on at exactly the time I am given and play a short acoustic set to a decent crowd and all seems as it should be. The Ritz is a pedigree venue with a sleazy rock n roll history. I saw The Fall here years ago when they seemed somehow vital. It hasn’t changed in 20 years and hopefully it never will. There are loads of bands on. Bonehead is DJing and we catch up outside the venue with a beer. He gets a parking ticket and moves the car just in time to head off the clampers. I play just the four songs; A Man Afraid, Batman, Confessions of a Sperm Donor and Calm me Down…I had planned on others [as you do] but the stage manager is running like clockwork. I deposit albums on the CD stall and sneak off after catching the tail end of Damian and Mikes set. I quite enjoyed myself, was home for Corry and chips and that was that. Meantime I just picked up a review for the new album from soundsexp as follows…

“Smiths associate” Vinny Peculiar’s 7th album is a curious one: backed by Bonehead (ex-Oasis), Mike Joyce (ex-Smiths) and Ben Knott (ex-Jeep, World of Twist), he kills off his alter ego in the first song ‘Vinny Peculiar is Dead’, sounds like the epitome of melancholy on the caustic ‘Happiest Man in the World’ and concludes with the instrumental, introspective title track, performed on a piano with a terminal illness. A sense of romantic misery is more than palpable! There’s melodic relief in the 70s glam beat of ‘Kiss Me (I’m A Social Worker)’ and the summer Sunday pop of ‘Lazy Bohemians’ but even then his lyrics are tart and cutting. There are times you can hear Nick Cave and Johnny Cash in these powerpop meets kitchen sink drama songs but a better comparison might be Stephen Duffy for the romance-against-the-odds, me-against-the-world, railing-against-the-dying-of-the-light feeling of this record. Most peculiar…

It’s not a bad review and whilst Goodbye is probably the most introspective thing I’ve done lyrically when Tim and I recorded it we were laughing all the way to the bank of guilty pleasures that included Supertramp, Thin Lizzy and [harder to admit to this one] Yes. So for me it was possibly the most light-hearted recording experience I think I’ve had to date. Obviously this didn’t quite transfer what with the songs being what they are. Nice also that the reviewer picked up on Stephen Duffy. I was a big fan of The Lilac Time in times gone by and I guess I still am and not just because he’s Villa fan although naturally that helps. I think he ended up writing for Robbie Williams though I could be wrong. This week the band are out and about again on the second leg of the tour. I’m looking forward to catching the whole of Miles and Erica at some point. Like I said to him the other week; Mission Drive practically saved my life. I must tell you about it sometime. VP