Thoroughly enjoyed Tramlines in Sheffield yesterday. Where else can you see the excellent Standard Fare playing on a bus, or Mark Morris and Richard Oakes playing in a cathedral? Great stuff.
Anyway, after all the excitement, we met up with Paul Mills at the 'Museum' pub. Weirdly, the pub was just across the road from the Waterstones where I bought my copy of 'Truth and Beauty' many moons ago!
Now, I'm aware that whenever Mark Sturdy used to speak to People Who Knew Things, he undoubtedly had a reasonably tape recorder with him. I merely had some Old Speckled Hen. Which does not help with recording things. However, this is what I remember from the mouth of Paul (and fellow Nihilistics member, Matt)
The day that the Hallamshire shut, Pulp played two gigs there.
When promoting Pulp gigs, Russell used to photocopy his own distorted face in order to make posters and flyers. Once, after an early Pulp gig (presumably late '84/early '85) Paul decided to unstick one of these posters and take it home with him. Suddenly Russell was at his side and laid into him with a flurry of swearing (but didn't, as Paul said, say at any point 'put the poster back'). Later, having got to know Russell, Paul reminded him of this. Russell stated his reasons were that "I thought you were someone else".
Mark Webber used to be known as 'Ziggy' and he used to run a fanzine called Cosmic Pig. Having gotten to know that Paul run his own Premspeak zine/tape label, Mark arranged to meet up with him. Paul assumed that this was to 'talk shop' and for Mark to learn a bit about his fanzines and labels could be run, so arranged to meet Mark in the Devonshire Quarter as he travelled in from Chesterfield. However, Mark didn't want to know anything about that, but about what rare Pulp tracks, Paul had!
Tim Allcard used to drive an ambulance. He now rides a bike. Matt Nihilist couldn't believe that Tim could ever have been in Pulp. "What did he play?" "Hunting horn and poetry".
Amongst Paul's other tapes, he believes he still has a recording of the final Trolley Dog Shag gig. Stay tuned and hopefully I'll be able to get hold of it!
Hurrah for Paul Mills. If not for him we wouldn't have a sizeable proportion of the stuff that's emerged on the Portfolios, including gems like the '87 Limit gig, Tunnel and Back in LA live, and that great Jarv/Russell interview. And hurrah for Stephen for dragging them out of him!
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"Yes I saw her in the chip shop / so I said get yer top off"
Mark, you are a silly sod. Without your initial research and contacting these people first, I wouldn't be able to follow in your footsteps now!
A shame you weren't able to get a bit more Paul Mills stuff in the book, though. The man is a book in himself. Particularly enjoyed hearing the story of Russell being put in hospital by Phil (?) from Dig vis Drill from someone who knew these people.
Didn't Russell get mauled by a bear or a wolf or something? I feel like they mentioned it in an interview once but it was hard to tell if they were serious since they were kind of just picking fun at the interviewer the whole time.
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The trees, those useless trees, produce the air that I am breathing
Didn't Russell get mauled by a bear or a wolf or something? I feel like they mentioned it in an interview once but it was hard to tell if they were serious since they were kind of just picking fun at the interviewer the whole time.
No, the were taking the piss. According to Sturdy they were flying from France to Norway, Russell took one look at the plane and said he wasn't coming. So they had to do the concert and interview without him. Or something.
