Newsletter 10/1995
Hurry hurry hurry! Elephant caught between houses! Thousands injured! Here are some points of interest.
Sep4: We hooked up with Terry Hall to record Dream a Little Dream of Me for the Warchild Help album. Like all bands on the album we had to have our song recorded and mixed by midnight. Producer Stephen Street came up with the goods. TV crews, a string quartet, a dog and a baby and many others waltzed in and out all day, there was no room for egos or tantrums, and a warm belly experience was had by all. We'd wanted Eric Cantona to do the spoken intro but Man U wouldn't let him come out to play, so a passing journalist from The Times did it instead.
Sep 8: Recorded 1st version of I Want You. Fairly acoustic. It's staying in the vaults for now, but may see the light of day.
Sep 12: Savoy Hotel, London, for the Mercury Music Awards. No we didn't get nominated. We were there cos we wuz asked to do Dream a Little Dream with Terry Hall (see above), and a different string quartet (drawn from the LSO) who had to be taught the song in half an hour before we performed. The string arranger had gone on holiday, causing a great panic, but returned unexpectedly, and was roped in to save our skin. We pulled it off.
Oct 6: Marijne gets fringe cut.
Oct 11: Egham College gig (warm-up for London gig at ULU). Marijne hates Paul's trousers. Paul agrees. Paul throws trousers out of window. After the gig they are returned to him by student messenger "Has anyone got the balls to owning these?". "Yes" says Paul. When officious student runt has left, trousers go back out of window again, this time doused with alchohol and pockets gull of margerine to deter petty thieves. TV throwing is for Oasis. We prefer trousers, pillows and flowers.
Nov 1: Start French tour with Black Grape and McAlmont - 'Les Inrockuptibles'. Fucking good laugh. The Grape were excellent and Kermit and Bez were mad for us, Bez doing his goggle eyed dance to our set and telling us having kids "keeps him stable".
Nov 6: Gig in Toulouse with the Grape, Supergrass, and Cast, who have firework display to remind us Brits of Guy Fawkes. A stray rocket hit John Power in the arse.
Nov 8: Start tour of Holland, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland with the brilliantly Swedish Salt supporting. Strangely, in Holland people keep asking for Ici Les Amigos. We say "No - We haven't rehearsed it".
Nov 9: Pete con- templates leaving the band.
Nov 10: Great gig in Hamburg. Pete changes his mind.
Nov 11: Berlin. Have idea to get Chubby Brown in Motorbike to Heaven - "Heaven, heaven, where the fuck is heaven?" But Smokey got him first.
Nov 14: Frankfurt. Nina from Salt tells Paul that On a Leash is an evergreen song. He thinks Evergreen are a band. What a twat.
Nov 17: Fribourg, Switzerland. Tourism brochure in the hotel describes the town as "academic, historical, but always foolish".
Dec 2: Athens. Radio interview - question for prize: "Where are Salad on the cover of Singles Bar?" Listener phones in - "On the front cover" Weird at the gig to hear Greek teenagers singing - "Live in a house in Kent" Then to club held in our honour. Flyers: "Meet Marijne and the boys". Gee, thanks. Rob spins some discs to the derision of the locals.
Jan 2: Went to Archway. Paid £2.80 for a swin - total waste of time. Fun Pool full of kids. Impossible to have proper swin. Sayed in for ten minutes. Woops, wrong diary.
Jan 23: At NME Brat Awards, Paul to singer of Northern Uproar. "Hey, it's Leon The Pig Farmer." Leon: "No. Not Leon the pig farmer. Just Leon".
Feb 7: Start French tour.
Feb 14: Paris. Paul & Marijne do French TV show. One of the guests is a Bardot lookalike porn star with the biggest tits we've ever seen. Do Drink The Elixir live. Marijne forgets to do the 2nd verse.
Mar 1: White Room. We do Girl Don't Come with Sandie Shaw. Afterwards the legen that is Sandie says to Marijne "That was absolutely crap!" Marijne's jaw drops to the floor. Sandie - "Only kidding!" Sandie currently works as a psychoanaylist to stage artists.
Mar 11: Start recording the new album. We've been working on and sifting through, loads of new songs for months. Today is first day of recording proper and Rob does his back in humping gwar upstairs to studio. Doh! So we start with drumless acoustic song Broken Bird. It rocks.
Mar 13: Recording I Want You but Marijne's come down with debilitating cold and is unable to sing for a month. Great! We all get on with the music anyway.
Apr 23: Paul & Marijne fly to New York on band business. However, over Atlantic plane turns back to Heathrow. Outer skin of door plus an escape slide have fallen off. 5 Hour flight from London to London. Met by fire engines who put out smoking undercarriage (Paul's) and have to be towed into terminal. Cue front page of Daily Telegraph.
Apr 29: Go to New York again.
May 24: Play Swis Festival. A journo to us - "Are you Shed 7?" Paul: - " No, we're Shed 9. Shed 7 are over there between Shed 6 and Shed 8". May 31. Evreux Festival, France. Rob lost his passport. "It's OK, I've got another one at home!".
Jun 22: Record Back Street Luv (Curved Air top ten 1971) for Childline Charity LP. Bono, Pulp, Ash, Boyzone etc. Out in Nov?
Jul 5: Sleeve shoot for I Want You. Have to persuade Rob to wear gold suit. Marijne has beehive. The photographer explains to Paul what the concept is. Paul knows - it's his concept.
Jul 19: We'd been begging Pete to bring his sax in every day of recording the album. Every time he came up with a different excuse. "It didn't fit on the back of my bike", "the dog ate my homework", etc. On the final day of recording, at 4 in the morning, Pete finally got his horn out and blew it over Wolves Over Washington.
Aug 6: Start auditions for extra member for live work. Ad states - Female - gtr, keyboards, backing vocals - must be able to do all three. Influences Beatles and Pixies. No flakes.
Aug 14: Auditionee Charley tells us that she's fallen flat on her arse outside the door. She's the one then.
Aug 15: Start rehearsing live set with Charley.
Aug 16: Video I Want You at Frensham Ponds where we did Diminished Clothes. Extras. Sandy and hot. Holidaymakers on the beach. Film 'till night. Marijne gets stung by a bee.
Aug 23: First gig as a five piece, Brighton.
Aug 24: Reading Festival. Pete (bless him) turns up 25 mins before onstage time. Play 5 'new songs'.
Oct 14: Put out more flags! Release new single I Want You with 5 brand new extra tracks. No photos of Pete? It's 'coz he took 'em.
