On Being Frank...

It's been four months since I did anything on here. Suffice to say, my life has been dismantled this year, and I'm still putting it back together again. While there's been beer, there's been no desire or time to blog about it, though I do need to talk about Meantime (again) and some other bits and pieces that caught my attention.

What's bringing me back today is an update on the documentary being made by Steve Sullivan about Chris Sievey and his more famous alter-ego, Frank Sidebottom.

There's been a deal of activity since the early summer, when Frank fans raised a whopping £48K via Kickstarter to get the movie project started. Since then, Sullivan has been wandering all over the country with his small team, capturing memories and moments in the Sidebottom/Sievey mythology. Yours truly was invited to Chelsea Space to recount the infamous window-painting of August 2007, and also to talk generally about Chris and Frank, duality and art. I'll probably end up on the cutting room floor, but it was an honour to be asked to share my memories.

Then, in October, it was the unveiling of the bronze statue of Frank in Timperley Village. Despite being in the middle of a move, I didn't think twice about making the trip, a pilgrimage if you like, and I made this patchy film of the morning when the local police had to close the roads to allow people to witness the event...

Locals were surprised by the distance people travelled to be there. I stayed in Altrincham, and another Frank fan from Herts was also there. On the day, I spotted Mike Joyce (former Smiths drummer) and saw Damon 'Badly Drawn Boy' Gough get out of a cab just after the unveiling. I didn't get any film of him, but was standing behind Frank's statue when he gave an emotional speech about what Chris and Frank meant ('a genius' he said, which just goes to show that great minds do often think alike), after giving a guitar and his Mercury Prize to members of Sievey's family. A great day with lots of love and other emotions, remembering a great man and his greatest creation.

But the film is still getting made. Steve Sullivan continues to rove, Merlin-like, around these Islands documenting this story. So there's still some fundraising to do. So I'm writing this post. Here's the Being Frank Xmas Message, where Steve Sullivan, Martin Sievey and David Arnold make their fantastic pitch...

Being Frank Xmas Message

You can pre-order a copy of the finished film for yourself, or make a present of it. Recipients will get a special download on Xmas Day, and their names will be included in the credits of the finished film. Or, if you're really keen, join the 'I Should Be So Lucky' Club, where your hundred notes will get you a download a month for the next year. All rare stuff, none of which can be fitted into the film in its entirety. Or finally, just get the word out by sharing this, or your own message on social media. Frank's fans have been brilliant since the great man passed, funding his send-off, this film and the statue. Please support the film now and ensure somebody has a cool Yule. And have one yourselves.

Thank you.

Se7en Things About Boggle

I see some of my fellow bloggers have recently done one of these viral "seven things about me you didn't know" lists. Here's mine...

1. TACO!!

2. SIERRA NEVADA!!

3. OKTOBERFEST!!

4. er...

5. that's it

6. no wait, there's one more...

7. If you own a tee shirt with the slogan 'get over yourself', you probably need to get over yourself...

The World Is Just Like One Great Big Gigantic Xmas Tree

Oddsmakers predict that, at the moment, Evil Emperor Simon Cowell will likely be pushed for Xmas Number One by either Surfin' Bird by The Trashmen (thanks to repeated exposure on Family Guy over the past couple of years) or the celeb-performed 'Cage Against The Machine' gimmick release of John Cage's 4' 33".

While I quite like the idea of X-Fucktor being beaten by four-and-a-half minutes of silence, it isn't really Christmassy, is it? So I'm reminding you all that you need to get on Frank Sidebottom for Number One. Right now, Paddy Power will give you 40/1, so you could slip a crafty fiver on, then get all your mates on board. If I had any friends, that's what I'd be doing.

To get a taste of the true Spirit Of Christmas, here's a video made by Frank associates Paul McCaul and Mark Alston, with a little help from the residents of Timperley...

Bet you feel all warm inside now...

Let's Get Fantastic Frank To Number One! Sunday 12th December, download from Amazon or iTunes!

Thank you.

Ho Ho Ho, Hee Hee Hee...

In a week or so, we'll have some sub-pub singer at the top of the pop charts, courtesy of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas No. 1, pop impresario and freak-wrangler Simon Cowell.

But it doesn't have to be like that. Next Sunday, 12th December, Cherry Red Records are releasing Frank Sidebottom's "Christmas Is Really Fantastic" on download via iTunes and Amazon, in the hope that his fans will end the year we said goodbye to Frank, by giving him the chart hit he never had during his life, and a cheeky bid to keep Cowell and his circus off the top of the pile. The final chart of 2010 will be released on 19th, and they (and his fans) hope he'll be on it.

This song was my first-ever Frank vinyl acquisition. The 12" EP version was picked up for me by a Manchester mate on a trip home, the title song being two-and-a-bit minutes of cracking Christmas happiness that reminds you of the days when we had proper Christmas songs, when you'd watch Top Of The Pops after dinner on Christmas Day and there'd be Slade or Paul McCartney or Mud rounding off the show with the Christmas Number 1. The whole EP gives off a slightly off-balance Christmas Party feel, with Frank's trademark riffs surfacing in both his own songs and his excellent cover versions of Mull Of Kintyre, I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day and his Christmas Medley, and banter between him and his nemesis/conscience/bobbins puppet little frank. I still have it.

Cherry Red will be donating some of the proceeds to charity in memory of Chris Sievey, Frank's creator and doppelganger, and if you're still looking for that special gift, the box set of all Frank's In Tape releases, his albums, some previously-banned tracks (the Beastie Puppets songs which the Beastie Boys' record company injuncted) and a DVD featuring his video version of Panic, is out on Monday 13th, just in time for the big day.

It has been said that, if you want a proper Christmas song doing, then Frank is your man. If you hark back to the Yule of Yore (and Mine), if you resent the Cowell machine using the top slot to feed his empire, then buy this song next Sunday. Let's take Number 1 back and make sure Christmas really is fantastic! Thank you.

Selfridges Are Bobbins: A Social Networking Adventure

As I reported on Saturday, the swell of disquiet over Selfridges' apparently unauthorised use of Chris Sievey's Frank Sidebottom likeness built into a perfect storm that breached the media dam by Monday morning.

The story has all the right ingredients: a big company riding roughshod over the little man; an online community of offended and willing fans ready to mobilise; a celebrity (Jon Ronson was on the phone to Selfridges to complain); a viral transmission of the story via Twitter and other networks - the lot. This blog alone had over 5,000 hits in just over 36 hours as my previous post was shared across the interwebs.

In turn, larger websites like digitalspy.com picked up the vibe, and their feed found its way out. Local news sites started to get interested and finally, the BBC picked it up, interviewing the principals on the Sidey side for both local radio and their regional TV news programme. In the meantime, the store's Wikimedia page had the story added and the Independent's online edition was swamped with comments.

While the webz were humming, Chris' partner Gemma Woods had been contacted by Selfridges' Head of Window Display and Merchandising chaperoned by a representative from Messrs Sue, Grabbit & Runne, and a day of talks appears to have concluded with the store offering a sincere apology, a promise to credit Chris on the windows and in-store, and an offer of a £10,000 donation to his estate in lieu of use of the images. That sounds like Fairness For Frank, and a job well done for his family, friends and fans. And to think that a story that only came to light on Thursday when Selfridges launched their Xmas 2010 window could be turned around in a long weekend is a testament to the positive power of social networks.

The Shop That Died Of Shame

Each year, "Top Peoples' Shop" Selfridges (sorry, I don't know what a "Top Person" is) gets a lot of media play over their Christmas window displays. This year, with a theme of play, they invite customers and passers-by to reconnect with their inner child, lighting up their storefront all along Oxford Street with a riot of colour and cleverness based on Christmas Day in a dolls' house.

So far, so good. Then, this pic got picked up by several papers...


Could that be a female Frank Sidebottom? What a coincidence! The pic got picked up by some of the Frank Sidebottom fan groups on Facebook, with questions being asked about whether or not Selfridges had permission to use the likeness. Seems not - they hadn't approached anybody connected with the Sievey/Sidebottom estate. Well, after all, it could be Betty Boop. Right?

I went along this morning to see if there were any more faux Sidies. Oh yes. Several, in fact.









If that's Betty Boop, then I'm Walt Disney.

Selfridges ought to be ashamed of themselves for stealing a dead man's clothes, and I hope they do the right thing by either removing these heads from their display, or make a sizeable donation to the fund being set up to get a statue of the Great Man erected in Timperley.

Let's Get Fantastic Frank To Number One!

It's happening! iTunes are selling downloads of the 'new' Frank single Guess Who's Been On MOTD/The Robins Aren't Bobbins.

This is a live version (recorded at the Reading Festival, likely in 1989) of the song he wrote to mark his appearance on an FA Cup edition of MOTD in the late 80's, while The Robins Aren't Bobbins was written when he was Altrincham FCs official mascot at around the same time.

Both are classic Frank songs and his fans are eager to try and get him in this Sunday's chart, so please get along to iTunes and plonk your £1.58 in cyber-Samoleans down!

Sidie & Me: Remembering Frank And Chris

Chris Sievey, creator of Frank Sidebottom, was laid to rest last Friday. Fans had raised over £20,000 to give him a decent send-off when it was revealed he'd died virtually penniless. And those same fans are committed to getting him to Number 1 in the charts and having some kind of memorial to him in the town he made famous, Timperley, a small satellite of Altrincham just off the A56.

Chris Sievey drained his pint of Kronenbourg. His partner Gemma headed into the pub to get another round as we shot the shit and reminisced about London Frank Sidebottom psychogeography, and other things.

It was July 2007, and I was heading into The Morpeth Arms on Millbank for a lunchtime pint. Vicious mid-morning downpours had cleared away all the London summer fug, and the day was fresh and clean. I'd been to see Frank Sidebottom at his Chelsea Space Is Ace installation near Tate Britain and laughed myself stupid.

To mark the event, I was wearing a vintage "Shed Show" tee shirt I'd bought on a pilgrimage to Timperley in 1992, and I took my pint and sat outside. I was aware of a small group sitting to my right. They'd been there when I went in. I got on with sipping my pint of Youngs Ordinary when I was interrupted. The girl sitting with the group came over and asked if I'd like to join her and her friends. I looked over, but the penny didn't drop. I looked at her again, and vaguely recognised her as the girl with Frank at the show earlier. Then I realised that I was finally going to meet Chris, the man underneath the "pumpkin head".

_______

I first heard Frank on Mike Read's Radio 1 Breakfast Show. He was much taken with Frank's "Oh Blimey It's Christmas" record and played it repeatedly in the run-up to the 1985 festive season. At first, I thought it was a joke. Another Northern club-circuit comedian emulating Fred Wedlock and his "Oldest Swinger In Town". But I was curious. The song had a pleasing hook, and I loved the "oh! blimey!" I consulted a recent arrival from the NW who was a fellow City fan and member of Hacienda. He'd know. "Remember 'The Freshies'?" he asked. Yes, I did. I remembered their powerpop classic "I'm In Love With The Girl From The Manchester Megastore Checkout Desk". Well, Frank was Chris Sievey out of The Freshies.

Acquisitions and learning followed. The Timperley EP, "Space Is Ace", "Christmas Is Really Fantastic". Through his interpretations of other peoples' songs, he'd set out this entire parallel universe where he ran a showbiz empire out of his garden shed, had to hide his fame and stardom from his mum, and his list of chores would compete with his "showbusiness". His Jiminy Cricket in the form of little frank, was always rescuing Frank from scrapes, despite the fact that he was supposed to be Frank's ventriloquist puppet. It all seemed so normal, so easy to get into. I was totally hooked.

My first chance to see him came as a result of a phone conversation with Jon Ronson, who was then in Frank's Oh Blimey! Big Band. He was doing a Christmas gig at North London Poly and Ronson was selling the tickets. I rang to try and get hold of four. No dice. I asked if he was playing anywhere else, and learned he'd be playing in a pub called The Cricketers at Kennington Oval. Perfect! Just round the corner and tickets on the door.

The place was heaving. We got in and managed to force our way to the front. He did two sets, one an Xmas-themed medley, the other running through his greatest hits. At the interval, while he went to change, two of us drunkenly stormed all the toilets looking for him. We wanted pictures. Having failed miserably, at the end of the gig we tried to go behind the bar. "Sorry lads" we were politely but firmly rebuffed, "'e's taken 'is head off." And that was that.

His popularity grew, and as well as TV show appearances, he did the Reading Festival, produced a regular full-page comic strip in Oink! Comic (a sort of kiddie Viz), lecture tours and more records appeared through the early Nineties. By this time I was working in Germany. I used to try and get the BFBS DJs to play him. They'd go "eh?"

After two years I came home, and on my first weekend back, he was on at The Cricketers. No band this time. He came on stage with a dustbin and there was just the single keyboard that would become his main stage prop, along with little frank.

And that would be the last time I saw him live until 2006.

_______

Outside the Morpeth Arms that July afternoon, myself and another fan had a chance to recount our favourite Frank moments with Chris. He didn't realise the Chelsea Space was only 10 minutes from the former Cricketers pub he appeared at so many times. I recalled a Channel 4 documentary called "The Spirit Of Christmas", where numerous 'celebs' were invited to a full dinner and asked to ponder the meaning of it all. Frank had been booked, and chipped in that the Meaning Of Christmas was going out on Christmas Eve with your favourite auntie to buy Pink Paraffin. Warren Mitchell was there and took a serious dislike to him. Chris couldn't explain why, but he quite liked to idea of rubbing Alf Garnett up the wrong way.

He'd stopped 'being' Frank for over a decade, with only a greatest hits CD called 'A B C & D' being released in around 1998. When he came back, he explained away his absence from 'Showbiz' by saying his mum found out about his career and had made him get a proper job. That job was as an animator, a talent he put to excellent use by making a pilot episode of 'Frank's World', 11 minutes of subversive, clever and literate animation.

In 2006, word came out that Frank had been booked to appear at one of Chelsea's shows called Researching/Samuel Beckett. He turned up and did a bizarre double-act with a 'Darlek' fabricated by a couple of Chelsea College of Arts students. He 'narrated' all of the Beckett exhibit on the basis that Sam had nicked all of his ideas from Frank and the proof was in the correspondence. Then he did a duet of 'Anarchy In The UK' with the Darlek as it discharged Co2 all over the place.

That same summer, Late At Tate did an Evening With Frank Sidebottom, where his Mark Kennedy-created mosaic was unveiled. Frank sits at the centre, surrounded by Mark Radcliffe, Jon Ronson, Caroline Aherne as Mrs Merton, and Chris Evans. The event also premiered his 'Frank's World' animation pilot. His association with the Art Space and Tate Britain continued into 2007 when he 'hosted' his Chelsea Space Is Ace installation and performed at the August 2007 Late At Tate evening.

In the meantime, Channel M based at Urbis in Manchester had given him a TV show. Part performance, part chat show, part showing 'Frank's World'; part vox-pop. He memorably ambushed Simon Pegg and Nick Frost to ask what colour pens they wrote their scripts with.

After our afternoon with Chris, I was able to spend a little more time with both he and Gemma. I watched with a mixture of amusement and horror as he closed the Chelsea Space Is Ace event by repainting the entire front of the Art Space. He never said a word, he was Francois Sidè-Bottem. Mime-like, he took bottles of poster paint and, having painted the glass screens, included the porous sandstone front and the uplighters set into the ground.

When it was all over and he re-appeared as Chris, we all sat on the ground and watched as the Art Space volunteers tried to clean the paint off with liberal applications of water, only succeeding in diluting the paint into the stone facade. Later, over a pint, when I recounted all this to Director of Exhibitions Donald Smith, he looked at me sternly. "I had to come back and get him to apologise to one of the volunteers", he said. Then his face cracked into a rueful smile. "I just wish I could have seen it", he said.

I last saw Chris in Brighton at The Albert at the end of 2007. I had a quick chat before he got his head on and did a cracking show for the 80-odd squeezed into the performance space upstairs at the pub.

His creation has given me 25 years of joy. Amidst the feelings of loss and sadness, there are the little regrets. I wish I could have seen him in New York. His account of his day trip to New York is classic. I wish I could have been on one of his 'Sunday With Sidie' open-top bus tours and events. And I really wish he'd taken on board my idea of a game show called 'Stars In Your Big Blue Eyes'. A rip-off of the Matthew Kelly-hosted impersonations show, in this version, Frank would compere while celebs had to perform as him.

But, he also left a substantial body of work, which I hope won't be allowed to disappear from view. That would just be bobbins.

World Cup 2010: The Curse Of Nike Strikes Again

As in previous tournaments, The Curse Of Nike has once more had its way with global football superstars. If you saw their expensive "Nike: The Future" ad leading up to this tournament, you'd have spotted Wayne Rooney, Franck Ribery, Ronaldinho and Cristiano Ronaldo.

The buck-toothed Brazilian wasn't even selected for Brazil's squad, Ribery fell out with Nicolas Anelka and sulked on the left-wing for the ill-starred France squad who jetted home early in cattle-class following their Bolshevist rising, while erstwhile Manchester United colleagues Rooney and Ronaldo had their World Cup misery mercifully ended in the Round of 16. Indeed, Rooney could be said to have not been there in the first place.

I heard that David Blaine is upset that his record of 42 days of doing nothing in the box has been eclipsed by the enigmatic Scouser, who clearly has his mind occupied with something other than the round ball game. Perhaps it's the court case his former agents won against him and his WAG bride, which may see him landed with a seven-figure bill for compo. Perhaps there's something else gnawing away at him, hovering over him like a Sword Of Damocles. I'm sure the world will be told once he "writes" a book about his "World Cup Hell". Or not.

Now we're at the quarter-final stage, Boggle's tips for the last four are Spain and Argentina and, from the top half of the draw, upsets with Nederland and Ghana progressing. I'll be digging out my vintage Nederland tee shirt. Or, since it's made by Nike, maybe I'll just forget it. I wouldn't want to schpill my pint.

England: It's The Players, Stupid!

Some of the weekend sports pages were busy touching up the bullseye on Fabio Capello's back, in case England didn't surge to victory today. Andy Dunn in today's News Of The World opined that we needed an English coach next time, as the qualities England showed in their thrashing of football world power Slovenia were not gained through coaching, but instead came from their lion hearts, their pride, their English spirit.

What Dunn and his ilk overlook is that we've had coaches English and foreign, and none of them can get these prima donnas to perform in an England shirt. I can't wait to see how this latest gutless effort is explained away. And when they've done that, perhaps the sports writers will publish an apology to former manager Steve McLaren, who apparently failed abjectly with our "Golden Generation", but seems to be doing well with professional footballers in Europe.

In the meantime, here's a tip for the FA, our esteemed football writers and other media who can't keep a sense of proportion when it comes to the national side. Next time you need a team pic, just use this image:

Bard Of Timperley, R.I.P.

Dreadful news reaches me that Frank Sidebottom, "pop star, musician and author, and all-rounder on TV", passed away in the early hours of this morning, after collapsing at home.

Frank (in real life, alter ego Chris Sievey) had recently been diagnosed with cancer and had had operations to remove a tumour and insert a breathing tube. He'd said he intended to continue working, but his agent is quoted on the BBC News website as saying he may have been more ill than he let on, wanting to spare his loved ones additional worry.


He was a true genius. As well as his musical career, Chris was a gifted artist and animator, working on Pingu and developing his own "Frank's World" animated series. Truly an all-rounder. If you grew up with kids' telly in the late 80's you'd have seen him on ITV's "No. 73", he worked with Tony Wilson, recorded an epic series of EPs and covered the country performing shows and lectures.

As recently as 2007, an exhibition at Chelsea Art Space on London's Millbank entitled "Chelsea Space Is Ace" was acclaimed by Art Forum magazine as the third best exhibit globally that year.

His loss is a tragedy, and I'll miss him.

"pop star, musician and author, and all-rounder on TV" is a line from his classic "Love Poem For Kylie"

England: Smoke & Mirrors

The word came down from New York. An SMS simply read "England suck donkey balls". And it was true. A man who knows nothing about football was taunting me after England's "Golden Generation" continued to flatter to deceive. A motley crew of millionaire superstars who, it seems, no man can mould into a team. A team of supposed world-class professional footballers who seem to be tactically inflexible. They want to play their way, or they'll take their ball home. Naaaah.

So what's wrong with English football? For a start, we don't have a philosophy. The Dutch do. England has a 'product', The Premier League. It turned the players into celebrities and enriched them beyond their wildest dreams, and is trying to turn the supporter into a passive, uncritical consumer. Buy Sky Sports, this year's shirt, drink the beer, shop at the supermarket the players endorse. And you're part of the game. The players are insulated, indulged, feted and pampered. Told time and again by fawning sports writers that they were world-beaters, that this time they would heal the nation in their Grail Quest.

But it's all smoke & mirrors, and always will be. England does have 'superstars'. The media makes those. Endless back-channel access via agents and their 'people' gets them favourable coverage. But none of the players is really, truly world-class at what they do. The Germans don't have any world-class players either, but they have a philosophy that seems to always make them greater than the sum of their parts. With England, the parts don't fit together properly.

And if this really is our "Golden Generation", then let history record they let themselves, the fans and their nation down, especially that potato-headed muppet Rooney. They'll come home from this competition maybe next week, maybe after hanging on for a game or two more, but it won't hurt the players. They can come home and count their 7-figure pay packets for consolation. And their agents will soon be selling 'exclusive' stories of their World Cup hell to the papers. Nothing succeeds like failure, especially if you play for England.

And lets look at what the Premier League has bequeathed us after they're gone. Nuffink. Where are the next generation of top England players going to come from? Our top clubs fish in the all the leagues of the world looking for cheap talent. The original idea of a structure that would support development of a strong and enduring national side has long been sacrificed to the chase for club glory with the tacit endorsement from the protectors of the national game.

In two World Cups' time, when England might be hosting the thing, we could be in Scotland's position, with Baddiel & Skinner covering Del Amitri's 1998 plaint to the their team, "Don't Come Home Too Soon". Still, the Premier League will go from strength to strength, leaving a trail of broken clubs and scattered dreams, and a national team wondering if it will ever end "XXX years of hurt".

I've stopped caring.

Lags Eleven was in Scorcher Comic. Published by IPC. I nicked the pic from lovely Brit comix resource, comicsuk.co.uk. If you're wondering why I used that image, do some googling about the current England team.

Non-Beer Rant

I don't know if any of you ever use online stationery suppliers. I've always tended to use Rymans to fulfill my requirements, but an attempt to sell a load of old comix trade paperbacks on eBay sent me looking round the web for a cheap source of Jiffy Bags. The heavy-duty ones, not those lightweight bubble-wrap lined ones.

Staples UK, who are a spin-off from the mighty US business who named the Staples Centre in Los Angeles (think Lakers basketball and the memorial service for Wacko Jacko), have a good range at pretty good prices. However, they must use blind people to pick their orders, since when I ordered heavy-duty bags, I got mail-misers.

Best just to shut up and take what they give you (like US foreign policy). When you complain, they tell you that they will be in touch shortly, and then don't do what they said they would do. And then when you get in touch again, they ignore you. That's after you spent money on their 0844 numbers. Luckily, I got hold of an unlisted 0800 number. Heh heh heh.

Oh, and if you work for them, you probably found this because you googled 'staples is shit'. And it is.