Status: Single
City: Blackpool
Country: UK
Signup Date: 3/1/2006
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Monday, July 30, 2007
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Current mood:  determined Category: Music
 CLASS INTERVIEWS CERAMIC SIMON
So this is Summer!
Yeah right. This is Winter continued. Where are my barbeques Goddammit?
Today's looking good but don't let it fool you, bad weather's creeping in again according to those weather people. Mind you they're wrong a good percentage of the time. Well paid too. Don't you think that's weird?
Maybe it's the simple minded, pessimistic attitude of the majority of this countries inhabitants that warrants the permanent rain cloud that previously only followed downtrodden cartoon characters around. Everywhere you look or listen it's moaning spliced with apathetic bullshit. Whether it's regarding this ridiculous smoking ban, this ubiquitous accepted racism that I'm sick of hearing and accepting with a bored look , or this heavily debated lack of attendance/interest within the local music scene… or just me bitching about the weather. Maybe we deserve a summer of rain. Maybe Blackpool needs the scum washing off the streets… starting with some of those taxi drivers - like that dumbass towing a van in the dark causing Shotgun Burns and myself to crash into the f**kin' rope. Anyway, I think that's enough complaints and grievances from me. Those George Carlin HBO specials might have had a little too much impact.
The last few weeks have been the often difficult but always reinvigorating 'Transition period'. Whilst practicing with Josh we played our final three dates with Johnny Bomb manning the kit. A decent outing at Preston's Adelphi and a fun but over-running evening at the Royal Oak lead up to Johnny's final gig. The latter was memorable after watching Chopper, of Ramonastone, execute a German suplex on the female keyboard player. Hilarious.
Speaking of German suplexes I'd like to briefly comment on the Chris Benoit tradgedy. I loved watching Benoit wrestle and had a lot of respect for him as both a performer and a person after seeing him in various interviews. As William Regal has already said, I will remember Chris Benoit for everything but the last two days of his life. Let's hope this incident can have some positive repercussions on the business. Rest in Peace Nancy, Daniel and Chris.
Returning from that tangent… We headed back to the Royal Oak on July 12th for Johnny's final appearance which was a charity fund raiser including the likes of Kraul, The Electric Ladyboys and the mighty Fleetwood punks – One Way System. The turnout was amazing and the gig couldn't have gone better. It actually felt as special as it should have and we ended the set with one of our old favourites The One Thing We've got left. Johnny wrapped it up with a big solo and launched his sticks at the unsuspecting crowd for the final time as a Senton Bomb. A chapter was complete.
So the new era officially begins. We've got new songs and new fire inside to step it up to the next level. On July 31st we'll be at the Stanley Park outdoor festival and later on in the same night at Schofields in town. The Manchild will be making his long awaited debut and we're gonna rock it hard, twice. Starting as we mean to go on.
Before I get this months interview underway I'd like to congratulate our brother band CSOD for putting their asses on the line and delivering a great performance in another successful trip to Manchester's Academy. Inspirational stuff. Also, a big congratulations to Kev (Empty Headed Heroes) and Nikki (Gundown Sunday) who have just tied the knot and are now jetting off to L.A. All the very best to you both.
It's finally interview time again and this month I had the pleasure of posing questions to none other than Ceramic Hobs front-man Simon Harris. The Hobs are one of Blackpool's longest serving bands and have built a reputation far and wide. They're uncompromising style and bizarre live shows are legendary and I can vouch that their latest release AL AL WHO is a great addition to any collection featuring popular songs from the Hobs live show: Cupcakes, Explosion in a Dustbin Factory, Wild to be Born and many more. Eighteen in fact, the aformentioned just being my personal favourites.
Anyway, Here's the interview:
CLASS INTERVIEWS SIMON
CLASS: How are things with yourself?
SIMON: My life is non-stop ecstatic chaos - I can't feel the ground below me - I have no idea what I am doing or where or who I am - it's been so long since I went over the edge I no longer remember where the edge was - riding on the edge of oblivion I reign dominion - pretty good cheers, is that a pretentious enough start for you?
CLASS: That about nails it. As front-man of the Ceramic Hobs, one of Blackpool's longest running bands, How are you guys enjoying 2007?
SIMON: We're having a slightly quieter year than 2006 on the live front so far, I think we overdid it last year. Our AL AL WHO 4th album proper of 'extraordinary renditions' is about to come out on CD in a nice full-colour wallet. A vinyl edition will follow. Looking forward to getting some feedback from that. Enjoying the gigs, our new theremin player Mr Concrete Himself (who originally played bass for us about eleven years ago) very much gets into the theatrical spirit. It's a strange band the Ceramic Hobs, I can see why we'll never be popular and I'm not sure if I'd like us if I wasn't in it...some of our live work can be very grating and confrontational but also sort of entertaining I guess. A lot of our records are simply unlistenable except at certain times or when you're in certain states of mind. We've adopted a more 'punk' than avant-garde approach, with tunes and decent recording quality on this latest album but it still sounds wrong and fucked-up. All our history blurs into one....'all the years combine/they melt into a dream' (Grateful Dead).
CLASS: I love the new album. Admittedly when I first saw/heard you guys, I wasn't an instant fan. You could say, I didn't get it. Maybe I caught one of your less confrontational graty sets because since then I've really enjoyed your live shows and spent alot time listening to your music (Mainly in the prescence of Lola and Handsome Dan).
So, How has the Blackpool scene changed since 1984 and do you feel, as many seem to, that this is the best state it's been in?
SIMON: I was very baby-faced and shy as a teenager and didn't really go out til I was about 17, by which time the apparently very lively 80-84 punk and post-punk local scene (MEMBRANES, FITS, VEE VV et al) was dead in the water. I was away living in Manchester and Liverpool for the best part of ten years and every time I'd return to Blackpool it was a depressing experience to see live music - nothing but cabaret bands and tenth-rate imitations of trendy NME bullshit for years - I must point out though that Blackpool did very well on the dance music scene and the club Sequins on the prom was world-class in the acid house days - but we all know what a heap of shite dance music turned into - returning here in the mid-90s there was nothing going on, battle of the bands nonsense, indie cabaret bands and retarded 'cool' attitudes from people who wanted to be big fish in a very tiny and stagnant pond. Andy from Blackpool Rox/JSNTGM deserves a mention for manfully struggling to keep enthusiasm together during all those years, god knows how he did his relentlessly positive thing in the face of that. The Hobs simply ignored Blackpool and played shows out of town, sold our records mail-order to far-flung places. And this went on til about 2005 I think! When suddenly more and more interesting bands started to emerge who weren't tied to all that, who just wanted to make their own entertainment and create their own scenes. And now I can go out every week and see good shows with non-'cool' or posey people there - and even the Hobs can get local gigs - how very strange. Yes, it's the best state it's ever been in. Too good almost, there are too many great bands and not enough audience.
CLASS: Agreed. There is a wide variety of new bands spring up all the time with the existing crop offering live music throughout many of the towns venues. Maybe, going off what you said, for the first time in a long time the Blackpool audience just has too much choice.
On this subject, What are your feelings on the FELCH movement and it's impact?
SIMON: It's been inspirational to see a bunch of outsiders and misfits getting together and creating their own thing which has impacted on the whole local scene and given it a long-needed kick up the arse. Blackpool can be very cliquey with people getting small groups of friends together and thinking they are an 'elite', I like the open-ended nature of FELCH and also the sheer silliness and irreverence of much of the music/art.
CLASS: Do you feel it's time for FELCH to expand or adapt to move forward?
SIMON: In some ways the job might be already done, y'know? When a young band like PERSONAL SACRIFICE can get up and do their thoroughly uncompromising thing and go down well locally - just remember, only a few years ago club owners would have freaked out at the sound of their music - likewise HCOM headlining the Blue Room - bizarre! For better or worse none of this would have been possible without the FELCH inspiration. The cat is now out of the bag. I'd like to see the core FELCH bands getting out of Blackpool as much as possible, continuing to evolve ideals rather than patting each other on the back and becoming Last of the Summer Wine characters...there's always a danger of turning into one of these self-congratulatory cliques.
CLASS: Fortunately I feel we'll avoid this as each FELCH band works hard individually rather than treading water within the group. Then again, only time will tell.
To put you on the spot – who are a few of your favourite local acts and a
few of your not so favourite?
SIMON: One of my favourite Blackpool bands is THE EARTHLING SOCIETY who are probably the most world-famous and successful non-nostalgia local act but have only played once locally to my knowledge - at Riffs in front of fifteen people a coupla months ago - they get to play all around the UK and Europe but pretty much ignore the local scene - an incredible psychedelic space-rock band, just shit-hot stuff - their albums for various foreign record labels are well-worth checking out. Also FES PARKER who's been performing and recording very low-key for over 25 years and is simply a world-class singer-songwriter, his skills with words and music can really take my breath away. You're guaranteed a decent night watching any of the FELCH bands and as a fan of noisy music I enjoy the likes of HIGHER COUNCIL OF MARS and WPBN. I'm kinda loath to start dissing any bands really, I do have respect for anyone who tries to be creative rather than just a consumer. Also sometimes you can dislike a band then meet the people and they are lovely. Bands whose sets I'd really rather not sit through again? LIMOUSINE, THE SOUND OF SUPERSTRING, LUPUS IN FABULA - all deeply boring to my admittedly perverted ears.
CLASS: As honest as the day is long. We're talking June 21st.
Let's get back to the Hobs. First off – how did you all meet and decide to form a band, and why the name - 'Ceramic Hobs'?
SIMON: The band was started with me and a guy called Steve when we were 16 in 1985 and at school - a little-known fact is that for the first year the group was a duo playing experimental music in the style of NURSE WITH WOUND with very little rock influence - these very early tapes were reissued on CD in Russia recently. More and more people started joining in, at the time we were also film-making and doing lots of zines. We met pStan Batcow around 1988 and he's become an integral part of what has always been a pretty free-form and floating ensemble - in fact it's hard to remember ever playing more than three or four gigs in a row with exactly the same line-up over the years...also in 1988 I went totally doolally-tap insane sectioned schizo which has been an enormous subsequent influence on the band's approach. Ceramic hobs must have been the hip new kitchen accessory in 1985, they seemed to be advertised on the TV a lot and it just stuck in my mind, it's such a silly name and can make people snigger when they hear first it to this day which is great. There are other aspects of the name too - in Lancashire folkore 'Owd Hob' was a name for the devil, who lived near Bolton...
CLASS: The Hobs have gained fans abroad, in and around Europe. How did you reach these various markets and have you played abroad?
SIMON: A lot of this is connected to the tape underground/zine/DIY circuit which existed pre-internet and which me and pStan were always heavily involved with. We were both lucky enough to grow up with the anarcho-punk and original industrial scenes which were very much about questioning authority and while I can appreciate the usefulness of MySpace etc as networking tools, things do seem much more geared towards conformist entertainment these days which is a worry - when we were kids we wanted to change the world, not get a record deal - and that's still the case - slight digression there, anyway a lot of the people who remember us from those days are now writing for magazines, influential websites, radio stations etc and are kind enough to get us little bits of exposure here and there. We've had some of our most enthusiastic emails ansd letters from distant places. I think people in Russia and the Baltic states can relate to our very black humour, and American anglophiles enjoy our very localised, Northern style which seems exotic to them. Maybe one day we'll play (to about 30 people no doubt) in the USA if it doesn't self-destruct first. We're kind of a slow-moving band, y'know? It was thirteen years before we did a gig down south and 21 years befire we played in Europe...lazy is a word which springs to mind. Something else that springs to mind is that if you keep doing anything for long enough someone somewhere will like it, even if it's only out of pity or some kind of art-fag obscurity premium.
CLASS: That's a funny way to look at it. Tell us about some of the bizarre venues and gigs you've played?
SIMON: (i) Punx Picnic, Hulme 1989 - entire band tripping on strong blotter acid playing on an outside stage in an apocalyptic run-down 60s housing estate with bonfires and dogs everywhere and unearthly looking heavily tattooed crusty punks grabbing the microphone at every opportunity.
(ii) Ryan's Bar, London 2005 - at a Mad Pride gig in a small basement club one member of the crowd in the middle of a psychosis decides that I am singing all the songs about him and taking the piss, he tries to enact swift justice by sending flying pint glasses towards my head, they missed and this actually added to the excitement of one of our better gigs!
(iii) Die Alte Buchbinderei Adolf666, Berlin 2006 - we attract some very strange mad German people to this bizarre squatted art venue in a heavy Turkish ghetto. Famous artist Clemens Graf Von Wedel heckles incoherently throughout but it turned out he loved it. The toothless hippy DJ tells everyone he meets that he is in fact heir to the throne of Spain and that he has been the victim of enormous planet-wide conspiracies. The police raid at the end of the set in time to see a stereotype German pervert with string vest, handlebar tache, leather trousers and huge belly take over the drumkit after asking Ging whether he was Jewish.
CLASS: Off the top of your head what is the craziest 'Hobs tale' that springs to mind?
SIMON: Crazy/tragic - two ex-members of the band have committed suicide, one ex-member died in a horrific bike accident, the drummer on our first two albums who's a great guy is being detained in Ashworth Hospital (one of the UK's three 'special' top-security mental institutions) despite committing no crime.
Crazy/eerie - the week our 3rd album SHERGAR... was released Channel Four scheduled a full-length documentary about the horse.
Crazy/creepy - the SHERGAR album featured cover art from one of the world's most notorious murderers under an assumed name, with his permission.
Crazy/erotic - there are pictures of naked Russian women clutching obscure Ceramic Hobs releases available for viewing at http://noiseweb.com/monopolka
CLASS: Tragic, creepy and erotic. That's got the makings of an amazing autobiography.
On to the Hobs records - What's your personal favourite Hobs release and why?
SIMON: Our major albums PSYCHIATRIC UNDERGROUND, STRAIGHT OUTTA RAMPTON, SHERGAR IS HOME SAFE AND WELL and AL AL WHO are the important releases which were sweated over. But if I was to name one track it'd be our '96 single THIS SORE AND BROKEN BLACKPOOL LEGACY which no-one else seemed to like much or remember but I'm really proud of a certain very bleak atmosphere which we evoked on that record.
CLASS: What are the Hobs aims over the next few years?
SIMON: I think both pStan and myself thought 'never again' after finishing this latest album as for various reasons it's been very stressful. Then again each of the four has been very difficult and draining. Doing something of artistic merit should be a fucking hard road, really ought to push you mentally and physically to the limit...maybe I'm masochistic for thinking this and falling for the 'tortured artist' myth? Each of our albums has taken three years from inception to release. So I guess we're due another Hobs album in 2010. And gigs whenever we feel like it. We've no great goals to tap new 'markets' or make it big, just carry on at this level, breaking even on releases and gigs. For me at least it's a personal exploration rather than anything to do with showbiz or the music industry. I think the Hobs will carry on in some form until our fiftieth anniversary in 2035 by which time we'll have done thirteen full albums.
CLASS: 28 years from now I hope that is true. The Ceramic half century. And if your earlier comment about 'if you keep doing something long enough, someone, somewhere, will start to like it' - You'll have a massive fan base.
More about yourself. What other projects are you/have you been involved with over the years?
SIMON: During the 90s I was involved with a West Yorkshire based band SMELL & QUIM (http://www.freenoise.org/smellandquim - there's also a typically inaccurate wikipedia entry) and did a lot of shows with them. That act has just reformed, we're due to play some European shows in the autumn. It's noise music with very provocative and darkly hilarious stage antics - doing the sort of things onstage you can be arrested for basically - our 'comeback' show in Leeds recently promptly got the venue shut down on 'health and safety' grounds (rancid pig's head, fire, sledgehammer, machete...). My involvement with this lot in the 90s pretty much helped me get me away from the psychiatric hospital system as it was such a release - just great genuine people with an incredible history of extreme art and performance and a sense of humour unlike so many others in the industrial/experimental scene. There's another experimental project called FOR HARLOW'S MONKEYS - we do a yearly 3" CD ep - number three is due soon - this act records acoustically in woods near Poulton in the dead of night on huge amounts of drink and drugs. I've also done a lot of writing over the years for obscure publications and on the net. I have a book in very slow progress called ZOMBIE - MY LIFE AS A MIND CONTROLLED UNDERGROUND ROCK STAR. I was part of the first group of people in the world involved with the MAD PRIDE movement which tries to promote civil rights for psychiatric patients and those labelled 'mentally ill' - type 'mad pride' into Google now and you'll see it has spread like a virus all over the world. Done a lot of benefit shows for these good people over the years and the book to which I contributed in 2000 is still in print, having sold a hell of a lot of copies by now. At the time it kicked off I was working as a patients' advocate within the mental health system locally which was weird after being a sectioned detainee within the same system only a few years before...I also have an interest in academia - I like writing and thinking about James Joyce's great experimental novel FINNEGANS WAKE and one day will return to finish my MA on that.
CLASS: Who would you consider your biggest influences and inspirations?
SIMON: The people who really impress you as a teenager stick with you the rest of your life - so for better or worse, it's Mark E Smith, Genesis P-Orridge, William Burroughs...Big musical influences on the band have been the little-known UK acts the WALKING SEEDS (now defunct, from Liverpool 86-94, incredible 100% for-real psych-rock band - my singing style was hugely influenced by Frank from this band) and RAMLEH who've been going on-and-off to cult acclaim since 1982 - with Ramleh especially I've taken a hell of a lot with regards to the conceptual approach although our music is very different-sounding. It would be remiss of me not to mention the BUTTHOLE SURFERS, PUSSY GALORE, the NIHILIST SPASM BAND and writers like Stewart Home.
CLASS: What would you see yourself doing if you weren't involved with music?
SIMON: Life in a prison or mental institution, or six foot under. No shit.
CLASS: So you can truly say music saved your life. What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
SIMON: Drinking 56 units of alcohol a week (which was the recommended limit when the health guidelines were first brought in during the 1960s), shoplifting expertly from places that deserve it, reading three books a week, very long country walks, being lovey-dovey-duckling with my fantastic other half, finding strange websites, writing and receiving snail-mail.
CLASS: A few random questions for you. Who do you consider the more crazy:
Stormy Weathers or Kris Ball?
SIMON: It's gotta be Kris, he doesn't have the excuse of drugs! This enables me to tell my Stormy story though. He'd been in a teenage band called MR VICAR and I was fascinated with their graffiti when I returned to Blackpool in the mid-90s, to the point where we had a song called that and photos of the Hobs in front of said graffiti. There are some lyrics on our low-key 2002 CD-R only release ULTRAMONT! which state 'Mr Vicar, the fore cast could be stormy' - weird. When we finally met it was strange to find someone in Blackpool who had so many of the same books and reference points in common with me. But Blackpool's like that, full of interesting people doing great crazy art behind closed doors whom you never get to meet as it's such an insular town.
CLASS: I feel like everyone I know is a crazy caharacter of some sort. Keeps real life interesting though. Means you can eliminate the temptation of god awful TV like Hollyoaks and Big Brother. Recommend us a movie?
SIMON: BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA is Sam Peckinpah's best film and my favourite film ever. I've watched this at least forty times since I was a teenager. There are endless subtexts to get from this crazy piece of work which also functions as a simple thriller/Gothic western - my favourite reading being about the myth of the artist - the 'head' is the piece of art, Benny (played superbly by the awesome Warren Oates) is Peckinpah, the gangsters are the film studios. They don't make 'em like Peckinpah any more. I could talk at enormous length about this film but always go dumbstruck trying to explain what I see in this visionary masterpiece.
CLASS: Intriuging. I'll have to look out for it. Recommend us a holiday location? (somewhere with cheap beer)
SIMON: Menorca is a great place for a holiday, way above the rest of the Mediterranean, lots of cheap gin there. Los Angeles and Berlin are my favourite cities but the destination I'll choose to recommend is Totnes in Devon - as long as you have someone connected with the Dartington community who can get you in there so you can hang out at the most interesting semi-secret campus/thinktank experiment in the world. Beautiful countryside, forward-thinking people. You can also visit Torquay and the surprisingly disturbing navy town Plymouth while you're down there.
CLASS: I've been lucky enough to visit Menorca four times. I second your recomendation, especially a little place called S'Algar on the East coast. Totnes on the other hand I've never visited. Sounds interesting.
Anything to promote/plug?
SIMON: I would like to promote the idea of a classless society without national, racial, gender or religious boundaries and the end of our domination and colonisation by Capital - a world in which we can all rise above our station - 'a human society in a world which is beautiful, which isn't just disgust' (Kathy Acker).
CLASS: Wonderfully put. Kathy and yourself.
Do you have a final message to leave us with?
SIMON: Four - I'd like to thank Ms Emily Gyde of Manningtree in Essex for all her unwitting help on the lyrics to the latest album, through her truly inspirational, decadent and fabulous web postings and blogs under numerous aliases and alters. Al Al Who is (or will be very shortly) available via http://www.pumf.net or from yr friendly local DIY distro or at our gigs or from my pocket if you see me out drunkenly stumbling round at a classy establishment. And it is a very sad thing that the SIDE SHOW SIRENS have split up - what a great band. And thanks for the interview Mr Class and to those exhausted and yawning readers who've got through every word of this.
Here's Simon and the Ceramic Hobs in their Wasted World
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Drop by next month for another new interview!
8:33 AM
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