Suggy and Mike grew up in Dewsbury and were always banging on about a band they knew called Parisman. Around the time of our last recording session at Cherrytree, Parisman had been recording their second demo tape and Suggy brought in a copy for us to listen to. I was blown away, and a touch jealous. The three songs on the tape had a slight 'baggy' vibe and sounded vaguely like The Charlatans, who we were all really into. The tracks had great rhythm parts and harmony backing vocals, and were strong melodically, particularly the opening track, "Shoestring". Apparently they were surprised by the amount of songs we were trying to record in a couple of days, as they spent a full day on each of their tracks. This seemed like an outrageous luxury to me at the time, but their songs sounded much better than ours, and we ended up doing the same thing in 2001 when we next paid to go into the studio.
When they asked Sug if we'd support them at the Rose & Crown pub in Golcar I was chuffed, not least because I wanted to see them live. Although Mike and Suggy knew Huddersfield quite well, they didn't really know the surrounding towns and we got hideously lost on our way over. I swear the Novacain convoy passed the same church three times before we eventually arrived at the venue.
I was expecting to be playing in a bar, but the gig was actually in a largish function at the back of the pub. There was even a wee stage. Awesome. This was going to be a stunning pop concert. Right?
Parisman seemed less than interested in us once we arrived. Because we were running late we had to play as soon as we got there. Without a soundcheck *alarm bells*. Unsurprisingly this meant the sound on stage was rubbish and we could barely hear ourselves. This wasn't our only problem. It's customary for the support bands to borrow the headliner's drum kit to help make the change over between acts as quick as possible and save space. UNFORTCH Winny used a huge drumkit at the time, with five toms and OODLES of cymbals... and Parisman's drummer did not. There were only two toms on the kit and, even though Win had brought his own cymbals, there weren't enough stands to put them all on.
We began with "Slipstream" and it was clear that Win was having trouble. We'd normally laugh this sort of thing off but, when I turned round to have a chuckle after he missed a fill, the normally chilled Win gave me a scowl and told me go away. Or words to that effect. This was not going to be fun. We all started to make mistakes and the audience started to lose interest. If they were ever interested in the first place. The venue didn't have any spotlights, so the main room lights were on and I could see the crowd gradually thinning as our set went on, as more and more people left for the main bar. In another time and place the crowd's indifference would have spurred us on. In November 1999 at the Rose & Crown it just made us play worse. We picked up a bit for the last few songs, and at least our new track, "Scarborough Warning" (called "New Song #3" at the time), went well, but it was too little, too late. Leigh announced that we'd be playing The Cockpit in Leeds in a few days time. What was left of the crowd made it clear that they would not be joining us.
We packed our gear away and settled down to watch Parisman. Bizarrely their guitarist Mike, who was also their lead singer at the time, was the son of one of my Dad's best mates from school. We'd hung out a bit when we were younger but I hadn't seen him for several years. He was obviously not interested in rekindling the relationship however, as he totally ignored me all night. In fact the whole band ignored us, with the exception of their bass player Shaun, who seemed genuinely friendly and offered some much-needed platitudes about our performance to soothe our egos.
Despite their less than warm reception for us, I really enjoyed Parisman's set. Later on they added electronic influences to their music, but they were quite straight-ahead indie at this point, with guitars and hammond organ to the fore. They were still ace though. The same crowd that had been borderline hostile to us lapped up Parisman's set and they ended up encoring with several songs they'd already played.
As we were packing up we heard the landlady mentioning cash. Parisman had told Suggy they weren't getting paid, but it turned out that they were actually getting £200. We were pretty hacked off - we wouldn't have minded playing for nothing if we'd have known but we felt we were been lied to. After telling us that they "needed" the money because they were saving to buy a sampler, Parisman eventually gave us some petrol money. This calmed the waters a bit but Leigh and Win in particular always held a grudge about the way they'd treated us.
Me, Mike and Sug ended up going to see Parisman loads over the next few years, of which more later. They're one of the best bands I've ever seen live and I still can't believe they weren't huge. Even so I thought that, regardless of whether they liked our music, the way they'd acted at this gig was really snide, and I remember thinking that I'd make an effort never to be like that with any bands that supported us.
Leigh later wrote a song called "Rose & Drown", the second of two tracks to take their names from shows we played. It was a decent song, but we never played it live. Possibly because we just wanted to forget about this gig.
Set list (Novacain)
When they asked Sug if we'd support them at the Rose & Crown pub in Golcar I was chuffed, not least because I wanted to see them live. Although Mike and Suggy knew Huddersfield quite well, they didn't really know the surrounding towns and we got hideously lost on our way over. I swear the Novacain convoy passed the same church three times before we eventually arrived at the venue.
I was expecting to be playing in a bar, but the gig was actually in a largish function at the back of the pub. There was even a wee stage. Awesome. This was going to be a stunning pop concert. Right?
Parisman seemed less than interested in us once we arrived. Because we were running late we had to play as soon as we got there. Without a soundcheck *alarm bells*. Unsurprisingly this meant the sound on stage was rubbish and we could barely hear ourselves. This wasn't our only problem. It's customary for the support bands to borrow the headliner's drum kit to help make the change over between acts as quick as possible and save space. UNFORTCH Winny used a huge drumkit at the time, with five toms and OODLES of cymbals... and Parisman's drummer did not. There were only two toms on the kit and, even though Win had brought his own cymbals, there weren't enough stands to put them all on.
We began with "Slipstream" and it was clear that Win was having trouble. We'd normally laugh this sort of thing off but, when I turned round to have a chuckle after he missed a fill, the normally chilled Win gave me a scowl and told me go away. Or words to that effect. This was not going to be fun. We all started to make mistakes and the audience started to lose interest. If they were ever interested in the first place. The venue didn't have any spotlights, so the main room lights were on and I could see the crowd gradually thinning as our set went on, as more and more people left for the main bar. In another time and place the crowd's indifference would have spurred us on. In November 1999 at the Rose & Crown it just made us play worse. We picked up a bit for the last few songs, and at least our new track, "Scarborough Warning" (called "New Song #3" at the time), went well, but it was too little, too late. Leigh announced that we'd be playing The Cockpit in Leeds in a few days time. What was left of the crowd made it clear that they would not be joining us.
We packed our gear away and settled down to watch Parisman. Bizarrely their guitarist Mike, who was also their lead singer at the time, was the son of one of my Dad's best mates from school. We'd hung out a bit when we were younger but I hadn't seen him for several years. He was obviously not interested in rekindling the relationship however, as he totally ignored me all night. In fact the whole band ignored us, with the exception of their bass player Shaun, who seemed genuinely friendly and offered some much-needed platitudes about our performance to soothe our egos.
Despite their less than warm reception for us, I really enjoyed Parisman's set. Later on they added electronic influences to their music, but they were quite straight-ahead indie at this point, with guitars and hammond organ to the fore. They were still ace though. The same crowd that had been borderline hostile to us lapped up Parisman's set and they ended up encoring with several songs they'd already played.
As we were packing up we heard the landlady mentioning cash. Parisman had told Suggy they weren't getting paid, but it turned out that they were actually getting £200. We were pretty hacked off - we wouldn't have minded playing for nothing if we'd have known but we felt we were been lied to. After telling us that they "needed" the money because they were saving to buy a sampler, Parisman eventually gave us some petrol money. This calmed the waters a bit but Leigh and Win in particular always held a grudge about the way they'd treated us.
Me, Mike and Sug ended up going to see Parisman loads over the next few years, of which more later. They're one of the best bands I've ever seen live and I still can't believe they weren't huge. Even so I thought that, regardless of whether they liked our music, the way they'd acted at this gig was really snide, and I remember thinking that I'd make an effort never to be like that with any bands that supported us.
Leigh later wrote a song called "Rose & Drown", the second of two tracks to take their names from shows we played. It was a decent song, but we never played it live. Possibly because we just wanted to forget about this gig.
Set list (Novacain)
- Slipstream
- M.F.S
- Back Row Exit
- Paracetamol
- New Song #1
- Stick To What You Know
- Scarborough Warning
- Second Time Around
No comments:
Post a Comment