Ha ha.  Yes I know the film you mean.  The Cramps live at some state mental institution.  It’s hilarious.  Not necessarily for the right reasons either.  But, no.  It had nothing to do with the shows we’ve been doing.  I think people who get off on The Cramps thing would be desperately disappointed at how calm our events are.

Someone also asked if this series of shows had anything to do with some Greil Marcus interview which he did with the Fiery Furnaces, where apparently he said he could imagine them performing in retirement homes.  And because we’ve made no secret about liking the Fiery Furnaces the conspiracy theorists out there have been putting two and two together.  I’ve not even seen that interview.

The truth as ever is a lot simpler.  The truth is we are actually employed as in funded to go round performing in retirement homes, day centres, care homes, whatever, as part of the therapy programme.  There’s a lot of work that goes into providing educational entertainment if you like, and it’s great to be able to tap into that, and take our music around to play to some fantastic audiences.  For us, it beats rehearsing because you get to interact with the audience, and that’s really rewarding. 

And yeah we get paid, which is great, because otherwise we’d have to go out and get real jobs.  It’s not like back in the day when everyone was on the Enterprise Allowance Scheme or whatever, and the Thatcher Government effectively funded a whole generation’s creative activities.  No chance of that now. 

Hopefully we’re doing some good in the world too.  The audiences so far have been terrifically responsive.  It’s been really good fun.  And where the songs have scope for different people to perform it’s been wonderful to see people pitching themselves head first into the roles.  Kids with learning difficulties have responded to the songs where they would never ordinarily engage with activities.  The most wonderful thing for me was finishing up a workshop and hearing a little group of Down’s Syndrome kids dancing down the corridor singing one of our songs.  Beats trying to generate a flicker of interest among NME journalists.

I just love the idea of breaking out of the accepted song format.  Opera is such a horrible world, but opera literally means musical drama, and that’s what we’re about.  I love words.  Words that come cascading out of music.  Words within songs that are volcanic explosions.  That’s what I love so much about the Fiery Furnaces.  The words come tumbling out and can be totally disorientating.  But I love it when pop is totally disorientating. 

As far as I’m concerned the Friedbergers are pop royalty.  I was a little heartbroken when I heard Eleanor was allegedly seeing one of the Franz Ferdinands but hey ho.  Matthew’s songs are amazing.  There are so many words crammed into them.  And not just words.  Ideas too.  There’s some complex and incredibly clever stuff going on in there, and so much to savour if you can overcome the whirlpool of sound that he seems to employ deliberately to distract and disguise.

Remember that Tom Tom Club song?  The one that goes: “What are words worth …”  Well I don’t think all these words have made the Friedbergers thousands yet.  You can almost imagine the dread the people at Rough Trade experience when Matthew delivers the latest tapes.  Maybe it was for him that the phrase too clever for your own good was invented.  But that’s the world’s worst phrase. 

Like last year’s wonderful Bitter Tea set was rapidly followed by a schizoid double that was part US FM 1970s guilty pleasure, like Dean Friedman or Carole Bayer Sager or something, while the other was out and out Faust foolery, and how much attention did it all get?  The funny thing is that it’s a fine line in some ways between the Furnaces and Mika, but I guess that’s like saying it’s a fine line between Sparks and Freddie Mercury.  I love Sparks by the way.  I can see lots of similarities between the Maels and the Friedbergers.  They both seem ridiculously talented.  Discovering the old Sparks LPs has been an absolute joy.  Indiscreet is my favourite at the moment.  Looks Looks Looks is the song to sing in the shower to get your day started with a spring in its step.

The funny thing is I am unashamedly a late convert.  Zealously holding forth about both Sparks and Fiery Furnaces.  I’m not sure why, but I had the Furnaces taped as a White Stripes surrogate sect.  And it wasn’t until I stumbled across Rehearsing My Choir that I woke up.  What a record that is.  How many people could get away with pressing their 86-year-old grandmother into service to tell stories from her life?  It’s incredible.  And that’s one of the things I’ve really got out of going round the retirement homes.  So many of these old ladies have wonderful tales to tell, and their observations on modern day lives are so insightful. 

There’s a famous story about when Princess Anne went to a home and asked one of the old dears: “Do you know who I am?”  And the resident replied: “No, but don’t worry love.  If you ask at reception they’ll soon let you know”.  That’s an extreme example, but I’m finding myself coming away from these sessions scribbling down lines and phrases I’ve heard, and I’ll try to work them into songs. 

I’ve become quite fascinated by the idea of story telling within songs.  It’s a shame because on the one hand there’s a deadly dull tradition that may link into Jacques Brel and Jackie and Brecht and the Alabama Song, but I want to be the anti-Nick Cave or Tom Waits storyteller.  I was listening to Jack – you know the group – the other night and I was, like, yawn yawn yawn.  More songs about drinking and lowlife dives.  Give me some songs about shopping and sandwich shops for goodness sake. 

For me someone like David Thomas is much more interesting.  Going back to Greil Marcus, he wrote this fantastic essay on Thomas as part of his book on Prophecy and the American Voice where he calls him a Crank Prophet.  I’m not a fan of Marcus’ writing generally, but this is great stuff.  And coincidentally it was around the time I was discovering the early Pere Ubu records, and the series of solo LPs he made for Rough Trade in the 1980s.  Again, there is that sense of hurdy gurdy, helter skelter, sea shanty, balkan tango, complexity and idiot savant.  He’s one of those people, along with the Red Crayola’s Mayo Thompson that should be cherished.  Incidentally I’ve just picked up the reissue of Soldier Talk, and that’s totally mad.  But where’s the twenty-two page career resumes in the music mags?

I don’t know how people like Pere Ubu and the Red Crayola coped with playing ordinary gigs, but I’m finding it really disconcerting.  How do you reconcile doing something totally different with the tradition of an audience turning up to be entertained in a prescribed format?  We’ve had really mixed reactions so far.  But I can see us withdrawing totally from the process. 

There is another alternative now which are these songwriters’ showcases.  People like Martin Stephenson tend to be involved, and the audiences are really open minded.  But in a way it’s going back to some old Bob Dylan Greenwich Village tradition, and people only get to do a few songs at a time.  I want somewhere we can present a whole suite of songs, with maybe some dramatic content.  You know real acting.  I was having lunch in that dance college near Euston recently, and got talking to one of the tutors, and she said she would be interested in having some of her pupils interpret some of the songs, which would be great.  Anything a little different.

Ultimately though I want to do a real musical.  I feel embarrassed saying that though, because I hate musicals.  But I can see people like the Friedbergers one day doing a real Sondheim style extravaganza.  And I’d love to.  That’s what I love about Mark E Smith.  He is sometimes dismissed as a bit of a grumpy old neanderthal, but when you look at the different things he’s done, like dance pieces, and musical dramas.  I Am Curious, Oranj, and so on.  Who else would have the guts?  I’d love to meet him. 

© 2007 John Carney