watched the whole thing again last night…

you thought you knew the church….?

i thought i knew the church…..?

its amazing how the same bits make me laugh over and over

the church in some hokey restaurant saying dopey things

the waitress all puzzled

you’ll hear my vegetarian battle over n over as i ask

“has it got meat in it?”

the church lurching round the world stoned and tired and having a laugh

yes having a good fucking laugh

we were relatively young

we were doing relatively ok

you’ll be surprised to see how big some of the places we were playing in were

the audience goes on and on

a sea of faces ( what a cliche!)

we were living the good life

it seemed things might go ever onwards and upwards

but alas it wasnt to be

(another cliche still) there were dark clouds on our horizon

i was beginning to sense them

though i couldnt say exactly what they would be

i was about to hurl myself into a midlife crisis that would shut me down

it involved women children money thailand music and finally heroin

heroin sorted it all out by getting rid of the women children and money component

i would crash down and it would take me a decade to fight my way out….

so here i am on the crest of a wave and almost unaware i was about to be dumped

still its 1990

still it was last century

no mobile phones no laptops (as such) no emails no instagram no facebook

no hotelwomb or anything along those lines

no youtube no amazon no paypal …you get the picture

vinyl was still extant…it was about to fade away as well as me

(we would both enjoy a modest revival too!)

our last record had sold over half a million

this record GAF sold 250 thousand  or so

the church had already had a chequered career

in australia we had already been thru a slump or 2 before coming back with UTMW

our career in europe fizzed and crackled but never really catching on fire

and yet on this tour we played 2 sold out nights in london at a big  gig

the town n country club

and came back to play again at an even bigger one….

we are doing good business in italy and spain and germany

look at the crowds

look at the press conference in milano italy

theres a room full of geezers ready to hear about GAF…

so you  listen and marvel and then guffaw out loud

at the churches pretentious answers

all delivered po-faced with heaps of quotes and analogies

you  watching it always have a big fucking chuckle at the baffled italian journalists

sitting there trying to understand our hogwash n waffle

boy i wanna jump thru the fucking screen n grab my former self

AND SMACK THAT LITTLE SMART ARSE IN THE HEAD

but i cant

so i just have to laugh

what else can you do?

the stuff we come out would baffle anyone let alone a bunch of italian geezers in 1990

and the poor woman translating our high falutin’ replies

at one stage marty exclaims to the puzzled journos

“the trouble with a classicist ..he sees a tree he paints a tree….YOU KNOW……!!”

no they didnt know …and its hilarious

in another scene

after listening to some heavy flemish discussion of how i could get a veggie doo dah

i say to the belgian journo

“ok give me your cliched opening question!”

and he says

” ok this is your new album. how is it different to your last album?”

and we both break up guffawing

its the sheer idiocy of being a rock n roller

thats the beauty of my doco

the unexpected journey

the repetition will numb you

i left a lot of it out

we checked into and out of over 70 hotels

we tried to negotiate hundreds of veggie meals

shaking hands signing records by the thousands

another important juncture is caught on film here for you

2 years before in 88 i had had an argument with a little drip

from english rag melody maker

unfortunately said little drip was now the chief knob at said rag

and he sent a journo to finish us off in ghent belgium

and here she is

speaking in some hybrid transatlantic accent that would make

dick van dyke in “mary poppins”  sound authentic…

shes a real little horror

demanding ” does being a popstar make you a prima donna?”

my reply of “why …HOW DARE YOU ASK ME THAT…?!!”

elicits no laugh from this dull bint

she goes on to actually say “ive come to bury the church not praise them…”

her journalistic chutzpah extends to such brilliant questions as

” if your fairy godmother appeared what would you wish for?”

and asking me if i’m jealous cos marty is better looking than me n gets all the girls?

which despite me saying no to…she keeps insisting…” oh yes you are”

she later wrote that i hurled food at the crowd

envious of the attention marty was receiving …

actually i used to share the chocolates we usually had backstage

i used to chuck em to the crowd

anyway this bint stitched us up good

and that was pretty much that

at least you can finally see how it went down….on here….

marty of course is the perfect rockstar of all time here on this vid

he looks like a mixture of jagger richards harrison jeff beck and all the faces put together

with his floppy perfect hair his floppy fringed jacket and his skinned rabbit white physique

look at him lying round indolently by the side of an indoor pool

when he finally gets up and flops in he does it in such a way

it seems like an act of the laziest rebellion possible

marty seems so fucking happy and comfortable with himself

he laughs and clowns his way through the four hour vid

occasionally strapping on a guitar and blasting us with his sheer pizazz

pete is pete is pete as hes always been

ive known him 40 years and hes always like the pete here

mostly quiet smiling sometimes getting excitable but usually taking it all in

quite inscrutable usually

onstage he tall and slim in his 3 quarter length jacket

creating his amazing sounds without much fuss

me…i got the beard and some iffy hair dos

a bit podgy as the bint from melody maker was kind to point out in her article

we all had our shirts tucked in to in 1990

even our t shirts

youll see jay dee daugherty too

man he was in good shape too back then (he still is)

he doesnt say a lot but hes a humble modest smiling guy

he could wallop his huge drumkit too

(enough spare parts to build a morris mini said the melody maker)

hes having a good time

hell we all are mostly

flying business class

staying in nice hotels

(i filmed all the rooms for you all to see

what constitutes a good hotel room circa 1990)

23 years ago so much has changed

be amazed to see how the crowds try to pour into our dressing rooms afterwards

half the audience tries to get back after every show

and here i am holding court clutching an ever present bottle of evian

expounding on this and that

who the fuck is this guy?

i like him i hate him he amuses me

what a toffee nosed git!

what a handsome devil!

what a pudgy sod!

what a goofy fool!

what a stuck up turkey!

what a kind man!

in one minute your opinion of me will go on changing

a real mercurial flake …no wonder no one ever really trusts me

i’m always mucking around half serious half bored half aloof

ive left some nasty things about myself i could have cut out

like me bitching about my hotel rooms mostly

how someone else got a bigger or better or higher room than mine

hell i aint no saint

i left some nasty sides of me in here

then theres the other characters too

get a glimpse of mike lembo looking like nero or caligula or something

our amiable lighting guy trevor…still with us to this day!

our sarcastic sardonic subversive tour manager

helping us plot our dismissal of lembo

and theres the other roadies

the massive gilbert our sound guy

and all the others goofing off and fucking about

all over the world

the same little bunch in paris in NYC in london in atlanta

some of the footage is missing

i dunno

the tapes broke or got lost

this is an incomplete fragment of a tour

its jerky it lacks continuity it lacks polish

but youve never been inside a tour before

not like this

you can practically smell the dirty socks on the tourbus

you can nearly smell the beer and smoke backstage

youre there with me as i get up as i go to bed

as i sign n meet and greet and eat often from my POV

endure the tyranny of distance and the loneliness of rock n roll with me

the gags and disappointments

the memories and the regrets

a slice of my life

hey i’m proud of my film

its been a long time coming

if you thought you knew the church wait till you see this

its gonna put a real big smile on yer face

in spades and guaranteed

fuck.

i’m glad its all over!

sk bondi monday morning 2013