Nice. After how many viewings of the film do you think will the band get bored?! I think Jarvis is doing another Q&A in the States in August. Maybe they just slip-in to the venue ten minutes from the end.
Couldn't really afford (timewise or moneywise) to make two trips up to Brick Lane to buy a DVD and then go all the way back for the Q&A, so won't make it sadly. Have fun all and hope to read some highlights/see some photos.
Eamonn, I have nearly written out Tuesday's Q & A session in full and it is now so long I feel silly posting it! Perhaps I should try and chop it down a bit; at the moment it's like a school essay...
OK, Eamonn, you asked for it. You wanted a full report on Tuesday night's Q & A at Rough Trade with Jarvis and Candida, and so here it is, with profuse apologies to everybody for how ridiculously long this is and for its sounding exactly like minutes from a board meeting.
Before the Question & Answer session, Rough Trade screened the Pulp film at the back of the store, with us punters sitting on rows of small chairs, squashed in close together. (I found it hard to see, as the guy in front of me did not sit still for more than 3 seconds at a time, constantly wagging his head from side to side, sighing and fidgeting. I nearly punched his lights out.) After the film, Jarvis and Candida were invited onto the stage and Luke Turner from The Quietus chaired the long, informal Q & A with them, the best Q & A I have ever seen with Pulp or Jarvis. Jarvis did much of the talking, more than Candida, but still, it was like having them round to your house for a cup of tea and a chat. Maybe it was because they were on home turf or in an intimate setting but I expect that they were relaxed because the film has now done its rounds successfully. Anyway, in no particular order, this is what I can remember:
Just as they were getting started, Jarvis's microphone started playing up and he commented that in the old days he would have thrown a tantrum with the PA man and Candida teased him about how stroppy he used to get. He said that he was pleased to note that she was using the past tense because he was a different person these days, wasn't he, and she said, yes, he was much nicer nowadays but that he'd had a terrible temper on him years ago and used to get very wound up when things didn't go his way.
Jarvis said to us that he was sorry if he seemed a bit spaced out - it was because he'd flown in early that morning, (he didn't say from where). He looked well, (dapper in navy), and so did Candida, both rested and with colour in their cheeks, as if they had been away on holiday. Candida said that she hadn't been up to much since the Pulp tour and subsequent film promotion, at least not musically speaking, and Jarvis joked that they'd been resting on their laurels but then added that he was in the middle of a year out from his radio show to write music.
He said he had seen the Pulp film several times now but that normally he found it best to avoid watching films of himself performing because the way he looks on screen bears little resemblance to how he pictures himself on stage in his head and how he feels when he is performing and so all it does is make him self-conscious the next time round and, as he rightly pointed out, self-consciousness is the enemy of creativity. Candida said that over the years she had been surprised to see in some Pulp concert footage how relaxed she looks on stage, especially when her memory of the time is often that she was fed up or feeling nervous. If I heard correctly, Jarvis said that they'd made a complete film of a Reading concert but that he had avoided watching it for exactly this reason.
They both said that all members of Pulp had been nervous about playing their reunion tour's final concert (on terra firma, that is) in Sheffield, it being their hometown, and Yorkshire folk being so hard to impress but they were pleased that, in the end, their homecoming had been captured on film. Jarvis explained how last-minute the film project had been and that it nearly hadn't happened, since getting the necessary funding was not going to be easy. He said, though, that it was Florian Habicht's enthusiasm, energy and unique approach to everything that had helped secure the funding and get the project off the ground in record time, qualities which had also ensured the film's artistic success.
I think he said that Florian had come to love Sheffield but that his view may have been skewed in its favour by Richard Hawley, who took him out drinking at the local pub.
Jarvis said Florian had done well to find all those authentic Sheffield characters that appear in the film. He mentioned Terry, the newspaper vendor, who was eventually re-found after a DesperatelySeeking Terry campaign, which aimed to find him after contact with him had been lost, so that he could be invited to the Sheffield premiere; Jarvis commented that he attended the event in a big square jacket that looked not unlike his big square vending cabin. Liberty, the little girl who shares her girlish pearls of wisdom in the film, had been most interested to meet Jarvis's son at the post-premiere party, according to Jarvis, but he said, "he was having none of it!" Jarvis also mentioned that the nurse from Atlanta who appears in the film (was her name Melina?) is the person he sees as the true star of the film (I agree) and he eventually met her at the SXSW festival, when the film was launched, and he claimed to have been suitably star-struck.
Jarvis and Candida were asked what Florian's interview technique was like and I think it was at this point that Jarvis attempted a New Zealand accent, saying fish and chips the Kiwi way. He explained that Florian asked questions in a direct, yet disarming, manner and that he could get you to reveal more than you otherwise might, even on deep matters, like the time he asked Jarvis if he believed in an afterlife. By asking a question like this and then pausing at length, he forces you to fill in the awkward silence by answering the question. (One of our directors at work does this all the time and it works). I can't remember what other accents or impersonations Jarvis did but I do remember he said he should be given his own Rory Bremner-style TV show. (Ha-ha).
Asked about the most memorable concerts of the reunion tour, I think Candida said she had loved the reception Pulp got at the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona (I think this is the one she meant) and she said she always found it exciting to play Common People, as it is so rousing. Jarvis remembered that during their time in Spain the Indignados protests against economic stagnation were going on and so it was deemed prudent for him to say a few words about these at the beginning of the concert. Addressing such important issues had helped him keep his own concerns - his nerves - in perspective, he said. Candida also mentioned enjoying the concerts at the tail-end of the tour on the cruise ships, when the pressure was off and they weren't playing to such die-hard Pulp fans, but Jarvis scoffed, saying it was really because she had liked the luxury of being on a cruise ship! I think Candida countered by saying that, in actual fact, for quite a bit of the time she had felt sea-sick.
I can't remember everything that was discussed on Tuesday night but I think, perhaps, the wonderful toilet-roll-throwing episode at the Sheffield Arena came up? Maybe also Pulps early attempts at stage decoration with tin-foil? Maybe some other Rough Trade attendee could fill us in on this.
Someone did ask about the bands moving down to London from Sheffield and Candida said she always used to say that she'd never move further south of Sheffield than Leicester, even though she had spent the first six years of her life down in Surrey. In later years, though, when she was toying with the idea of moving down to London permanently, because she kept spending so much time there, one of her cats died and she knew this would make it easier to move house and so she did it then. Jarvis laughed and said something along the lines of, "Oh, so you moved for reasons to do with a cat!"
Asked whether they had ever been tempted to move back home again and whether they missed Sheffield, they both said they had nearly moved back on several occasions but that, in the end, they had stuck it out. Candida said that she does still go back to Sheffield and she finds it a beautiful city and she misses living in a place that is built on hills. Jarvis said that he liked the countryside around Sheffield, too, and enjoyed walking in the Peak District. He did say, though, that he doesn't go back to Intake, where he grew up, as it is pretty rough and it feels strange to him, especially if he bumps into people who used to beat him up at school. He did have to go back for a funeral once, though, and he mentioned one boy by name whom he ran into, who had been really nasty during their school days but that now even he treats Jarvis with a grudging respect, which, according to Jarvis, is a major achievement, greater than selling any number of pop records.
Jarvis then recalled a time when the part of London we were all sitting in at that moment (ie, the area around Brick Lane) was really dodgy and not at all desirable to live in. He said a girl who had been on his course at St Martin's (not the famous Greek girl but a different one) had had a house bought for her there by her well-to-do father but that she never dared set foot outside the door because the streets seemed so scary. Jarvis said he used to have to go over and escort her out and about. (This was just a ruse on her part to get Jarvis to come over, I reckon!).
One young woman had an interesting question for Jarvis: she stood up clutching a letter addressed to 'Jarvis Cocker' at her current address in Haringey. It contained a cheque (for about £80?) as payment (or part payment?) for an appearance on the David Letterman Show. She had had it for years, I think she said, but had kept it just in case she ever met Jarvis and he wanted it! She asked him if this meant that he had once lived at her house but he said he hadn't. In the end, they figured out that the address was an old one of Mark Webber's.
Another question from the audience concerned "early Pulp" and Jarvis said that whenever he got misty-eyed about the Good Ol' Days of Pulp, he would think back to how dire things really were then. Recently, someone sent him a link to a recording of a 1982 Pulp gig. He said it sounded terrible, especially the singing, and this served as a good reminder that he wouldn't want to go back to those days.
As regards the future, Jarvis and Candida both said they never plan ahead but just make life up as they go along. Jarvis said he can think about as far ahead as Wednesday next week but that was about it. Candida said she would probably be making a trip to Shetland in the summer but had nothing else planned for the rest of the year. Jarvis said he had been vague his whole life; even in relationships he tended to vagueness and he reckoned being a commitment-phobe was all part-and-parcel of his vagueness. It was the same when it came to reforming Pulp: it had happened when it felt right, rather than being part of a bigger scheme. He said that other bands in their shoes might have chosen to reunite next year, so as to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the release of Different Class, or for some similarly commercially motivated reason, but that Pulp never thought that way and, anyway, Jarvis didn't like the fact that everything these days seems to be about cashing in on one kind of anniversary or another.
Britpop got a mention and Jarvis made his usual remark about disliking the actual word 'Britpop', as it sounds so tinny. As he has explained many times before, he approved of the original smash-the-system drive behind the music of the time but said that once the leaders of the movement had made some money and got themselves "a Jag" and all that, they cease to care about the cause and the revolution dies. He reminded us, in passing, that Common People was the song that won Radio 6 Music's recent poll to find the best anthem of the Britpop era but I think you could tell he was quietly chuffed that it won (and deservedly so). We should have stopped and applauded but the conversation moved on. Someone asked Candida if she thought we might come into a period of great music any time soon and she said she was not sure that we would.
Jarvis and Candida talked a bit about the fame dream turning sour in the second half of the '90s and Jarvis used his usual metaphor about his aversion to fame being a bit like a nut allergy. They referred to this post-success period as "dark times". Jarvis talked about his performance of This is Hardcore on TV; he knows he was there but can't remember anything about it at all, as he was so drunk (but oh-so-cute...). Candida said she had nearly left the band a couple of times and once was during these dark times. She said that the first time she had nearly left, however, was ages before they ever got famous, (I think), and the one thing that had persuaded her to stay was the dearth of women in bands; she felt she ought to help redress the balance and stayed. She said that now she didn't really long to play with Pulp again but that if Jarvis were to ask her to one day, well, he would be difficult to turn down.
-- Edited by Panther on Friday 18th of July 2014 02:39:47 AM
-- Edited by Panther on Friday 18th of July 2014 02:46:10 AM
-- Edited by Panther on Friday 18th of July 2014 03:04:27 AM
Another question from the audience concerned "early Pulp" and Jarvis said that whenever he got misty-eyed about the Good Ol' Days of Pulp, he would think back to how dire things really were then. Recently, someone sent him a link to a recording of a 1982 Pulp gig. He said it sounded terrible, especially the singing, and this served as a good reminder that he wouldn't want to go back to those days.
What's this then? The 'I Scrubbed The Crabs...' I uploaded to youtube? If not, then what?
I have no idea and wondered that myself. Maybe he said 1992 and not 1982 but I was really paying attention and it did sound like 1982 to me. He definitely said "sent a link".
