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Ivor Cutler


Written March 3rd, 2006

Two things really knocked me out as a schoolboy listening to John Peel's 10 till midnight show. One was Totally Wired by The Fall and the other was a session by Ivor Cutler. I think Mark had heard it, too. And our friend Neil. We used to make comedy tapes together and shared an ear for the bizarre that perhaps our classmates didn't. I remember us all singing together: "Step it out lively boys. Put your best foot forward & the other foot as well. Don't forget the other foot boys, the other foot boys as well. We want to get there, boys, it's half past ten" etc. A little while later Mark & I went to see the great man live at the harmonium at the Edinburgh Fringe. A day or so before the show, Mark & I were busking at the Art Galleries just off Princes Street. Out of the corner of my eye I spied a tandem being parked next to one of the benches by Princes Street Gardens. "Hold on a minute", I said to Mark, excitedly motioning towards the slightly wizened bespectacled figure dismounting from the bike: "That's Ivor Cutler!" And indeed it was, accompanied by his friend & fellow poet Phyllis King. Mr Cutler was friendly, a little spikey, perhaps I wouldn't have wished him any other way, and obviously a genius. " How does it feel to be so famous people recognise you in the street?" I asked. "F%*£king awful!" came the reply. Undeterred, I gauchely sought his advice on becoming successful: "Do the opposite to what everyone else is doing", he advised. Goodness knows what he made of Mark & I's electric guitar and bass rendition of Smokey Robinson-via-Japan's I Second That Emotion as he and Phyllis courteously stopped for a while in front of Mark & I, the Rhino Disciples, fronting our little Mark-made amp.After his show at the Assembly Rooms I never saw the great man again on stage or indeed on the street but I continued to derive great pleasure from his ouvre. A true individual. What he saw of me was a 19 year old who didn't know who he was yet. Ah, well. I've never met a hero of mine I didn't like. Then again, I haven't met many of my heroes. Farewell, Ivor may you rest in perfect harmonium and farewell, too, John Junkin. Stars of Magical Mystery Tour & A Hard Day's Night respectively. And so much more. You was gear.

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