'I Forgive You' w/ Mik Artistik

Episode 24 November 29, 2024 01:08:49
'I Forgive You' w/ Mik Artistik
You Call That Radio?
'I Forgive You' w/ Mik Artistik

Nov 29 2024 | 01:08:49

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Show Notes

great conversation with Mik Artistik, Discussing confidence in releasing art into the world , thinking on your feet, Writing a book before you die and Iggy Pop calling your song 'the best thing of the decade' plus much more. You Call That Radio has no adverts, no sponsors and no funding . If you would like to support the channel plus receive free stuff, discounts and bonus material then please consider supporting us at one of the following:

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You can also find our audio podcast, live events and various social media links here: http://linktr.ee/YCTR Mik Artistik’s Ego Trip are genuinely delightful, funny, frightening, and indefinable. Northern rock and roll stand-up comes close. Every show is unique as Mik finds a new train of thought to ride. He connects, chats, breaks the wall between audience and band, creates chaos, plays air-crook lock (!?), all complimented by exquisite layers of rock, soul, funk, and punk created by Jonny Flockton on electric guitar, drum machine, and one of a number of well-heeled bass players. . The band are regular Glastonbury favourites since their first appearance in 2007. Many fans don’t consider Glastonbury has started until they’ve attended either Mik’s gig on the Wednesday afternoon at the Croissant Neuf Bandstand, or the chaos that reigns at Thursday evening’s Rocket Lounge gig. Both are now Glastonbury traditions for many fans. They have achieved an enviable reputation at many of the major UK festivals, including Latitude, Bearded Theory, Beat Herder, Wilderness, and Beautiful Days. BBC Radio 6Music have long been playing Mik’s music with Gideon Coe, Chris Hawkins, Shaun Keaveny and Tom Robinson all big fans of the band. In early 2020 no-less than rock icon and 6Music presenter Iggy Pop endorsed Mik’s anthem of hope ‘Sweet Leaf of the North’ as his favourite song of the last DECADE! … In his words “… because it’s human, it’s real and it has soul“

https://www.mikartistik.com .

 

 
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Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Radio. You call that radio? Season 4, episode 25 of you call that Radio's audio podcast. How are you all doing? Thank you for joining us once again. And get in for a treat. We've got McArtistic, a Yorkshire veteran of music, art, poetry, comedy and film. Thanks to Captain Hot Knaves for introducing me. There's something in the water down in Yorkshire, I'm telling you, but he's a very funny guy and give us loads of good insight. We talked about his career in general, about how Iggy Pop said that his song Sweet Leaf of the north, which we finished the show on, was the best thing he told in over a decade. We talk about finding confidence to put your art out there. We talk about writing a book before you die. And this is, I think Mick 69. And that's exactly what he did. Him and his mate wrote a book, so we'll talk about that. His art exhibition is UK tour he's currently on and his brilliant new album, which is called Pop, which is available on all platforms just now as well. And yeah, just a. Just a really nice conversation. Great guy. I hope you enjoy and learn. That's what it's all. But I was going to put a shout out to the gigs that are coming up over Christmas. We're doing some parties for our patrons, but we don't have any sponsors or adverts or funding on the show. So if you want to know about what's happening over the coming weeks, then just go to patreon.com forward slash, you call that radio. And if you think it's worth it, then stick in three quid a month if you can afford it, because the show only exists because of the generosity of the patrons. But I'm going to stop talking because that's something like an advert. Then you have the media, not just. [00:02:17] Speaker B: The news media, let's include them all. [00:02:19] Speaker A: The media are almost literally exploding with bullshit because they're located right at the crossroads of all the other bullshit, as you call that radio, tv. We are live and a very special guest today. I'm absolutely buzzing about it. What about to speak to mick artistic of McArtistic and the eagle Trip, which was a recommendation from one of our regulars, Captain Hot Knives, a fellow Yorkshire man. I've been absolutely loving going through Mick's extensive back catalog. It's totally blown me away. There's not really any pigeonholes or any evidence of pigeons that I can use to fairly describe the art, but it's descriptive. Tales of death, comedy, beauty, joy, all the good stuff. Brian Ferry's greatest hits and the new album Pop is out now. They're also on a UK tour and there is currently an art exhibition. So there's lots to talk about. So let's go live to Yorkshire just now. Hello, McArtistic, thank you for calling. You call that radio? How you doing? [00:03:33] Speaker C: Hello, Mark McGee. [00:03:34] Speaker B: I'm okay. I. I feel quiet. I feel like a little boy, but I'll be fine. [00:03:39] Speaker A: I can hear you fine, mate. I can hear you fine. [00:03:42] Speaker B: You're never. [00:03:43] Speaker A: You're having a busy week. You're selling the paintings. You were even up in our nation's capital of Edinburgh. [00:03:51] Speaker B: We. Well, we had about 12 people turned up because it was a, a bus strike on. The weather was awful. So the. We only said. Got about a dozen or so people there. But it was a lovely gig. [00:04:05] Speaker A: It was storm Bertie. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, man. It was lots of. It was lots of travel chaos, man. And I mean like even, even Idols who sold out the hydro about four months ago, it looked only about 70% full. There was loads of people messaging me. I think I gave away about 10 tickets to Idols to our patrons and I think they were about 60, 70 quid tickets. So I think everybody, I think everybody just shot it and just stayed in the house. [00:04:32] Speaker B: And Saturday, well, it was, it was a, it was a inhospitable night really. [00:04:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:37] Speaker B: And we played in a cold little bar, the Red, the wee red bar. It was very cold and I had my vest on. But we, I just kept running around and people sort of moved from side to side and just kept, kept busy. We had a very important. Kept warm here. [00:04:56] Speaker A: Yeah, is loving the new album, man. I was just looking through a few year old, older albums as well and I noticed a pattern of one word album titles. I, I personally, I do a three word. Every album ever releases three words. So I was just wondering is that. Was there. Is that deliberate? Is there a meaning behind that? [00:05:16] Speaker B: I think it's just short and sweet and you know, the short sharp shock. And when we first started, I think our first album was called Shock and Awe. So that was three words. But then we kind of. The next one after that was I think Pulverizer. [00:05:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:31] Speaker B: And then, and then they're all like. And the. You'll notice that the artwork is, is the same throughout the. There's about 15 albums and we've got virtually the same artwork. So people get confused. People say I've got that album, Janice, have I got that album. Have we got this? And I'm gone. I don't know, you know. [00:05:51] Speaker A: So, yeah, I suppose that is. That may actually reduce some of your sales over the years. You might have got that one. [00:05:58] Speaker B: No, that's. I'm always having a constant fight with Johnny the guitarist, because he's. He comes up with good business ideas and. And I proceed to sabotage. [00:06:09] Speaker A: So I suppose it could also go the opposite way as well. So sometimes people go, I've already got that album. Then after a while they're going, do you know what? All the albums look the same. So maybe I haven't. So maybe, maybe, maybe there's pros and cons to that. Maybe evens out eventually and people end up buying the same album twice. [00:06:24] Speaker B: Yeah, well, the thing is, the thing about the albums, I do them all in Sharpie or in gel pen. And because I'm scared of rulers, I'm very, very bad at sort of. I don't do stuff like I don't have a graphics. A graphics app on my phone. So it's all very much using the eye. You. You know, just rule of eye, Sharpie. And for like 15, 20 years, I've just been sort of very, very kind of insecure about the. My art, the qualities of my. Of the albums. And. And suddenly it turns out that we're in a coffee book. We're in one of these coffee table books now called Rock Logos or Logo Rhymes. And it's. We're between the Rolling Stones and Bowie and my. My Sharpie design. And there's like a little spiel about how wonderful and charming it is and the fact that I don't go near a graphic designer and it's just done in pen and I'm there. [00:07:25] Speaker C: I am. [00:07:26] Speaker B: I've got two. I've got like a double page center spread. [00:07:30] Speaker A: That's amazing. Also a big. Another claim to fame is. I don't know if this is true, but I heard that you Eggy pop. Did he say that your song Sweetly for the north was his favorite song of the decade? [00:07:43] Speaker B: Yeah, well, he did it back in 2016. He was on this on NPR on the American radio. Yeah, and me, yeah, me and my mate were just sitting in the Leeds Art Gallery having a coffee and we were just talking about this song, Sweetly for the north, and how it kind of. It was a good song for us business wise. And. And I went to the toilet and when I came back, my mate said, iggy Pops just named your song as Song of the Decade. So I didn't know. I mean, it's not the kind of thing that happens every day. So I Basically I stopped breathing for about 18 minutes. I just sat there, you know, with the, with the coffee getting gradually colder, just taking that in, just trying to sort of just absorb that statement. And after that. [00:08:31] Speaker A: Yeah, that's crazy, man, because like, obviously Iggy Pop, he obviously is a DJ now, so he supports lots of bands. But Song of the decade from a legend like that, that is next level, man. [00:08:42] Speaker C: That's. [00:08:42] Speaker B: Well, that's freakish. I mean, you, you don't. It's like going from zero to 90, never mind not to 60. And it, I'm, you know, I'm a fragile fella. So just hearing that, I mean, a good job, you know, if, if I'd have heard that when I was about 20, I probably would have gone off and. And I don't know, overdosed on something. But now that I'm 60, sort of 69 and I've got three kids, I'm. I'm more settled. But it was still a shock. [00:09:10] Speaker A: I can't, I can't believe I have just seen that in the podcast as well. I kind of believe that. You, you don't look your age at all, man. You don't know at all. And, and it's great to see still out there touring and that. You've still got, what, You've still got another five dates left. What else can people catch? [00:09:25] Speaker B: No, we've got, we got. We've got 11 dates left. [00:09:27] Speaker A: 11 days. Sorry, sorry. [00:09:28] Speaker B: Well, I got about 12 days. We're. I've got. I love Brown Paper Bag. [00:09:34] Speaker A: I'll do. I'll bring up the. I'll bring up. I'll get the tour dates up and while we're playing a song, we'll play song in a little bit and I'll get the tour dates up. Good luck whenever we look at it. Yeah, but, yeah, I was so the, One of the things I was, I was noticing, I was watching your live footage is how impressed I am with the best. When you do sort of spoken word, almost like comedic rants or the intros. And I just find it quite interesting because I don't. I wasn't. It's hard to tell what, how much is a. Ad libbed. I don't know if you freestyle on any of it or it's all memorized and both are just as impressive because I've, I've. I think I've looked at one song where I don't rhyme and it's, it's quite. I find it really hard to memorize stuff like that. So. Have you got any tricks that you do, or is it. Are you just. Are you just doing things off the top of your head or memories? [00:10:27] Speaker B: No. Well, I mean, ever. Ever since I was a little boy. I mean, I'm the eldest of seven and when I was a little boy, I used to make up stories for me brothers and sisters in bed at night. So I'd be lying in bed and they'd all say, tell us a story, Michael. And then I'd start telling. I'll just make a story about a cowboy or about this prince who had a sword and a nice van with a load of hay in the back. And it'd be going out into the wild. Well, snowy weather. And all of us would be in the back of the van in the straw, keeping warm. And he'd go off and he'd have adventures. So I'd be telling these stories. So I'm just naturally a storyteller and I can find. And I. It's a. It's. I don't know what. It's a skill, but I just. I know my strengths and my strength is that I can think on the spot when I'm in a corner. I got. I got. I nearly got beaten up by a lot of traveling guys who were. I. I used to go out drawing people on brown paper bags. That was. I did that for about 30 years, portraits. And I was in this pub and I'd. These people commissioned me to do a lot of drawings. So I did quite a lot and I was really tired and it got to like 11 o'clock and the landlord says, come on, it's time to sling your hook. So they said, oh, we'll pay outside. So I got outside and they said, just come around here. And I went around the back with them. And then the next thing, somebody pushed me in the. In the back and I fell on my face. And I just said, don't ruin me trousers, I'm going to a wedding in the morning. And. And that basically saved my life because they didn't kick the. Out of me, but they did reach into my pocket and found a tenor. And I had to walk all the way home back to be flat in heralds. But I could always think on my feet. And so. And I. It's just. I love it. I love the fact that I can stand there and something comes, something arrives, you know, like the word petal. I've got. You know, there's petal. You can have a petal. What would you do with a petal? Well, you. What you do is you just look at it. It's only a petal and it's not important. It isn't a bomb. It's just a little petal and it's pretty. So put it in water or put it in a little album. Just bollocks. [00:12:44] Speaker A: What is it? Is there something in the water of. Of Yorkshire? Because obviously that's. Captain Hot Knives is the same, isn't it? He just, just. [00:12:52] Speaker B: Yeah, Chris is, Chris is a very intriguing. And yeah, he's. He has a lot of. There's a lot under the surface and he is, he's. He's a very loose cannon. Yeah, he's a wild man. And. But, but he's also. He's magical. He has. You know, you've got people like Beef Art and you've got people like Iva Cutler and people like that. And that's the area that there's something. He's got stories about his gran and about sort of the, the second floor of the flats and stuff and the, the dodgy things under the bed and Johnny Depp going off with his bird and stuff and the pigeons trying to hypnotize him and stuff. The pigeon may be shoplift. The pigeons made me shoplift. So. So he's. He's a dude. He's a. And he's playing with us. We're. We're doing a. We're playing in Sheffield at a place called the Dorothy Pax. In December. Is it December? Oh, yeah, yeah. Sheffield, 7th of December. Dorothy Pax. And he's on with us and we saw him last time he came on, he did like a support slot and, and he. There he is doing his like his mad and wonderful kind of free form stuff and then he did. I'm not sure what the thing was, but he basically stopped time because what. He did this amazingly, really powerful, very grim, hard sort of tale and it's beautiful. And so, yeah, he's a, he's a man to watch out for. And special. [00:14:34] Speaker A: Absolutely. Captain Horne. Hopefully we'll get back to Glasgow soon if I. Have you got any plans for Glasgow yet yourself? [00:14:42] Speaker B: No, there's. There's nothing. We've got nothing in Glasgow. I mean, we, we. We'd go down a bomb in Glasgow. It's just we, we. We're. [00:14:53] Speaker A: We're. [00:14:53] Speaker B: We're playing the north. We're in Newcastle next week and. And then we're sort of. We tend to sort of play in some really odd places. Like we're in a theater one minute, then the next thing we're playing a bloody. An art center. Next thing we're playing a greasy little rock club and sometimes, you know, we do like a children's school or something and it's cause. Cause mayhem in a school and just watch children dribble. It's lovely to see a young child dribble and isagog. [00:15:26] Speaker A: We've got, we've got to see if any of our viewers will make their eyes agog by playing the new single Bingley. Just for people that may not be aware of your. Better be aware of your music. So let's just introduce him to some of the tunes. Would you like to tell us a little bit about Bingley, the inspiration behind that? Give a little introduction? [00:15:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, Bingley is a blues, but it's just a blues about pedaling your bike and going to this small little Yorkshire town. It's a bit basic. It's about me visiting my old friend who's older than me, so kind of 70 plus. And I'm going to see him and I'm going to cycle along the canal. And it's, it's, it's not like John Lee Hooker, it's like. It's Yorkshire. So it's, it's quite low key. I drink tea. I'm not doing any main lining or anything. I'm just cycling to meet my friend. We're going to discuss books, films, and he'll be. Probably be wearing some loafers, sitting in the pub. And we're in this quiet little old man's pub. We'll sit in the corner. So it's just about me visiting my friend before he dies, you know, because we're both going to die. And he asked me, he said about two, three years ago, he said, let's do a book before we die. So we did. So we've done a book called It's Irrelevant. And this song's about the song Bingley is about me going to visit my friend Robert. Robert Galletta in Bingley. [00:17:00] Speaker C: Gonna Bingley Gonna Bingley on my bike Gonna see my friend Gonna cycle all the way Gonna take a little while It's a windy day Going to Bingley Been a little while since I've been on my bike I'll be tired when I get there and I'm going to cycle back Said I'll be there for 12 looks like I'm going to be late I heard a disturbing call could have been a cow could have been a horse I could have been dreaming Freaked me I got 30 miles of mo to go today Better start pedaling I've been feeling a little low lately Starting to Pick up. I've been to Armley, to Brambley, to P, to Shipley, to Keighley and there's only one place I want to be. Bingley. Going to talk to my friend. He'll have a pint, I'll have a cup of tea we'll set the world to right. I used to go to Bingley when. [00:18:30] Speaker B: I was a little boy. [00:18:31] Speaker C: Used to visit me auntie Kathleen. Lovely food, the fridge. Chocolate, biscuits, coffee, camp coffee. Hot milk and sugar. Me and my mom and my brothers and my sister, we used to just tuck in. I've been to Armley, to Brownlee, to Pudsey, to Shipley, to Keighley and there's only one place I want to be. Bingley. Gonna sit in the corner of the pub. Keep away from the locals and their own business. I'm going to Bingley, gonna chat to my friend. Talk about the future. Talk about dying too. So many wonderful memories. I love my friend. I'm gonna relax and have a cup of tea. To Bingley. Relax. This is at the back of the pub. Relax. Rest my weary legs. [00:19:57] Speaker A: Brilliant stuff taken from the new album pop out now that was Bingley by MC and I would just like the apologies for my original poster said the ego death instead of the the eagle trip. That was because I'd actually been talking about. I had an in depth conversations about mushrooms and ego death that same night. So that's why I got that one mixed up. But cracking truth, man. What is the. The process of. Of of writing your songs? Are you going out there where with them intentionally to write these songs you want to write, you want to capture certain emotions and stories or is it just whatever it comes to you? [00:20:42] Speaker B: Well, it varies. It's just a minute. Sometimes it starts off with a couple of words like Rastafarian wiring and. Or somebody says Quentin Tarantino in a Barnsley accent and I'll just stick it in a little book. And then it'll sit there for about a year and then one day I'll go back and I'll look at this. I go, Jesus, Quentin Tarantino, he doesn't read the Bean or he's hip and cool and Mino Cortino. So they just kind of sit there like these little seeds, like little mushrooms in the dark. And I leave them for about. And then I come back and look at the two words like Rastafarian wiring. Yellow, green and red. They're all pretty colors, but if you mix them up, you're dead. I had a friend with a spanner he came around the other night he told me he could fix my emerging eater and now we shining bright oh, Rastafarian wiring. Hello. So it's. It's. I like them. I like the marriage of. Of sorts of ordinary words and. And. And music. Well, just. Just to kind of. Something has to clash. So like a Bingley, it's a blues and blues is kind of associated with like kind of troubles and hardship and. And. And people who've got addictions to various substances. But Bingley is just about me riding my bike to. And it's. It's fairly inoffensive and it's an inoffensive blues. So I like to kind of mess with the genres because I just. Less mischief. [00:22:23] Speaker A: Stacy says it's a great tune. It's making me Chris Ms. Chris and Shipley's Near Belly. I'm not too. [00:22:32] Speaker B: Yes, it is. Yes. [00:22:34] Speaker A: Jigsaw Tiger says, love a good story and a song, bro. Mark McKenna saying loving that region and sounds like Bingley is the governor of somewhere. I don't know. I've never been to Bingley. [00:22:46] Speaker B: This is a groin. [00:22:48] Speaker A: Governs. Governs, like was originally at one point Govern was bigger than Glasgow. It's in Glasgow, but it was bigger. That's where all the clay the ships were then after the ship building trade, you know, Governs got. It's got east 11. It's got a lot of problems with poverty, but it's recently they built a bridge from the posh bit to over there. So a lot of chat just know about gentrification. Great young rapper called Jam Harvey just had a. A song yesterday that came out called Money Talks and the Governed Docs. So it's having that. It's an interesting conversation because obviously you people, do you want to see things improve for an area then also it feels like it's not the community's interests at heart. [00:23:30] Speaker B: Yeah, you can throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yeah, sometimes. I mean, I live in a place in West Leeds, it's Armley and Armley is fairly poor and he's had a really bad reputation for years and years. And I've been here 22 years. It's got a lot of people who don't have money and people who come out. There's Armley Jail here. People come out of the jail and they come straight back onto the streets and there's nothing here. There's no money and stuff. So they end up back inside in about a few weeks because they kind of steal it from the shop. So, you know, nothing's changed. They're still in that spiral. But at the same time Armley has a lot of characters and character and beauty and it makes me laugh and it scares me a little. [00:24:32] Speaker A: But I also, I was, I watched a few years Glastonbury performances and I was reading in the comments that. Is it true you played every day glastonbury for like 10 years or like some big questions? Like quite a big, a lot of performances. [00:24:49] Speaker B: Well, I'd never done a festival before. I never played one and we sent a CD to, to Glastonbury. Our very first one I think was called Listen. And it, the CD did like a little tour of all the tents for about three or four months and nobody kind of picked up on it and they thought I don't. Is it funny? Is it, is it quirky, is it rock and roll, is it punk, whatever? And nobody was going to grab it. And then it did about three circuits and it finally settled at this little place called the Avalon Cafe stage and people took a little shine to it and they said oh, we like him. Well, no, the one who does that song about turning the dad or whatever. And so we got a, we got a foot in the door and I'm. I'm just used to working. I'm used. I'm used to being an artist, a working artist. So I had like, I had like 20, 30 years wandering around drawing people and I had to kind of. I had to hustle in some rough pubs and so you just have to have a kind of a worth a work ethic. So we got to glass from who did 25 gigs over four days. So we're doing about five, five gigs a day. [00:25:59] Speaker A: How did you, how did your voice hold up with that? [00:26:02] Speaker B: Well, it didn't. [00:26:03] Speaker A: No how did you smoke or do you smoke? Did you smoke at times? [00:26:09] Speaker B: I was doing basically I was doing modern dance by Sunday afternoon now I've said and I didn't have any sort of like vocal. I didn't understand how to use my voice. So all I just came from like a kind of a shouty talking. I did stand up for about 10 years before I became a musician. So it's all about chat and all about thinking on your feet. And so I never, I'd never kind of mastered the discipline of like singing and doing. So after about maybe 6 gigs my voice would be like turning into so. But Johnny the guitarist bullied me into taking some lessons and using my diaphragm and I've never been the same since. [00:26:58] Speaker A: I can relate, I can relate deeply to That I had the. I just. It was a running joke. I would lose my voice at every festival until it turned out it was actually. It was so bad one time that I was like, you know, it was a kind of running joke. Oh, you must have had a good night last night kind of thing. Then it was like one time I was up, I was running a stage and I hadn't done anything. I did two beers and maybe one joint or something and then I woke up the next day and everyone was, oh, you must have had a good night last night. And I was like, there's something wrong with me. She was actually a vocal poet. And they said it was because it could. Because by smoking, shouting, talking too loud, singing without doing vocal warmups, basically all the things that I do. But there's a 6:1 and it could just be genetic, which the misses didn't let me away with. But yeah, it was, it was. I had one singing lesson after that and it saved cash out, save. And it blew me away how, you know, how wrong I was using my voice. So I didn't breathe properly. I went to speech therapist for a couple of lessons. I still haven't figured that out. And yeah, just putting your voice under that kind of pressure. So the idea of doing 25 gigs, man, I don't. I. Yeah, I think for your weekend's probably my limit, I would guess. [00:28:11] Speaker B: Yeah, no, people were saying, oh, he's the hardest working man in show business. Oh, that's a terrible. That's a terrible accolade. You know, I'd rather be the most interesting and, you know, kind of multi. Multi gendered artist or something rather than some sweater. [00:28:27] Speaker A: And I've been called that as well, which was actually an insult. [00:28:31] Speaker B: No, it's just a bit, it's just a bit. It's not very exciting to be the hardest worker. [00:28:35] Speaker A: It's like. It's like been a football player being called the workhorse or something. [00:28:38] Speaker B: Oh, he's a good lad. I don't want to be a good lad. [00:28:42] Speaker A: Fear puts a shift in. He puts a shift in that boy. But yeah, so Glastonbury. So I, she just continued to go with that. That these days you play once a night every night. [00:29:00] Speaker B: No, no, we just do weekends. And I mean the last, last. The last weekend I've been Glastonbury. [00:29:07] Speaker A: Sorry, I might be missing. [00:29:08] Speaker B: Oh, I'm sorry. Glastonbury. Yeah, we've sort of. I was doing about the last time I played, which wasn't. Was the year before. We did about five gigs. I Think over. So maybe like a gig a day. A gig and a half a day. Yeah. [00:29:26] Speaker A: And what would, what do you, how do you feel? Because obviously I've been in situations whereby when I've played a gig and then went on, like, maybe they had my friends. For example, once we played a gig, like two hours later, and it was quite interesting because it felt like you've, you're cheating a bit because I was coming up with similar partner, almost identical set list. Do you, do you, when you're doing like that many gigs in a weekend at Glastonbury or something like that, do you, do you peak, do you think you get better as the weekend goes on or do you peek in the middle? What do you think? [00:29:59] Speaker B: Well, I think my strength is that I, I can improvise and that I can make stuff happen. So we, I have 15 albums and stuff, but often, you know, we've gone on stage and we've done one song and it's lasted like the first set because I've just gone off on one and I've just decided to talk about, you know, kind of like, know, hedgerows or thickets or the wonderful world of thickets, you know, something. And, and that can go on for 20 minutes, 25 minutes. So I, I, My strength is that I turn up on stage like a new, like a new baby. I'm going, oh, I'm looking around and, and the world is a wonderful and magical place. And I'm going, oh. And I'm pointing, going, look, there's a plane. And the plane is going to. Is. It's just coming over the trees there and it's just dropping petals. Petals. It's dropping petals on. No, they're not petals. They're tiny little bombs, little current bombs. So it's just solid. Yeah. [00:30:58] Speaker A: Sorry, do you get. So do you think, do you think that the more so the more you're doing over the weekend, do you think your confidence increases or are you just always on the same. You're on the. [00:31:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm just working and I mean, I just tend to sort of. My, my work is just, is thinking on my feet, making, you know, just bringing idea, just chucking ideas out all the time. Bang, bang, you know, scatter gun. So. And it's, it's. So we. Sometimes we're doing this some of the same set maybe twice a day or something, but it won't be the same set because I'll be riffing on somebody in the audience who's got a very loud mother and I'll Be just. I'll be playing with the mother or flirting with her, and so it's. Whatever's in front of me. I'm not really interested in kind of delivering the set or the. You know, because I just want to. About. I want to be there and I want to make people think, well, I. I could do that. [00:32:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:03] Speaker B: What's. That's. That's. That's. He. What's he doing? Is he. What is he just. Is that. Is this a sound check? What's he doing? How come he's not doing a proper song? You know, And I love it. I love the fact that I'm up there and I'm just. Basically, I'm given license to just mess and. [00:32:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, there. There's loads of. There's loads of funny bits in your back catalog, but there's just some actually beautiful moments as well. You know, they've. And then also sometimes you kind of. You're managing both. Both of those things. Like, is it. [00:32:32] Speaker B: Is it. [00:32:33] Speaker A: Is it two old men? That's on the album. [00:32:36] Speaker B: Old guy. [00:32:37] Speaker A: Old guy. Sorry. Old guy. Sorry. And that's great. That. That's really funny, but really poignant as well. And then you've got songs like Stars, which are just. Are just beautiful as well. And it's just. It's. That's why I said it's hard to pigeon. Pigeonhole stuff like that because we've got a bit of comedy on music as well. And I feel like sometimes people don't understand the, you know, avid band members that didn't understand this. Don't do that. That's. People won't take you seriously if you do that. And I think that can be true to a certain extent. But I was always inspired by bands like Super Funny Animals or the Beat, a band or whatever where. [00:33:14] Speaker B: Yeah, amazing. Yeah. [00:33:15] Speaker A: So they have a bath. So they're going to have songs, are going to be Spain tingling and, you know, make you feel something emotional, but you're also going to have a bit of fun. And. But I think. I suppose the way I like looking at it is I like to take the craft of writing seriously, but I found I don't want to take myself too seriously. Was that. Is that how you would kind of describe what it is you're doing? [00:33:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I'm a fairly genial fellow. I get up there and I just want to kind of please. I, you know, I. You know, just the party, you know, kind of animal or something. Well, not. But I. I like. I like to basically just look after the crowd and entertain them, but at the same time, there's some of the stuff that we do is. Is quite. It's quite difficult material and it's quite. It. Look, there's a song called Bullying sun, just about. I'm. I'm living with a bullying son and the house is too small for his massive frame. And I'm going to take my wife and the CDs and just leave my bullying son to the house, you know, so. So it's. There's. There. There is some doubt and there's like. Some of the songs is. Are about sadness and about depression because I. I'm about to depression at times and stuff. And. And. But also I can be a little boy and I'm not. I'm not trying to be anything. I'm not trying to be funny or. I'm not trying to be. I'm just in hypnotized, charmed by stuff around me. [00:34:44] Speaker A: You mentioned the book, Elrond, just before we played the last song. What. What is that? Can you tell us a bit more about that? And is it available? And you said you wrote it with your friend. [00:34:54] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. The book is called It's Irrelevant and it's just. It's like. It looks like a little schoolboy's Silvine exercise book. And it's, you know, just. It's. And basically the story, what happened was back just before lockdown, Me and my friend Robert, we. We'd been sort of. We'd gone out dancing together for years. We. We liked punk. We were in a kind of different bands and we would always be turning each other onto different things we'd heard or seen. And Robert was like, fairly well educated. He's been to Oxford and done the classics and. And I was from poorer background, but we seem to have a really nice marriage of ideas. And there was a certain. We clicked. But Robert said to me we'd never done anything together as artists. He writes poetry and I do my writing and this, that and the other. And it got to like. He said, why don't we just do a book before we die? And I thought, yeah, and let's do. And so I said, let's do a book about all the phone calls we have because we talk about. We're on the phone and we're talking. Oh, God, I hear this great band last night, the whole steady or. I saw this. I saw this great film called Tony Erdman. And so he said, well, you know, so we said, look, let's. Let's do a book about these People that we talk about. So it's a book full of, like. And it's got like little. A brief description of why these people mean so much to us. And so it's just a book about. Written by two old guys about some fairly obscure artists that it's not going to go anywhere. It's not going to change the world. And so we thought it's irrelevant. And it's available from mickartistic.com from the website. [00:36:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I've got it. I've got. I've got up. You know, I've got to put the. I'll put the link in the comments for anyone who's interested. [00:36:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll admit that it's. It's full of. It's full of pen and ink drawings that I've done and some writing and Robertson, most of the writing. [00:36:58] Speaker A: So, yeah, I'll put a link in the comments for anyone who's wanting to maybe check that out. I'm very interested in that. I also love the idea of. That's the kind of thing that friends say to each other, we should do a book before we die. They don't do it. So I. I get the impression that you're somebody that gets things done. [00:37:15] Speaker B: Yeah, well, because for a long time I didn't. For a long time I was a bit too kind of perfectionist and saying, oh, well, no, I can't really. I'd always put up an obstacle in front of an idea and say, oh, that's a great idea. Oh, no, I can't do it because. Because I haven't grown a beard. So I. Obviously I can't be in this. I can't make a film about Robinson Crusoe, you know, so I'd always sabotage any book. As I got older, I realized that I'm getting older and that there's all these young books there. They just. They're following their ideas up and just doing them. And so. And Johnny Guitars said, what's the worst. Just stick it out. Just bloody do it. But, you know, it just. It doesn't matter if it's not totally formed. Just get the bloody thing out. It doesn't matter if you don't. Because if nobody sees it, then it doesn't matter. But just get it out and it's. It'll. It'll grow. It'll grow legs or wings or whatever. [00:38:08] Speaker A: Yes, it's quite. It's quite heartbreaking when you. When you see people who are very talented to just. They're sitting with a hard drive full of amazing music that they Just aren't ready to share with the world and obviously it's their decision. But you know, sometimes you're just like, get a grip, come on. This is actually brilliant. But yeah, sometimes people, well, most of the time people are the harshest own critics and sadly the people that aren't harshing them harsh enough in themselves seem to have no problem with releasing subpar music as well. [00:38:39] Speaker B: Yeah, so that's the annoying thing is. Well, we basically, we need to get rid of them bastards the, the mediocre, you know, I mean, so what's the message? [00:38:49] Speaker A: What could you send? So if any of my friends, they probably know who they are, if they're listening and they're sitting on their good tunes, what's your message to them? [00:38:59] Speaker B: Well, just, just be brave. Be brave and, and just say to yourself, I can do hard things. That's it really, you know, what's the. [00:39:10] Speaker A: Message to the shape people? That they have too much confidence. [00:39:13] Speaker B: I forgive you. [00:39:17] Speaker A: I've got a video of your paintings. Realize you can't talk because it automatically makes you when I play the video. But yeah, tell us about that exhibition. [00:39:42] Speaker B: Well, that exhibition I started that about. I started painting about. Well, I've always drawn, I've always done stuff. I've always been a greedy bastard. So I've always wanted to do everything, you know, to play, write, scribble direct, do the lighting, wash the dishes. And so. So the beginning of this year I. Or just towards the end of last year, I was in a bit of a low spot and a friend of mine says, why did you do some painting? And that's what I'd kind of gone to throughout my life. I've kind of gone to. But the last exhibition I'd had been. I'd only sold a picture. So I felt kind of diminished. I felt very small. I thought I'm not going to put myself up to be knocked down again. But then my brother said, just keep painting, just paint. You, you're a painter, doesn't matter whether you don't sell, selling for millions. What you do is beautiful. So I kind of. I got myself a. Somebody commissioned me to do a. He brought a cupboard, a kitchen cupboard door to a gig and he said, will you put something on this kitchen cupboard door for me? And I'm going, I can put it in my shed and I'm going to get all my musical mates that I love and I'm going to give them a kitchen door and say a kitchen cupboard door and say, will you put something on this and just decorate my Shed, my man, shed. With a. With these kitchen. So I. I took this door and I got me acrylics out and I painted a. I painted a fat little rock singer. Because I do a song called Fat Little Rock Singer about this guy who dresses in black, but like his shirts. His buttons are flying off his shirt and his belly's hanging out and. But he's still loved by his fans because his music's so beautiful. And so I painted this little rocks. And then the next thing, I started to do some more paintings and. And these are. All the pictures are from. From inside the. Normally I spent my life depicting people doing portraits of people that you can recognize, but the people that came from this. From in this show, these people turned up out of my soul. Basically. I'd. I'd be looking at the canvas and I'm going, come on, come to me. And I start making marks. And then somebody would appear out of the mist. Somebody would appear out of the. Out of the mess. And sometimes it'd be an imposter. So I just mess it. I just cover it over and then I'd work again until somebody else would reappear. And then I'm thinking, I know you. You're all right. I. And it might be some kind of wooden infor. Or it could be some kind of. Like a. Kind of a cannibal hamster or something. So. And so I did about 14 of these paintings and they're all from. They're all from in here. And they were all frightening to do. They all hurt. [00:42:38] Speaker A: Some of them are terrifying. [00:42:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:42:42] Speaker C: But. [00:42:43] Speaker B: And the gallery that I showed him, and it's a place called the Pole Bank Vintage interiors and the chapel owns it. His brother's a painter and he makes art. And he had this wonderful little medicine cabinet that he'd made and all the products were called. And this is a syringe. This is a syringe, but it's not actually a syringe. It's a. Hang on, open it up. It's a ballpoint pen. Nice. [00:43:16] Speaker A: Magic. And it's so. [00:43:18] Speaker B: So the thing is, all that stuff there makes me laugh. And I'm so happy that I'm in the world because there's always something that's going to just upset me and make me laugh. And I always look for that. Every day I look for something that's going to appeal to me. And so that was your strategy. [00:43:37] Speaker A: So just so in that. So this is where you're doing your art exhibition. [00:43:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:41] Speaker A: And you've got that syringe that says. Oh, so was that just sitting on its own, like next to the art on like a. [00:43:46] Speaker B: No, it was in a little cabinet, like. And the cabinet was called. And it had all these, like, it all tablets, all syringe, had it all lint, you know, dressings. And I just thought it was sublime. And. And that's the stuff that. That I think we need. We need kind of stuff like that to kind of just lift us out of the Maya that we're in, you know, at the moment. [00:44:12] Speaker A: I found it real interesting what you were saying about when you're. You're painting the. The heads and you're saying that when you don't recognize them. So you're saying it's quite scary as well. So when you're seeing one of these scary faces, but you recognize it, are you feeling some. Do you. Do you feel a kinship with this? [00:44:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I see that. I see myself in there. You see a kind of a sort of like something through sort of like the briars or the brambles. There is. There's life in there somewhere. And I think, oh yeah, I recognize that. But it's like it's just covered in scars and scabs and stuff. But at the same time it. It's reassuring because it's some of you who's been kicked around a bit, but there's still a little twinkle or there's still a light there, and sometimes there isn't. But at the same time, even when there's suffering, there's still something I recognize. And the little bell goes in my head, I think, oh yeah, that's right. Now that that painting works, I recognize him well. [00:45:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you have any. Do you just totally destroy the pictures or do you keep any of the. The ones that you don't recognize? [00:45:21] Speaker B: I've. Man, I'm a bit. I'm. I'm a bit of a coward in the way in getting rid of stuff. I normally paint over stuff and sometimes you just have to. No, I'm not a coward. No, no, I. I can really go to town on a canvas and I can start something and it looks kind of. Oh yeah, it's got. It's quite nice. It's got some kind of groovy kind of lines and some nice colors stuff. And I think, well, no, what it needs now is a good splash of black right across the front. Get the black and destroy it. So there's. There's a voice of reason and there's a voice of unreason. And I normally listen to the voice of unreason Because. Because usually something brilliant and beautiful comes when you just let go and stop trying to be cool and just. Yeah. Now go. Just go. In you go. [00:46:18] Speaker A: Mark's asking where he can buy your paintings. I'm assuming the website. [00:46:23] Speaker B: They're not on the website, no. You. But you can get in touch with. Yeah, you can send me an email. I can send you some images, Mark. Just contact me on my email address. That's it, Mick. Well, it's Mick McArtistic dot com. [00:46:40] Speaker A: So I'll burn the website, won't it? [00:46:42] Speaker B: Yeah, it'll be on the website, yeah. [00:46:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll just let. [00:46:45] Speaker B: Oh, you can contact me on Facebook or on. On Twitter and I'll show you some of the work. I've sold four already, so I'm really buzzing. I'm very, very proud of myself. [00:46:58] Speaker A: That's fantastic. And you've got. It's still got another. For anyone who's going to be in the Yorkshire area, it's just. Recap where it isn't. [00:47:05] Speaker B: All right, It's. It's a place called Pool Bank Vintage Interiors and it's near Otley and the show is. Is until December 16th starts. It's Friday to Monday every week till December 16th, 10:00 till 4:00. And the details will be on if. Yeah, if you Google Pool Bank Vintage Interiors. And It's. It's Otley LS21 1FD oblique. [00:47:37] Speaker A: That's right. EP says, I forgive you. Classic. That was a good answer. That was a good answer. Stuart's also enjoying your. Your patents. He's saying. Those are impressive. Just love, says Stuart. I think we're going to play Plastic Fox. Could you tell us a little bit? Plastic Fox? [00:47:57] Speaker B: Yeah. I was just coming back from my holidays. I was. I'd gone down to this place called Branscombe and I'm sitting in the back of the Cow with my partner and my two mates. I mean, my friend in front there, Linda, she says she thought. I went to a garden center last week and I saw this plastic fox and. And the word. It basically my head exploded and I just got my pen out and I started to write. I just loved the marriage of plastic and fox. The two words just connected. Like it was like kind of Semtex or something. They just. And I. I started to scribble and I wrote the song in about plastic fox at the top of the garden. Plastic curled up like a child Pride A place next to the water feature. Plastic Fox. It's got a snail on its head and it all just tumbled out and then I got home and we worked on it and it became this raging tirade and But Iggy Pop calls it what's he call it now A classic. A sure Fire and some something like that. Anyway he really likes it and but lots of people like it Gideon cause a big fan he stuck it on the radio and he just said and that that's kind of an anthem really People say I'll play Plastic Fox Mick Little kids do versions as well on the little three or four year old children do versions on the online and there's normally much better than mine. [00:49:22] Speaker A: Fox. [00:49:36] Speaker C: Plastic fox At the top of the garden Plastic fox Curled up like a child Pride and place next to the water feature Plastic fox It's got a snail on its head Plastic fox Plastic feet and a plastic tail out in all weathers wind or hail Lying in the garden covered in snow There's a bit bitten off of its plastic toe Plastic fox Butterflies flutter out in the garden Washing line empty except for some pegs the lady of the house she's doing some lunch Two slices of toast and some scrambled eggs Plastic Fox, Plastic fox It came out of a box Plastic fox It was a present from her son Plastic fox It went straight in the garden Plastic fox the grandkids love it Plastic fox Gnomes with fishing rods scattered in the garden A little white windmill down by the trees but the plastic fox is the center of attention Plastic fox With its plastic knees Plastic Fox Plastic Fox. [00:51:30] Speaker B: O. [00:51:56] Speaker A: Fantastic Plastic fox Brilliant stuff. I've got a place sweet sweetly for the north to close us out I did say the start is too long to put in a podcast but if you put it then, you know, if you've listened thus far you're going to love that as a classic as a. [00:52:16] Speaker B: Salve to after Plastic Fox get some. [00:52:23] Speaker A: Stuart Flying with tigers all enjoying the the Plastic Foxness is. Is that. Who else is anything else happening in Yorkshire music wise or. Or even not Yorkshire just maybe something that's maybe in the cusp of the on the underground that maybe we wouldn't. I might not be aware of that. You you recommend that should check out. [00:52:45] Speaker B: I recommend some good films. Yeah. We just had the Leeds Film Festival in Leeds and I went to see a film with my partner called Sex and it was a Norwegian comedy and it was about two chimney sweeps and they were sitting in the canteen one morning and one of them says to the other he said I had a really weird dream last night and I dreamt that David Bowie was looking at me and and he was looking at me really. Not with really kind eyes, and. And he was just looking really warm. And I felt like a woman. And it could have been David Barrett. It could have been God. And then his mate says, that's Madison, because last night I had sex with a man. And he said, yeah, this fellow, we were chatting and he was just looking at me, but he seemed to be really attracted to me. And then he asked me if I'd like to have sex with him and I said, yeah. I said yes. And it was. And he says, but you. What, you're not gay? He said, no, no, no, but. And his friend said, did you tell your wife? He said, yeah, yeah. I went home. I just told her. Because it's only sex. I mean, but it was just. I'd never done it before and it just. And so that's. And the film carried on in that veins. So that. That and another film called Bird. It's got a fellow called Barry Koganin who was in the Banshees of Inish Free, the film with Colleen Farrell and Brendan Gleason, a bird film called Bird. And it's just about a. A bad dad and his. His daughter. And there's a strange man who's a bird in it and it's just come out. [00:54:28] Speaker A: I've noticed that you've picked One World films as well. [00:54:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:54:34] Speaker A: You're not watching it unless it's. If it's. [00:54:36] Speaker B: I'm a man of you. I'm a man of few words. I am Mark. [00:54:39] Speaker A: As soon as I film more than one word, you're like, now I can't be bothered with that. But give me an impactful One World album any day of the week. I've got your. I've got your third dates. I've managed to find them. Here we go. So we are. Edinburgh has been. So you've got Newcastle, Kendall, Sheffield, Birmingham, Hebden, London, Manchester, Nottingham, Glossip and Leeds all before the end of the year, man. So it's still loads of gigs to come up and then hopefully we'll get you up to Glasgow next year and maybe a. A couple of Scottish festivals as well. Right. I can't quite confirm it yet, but I think we will be doing a wee festival in the Ilaren in June. We just need to get permission confirmed from the. The owner of the site. But we did it last year and it was this year. It was great fun. So, yeah, that I think. I think our crowd would love you, man. So let's try and make a Glasgow gig or a Festival happen going forward. And yeah, the. The album Pop is out now and I'm assuming that you've got on your website or Band Camp as well as. [00:55:45] Speaker B: Well, yeah, it's on. It's on the website. You can get it on Band Camp. You can buy if. Yeah, there's only. There's only about 30 copies left actually. I think so. You better hurry up. Die one. [00:55:57] Speaker A: That's great. And yeah, it's the best way to support. I'm just reminding people because it's surprising sometimes people don't realize that the best way to support is probably buying the physical directly from the artist, then also streaming it because a good friend of mine was saying that. [00:56:14] Speaker B: Oh, come. [00:56:14] Speaker A: Sorry. I always stream it on Spotify and it's like. But you've already bought it. You bought it physically first, so it's fine. Actually works. So it helps the artist if you buy the physical thing and then stream it. [00:56:25] Speaker B: And if you. Yeah, and if you come out to the gigs as well. That's. That's. That works. Come and see us, you know, like. And if the weather's bad, just keep coming. We look after you. [00:56:38] Speaker A: Thank you very much, mate. It's been an absolute pleasure. I'm going to. I'm going to end with A Sweetly for the north, the Iggy Pop song of the decade. And yeah, the whole. Is the whole wave. It's like. It's a film, really isn't. It's a short film. So I just. If you just go ahead and give us a re. Introduction to that and I'll just line that up for the. For the people. [00:56:57] Speaker B: Yeah, Sweetly for the North. It's just. I wrote it about 15 years ago and it was. We'd been playing around Leeds playing small gigs and then we got invited to play in London and we were so excited and we packed the car and we headed off and we. And we're making our way towards the motorway and there's a little leaf trap behind the windscreen wiper. And it just stayed on and we're trying to knock it. Well, we tried to increase speed but it still stayed on and it stayed with us right the way down past Leicester and down past Barnsley all the way to London and it came back with us. And so it was like. It was. It stayed. It was on our first visit to London outside of Leeds and there it was. It was a kind of a magical sort of talisman. So. And I decided to write a song. [00:57:45] Speaker A: About it and what song is as well. Thank you very much, mate. Absolute pleasure. Good luck. With the rest of your tour. [00:57:55] Speaker B: Thank you, Mark. [00:57:56] Speaker A: Hopefully see you next year, man. [00:57:58] Speaker B: Lovely. All right. God bless. Yeah. [00:58:01] Speaker C: Oh, this song is all about a little leaf. Oh, this is. Yeah. Now get your fucking pints in the air now. Just hold your pints in the air like you. Like you're with me. You're not with me. You're somewhere else, aren't you? You're at Christmas. Nirvana, Heaven. Anyway, here we are, we're all together here. And this is a song about a little leaf that got trapped behind the windscreen wiper when we went to do a gig in London. We went to do a gig in London and we were, like, excited and enchanted traveling down there to places where people had sex all the time and they had money coming out of their pockets, just loads of money. And they talked. They said, I don't believe you. I've got a fucking shotgun. And there's just stuff like that. And you think, my God, they all had money and shotguns and they all ate kebabs. And I wanted to smell that. I wanted to smell. Smell of cordite and oil and kebabs and tarmac. I wanted to listen to our accents. And I wanted to see a film star, an old film star walking along that were really small, like John Mills. John mills is only 3 foot 7. He's very, very small. He's like a little doll. I saw him at a zebra crossing, like in a pinstripe suit. He was a little doll. I thought, you're on. Fuck, you're massive. You're a big star. But he was a little man, and it was fucking magic. He was a pixie. So all these film stars are all pixies. You know Arnold Schwarzenegger, he's four foot nine. Anyway, this song's all about a little leaf we got trapped behind. We did this gig. We went down to London to play this gig. And we were dead excited about playing in London. And we drove through the wind and the rain and it was very warm for December. And we roared down and we were and we saw and we got past Sheffield and we're back and we down towards Leicester, and the little leaf was still with us. And we got all the way down to London and we got into London and I was so happy, I cried with joy. But I didn't cry. I cried inwardly. I didn't want to show my tears to my bandmates. I just cried inwardly. I was melting like. Like a little fucking knickerbocker. Glory. And there I was. I thought, here I am finally. Chelsea Earl's Court. [01:00:21] Speaker B: This is it. [01:00:22] Speaker C: The kingdom. The enchanted kingdom, where I'll be famous and people will look up to me and, like you're looking up to me now, and I've got used to it now, but back then I wasn't used to being looked up to and adored and worshipped. You know, back then I was just another Joe on the street. I was just another guy there just making his way through life. And now it's a different story. I'm kind of strangely distant and I'm a part. And I appreciate what you're doing out there and I feel for you. You've got your fucking Christmas presents to wrap yet. I don't buy Christmas presents. Just people give me presents and I just say thank you and I sign it and then I just fucking give it back and it shit. It normally shit. But anyway, just, you know. Anyway, I don't want to tell you. I don't want to fucking bore you, but anyway, when I was young and naive and I was 56 and life was a fucking cherry and I wanted to smell that cherry and grasp it, and we did the gig in London and we were like, you know, it was so exciting and I thought, oh, there's. [01:01:23] Speaker B: Oh. [01:01:23] Speaker C: I looked over and I could see somebody from. From a famous. An artist. I thought, oh, my God, it's Jeremy Della. Oh, my God, it's fucking. It's. It's Damien Hirst. Oh, my God. Oh, shit, he's watching me. Oh, I don't know what to do. I better just do this. Oh, I'm very shy. And I went, oh. And I went, oh, I was just melting in the joy of London. And then I did it. I did the gig and we got paid 460 pound. We sold a load of CDs that night and we got back on the motorway and we're driving up the motorway and then we stopped for some petrol at the survey. It was like 185 pound for petrol. [01:01:57] Speaker B: It was like. [01:01:58] Speaker C: Then there was magazines and I got some crisps and Big bag, one of those big, big bags, you know, the £1 95. And Ben got some and Johnny as well, so. And we came back with 43 quid each. It was. And I felt strangely thwarted. But anyway, I thought, no, the little leaf was still with us on the journey. It came all the way. It was there. It was. It just stayed like a kind of impassive thing. It showed nothing. It didn't do anything, just stayed. [01:02:27] Speaker B: It was still. [01:02:28] Speaker C: It was a little piece of living matter that wasn't Living anymore. And it didn't fucking matter. But it was still there on the windscreen. [01:02:34] Speaker B: And it like. [01:02:35] Speaker C: It was like just going, mick, it's all right. Look what's happening. Just calm down. You're anxious. [01:02:41] Speaker B: You're going to get depressed. [01:02:42] Speaker C: And you don't want to get fucking depressed at Christmas because I'm just spoils it for everybody. So I wrote this song anyway. This is a song and I'm just gonna do this. I'm gonna do this for a minute. I'm gonna do this. I'm just gonna do this. That's what Kanye west does. [01:03:07] Speaker A: He just. [01:03:07] Speaker C: Fucking 20 minutes, I'm gonna do this. And everybody goes, that's fucking important. Amazing. That's just genius. He's not even speaking words all. He's just going, I'm gonna do this anyway. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna like the song that I wrote anyway. I don't know. It goes like this. I think it goes like this. Well, we carried the leaf all the way on the windscreen to London and we carried the leaf all the way on the windscreen back to Leeds. We laughed at the thought that it might just make it to Leicester but it lasted to London and it hung on to late. Sweet leap of the north you go back and forth A little brown star Come on, join in get your lighters out to guide us on our way. Sweet leap of the north you go back and forth Clap out a time if you want a symbol of hope In a world that's cold and gray now there'll come a time when you take a tumble and leave us. [01:05:30] Speaker B: And. [01:05:30] Speaker C: Fall to the town I belong you give us hope cause you're a survivor Anywhere you'll always be with us wherever we go. Come on. Sweetly above the north you go back and forth A little brown star to guide us on our ways Relief out the north you go back and forth A symbol of hope and our world is cold and gray. Sa fingered organ, four letters. I think the little leaf heard that as well.

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