Forster's Intimate Evening in Nottingham

Nottingham correspondent MisterPrime returns with a look at a special night he had on the 5th of September when Robert Forster opened the current leg of his book tour to promote 'Grant & I: Inside and Outside the Go-Betweens' at the Nottingham Rough Trade. I'm full of envy and elation in equal measure. Take it away, MisterPrime...

I'm not really much of an autograph hunter. Above and beyond the uncomfortable level of social interaction necessary to acquire them, I don't generally see the point. I went to the album launch for 'English Tapas', the latest by the Sleaford Mods, at Rough Trade Nottingham earlier in the year, saw a storming pub-sized performance by the band and picked up my copy of the record -- on very fetching red vinyl, I might add -- without feeling its intrinsic worth to me would be very much increased by it having the words "Cheers, Jason", or equivalent, scrawled somewhere on the cover in permanent marker, for example.

I can think of three notable exceptions that I have in my possession, though. One is a copy of Sugar's 'Copper Blue' on cassette, it's inlay card signed by Bob Mould. My wife -- then girlfriend -- got that one for me at a signing at Nottingham's much-missed Selectadisc record shop, presumably in 1992, as I was too nervous to queue up and ask for it myself. I also have a ticket for a Wedding Present gig at the Wherehouse in Derby (also in '92, February, in fact, the helpful Scopitones Web site informs me) that I got David Gedge to sign for my wife -- then girlfriend -- who wasn't able to make it to the gig for some, presumably common-sense, reason. The social interaction aspect was somewhat alleviated on that occasion by the fact that my friend Dave was already having a conversation with Gedge about the possibility of selling some of our fanzines off their merch table. And now I have a lovely signed copy of Robert Forster's book, 'Grant & I: Inside and Outside the Go-Betweens' that I picked up on my way to see the author promoting it with songs and chat -- again at Rough Trade -- and then got Mr. Forster to inscribe afterwards whilst he was enjoying a well-earned latte and a piece of carrot cake.

Now, it just so happens that a combination of factors (I'd inadvertently sat right by the signing table -- actually more of a rough-wood stand-up DJ bar incongruously padded up for the twin-turntables -- Forster was raring to go, signing-wise, and in general the usual crowd at Rough Trade is a little too cool to storm straight to the front) meant that I was just second in the signing queue –- after one very eager couple whose photo I had to take with the Great Man. Had I hung around for a minute or two (gone to the bar or the loo) I'd certainly not have bothered to join the room-length queue that eventually formed to shake the hand and secure the signature. That said, this was one event that certainly seemed worth the commemorating.



The evening had been billed on the Rough Trade Web site as a more compartmentalised event where journalist Pete Paphides would interview Forster before an audience Q&A and a short live set. In fact, it took the looser form of a couple of hours worth of a more 'In Conversation' format. This meant that, after his introduction, Forster strode in with his guitar, sat down just a few feet away from me at the front of the room and opened proceedings with a rendition of "Rock and Roll Friend". It was a magical moment, real hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck stuff. He explained how the woman he was seeing at the time had asked him to write a song about her -- she worked nine to five, he was out nights with the band; he, typically, wrote about himself, but from her perspective. And then, better still, a little later on he played "Karen", something more than I'd have hoped for, and a beautiful rendition, despite a preceding disclaimer that these were "the words of a 20-year-old" and he might very well forget them. (He didn’t!)



Paphides kept things on track, giving the conversation a broadly chronological structure and, as an avowed long-time fan, asking the sort of questions that made a follow-up Q&A redundant. He even refused to bring up a couple of anecdotes from the book for fear of spoiling the audience's eventual enjoyment of it. Forster was as urbane and avuncular as you would hope, not to mention scrupulously frank and honest -- and very entertaining. He used the guitar to make particular points -- about the chords he learned from Roddy Frame, for example, on tour with Aztec Camera and used to take his songwriting in a more popwardly direction. At one point, he illustrated the way that Grant's classic "Cattle and Cane" came together -- playing first the bassline and then the guitar part and then singing the first verse. (I'll swear he even adopted a slightly-more Grant-like vocal tone.) And as for the songs... well, suffice to say he played "People Say", "Part Company", "Head Full Of Steam" and "Darlinghurst Nights" -- taken on their own, a succinct enough little set of classics from the Go-Betweens canon -- and finished off with solo numbers "Learn To Burn" and "I Love Myself (And I Always Have)", though I must (shamefully) admit I'm somewhat less familiar with his more recent work.



It was a thoroughly entertaining -- often spellbinding -- evening. The intimate surroundings of the Rough Trade bar giving the feel of the kind of living-room gig you would not expect to catch an artist of this caliber in. (I must admit I'd almost missed it myself. Thanks, Brian!) Apparently there were, criminally, still a few tickets available at the door; perhaps the Curse of the Go-Betweens lives on....



As for 'Grant & I', it's been a great book so far. The prose is sharp and poetic but always warm and full of life and wit, just as you would expect. I'm only about a third of the way through, but that's because I'm deliberately reading it slowly. I definitely recommend picking up a copy -- autographed or not....

MisterPrime