In Conversation – With a Folk Band
The Interviewer meets the band ‘Casterbridge Boys’ rehearsing in the upstairs of a pub. They are a group of Westcountry old boys. Arrr!
Jack Stop! Stop! Stop! Fred, don’t forget to hit that big E chord with the doodah below when I sing ‘with lovely withers’ okay?
Fred I’s doing thart, Jack. I’s doing thart. Doodah an’ all.
Jack Alright, easy Fred.
Roly Rog Jack, is there room in this ‘un for my armpit solo?
Interviewer Hello all. I wonder if I could interrupt at this point.
Jack Please do.
Interviewer Thank you. Now, I believe you’re rehearsing for a show tonight, is that right?
Jack Yes boss, that’s right. We’ve a regular gig down at the ‘Dog’s Dinner’ pub. It’s a weekly spot that we always enjoy doing about once…
Interviewer A week?
Jack Yes, that’s right. So, anyway, it’s a bit of fun for us. We get quite a mixed crowd.
Roly Rog And reception.
Jack It’s the young ‘uns you see. They ask for ‘Smack my bitch up’ you know, stuff like that. Well I refuse point blank.
Interviewer I understand.
Jack I don’t condone violence against animals.
Fred I keep tellin’ ‘im it’s not an RSPCA rallying song. He won’t ‘ave it though.
Interviewer I see, but I imagine…
Jack The older folk, though, appreciate our particular brand of music, a mixture of folk/country/pop and old time religion. I’ll never forget, a wonderful story this…
Roly Rog Here we go.
Jack It were ‘bout two week ago, a Saturday night.
Fred Friday night.
Jack No, it were a Saturday. I remember it distinctly cause Marge didn’t have her green cardie on. She never wears her green cardie on a Saturday, she likes to dress up. So she takes off her green cardie. Anyway, we had just come to the end of one of our regular numbers – ‘Martha’s zip won’t go’ – a beautiful ballad about frustrated love. And at the end, lovely moment this, an old man walked up, must have been, what…75?
Roly Rog Older I reckon. He’d struggle to look 75 in the dark.
Jack Anyway, he came up, you know, and he leaned up to me, sort of staggered actually and he said into my listening piece, he said, ‘You know, that was probably the best thing I’ve heard since my wife told me she fancied an early night and I told her I’d try not to wake her when I got back from the pub.’
Interviewer Ha! Delightful Westcountry humour.
Jack Eh?
Interviewer So, Jack, would you say you were the leader of the band?
Jack I’m one of the founder members with Fred. I wouldn’t say we’ve got a leader as such, but I make the decisions.
Interviewer And how did you get into music?
Jack My mother really. My father died before I was born, you see.
Interviewer Really?
Jack Yeah, about a year before. So I was brought up really by my dear old mother. Wonderful woman. All the men in the village said so. She owned a B&B and they all said how accommodating she was. She had beautiful auburn hair, wild like woodland bracken and a laugh like a tractor backfiring. She smoked a lot. But she taught me the rudiments. She was always singing. All the time. People used to say she could have been the next Audrey Figgins.
Interviewer Audrey…?
Jack Audrey Figgins. A local singer, didn’t do much. Expected to be the next Lulu.
Fred No, that were Sally Nibbs. Audrey Figgins was the next Patsy Cline.
Roly Rog No! Not Patsy Cline, you’re thinking of Jenny Bogsdowne.
Jack Jenny! Nonsense. If anything, with her voice, she was the next Dusty Springfield.
Fred Bah! You must be drunk, saying things like that.
Interviewer And so, she taught you how to sing?
Jack Yes, she taught me many folk songs, songs like ‘The Lonely Woodsman’ ‘Please Yourself’ ‘You’ll surely go blind’ and ‘The Dumbstruck Rambler’. Classics.
Interviewer And of course you were a child of the sixties – The Beatles, The Stones, Flower Power. What did you make of that period in history? Did you follow its trends?
Jack Well, we didn’t go for all that tackle round these parts. The Beatles to me were like a Fresian cow – far more attractive to the eye than the ear. We tried to copy their hair style but even as a young man poor old Fred ‘ere didn’t have much hair. A comb over’s all very well but not when the hair’s coming from the back of your head. He went through a lot of chip fat to keep that Beatles look. Didn’t work really.
Fred I still attracted the ladies.
Jack They always came knocking when they wanted chips for dinner.
Interviewer So who were your influences?
Jack Well, I was more a Gumbridge Mumps man myself.
Interviewer Gumbridge Mumps?
Jack Yeah, sounds like a medical condition I know. They didn’t achieve a lot of success outside the Westcountry. But a lovely folky style they had. A combination of guitars, harmonica, drums, cow bells, wood rubbings and foot stomping.
Interviewer Ah yes. The age-old tradition of foot stomping. Can you demonstrate this to our viewers?
Jack A lost art, my friend, a lost art. Bob, how about giving us a touch of ‘Lord Wilbur’s Fancy Balls.’
Bob starts playing the tune on his violin. After a couple of bars Jack starts moving – knee up and down at high speed, moving around the room and as the knee comes up his hand slaps the thigh.
Roly Rog That’s it, Jack! That’s foot stomping!
Jack gets tired and stops, Bob stops playing. The band cheers.
Jack (panting) I tell you, when you get a whole pub with the knees going up and down, palms slapping thighs, it’s a beautiful thing.
Interviewer I can imagine it must be a real eye opener to the uninitiated.
Roly Rog A real eye closer if you’re not careful, knees going up all over the place. Only got to drop something to get bounced about like a nudist’s knockers in a volleyball game.
Interviewer True, true. Now I would love you to play something for me in a minute, but first, could you tell me a little about the formation of the band?
Jack Oh well, we’re all Westcountry lads. Known Fred ‘bout forty year, man and boy. Been with me longer than puberty. Still a miserable bugger. Met bassist and homosexual Dave at a Kazoo Fair in Barnstaple.
Dave I’m not really gay. The only reason they say I’m gay is cause I’m the only one in the band with an indoor toilet.
Jack Soft lad. Hardship is what gives you character.
Dave I don’t think I want the kind of character that comes from having your buttocks frozen to a toilet seat, thank you.
Jack That only happened once…
Interviewer And then there’s Roly Rog.
Jack Well, of course Roly Rog came through an advert.
Interviewer I see, you advertised for a drummer.
Jack No. In fact I advertised for a greyhound trainer for my dog. Thought I could earn a bit if I had it trained. Hopeless thing really. Wouldn’t chase the rabbit. Put a pork chop under its nose, it’d chase that. Not a rabbit. Anyway, Rog came along and it soon became clear he had natural rhythm. He even farts in 4/4 time.
Interviewer And that just leaves your violinist and backing singer…
Jack Barbecue Bob.
Interviewer Why Barbecue Bob?
Jack He came to us with this unusual tan, he looked like a burnt chicken rib.
Bob I’d been living in Spain.
Jack So we called him Barbecue Bob. He’s well travelled is Bob.
Roly Rog Like the plague.
Bob I’m a free spirit. I like to roam.
Jack That’s true. He moves around a lot, like a flea with an itch. Of course, we used to have a keyboard player. We had to let him go.
Interviewer Not good enough?
Jack No, no, it weren’t that. No, he had a problem.
Fred Damn right he did.
Jack He had that swearing thing you know where you keep shouting rude words.
Interviewer Tourettes?
Jack That’s it, chew-its. At first we thought he was just getting into the music, getting a bit carried away, you know. But then we decided to have a go at that Simon and Garfunkel classic ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ and he spoiled it really. It’s a ballad you see. And when you’re singing ‘like a Bridge over Troubled Water’ and your keyboard player keeps shouting ‘Piss!’ and ‘Sewage Crap!’ it spoils it.
Interviewer Yes, I understand. Now, just before you sing, there’s one other important part of your life as a band to mention – your hit singles! Your breakthrough to nationwide fame in the mid-seventies with that wonderful song, ‘Who was that?’ How did that song come about?
Jack ‘Who was that?’ People still ask for that song. You know, I wrote it in 10 minutes at a pig market. There was a woman walked past me, young and lovely, and there was a glance between us, just a glance and half a smile and she was gone, I lost her amongst the sows. I immediately pulled out my tin whistle and wrote the song. I never saw her again.
Interviewer You created huge newspaper headlines at this time with that chicken incident, leading to the other big hit, ‘Don’t count your eggs.’
Jack It was a difficult period. Whenever you’re accused of egg thievery it’s always difficult. But I was found not guilty, so…
Interviewer And I believe that song has recently been re-released.
Jack In Albania yes. It was released there recently to enormous acclaim amongst the egg community.
Roly Rog They were egg-static about it. We just thought it was wonderfowl.
Fred Oh dear God.
Interviewer And so, to finish us off, I wonder if we could now hear you in action. Would that be possible?
Jack A pleasure. Lets see, how about doing one of our recent compositions lads – ‘Mollie is a cow’.
Fred/Roly Rog Why not? / Ready when you are.
The band get ready and then a drum roll from Roly Rog, the violin starts up and then the guitars and finally Jack starts singing.
Jack ‘Now Mollie is my favourite,
Chewing all the cud,
She walks around the pastures
Rolls in all the mud,
Everybody loves her, cuter than a sow,
But oh no Mollie is no woman,
No Mollie is a cow.
(Chorus)
Mollie is a cow (She’s a cow/ She’s a cow)
Yes Mollie is a cow (not a woman no no)
She’s sweet and nice and loves to play
But when people say,’ Is she a woman?’
I say, ‘oh no, no, no, Mollie is a cow!’
(Violin solo)
(Repeat chorus)
And all the men ask for a woman like that,
To love and kiss and give a pat -
Mollie is a cow.’
The music comes to an end.
Interviewer What a delightful song. Thank you ‘Casterbridge Boys’ for being with me ‘In Conversation’. And so it’s goodbye from me.
The band starts up another song, it’s the opening chords to their big hit ‘Who was that?’
Jack ‘She stood out from all the pigs,
Down at the market,
She wore wellies and cider droplets on her chin,
She looked at me and a smile played about her gums,
Oh who was that? Oh who was that?’
The music fades out.
The End