The MC5 and Friends

The 100 Club, London

THURSDAY MARCH 13, 2003

When the motorbike police started lining up ready to charge, in Chicago, 1968, The MC5 finished “Kick Out The Jams” before they ran. They came together in a time that, it seems, can’t be got back, when street politics, guitar-playing and a punk attitude could be a rock band’s inseparable parts. If he’d been asked, and been alive, Joe Strummer would surely have been first on stage singing with their remnants tonight. As it is, the whispered substitutes for legendarily Afro-ed singer Rob Tyner and co-guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith, both dead before the last century was done, never show. There’ll be other surprises, good and bad, before this night is over. But all that ever really matters is the three men who take the stage first, unexpectedly together after 30 years, because, in the way of things, Levi’s Jeans are promoting an MC5 T-shirt.

Michael Davis, bass, still runs in deeper waters than that. The oldest MC, crew-cut and leathery, like a B-movie veteran in a Tarantino film, he alone here takes every second seriously, and in his stride. Drummer Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson stays invisible behind a pillar. Wayne Kramer, guitar, in black-rimmed glasses and suit, is tight, clinical, the all-business pro. “From De-troit, Michigan!” he introduces the band, before acknowledging why they can never be The MC5, and won’t try. “We’re here to celebrate Fred Smith, and the work of Brother Rob Tyner. They’re here right now in our hearts, and they’re here in this music.” Brother Davis is asked to add a word. “I don’t know what I’m gonna say,” he rumbles, awkward. “So let’s play.”

First guest up is Nick Royale of Swedish rockers The Hellacopters, baseball-capped and adequate. Next is some kind of bizarre Bono impersonator, with a jet-black, piled quiff and shades. It’s The Damned’s Dave Vanian, it transpires, a more reasonable guest for the punk godfathers than Ian Astbury, who takes time off from “The Doors” to lend his one-size-fits-all rent-a-rock-roar, unfortunately, to “Kick Out The Jams”. Only when Lemmy unexpectedly stalks past me, looking almost nervous, does a man who understands the shoes he’s filling seize the stage. “How ya doin’?” comes a voice scraped raw by cigarettes, or straight razors. “Well, we’ll soon fix that…” Coal-black eyes somehow flash, it’s like Bill The Butcher’s up there savaging “Sister X”, and then “Born In The USA.”, a near-half-century-old Chuck Berry song that somehow still tips the MC3 into a loose, rebel roll, and the crowd into rapture. That’s when the night stops being a museum piece, the music’s breathing on its own now. “Vision getting crossed…,” I scrawl in my notes.

Meanwhile, the MCs just play the tunes, bending and shaking with the simple gut-squall of “The American Ruse” (a nailed lie that just gets bigger), “Shakin’ Street”, “Tonight”. Kramer sings sometimes, no nearer than anyone else to rolling back the years and making this music of insurrection, music that gave you five seconds to choose sides, for life. His attempt at Sun Ra cosmic consciousness-raising, in an impromptu encore of free jazz squonks?Davis: “We didn’t rehearse one more motherfuckin’ song”?doesn’t lift off, either. But the grace with which these three men who started so much grasp their old roles again, sneaking smiles at each other as it slots into place and one more crowd sweats and leaps in a basement at midnight, is something to see. The Motor City didn’t make many better; and they have some juice in them yet.

Badly Drawn Boy

THE COMEDY STORE, MANCHESTER

SUNDAY MARCH 9, 2003

The first time Uncut saw Damon Gough, he was an unknown artist opening for a stage-shy Smog in an eccentric Manchester pub. Since then, he’s collaborated with Charlotte Gainsbourg, won the Mercury Music Prize, scored the soundtrack for a Nick Hornby adaptation, released three albums and established himself as a sensitive and enigmatic songwriter capable of writing brilliant and beguiling pop songs. Lest we forget, he’s also become a legendary live performer, known to baffle, bemuse, frustrate and hypnotise his audiences with long sets and peculiar onstage banter. As a result, nobody’s quite sure what to expect from tonight’s seated solo set?billed as his only UK show this year.

Visibly emotional, Gough shuffles onto the tiny stage an hour before midnight, observes the 500 diehard fans in the audience, friends and family packed into the intimate venue, and immediately confesses he’s feeling “incredibly humble and nervous”. He lights a cigarette, takes a swing of beer and thanks label mates Aidan Smith and Jane Weaver for their captivating sets before launching into an exhilarating version of Bewilderbeast opener “The Shining”. It’s followed closely by passionate renditions of “The Golden Days” and “Once Around The Block”, which are stripped down to their basic melodies as he switches between acoustic guitar and grand piano.

A self-confessed Springsteen obsessive, he then dedicates a version of the raw, heartfelt cover of “Thunder Road”?originally recorded for last month’s Uncut tribute CD?to his mum, a trembling smile on his face. It’s one of many endearing moments and as he sings “It’s a town full of losers and I’m pulling out of here to win”, you can almost hear his heart pounding with pride and fear.

The rest of the two-and-a-half-hour set comprises early rarities (“Rollercoaster”, “Road Movie”, “I Love You All”), live favourites (“40 Days, 40 Fights”, “All Possibilities”, “Something To Talk About”, “Donna And Blitzen”) and selected tracks from his critically acclaimed debut (“Pissing In The Wind”, “Rockslide”, “Disillusion”).

Some are kept deceptively simple pop songs with killer hooks, others are completely reinvented, with new arrangements and improvised lyrics. Intriguingly, he only plays a handful of songs from his Uncut album of the month, Have You Fed The Fish?, preferring to entertain us with sketches of works-in-progress and poignant covers of “Let The Sun Shine In” and The Smiths’ “Oscillate Wildly”, the latter dedicated to Andy Rourke, a full time member of his backing band since early 2002.

Treated to a well-deserved, standing ovation, Gough returns for an encore that includes life-affirming renditions of “How?” and “Magic In The Air”. A good friend of the late Clash singer, he tells an hilarious story about meeting the pioneers of punk (“Joe Strummer was a gentleman, John Lydon was a fucking knobhead”) before closing the set with a triumphant “I Was Wrong, You Were Right”?changing the chorus to “And I remember doing nothing the night Joe Strummer died.” The response is instant and overwhelming. You’ve come a long way, baby.

One of the oddest gigs I’ve seen in a long time. The weathered Leven sings mournful songs of loss and regret in a rich, soulful voice. He’s a big poetry man, quoting Pablo Neruda on his new album Shining Brother Shining Sister. Yet, more often than he’s being a melancholic, working-class minstrel, he’s being a man of the people in an entirely different manner. For at least half his time onstage, he tells bawdy shaggy dog stories. If he wasn’t sitting on a stool, he’d be a great stand-up.

Most of his tales are filthy; one explores the similarity between cheap dog food and human faeces, at interminable length. He’s a natural, and his fiftysomething followers are in fits of laughter, but it means any mood evoked by the songs is chucked out with the bathwater. You come expecting Johnny Cash; you leave having witnessed Johnny Vegas.

You’d say he’s in the wrong line of work, except he’s a lifer. An authentic folk-hero, Leven was once in post-punk enigmas Doll By Doll, but has for decades toured as a broody balladeer. He’ll sing anytime, anywhere. He’s survived a troubled personal life of various addictions and crashes, but clearly relishes the role of wiser, wizened, antipretty spokesman for his fans?most of whom seem to share his Scottish/Irish connections and his age group. One imagines that to Leven-ites the word “strokes” conjures up medical histories rather than some hot young band.

Flanked by two colleagues, ironically named his “Sex Trio”, Leven lilts through his sorrowful songs. You think of L S Lowry?noble stooping northerners and all that. “Another Man In The Old Arcade” and “Classic Northern Diversions” are splendid examples of his new material. But mostly, you’re still thinking of Johnny Vegas’ jowls. The scatological anecdotes stretch on forever. He’s either shooting himself in the foot or, after a life fully lived, displaying cavalier career apathy.

We learn that on a train recently Leven engaged in a surreal conversation with a(nother) drunk. That in Cardiff, he stared at “an enormous human shite” on the pavement. And that his girlfriend, through a series of what must be called “comic misunderstandings”, thinks he’s got trouble with his bowels. It’s funny at the time?well, for some of the time. Leven’s supporting Richard Thompson in Europe, then touring the UK. One hopes his inner Roy Orbison turns up, not his inner Roy Chubby Brown.