Main: Scrapbook 87-88

Pulp

Dave Taylor: "Pulp strike me as a really special band, I mean they've been going for five years and hardly sold a record. They should have a higher profile, because they deserve it."

Amrik Rai: "I'd be interested in Pulp if they could make a classic garage Scott Walker track."

Ogy McGrath: "Jarvis is a star. There's no reason why Elaine Page doesn't cover his songs for her Christmas album."

I meet Pulp in Jarvis' mother's home, where they practise in the garden shed. The well-meaning but deranged family pet, Bonzo, is hurtling uncontrollably around the room, and a member of The Mission is having his tea in the kitchen. A typical day.

"We're a big influence on The Mission," says Jarvis. and he might not be joking.

They're currently trying to negotiate a move from Fire Records to FON in order to release the single Don't You Want Me Anymore? / Rattlesnake.

"Dave Taylor's spent more on pizzas for us than Fire ever spent on our promotion" says Russell.

"Eastern European folk music is our biggest influence," he admits. (They're not joking about this either - a 'top' Yugoslav producer wanted to work with them and they've been banned in Romania).

"You can dance to our music, but it's easier if you're a cossack."

Pulp are deserving of your attention. I saw them at the Leadmill a few days later, and they were as splendid as ever.

The Limit, Sheffield

PULP, WHO like to change every now and then, like Doctor Who, are playing tonight with a new sound from a new line up, but they still look and sound like no-one else in the world.

This is not just because they use strange instruments like a violin and electric organ - it's because their way of making music is theirs and theirs alone, owing allegiance to no-one.

But they have changed. They sound positive now and demand attention, whereas their recent L.P. Freaks, recorded a year ago, sounds much more introspective. This is, I suppose appropriate for "Ten stories about power, claustrophobia, suffocation and holding hands." They only played two songs from Freaks tonight, but the new material still has the same tone: "That song was about dying", says Jarvis Cocker. "Actually, this next one's about dying as well."

Its folly to compare Pulp on stage to Pulp on record, however, because they do like to put on a show. Tonight we had bubbles, yards of tin foil, glowing orange globes, a slide projector and cine film of motor racing, as well as Jarvis' repartee and dancing. All this in a night club like an underground car park.

Pulp used to be interesting. Now they're wicked.

David Bocking

PULP
LONDON BABYLON REVISITED

IT HAS been known for Jarvis Cocker to be wheeled on stage in a bathchair before. The only props tonight were a pair of maracas and a tin foil backdrop but there was no lack of play acting.

Jarvis lurches and leaps like Freddie Garrity with contact lenses, backed by an electric violin, toytown organ and... isn't that Suggs on drums?

Pulp music sounds like nothing you've ever heard. At their best, songs like 'Love Is Blind' are like the epics you invent in your head on the way home from the pub. Pulp perform them in a similarly inebriated manner.

At other times though, their sense of theatre gets the better of them - remember DAF's 'Kebab Traume'? Well it doesn't mean that in English but it often sounded like the singer was having a kebab trauma tonight. Belching and retching noises do not make for top entertainment now, do they?

In Jarvis's book, love is a never ending David Lynch film — songs like 'Going Back To Find Her' are as black as pitch. Pulp want to be as horribly compelling as a circus freakshow. Taking 'Yellow River', 'The Devil Went Down To Georgia' and Leonard Cohen for inspiration they come across like an amateur dramatic society hamming it up deliberately to upset the vicar.

An all new set meant the songs were unfamiliar to even the faithful few who turned up. The forthcoming FON single should win them a few more converts but judging by tonight's performance Pulp would be wise to enter the Eurovision Song Contest. I kid you not, they could win it.

Bob Stanley

Dark Pulp see the light

PULP'S new album was recorded a year ago, but has only recently found its way onto local record shelves.

Called Freaks. It fuels the Fire dispute rumours (sorry) and the theory that the group and their label are no longer seeing eye to eye. And much of the delay was caused because Input Studios quite rightly refused to release the master tapes to Fire until they were paid for.

Since then Jarvis and Russell have parted company with the rest of the band, and Candida has left and returned to the fold.

But the album has now seen the light of day, and is a statement of Pulp then if not necessarily now. It is a claustrophobic album, prying on the fears of so many of us and littered with disturbing imagery, vocals and sounds.

It's an album that attempts to peer into the darkest corners of the mind, searching for weak links in the mental armour and wiggling into the subconscious. And having done that much Pulp's attempts to explore new musical avenues become much easier, and their pumped organ and ratchety violins sound somehow appropriate in this context.

The band are said to have developed a new sound in the last few months and have recruited Jass drummer Nick Banks and Steven Havenhand on bass. They will be be playing at The Limit on Tuesday.

You'd better look over your shoulder, because Jarvis Cocker is watching you. He's watching everybody, taking note of all the little idiosyncrasies and petty insanities that pass as 'normal'. Jarvis is the mainspring of Pulp, another band you've probably never heard of. Not their own fault, mind, Pulp's crime is that they choose to be slightly unclassifiable, an awkward little peg that won't fit into any convenient indie-pop/rock/art/folk round hole. This is of course no bad thing....

"Hey we're all freaks inside" says Jarvis, and it's this concept (oops! Dirty word! ) of 'freaks' -"They're just normal people gone a bit wrong, that's all. Something happened to them and they never got over it" - that permeates Pulp's more recent material. Tales of the emotionally blighted, the bitter, the twisted, some of them sad, some of them evil, some of them stuck somewhere between the two. Jarvis knows them all and sings them all in his best Lenny Cohen meets Bing Crosby voice. OK it sounds a bit pretentious and I suppose sometimes it is, but that's a risk taken by any band that tries to step over the accepted boundaries and do something out of the ordinary. And Pulp, with their violins and flutes and wheelchair and steam organ smeared liberally over the standard guitar/bass/drums, are doing just that.

From their beginnings in 1983 as an unassuming pop band whipping up a frothy mixture of Simon and Garfunkel and Felt and Jazz-Butcherishness and even Rodgers and Hammerstein (check out 'Love Love' on their gorgeous 'It' mini-LP, it sounds like a show-stopper from 'Oliver! or something........) to create lovely wafting songs like 'My Lighthouse' and 'There Was...', Pulp have progressed through numerous Iine-ups and numerous tunnels to something much darker and menacing - their music teetering from sweet Lou Reedy tunes through feedback-soaked discord all the way to Euro-disco on their next single (if Fon ever decide to release it), the charmingly-titled 'Death Comes To Town'. It's an uneasy cocktail, permanently ready to curdle into unappetising stodge, but somehow Pulp manage (usually) to get away with it through their innate style and ravaging, acidic self-belief. Seven years of various Pulps playing to enthusiastic audiences of mainly devoted fans in their native Sheffield , but anywhere else? Nothing. They need that self-belief: they are good and they know it and I know it but when so few others seem to realise.... It would be too easy to give up...... So Pulp soldier on in their intrepid wayward brilliance.

And the Pulp live experience is something special too: there they go boldly not fearing to tread the boards of the dreaded 'art' circuit with costumes, stage props (such as Jarvis' wheelchair which he used to appear in whenever the fancy took him), lights, films, no whipdancers, mind, but I'm sure they'll pop up soon. Pulp create an environment and suck you into their own twilight world of dark streets, high rises, naked emotions and barely-controlled madness. In the same way as the twisted visions of the early Fall made you reconsider what was going on around you, Pulp will force you to think again........

PULP records you will enjoy...

'My Lighthouse'/'Looking For Life' Red Rhino 7'' (1983)
'It' 7-song mini-LP on Red rhino (1983)
'Everybody's Problem'/''There Was...' Another 1983 Red Rhino 7"
'Little Girl (with Blue Eyes)' 4-song 12" (Fire) 1985
'Dogs Are Everywhere' 5-song brilliant 12" (Fire 1986)
'They Suffocate At Night'/'Tunnel' 7" & 12" (Fire 1986)
'Freaks' prorer LP (Fire 1986 again)
'Master Of The Universe' 3-song 12" (Fire 1987) - a bit dodgy sadly
'Death Comes to Town'/(House Mix!!) Fon 12" - will it ever emerge?

PULP

I've now seen the 'new' Pulp more times than the last one, and they get better everytime. The violent Magnus/Manners Pulp was brilliant, but that has passed, live for today. Nowadays? Less or more violence? I'm not too sure... I used to think less, but sat in the studio the other day, this Pulp seemed barely removed from the old one. The angriness is still there, but more frequently softened by a more comfortable rhythm. They 'rock out' with "My Legendary Girlfriend", and then it's back into some East European asylum for "rattlesnakes" But listen to "My First Wife", it manages to combine both styles... probably my fave of the new songs. They are now recording for Fon ("Don't You Want Me" and "Rattlesnakes" are already 'in the can'), and records shouldn't be too many months away. Live... red globe, car crashes, bubbles, pretty colours, lights are now part of the experience. The thin line between brilliance and insanity is being trod upon, is Cocker a genius or a freak ?

PULP

SHEFFIELD LEADMILL

"Give me some warmth'", teases Jarvis Cocker, fashion-defying front man and, if you will, 'auteur' of Pulp, the Sheffield five-piece who balance precariously on the hairline between eccentricity and madness. Sporting a provocative spangly jumper pilfered from Crystal Tipps' wardrobe, and a pair of 'challenging' slacks, Jarvis is a man to make even Mark E Smith appear to be a regular client of the world's couture houses.

This is an important night A new single is currently heading towards your local record emporium, and it is effectively, the Pulp 'comeback' following Jarvis' relocation to London.

Five years ago. you'd know Pulp were playing when the local supermarket suddenly ran out of Bacofoil and crêpe paper was harder to come by than an off licence in Riyadh. Nowadays, it's different. Puip have concentrated more on stage presence than onstage presentation.

Imagine Engelbert Humperdinck playing with The Fall. Now relax a little more, and think of Vanessa Paradis playing with a child's keyboards, a psychotic David Byrne stabbing at an electric violin whilst, and this is absolutely true, Gordon Banks' nephew nonchalantly slaps a curiously small drumkit.

Jarvis meanders through the Pulp back catalogue before introducing the forthcoming Fire single, 'My Legendary Girlfriend', an odd song with a sublime '60s film score chorus. They leave us with, perhaps, the Pulp classic, 'Little Girl (With Blue Eyes)', the archetype of the Cocker canon. A simple, captivating melody concealing a disturbing tale of incest, death and despair.

Unlike the laboured 'we are weird' image of World Of Twist, Pulp are the real McCoy, a genuine oddity.

PULP
LEADMIILL, SHEFFIELD

PULP have splashed this strangely since 1979. That's 10 years of comic tension, a decade of bizarre normality. Pulp wear wing-collar shirts borrowed from "Man About The House". It all adds up to a curious pastiche or grotesque elevation of Northern Working Class Culture until keyboardist Candida drops us into "Don't You Want Me Any More?", an emphatic electro arabesque of early Eighties vintage. PULP recapture Sudden Sway's predilection for the florid and the sordid, the sublime and the gorblimey. Singer Jarvis is a classic post-lggy crooner with a voice as lugubriously deadpan, as definitively Yorkshire as Oakey.

"Love Is Blind" is an off-kilter oddity that pursues tonight's plan of disruption, Jarvis straying into vocal territories previously inhabited by Gene Pitney, Jim Morrison and Jacques Brel. He looks like Richard O'Sullivan. Pulp tap into that Sheffield tradition of ABC, Human League, Heaven 17, organisations that spike their perfect pop confections with something awkward or eccentric. But Pulp's intellectual packaging does not prevent them from jangling our synapses. "Separarion" is a lonesome spine-tickler that eschews ironic detachment in a direct bid for the tear-ducts.

"Rattlesnake" is a dotty polka-and-ballalaikas shuffle that conveniently disinters "Rasputin" now that Bjork reckons we can shimmy to Boney M again. "Death Comes To Town" puts the hardest hearts into the liquidiser, a sincerely sorrowful lament. "Legendary Girlfriend" is revelatory dance-rock fever while "This House Is Condemned" is a hectic Acid jackhammer as DAF-t as Nitzer, with a restless synth-riff as rivetting as "Can You Party?" No joke. Pulp is everything.

PAUL LESTER

VARIOUS ARTISTS: Year One' (Premonition) -Sheffield cassette label celebrates its birthday with tracks from Pulp, Dig Vis Drill, Tools You Can Trust, Pick Meter wilh Mike Keane, Attrition. The Noseflutes.Ambrose Reynolds (Pink Industry), Death Trash and The Venus Fly Trap. £2.74 from Premonition Tapes, Freepost, Sheffield S11 3TE.

THE PULP INTERVIEW

Along with the equally excellent Blue Aeroplanes and Colenso Parade, PULP have formed a crucial part of the Fire records tour-de-force. Originally treading the boards back in 1983, the Sheffield-based group have re-energed this year with only Jarvis Cocker remaining from the previous line-up, and have to date offered us 3 splendid 12-inch singles, with an album coming v. soon. No strangers to controversy, Pulp's first release for Fire, the haunting 'Little Girl (With Blue Eyes)', had a BBC ban slapped on it due to the direct nature of the lyric. Were the band surprised by this?

Jarvis: "Not really I suppose. There seems to be an attitude that anything is acceptable in pop music as long as it's never put directly; e.g. it's all right to say 'Let's make love tonight baby I wanna feel your body' but not 'There's a hole in your heart and one between your legs'. I wasn't too surprised."

Guitarist/vocalist Russell puts the other side of the coin: "I was very surprised seeing as we'd been playing that song live and on local radio for years and nobody had ever passed comment on it. I suppose that we thought it was pretty tame really. What really cracked us up was that Jane Solanas, a feminist writer for the NME, gave it the biggest slagging off."

As Sheffield has a fine track record for producing groups, I wondered what Pulp saw as the pros and cons of hailing from the city, and how important it was not to be seen as 'just another Sheffield band'.

Jarvis: "we'd rather not even be thought of as another band, let alone another Sheffield band. We play music so obviously we're seen as a band, but music is just our chosen form of communication really. Nice tunes are all very well but a song should get something across as well. As for Sheffield, it's big and smelly. There's no scene - just lots of people trying to outshoot each other." Russell reciprocates this view: "In Sheffield the 'local' stigma is a pretty difficult one, i.e. there's an image of what Sheffield music sounds like (A cross between New York funk and a steel factory) and we don't sound like it. What pisses me off is that the tag doesn't fit Sheffield at all. We're proud to be part of the varied and very healthy scene that is Sheffield music. For the record I feel that Pulp stem very much from Sheffield's industrial culture, but that doesn't mean we can only appeal to Sheffield people or that we sound horrible. Something to do with having to make your own beauty because the sights and smells around you all offend the senses.. Now the 'scene' is entirely different and there are a lot more bands like us (i.e. with songs rather than noises or textures) doing interesting things."

I make mention of the song 'Will to Power', to be found on the 12" of 'Little Girl', which attracted some criticism due to its (ahem) right wing connotations. Russell, who wrote the song, expands: "To be honest, I wasn't too surprised at the Nazi flak we got. It is in fact a real commie anthem dedicated to Arthur Scargill, and Nelson Mandela and the I.R.A. The reason it got flak is:
1) it mentions 1933 (the year Hitler came to power)
2) the title is also a book of Nietzsche writings compiled by the Nazis and taken out of context to try and prove their race theories.
3) I look very similar to Adolph Hitler(!). On a couple of occassions I've had to dash out of my local when yobbos started chanting 'Zieg Heil!' and taking the piss."

To their eternal credit, Pulp shun any attempt to look self-consiously hip (or indeed self-consiously unhip) in their appearance. For despite Jarvis' own admittance that "we are usually told that we look like a party of inmates from an asylum on a day trip", Russell is quick to point out that Pulp's image is important the more so because it's not a chosen or contrived one. Jarvis agrees: "We don't attempt to avoid current trends", adding "we can't help it if we're 2 years ahead of everyone else!"

Russell thinks that there are too many easy reference points in most bands, to the extent that people will tend to fashion their lifestyle according to the types of bands they go to see, citing batcave music as a prime example. So where do Pulp fit into the scheme of things, Russell?

"There's a big gap between the sugary horrible pop charts and the ugly spiky indie sludge and there aren't too many bands in the middle though that's where our future lies I reckon. I think what we do is normal and healthy and what a lot of people are looking for - music that sounds beautiful but doesn't insult your intelligence isn't that absurd a thing to do."

Overall I reckon Russell has every justification for saying this - listen particularly to the first 2 Fire singles, both truly tender but with a lyrical twist in the tail, or the eerie, relentless 'Aborigine', or the tranquil beauty of 'Goodnight', featuring Jarvis at his gravest, if you don't believe me.

If I had to compare them with someone, I suppose The Velvets spring to mind, but really, trite comparisons do Pulp no favours at all, and more importantly they can never hope to communicate the many facets of Pulp. The best way to find out is to buy one of their records, and find out for yourself. Enlightenment is just around the corner.

Photos:
PULP - 1987 style. Possibly the most musically talented party of inmates you will ever see.
PULP as we knew and loved them back in 1983. Only Jarvis Cocker remains from this original line-up, who released an album and a couple of singles on Red Rhino.

Pulp have been around since, it seems, almost the beginning of time - every few months putting out another exquisite piece of vinyl, every few months being ignored by the record-buying public at large. Last year their "Little Girl (With Blue Eyes)" and "Dogs Are Everywhere" singles gained a bit of ground. Now with a new single, "They Suffocate At Night", and LP "Freaks" (both on Fire Records) we have the chance to see whether Pulp will at last gain the recognition they deserve. We met Jarvis Cocker at his typically bizarre flat situated between a boxing club and a Boys Brigade hall (!), to talk about "Freaks" :

"It tends to be about freaks - either the songs are freaks or the people in them are. It's not a concept record in that all the tracks are linked or anything like that."

Do you write about people you know?

"Not too much. You can't make it too obvious or you lose your friends don't you? It's a bit like exploiting your private life if you only see people to get some raw material."

"We do quite a few 'love songs' I suppose. The thing that's got them a bad name is all the crappy ones - it's still a good subject to write about, especially if you can come up with a new angle on it."

"It's about time we made the charts, we've paid our dues (sarcastically spoken). You want lots of people to come to your concerts and as many to buy your records as possible. It's not necessarily the money that matters tho' I suppose that's a good thing. You're shouting at the top of your voice and you want people to listen to you."

"We wouldn't be able to change our music to make it more 'commercial'. You've got to like what you're doing to be bothered about it. You've got just about as much chance of making it by doing what you want as you have if you try tailoring it to somebody else's thing. It's better driving a bandwagon than jumping on one. You shouldn't say to record companies - "Oh, fuck off, we're artists", better to learn to work within the business and turn it to your advantage."

What about the music press ?

"Don't like them. A lot of them are failed musicians - Austin's (Dig Vis Drill) theory is that that's why they like bands who can't play very well - because it makes them look better. The press doesn't count for as much as people think it does. We've had good reviews and had single of the week in Melody Maker and I'm still sat here talking to you lads. I'm not on my way to the Bahamas."

Do you feel any need to get a political message across?

"Not really. Rueaell writes some political stuff. I haven't got much original to say - You can go "We don't like Margaret Thatcher" but a lot of people think that anyway, and a lot of people have said it. Doing benefits is better; you can align yourself with a cause without having to write "Smash The System" in your songs. You shouldn't let politics dominate your life too much otherwise you end up having a very boring life. It's better to make the most of life rather than worrying about the government all the time. But don't ignore it."

Tell us about other local bands.

"They're alright. Most of them aren't true blue dyed-in-the-wool Sheffield. All these 'industrial' bands; Chakk and Hul[a] and all that...You can get some nice steel sounds around here - there's a grinding place just to the side (points out of window), so you may as well listen to that rather than go and buy one of their records. Chakk's studio is just down the road, so I can't say anything too nasty or they'll come up here and beat me up.

"Dig Vis Drill are a good band but they play concerts in stupid places like under a stone somewhere outside Norwich where about four people go to see them. They ought to do better than that. Treebound Story aren't too bad, okay for background music, nice bunch of lads. Mr Morality, I know them so I can't be too nasty about them. They've got one or two good songs but he's (Steve Genn) a bit too obsessed with becoming a pop star."

Are you planning to carry on in music for a long time?

"Not if nothing happens after this new record comes out, I might get fed up and want to try something else. Is that mercenary? You've got to feel that you're moving forward, progressing. I'd do something completely different to prove I wasn't a one-track mind man. Music is alright but it's not everything is it? People shouldn't get too obsessed with it, there's a lot more interesting things... like the countryside. [...?] it's their main topic of conversation. You end up writing songs about guitars or songs about life on the road or songs about soundchecks, which is a bit boring."

Who do you admire ?

"People who manage to survive in Sheffield without walking round being mangy all the time. It's not a good idea to have heroes. I thought Leonard Cohen was alright but I went to see him in London and he was playing all guitar solos, stuff like that. I didn't like him any more. Most famous people have got some twattish things about them but you only get to hear about the good things."

What about chart bands ?

"The Pet Shop Boys! Now they've ripped us off, let's have it said. Their new single "Suburbia"... we've got a song called "Nights Of Suburbia", and theirs has got some lines about dogs in it, which goes back to our last single "Dogs Are Everywhere". But I quite like them, they've got some quite nice Abba-type tunes. The lead singer's a bit of a prissy thing and can get on your nerves, but they're okay. Then again you can like some records just because they're so crap, like Modern Talking."

5 Star?

"No, they're just too crap, I'm afraid."

So tell us about your accident, Jarvis.

"I was just trying to get from one windowl edge to another, hanging by my fingers. I realised I didn't have the strength to do it, or to climb back in, so I had to count to 3 and let go. It was a long way down. If any children are reading, I wouldn't recommend it. I was laid up for a bit, and it gave me time to think about things. It made me realise I didn't have a guardian angel looking after me - you tend to think you'd always get out of a situation like that, get some strength from somewhere, but I couldn't find it. There was no dramatic music like there is in films when somebody's hanging off a cliff, it was just pathetic."

PULP

What is PULP?

PULP is a strange creature, living on the left-overs of broken marriages, perverted sadistic 'love' affairs, the sucking of the afflicted, violence in the subway and the slow, deliberate torchuring of your senses.

PULP is also perfection... evil perfection.

Each portion of this terrifying beast tells its own story, revealing traumas to your eyes and screaming to your ears before the sound is crushed and disposed of in the flotsam.

On the drums, MAGNUS moves in a hopeless arc of some unheard rhythm, dancing rto some longlost childhood singalong from his psychadelic past.

CANDIDA nervously peers over the edge of her Farfisa into the city streets below. "Why is everything so bad in my life?"

MANNERS hides in the shadows, wielding his weapon that is poised to destroy any descent creature.

RUSSELL spins wildly at the fairground his head becoming his feet. He stares madly at the devil perched menacingly on his violin. Whirling manically, he manages only to dislodge the beast, which takes refuge in the shadows.

Or does it?

Perhaps it possesses The Master of the Universe - JARVIS cries out in despair, trying to exorcise the beast which will not budge, and slowly, JARVIS moves closer to the edge, screaming wildly as he reaches it, only to be pulled from the brink for yet another final breath.

Be aware of this bizzare beast, for soon, your noses[?] will be infested by it - on your turntables, your televisions, your books, magazines and the pictures on your walls.

The beast is growing.

PULP - Sheffield's answer to malaria.

+ + + +

A new PULP single should be around by now, but if it isn't, it will be soon. "They Suffocate At Night"/"Tunnel" will be available in 7 & 12" form. With different mixes on each. A video to the A side was filmed on October 24th in a Sheffield warehouse.

In it, a mechanics pit was mocked-up to look like a room, in which Steve Genn (Mr. Morality) and Saskia Cocker (Jarvis' sister) acted out a 'Love scene', with the band looking down on them. In another scenario, the band performed on an 8' high 'stage', under which there was more acting, amongst hanging bags of coloured water. Other scenes feature Russell's photocopy art object "The Will To Power", and people wrapped in cling-film and trapped in cages.

I've seen the finished product (without sound) and it's very well produced. You may see it down at the Limit or the Leadmill, and copies have been sent around the TV stations.

After Christmas, February should see the release of the LP "Freaks". The 10 tracks "No Emotion", "Master Of The Universe", "Suffocate", "Never-ending Story", "Fairground", "Anorexic Beauty", "Don't You Know", "Life Must Be So Wonderful", "I Want You" and "Being Followed Home" were recorded in July and re-mixed in September. (Production by Pulp & Jonothan Kirk).

I've heard all the tracks except the last one and I can assure you that it's a classic album.

In Spring, "Master.." and "Manon" will be released on a single.

This also has an accompanying video which is supposed to feature the band leaping around on a lunar landscape (which is really a painting!) and is very tongue-in-cheek.

"Manon" is already available on the "Imminent 4" compilation. Other bands on the album include the Dentists, the Rain, Easterhouse, McCarthy and the Brilliant Corners.

PULP are also featured on the Record Mirror's "Fruitcake and Furry Collars" LP, performing "Don't You Know" ('The best three piano notes ever played... Great stuff from the greatest band ever to have a wheelchair onstage for the singer'). Other bands include the Woodentops, the Fall, and the Wild Flowers.

On November 8th, PULP supported (!!!) the Railway Children at the Leadmill's Oxfam benefit. (see Alive)

The only concerts that the band have planned for the near future are some London gigs in December to promote the LP and single. Sheff. Limit Club March 4th.