Jarvis back in cracking form

If anybody was to write The Life and Times of Jarvis Cocker it would make interesting, if idio­syncratic, reading.

The Pulp singer has entered the realms of local legend, and even though he has not lived in Sheffield for nigh on three years, most people connected with the music scene around here have at least one tale to tell.

After all, this is the man who, while still at school, used to have entire buses full of people chanting his name, was the subject of a graffiti campaign, has performed live from a wheelchair after tumbling from a window (impersonating Spiderman apparently), claims to have once stayed at the same campsite as Gilbert O'Sullivan's brother, and was seen by yours truly at a party in London. Sitting on top of a dungheap.

Add that to his dress sense, donning what other people dare not wear, and it's clear to see that the man is a born star. It's just that the rest of the world hasn't realised yet.

This may have something to do with Pulp's low profile over the last few years, after Jarvis decided to give up on music and go to college down south, where he has been studying film and making videos for a couple of other acts.

STICKING

This must have brought back his enthusiasm, as, after a low-key concert around Christmas, they have returned to support World of Twist at the Leadmill tonight.

With Jarvis, bassist Steve Mackie and drummer Nick Banks living in London, keyboardist Candida Doyle in Manchester and only guitarist Russell Senior sticking around his home town, it's difficult for them to get anything together. But they've managed not only to get a set together but recorded an album, unsur­prisingly to be titled Separations.

The first fruits of their labour, a mere four years after the last new Pulp release is the My Legendary Girlfriend single out on Monday. The wait was worth it.

It's a cracker, and a good sign for their future develop­ments, assuming their future separations don't last too long. They will be on stage at around 9.30 tonight, and the show is apparently being filmed by Granada television for one of their late night shows.

"Getting in touch with the spirit of Barry White is the thing," says Jarvis of PULP as his Florida Spring Vegetable soup simmers obediently. "Because as you know, he is quite spiritual. So if you tune in to his wavelength, it's possible to get that sound, even without the Love Unlimited Orchestra."

Pulp have returned after some years' mysterious silence with a single which reminds us why many once hailed the Sheffield group as "the best band in the otherworld." "My Legendary Girlfriend" pulsates with not only the spirit of the great Barry but also echoes of Iggy Pop, Human League, and any great existential profundity you care to raise. It really is a bit of a corker. A big bit.

"What do I admire about Barry White? His personal approach. The way he always has the hi-hat 25 times louder than anything else. The way he can say lines like, 'Take off that brassiere, my dear' - I'd sound stupid if I said that, but then so would he if he came from Sheffield. Did you know he used to be a catburglar, like his brother who is currently in prison, but he was so fat he got caught in a window and so turned to singing?"

Jarvis has been making films and videos because "music gets on your nerves if you do it too much. Overall, though, I prefer music because there's more chance of meeting nice girls. More opportunity to show off handling a microphone. I live in hope, anyway".

"My Legendary Girlfriend" doesn't actually exist, but perhaps that's the whole point. "She's a legend in my mind. All our songs are about mundane everyday things that assume the status of high art in your own life. I used to get too precious about our records and think they'd alter people's lives; I'd try too hard. Now I've mellowed, I'm simmering down, just like this soup. Making records is like bricklaying, and if people are impressionable that's up to them."

An album, "Separations", will follow, and Pulp play their first London gigs in simply ages later this month (without the infamous wheelchair prop), It's a "show full of showstoppers".

"Sometimes," Jarvis muses, "you do go round in the middle of the night, hope she's in, throw stones up at the window. And sometimes she's annoyed with you for being noisy. But sometimes you can persuade her to come out and you can have a little adventure.

"It's not like I sit around pondering modern existence. Making soup is as profound as anything else. When you're having a drink in a bar and someone says, 'What's it all about?', that's too much, that's too vague. If they ask you something more specific, like, 'What's your opinion on the new Vauxhall Nova?', then fine..."
What's your opinion on the new Vauxhall Nova?

"Pulp are light and shade, a dog snapping off its lead for a bit and running around then getting caught again. I can hear a train going past."

CHRIS ROBERTS

Rock & Pop Pre-view

The prodigal and prodigious Pulp return to their hometown of Sheffield on Saturday promising to be as weird and wonderful as always. To the uninitiated, Pulp have been lurking for over a decade as the creation of gangling pop eccentric Jarvis Cocker. During the 80s they had a sporadic series of critically acclaimed singles but a disap­pointing album 'It'.

Their current 45 'My Legendary Girlfriend' (Fire) tantalises, simmering and spars for the length of a run of the mill single before Jarvis b[r]eaks into song from his deep-throated narra­tive. Pulp have a compelling groovy, melodic sound of their own which helps mask the despair­ing and satirical lyrics. Their songs of love cut deep against the grain, too deep perhaps for the charts (their only escape route from the asylum?).

'Countdown' is to follow before the appear­ance of an LP 'Separations'. Their live show is the bee's knees though. The crimplene clad Cocker twitches and tweaks around the stage show theatrics, one minute Ian Curtis, the next Marc Almond. The inimitable Pulp are at The Leadmill, Sheffield on 25th May.

PULP
Was it Wordsworth who once wrote: ”The best thing's in life are free, but you can give them to the birds and the bees. I want money that's what I want”? Or maybe it was Elvis. No matter.

The current attitude that's sweeping our ever-blue nation has now touched the minds and pockets of one of Sheffield’s oldest yet least taciturn bands - Pulp.

They were there, in the early eighties - ligging, swigging and gigging with Oakey, Fry an Kirk. They had the material, they had the frontman, they had the following - but according to Candida Doyle (keyboards): "We were our own worst enemy. We've been incompetent for years". But that, according to Nick Banks (drums), Russell Senior (guitar) and Candida is about to change. And about bloody time too. Pulp in some guise or another have been going
for about ten years, and many think this could be their time at last.

“We really suffered from being stuck on a naff label (Fire Records) who couldn't distribute our stuff properly and that also acted as a brake to our success," Nick added. Their latest single - ‘OU - Gone, Gone’ on Warp's new indie label - Gift, described in the Melody Maker (Single of the Year) as ‘colossal’ and Exit 33 as ‘devouring’ - should relieve this condition, and kamkaze into the indie charts. It's not as if they're part of the Sheffield young pretenders brigade. Some of these guys are older than me! They've gone through the dole-like squalor of teenage rebellion. They've had the day-jobs from toy-shop manager, antique dealer to wreath-maker. They've got a history.

But now, they're sick of being skint. They want a slice of the cake and they want to eat it too. They want limos, TOTP and dinner in fancy restaurants, but not necessarily in that order. They've already had the big exposure in the 'reet-rivvvettin‘ Daily Star (ok, so it was only one sentence, but it's still read by hundreds of thousands), been canonised in Select, survived a mention in Jonathon King's crap Revvolution and enjoyed life in the NME indie charts. ‘Countdown’ went in with a bullet at 29 on my birthday last year - a good omen in my book. And ‘My Legendary Girlfriend’ was voted 31st ‘Best Single of the Year’. I wonder if Pulp will do a Phil Oakey and disappear Howard Hughes-style to Ranmoor (or is it Fulwood). Candida reassures me in her lispish voice: "I like the idea of keeping my feet on the ground. I like living in Woodseats. It's quiet, but people are friendly and they always say hello at the bus-stop". I describe the potential dross they will encounter on their mucky rise to the top, but Russ quickly interrupts: "We've been submerged in dross for years. People go on about the pressures of stardom and all that kind of stuff, but the pressures of failure are for worse. Also, you can dictate and change things so much better from a position of success". Candida explained: "It also depends on how you do it. We don’t have to completely sell-out to make it in the big-time. Anyway, we're learning to not count our chickens before they hatch". We all crack up at the irony of that statement.

"We should milk it while we can. We might as well experience it. Even if we hate it, it's worth trying out", Nick added. For those who have yet to see Pulp it is a ‘religious experience’. Music meets mayhem on one of Saturn's rings, not far from the Dylans' ‘Planet love‘. The Fall go to Las Vegas with Jarvis (singer) driving the Great Red Shark! - look no hands! And is that really a matchbox wrapped in tin-foil I see before me? Nay, it is a Stylophone of Rolf Harris fame, circa mid seventies. That stupid little insidious noise machine - which held the interest of the fat brat down the street (who always got things months before everyone else) for about 3 minutes before flinging it into his wardrobe on top of his Action-Man and Meccano set - is back! And it's gonna irritate its way into the top twenty all over again. It is given the same reverential respect that Hendrix swooned on his six-string, and Jarvis actually spoofs the axe-god himself by reaching over and playing the Stylo behind his head. Candida's is the Rolls-Royce of the range but a Stylophone nevertheless. It is bigger, but still has the daft metal pens that you use to sweep over the metal keyboard!

"It's about three feet long and it's got TWO pens so you can play chords. It's really chunky, goes out of tune incessantly and eats batteries" Russ elucidates. Surely, when you're onstage and all this musical action is going on, even if it is the Rolls-Royce, it must still look a bit crap, I ask?

"Yeah, it is a pathetic sight, a really pathetic sight", Russ tells me. "It would be great if we all had mini instruments and those tiny amps you can get. We could put all the gear on a little table with little dummies pretend-playing, while we could be playing somewhere behind a cloth or something". Another tab of acid, Russ? It sounds like a bad Spinal Tap idea. The Tap comparisons continue as I am told by a straight-faced Nick (4th incarnation on the drummer's stool) how a previous drummer got so excited that he spun around too much, and the seat part flew off as he leapt into the air. Thus resulting in a painful landing, and hasty departure from Pulp!

There is a second album gathering dust somewhere and I try to get some information of that from the three of them. But I might as well be trying to blag a U2 ticket! "It‘s a bit difficult to discuss because we're in legal wranglings over it", Nick explained. “Yeah, but we also don't know where it is!" added Candida. I compare it to that Beach Boys album that never got released (‘Smile’ I think) but Russ puts me straight: "It has become rather fabled, but to be quite honest I don't think it's THAT seminal!" You mean it's crap, then? "Well, it's not crap; it would have been alright if it came out when it was recorded in '87. Basically, it's a bit dated. It's still wearing flares".

At this point the tape runs out (we had agreed a specified length of time for talking). I leave Pulp dreaming of expensive restaurants and stretch limos, but as I do, I'm sure I see Russ driving off in a rusty Y-reg Rover 2000. Are Pulp on the yellow-brick road, at last? Here's hoping.

Max Anderson