posted on 22 Aug 2018

Gig: the life and times of a rock-star fantasist by Simon Armitage

If you are ever unfortunate enough to have me as a visitor to your house, you’ll find I can’t really sit still until I’ve had chance to examine what’s on your bookshelves and to flick through your record/cd collection. Much as I’m embarrassed to admit it, I’m really looking for clues about you – some people, prepared to be more direct than I am, will say I’m collecting information in order to judge you. In a way, that’s true: I absolutely believe that your taste in books and music is a great indicator of whether I’ll be coming back to see you again.

Experience has told me this is a pretty solid strategy that hasn’t let me down very often – imagine how terrible it would be to find yourself trapped with people who don’t have any books (because they make the room untidy) and only ‘stream’ the greatest hits of Simply Red. I don’t think I’m the only person for whom this rapid survey of literary and musical taste is a crucial social coping strategy and on the strength of Simon Armitage’s Gig, he would probably do exactly the same thing.

Armitage is, of course, one of the very best contemporary British poets but as his portentously tongue-in-cheek sub-title suggests, he’s also a music fanatic. The book he’s written has a sort of chronological structure but it’s really an amiable and constantly hilarious scrapbook of his development as a poet and his constant obsession with music – with concert tickets included to authenticate his dedication to the cause.

One of the things I love about the book is the way Armitage uses his passion for  music to help him construct his personal journey from being a Probation Officer to becoming a poet. Crucially, he understands that the music you love is essentially tribal – it puts you inside one group and outside another. As he grows older he ditches Prog Rock or the fringes of Heavy Metal for Punk, post-Punk and New Romantic and along the way picks up an undying love for some fringe or eccentric acts – The Fall, Felt, Blue Nile. And then there’s The Smiths and Morrissey – of course. It’s not enough to love music – it has to be the right music.

Armitage’s story also features some excellent secondary characters that he draws with evident affection: his partner, Speedy Sue (the name comes from the fact that she was in a band called Sue and the Speedy Bears) who seems to be infallibly understanding, his daughter he simply calls The Tudge and Craig his musical collaborator. But, for me, the standout creation is his dad – a man who is possibly the incarnation of Yorkshire common-sense and a man who must always have the final word. How much literary licence has been used in this creation I’m not at all sure but I don’t think that really matters because his one-liners are a joy.

Even though he’s not doing the rock thing, Armitage does have to do his fair share of live gigs as a performing poet and many of them fuel his identity as the hapless victim of malicious fate. As his chosen mode of self-presentation he has settled on a rather Eeyorish persona which sees him making a series of daft decisions or landing in situations that are vaguely farcical. I have to say, however, that he only just about pulls this off because towards the end of the book what had started out has rather endearing starts to become just a touch tiresome.

I’m delighted that in the end he gets to do a version of the rock star thing. There’s an excellent chapter that explores how his partnership with Craig finally results in some real outputs – mainly thanks to the fact that all the music can now be done by his pal using computers and he only has to concern himself with lyrics and singing (assisted of course by Speedy Sue). What I really loved though was the time and effort spent on the most important thing of all – the band’s name:

“The most important decision for any band to make is its name. It defines the whole direction of the project……to the band itself the name is EVERYTHING….After two weeks of giddy emailing and misspelt text-messaging, we narrow it down to a mere 280, from which we agree on a final shortlist.”

The shortlist is three pages long and starts with Peroxide Miracles and Tracksuit Jesus and ends with The Cells or Hoss. I guarantee you’ll whoop with delight at some of the others on the list. But they settle for The Scaremongers and their plans are always somewhat grander than they can easily achieve.

The book ends rather poignantly with the funeral of his grandmother:

“My dad gives a speech. Not a long one but a big one, from the heart….A few tears. Handshakes and hugs…We talk some more, and we drink some more. Then we tell tales. And then – what she would have wanted – we sing.”

I've heard Armitage read live and he really is both stimulating and very entertaining. In many ways this book follows a similar rhythm to the live performance and that gives it a lovely sense of immediacy - almost as if Armitage is just chatting with you over a pint.

Copies of the book - hard and paperback - can be found for very lttle and will repay your investment abundantly.

Terry Potter

August 2018