Sam the Bad Cat
May–June 2000. How a hit record will improve your life immeasurably.
Post Everything. Doris Hare, who plays Stan Butler’s mother Mabel in 70s TV sitcom On the Buses dies at the end of May. On 29 June, nine people are killed and 26 injured at a Pearl Jam gig at Roskilde Festival, Denmark. Quick check-up: Primal Scream are still going strong.
I’m a cat man. If you’ve read this far then you’ve probably worked that out. If you have read my first book, Bad Vibes: Britpop and My Part in Its Downfall – and let’s face it if you are reading this then you probably have – then you will no doubt remember Sam the Bad Cat, Clive Solomon’s quisling feline accomplice. Now Sam and I started off on the wrong paw, that’s for sure, but never let it be said that a kitty cannot change its claws once in one of its lifetimes. Since the dark days of ’92 Sam and I have stayed – intermittently – in touch, at first exchanging occasional letters and then with the advancement of technology through the wretched email. Now, in the late spring of 2000, old Sam has turned up at the big dilapidated house in Tufnell Park looking a bit the worse for wear. I am of course pleased to see my four-footed friend but I can tell something is wrong. We exchange how dos and pleasantries only as a cat and a man who have not seen each other for a while can, then it is down to business.
‘What’s the real story, Sam?’ I enquire of the drunken moggie.
‘Got into a bit of trouble on the subcontinent,’ slurs Sam.
‘India?’ I say.
‘That area,’ answers Sam, shifting from unsteady paw to unsteady paw. ‘Got a job as a ratter with a hermetic sect just outside of Rangoon. Heard too much – the mysteries of the East, all that malarkey …’
‘The O.T.O.?’ ask I, nervously. Old four paws’ eyes dart from left to right. Silence. Then Sam the Bad Cat briefly reverts to animal language, letting out a huge drunken meow. ‘All right, I admit it, I got confused,’ babbles the furry fiend. ‘I was falling into typical ignorant-Westerner behaviour, mistaking unfamiliar customs and practices as acts of menace. I’m no racist though. It was a classic school-cat error.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Sam, put a lid on it, sunshine,’ I say to the addled pussy. ‘Look, you can stay here for a week, in the attic with the dirty pigeons, but you must be discreet. My wife-to-be cannot know that I keep counsel with a talking cat.’
‘You’re a life saver, pal,’ says Sam, the booze starting to make him sentimental. I lean down and pick him up.
‘Come on, I’ll give you a hand up to the attic.’
‘What’s been happening in my absence then?’ asks the cat as we ascend several flights of stairs.
‘Not a lot, but Pulp did all right.’
‘Jesus,’ says Sam the drunk Bad Cat.
Sam’s been settling in well. On evenings when I have nothing better to do I join him after he has had his evening meal; we shoot the breeze over a blissful opium pipe or whatever narcotics Sam is willing to share from his travels in the Orient. I am crouched by the water tank when the cat jumps down beside me, feathers from a filthy poisoned pigeon carcass still stuck to his mouth and teeth.
‘That’s disgusting,’ I say.
‘Fuck off, I’m a cat,’ says the cat not unreasonably.
‘Do you fancy some laudanum? It was given to me as a pre-wedding gift.’ I offer the phial to the cat, who manages to lick a couple of drops of the highly hallucinogenic opiate from his dirty claw.
‘I just can’t work out my next move after being on Top of the Pops. John and Sarah loved that shit, but I just feel kind of embarrassed. I’m hanging out with writers, playwrights and film makers – I have ideas above my station,’ I continue.
‘You’re just too, too cooooool for schooool,’ drawls the slightly stoned cat, adding somewhat unnecessarily, ‘and I’m a real coool kitty too.’
‘I was gonna make a bizarre hip-hop album with Mos Def but Biggie Smalls told me it was a terrible idea.’ I am suddenly aware of how ridiculous this sentence sounds as I say it out loud, but Sam’s fur remains unruffled.
‘Don’t worry about it, I’m a talking cat, nothing surprises me. I do like Notorious B.I.G. ‘Mo Money Mo Problems’ is my favourite. Do you think you could introduce me?’
‘No,’ I shoot back, ‘besides, Smalls is long dead and I have no idea when he’s going to commune with me next. Anyway, I thought the only band you liked was the Blue Aeroplanes?’
‘Biggie Smalls is dead? Jeez,’ says Sam. ‘When, how, why?’
‘The east coast, west coast rap wars. Tupac’s dead as well,’ I add, filling in the cat on some recent rap history.
‘Strewth,’ says Sam, jumping up on top of the water tank, deliberately swishing me with his tail on the way.
‘Look, can we get back to the subject? You’re the one who knows the mysteries of the east – you tell me what to do,’ I sneer up at the mardy cat.
‘OK,’ says Sam. ‘But first you have an apology to make.’
‘I’m listening.’ I think Sam the Bad Cat is about to get holier than thou on my ass.
‘You should try and make it up to Saul Galpern. He’s not a bad man. I mean I know I’m a cat an’ all, and the rivalries between the old firms must be respected, but all that business with Marnie the tiny dog … well, it was just … retarded.’
‘Thank you, Sam,’ I sulk back, chastened somewhat. ‘I’ll apologise, but what I really need to know is what should I do next?’ Sam scratches his ear with his paw and has a think. The only sounds are the slow drip of the water tank and a distant tap of Siân typing in the room below.
‘Have you heard of Nicholas van Hoogstraten, the dandyish property developer, who’s pals with Robert Mugabe and refers to his rental tenants as scum?’ asks the cat.
‘You mean the guy who’s building a fake pharaoh’s palace for himself on the South Downs?’ I counter.
‘Yep, the very same one,’ says Sam. ‘Well, write a stage musical about him. Now, can you tell me all about the east coast, west coast rap wars?’
‘Some other time,’ I say. Sam the Bad Cat hisses at me in a disappointed manner before jumping behind the water tank, looking for more dead pigeons.
John and Sarah are having a party to coincide with the transmission on Friday evening of Black Box Recorder’s inaugural appearance on Top of the Pops.20 I don’t bother going. Siân and I go to the pub on our own instead. I’ve had enough of all this self-celebration. The record company wants to repeat the hit single feat with our next offering, ‘The Art of Driving’, thus perpetuating the never-ending vicious circle of hit single, hit album, ad infinitum or until madness or death take their toll. I feel like an old gangster who’s just pulled off a successful heist. For some the temptation to go back and pull off one last caper is strong, but not I. Fuck it, let’s just be a one-hit wonder band – better than a no-hit wonder band. It’s the simpering that gets to me, and to be in the pop rat race you have to leave your brain at the door and simper. Would you just do a couple of radio station ‘idents’?
‘Hi, I’m Luke Haines from Black Box Recorder and you’re listening to radio D.U.M.B. FM.’
We’ve got you a spot on The Big Breakfast, we’ll send a car to pick you up at 5 a.m. Yeah, I know that’s the morning after your Radio 1 evening session, but it’s a really important promo slot for us, they still get a lot of viewers you know. No, it’s OK, Chris Evans doesn’t do that show any more. We’ve booked you on a 9 a.m. flight to Cologne, that’s all that was available, you should be able to make it on time as long as you leave the TV studio straight after your interview. Oh, by the way, the Big Breakfast producers have asked if you mind being interviewed by some puppets – after they’ve performed a cover of your song on kazoo. One last thing, bring a change of clothing with you, it’s a pretty anarchic show. Good fun though, everyone who’s been on it has said what a laugh it is.
You can never win the pop rat race. So, at 32 years of age I decide I am too old, too much of a smart arse, and, oddly, too sane for this kind of caper. I deselect myself. In May, Siân and I get married. I still love proper pop – as an observer. Now, about that musical based upon the life of Nicholas van Hoogstraten …
20 Top of the Pops changes its transmission time from Thursday to Friday in 1996, in a series of many attempts to revamp what the BBC considers to be an ageing format. All this really achieves is the loss of the ‘talk about it in the school playground factor the morning after’ that the original Thursday time slot effortlessly had. A broadsheet journalist snidely writes that after BBR’s appearance on TOTP our record slips down the charts. Not so. The show is recorded on Tuesday, when, as is often the case, the single had already descended several places from its top 20 peak.