THIS IS FOREIGN MUCK

October 25th, 2007 by tim

It’s been 13 years since Foreign Muck last turned their amps up to 11 and rocked our world. Or maybe it’s been 4. Or maybe it’s been as much as 20, no-one really seems to know for sure. Our reporter Timothy X Atack catches up with the Muck at Arnolfini, where they’ve convened for one last batter through the classics, and asks: is this really the end?

Anthony Roberts picks up his guitar. There’s a sudden squall of ear-splitting feedback… and we’re back in Czechoslovakia. For a brief moment it’s Prague 1969, just after the Soviet invasion and the fall of Dubcek, and our heroes Foreign Muck are back in that dingy cellar two streets short of Zizkov football stadium, down in the graffiti-encrusted vault where they played a secret gig supporting Plastic People Of The Universe. “Oh yeah,” drawls Roberts when I speak to him later, “I remember that one. We had to be smuggled across the border disguised as nuns. The organisers reckoned it was the only way to get us all in, I just thought they fancied the sight of yours truly in a wimple.

He takes a swig of beer before reflecting: “I didn’t look bad, mind.”

Roberts can no longer remember when he first formed Foreign Muck (or “The Muck” as they’re known to both fans and detractors worldwide) and the rest of the band aren’t much help. “Wasn’t it down the dogs?” asks guitarist Julian Hutton. The rest of the group shake their heads.“I’m pretty sure Anthony got drunk one night, opened up the phone book and called anyone with a slightly funny name,” mutters Elaine Kordys, one of the band’s two bassists.“Nah,” says Richard Dedomenici, (vocals, turntables, interpretive dance) “It was a bet. It was a bet Anthony made with Andy Warhol that went horribly, horribly wrong.”

“…I can’t remember a thing about it, and it feels like we got together yesterday,” reflects drummer Jon Bentley.

The sense of novelty is unsurprising, as Roberts is employing his usual working methods. These ‘methods’ involve not telling the other band members anything of his intentions, before collecting them together in a loose affiliation hours before any gig in order to frantically batter through a bunch of half-formed musical ideas. “Not even half-formed, really,” he admits later, “In terms of how formed they are, I think we’re looking at, whatever, fucking decimal points with zeroes in front.”

Tonight is Foreign Muck’s first gig in – depending on who you ask – eight years, twelve years, twenty two years or nine years. It’s the brainchild of Alex Bradley, the band’s motormouth manager between 1979 and 1996. “There was a close one in 1993,” says Bradley, “When Foreign Muck almost opened for Lisa Stansfield at the Hammersmith Apollo. It was a – whaddyacallit -” he snaps his fingers - “Um, a category error, that was it. A couple of hours before the gig there were lots of apologetic calls, it got pulled, I was gutted - who wouldn’t be? - but eventually everyone agreed, you know, I agreed with Stansfield’s management, it was all for the best.”

So what brought on 2007’s reunion, a gig also envisaged as the band’s last?

“It just got more and more difficult to grab everyone together at short notice. You know, Gemma Paintin, she’s got that part in that soap opera, the, um, thingy, you know, the depressing one, um, Richard ended up doing those adverts for crisps, Dulcie Wood is touring with Stereolab now… and I just suggested to Anthony, you know, for old time’s sake, before Richard ends up presenting Top Gear and Gemma starts running the Queen Vic, we should have one last shot at it. Just one last shot, what’s the harm in that?”

A reunion presented one major problem, and that was the tragic death in 2004 of Dieter Sprecher, Foreign Muck’s keyboard player and percussionist. “It was bad, such a bad way for him to go,” says Bradley, “I mean, he was such a fastidious person and… they really should put warnings on trainers, you know. Not to lace them too tightly. The poor bastard’s feet just came straight off.”

At first Sprecher was deemed irreplaceable but after a series of rigorous phone calls a solution was found in the gangly form of Duncan Speakman, last seen playing the lugubrious hitman in crap British gangster flick Apples and Pairs. “Yeah, I was game,” says Speakman. “I was aware the gig came with its downsides… I’d heard that Anthony could be a real grumpy bastard, especially if he heard you playing anything right.”

Robin Deacon (guitar) remembers the evening when the phone call came from Roberts. “I laughed,” says Deacon. “I just laughed and laughed. I laughed and laughed and laughed. I laughed, and I laughed, and I laughed and laughed. I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. I laughed, laughed, laughed and then I laughed some more, I laughed, I laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed and laughed. Then I said no.”

“Yeah, Deacon. Deako was a tough nut to crack,” says Roberts dryly, “You have to utilise reverse psychology with Deako. So when he said he wouldn’t do it, I told him that I didn’t fucking care and that he was never any good, and what’s more there’d never been anyone fucking decent in any band with the name of Deacon. How rock and roll is a name like Deacon? Sounds like the fucking Church of fucking England to me. Then I casually expounded upon my theories by shouting down the phone some more. To prove my point, I shouted at him that the shittest member of Queen was John Deacon. This really gets Deako worked up, not because he likes Queen you understand, but because the shittest member of Queen was in fact Roger Taylor, everyone knows that, and Deako’s a fucking pedant. He can’t stand errors in pop trivia. So in the end, increasingly harsh words were exchanged, I told Robin that if he wanted to settle the score he knew where to find me, lo and behold the bloke turns up to the venue anyway, just to beat me up. And hey fucking presto, that’s when we start rehearsing.”

Indeed, the NME once described Foreign Muck as “the sound of otherwise competent musicians trying to play whilst being kicked repeatedly,” and at their last ever gig, they do not disappoint. They play, as usual, in the corner of the room, without a risen stage, on the same level as the audience. I’ve heard - from reports of their 60s gigs - that this off-stage positioning is an assertion of spiritual equivalence with the crowd, and ask Roberts whether this is true. “Fuck off,” he says, “It’s just so we’re nearer the fire exit if the police turn up.”

The Muck play a typical set, full of non-scathing political satire, terrace chants and Velvet Underground covers. When various members gather round a mic and belt out the refrain “I’ve never felt better in my life,” they sound like they’re drowning.

During a new variation on the seminal counterculture dirge The Battle For Hearts And Minds - in which each band member takes it in turns to perform an impromptu solo - Roberts enters into a garbled ecstatic rant that makes him look like an enraged scientologist having just missed the bus home. Elaine Kordys tells the famous non-pc joke about menstruation (the same joke she told at the Muck’s Greenwhich Village gig in 1978, and the one that got her blacklisted from Andrea Dworkin’s open brunch sessions.)

Much to the audience’s dismay, Phillip Roberts (bassist and, despite all evidence to the contrary, absolutely no relation to Anthony) does not perform in his inimitable style of old; bass amp strapped to his back, standing on top of a slowly melting slab of ice balanced gingerly between two chairs. “I’ve done that one too many times,” he ruminates later, “I used to be six foot four.” Robin Deacon does reprise his usual position of back to the audience throughout the gig. “Still dunno why he does that,” says Roberts, “Maybe because the audience are mostly ugly bastards.”

In fact, it’s a mixed crowd tonight, far from the usual collection of muso nerds and ageing hippies. I move amongst the crowd conducting short interviews; when did you first hear the Muck? What’s your favourite Muck LP? When did you last see the Muck? Are you a fan of the Muck of the 60s, the disco muck, the electro muck or the muck’n’brass so beloved of Bristol in the mid 90s?

The results are startling: not least of which is my discovery that 65% of the audience are in fact lawyers, representing clients injured, slandered, or indeed, killed at past gigs. Of the younger fans (by which I mean those below the age of 52) most originally discovered Foreign Muck as a result of the notorious drug eulogy It’s My Fucking Nose being used in a 2003 Asda commercial.“I just, like, fell in love with the complete totality of their sound,” says one lanky goth, “It contained almost everything I could think of. And some stuff I couldn’t.”

Afterwards, I ask the different band members how they feel the gig went. The responses range from Richard Dedomenici’s “NO CAMERAS! NO CAMERAS!” to manager Alex Bradley quite literally bouncing off the walls with happiness.

I talk to Gemma Paintin (floor tom, tambourines, vocals) about her statuesque stage presence, and the fact that it’s very hard for an audience to read whether she’s enjoying the experience or not. She just stares at me for two minutes, poker-faced, and says nothing. Three days later I receive a letter at home (recorded delivery, signed for in triplicate) within which Paintin details in immaculate and intricate terms her precise reactions to pretty much every second of the concert. “I feel it most important,” she concludes, “To maintain a modicum of decorum at all times in these affairs. I consider it especially important in a public milieu where I’m likely to spend most of my time twatting drums like a gibbon.”

And how did Anthony Roberts feel the performance went? “S’alright,” he shrugs, opening up another beer.I mention that I noticed there wasn’t an encore.“Oh, you noticed that, did you? What, surprised, are you? You shouldn’t be. We don’t do encores.”Is that, I ask, because it’s a tired showbiz cliché?

“Nah. It’s ‘cos no fucker ever wants us to do one.”

Do you remember seeing Foreign Muck at any of their seminal gigs in the 60s, 70s, 90s or naughties? Let us know — post a comment here! The Darkside is waiting for your call.