BRAM TCHAIKOVSKY IN FUNLAND: THE CIRCUS BEGINS HERE

BRAM TCHAIKOVSKY IN FUNLAND: THE CIRCUS BEGINS HERE

FEATURES

Toby Goldstein

The Motors were the worst in the world, —Bram Tchikovsky

“Here, you’re an Antperson,” said Bram Tchaikovsky, smearing a strip of scotch tape across the nose of his manager, Richard Ogden. Ogden, looking resigned and ever-so-slightly amused, delicately attempted to remove the offending object without mauling his anatomy. Next, Ogden’s American girlfriend, Amy, went over to Bram and, peering upwards, started to examine at close range, the bike badges festooned on his leather jacket. Back off, commanded Bram, ducking to escape her friendly poking. “I don’t like being fiddled with by women.” “That’s why he’s wearing his keys on the left side,” cracked Ogden, still smarting from his artist’s little joke. More dirty looks were exchanged. Such was five minutes in the life of Peter Brammell’s latest promotional tour, a schlep around New York to plug his newest Bram Tchaikovsky album, Funland.

On the day in question, Bram had already explored the wilds of Long Island to do a pair of radio interviews, almost eaten a local greaseburger for lunch, and was perishing for some real food. After all, he is tall, much lengthier than any of his pictures make him appear, and he was burning those calories right and left pacing around the Arista reception room, throwing punches at a photo of Van Halen on the cover of Cashbox, and jumping up and down in the crowded elevator, oblivious to a claustrophobic reporter cowering in the back. He positively jaunted through midtown streets, drawing the stares of passers-by as much for his North English accent (which to this day evokes the Beatles) as for his loping stride.

Against our better judgment, we allowed Ogden to seach for a suitable restaurant, stopping when he’d found an unassuming Japanese joint. This could have been dangerous. The waiters were recently off the boat and Bram lost no time in imitating their offer of “flesh fluit.” Visions of ninjas with descending swords danced in my head. Fortunately, Bram’s golden tones stayed within our earshot, and no one’s teriyaki was flavored with arsenic.

Having altered his band lineup, changed his record label and enlarged the scope of his music on Funland, Bram Tchaikovsky has returned to America with a strong musical identity to match his very distinct personality. If his first album, Strange Man, Changed Man, was sweet but a little too soft for some, and the second, Pressure, veered too far in the opposite, ratchet-rock direction, Funland is comfortable for Bram. “It comes to a conclusion,” he summarized. “I said last time that the third album would be definitely better than the other two, ’cause I’ve learned how to write songs properly. And I’ve learned to a certain extent as well what kinds of songs I want to write, so it’s a lot easier for me now.”

A song like “Model Girl,” co-written by Bram and his long-time guitarist Denis “Freeform” Forbes, fits well with those who recall the rhythmic harmonies of “Girl Of My Dreams” or “Robber.” But several of Tchaikovsky’s latest creative exercises, particularly the atonal “Egyptian Mummies” and one of the world’s weirdest nursery rhymes, “Why Does My Mother ’Phone Me?” point a direct hand at the, ahem, less predictable aspects of the man. “Mother” pulls a particularly dirty trick by sliding a constantly ringing telephone under the music. You too will leap out of your headphones and go running to answer a nonexistent call.

“It suddenly struck me that if the song was going to get played in America we should use an American telephone. We confused everybody. We went around to Andy McMasters’ place with the original demo and put it on and Andy ran over to his stereo system, turned it off, then went over to his telephone and couldn’t understand why the phone stopped as well! Then he went back, turned the stereo back up and immediately ran to the telephone again. It’s a set reaction.

“Have you noticed, people are like lemmings. What’s the time?” No one reacted, immediately hip to Bram’s ploy. “Well, usually, at least nine people will look at their watches. It’s the same with the telephone. A phone rings and everybody runs for it. I think they’re all mad.

“ ‘Egyptian Mummies’ is meant to stop you in your tracks at the end of the album. What it is about is basically Micky (Broadbent) and Keith (Line). The guys who left last time. I couldn’t understand what the fuck was wrong with them. They told me one thing and a year later went back on everything they said to me. It made me feel very dissonant and very disjointed and very angry and that’s why the song sounds like it does. It’s one of my favorites, I love it, it’s great. And nobody’ll ever play it,” he sulked.

Although Bram Tchaikovsky’s songs are not particularly threatening to antiquated radio programmers, he’s not played with great frequency, and was genuinely concerned over American stations’ consistent resistance to new things. “Why don’t they do it?” he asked plaintively. “They play Bram Tchaikovsky once a day for three weeks but if you flip the dial you can find the Who any time of night or day. I’ve got nothin’ against the Who and nothin’ against stations who program that way, but why do it all the time?

“I can see why we get played, ‘cause our music isn’t particularly a novelty. But it is different to your normal American rock. So to a certain extent I suppose they’re breaking with tradition in even playing Bram Tchaikovsky. But it would be nice to be able to turn the dial once a day and hear the Skids or Public Image or the Jam. Instead, you get this cloying mixture of Van Halen, the Who, fucking Jim Morrison— Jesus Christ, he’s been dead for ten years; it’s about time they buried the bastard!”

But don’t you realize, I queried, sensing the hot angry breath of rampaging 14-yearolds, that young Doorsoids now lurk behind the unlikeliest closets in town... “Yeah, they’re called U-2,” deadpanned Bram. So much for the psychedelic revival in this bike boy’s book of dreams.

“It is possible to point a finger at me and say hypocrite, because everybody says that a lot of the stuff we do sounds like the Beatles and the Byrds, but if you listen to a Teardrop Explodes album or Echo and the Bunnymen especially and compare them with the Doors and us with anything I think you’ll find they’re a lot closer. I think we’re a lot less derivative,”

Even Tchaikovsky’s choice of a cover tune, “Breaking Down The Walls Of Heartache,” would have made an unlikely selection for an American band. All Bram would say about the inclusion of that cover, and of “I’m A Believer/’ on the first LP, was “good songs. Do we need a better reason?” I’d bet that the former tune reminded Bram of many long ago nights at Mecca hall dances, as it was a British number one record, by Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon, in the late 1960’s. But I didn’t have the heart to check if Bram realized that revived Monkeemania was almost as pervasive in America as the “Light My Fire”-brigade.

“You saw the worst band in the world,” teased Bram when I admitted I had seen the Motors perform but never a Tchaikovsky set, though not for want of trying. Thanks to a blinding downpour, I arrived at one venue after the band had gone off, along with about 12,000 other people. “Yeah, they were wandering in while we were on the stage, looking for seats, saying hello to their friends. Normally, our bad shows were in the places they shouldn’t have been—like New York.” Tchaikovsky seemed a great deal more relaxed at the prospect of a coast to coast early summer tour, where the band will headline clubs and small theatres. With new players and a new record company, there’s new-found optimism wiping away memories of being foced to shift his second album title from The Russians Are Coming to Pressure—an obvious comment.

“We're now on Arista because Polydor were all right at first but then they fell to pieces. All the good people left. Don’t you believe in the principle of the rock ’n’ roll swindle?

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“Considering it’s been over five years, I haven’t really made that many changes. I was in the Motors for a year and a half, which is not bad. My first band lasted at least nine months, then we got rid of the drummer, or he got rid of himself, I should say. Micky Broadbent left because he lost his marbles while we were on tour.

“Lord Richard Itchington isn’t in my new band—he just did bass on the album: He’s gone back to tend his stately acres. We’ve got a guy called Rick Ford on the bass. He’s Tennessee Ernie’s pet duck. He was in Bill Nelson’s Red Nose (sic). Then there’s a guy called Alan McLocklin who is the new guitar player, so there’s three guitars including Freeform. And there’s Derek Ballard on the drums. You’d do better to tape the dinner conversation, which is bound to be a lot more interesting.”

As Tchaikovsky lit into his beef and Ogden into that artfully arranged but totally incomprehensible raw dinner dish called shashimi, I mentioned to Bram that I’d heard he missed flying the Concorde cover because someone had drawn the ticket, up as Bram Tchaikovsky, which did not coincide with the name on the passport.

And a lucky thing too, said he, not wanting to ascend to Mach I with a ferocious headcold. Which reminded him of the trouble he’d been having with his teeth— he launched a tale so graphic it brought everyone’s meal to a rapid conclusion. We then switched to a discussion of chocolate, a craving shared by several at the table. When Bram described his favorite method of devouring the sweet—rock hard from the fridge—I decided that this chappie was a kindred soul and I would even put up with more grubby antics from the old Motors’ roadies, now Bram’s, to actually see his next show.

We deposited Bram Tchaikovsky in a taxi en route to see his good buddy (“about whom I will say nothing else”) John Lydon and decided that any guy who yearns to race his three motorcycles on the one hand and moans over the desire for a surrealist Magritte lithograph on the other ought to catch the brass ring on the next go-round.