“…..I’m just putting pretty colours on the ground”
Following on from my last blog I thought I’d carry on the INDIE MUSIC theme and introduce you to THE CUCKOOS; I know little about the band, other than the fact that they released this single in 1992 on the Imaginary Records Label. THE SCREEVER(English slang term for pavement artist) was released in several different formats 7 inch & 12 inch vinyl and 4 track CD EP.
The Screever EP cover 1992
The single was produced by The Cuckoos and Brian O’ Shaughnessy at Bark Studios.
Imaginary Records was an independent record label based in Heywood, Greater Manchester, England, which specialised mainly in indie rock and post-punk. It was created and owned by Alan Duffy. They released many independent records including BILL NELSON’S Luminous LP in 1991.
The Screever CD ep insert 1992
If you have any other info on The Cuckoos and this single then please get in touch!
“…..and in my hand the chalk I hold, will turn these dirty pavements into gold”
Forget the X-Factor and manufactured pop; indie music has always been a rich seam for original thinking and innovation. It’s were my musical heart lies, so when I discovered this vinyl album recently, languishing in a record shop in Huddersfield, I just had to buy it!
“Pictures on the Pavement” was released by the wonderfully named WHIRLPOOL GUEST HOUSE on Monday 22nd May 1989, although the sleeve states it was made in 1988.
A three piece band from the north east of England (Cleveland, Stockton-On-Tees)
To my knowledge it’s the first record LP to ever feature pavement art in the form of a child drawing a picture on the pavement!
LP COVER: Pictures on the Pavement 1989
Now this is NOT a pavement art themed album by any stretch of the imagination. The title is taken from the lyrics of the last song on side two “Sometimes I get so Restless” which talks about pictures on the pavement washing away with the rain. It’s a fine poppie album that reminds me a lot of Prefab Sprout.
The band where formed in June 1986. Songwriter Carl Green, together with husband and wife Andrew and Sally Ann Davis
Whirlpool Guest House: Original Press Photo 1989
From their original 1989 press release (published by Summerhouse Records- 11th May 1989):
In late 1986, displaying commendable zeal and determination, the Whirlies bluffed their way into the Summerhouse office and subjected company boss William Jones to a home-recorded demo and accompanying self-shot film. They were signed on the spot. Their first single, ‘The Changing Face’ was released in February 1987, and received some glowing reviews. After a lengthy absence the Whirlies are back with their debut LP ‘Pictures on the Pavement’, released May 1989. Highlighting the group’s individual, attractive sound, ‘Pictures on the Pavement’ is simply a collection of great pop songs, succinctly summed up by John Peel—“more pop music should sound like this”.
By the way the name WHIRLPOOL GUEST HOUSE is a skit on Elvis’ HEARTBREAK HOTEL….a down market Stockton-On-Tees version perhaps?
Ernest Augustus Elen(22 July 1862 – 17 February 1940) was an English music hall singer and comedian. He achieved success from 1891, performing cockney songs including “Arf a Pint of Ale”, “It’s a Great Big Shame”, “Down the Road” and “If It Wasn’t for the ‘Ouses in Between” in a career lasting over thirty years.
Gus Elen sheet music cover cir. 1905
Born in Pimlico, London, Elen had worked as a barman and a draper’s assistant and had packed eggs for the Co-op before becoming a singer. He began busking at an early age and found a position singing in a minstrel troupe. His solo success began in 1891 when he started performing in public houses, singing songs in a manner similar to many cockney fruit sellers and ironmongers of the time, known as costermongers. Because of this, he became known as a “coster comedian”. For the stage persona he had created, Elen dressed in a coster uniform of striped jersey, peaked cap turned towards one ear and a short clay pipe in the side of his mouth. His characters adopted a persona of being constantly bad tempered and pugnacious. In 1907 he starred in a short film called Wait Till the Work Comes Round.
The Pavement Artist (lyrics)
Underneath the railway arch, not really far away
I knows a pavement artist who draws pictures every day
With little bits of coloured chalk he draws his ideas out
They look so real you fancy you can see em move about
He draws all kinds of eatables on plates all smokin hot
They make you feel quite hungry you could eat the bloomin lot
His portraits are so lifelike you could almost hear em talk
It’s only when he rubs em out you know they’re done with chalk
And it’s all done on the pavement outta doors
It’s a natural gift within that’s my belief
If he draws somebodies feet you can soon tell who it is
By the writing wot is written underneath
I watch him draw the schoolboys where he often plays a wag
And the postman stands and quite forgets the letters in his bag
The policeman what is stationed at the corner of the street
He’s missed to do his duty and forgets he’s on his beat
His pictures are so natural and a practice to the eye
They turn the colonel colour blind when there a passin’ by
He never draws the same thing twice he varies his display
And the views he draws tomorrow will be different to today
And it’s all done on the pavement out of doors
It’s a natural gift within that’s my belief
If he draws the King or Czar
You can soon tell who they are
By the writing wot is written underneath
Gus in America: Logansport Pharos Tribune illustration1907
In 1907, Gus toured America with his new song and character “The Pavement Artist” This is what the New York press had to say:
Gus Elen, noted as a character comedian in London, has won wide favour on his present tour of America in “advanced vaudeville.” He made his first American appearance recently at the New York theater. His story song about the chap who liked his ” ‘arf a pint of ale” at every meal, with Its culmination into a good deal more than that amount at supper time, awoke the house to enthusiasm, which did not diminish with the succeeding efforts, and they would gladly have listened to more like the tale of the sidewalk artist:
When he draws the king or czar
You can tell jist oo they are
By the writin’ that is written underneath.
There is a vital touch to everything that Mr Elen does, and his comedy is so unctuous that his vogue in London is easily understood.
He is particularly happy in his songs, which in every case tell a coherent story and exploit a consistent character. One of the best was the song by an ale tipping coster who regretted the loss of his pal, not through death, but by marriage to a little woman who promptly reduced him to her petticoat government—
A-naggin’ at a feller wot is six foot three
And ‘er only four foot two.
Who could withhold sympathy from the neglected friend who expressed his sorrow in the refrain:
Isn’t it a pity that the likes of ‘er
Should put upon the likes of ‘im?
Published in the New York Tribune: 5th September 1907
Was it by fortuitous good luck, accident or design that Walt Disney decided to merge the Pamela L Travers character of BERT into a Sweep, one man band BUSKER & pavement artist SCREEVER, for his new 1964 film MARY POPPINS. Of course, Travers had written them as separate characters in her 1934 book.
It was this combination of Musical Busker and Pavement Artist that struck a chord with me; both are born of common ancestry, both street performers, entertaining the public in return for pennies, through their chosen artistry but apparently poles apart in their appearance and attitude; one outgoing, loud and extrovert, the other quiet, hunched over and introvert.
Naturally enough thought, there has always been a great comradeship and mutual respect between the two art forms. A relationship that in London dates back over 300 years; gone are the street potters, harpists, strolling German Bands and Gypsy girl dancers, Irish singers and the Herdy Gerdy man; gone also thankfully, the dancing bears, monkeys, bull baiters and the likes. Through two world wars, the great depression and numerous other upheavals, the Buskers & the Screever survives today more or less intact….more than ‘survives’ if the numerous busking and street painting festivals worldwide are anything to go by.
Earlier this year I was contacted through this blog, by one time London busker ROD WARNERwho told me about his screever friend Bob Hanley. This is what Rod had to say:
“I was a busker for many years, starting out in London and graduating to the cinema queues round Leicester Square in the wake of Don Partridge and a couple of other younger buskers who had managed to get a foothold on the scene after some battles with the older generation of street musicians.
Don himself started up busking at the Irving Statue next to the pitch of the resident street artist there who would have been a guy called Bob Hanley, from Northern Ireland, Belfast maybe, can’t remember! But I got to know Bob very well over the next few years.
Bob was very successful and branched out from day to day chalking – he kept his base at the Irving Statue but he had done some pen and ink drawings of London sights, plus when Swinging London hit a bunch of crude cartoons of hippies, CND peace signs – crap really. But he had a squad out on the streets in the West End who sat on pitches and coloured them in/sold them neat, paying a royalty to Bob of course. Then he franchised the cartoons out to plastic bag/poster makers and you saw them everywhere – Carnaby Street especially, Piccadilly, wherever there was a kiosk, it seemed. Of course he made a lot of money…”
Bob Handley as featured on the cover of The Daily Telegraph Magazine 1975
Ron continued; “I left London in 1975 and travelled between Dublin and the continent – London had become too crowded plus the fines went up astronomically. But Bob was part of the fabric of the West End for those years. I don’t know when he started out as he was older than the rest of us but Don Partridge knew him from about 1964.”
What Rod was telling me was totally fascinating…I knew about pavement artists who would ‘franchise out’ pitches, this had been going on since the 1800’s, but it had never been described to me in as much detail…I pressed him further on the relationships between BUSKERS & SCREEVERS;
“we were in no conflict and when we were playing the cinema queues in Leicester Square, would book spots at various times which necessitated leaving guitars/instrument cases on the pitch. So there was usually a symbiosis of street rabble! We’d watch theirs and vice versa, between the pub, the cafe and the bookies.”
And what of the franchising out of pitches?
“Bob as far as I remember chalked on his own – but as his outfit grew he employed on a loose arrangement a surprising amount of people who would find a pitch somewhere and sit and colour in the drawings or just display and sell the drawings – copies of course. Bob was the benign godfather who caught on to the idea of FRANCHISE! A Warhol of the streets perhaps”
I was interested in knowing more about the relationship with the law and other aspects of working the London streets as a Busker and Screever;
“The relationship with the police was a complex one but in the main amicable. Buskers used to be fined £2 for Highway obstruction; I would assume that the print sellers would come under the same umbrella, as it were. There were laws against begging but these were more severe – and rarely used by then, I suspect. As a busker in the West End you could expect to get picked up once a month, on rough average. Usually no more than a trip to Bow Street, out fairly quickly, up before the beak next morning, guilty, two quid. Back to work.
What killed off the West End for a while until Covent Garden came along – and that was and is a totally different setup, much more organised – was the number of buskers growing to stupid proportions, the law changing, so that the fine upper end was £50!, which was a lot of money in the early 70s – and cinemas going over to booking rather than queuing. I assume that there were still queues around (I decamped in 1974-5 for more easy busking environments) but nowhere near the scale as before. You could always make money doing street pitches – Soho, Brewer Street/Berwick Street market, Carnaby Street, Portobello Road on Saturdays, Petticoat Lane Sundays etc., the theatre ‘bursts’ – hitting the punters as they came out of the show – but the queues were the gold mines. With a good bottler you could make a fast and lucrative hit.
There were always pitch wars of some description. In my book I describe Don’s experiences – he started out with his friend Alan Young (Catch the film: The London That Nobody Knows’ or check out the clip on the book blog – he’s in it with Jumping Jack/AKA The Earl of Mustard) playing by the Irving Statue, back of the National Gallery, where Bob Hanley used to let them play next to his pitch – probably while they looked after his stuff while he was down the bookies/pub whatever – so that was a symbiotic relationship between pavement artist and busker.
Don Partridge: The King of the Buskers!
But Don got wind very quickly of the opportunities to be had in Leicester Square and Coventry Street down to the Pavilion in Piccadilly. That brought them into conflict with the older buskers – accordion players and other eccentrics – but he cultivated two of them. One was Meg Aikman – the Piccadilly Nightingale, the other Jumping Jack, the tap dancer. He originally got in a fight with Don and they were promptly arrested which brought them together. Jack was a crazy bastard but like a fox. He saw the future and made alliances with the young brigade. I played with him a lot and learned much – to be in his company was a surreal experience. When I started out there were still conflicts between young and old but they were fizzling out. But people were jealous of their pitches. Basically you couldn’t just walk up to a queue and play – usually someone had booked it by leaving an instrument so for the really big films, you could be hanging around for hours just to play to that one queue.
Bob Handley as featured in The Daily Telegraph Magazine 1976
Pavement artists weren’t really a problem. There were never many round the area that I remember anyway. Bob was on his pitch, which he may have shared with others, I can’t remember, but his army of print floggers might set up in the doorway with us before queues as they would watch the gear and we would reciprocate. Some of the bottlers were recruited from their ranks and vice versa so it was a symbiotic friendly relationship in the main.”
I’ll be publishing more on this subject in a future blog, but I’d like to thank Rod Warner for sharing his first-hand account of street life and culture in 1960’s London. I’m totally fascinated by his stories, and if anybody knows what happened to Bob Handley or is related to him in any way, then please get in-touch!
Writted by Philip Battle with additional material supplied by Rod Warner & Pat Keene.
