The Nightingales - Rats on Rafts- Ted Chippington
What I got was a seamless set list of quite brilliant, and quite brilliantly performed, tunes.
There was magic abroad in the air, when the Nightingales sang near Anglia Square (I’m so childishly pleased with that opening line). This was an evening that was packed with talented folk that had honed what they do to near perfection. Ted Chippington also attended.
Kicking off the night, was the biggest surprise of the night, as Dutch band Rats on Rafts defied their relative anonymity with a clever and musically diverse selection of art-rock numbers, barely taking a breath between songs as they charged through a set that had all the confidence and heft of a headline slot. Confessing to someone that I have never heard of them I was quietly assured that neither had anyone else, but having looked up this talented bunch that can’t be right. Apparently they’ve been going for fifteen years, which only deepens the mystery of their lack of fame or success on this side of the channel. The closest contemporary like-minded band that comes to my mind is Squid, or perhaps a manic Go-Team, but neither comparison does them justice. Much of their sound is actually rooted in the post-punk eclecticism of the eighties, with the B52s and Devo brought to mind, complemented by the more substantial charms of Echo and the Bunnymen. Make no mistake, however, they have a sound all of their own, and it’s worth seeking out. Consummate musicians, showcasing perfectly crafted songs, this was exactly the sort of delight one hopes for, but rarely gets, from a support band you’ve never heard of, but immediately what to hear more from.
A big draw for me was to finally see the legend that is Ted Chippington. I first fell across his talents watching the lunchtime magazine program Pebble Mill at One – a show that made the One Show look like Panorama – back in the eighties, during my years when resting. I can only imagine he was booked by mistake, as his routine, now known as anti-comedy, but essentially invented by him, bewildered the slack-jawed audience. His influence on the likes of Stewart Lee and Ed Aczel is now well documented, but at the time, presenter Paul Coia saw nothing but a rambling mess, and quizzed Chippington aggressively on why he had bothered to turn up. Unusually unpleasant, Coia ended the interview with a shocking insult that only live TV could get away with, and it left an indelible impression on me that I was delighted to finally able to top with a live appearance from this elusive comedy great.
Chippington proved to be as shambolic and disjointed as he had on the telly, all those years ago. Most of his routine was profoundly unfunny, meandering in a way that was maddeningly discursive, infuriatingly repetitively, and largely pointless. Even bad comics tend to structure their routines in such a way that the payoffs are signposted. We know when we are supposed to laugh, even if disinclined to. Chippington dispenses with such reassuring scaffolding, nattering away so distractedly that even when there is a punch line, it is often missed. For Stewart Lee, Chippington is the master – indeed the progenitor – of a form of comedy that questions and dissects the tired tropes that have been churned out for generations. For many of us (including Chippington, I suspect) he’s just a bloke that got up on stage one day, talked nonsense, and can’t believe that no one has yet pointed out that the Emperor has no clothes. Box ticked, though, and all power to his grand deception.
So to The Nightingales - what a surprisingly talented bunch they proved to be. I come late to the Nightingales party, and like so many, I imagine, have been directed to it by Stewart Lee’s (him again) excellent film King Rocker. As, in large part, the film is a testament to glorious failure, I was expecting something of a racket. What I got instead was a seamless set list of quite brilliant, and quite brilliantly performed, tunes. Again, the band rattled through the music, with little time or patience for a natter or applause, and I would be pointlessly fibbing to pretend I knew what I was listening to. I do know, because I’ve been told, that they performed Born Again In Birmingham and Too Posh To Push, and I was particularly taken by the meta song, Gales Doc, which talked about the song itself. My lasting impression, however, was the excellence of Fliss Kitson’s drumming and the vocal talent of perennial front man, Robert Lloyd. I get the comparisons with The Fall, in attitude if not content, but Lloyd really can sing. Get past his substantial presence – imagine Philip Larkin giving it go – and he’s a bloke that can hold a note as well as write a nifty lyric. With a sound that seems to have swept up myriad influences along the way, I came along expected to me amused and entertained by wilful contrariness, and came away simply impressed by a musical powerhouse that is simply a great band.
A footnote: While preparing this review, I poked about the internet, as you do, in an effort to buttress my feeble knowledge. Remarkably, I found a clip of that Pebble Mill interview, in which it was revealed that, disappointingly, Paul Coia actually called Chippington a cult, so not so bad after all.
