Worth Going Bananas Over: T’Pau – Monkey House
17/06/2016
Today’s song is Monkey House by T’Pau, chosen by my good friend Tom Clare. Complementing my article on our reputation as a couple of pop losers (a'hem, aficionados) at university, Tom gives his account of our first meeting, our first gig experience, and what led him into a life of what some would consider music for the masses.
Worth Going Bananas Over: T'Pau - Monkey House
by Tom Clare
by Tom Clare
Like Bryn, I spent the better part of my teens in a musical wilderness, wasting the early years of the new millennium vegetating on a thin mix of radio-friendly R 'n' B, coffee table fodder and the odd ditty from the by-then largely barren pop charts.
By the age of seventeen, I realised that pretending to like ‘respectable’ and ‘acceptable’ music wasn't going to prolong my interest in a medium I'd adored as a kid. In 2004, I rebelled in the opposite direction to many; I wanted away from the depressingly humdrum sounds of the Coldplays, Keanes and Snow Patrols that were stifling the airwaves. But with pop itself suffering thanks to the Make-A-Pleb-A-Star carnival manifested in Pop Idol, X-Factor and all that they spawned, the question was “where to turn?”
I discovered the answer quite accidentally (or perhaps partly as a result of my love for Bond themes, and in particular A View To A Kill) as I came in to ownership of Duran Duran's Greatest. This was when such a circulation was only considered enjoyable ‘in an ironic way’ (I'm still not entirely sure what that means) or as a tacit warning from history as to what synthesisers sounded like before ‘technology happened’.
Despite all the alarm bells ringing a warning about ‘shit’ music, I loved it. It spurred me on to delve a little deeper and try a studio album - Rio - and before you could say “you've gone too far this time!” I was mining a trove of LPs from a plethora of artists situated in an era of positive messages, springy sounds and strong pop craft.
In addition to enjoying the music, I was enamoured with the stories of development these albums told. The only problem was, much like Tom Hanks in Castaway, I had no one save a volley ball to share my enthusiasm with. Socially exiled on a pop-culture desert island, far away from the mainland mainstream, my discussions on the relative merits of early Human League would be heard by no one, and so it would remain for the next five years.
Then Bryn turned up.
By the age of seventeen, I realised that pretending to like ‘respectable’ and ‘acceptable’ music wasn't going to prolong my interest in a medium I'd adored as a kid. In 2004, I rebelled in the opposite direction to many; I wanted away from the depressingly humdrum sounds of the Coldplays, Keanes and Snow Patrols that were stifling the airwaves. But with pop itself suffering thanks to the Make-A-Pleb-A-Star carnival manifested in Pop Idol, X-Factor and all that they spawned, the question was “where to turn?”
I discovered the answer quite accidentally (or perhaps partly as a result of my love for Bond themes, and in particular A View To A Kill) as I came in to ownership of Duran Duran's Greatest. This was when such a circulation was only considered enjoyable ‘in an ironic way’ (I'm still not entirely sure what that means) or as a tacit warning from history as to what synthesisers sounded like before ‘technology happened’.
Despite all the alarm bells ringing a warning about ‘shit’ music, I loved it. It spurred me on to delve a little deeper and try a studio album - Rio - and before you could say “you've gone too far this time!” I was mining a trove of LPs from a plethora of artists situated in an era of positive messages, springy sounds and strong pop craft.
In addition to enjoying the music, I was enamoured with the stories of development these albums told. The only problem was, much like Tom Hanks in Castaway, I had no one save a volley ball to share my enthusiasm with. Socially exiled on a pop-culture desert island, far away from the mainland mainstream, my discussions on the relative merits of early Human League would be heard by no one, and so it would remain for the next five years.
Then Bryn turned up.
Tom Getting all wet for Carol Decker, Shrewsbury 2009
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The 1987 T'Pau album Bridge of Spies is home to the song Monkey House
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One day during the final year of University, he gives me a lift home. Erasure blares garishly, defiantly from the man's speaker box, or whatever the kids call car stereos these days, and he didn’t even seem ashamed. Our shared appreciation for eighties pop music grew quickly as a wealth of albums and opinions were traded. We had in effect become our own pop duo, sans actually making music. Bryn, clearly comfortable as the front man, was blessed with the looks, the girls and the fashion sense. I meanwhile, was the awkward bespectacled one who'd be relegated to the back of album covers and isn't normally allowed to speak during interviews - but probably writes most of the material and therefore ends up richer in the long run. Consoled by the latter part of this peculiar analogy, I soon headed out with Bryn to my first live gig: an 80s Rewind in Shrewsbury.
CLEAN UP IN THE MONKEY HOUSE
Much can be written and remembered of that day in 2009, but seeing as time is short and readers' attention spans even shorter, I'll condense a fair bit. Johnny Hates Jazz were prima donnas for their unexplained no-show; Go West performed a ripping cover of U2's Vertigo; Belinda Carlisle, Bananarama and The Human League combined to deliver a non-stop barrage of summer hits that defied the rather soggy conditions. But as one wise soul put it, it's best to start at the beginning.
Can you remember your first gig experience? The first artist you saw live, the first song belted back at you by the very artist whose tones you'd exhausted in recorded form? My answers to those questions were all made for me that day when T'Pau stepped out on the stage with Sex Talk.
Though there were many highlights that day (my thin-enough-to-see-through t-shirt revealing my thin-enough-to-see-through torso perhaps not one of them), there was also a tiny sense of disappointment that the audience hadn't been as in to Sex Talk, China in your Hand and co. as I had. I learned very quickly that this was the curse of opening a gig; you were somewhat resigned to an apathetic reaction, the depressingly literal meaning of the term ‘warm up’. These songs were a big deal, made for a large audience with a theatrical, sing-along quality, and though T'Pau could just as accurately have been described as ‘Carol Decker’ at this point in time, her soaring voice was still a grand affair deserving of appreciation.
Little did Bryn and I realise at the time though, Decker's brief but enjoyable set would leave a more unusual, and lasting, legacy on our gig attending. The two of us shouted like deranged New Romantic yobs for “Monkey House!” in the hope of hearing this slightly more obscure single from the band’s repertoire. We were out of luck, but ever since, “a Monkey House” has become a by-word for a hit we hope to hear at a gig, but figure it will probably be a little too obscure. Move to Memphis at a-ha; Sunset Now at Heaven 17, half the time we hear them, half the time we don't, but that's part of the fun.
We look back fondly at the gig that started our fantastic journey of live experiences. Plus, I can also say with some surety that The Human League's Tell Me When is the finest song I've ever heard live whilst queuing for a portaloo. And let's face it, there are not many who would lay claim to that.
