The Fab Four also got a namecheck when David Quantick interviewed erudite, genial (and occasionally bitchy when Elton John’s name was mentioned) John Savage (pictured with DQ second pic down) on Saturday morning. Savage has just curated - is that the word? – a CD, 1967: The Year Pop Divided. 1967, he argued, was a pivotal year in modern music as it was the point that the world splintered into serious album-buyers and the pop singles market. It was also the year when the Beatles’ double a side, Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields was kept off the number one spot by Englebert Humperdinck’s Please Release Me. Some critics thought this marked the end of the Beatles. Little did they know Sgt Pepper was round the corner.
Saturday continued with two exceptional poetry sessions in the Congregational Hall. Holly McNish, who recently won a big Ted Hughes prize had some wonderful poems about being a mother and a stand-out one about the problems of rekindling your sex life after giving birth. McNish suggested that maybe she should have three T-shirts made up announcing to her partner her mood about sex at any time – “Participatory, non-participatory and no.”
Stripey-shirted Essex comic Luke Wright (fourth pic down) delivered an equally powerful set which was clever, political and idiosyncratic - one verse, abut Iain Duncan Smith, used only one vowel - the letter i. While another only used the vowel u. There was lots about history too, showing that Wright knew about other things apart from Henry VIII and Nazis.
After a quick curry it was back to the Congregational Hall for Scritti Politti (top picture). After almost 40 years the only original member is Green Gartside, who stood at the back of the stage. I’m not sure whether this was for non-hierarchical reasons or because the drumkit only fitted at the front. Gartside has apparently suffered from stage nerves in the past, but apart from the fact that he had his lyrics on a lectern in front of him there was no indication of the wobbles. Now 61 (though looking 41) his voice was as silky smooth and honey-toned as ever. It was amazing to realise how many familiar songs they had, from The Sweetest Girl to Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin).
And the current band - guitarist Dicky Moore, drummer Rob Smoughton and compact multi-instrumentalist Rhodri Marsden – did an impressive job capturing that classic loping, skanking, rimshot-driven Scritti sound. Gartside also aired some new songs - one of which namechecked one of his favourite rappers, the late Bankroll Fresh, and also one of his favourite philosophers, WVO Quine (hey, a fave of mine too. And the uncle of Richard Hell/Lloyd Cole guitarist Robert Quine). You don’t get many of those to the pound. The band went down fantastically well and were the highlight of the weekend for many people. I expect they would have been a highlight for many even if Gartside and Marsden had been from Weybridge and not Wales (I assume Rhodri - who is also a very funny writer – has at least some Welsh in him)
I’m afraid I managed to skip one of the annual talking points of the weekend, the late-night Laugharne’s Got Talent, which is hosted by Keith Allen and allows anyone to get up onstage. I popped in for a bit and when I left for bed around midnight it was only just warming up. It might still be going on.
Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, so I only took in one show, artist Jeremy Deller talking about his work. Deller’s projects are always interesting - one of his first projects was turning his house into an art gallery when his parents were away for a fortnight. More recently he got Iggy Pop to pose for still life portraits. Deller described Pop’s ageing body as “an incredible landscape”. You could probably say the same about Laugharne. And you could certainly say it about the Laugharne Weekend.
Info for Laugharne 2018 will probably be here when it is announced.
The third picture down is of musician Deke Leonard, drawn by cartoonist Martin Rowson.
*I’d always pronounced it “Laugh-Arne”. It’s actually pronounced “Larne”.
