Farewell, Frank Sidebottom

I loved Frank Sidebottom and I always wanted to know more about the man behind the head, Chris Sievey.

In fact, I wondered if Sievey was the only man who could make my pop dreams come true.

I wouldn’t say I had plans of asking him to produce some pop with me; but I definitely had thoughts of it. I wonder why no-one did?

Because even from his spoofy Frank records, it was obvious he loved pure 60s-inspired pop and was rather brilliant at it, with an ear and sensibility not far removed from someone like Ian Broudie.

The Freshies’ records – from the pre-Frank period when Sievey was a proper have-a-go would-be pop star – are just full of layers and hooks and harmonies and good humour and yet despite Sievey’s apparent Beatles obsession, he hadn’t, to my knowledge, produced any ‘straight’ records after he donned the Frank Sidebottom head in about 1984.

Intriguingly, I learned last week, that Sievey DID produce some new songs under his own name (or possibly as the Freshies) for a radio session in 2007 but I’ve never heard them and the link is now apparently dead (I wrote to the boss of Manchester Radio Online, urging them to re-up the link. No reply. Poor.)

What’s either funny or frustrating as a Sidebottom fan is that I think a lot of people who didn’t get him thought he was a one- or two-joke comedian:

1) He’s the one with the funny big head!

2) He’s the one who does rubbish cover versions!

So many of the obits have mentioned the cover versions – and his live show was built round them. But listen to one of the dozens of radio shows he did and you can hear the genius: really clever, detailed stories, spoofing around with the form with a smartness so lightly (and, ok, stupidly) worn that children could enjoy them as much as cultural clever-clogs like myself.

Of course, I despise look-at-how-clever/edgy-I-am comedians and so many modern ‘funny’ ‘men’ seem simply misanthropic or wilfully aggressive. Can it be that that prize fool Frankie Boyle, who makes jokes about children with Downs syndrome and evidently thinks himself edgy, can make £20k plus a night from corporate gigs when our own Sidey dies penniless?

Depressing.

Of course, the obits have mentioned how Sievey/Sidey got Caroline Aherne started by letting her play Mrs Merton (initially, a young mother for whom Frank babysat, with indifferent results). But no-one has really highlighted the many people who came after him who seemed to be in his debt.

He worked at some point with Graham Fellows/John Shuttleworth and, though Shuttleworth is funny in his own right, it’s hard not to feel that the bones of his act are very similar to Sidebottom.

I think Sievey found that thought hard to resist too, from reports.

To me, the crazily-detailed-pop-culture-observations-squeezed-through-the-surreal-masher formula of Viv Reeves and Harry Hill (who I love too) was first done by Sievey; maybe it’s my age – maybe Sievey nicked it all from someone else. Hard to suggest that Reeves or Hill stole from or were even influenced by Sievey – I guess all you can say is that he did it first and if he’d come a bit later he might have found a more mainstream niche.

I think I’ve watched every Sidebottom clip on youtube in the last couple of weeks but I’m still looking for more.

Maybe this is the definitive one, though.