Chris Sievey RIP

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/england/manchester/10370480.stm

Founder member of the Freshies. Later found greater success as the comic character Frank Sidebottom.

The Freshies had a few great post-punk singles, notably "I Can't Get 'Bouncing Babies' by the Teardrop Explodes" and "I'm In Love With The Girl On The Manchester Virgin Megastore Checkout Desk".

Sad. I love the Freshies stuff and had a good time at a few Frank Sidebottom shows too. There is some RIP talk on this thread: Frank Sidebottom - C or D ?

It would be great if someone somewhere would compile the Freshies properly. The only CD is pretty incomplete and misses some of their best singles.

Tribute from a true fan plus mp3s of the first eight singles by the Freshies.

Sievey used to make great comic play of the Freshies being unsigned, as I recall. They used to get a bit of coverage in Smash Hits back in the day. I remember reading there that he had papered his wall with rejection letters. Also that one of his songs was basically a list of record labels that turned him down.

He does make a point of saying in the song that he is not bothered by being turned down though! Of course the gatefold sleeve of Frank Sidebottom's 5:9:88 album shows that his wall is actually covered with pictures of Paul McCartney and Joe 90. But it wouldn't surprise me if the story of him papering the walls with rejections is true. There are stories of him doing all sorts of elaborate gags like that. I just read a bit by Mark Radcliffe saying that he once set up a snooker table in the back of the tour van with velcro balls.

There was also a story about him delivering a box full of sheets of paper to a record company office. The top sheet said something like "Hi, this is Chris Sievey. Hang on a minute, I've gone and left something in the oven." The next sheet in the box was slightly singed and they got progressively more burned, right down to the last one which was just ashes.

Hah! His obssession with records labels, memorabilia and the dribs and drabs of the record collecting world really endeared him to me. Like that Bouncing Babies song is a perfect picture of a certain type of music obsessive from the pre-internet era. It's such a nostalgic song for me now - reminds me of taking the train to some record fair in Scotland just hoping that I could locate the missing Revillos single (or whatever) from my collection.

Of course he ended up getting signed to MCA just after that record came out and EMI just a couple of years afterwards. But he had to make the change from being a straight performer singing funny songs to being a funny character singing straight songs.

This is probably my favourite Freshies song. The video is poor quality and it's just the single playing over some footage of them performing who knows what but footage of them is extremely rare. Great lyrics in this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HZBfN8-w5U

Wise... men... say...
so many, many, many, many wise things;
But I... can't... help...
falling in love with you.

Take... my... hand...
But please give it back when you're finished!
Cause I... can't... help...
falling in love with you.

(from memory, sorry if off. RIP Frank & Chris)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPJGwFfpDV0