Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine - GI Blues

If, in 1992, you'd have told me that Jim Bob from Carter USM would one day play a gig in my local pub, I'd have probably pooed myself with excitement. But, in 2011, it is indeed happening. So, if you happen to be in the South East of England, then you'd be a flipping idiot not to get yourself to Eastbourne's Lamb Inn on Tuesday 7th June, when BobbySix's all-time hero straps on an acoustic guitar and provides the musical entertainment for That Comedy Thing, as part of a bill which also includes Isy Suttie from Peep Show.

There are full interviews with both Jim Bob and Isy coming up at BobbySix.com over the next few weeks but, for now, let's wind back the clock for a bit of old school Carter genius.

Words by Carter fan Rob Townsend (who used to sport that same haircut).

A Few Of My Favourite Things... by Rob Townsend

Alongside regular feature, Getting To Know... BobbySix.com is launching an occasional series called A Few Of My Favourite Things. It's pretty self-explanatory and, to get the ball rolling, Bobby Six's head honcho, Rob Townsend, has a stab at it himself:

My Favourite Band
In the early 1990s I fell head-over-heels in love with an indie/pop/dance band from South London. Named Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, they were a two-piece who played guitars and sang over a drum machine. Sans bassist. Sans drummer. I went to every tour they played, bought every T-shirt, copied singer Jim Bob's flamboyant haircut and even sneaked into the MTV studios in Camden to get their autographs. Combining social and political commentary with pop-punk sensibilities to create big, singalong tunes, there was an honesty and integrity to Carter that wasn’t in the slightest contrived and could not be doubted. Regardless of where they stand in the grand scheme of things - whether they are important or nothing more than a footnote on the 90s scene - there is always one band that makes a difference to a person’s life and Carter was that band for me.

My Favourite Gig
There are so many sweat-drenched moments of magnificence to consider. The Flaming Lips brought an incredible kaleidoscopic party to Brighton, while Kitty Daisy & Lewis got Sydney dancing. What else? Well, Regina Spektor at the Opera House, Morrissey opening his show with How Soon Is Now?, The White Stripes and The Strokes playing onstage together at the Reading Festival, the first time I ever saw Bridezilla and had the realisation I had discovered something amazing, singing Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise onstage with The Late Greats at Latitude... the list could go on and on. I think that experiencing Pulp play at Brixton Academy just after Different Class was released tops the lot. I have never seen a performer have such a command over the audience as Jarvis Cocker on that night. He is my hero. In terms of an overall line-up, seeing The Cribs supported by Jeffrey Lewis and Giant Drag was pretty much my indie dream come true.

My Favourite Song
There is a Light That Never Goes Out and Do You Realise?? come a close second and third to this:

My Favourite Album
While I love pretty much anything Tom Waits has ever done and I'll never, ever grow tired of listening to Pet Sounds and The Moldy Peaches, once again Carter USM triumph in this category. I can sing every word of their standout album, 30 Something (which was awarded 10/10 in the NME). They told us about life as it was and constantly conveyed the social deprivation around. Ballad Falling on a Bruise is the absolute jewel in its crown, telling a downbeat tale of dejection (“Some you win and some you lose, I’ve spent my whole lifetime falling on a bruise, and if I had the chance to do it all again, I’d change everything”). Followed on the album by the heartbreaking lullaby The Final Comedown (“I’ve been cut, I’ve been stitched, I’ve been buggered, bewitched and abandoned”) this was Carter’s finest hour.

My Favourite Destination

Sometimes a place and a person just connect. In 2006 took the plunge and ventured to Sydney with no idea whether I was going to be there for a week, a month, or forever.  Within a few days, I had found work as a music critic and discovered a network of wonderful, like-minded new friends. Five years on, I'm still ensconced within its warm embrace. When I am attending some awesome party, reviewing a gig at the Opera House, or just bobbing around in the cool sea underneath unblemished blue skies, Sydney feels like the greatest place on God's green earth.

My Favourite Book
I have recently become more that a little obsessed with Cormac McCarthy. There is so much atmosphere to his words. Whether he is recalling the Old West or conjuring harrowing images of an apocalyptic modern America, you can almost reach out and touch the landscape he has created. Also, the sense of impending peril he brings keeps the tension at a consistent and near-unbearably high level. Take, for instance, All The Pretty Horses. Nothing much happens until over halfway through the story but there is never any doubt that it will happen. It's just bubbling under the surface, waiting to grab you by the throat.

Honorable mentions also go to War and Peace, Dracula, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Schindler's Ark, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and Fever Pitch.

My Favourite Item of Clothing
With my wonderful girlfriend Emma running Dear Pluto, a whole lotta lovely vintage clothing passes through our place. With such a high turnover of awesome threads at my disposal, I often wear something for a while before growing bored of it. However, I am still just as in love with these shoes as I was when I first chanced upon them. They're beautiful.

My Favourite Film
In my humble opinion, This is Spinal Tap and Bottle Rocket are about as perfect as it gets. I love how the comedy and narrative in these films are driven by a completely natural dialogue and a sense of love and brotherhood amongst the lead characters. Elsewhere, my boat is floated by Life is Beautiful, Shaun of The Dead, The Wizard of Oz, Back To The Future Trainspotting, Toy Story 3, Juno and anything by Almodovar and Hitchcock.

My Favourite TV Show
I am an absolute situational comedy nerd. There is rarely a day when I do not relate a real life occurrence to something that happened to Jerry Seinfeld or to Mark and Jeremy. The lines between reality and fiction tend to blur in my head.

It's hard for me to settle on a favourite show but, if you're looking for pure genius, then you don't need to venture much further than The Office. The thing I especially like about it is how, on first glance, you think it is about David Brent, whereas to dig deeper is to find the sweetest love story based around Tim and Dawn. I have never managed to watch the Christmas special without crying.

My Favourite Memory

As I rummage back through my cluttered brain, there are lots of images that present themselves, like a montage from a slightly-less-cool-than-usual John Hughes movie. Playing cricket in the hazy English morning sunshine on my friend Max's stag weekend was joyous in its simplicity, as were the seemingly endless summer days I spent playing football on the Old Town recreational ground in Eastbourne as a kid (above). Meanwhle, drawing faces on balloons and throwing them from the roof of Hibernian House in Sydney with Emma and watching them dance with the breeze before being swallowed up by the vastness of the city is a happy memory that is as vivid now as the day that it happened.

My Favourite Food
Eggs are the greatest invention of all time. Okay, so they're not actually an invention, but if they were, they would be the greatest invention of all time. Although potatoes would probably give them a run for their money. They are both so versatile. Meanwhile, the most underrated food in the world is spinach. Yum. Contrary to what my skinny frame suggests, I like to eat. A lot. I'm generally into savoury stuff but, to be honest, if I could coat everything I eat in caramel, I probably would.

My Favourite Photo

This forever changes. At the moment, I have two. The first is of me on stage with David Ford as part of his choir at the Corbury Festival a few years ago (above). There was something amazing about looking around the stage and realising that every person there was one of my best friends and had been for many years. The other photo (below) is one of Emma and I that amazing photographer Daniel Boud took when were mucking about playing dress-up at our old place in Sydney. It was a fun afternoon.

Jim Bob - Storage Stories

Where do old pop stars go to die? Well, if they are the protagonist of Jim Bob's debut novel, they go to work in self-storage, where they meet interesting people and fall in love with women who look like French movie star Juliette Binoche. They meet others who look like weirdly bearded paedophiles. Should the opportunity arise, they are not adverse to having sex with a widow in a pub toilet while their thirteen-year-old son plays pub games in the bar with a bubblewrap fetishist.

A fictional autobiography told in short stories and pictures, Storage Stories is laugh-out-loud funny, gripping and often rather touching. Anyone familiar with the lyrics of the former Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine singer will recognise the lovely rhythm and flow to his words. As with his Carter lyrics, here Jim finds beauty, comedy, sadness and absurdity in the everyday things that would go unnoticed by most amid a world that has long-since gone to the dogs. As Jim Bob combines darkness with the wonderfully witty and surreal, he gives a strange sense of doomed romance to an otherwise mundane, miserable and menacing England.

Storage Stories is unputdownable in a Nick Hornby kind of way. As soon as I finished it, I wanted to go back to the beginning and start all over again.

You can purchase Storage Stories here.

Want to know more about Jim Bob? Read my interview here.

Abdoujaparov interview

London-based musician and Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine legend Les Carter (aka, Fruitbat) is currently in Australia with his band, Abdoujaparov. I grabbed a few words with him about the tour and his upcoming visit to Sydney:


"I got asked for I.D. at a pub the other day. I'm 51 years old. That's just stupid."

Back on another Australian tour, the delightfully affable Les Carter, Fruitbat to you and I, may have to carry his passport around with him when hitting the town, but it'll take more than the occasional officious bouncer to spoil his fun in the hazy Autumn heat. "My overall memories of Australian tours are of relaxation, sunshine, booze, friends and a great attitude towards rock 'n' roll," he reminisces, as talk turns to why Australia keeps drawing him back year after year.

"When we split up Carter USM [in 1997]," he explains. "I promised myself that my new band would come over to Oz. I had such a brilliant time when Carter came over to do Big Day Out in 1993, but for some reason our record company would never let us come back."

And so Fruitbat has kept the promise he made to himself and brought Abdoujaparov to the sunny side of the world on several occasions, and will be back at one of his favourite Sydney haunts, The Excelsior, this April 15th. "I'm looking forward to meeting up with the great bunch of friends that turn up at the gigs and having a few decent beers. Sue at The Excelsior is a legend too. She always looks after us." As has become the norm, the dynamic of his band changes when he hits this side of the world, "We are playing with two boys from Perth this year, so Sydney gig goers will get to see a slightly different blend of the Abdou sound."

Clearly, Australia holds a special place in the Londoner's heart, but it seems he won't be packing up his possessions and relocating from South London on a permanent basis anytime soon. "I did have dreams of moving here, but Australia seems to be a lot more buttoned down than it used to be. There are bits of 'nanny state-ism' that seem even worse than in the UK. With each passing year, I have seen Australia becoming more American and less Australian and I think that's a real shame." Even if he did want to make the big move over here, the masses of red tape involved in immigrating might prevent him from doing so anyway. "I'm not a plumber or a hairdresser, so I don't think Australia will let me in. My only option would be to find myself a nice Aussie chick and marry her. Any offers?"

So, after a whirlwind tour of Aus, the indie legend will head back to Blighty to play to his English fanbase. While there won't be another of his other band's hugely successful gig exravaganzas in the near future, there will be plenty of opportunities for fans to catch an Abdoujaparov show. "Myself and Jim Bob are concentrating on non-Carter stuff this year, so there won't be any Carter gigs until at least late 2011, but this year is gonna be tour, tour, tour as far as I'm concerned. I want to beat our annual gig count and play in as many new places as we can."

And as for some new Abdoujaparov material, well, that's hopefully on it's way too. "We are determined to get something out this year. There has been a new Abdou album in the works for over a year so far. It is proving to be quite a difficult birth. I have about 30 songs but have only recorded 4 of them so far." And, as well as his ongoing Carter and Abdoujaparov projects, he has other irons in the fire too, like a musical that he has been writing over the past few years. "My musical is still waiting in the wings. It is almost finished actually and is very good. I am hoping to write more games music this year too; that is great fun. I did start writing an illustrated children's book some time ago, but couldn't find a publisher so it got a bit stuck. It's called King One Ear Bigger Than The Other."

For now though, Fruitbat is concentrating on rocking his way around Australia. And what can Sydneysiders expect when they turn up to The Excelsior? "A good fun night out, with some class tunes and a great atmosphere," he promises. "Expect to leave with a big smile on your face."

For a full list of Abdoujaparov's tour dates, click HERE.