The U2 Covers - No. 21: 'Postcards From The Edge'

Bono, Adam and Larry. Not to mention the self-styled King Boogaloo himself, Mr B. P. Fallon, whose new book U2: Faraway So Close offers an intimate visual and verbal diary of the band’s world-record shattering ZOO TV tour. For good measure the, um, also self-styled Mr Ramalama talks about Jimi Hendrix and the Mafia connection, toting guns with Tone Loc, giving Little Richard a hard-on, and other little, um, side voyages into other territories, man. Er, tape recorder thingy: Joe Jackson.

And now! Ladeez andgentlemen! The tenth hardest-working man in show-business! The most beautiful, the most gorgeous, the most sexy! All the way from Dublin, Ireland! (loud cheers). Mr Ramalama! The High Priest of Happiness! King Boogaloo and a darn nice guy! Ladeez and gentlemen Beeeee Peeee Fallon!!!

Thus Sprack Zarathustra? Well, no actually, though one suspects that BP Fallon would love to have made his entrance onto stage to the sound of the Wagnerian theme music Elvis used during the '70s. Instead, he settled for the relatively understated intro quoted above, as spoken by Steve McHale during the first ZOO TV gig on February 28th, 1992 at the Civic Center in Lakeland, Florida.

From this, er, humble beginning, BP then went on to do his warm-up DJ gig for his "backing band"; U2 to nearly three million people during the first phase of their recent world tour. Now he"s published his po'mo'; audio-visual diary of that "trip" and "vibe";, man, U2: Faraway So Close, which could, conceivably, sell to at least the same number of U2 fanatics. Or, of course, 'Beep' fans.

Love him or hate him, it certainly looks like Fallon is here to stay. Rewind the VCR roughly 25 years and freeze on a frame, there he'll be writing his column for New Spotlight magazine or appearing on RTE pop shows such as Like Now. Fast forward a year and he’s scamming his way into a room in Amsterdam to interview John and Yoko during their legendary bed-in. Keep your finger on that button and race through a brace of images from the next decade and you’ll see Fallon doing PR for the likes of Led Zeppelin, T Rex, Joe Cocker, Stevie Winwood, The Boomtown Rats and Stiff Records. Along the way he pops up on 2FM presenting The BP Fallon Orchestra. And, finally, stop the video in the early ’90s, just before U2 took him on tour, and there he is writing his weekly rock column for The Sunday Tribune.

All of that acknowledged, BP Fallon knows that he is also widely perceived as Mr. Egomania! The High Priest of Self Promo! King Bug an' bug an'; bug you - a real pain-in-the-arse to many people. On the fly-leaf of his book it"s claimed that during his time on tour with U2 he was "an active participant, not some mute notetaker." What would he say to those who might wish he had just been a silent fly-on-the-wall during the tour and that, in his book, he should have shut the fuck up about himself?

"If'd been a fly-on-the-wall I would have come off the wall and started singing with the band, whenever I could! he says, laughing as he lounges back in a chair in Dublin's Latchford Hotel, surrounded by at least three art-works representing images of Elvis; including that $600 dressing gown he wore during the U2 tour, with the image of Elvis as Jesus Christ, forehead torn by a crown of thorns. Far out, Beep.

"And this book is an invitation to my world. Someone said this book is just a chapter in BP's life and if I can't make my presence felt in my own world then forgive me my trespasses. This is not cinema ema verite;. I'm not pretending to be unbiased or invisible. Because my role on that tour was not to walk ten paces behind the group and write down every pearl of wisdom that dropped out of their mouths. I was there in my King Boogaloo persona."

Quite. But isn't it also true that, originally, BP wasn't there to take notes on anything. He was not officially appointed as a chronicler of the tour.

"That's true," he says. "And I would have been useless at that. Because I want to chronicle where I'm at, and the people around me and this amazing music. And the book is not meant to be On The Road with U2, it's a record of my adventures, largely with my chums U2 and also other highways that were travelled on my own or with them - where they play my backing band, if you like!”."

But are all members of BP’s “backing band” still “chums” following the publication of this book? It’s rumoured that some are pissed off at what they see as a violation of privacy – as in photographs and notes that seemed initially to be made as private mementoes of a tour, now turning up in book form.

“That’s not true. In fact, having read that, I rang Edge and though it wasn’t him who was quoted, he rejected impressions that some of the band are unhappy about the book.”

That said, Larry Mullen Jnr certainly isn’t as strong a presence in the book as one might expect. Does this mean that maybe he told BP to take a walk?

“Larry doesn’t like having his picture taken. And isn’t mad about involving himself in the whole U2 thing, at this level. But then, as I say, the book is a memento of feelings I got. It’s not as though I had to do a quarter of the book on each member of U2.”

But does this mean that Larry Mullen Jnr doesn’t like BP?

“You’d have to ask him that! He probably has more taste than to like me! But when he does turn up in the book what he has to say is pretty sharp, y’know. Like when he watched the video for One and said ‘It’s too much of a male-female thing’ because he felt it should have reflected more, in terms of those gay people in the audience who were touched by the line ‘one, but not the same’. And there’s the time when I’m giving him country albums, like Gram Parsons and he tells me about ‘TLC’ and when I say ‘what’s that stand for’ he says Tender, Loving Care – you mean you’ve forgotten?’”

Whatever about Larry’s feelings towards BP there is a distinct impression created by the many conversations which are reported in the book, that Bono regards King Boogaloo as his buddy. Likewise, in terms of BP’s creative input into the recording session for Bono’s version of Can’t Help Falling In Love for the movie Honeymoon In Vegas, for which Fallon provided the Elvis-interview that was sampled.

“I love that man, y’know?” says BP. “He’s very special. You look at him, at all of them, and think: God, they’ve written all these great songs, like ‘Pride’ and you ask yourself ‘is he really that rock star?’ I just can’t look at them and see them as such. They’re my friends. And when I look at Bono I do see this wonderful, warm man. There aren’t many people around like him.”

Hold on, Beep. Doesn’t that sound just a little like idolatrous love, hero-worship? As a true friend isn’t he supposed to see Bono’s flaws and failings?

“It’s not hero-worship. As he said to me today, “I’m your fan and critic’. And every healthy relationship must have those two sides to it.”

That said, there isn’t much that’s critical of U2 in BP’s book.

“That’s not really what I do, y’know?” he says. “Peace, love and happiness is my vibe. But there are moments of tension like that ludicrous idea of Bono going up in the air to do Running To Stand Still. And I must admit that I didn’t know what the ground rules were supposed to be on the tour so I did, for example, burst into the room where they were all freaked because they couldn’t play Achtung Baby live. But I do mean it when I say I’m not interested in presenting a book that is dark and critical.

“I attempted a book before, about The Pogues, but couldn’t do it because, at that juncture, in 1988, the story was like an Edgar Allen Poe novel read while you’re on bad ecstasy. And I didn’t want to write that because I believe in joyfulness. Look at the Nick Kent book. It’s a fine book, but it’s all full of shadows. Give me some sunlight, baby, y’know? But this doesn’t mean I’ve been lobotomised. It only means my nature is more inclined towards up things. And that can even be the blues. Because of what blues music is, blues heals. And there is sadness in the book, as in when my friend Terry got murdered. So darkness is my friend too, it has to be. And that is in the book too.”

Bono as The Fly, The Mirrorball Man and MacPhisto may not manifest himself too often in BP’s written text, but he’s certainly pinned down and caged in some of Fallon’s Albert Wertheimer behind-the-scenes type photographs.

“I hope so,” says BP. “In the colour picture of him on the sofa you look at the eyes and you see someone completely lost. And MacPhisto is a character in pain and fucked up but not deliberately wicked, as far as I can tell. But that is definitely a shadow. And for Bono to adopt that role, which shines with doubt and fear, as opposed to The Mirrorball Man, who shines with light, was amazing to witness. Even more amazing was watching Bono play MacPhisto and know that he really is a nice guy in real life.”

So where is the picture of Bono, before some shows, in apparently method actor-like communion with the photograph of Elvis that used to be slipped into a dressing room mirror as a potential channel of communication with Elvis' spirit?

"That was wild, but there's no photograph of that," he says.

So what else is missing from the book? Where are the photographs of equally wild rock 'n' roll behaviour, of sex, drugs . . .?

"They're in a vault in Switzerland. And that will be the here-I-am-in Rio-doing-a-telephone-interview book! But there weren't those kind of photographs because U2 are not a wild, drugs, three-groupies-at-a-time combo. They don't smash up rooms and they don't shoot their fans, so it's not really part of the territory. This is not Zoo Babylon. If people want Zoo Babylon they should have gone off with Guns N' Roses a few years ago."

But surely the point is that if U2 were doing any or all of the above things, they would keep well out of sight of you and your camera?

"If they were doing any of that stuff they'd probably be catalysed by me," he says coyly.

But let's not be naive here. Don't BP Fallon's claims, in this context, have to vie, in the public eye, with tabloid tales of Adam's exploits with cocaine and the call girls around the time of their Wembley gig last year?

"Other people can write about that, if they want. I wasn't there for that, so am I going to write about what I read in a paper? Adam is a really warm guy. Besides, who's to judge any of them, in this respect?," he adds.

And yet one recalls how John Lennon spoke in Lennon Remembers about the Beatles living a lifestyle that could have come out of a sexual, sybaritical movie by Fellini. He concluded that "no one wanted to upset the apple cart" – and that included mangers, hangers-on, the media and the law. Mightn't the same climate exist in Ireland in relation to U2? Furthermore, to paraphrase Lennon in relation to Elvis' death, isn't it conceivable that someone, someday may have to say about U2 that their 'courtiers' in some sense killed the 'kings'? (Er, can I get back to you on that one, Joe. Like after Hot Press Munchengladbach win the European Cup? – Ed)

"Lennon said that about Elvis, bless him, and about rock n' roll in general and I agree with that point of view," says BP. "Elvis would say 'I'm hungry,’ and the door would be jammed with seventeen rednecks trying to get out to be the first back with a triple-cheeseburger instead of someone saying 'Elvis, I love you, buddy, have an apple'. Or telling him those movies he appeared in were crap. But I don't think that could happen to U2 and one moment on the tour reminded me of that.

"We were watching this rough-cut of a video and there was Edge, Bono, Adam, Ned O' Hanlon and Maurice Linnane from the video company sitting there. And there was some joke in the video but Paul (McGuinness) made the observation 'just because you're rock stars, doesn't mean it's a good joke'. And it was a crap joke. Whereas if you're in a room with Jerry Lee and he makes some crap joke everyone dutifully laughs. It's pathetic. But U2 have a marvellous system in place, to avoid that. This doesn't mean someone couldn't walk out the door and do whatever they want but they are intelligent people. They have the right support systems, unlike many artists."

And the Lennon Remembers analogy?

“But what's the story people are going to unearth? That U2 all go up into the Wicklow Mountains and dance, hooven-footed, around fires? If they do, that's certainly not part of my book. Nor would I want it to be. But there's no doubt that rock stars do expect 'yes' people around them. And there is so much sycophancy in rock 'n' roll that it's frightening.That's never been part of what I'm all about. I tell people what I think and what are they going to do if they don't like that? Shoot me?"

So for U2: Faraway So Close did BP have to run his sequence of photographic shots by U2 and Paul McGuinness for their approval before publication of this book? Did they read it in advance of publication? Hasn't it been suggested that they are "control-freaks", even in terms of the photographs they release to the world?

"Bono saw it, I don't know about the other people," says BP. "But they certainly didn't demand to see it. How it came about was that I take pics all the time, so when the band saw the pics, someone said 'why don't you do a book?' And they are my friends so there were discussions. But, in the end it's my book and it's not like I have to pay them money or anything out of this. But then Bono did say, several times throughout the tour 'I want you to come out of this with something, not just your salary from throughout the tour, something substantial'. So, it's a marvellous gift from the band, particularly Bono."

Claiming that "making bread" was never really an objective in his life BP refers back to an earlier subject.

"On that issue of courtiers and kings the thing is that part of every artist is that we are fucked-up, to some degree – and I have no sense of self-consciousness using the word 'artist' in relation to myself here," he says. "Be it physically, spiritually, cosmically, karmically we are malnourished and there is something wrong with someone who wants to go out in front of 70,000 people and play 'Sex Machine' and say 'wear a condom' – which is King Boogalo. The vulnerability level is higher because part of what one is, is insecure. One needs the audience to say 'it's alright'. But then it can get to a point where some guy goes in to dub a guitar solo and come back into the control room and ask 'what was it like?' and someone says 'It was brilliant, have another line'. And the guy, or girl doesn't know if that solo, or they themselves really are any good. Because there's no one to ask. At least no one you can believe. That's why there are so many wounded people in rock 'n' roll."

Did the death of Elvis, Philip Lynott, Johnny Thunders from drugs make BP curb his own excesses in this area?

"Definitely," he says. "Particularly Johnny Thunders. Working with him was a heartbreaking experience. He was a very great musician and songwriter and it was a privilege to be attempting to manage him but watching him go, as a result of smack, was pure hell. Heroin doesn't work. It kills people. Stephen Poole played on Johnny's album; Chrissie Hynde came and sang; Steve Marriot, Phil Lynott, Chris Woods, all helped him out. Then, later, I got to thinking that Johnny is dead, Chris is dead, Phil is dead, Steve is dead, Jerry Nolan is dead – that's already five people who were on one album together. Scary. And things like that made me keep things in control, sure.

"But then I've often felt I'm a good survivor. I know when to stand back from the cliff edge, please God. Yet, that said, there used to be this 'fun' chart in Melody Maker about the Top Ten people who were most likely to next spin off the mortal coil. Keith Richards was on it, obviously. And I was regularly in that chart! Though I never went to number one!"

Isn't there still time?

"Yeah. But to do that you'd have to OD. No thanks!"

Did BP ever come close to death, as a result of drugs or otherwise? What about, for example, the question of underworld connections in rock, such as the rumour that Hendrix was killed by the Mafia?

"I nearly drowned once. That was the closest," he says. "But there always has been that element in the music business. In fact I remember when I was working with E.G. management there was a plan to have this group with Jimi Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell, Carl Palmer and Greg Lake. But the next thing that happened was that all these Lambourginis started pulling up outside our mews cottage off Gloucester Road and these guys in expensive suits, with big bulges in their jackets came into our office and said 'Jimi can't join this group, he can't do it’. And that was that. It was the same when Jimmy Page wanted Steve Marriot to be the singer in his group, one of the management people involved said 'he won't be much good playing the guitar, with no fingers, will he?'

“Another time, when Led Zeppelin were playing Madison Square Gardens there were all these guys just sitting around and you had to pay them in order to have your own people do what you wanted them to do. They came with the venue and you just paid them and said nothing."

So, did BP Fallon ever feel it necessary to carry a gun?

"No. I hate guns," he says. "But I did go down to the Burning Spear Club, in Chicago, with Robert Plant and we went backstage to see Bobby Bland. I was with a black girl and Robert was with a white girl and there's Bobby Bland totally ignoring the compliments Robert was paying him, probably thinking 'who is this guy?' Bland didn't give a fuck. He'd just grunt every now and then, out of politeness. All he was interested in was counting his money. And right there beside him was his fucking revolver. And that's the blues. He had that gun there because he wasn't going to let anyone get near his shekels."

Likewise, Buddy Holly, who used to carry a shotgun to gently dissuade would-be thieves. Yet if that, too, was rock 'n' roll during the ’50's, ’60's and ’70's, gun culture is now so much a part of American rock in particular that BP Fallon suggests that the word 'violence' should be tagged on to the end of that old triad of 'sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll'.

"If you see a film like Natural Born Killers you realise that should be the case," he says. "It's about two honkies running around shooting everybody, to a soundtrack by a man I don't like, Trent Reznor, from Nine Inch Nails. And I remember going around with Tone Loc, and getting to see things that most honkies don't see. Like one day we were driving around in his range rover and listening to a song by him, about AK 45s. So when we get up to his house, which has all barbed wire around it, he takes me into his bedroom and on one side of his bed there's an AK 47 and, on the other side there's an automatic rifle.

"He also carries a little pistol all the time. So I said 'what's all this gun shit, Tone?' and he pulled down his T-shirt and there were

bullet-wound marks. So what do you say to that?

"I was talking to Solomon Burke and he said 'at least in America, we used to know who the enemy was: the guy with a sheet on his head'. But, like, last Sunday I went down to South Central in LA and one place I stopped to buy presents, this guy told me there was a hit on his daughter because someone wanted to sleep with her and she'd said no. Then there was this other girl had been forcibly taken and a bag put over her head and she was raped, killed and thrown on the trash. But that suits the honkies, who are happy to see blacks kill each other. It's a form of birth control. And a way of keeping gun sales going.

"So, what can you say to that, when rappers tell you this is where they're coming from? In the book I get to ask Chuck D about him seeming to hate white culture, as he seems to be saying in 'Fight the Power' when he says 'Elvis was a hero to most, but he never meant shit to me'. He said to me that didn't really mean 'fuck Elvis all the way' it was just that Otis Redding, James Brown and Little Richard meant a lot more to blacks. And you have to see where they're coming from. That's what music in America is all about these days. And the battle is only beginning. That's what's really frightening."

BP shudders and points out that if this is rock 'n' roll 1994-

style it's a long way from the original, innocent shiver of delight he got as a schoolboy when he heard Cliff Richard's 'Move It', the song that sent him spiralling forth into his own rock 'n' roll fantasy world. Clearly, central to that shiver, and the continuing buzz BP still gets from rock, is its sex appeal. In the book there's a somewhat gratuitous account of a conversation with Paul McGuinness in which BP advertises the fact that he's being challenged about the age of the 'women' he's been 'bringing back' to his hotel room. So what the fuck is all this about, Beep. A little self-promotion of the lowest order – BP Fallon, ladykiller?

"The point is, what is the age of consent? 16? 18 in some states of America? In some states the legal age of consent is 21. That's all I have to say on that, apart from: 'to live outside the law you must be honest'. I could get shot over this!".

On the subject of sex, is it true that BP had a sexual thing about Marc Bolan?

"You'll have to wait for the movie of my life to find that out!," says BP, laughing. "But that is a question that's been hovering around me for years, is he gay? But I don't give a toss. I don't actually fancy geezers, but if I did, I would have leapt on Marc because he was so beautiful. Marc really was gorgeous. And he pretended to like boys himself. And he could be very camp, as I can be. I love doing that, especially if it winds people up. And rock 'n' roll is freaked out by this subject; definitely homophobic.

“But, seriously, I nearly did sleep with Little Richard! I met him at Ready Steady Go during the ’60s and I went back to interview him in his hotel. And he was under just a sheet in bed, playing with himself, saying 'are all the boys from Ireland as pretty as you?' And then he went to the bathroom. Just got up and was beautiful, y'know? He was naked and had a half hard-on, a forty five degree job. But he didn't touch me, thankfully. Yet he is the queen of rock 'n' roll!"

At 48, does BP want to sustain an ongoing relationship with a woman, perhaps even father a child? Or is he happy being a form of space cadet floating wherever his spirit takes him?

"I'm happier now than I ever was" he says, reflectively. "Especially over the past three, four years. Yet I am a searcher and a wanderer who is, and always has been, led by music. I'm also a Virgo and have realised, much to the displeasure of others, that if something isn't perfect I move on, hoping to find something better. I also really believe that when the time comes to die and to look back on your life, one will regret most of all the things one didn't even try to do, the adventures one could have had, but didn't.

"These are the things that drive me forward. But although one can be content living that way one can never be truly happy for long periods of time. And I always have felt displaced. With only two super-important relationships in my life I'm bound to. Yet I've learned to live with that so, to answer your original question, yes I would like to have a child. A few years ago I couldn't have said that, because I didn't like children and they didn't like me. But now, I really don't fancy the idea of ending up alone on a farm, at 109, singing Elvis songs to myself!"

And, in the meantime?

"God knows what's going to happen next. I have been asked to do two books, TV shows and so on. So I don't have to worry about my future along those lines anyway. But, in the end, I really would like to find peace of mind, for my demons to sing in tune, for a change. And, before you ask me, yes, I slept with all of them too!"