Never mind the googlies

I know Amnesty International are very busy at the moment, but if they’ve a spare few hours they should address the horrific plight of Neil Hannon, who’s been locked in the studio all day and forced to hit notes so high that one fears they could result in permanent injury.

“He’s a bullying bastard,” Hannon says, stabbing an accusing finger at Pugwash mainman Thomas Walsh, who merely smiles in response.
The 2007 Choice Music Prize winner is one of the guests on Eleven Modern Antiquities, the third Pugwash album, which Patrick Freyne rightly drooled over in our last issue.
“We’re probably the only people in the history of Irish rock ‘n’ roll who’ve been brought together by a mutual love of cricket,” Neil laughs. “‘You like games that go on for five days and can still end in a draw? So do I, let’s make a record!’
“Thomas and I also happen to be complete Electric Light Orchestra nuts who measure everything we do against the godlike genius of Jeff Lynne. ‘Would Jeff do it like that? No? Then neither shall we.’”
Before you dismiss this as typical Hannon frippery, we ought to point out that 1). Both of them refused to leave the house last year during the Cricket World Cup and 2). The purpose of today’s session is to cover an obscure Jeff Lynne album track for a future Puggies’ b-side.
“We’ve done some co-writing that will be entering the public domain shortly, but Eleven Modern Antiquities is entirely Thomas’ creation, with my input limited to not particularly good piano and backing vocals. Making me the monkey rather than the organ grinder who you should be talking to.”
While eager for some mainstream success – “If we don’t get played on daytime radio with this album, we never bleedin’ will!” – the organ grinder in question is happy to be known as a musician’s musician.
“People think I’m some kind of mad stalker type, but whether it’s Neil, Michael Penn, Jason Falkner or Andy Partridge, everyone on Eleven Modern Antiquities volunteered their services because they like what we’re doing.”
In case you’re wondering, yes, we are talking about Andy Partridge of XTC and mad studio genius fame. How does that particular relationship work?
“Not very conventionally!” Thomas reveals. “One of us will ring the other up and play whatever idea we have down the phone prompting a jam session. I record this stream of unconsciousness on my Dictaphone, and then go back later and pick out the best bits. ‘Anchor’ from our Jollity album is actually based on a birthday song that Andy wrote and left for me on my answerphone.”
Has he been to Partridge’s house in Swindon, which according to legend rivals Kevin Shields’ former abode in the sonic teepee department?
“There’s no sonic teepee, but he has got a garden shed he occasionally writes in. The first time we went over, we came back from the pub pissed and jammed out a load of XTC songs in his front room. We did ‘Love On A Farm Boy’s Wages’, ‘Grass’, ‘Merely A Man’ and ‘Your Dictionary’. How good was that?”
Very considering that the last time XTC publicly gigged was in 1982.
“Ultimately he is a drinker, a joker and all the rest. The main XTC members only live up the road from each other, but are still as far away from reforming as ever – though you can never say never!”
Another reason for the mood in the Pugwash camp being so chipper is that one of the songs from their 2002 Almanac album, ‘Anyone Who Asks’, has made it on to the soundtrack of the new Ed Norton, Colin Farrell and Jon Voight movie, Pride & Glory, which is out this month.
“Paul Buchanan from The Blue Nile’s soundman, Robin Danar, gave a copy of our Australian compilation, Earworm, to the film’s music supervisor, Nic Harcourt of KCRW Radio in Los Angeles,” he explains. “Nic thought it’d be perfect for one of the main scenes and they ended up using 1m 45secs of it, which is absolutely brilliant. We’ve signed five different deals now, so it’s definitely in. Gavin O’Connor of Tumbleweeds fame is the writer and director, and it’s about members of a New York cop family who may or may not have become corrupt.”
Lest he feel neglected, would Mr. Hannon care to tell us about these co-writes that Thomas and him have up their sleeves?
“Well, one is the rudest song in the history of music,” he says switching into naughty schoolboy mode. “Forget double entendres, we’ve got triple and quadruple ones! We’re so busy trying to make works of art on our own that sometimes it’s good to get together and let, well, the silliness out. We’ve also got an ex-actor turned singer in France who swears he’s going to record another of our songs, so Swedish Hit Factory watch out!”

Eleven Modern Antiquities is out now.