11-28-2006, 06:18 AM
It's 5.30 in the morning, I have a stinking cold, and Alan 'Fluff' Freeman is dead - how can things get any worse?!
Although most younger people probably know him as one of the models for Smashie and Nicey on the Beeb's Fast Show, back in the early 1970s he was responsible for a considerable portion of my musical education (including an early liking for ELP - don't worry, I grew out of that one when I realised that annoying sound was Greg Lake apparently singing permanently flat, even when he was believing in Father Chrismas... ;-) and for pointing me into the mustier and more tingly corners of Krautrock (where I am still occasionally to be found - let's hear it for Triumvirat's Spartacus and NEU! '75...). On the down side, it also gave me a lifelong hatred of Yes and an almost pathological need to rivet self-declared fans of that horrendous noise to a wall with a nail gun (yet, inexplicably, I still liked Rick Wakeman; perhaps I recognised a fellow grumpy old man, or could it be that I found the bizarre singers he used a bit like an aural road accident - you don't want to listen but you can't help yourself?).
His tendency to play entire new LPs all the way through (quick - get the tape recorder going!),* his classical jingles (and yes my love of classical music came initially from him, not music teachers at school), and his sheer bumptious optimism were all factors in his favour, but it was his gentle cajoling to listen to stuff you might otherwise have ignored that makes him stick in my mind and I thank him for his eclecticism, good humour, and sheer enthusiasm (not to mention professionalism at what he did).
So, an important (possibly even poptastic) part of my life has passed with Fluff.
Alright?
Not 'arf! Ave atque vale, Fluff.
Mike Bishop
* An interesting early experiment in viral marketing, perhaps, since everything I recorded and played more than a few times I ended up buying, and my LP shelves are groaning with stuff bought after listening to and taping from his show. These days the record industry would probably have you shipped off to Gitmo for even thinking of doing that.
Although most younger people probably know him as one of the models for Smashie and Nicey on the Beeb's Fast Show, back in the early 1970s he was responsible for a considerable portion of my musical education (including an early liking for ELP - don't worry, I grew out of that one when I realised that annoying sound was Greg Lake apparently singing permanently flat, even when he was believing in Father Chrismas... ;-) and for pointing me into the mustier and more tingly corners of Krautrock (where I am still occasionally to be found - let's hear it for Triumvirat's Spartacus and NEU! '75...). On the down side, it also gave me a lifelong hatred of Yes and an almost pathological need to rivet self-declared fans of that horrendous noise to a wall with a nail gun (yet, inexplicably, I still liked Rick Wakeman; perhaps I recognised a fellow grumpy old man, or could it be that I found the bizarre singers he used a bit like an aural road accident - you don't want to listen but you can't help yourself?).
His tendency to play entire new LPs all the way through (quick - get the tape recorder going!),* his classical jingles (and yes my love of classical music came initially from him, not music teachers at school), and his sheer bumptious optimism were all factors in his favour, but it was his gentle cajoling to listen to stuff you might otherwise have ignored that makes him stick in my mind and I thank him for his eclecticism, good humour, and sheer enthusiasm (not to mention professionalism at what he did).
So, an important (possibly even poptastic) part of my life has passed with Fluff.
Alright?
Not 'arf! Ave atque vale, Fluff.
Mike Bishop
* An interesting early experiment in viral marketing, perhaps, since everything I recorded and played more than a few times I ended up buying, and my LP shelves are groaning with stuff bought after listening to and taping from his show. These days the record industry would probably have you shipped off to Gitmo for even thinking of doing that.
