Sunday, September 20, 2009

#41- Nightwear

Some people would regard this as a footnote, but we're interested in different stories to most people. In his otherwise forgettable book "The Outer Rim of Bohemia" Joe Grayshot described one night at the edge-of-the-city-centre apartment complex he lived at:

"I was fumbling about on the settee, trying to move the remains of my speedball to flick the channel over. I didn't want to go all John Belushi but my head was fried and I needed to get away from Newsnight Review. Movement was not on the agenda. Bonnie Greer was shouting some spat about mother nature being a hobo in the Garden of Eden, I was trying to respond but she wasn't listening. The TV was -I had to remind myself- a one way device. A method for putting ideas in your head. A platform. I eventually made it to bed.

"There was to be no rock'n'roll in my room that night. Fisticuffs were off the agenda and I wouldn't try to sneak them in under AOB. But upstairs the Silentnight due, Senor Hippo and Ms Bird were going at it hell for imperial leather. They certainly weren't coming up clean."

Well, that kind of nonsensical Gonzo approach to writing certainly had it's fans at one point. Mainly people who thought writing involved vomiting on the nearest page and physically attacking anyone who dares to criticise them. But our concern is that Grayshot had inadvertently spoken about our next band, the next band you have not heard of: Nightwear.

It has to be admitted at this point that Bill MacGregor was not a thin man, nor was his then girlfriend overly large in any direction. Grayshot's snide remark was accurate, if hyperbolic. MacGregor was not one to take offence, especially as he has fashioned a whole career on sleepytime music.

As Nightwear, MacGregor detuned his otherwise well-tuned guitar and strummed gently to himself. The studio made him produce his own records as the engineers kept falling asleep. Perched on the edge of a rocking chair, guitar in one hand and mixing desk in the other, fat squelching out of all remaining crevices on the seat, MacGregor produced the kind of music whales would produce if they knew their "song" sent you to sleep. He had no time for reverse reverb or any tremelo nonsense. No. He favoured open chords on a an acoustic, with whispered lyrics about drinking Horlicks neatly fit into the background. Some say that MacGregor was capable of hypnosis; something he states is not only untrue, but offensive to real hypnotists who not only send people to sleep but also get them to pretend to be cats, think they are themselves aged 8 and stop smoking.

After two albums and a guest appearance on In The Night Garden, MacGregor was approached by a the makers of a branded promethazine. Testing on his music had suggested to them that it released a weak dopamine antagonist into the system, thus causing a lack of awakedness. His music was running them out of business. They told him they would either pay him to develop his music under laboratory conditions or would kill him. Sensing that Big-Pharma could probably get away with murder he decided to take the lab job.

A lab job is not as sexy as it sounds. We'd all like to work in a hair-dryer factory so when asked about the job we could say "Well, it's a blow job." Or indeed work in a household waste sorting site so we could say "It's a rubbish job!". Or indeed be an intern for Sandra Day O'Connor so we could say "It's a day job!". But "it's a lab job!" only works if you also breed large dogs and MacGregor lived in an inner rim apartment where dogs were banned, along with cats, rats, bats and smoking. It never stopped Grayshotbut that's because he's just the type of person who feels that rules don't apply to them. MacGregor, on the other hand, determinedly and studiously tried to experiment with his music and sleep patterns, discovering amongst other things that tube amps are a decent way of producing sleepytime happiness for all around. He also discovered that Barry White is not the thing to think about if you want to go straight to sleep. Conference followed conference and MacGregor had less time for his real passion of recording music that sent people to dreamyland. Eventually the company cracked his magic and he was released to make music once more.

Set free from his pharmaceutical captivity, MacGregor decided that Nightwear should enter an "insomniac phase". MacGregor and his supporters tried to stay up for a whole week in order to get really very tired. This allows them hallucinogenic experiences and also allowed fo rthem to experience the world as someone so permanently close to sleep. The resulting album "Why the heck did I do this to mysef" went straight to number 1 in the "Music for people with problems" chart, pushing OCD favourite Bo Anders Persson to number 2 for the first time in quite some time.

Confident in his legacy, both chemical and muscial, MacGregor now sleeps quitely at home with his short, thin, yellow wife. Joe Grayshot plans to punch different celebrities at book signings until they all give up and go home.

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