Issue 81 / September 2017

TOP JOE
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to go to a gig where
the crowd selects the songs and the host regales you with
teachings of the Dalai Lama, then TOP JOE’s Music Appreciation
Social Séance is perfect for you.
“Laughter is an
involuntary release,
similar to crying. But I also
think silence is a great
thing. At my conferences,
if people want to be silent,
I’m happy with that”
Bolton started out in hard rock, before
moving into soulful tearjerkers,” explains TOP
JOE. “He’s an interesting man. I got close to
“Michael
him once: he was in town for a gig. I saw him
popping into Quick Chef on Hardman Street, so I followed. I’m not
allowed in Quick Chef any more. Well, no – I don’t allow myself in.
Not since they stopped playing Gabrielle. I used to enjoy studying
the staff, how they were coping under the pressure of listening to
Gabrielle 24 hours a day for all of their working life.”
We’re at one of those moments in life at which Footloose ends
and Bat Out Of Hell starts. Top Joe works his tape deck; he
knows exactly where each cassette is up to. The Tina Turner one
is cued to Simply The Best. The Carpenters compilation is ready
on Superstar. It’ll be Karma Chameleon up next on the Culture Club
C90. And Michael Bolton is poised before How Can We Be Lovers
When We Can’t Be Friends?
“Was it part of their training – a few years of Gabrielle, then
they had some kind of Stockholm Syndrome? Coincidentally,
Michael Bolton was supported by Gabrielle on that tour. Maybe
that was part of the plan – maybe Michael Bolton runs Quick Chef,
and said, ‘I’ll be paying a visit. No more Gabrielle.’ I don’t believe in
conspiracies but I do believe in cover-ups.”
Toto’s Africa kicks in. “We’re ruled by the visual image. Aldous
Huxley predicted we’d be addicted to pleasure. He also said we’d be
ruled by a leader who, even if they were cruel, so long as they were
entertaining, we won’t mind. The leader has direct Twitter access
to people via their personal screens. Studies have shown we don’t
have the power to decode the visual image. One of the reasons I
set up Music Appreciation Social Séance was to get away from the
visual image. Just listen, open up our ears and accept a little silence.
The more connections we have in the digital age, the less we’re
really connecting. If there can be some laughter, so be it, if there can
be some healing, so be it, if there can be serious discussion, so be it.
It’s a night where we see where our feelings lead.”
Attending the last such MASS, we saw all of the above.
A softly spoken fellow in a high-vis jacket shuffled to the front
and led a thoroughly experiential evening, more therapy than
show, with our host as mediator – a Kilroy-like presence, with a
Buddhist twist. Songs are portals to connect. He’ll be at it again
in September, when there’ll be more for the universe to know and
Top Joe and his audience to find out. But first…
“I’m conferencing in Edinburgh through August – part of
my campaign to get a word into the Oxford English Dictionary. I
had a fitful dream; in it a word came to me. I thought, ‘This word
has potential, no one’s said this word.’ I’m going to launch it in
Edinburgh.”
We’ll let you discover it for yourself, but it’s a portmanteau,
inspired by “chillax”. “I was late to the party on that,” says Joe. “I
feel I’m often missing the nucleus of parties. But I want to set this
word free, because if you love someone, set them free – Gordon
Sting. In Edinburgh there’ll be PowerPoint, exercises, a lecture
on the history of language. Quotations; I like quotations. ‘If you
don’t get what you want, it’s an opportunity’ – Dalai Lama. ‘I’m an
artist’ – Ross Kemp.”
This much we know: we’re now sitting in a graveyard, where
a searing belief in the suspended unreality and invented glory
of pop music is again the thread from which a weightier reality
is being woven. By a man, Top Joe, crowned Liverpool Echo
Stand-Up of the Year for 2016 – rightly recognising Top Joe while
also, arguably, taking him simultaneously too seriously and not
seriously enough. Because this isn’t stand-up as you know it. It’s
the matters about which he is deadly serious that amuse, and the
laughable that is taken seriously. With cracks to let the laughter in.
“Mysterious” the Echo called him. And by Edinburgh he means
the festival and by conferencing he means stand-up. But there’s a
fourth wall to keep in place here while he plays hide and seek.
There’s Dave Lazenby, an undefined presence who tried to
hijack our attempts to arrange an interview by trying to extort
money. “You need to define your enemy in life,” says Top Joe. “You
could say I wouldn’t be where I am without him. I wouldn’t have
the drive. I was out recently, getting smashed on tap water. He
gave me some vouchers. We were having an argument about
time: I was saying time is linear and there’s no such thing as the
past and future. All we ever have as human beings is the present
moment. But it turns out that vouchers do expire.”
There’s Joe’s concept album, Exploding Cigar We Willingly
Smoke. There’s the witching hour: “What I love is it heightens
your senses. And you’re a bit closer to your dream juice.” And
more about conferencing. “I was inspired by discordianism –
anyone who wants to become part of it is the leader.” At this
point the Dalai Lama faceplants into Ray Mears. Or rather a
framed pic of the former blown into a flyer of the latter, alongside
us in this graveyard. “That happens – maybe a premonition.
“A conference audience is willing to go with you on a journey.
We have parameters: ritual, meditation. I set up an exercise
before each song. People are willing to go quite deep. Although I
fear we’re being trolled at MASS, because there has been quite a
lot of Mousse T.
“I started MASS to use music as a conduit to find some
meaning in this life. I am a great fan of the pop song: three
minutes, an idea, then it’s gone. Everything in life is transient;
we’re just passing through. Alan Watts, the philosopher, said life
is a dance; it’s not a journey in a straight line. The more you try
to go in a straight line, the more you go against the grain, and do
yourself great harm. Life is a dance, it’s on a wave. We just have
to join in.”
Experience revealing itself to us? “Yes, through music,
discussion… And laughter is an involuntary release, similar to
crying. But I also think silence is a great thing. At my conferences,
if people want to be silent, I’m happy with that.”
They’ll lead him to [tap] water, then, and watch him drink.
Do people ‘get’ it, though? “Sometimes at my conferences, for
instance in Saddleworth, to a room full of people eating pies,
there is a profound silence, and I’m happy to let them take that
away. It’s a gift. I have been banned from there. I compare it
to politics: there’s a conference of fear, and you can move the
audience into a mindset of fear and then attack. I reject that.
“I’m a great fan of clowns. Clowns make us forget ourselves
and realise we are fools ourselves. Someone once observed the
fool thinks himself a wise man, but the wise man knows he is a
fool. King Lear – he realised far too late, went full cycle on the
wheel of fortune and his downfall was epic. Keith Chegwin – he
realised far too late. It’s bliss for a while; the ego is safe for a long
time, and then things fall to pieces.”
Time, Love And Tenderness, in other words. Which plays to
us now. What about the roast spuds he distributes? “It’s simple,
humble, an underrated food source and, if you cook it the right
way, it’s delicious. I’ve had a conversation with Nabzys about the
seasoning they use. Nabzys, on Hardman Street. I’m not averse to
capitalism – Paul Newman released a range of pasta sauces. Do I
have plans for something called Top Joe International? Maybe.”
Food is a staple of MASS, adding to the ritualistic element.
“At the end of his life the Buddha was only eating the Lotus
fruit. It’s quite expensive, so I offer easypeelers – umbrella term
– and Lotus Biscoff biscuits, both vegan.” Attendees must then
swap. “It connects you as soon as they walk in. It’s also a lesson
in attachment. Let me tell you, everyone gets attached to the
Biscoff; it’s a real lesson in letting go. Plus, easypeelers are high in
vitamin C and we don’t want to get scurvy. Pirates are welcome.
It’s inclusive.” !
Words: Tom Bell / @writerTomBell
Photography: Tamsin Drury
The next MASS takes place in the Everyman Bistro on Saturday
23rd September as part of Liverpool Comedy Festival. Liverpool
Comedy Festival runs between 15th September and 1st October
– full details can be found at liverpoolcomedyfestival.com.
32