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Jarvis goes into Meltdown
By Louise Jury 12.06.07
Jarvis Cocker: pop icon and national treasure
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The Jarvis Cocker of 2007 is a pop icon who has secured a place in the public affection close to national treasure.
Sipping still water in a South Bank cafe, he is telling me about the programme for Meltdown, the eclectic annual festival of music and performance held at the Southbank Centre, next door, for which he, as guest curator, has devised a starry line-up ranging from Sixties folk star Melanie to Iggy Pop.
The Pulp frontman turned solo artist is quiet and measured.
It becomes obvious he's famous only when a woman asks for an autograph, which he supplies without fuss.
He admits that it was great to realise his ambition of becoming a pop star, but now he has done with that.
"It's nice to travel in a fancy car now and then - although it's got a terrible carbon footprint.
But you get pretty blase; and jaded about things pretty quickly: unless you've got something else driving you, something a bit deeper, you're not going to get very far."
At 43, Jarvis is sounding ever so slightly as though he's emerging from some kind of midlife crisis.
Outwardly, his life appears to be going rather well.
Since 2004, he has got married - to a French model, Camille - moved to Paris, and had a son, Albert, now four.
Yet, he says, he had been contemplating giving up music for good.
"There was a time with Pulp when things just got a bit much for me really; I stopped enjoying it as much.
I was thinking that maybe I would retire from music when I retired to Paris.
I wondered whether it was appropriate to be doing it at my age.
I thought perhaps if you're not enjoying it so much you should stop and do something else rather than burden people with your moaning.
It was good to find out that I still felt compelled to do it.
"Everyone wants to think they're a real renaissance man and can do other things but it's also quite nice to realise there's one thing that you actually have a compulsion to do. I like having a calling."
Jarvis still sees his old band mates but thinks it "quite unlikely" that Pulp would ever make another record.
But it was working on a solo album, in a Paris studio, that made him realise that he still wanted to make music.
The album, simply called Jarvis, was released in May and was warmly received by the critics.
Now Jarvis can look forward to performing it at his own party, Meltdown.
He is the 14th in a line of distinguished guest curators - including Patti Smith, Morrissey, David Bowie, Scott Walker, Nick Cave, John Peel and Elvis Costello.
As the first major pop event in the newly refurbished Royal Festival Hall, Jarvis's event will already be memorable but he's also stamped his personality on it.
His line-up reads like a Desert Island Discs of his career.
"What I've tried to do is present things that in some ways have had a formative effect on me," he says.
"I thought a starting point would be stuff that I had a personal connection with."
That's where the evening of reworked Disney songs, performed by him, Nick Cave, Pete Doherty and others comes in.
"Not the Lion King or Phil Collins's work from Tarzan" - no, no, no, he means Chim Chim Cheree from Mary Poppins and other classics that he has discovered since the birth of his son.
Motorhead are in the festival for the same kind of "personal resonance".
Pulp ended their first-ever performance as a band in July 1980, in Rotherham, with a cover of Leaving Here, an old Motown track which Lemmy and co made their own in 1977.
The art-rock legends Devo get to appear because the teenage Jarvis adored them and saw them perform a couple of times.
"People use films now but in 1978 it was quite amazing to see a band that played and showed films behind and used costume changes," he says.
Jesus and Mary Chain were another influence and had, by good fortune, reformed in January after an eight-year hiatus.
And Melanie is giving her first UK concert in 30 years at Jarvis's request as a nod to the tastes of his mum at home in Sheffield when he was growing up.
However, it was the arrival of punk that changed Jarvis's life.
He was 13 and his mum was going out with a German scuba diver who gave him his first guitar.
"Until then, I probably thought it was a fantasy to be in a band, but what the punk-rock thing said was you don't have to have a massive musical ability, as long as you've got something to sing about.
"Looking at myself as a teenager, I didn't look like what a pop star should be like. I had glasses and bad teeth and I was too tall.
But punk meant you didn't have to conform to what it means to be a pop star. It put it back in the hands of ordinary people. And it was really important for me to find that out."
Television and film were also important to the gawky kid who went on to graduate in film from St Martins School of Art in London.
Thus the inclusion in Meltdown of the KPM Allstars, a band whose members wrote and now perform TV theme tunes: everything from Countdown and Grandstand to Grange Hill.
John Barry, the film composer, is honoured - and will attend - because Jarvis had a passion for the likes of The Persuaders theme.
"It was something that lodged in my consciousness as a child. That theme music I really found very haunting and a bit at odds with the programme, which was a light-hearted romp. I'm very excited we've managed to get him to come over.
And Jarvis is even dusting off some of his own art-college films for viewing - "the stuff that isn't too bad, only short little-things.
My work would never measure up to my cinematic influences like [Michael] Powell and [Emeric] Pressburger".
He says that he has always wondered whether film-making was what he would do with his life.
"I'm determined I will make something and it might be really rubbish.
I want to do it but I know it's something I will have to work at."
For Meltdown, there will be post-show DJ sets in the Southbank's Ballroom until the early hours.
Jarvis, alongside his other interests, has carved out a niche as a DJ and will be taking to the turntables for the final night of the festival with, he hopes, "a proper sound system".
"DJ-ing is another way of performing really," he says. "It's different to performing your own songs.
You're playing other people's records but you're trying to get some reaction from an audience, trying to get them to dance."
Jarvis started going to clubs in Sheffield at the age of 16, and it's still an important way of life for him; evidently he uses night haunts the way many people use bars or coffee shops.
"I've spent far too much time in nightclubs," he says.
"All my formative experiences happened in clubs.
It's quite an important thing to present at the festival.
I've discussed things in nightclubs that you shouldn't really discuss - really serious discussions, quite weird - because it was my main social thing."
And for the immediate future, Meltdown is the priority.
He warmed up with some DJ-ing gigs at the opening weekend of the revamped Royal Festival Hall last Friday and is relishing making his mark.
"It's one of those things you slightly fantasise about," he says.
The challenge was who to choose. "I was really honoured to be asked."
Touchingly, though you might suspect he would be friends with at least some of the starry line-up, he isn't.
"Some of the people I've met briefly, but I don't really know them," he says, "This is my chance."
Best of the festival
David Smyth selects his highlights of this year's Meltdown
Underage Club Under-18s get to start early in the day with this disco, featuring live acts including Bobby Gillespie's side-project, the Crawling Kingsnakes, plus a DJ set from Jarv himself. The Front Room, Sat 16 June, 1-6pm.
Motorhead A suitably fiery opening for the festival, as the ageing rockers bring their supercharged racket to the unlikely surrounds of an all-seater concert hall. RFH, Sat 16 June, 7.30pm.
Forest of No Return Put together by American producer Hal Willner, big names, including Nick Cave, Shane MacGowan, Pete Doherty, Bryan Ferry and Jarvis Cocker, all perform presumably weird and probably wonderful reworkings of songs from Disney films. RFH, Sun 17 June, 7.30pm.
KPM Allstars On the same night as his Disney concert, more nostalgia for Cocker with a band who play vintage TV theme tunes including Grange Hill, Grandstand and Blockbusters. QEH, Sun 17 June, 7.45pm.
Roky Erickson Once a pioneer of psychedelic rock with the 13th Floor Elevators, Erickson has been absent from the stage for two decades but remains a cult figure. RFH, Mon 18 June, 7.30pm.
Devo Another recently re-formed group who have inspired numerous younger acts, these eccentric new wavers made their biggest impact in the late Seventies with tracks including Girl You Want. RFH, Tue 19 June, 7.30pm.
Forced Entertainment One of a few bizarre evenings Cocker has in store. The only theatre event is entitled Bloody Mess. QEH, Tue 19 June, 7.45pm.
Iggy & the Stooges Recently reunited with his original bandmates, Iggy Pop proves he hasn't changed a bit with tracks from primitive new Stooges album The Weirdness. RFH, Wed 20 June, 7.30pm.
The Jesus and Mary Chain First major gig in eight years for the reunited Scots, a huge influence on anyone who has ever turned their guitar up way too loud. RFH, Fri 22 June, 7.45pm.
Jarvis Cocker The man of the moment provides the grand finale, performing songs from his recent debut solo album and hopefully the odd Pulp number, too. RFH, Sat 23 June, 7.30pm
Jarvis Cocker's Meltdown is at the Southbank 16-23 June. Information: 0871 663 2500.
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