Googling One's Own Name

The internet keeps throwing memories at me.  I dug this old review up in the fetid soil of outdated digital text…enjoy.
 

“I think the reason most people ignore me is that I ignore most people.”

Well, that’s a good start, isn’t it? 

“You know, you’re the good people, who come out and see things, not the ones who sit at home watching people they apparently love on youtube and never leaving the fucking house.”

Simultaneously caustic and generous, arrogant and self-effacing, this was Clayton Blizzard at his acerbic best.

Who hurt you, Clayton?  Who hurt you so much that you can’t trust us?

Having watched the video with the above quote in preparation for a live review, I had assumed Mr Blizzard would be reticent to speak to me after the gig, but I had questions, and I’m a journalist, yeah?  So I steeled myself for some serious social discomfort of the kind usually reserved for distant relatives at Christmas, and approached.

He was actually quite nice – he smiled at me and everything.  Maybe this is an Andy Kauffman-type situation, where the stage persona is confrontational and self-pitying, in opposition to the real person who is, well, quite personable.

 

Anyway, before all that, he played a set of rather funny songs, some of which managed to be moving as well, particularly the excellent Sleep Tight, introduced simply:  “Yaaayy, it’s Friday night: here’s a jolly song about death.”

It wasn’t a song that dealt with death in a conventional way.  Spoiler alert: the closing line was:  “Sometimes, I could just choke myself with laughter/what a perfect way to go.”

The guitar-playing was intricate, the songs surprisingly complex and the words striking, but the “banter” (if you can call it that – Blizzard does, by the way) remained on the Stewart Lee passive-aggressive side….I later asked Clayton Blizzard if Clayton Blizzard is Clayton Blizzard’s real name.

“His Momma call ‘um Clay? I’mm’a call ‘um Clay!”  he barks, in an American accent.  I’m not at all sure what this means, and the delivery suggests questions on that will be most unwelcome.  Regarding discretion as the better part of valour, your intrepid reporter decided to let that one go.

As I thought this, he launched into an excitable explanation of the reasons why rappers change their names.  (Apparently, it’s to start their own history, as opposed to the history handed to/forced on them by their parents, or the sometimes hostile environment into which they are born.  (In the case of early Hip Hoppers, this would be a creative way of rejecting the names handed down to them from those assigned to slaves.  “As the authors of the gospels knew, naming is power”, Blizzard added.) 

Once again, I got the impression this was a quote from someone/somewhere, but I didn’t know what or where, and decided not to give Blizzard the satisfaction of explaining it.)

Referring to his opening tirade against the youtube generation, he said: “Well, like most jokes, there’s a bit of truth in there, but it’s exaggerated…honestly, I rarely remember things I say on stage between songs, it’s all off-the-cuff.  I’ve had to apologise a few times….”  Again, I wanted to ask for examples, but his tone suggested I’d be better off letting him feel enigmatic.  (It’s amazing what you can learn when you keep your mouth shut, so I gave it a go.) 
This was a reasonably enjoyable encounter, but was also becoming hard work…I’m supposed to make an interviewee think with my searching questions.  I really wasn’t prepared for this, to be honest.

“I just don’t like having to explain things – or even describe them, you know what I mean?” 
Not really. 
“It feels like if the writing is any good, it shouldn’t need explanation.  Even if it’s not, in fact.  And if you don’t get a reference, or there’s an ambiguous line, can you not just make up your own mind what it means?  Art isn’t supposed to spoon-feed us answers, it’s supposed to make us think.”

And yes, readers, Blizzard is pretentious enough to consider what he does Art.  High Art, even, judging by this last outburst.

Some elements of the writing could easily aspire to that ambition, but the performance has much more of a light, comic feel to it; some of the writing, and the musical style, sadly does not match this vaulting ambition.  It’s as if Blizzard is stuck between the two, wanting to entertain but also be an artist.

There’s some tension in the room at some of the banter, and maybe some of the more forthright lyrics, but it feels manufactured at times, like the performer is keeping the audience at arm’s length to avoid drawing them in too close.  If the point is to confuse the boundaries, it works.  But I don’t really know to what effect.

It is certainly entertaining, I’ll give him that.  When Blizzard stalked the room, singing close into the ear of someone seemingly chosen at random, everyone wanted to know what he was saying to that person.  When I asked, he refused to be drawn, again claiming, with a grin “I’m just trying to be enigmatic – is it working?” 
Sort of, I told him.

The review I had planned turned into an interview which turned into a protracted discussion where the interviewee explained how and why he doesn’t like interviews.  It’s probably better than the standard interview guff from every magazine/broadsheet interview, which in every single case goes like this:

I meet Clayton Blizzard in a specific place, and he arrives, looking like a certain kind of person, dressed in clothes, and in a mood experienced periodically by all humans.

None of this is particularly relevant to the discussion we will be having.  It’s just to set the scene.  Which is the same scene for every interview ever.

It’s short on detail and long on feeling, this review, isn’t it?  Impressionistic and unashamedly subjective.  Slightly verbose.  And generally approving without being too complimentary; sarcastic without being too derogatory…

It’s almost like the “Artist” wrote it himself.