Skip to main content

Chocolate Filled Frown


We played one of my old band Big Day Out’s songs on Glyn's and my radio show on Sunday, which has been in my head ever since.

Chocolate Filled Frown was one of the first things I wrote with Mark Smith back in 1999, when our lead guitarist Rich left the group and we became a three-piece. I have a very clear memory of the two of us sitting around a table in the kitchen of my old house in Stotfold, finishing it off. Mark had arrived with the verse riff and the first few lines in his mind, which we fleshed out in a single session, with him on guitar and me on bass. I suggested the bridge (which I sing) and we both came up with the chorus.

It was an exciting time for the group. While we’d had a fair amount of local success as a four-piece (winning the ‘coveted’ prize of Best Band in Hertfordshire 1998, no less), things had started to go slightly skew-whiff. Rich wanted to steer us in an unconvincing musical direction he termed ‘Happy Metal’, which lacked soul. Then all of a sudden, he left. At first, the three of us didn’t know if we could carry on without him, but we soon changed our mind, after working on a quasi-love-song I’d written about the split, called Cheating Heart. After that, we never looked back (except for when turning left or right). We grew stronger and closer than we’d ever been. Mark and I moved out of home a few months later to become flatmates and the band went from strength to strength (and other such clichés).

Chocolate-filled Frown is a simple pop song, but there’s nothing wrong with that. The title and the 'watch the McVities don’t go to your head’ lyric were inspired by the mass of chocolate digestives we devoured as we wrote it. Being in Big Day Out was fun, even if it did bring on type 2 diabetes.

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...

Comedy That's Worth a Letch.

Today, I nipped to Letchworth to meet with illustrator (and one-time - two-time - comedy poet) Mushybees, to discuss an event Mostly Comedy will act as surrogate parents to as part of Letchworth’s Arts Takeover in a couple of weeks. Months ago he got into contact to see if we’d be up for co-organising a comedy stage as part of Letchworth’s weekend of arts-based attractions in July; something I’d provisionally said yes to, before things got hectic in the lead-up to Edinburgh and we didn’t take it any further. Despite not getting down to the nitty-gritty straight away, we managed to pull a line-up together in a back-and-forth of emails yesterday, leading to me getting Glyn’s blessing and us deciding we’d officially go ahead with it (whatever ‘officially’ means in this context). In reality, it’s not complicated: from 12pm until 6pm-ish on the 22 nd July, Glyn, Mushybees and I will host four Edinburgh previews from four acts (including me), before Nor...

Stevenage: A (Tiny) River Runs Through it.

If ever a river was mis-sold, it’s the Roaring Meg in Stevenage. I just walked past it on my way to the retail park that has taken its name. They’re similarly uninspiring. The river is less of a roar and more of a dribble; cystitis sufferers produce greater flow. The retail park is soulless. What was once a thriving enterprise is nearly devoid of atmosphere, save an underlying essence of emptiness and despair. With a Toys R Us. When it was first built I was excited. Back then, the thought of a bowling alley, an ice rink, a Harvester and a Blockbuster Video within a small surface area was enticing. I celebrated many birthdays on site. There was an indoor cricket pitch there for a while where I once had a joint party with a friend. Why someone with an almost pathological fear of sport would agree to such a venture is beyond me, but I did it. Now, there’s very little at the Roaring Meg of note. The river would be a metaphor for the shopping ce...