Reaching Nirvana

I have always had a fondness for the USA.

Right from the start, as a six-year-old my 2 favourite toys were a 1968 Dinky Dodge Charger and an American Fire Engine with a ladder that extended up as high as the living room mantelpiece.

Eventually I bought a real American car: a 1951 Ford F1 pick-up truck.

I convinced myself that a truck would be practical: The huge rear bed, I thought, could be used for transporting my double bass to gigs.

The thing is when you are doubling gigs with little time to spare between each engagement you need a reliable ride.

This wasn’t it.

What made it so unreliable were the electrics. There was no problem with the engine –that was a solid five litre V8 and never gave any trouble. The electrics, however, were hopeless. The windscreen wipers got slower the faster you drove. I would have to lean out of the side window and manually adjust them when they came out of alignment. Then if I were really unlucky the side window would drop down straight into the door. So I'd have to remove all the trim to get it back.

The door locks never worked, the steering was loose, and being a left hand drive resulted in a number of collisions. The cassette player however worked just fine, and I played 50's American music as I rolled down Camden High Street.

Over the two years I had her I spent more on maintenance than the original cost price. The biggest outlay was fuel. She only managed nine miles to the gallon and you could see the fuel gauge - one of the few instruments that worked – actually creeping down.

Ford F1

I moved from North to West London in hope of finding more parking. I found a house with a garage and after completing on the purchase, I drove the truck to her new home only to discover the garage was 3 inches too short or the truck 3 inches too long.

So the truck was sold, but my love affair with all things American continued. 

In 1992 I was invited to take part in the Montreal Comedy Festival. Montreal isn’t strictly in America of course, but it was near enough for me. My manager at the time, Richard Allen-Turner, had also got me booked to headline a weekend of gigs at The Comedy Trap, Buffalo NY. It wasn’t an easy gig, but I loved every moment. It just seemed so exciting doing comedy in a room that resembled the Cheers bar. By the time I made it to Montreal a few days later I was confident I knew how to play to North American crowds.

Outside the Comedy Trap, Buffalo NY

It certainly paid off. After performing in the gala show with Sam Kinnison, Jack Dee, Bill Hicks and Milton Berle I booked a guest star role in a TV series from the producers of Cheers called ‘Wings’

It was a sit-com set in a tiny commuter airport on the island of Nantucket, NY.  One of the characters in the show was a keen amateur cellist but rather a poor player. In my episode she decides to try her hand at doing comedy with her cello at the local comedy club. As she walks into the club she sees another comic also with cello-like instrument doing a comedy act. She watches me perform whilst the whole club erupts with laughter. She realizes what she thought was an original idea has already been done, and that there would be no way she could follow me with her ill prepared cello act. 

Screenshot from episode of Wings 'Take my Life Please'.

                     

I remember Donny Osmond coming to watch the afternoon rehearsal at the Paramount Studios on Melrose Avenue - No idea what he was doing there but it added a surreal air to my experience.

After completing the taping, Richard Allen-Turner and I set off to our lodgings, The Holiday Inn on Hollywood Blvd. I didn’t know it at the time but this was a staple hotel used by rock stars when performing in LA.  As we approached the hotel doors we bumped into Nirvana.

I recognised the drummer straight away. A week earlier I had gone to the Kilburn Empire with Stewart Lee to see the band perform and watched that same drummer smash up his entire kit on stage at the end of the last song.

Walking across the parking lot I noticed a purple-haired bloke trailing behind the Nirvana entourage carrying a large bag, so I thought I would introduce myself: “Hi, Jim Tavare, Wings – what’s it like being a roadie for this lot?”

He looked at me for a while slightly unimpressed, until Richard quietly informed me, “That’s Kurt Cobain”

His hair definitely hadn’t been purple during the show in Kilburn, and I used this explanation to excuse the minor faux pas.

Nirvana, Richard and I all went inside the hotel. In the foyer was a grand piano. Whilst everyone waited to check-in Kurt Cobain sat down and tinkled a few chords on the ivories. I strolled over and stood listening for a moment.  An urge overtook my senses.  I summoned my right hand to reach in and tap out a combination of arpeggios in accompaniment, and surprisingly he didn’t tell me to ‘fuck off’.  This incredibly short lived yet memorable ‘jamming’ session in the foyer only served to confirm my suspicions of LA being a magical place, where strange and wonderful things occur – and that you never know who you’re going to bump into.

In a similar tale a few weeks earlier, I had been sitting at a different piano in a different foyer – this time at the hotel in Montreal during the Just for Laughs Festival. I was joined by the brilliant Sam Kinnison, where together we rocked out an impromptu boogie woogie session in front of a few drunk and disinterested industry execs.

Sadly both Kurt Cobain and Sam Kinnison passed away a short time after these piano meetings. Even The Holiday Inn on Hollywood Boulevard quickly met an untimely demise: it was burnt to the ground during the LA riots in 1994. The act of Kurt and Sam’s passing inspired a bit I used to perform in my act. I explained that whenever I met famous people they seemed to die a short time later.  ‘I aim to be Britain’s number one serial comedian. I have an appointment with Jim Davidson next week’.

In 2008, I moved to LA with my wife after becoming a finalist on the NBC TV show Last Comic Standing. A lot has happened since then and over the coming months I will be sharing these tales, and a few more In No Particular Order….