today’s audio is a live version of my song “slung-lo” that aired november 7, 2003, on the BBC television show “later… with jools holland”.
just as legendary as the show itself, was the format of the show. for every episode, 5-6 artists were invited to perform several songs, and the show was taped live in a big studio at the BBC’s famous Television Centre in London. which incidentally is where my favorite show of all time, Absolutely Fabulous, was filmed.
for “later…” each artist was set-up with their own stage set, spread around the perimeter of the studio. record labels would spend big bucks to kit out their artists for these appearances. imagine 6 saturday night live sets scattered around a big room. in between each set, there were bleachers and cafe tables. this is where the audience sat, packed in and inches away from the artists. in the center of the room were the huge cameras which would swing around and film in any direction at any time.
the taping was run like a concert - once it started, it didn’t stop. so as an artist, you were asked to sit at the cafe tables, with the audience, and hang out until your song came up. if you were nervous about performing on one of the biggest music shows in the UK, or needed to warm up before singing or playing, too bad! you just had to sit there and watch and try to look natural.
i had been a late addition to the line-up. i heard that my publicist had jumped on a table to express his conviction that i should be on the show. i assume this was a metaphor? at any rate, i was booked, but because of the last minute nature, i wasn’t given the opportunity to play with my band or have a swanky set. i would play a single song, solo, in the middle of the floor.
as you can tell from the recording, i was indeed nervous. my voice was tight and a bit choked. i played and sang quite a few wrong notes. being on TV always feels like pressure to me - which audience do i take care of? the one in the room or the vast but invisible one in the camera? don’t look at the camera! how much energy should i give - more? less? suck in your stomach!! smile!! be cool be cool be cool.
and then it’s over before you know it. two and a half minutes on TV is an eternity but the experience is that of a sickening flash in your stomach then the feeling of being tossed up on a beach. you know, fun.
why in the world am i starting a Fax of Life episode in 2024 with this archival nugget? well, you can thank the godless internet whose tides unearthed this flotsam of an experience the other day.
since trump got elected in 2016, i do not scroll. when i do open social media, to do the requisite business i must as an independent musician, i see the first thing in the feed and that’s it. i’m not bragging about my moral rectitude by sharing this. believe me i have plenty of bad habits. but i say this both to offer a survival strategy that has worked for me and to explain why i probably didn’t see your post.
here is a bad habit: i do look at my phone first thing in the morning, while i am still in bed. so a couple mornings ago, when i opened instagram, the first thing i saw with my sleep-crusted eyes, the first thing i tried to process with my moments-before-dreaming mind was this photo:
i knew what i was looking at instantly. someone had tagged me in a photo from my jools holland appearance. as is usual with these sort of things, at the end of the taping, all the guests gathered with the host for a nice group picture. i never was able to get a copy of this picture for myself. and while i did get my hands on the video of my performance, that video didn’t show anything of my fellow guests that night. so image of the group of us who’d been on the show together existed only in my memory for 20 years.
and then there it was on instagram in 2024, a seemingly standard photo of a group of artists posing for a publicity shot. there was guy garvey, the lead singer of elbow; there was jools; there was paula santoro, a brazilian singer-songwriter; there was sean paul, the reggae star; there was ludacris, who needs no explanation; and there was an up and coming jazz singer promoting her first album. no, that was not me, that was amy winehouse. and then yes, there was me, tucked between gus garvey and jools holland’s armpits. not in the picture was a very young russell brand, who sat at the cafe table next to me and did a little comedy bit with jools during one of the changeovers.
hey yall - happy spring, or at least we think it is, from here in new england.
i’ll be checking out your weather soon as… the weather with my pals Welcome To Night Vale. we head out april 1 and visit toronto, st louis, louisville, columbus, pittsburgh, jersey city, and northampton. i still need merch help in pittsburgh and jersey city. you get two free tickets and a fun time with me behind the merch desk! drop a line erin@erinmckeown.com to get yours.
last weekend i went down to georgia and saw Woodstock Arts’ production of Miss You Like Hell. what a great experience, and what a great community. it’s about an hour north of atlanta and a charming spot for a day trip. the show runs one more weekend, so catch it if you can.
and finally, i just announced a few shows with my favorite band on the planet SPOUSE. we’ll be re-opening the legendary iron horse and also heading out to woodstock, man. more dates to be announced. check the tour dates listed below or erinmckeown.com/shows for all the info.
love to see yall out there, but meantime, please rate, review, or subscribe on your platform of choice… and tell a friend!
more times than i want to recount, most often in hotels and airports, people see my guitar, and ask me what i do. when i tell them, invariably the next question is, “are you famous?”
i am what i sometimes term “fame-adjacent” or “not-that-famous”. it’s a very very weird space to live in. while i have done all the things that famous people do (been on TV, been recognized by strangers, been asked for autographs and selfies in places besides concerts, had tattoos done of my lyrics) i live the extremely normal life of a mid-career artist. i scramble and hustle and live project to project like the vast majority of my peers. these moments of things that look like “fame” are really something else. teases of a life i could have had. fun moments that wouldn’t be so fun if they happened all the time. sincere and real expressions of gratitude for the work that i have done in the world.
so i really don’t know how to answer that question - “are you famous?” but then again here i am in this photo with these people who most certainly are famous. some so famous they died.
for a live taping like jools holland, they require you to be in the building all day. first for a soundcheck, then for a camera rehearsal (where they choreograph the swoops and zooms that will happen while you sing), then for hair and make-up.
amy winehouse wasn’t on my radar at the time. she wasn’t on many people’s. she had just released her first album, “frank”, which was very lounge-jazzy and mellow. i remember watching her soundcheck and being happy that she was playing electric guitar. but i also remember seeing her sit tiredly on the edge of her stage set, slumped and waiting for them to tell her to go again so they could do the next round of camera choreo.
i didn’t have my own hair and make-up person, so i used the BBC team. there were two chairs and when it was my time to go in, amy was about half-way through her time. we had a sweet, normal conversation in the chairs. where you from, what gigs are you doing, it’s cool to be on this show. i remember thinking she seemed sad, but it’s hard to separate what happened to her in the next few years from my memory of this day.
a side note - i once sat in the make-up room of an irish tv show with the comedian and author eddie izzard, who told me the most magnificent stories about the things elton john needed in order to appear on television.
“elton doesn’t do steps”, eddie said.
when i look at this picture 20 years later, i have some sadness that my career no longer includes these kind of famous-people-things. the opportunities to reach lots of people, to rub shoulders with actually famous folks are fun and energizing and a nice correlative to the large amounts of failure and rejection that are also part of being an artist. but ultimately fame - what, why, am i - is an irrelevant question and topic for me. a small part of a larger life and artistic trajectory.
what i really see when i look at this picture now is how far i’ve come as a person and how much better my actual experience of living is.
i have suffered anxiety and panic attacks since i was a teenager. the worst of them came when i had to appear in front of a group of people. i would throw up in the bathroom every day before third-period drama class. the day i graduated from high school, i nearly passed out from panic before i stood up to give my speech.
by the time i was 26 in 2003, i was more used to performing. but being on a TV show of this magnitude, at what i thought was a make-or-break moment in my career, was overwhelming. i was sitting in the BBC cafeteria with my tour manager when i had devastating panic attack. i remember stumbling to my dressing room, laying down, not being sure if i could go on. i tried drinking coffee and eating energy bars to feel normal. i know now that i should have had some water, some protein, and took a walk.
i had always drank a lot, but in 2003, i was trying something new… not drinking when i played music. as soon as the show was over i would drink my face off, but i was trying to be sober when i had to play. it wasn’t working.
and the night of jools holland it really didn’t work. as i mentioned before, the artists had to sit at cafe tables, be on camera, and watch the show until it was their time to perform. the tables, like the entire show, were sponsored and branded by heineken. there were heinekens everywhere!! many many of them, cold and frosty sitting at our table. every member of the audience was holding a heineken too.
i was not a heineken drinker per se, but if you put someone struggling with panic, nervous to perform, having to kill time before said performance at a table with open beers, it is not going to end well. at the time i was just realizing that i couldn’t control my drinking. i could no longer find and ride that sweet spot of being just a little warm, just a little soft around the edges.
that night, i passed that sweet spot and lost some measure of control. and i knew it. which made it worse. so by the time i stood up to play i was trying to run on ice - to hold it all together, to look cool on the outside while freaking out on the inside, trying to get purchase with my feet, my hands, anything i could and just… slipping.
i don’t experience anything like this any more. in fact the night of jools holland, the whole experience, was so profound for me in this way that i think it became one of the real signposts for me on my journey to better health - physical, mental, spiritual.
so while you might look at this picture and see me with famous people, perhaps at a career pinnacle, i look at it now and see someone in the last throes of a miserable time, with no idea of how much better life was going to get. and i wouldn’t trade that for any amount of fame.
x erin
ps - here i am posing at the mecca after the taping, stage make-up still on
¡ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!
an outstanding interview with poet and professor stephanie burt on one of my favorite podcasts.
i can’t get enough of the kate middleton / photoshop stories.
people (in virginia!!) pretending to be foxes to care for orphaned foxes. sign me up!
feel like crying today? watch the entirety of jason kelce’s retirement speech.
more crying, more anthems: the rebirth of irish language education.
long live carol burnett (tugs ear).
UPCOMING SHOWS
March 8 -24, 2024 - Woodstock GA
Miss You Like Hell at Woodstock Arts
TICKETS
April 1, 2024 - Toronto
performing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
April 3, 2024 - St. Louis MO
performing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
April 4, 2024 - Louisville KY
performing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
April 5, 2024 - Columbus OH
performing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
April 6, 2024 - Pittsburgh PA
performing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
April 7, 2024 - Jersey City NJ
performing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
April 8, 2024 - Northampton MA
performing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
May 17, 2024 - Northampton MA
Iron Horse (with SPOUSE)
TICKETS
May 19, 2024 - Woodstock NY
Colony (with SPOUSE)
TICKETS
May 25, 2024 - Kents Store VA
Virginia Women’s Music Festival
TICKETS
June 1, 2024 - Hingham MA
World’s End Hiking Concert
SAVE THE DATE!
If you have further questions or concerns about COVID protocols, please contact the venues directly.
Reminder, Erin does not appear in productions of Miss You Like Hell
fame adjacent