 from Creepy's private collection |
The Kings and Queens of Pop
MOST really big bands have an uneasy relationship with the world's media. On the way up, budding rock stars will happily eat their own shit to get in the papers. A little fame can change all that though. The press in no longer needed - suddenly bathroom doors start shutting. The Trees, on the other hand, welcomed all media intrusion. Long after they had become household names throughout their own homes, McPherson continued to gobble shit for attention. He would even eat other people's.
In this respect, Ian "Creepy" MacIntosh was invaluable. Creepy was a gossip columnist with the Culter Community Courier. Decadent and dandyish and of dubious sexual orientation, he was more rock 'n' roll than those he wrote about, especially as they tended to be "boring old cunts who thought people were interested in the village's fight for a swimming pool".
Creepy was introduced to The Trees by The Great Dictator who had directed Creepy in the film, "It's Burning Up". The band identified with the actor-come-columnist's hedonistic behaviour and the fact that he too lived at home with his mum. More than this, they adored his sophistication and his wild stories about life in Mannofield and beyond.
The symbiosis was more than complete. It wasn't just that The Trees fed Creepy stories and he would go big on them - the Queen's socialising with the band made good copy itself. At the launch of "The Abbotsford One", for example, Creepy delighted guests by performing a bawdy version of "Sun" with McPherson, complete with top hat and tails. Perhaps the most famous story from "Creeping Around" - as his column was called - involved The Great Dictator, Rat and a very special public toilet. Here's an excerpt:
"We'd just left the Ploughman where the owner had confided that he was thinking of building an extension at a cost of thirty million pounds. He told me Prince was chipping in, a preposterous suggestion, one the diminutive pop star angrily denied when I phoned him from the public bar. He said he had never rated the Ploughman as a venue or as a restaurant for that matter.
"Anyway, my companions and I perambulated along North Deeside Road - and how I love to perambulate! - when we chanced upon what I took, at first, to be a spaceship. (I have several alien acquaintances, but that's another story.) On closer inspection it transpired to be something altogether more secular: a public convenience.
"This, my friends, was a work of art! A municipal masterpiece! The cistern chapel! I ran my fingers over the cool, glistening steel as the beautifully dampened door slid shut behind us. The illusion of Tardis-like transportation was spoiled only by the sight of Trees lead singer Gordon McPherson sitting on the john tucking into what I trust was a mock chop supper and not his own excrement."
