SaturdayMarch272010

The Drums Arts, page 6 Will Hodgkinson hits Texas with the hottest band of 2010

Culture club Ideas, page 4 arts The three culture supremos battle it books out in our arts quiz & ideas ‘Brother, I BLAKE LITTLE / ICON INTERNATIONAL enjoy every inch of me’

someonesayssomethingmoving.Mo’Nique In her first appears toa bedlam ofroars and applause in a dramatic off-the-shoulder red dress, hair bouncy and lustrous, stalks towards the interview since camera and fires off a lecture about the importance of kindness. The audience — winning an Oscar, with muttered “Amens”, “yeses” and sighs —soundslikeacongregation. Mo’Nique reveals Mo’Nique doesn’t go to church and isn’t devout or judgmental, but she invokes God how she overcame with her own fire and brimstone. The stage is her pulpit. Today’s guest, John Forté, the former Fugees producer, talks about being child abuse to charged (and jailed) for possession with intent to distribute, and conspiracy to dis- become America’s tribute,cocaine.His friendthepopstarBen Taylor, Carly Simon’s son, reveals why he most outspoken and his mother fought to free Forté (whose 14-year sentence was commuted in 2008). Mo’NiqueabsolvesahumbleForté,compli- star. She talks about menting both men for showing how the race divide can be overcome by friendship. open marriages, Everybodyclaps.“Idon’tdointerviews,Ido conversationswithfriends,”Mo’Niquesays hairy legs and later. “We ask the talent what they want to talk about.” Shouldn’t you be asking the questions an audience wants answered? Hollywood racism “We’llnever try to catch a guest off guard. I don’t call myself a chat show host, I call with Tim Teeman myself a late-night party host. Here you leave your worries behind. This is where youcome,baby,tohaveagoodtime.” Mo’Nique is, she says, an “entertainer” first andforemost.Fromtheoutset,goaded by her brother Steve to take to the stage in her native Baltimore, her career has been centred on stand-up comedy (she is in the middle of a 20-city US tour). She was the first woman to present the US music TV programme Showtime at the Apollo.She found popular success in the comedy series The Parkers. She’s successfully produced herownrealityshow,Mo’Nique’sFatChance (celebrating larger-sized women). But stand-up comedyisher truepassion. “In stand-up, there’s no ‘Action’, no ‘Cut’, nodirector,noedit.Givemeamicrophone, o’Nique, sitting in an airless anteroom of a say ‘Go’ and baby, I’m in heaven.” Her bea- TVstudio in Atlanta, Georgia, suggestively tific smile is a million miles from the curd- lifts thehem of her browndressing gownto led spite of Mary, the abusive mother in revealM her legs. “Touch them, go on. They Precious. “There weren’t lots of rehearsals won’thurt,theywon’tbite.Iusedtobelikea ortakes,”Mo’Niquesays.“ThemomentMr BEAR. I am a bear. I was probably a bear in Daniels [Lee Daniels, the director] said myfirstlife.”Itouchasinstructed.Thehair, ‘Cut’ we left those characters on the floor. the famous Mo’Nique leg hair, is indeed We did not have to be deprogrammed. We downy, not bear-thick or stubbly. The laughed a lot, we had crabs legs and house 42-year-old actress, stand-up comic and music. I turned Mary on and turned Mary talk show host may have won a Best Sup- off.” After a screening in Hollywood, her porting Actress Oscar, Golden Globe and husband recalls that the renowned actor Bafta for her performance as Gabourey Sidney Poitier told Mo’Nique that she had Sidibe’s monstrous mother in the movie nothad“onefalsemoment”inthefilm. Precious, but it’s her hairy legs — revealed Daniels says that Mo’Nique added a at the Globes — that have excited most “complex, twisted humour” to Mary and comment.Thatandher“open”marriageto adds, sadly, that since the movie became so herthirdhusband,Sidney Hicks.Ofcourse successful their relationship has changed. such gossipy morsels disguise, and also symbolise, what a singular force Mo’Nique is. In the pantheon of preened and pliant ‘All that’s going on in Hollywood screen queens, she is unique: an unapologetic, outspoken maverick. A the world — war, force 12 gale of passion and confession — about her incestuous childhood abuse, Hurricane Katrina, marriageto Hicks,Hollywood’sracism,the glories of leg hair, God and much more Haiti — and my hairy besides—isaboutto engulf me. “I’vebeeninthebusinessfor20yearsand legs make the news’ they’re talking about this,” she says mock- “It’s about business now, it has a different scornfully about the hairy hysteria. “Guys, dynamic. But I’ll always savour the filming. if you don’t like the hair on my legs you can We talked about sex, who’d got some the looksomewhereelse.Butbecauseyoukeep previous night. I had the best, obviously. looking”—hervoicedropstoasultrywhis- Mo’Nique was making jokes, Mariah per — “there’s something about it you like, [Carey] was singing. Lenny [Kravitz] was butyoudon’twanttosayitoutloud.Forme, playing theguitar”.Whatwill Mo’Nique do brother, I enjoy every inch of me, and if I next? “You know,” Daniels says, “I’d be begin to change it based on your opinion of curioustofindout.” me,that’swhenIgo crazy.Ionly shavedmy The model for the abusive Mary came legs once: it was when I was a teenager. It from the most horrible source: the young- was the most painful thing ever. When it est of four, Mo’Nique claims she was sexu- started growing back it was prickly. Sugar, I ally molested by her eldest brother,Gerald. can’t do it. I love it and my husband loves it. “I was 7, he was six years older. It happened Allthes***goingonintheworld—we’reat for a while. For a long time I resented and war, Hurricane Katrina . . . and my hairy despised him. But the moment I got done legs make the news. What about the withthatmovie,theresentmentwent.” homeless?CanwegotoHaitiandkeepthat She reveals that it’s been four years since storyalive?” they last spoke. “I love my brother. The last We meet after the first of that day’s two conversation we had was, ‘I never want to recordings of Mo’Nique’stalk show, broad- see you again and I wish you nothing but cast on Black Entertainment Television. the best that life has to offer’. I understand The audience has been skilfully geed up by his sickness. I just couldn’t have him in my slick warm-up men, we know when to life.” He has not publicly commented on stand up and applaud, to dance (or sway the allegations. The first people she told woodenlyinmycase)whenthehouseband abouttheabusewereherparents,whenshe plays,tolookateachotherquizzicallywhen Continuedonpage2 W 2 thereview THETIMESSaturdayMarch 272010 Write to us at [email protected]

guys, we can’t live that way. I’m not judging your situation, so how can you judge Mo’Nique: mine?’” Has she or Hicks had sex outside the relationship? She dodges the question. “It’s not a deal-breaker. It wouldn’t break every inch us up. My husband and I have been best friendssincewewere14.Wehavenosecrets. There are people who lie next to their part- astar ner at night and not know what they are thinking.Irefusetobeone ofthem.” I ask again: do you have sex outside the X Continuedfrompage 1 relationship? “Do we look for other people was15.“Idon’thavethehorrorstory.Iwasa to have sex with? No. We’re here [at the playful child. What you see now is what I studios] three days a week [their company, wasthen.Idon’tknowif thatwasmywayof Hicks Media, produces the show], we’re on dealing with it. I was never inward. I was comedy tour, we have two children at outward. Now, at 42 years old and after home [their four-year-old twins Jonathan going through therapy, I want to be free. I and David]. Sidney has a son, Michael [6], I said to my brother, ‘If I hate you I’m not have a son, Shalon [19]. But we are in our free. If I resent you I’m not free. But if I forties.” She claps her hands together. “We totally let it go I’m free.If I let it go,God can mightliveanother50years. Foranother50 nowstepinanddealwithyou.Butaslongas years, can I tell you I won’t be attracted to Ihold ontoitnothingcan bedone’.” another human being?” She is shouting Didshefeelabletofightbackatthetime? now.“Ican’ttell youthat.” “You’reakid.Whatdoyousay?”shereplies. Hicks, a handsome man with diamond “Thereisno language, soyougoalongwith earrings, says that Mo’Nique’s “naked it.” And her parents? “For a long time I was honesty”ishermostattractivecharacteris- very angry with them: they didn’t know at tic. She doesn’t get embarrassed, but is the time, but why didn’t they do anything “free”.Hewon’tsayifthey’vehadextramar- about it after I told them?” Gerald, she has ital sex either (“it’s not relevant and it’s revealed in the past, later served a 15-year private”). The one thing that annoys him prison sentence for sexually molesting a about her is when she steals snacks he has young girl. “A few years ago my mother just made. “I’m used to it. When she was 20 said, ‘I didn’t know what to do, you’re both she would steal my cookies and always my children. I was embarrassed, ashamed, removetheraisinsbeforeeatingthem.” guilty. Do I stop loving him?’ I understood Later, listening to our conversation, I what she meant so it stopped me being realise how much Mo’Nique imputes to angry with them. With Precious,Iwas God, rather than her relentless determina- honoured with all the awards, but I was tion, talent or business savvy. It is God, she never looking for them. I signed up for the claims genuinely and passionately, who reward of people who would be healed. Lots of people have said, ‘You’ve told my story’.That’samazing.” The molestation, Mo’Nique says, made her “a very promiscuous young lady”. She would go from man to man, “like, ‘This one will be ‘it’, the one to protect me so it will never happen again, ‘No, this one’, ‘No, this BEN ROSE / RETNA one’. I was very dominant in the relation- torium of the Oscars in 1940 (where she won ships, I wanted to be in control.” She was a Best Supporting Actress). Is Hollywood still supervisorforaphonesexcompany(“Iwas ‘Hollywood should racist? “I don’t think too much has changed like quality control,” she has said), and she from 1940 to 2010. Look at television: how marriedanddivorced twice. show the world is a manypeopleofcolourdoyousee?Whenyou “Therecameapoint,fiveyearsago,when think the Oscars have been around for 82 I said to myself, ‘I don’t want to be sick for true melting pot, that years and only five [lead category] perform- something I really had nothing to do with’,” ances by people of colour have been worthy she says. At about the same time, “Fame beauty comes in many ofanOscar,youhavetoask,‘Guysdoyounot has made her a “victor” rather than victim. was coming, money was coming,” she seetheelephantinthe room?’ ”Sheasksthat “Ibelieve God,not in God,” she says. When recalls.“Butat homethepainremainedthe colours. Why are we the big studios be held to account on black does she feel God? “Right now.” She takes same. No one knew. I’ve always been the under-representation. “Hollywood should myhand.“You’remybrother.I’mverycare- lifeandsoulof theparty.”Hermoodswings still so secondary?’ showthattheworldisatruemeltingpot,that ful with journalists. They’ve changed what became extreme and Hicks and her close houseinwhichtogrowup,Mo’Niqueroars. beauty comes in many colours. Why are we I’ve said in the past. If you write this wrong, friends told her to seek help. At 37 she “No. I love to entertain. I love to dance. I stillsosecondary?” theUniversewilldealwithyouinawaythat started therapy: “It literally saved my life. didn’t want to study. I told my parents, ‘I’m Has her career felt any post-Oscar you’regoing tobelike,shhiiiiitt. . .” WithoutitIwouldhavebeenamess.Ithink going to be a star, don’t you know it’. I bounce? “I am the highest-paid woman in Before I am turned to dust on the spot, I I wouldn’t have been able to be a good couldn’t wait for people to do my make-up thehistoryofthisnetwork.Thatwasbefore ask Mo’Nique about ageing. “Baby, I love friend.Iwasn’talwaysthemostconsiderate and hair, to walk off a plane and have the Oscar. I’m a New York Times bestseller it,” she bellows, bringing the crown of her person. I thought it was all about me. No people say my name, and now we’re walk- [Skinny Women are Evil, in 2003]. That was headtomyeyelevel.“Doyouseethesegrey oneshould believe they’re special ’cos your ing in the midst of that.” Does it live up before the Oscar. If I take that one trophy hairs? I will not hide them. I will not have ass is going away from here one day and to the dream? “Every second,” Mo’Nique on the couch Mo’Nique playing a monstrous mother with Gabourey Sidibe in andbase myentire career on it,I think God one wrinkle removed. Surgery? Noooo. I youcan’texplainit.” whispers.“Thelittlegirlinmegoes. . .”And Precious, top, and chatting to the actor Danny Glover, above, on her show would say, ‘Are you serious?’ They say it love the gift I’ve been given. I don’t want to However, her determination to succeed sheletsout apiercing,delighted yelp. should change my career somehow. We’ll get to Heaven and St Peter to say, ‘Who the has always been unwavering. Her father, But while she’s achieved stardom she’s win any awards’. My performance stands would say, ‘For real? You greedy ass. You see.” She seems so tough, does she ever feel hell are you?’ I want him to see wrinkles, Steven Imes Jr, once said that “she was also determinedly become an atypical star. for itself. I have beautiful children. I was knew it wasn’t permanent, so enjoy every intimidated?“Igetintimidatedatthetopof grey hair, double belly, double chin, arms always an aggressive individual who Bigger men and women have thanked her honoured last year to take care of my moment’. On the last day, I said, ‘Baby, I’ll the rollercoaster before it comes down that jiggle, thighs that rub together,big feet seemed to carry out everything that she forproudly embodying alarger body shape 85-year-old grandmother in her last days. seeyouontheotherside’,andshe winked.” from the top and I feel myself coming up in —it’sme.” Suddenly she stands up, and started”. She tells me: “When I found out I than Hollywood’s toned fembots (“Baby, I How could I give up those jewels to deal In her Oscars speech Mo’Nique thanked my seat and want to make sure the bar is shoutsintomyrecorder:“NowI’mgoingto could stand on stage and all eyes in the thank God for using me as a vessel”). She with the pressure of the business? My Hicks for reminding her not to confuse tight around my waist. But I’m not intimi- eat’cosIgotanothershowtodo.Iloveallof room wouldbe onme, andIwasgoingtobe was criticised for not lobbying more grandmother and I would go to the super- what was popular with what was right. She dated byanythingin thisbusiness.” youinBritainandthankyouforlovingme.” paid to do that, it was a no-brainer.” Her actively for the awards that she eventually market and she would point people to the referred to Hattie McDaniel, the black The headlines over her open marriage to Then to me, dressing gown chastely cover- father may have been a clinical therapist won. “I’ll do what my maker tells me to do,” coversof themagazinesandsay,‘This ismy Gone With the Wind star who wasn’t Hicksaremetbyawearyshrug.“It’ssuchan ing those downy legs, she says softly: “God and her mother, Alice, an engineer, but she replies, opaquely. Later she says: “My granddaughter.Isn’tshebeautiful?’I’venot allowed to attend the film’s premiere and old story,” she says. “Youput these unrealis- blessyou,brother.” when I say that it sounds like a cerebral attitude was, ‘Hey guys, I didn’t sign up to grieved her. How could I? I think God who was made to sit at the back of the audi- ticexpectationsonpeopleandwesaid,‘Hey moniqueworldwide.com culture notes

saying a girl’s got to lock it up because she bubbling from every pore, contempt My sole rehearsal with Chilton and the the style of music that would come to be can’t control it?’ I don’t get the equality in for form and punctuation spreading band consisted of a quick run-through in known as psychobilly is manifest in his that, or the feminism. We were battling across his face like a rash, shock and a seedy suite at the Gramercy Park Hotel work with the Panther Burns (Behind the to be allowed to be ourselves.” rebelliousness so bolted to his very being in New York, where I sat cross-legged Magnolia Curtain and Sugar Ditch Before the cameras started rolling, Jett that he’s wearing odd socks and simply on the floor whacking drumsticks into Revisited), as well as his production work told Kristen Stewart stories and secrets doesn’t care, even though his mam has a pillow. However, contrary to the for the Cramps’ earliest singles, including that wouldn’t be in the film. “I wanted her warned him several times about the guitarist’s expectations, Chilton the signature tune Human Fly, and the first to know who I was, rather than her think wearing of odd socks. She even said she excluded any Big Star numbers from album, Songs the Lord Taught Us. of me as a rock star. I wanted the film to be might stop his pocket money and that the set, and the following night, Confounding umbrella summation or about us as real people.” would be a disaster because he’s saving for immediately after our first show at the evaluation, the myriad musical tangents She says that Stewart did a great job, a subscription to Second Aeon magazine. Mudd Club, the disappointed Big Star of Chilton’s career spanned forays into especially getting across the message that I started remembering the teenage Ian enthusiast was peremptorily dismissed. Chet Baker-style jazz; Cubist Blues,a she has been trying to give young women McMillan recently when I was thinking I was thrilled to be part of these shows, collaborative album with Alan Vega and all her life. “It’s about telling girls, as well about the new crop of Foyle Young Poets; although Chilton was not at the height of Ben Vaughn; the Seventies proto-punk as boys, that they should not have limits somehow these teenagers (sometimes his powers. At the end of the tour, saying single Bangkok; and his underappreciated for what they want to do in life. To make pre-teenagers) seem more poised than that he needed a break from music, landmark solo effort, Like Flies on Sherbet. mistakes, to follow their own path.” me, more poetically confident, less likely Chilton relocated to New Orleans for a For Chilton, confusion was as much a Runaway rock Joan Jett and the Blackhearts: Greatest to pronounce Goethe Go-eth, as I did. Restless spirit stint as a dishwasher. Before vanishing strategy as a side-effect. He got quite a Hits is out now on Blackheart Records. The Foyle Young Poets show us that the mysteriously into the steamy mists of a chuckle out of bewildering fans, fellow by Jude Rogers therunaways.com written and spoken word is alive and well. by Jim Sclavunos sink full of dirty water, he enticed me into musicians and sundry supporters; and if Inside every adult poet the teenage moving to Memphis to join the Panther the many legends surrounding him Next Friday in the US, lovers of bard lurks, a first, unshaped draft of the The singer and guitarist Alex Burns, a band he had formed to back up are to be believed, excess was the foundry Twilight, the vampire saga, will writer and the human being you will Chilton, who died last week, the blues enthusiast Tav Falco. of his art and chaos his beloved muse. see its female star, Kristen Stewart, in a eventually become. I was a particularly was generally regarded as a wayward and Like Falco, Chilton had a huge Jim Sclavunos is the drummer with very different role. Playing Joan Jett in the ripe example of the teenage poet: I loved eccentric genius. Chilton, 59, collapsed enthusiasm for obscure, bizarre, Grinderman and Nick Cave and biopic of the Seventies rock band the Dylan Thomas and Samuel Beckett, a with heart failure only days before a raw-as-guts roots music. His affinity with the Bad Seeds Runaways, she snorts drugs, teaches her strange combination that led to me scheduled appearance at the SXSW bandmates how to masturbate, and kisses writing lush pieces about dead babies festival in Austin, Texas, where he the group’s singer, Cherie Currie, played found on the local bowling green by was due to take the stage with a by the former child star Dakota Fanning. tramps in coats that “frayed like the edges reconstituted version of his Seventies hard times by laura & abe But this is not exploitation, Joan Jett of a mind” (and thankfully it’s one of the power-pop outfit, Big Star. says. Instead, it’s a reflection of how her few lines I can remember). My Until a few years ago Chilton had vexed all-girl group shocked audiences in 1975 long-suffering girlfriend, now my wife of and confused devotees for decades by and lit the touchpaper for the punk 30 years, had to bear the brunt of my refusing to revisit the past glories of this phenomenon. “What we did was very pretentiousness. I’m reddening as I write influential cult band, but his musical punk rock. Our music wasn’t punk — it this, but I remember walking her home explorations ranged far beyond power- was rock’n’roll — but our attitude was one evening in the early Seventies and pop. From his beginnings as the teenage very do-it-yourself, and outside the rules.” remarking that the sky was like an lead singer of the Sixties blue-eyed soul Jett was only 16 when she approached My teen shame upturned bowl that at any moment could outfit the Box Tops to his 2000 release, a the Hollywood producer Kim Fowley in be lifted up by a three-headed beast to covers album entitled Set, Chilton revealed 1975 about forming a girl band. By that by Ian McMillan reveal the turmoil behind the stars. Her himself to be a restlessly eclectic spirit. December, drummer Sandy West, pace seemed to imperceptibly quicken. I first met Chilton (or “Butch”, as he was guitarist Lita Ford and singer Currie — a Look: here’s Ian McMillan, Some people have kept their early known to bandmates) in the early 15-year-old who dressed in corsets, the middle-aged poet, the work for a volume they might call Early Eighties when I enlisted as a drummer for knickers and stockings on stage — had property-owning grandad with his Moments; I haven’t, just like I haven’t a short US tour. Chilton was en route completed the line-up, and the Runaways sensible steel-grey hair and his briefcase kept my Valiant annuals or my old from Memphis when I was contacted by quickly became notorious internationally, from Marks & Spencer bulging with slim balaclava. I’ve lost, or thrown away, or the erstwhile guitarist, a fellow New with songs such as Cherry Bomb, Queens volumes and notebooks full of scribblings. burnt, or recycled my early stuff, which Yorker exhilarated at the prospect of of Noise and Born to be Bad. But who’s that standing behind him in is good for me and good for society. reviving the Big Star numbers side by side Critics accused Fowley of taking the stinky old army greatcoat, with the But sometimes it resurfaces at with his hero. Said guitarist instructed me advantage of his charges, but Jett says that forest of curls and the sideburns, carrying inopportune moments: turmoil behind to assiduously study the three Big Star wasn’t the case. “Feminists would say we his typewritten verse in a plastic bag that the stars, I call it. albums: #1 Record, Radio City and were belittling ourselves by getting a man has a homemade sticker on it that reads The Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2010 Third (later released as Sister Lovers) to dictate how we dressed, and we were, Stamp Out Reality? Ah, yes, that’ll be is open now. Ages 11-17. Deadline for in preparation for Chilton’s imminent ‘Hold on, we are dictating this. Are you Ian McMillan, the teenage poet, angst entry is July 31; foyleyoungpoets.org arrival with a pair of Memphis sidemen.