Kevin Clooney

I was at the Grammies in Los Angeles on Monday night. I was stage-side working for the monitor mix fellow, Ivan. Did you see Chris Martin wave at me when he accepted the award?

It was brilliant to see the British doing so well again – showing the boring American artists how to do it. We did pretty well last year, too, what with the Amy Winehouse success and everything.

Can’t say I really like Coldplay but I was pleased they won song of the year for Vida La Viva as me and my Donna reckon it’s not half a bad little tune, what with the marching band in there and everything. I like songs with marching band in them, adds a sort of je ne say trois, if you know what I mean.

The thing about Coldplay that really annoys me – apart form Chris Martin’s affected singing style, of course - is their idiot guitarist Jonny Buckland who always looks like he’s in terrible pain when he’s playing a solo.

He probably saw some black blues musician do it and though it looked cool. Even so, if the electric guitar was as hard to play as he makes it look, no one would ever take it up in the first place.

Whew! That was a busy few days. First the Futureheads gigs, and then I got called last minute to do some work for ITV at one of the X Factor shows.

The Futureheads concerts were hard work - not because of the equipment or anything, but because of the band. I’ve already told you about the drummer but this time the guitarist was being an idiot, too. First off, he looks stupid: his trousers are too tight, same for all guitarists. (This doesn’t apply to jazz, but then again, what does?) Second, he tried to get off with my Donna!

Backstage after the soundcheck, he propositioned her to come back to the hotel with him and . . . well I’m not sure - try on some trousers together, probably. She told me, and I had to have a serious man-to-man word with him. But then he only went and offered me money for her, didn’t he! You know, like that film The Indecent Proposition. I nearly punched him but I would have been thrown off the crew. I wouldn’t have hit him, anyway; the Roadie Code forbids us hitting the musicians, though it’s hard not too at times.

On a lighter note, the X Factor gig was a hoot. Just standidng around backstage, mostly. I had to push Simon Cowell round for an hour in his wheelchair and then I got to spend a few minutes chatting to Dannii Minogue in her dressing room.

She still loves me. She told me she’s splitting up with her boyfriend at Christmas - you heard it here first. Probably so she can get with me, I reckon.

Don’t tell my Donna I said any of that.

Well I’m busy tomorrow and Wednesday up in Glasgow with the Futureheads who have some shows booked.

Then it’s down to Cardiff on Friday before a lovely weekend off with my Donna at home. She’s threatened to take me out to the karaoke at the Villager pub on Saturday. I can’t stand karaoke but she loves it – loves to see me making a fool of myself singing my Burt Bacharach songs more like.

The Futureheads are okay, it’s quite a good crew. The band are not bad, I suppose. The drummer’s crap - too many cymbals. the number of cymbals a drummer has in his kit is inversely proportional to his talent as a drummer. (Roadies know these kinds of things.) I quite liked that single they had, that cover of Dogs of War, the old Kate Bush song.

I wish Bush was still going, I wouldn’t mind being in her backstage crew, if you know what I mean.

Filthy Rik is in the US at the moment and he has been telling me about some stuff he’s been hearing over there.

He reckons Irish rockers U2 will not be using any of the material they recorded with Rick Rubin for their much-awaited new record No Lion On The Horizon, instead opting for the guidance of long-term collaborator and usual producer Brian Eno.

Rik and I have both worked with U2 a few times and neither of us is surprised to hear that they have been messing people about. They’re always doing it, in the studio and especially on the road.

Larry Mullen - the drummer - is the worst. He spends ages soundchecking his kit then keeps complaining that he can’t hear his drums properly in the monitors. I reckon he’s deaf. Most drummers are. And thick.

My Donna has just been showing me a photograph in one of her magazines of Spencer Elden, the baby pictured on Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ album cover. He is now 17 and has has perfectly re-created the iconic shot - with shorts on.

Weird, eh? Makes me feel really old, that.

I worked with Nirvana in the UK several times before Kurt Cobain ended his own life.

They were a really nice bunch of lads - a bit camp at times but easy to get along with. They used to have a dancer called Antony who was always hanging around them, idiot-dancing on stage with the band; he was always trying to bum cigarettes off me and the other roadies. How Nirvana ever tolerated him, I’ll never know. We on the crew couldn’t stand him. Still, never mind, eh?

Filthy Rik (short for Erik - he’s from Sweden, though I would never hold this against him) was playing me some tracks from the new Guns and Roses album Chinese Democracy yesterday. It was okay - not as bad as I expected it would be. And I did expect it to be bad.

It was better than their previous albums simply because it took so long to produce, effectively reducing their overall output considerably. This is a good thing. At least they sound like they were trying to be a bit less heavy metal on this one. While most tracks on it feature the group’s trademark guitar bombast, others include piano, orchestrations and flamenco influences.

Filthy Rik and I were both on tour in North America with Guns and Roses years and years ago, when I was still at the stinking bottom of the roadie pile, learning my trade, as it were. Those days were a good experience and I learned a lot of things about the excesses of crap rock bands and about life in general.

I was surprised to learn one thing, though; I wandered into Slash’s dressing room one night to find him attaching big, red rubber lips to his face. That’s right, Slash wears false lips. always has done, apparently. They help him hold his cigarettes in place while he’s playing those interminably long tuneless solos.

Yep, rock fans, you heard it here first: Slash has false lips.

I’m just reading here on Coldplay’s website that miserable singer Chris Martin thinks that Obama winning the US presidential election was ‘a great great great great great day - everything’s alright with the world again, especially now that our tour is going really really really really really well in America.’

You’d think Martin would have been rooting for the republicans, wouldn’t you - what with him being a rich Conservative landowner and everything. He once told me he was going to vote for David Cameron at the next general election in the UK.

And The Strokes bassist Nikolai Fraiture apparently told his wife, Regina Spektor, that ‘It feels like finally being freed after having spent many years in prison.’ Well I reckon her dad, Phil Spektor, will be able to tell them what that feels like soon enough.

My Donna likes his hair. I sometimes think she’s pulling my plonker, I really do.

I’m still waiting for the Kinks reunion that Ray Davies talked about last year. Filthy Rik reckons he’s heard on the roadie grapevine that frontman Ray Davies has been telling people not to get their hopes up.

I love the Kinks, me. They wouldn’t have to just play all the old stuff if they did get back together for a tour - something that Rik reckons is the reason they don’t do many gigs, the fact that they hate playing their old hits and hate hearing fans request them - they could inflict some of their new songs on us, I suppose, if thet really had to.

What is it with songwriters like Ray Davies - how come after years of writing brilliant classics like Waterloo Sunset, You Really got Me and Days, he just can’t produce the goods any more? You think he’d know how to do it by now.

My Donna reckons it’s because he’s too rich and just can’t be bothered. She should know: she’s a woman, and women know everything.

Somebody just told me that the judge in the Britney Spears trial for driving without a valid Californian licence has declared a mistrial after jurors failed to reach a verdict. I have a soft spot for Britney - I quite like her; but I like her judge even more.

I wish I had had that judge when I when I got done for speeding a few years ago. I was driving the tour-bus back from a Primal Scream gig in Birmingham (the proper driver had ‘done a George Michael’ and had too much wacky-backy and fallen into a coma) when two traffic cops pulled me over on the A38.

‘Do you know why we stopped you, sir?’ asked the taller of the two in that patronising tone they use late at night.

‘Yeah, because you’re coppers, aren’t you.’

That was it. ‘Right! Out of the vehicle, you tosser!‘

I had to spend all night in a lovely six-foot-by-eight-foot cell. The tour manager had to drive the band to the hotel. Never heard from them again. I eventually got fined two hundred quid by an ugly old crone of a judge with a vinegar face a few weeks later, and got disqualified from driving for six months. I was so happy.

English copppers, eh? Don’t you just love ‘em? Bless their pointed little heads.

Snake, one of my roadie mates, who keeps snakes – he’s mad about them - was taking the Michael out of me the other day because of Ozzy, my little pussycat. He reckons blokes in the music business who like cats lean towards the lavender. I soon put him straight on that one.

In case you’re wondering, Ozzy my blue Persian is named after Ozzy Osbourne. Natch. Here’s a picture of my Donna with Ozzy taken about twelve years ago when he was a kitten.

Aren’t  a lucky roadie? Two kittens!

I’ve worked with the Oz loads of times, I did a 5-month North American tour with him a few years ago and I can tell you he’s a thoroughly nice bloke. He never knew what day it was, though, and you could never tell what he was saying.

A bit weird when it comes to lunchtime, as well: the caterers on the tour had to do him his bat heads. He eats loads of the horrible little things. On that tour, if I remember correctly, there were gallons of Guinness and beer backstage for the crew but Ozzy only drank brandy and Ribena. Guinness sometimes, but brandy and Ribena mostly. Brandy and Ribena and cheese and onion sandwiches.

And bat heads.