Marc with Damon Gough (Badly Drawn Boy)
At Newbury Comics Alewife, Cambridge, Massachusetts
July 31, 2002
Free in-store performances usually run for about 20-30 minutes, but, perhaps as a result of him not actually playing any "real" gigs in town, Badly Drawn Boy played for well over an hour, covering songs from The Hour of Bewilderbeast , the soundtrack to About A Boy and his upcoming Have You Fed The Fish? At one point, he asked if anybody had any contributions to his "Curry Top Ten" (with songs such as "Tears On My Pilau" and Abba's "Vindaloo"), which naturally set my mind into overdrive. By the time I got the head of the autograph line, I had four for him: Glen Campbell's "Lentil On My Mind," the Stray Cats' "(Siva's) Sexy + 17," the Christmas chestnut "I Basmati Kissing Santa Claus" and the only one that he seemed to appreciate (I had to explain the others), Sam & Dave's "Hold On, I'm Cumin." The fact that he was still up for a picture after such nonsense speaks volumes of his integrity.