Ivor Index

This interview coincided with the release of the LP >Gruts= on Rough Trade.

Well Ivor, what precisely is a grut and how would I know if I tripped over one?

Cutler screws his monocle sagely into place. >I can only tell you that they come from the High Wood. And that=s as much information as I=m able to give you.=

I was given detailed instructions as to the venue for my encounter with Ivor Cutler. The anthropological autobiographer of the life in a Scottish sitting room, former dandruff sufferer, the thin voiced Scottish ghostie whose weird tales have inhabited the John Peel Show for many years, would be installed in the aquarium of Regent=s Park Zoo, on the small seat by the lungfish.

Ivor arrived on time (or rather on his bicycle) and kept the lungfish company while I sat in the back of a stationary taxi, enjoying through the windscreen the spectacle of my driver engaging in a vein-bursting altercation with a motorcyclist. It had the makings of a vaguely Cutlerian event, I reflected, as, across London, Ivor himself sat and watched the glum lungfish, glimmering greenly from the murk. Except in Ivor=s version the taxi driver would have wheels adjoining his ankles and would be accusing the motorcyclist of consuming his feet with salad. The confrontation would be observed unblinkingly by a pillion passenger that resembled an alarmed carp.

Those who would doubt the endearing Scot capable of such grotesquerie would do well to check, by way of warning, Cutler=s L.P. >Gruts=. Pausing only to adjust his monocle and deliver the odd comic song. Cutler expands on the condition of fish fright, the horrors of the free cups of tea, the nocturnal habits of meat-eating eggs, the sad plight of the Hoorgi House gravy man who sacrificed his feet to accompany an unwitting customer=s salad. Most disturbing of all are the nasty things left to the listener=s imagination - like, for example, the horrific effects of three years of Gruts for tea.

As if this wasn=t enough, Cutler is performing the Gruts show around the country, climaxing with a whole week of Gruts in May at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London (from May 12-17). A grut, sorry great, hater of hotels, Cutler will be travelling to strange places at anti-social hours in an attempt to avoid spending a night in the company of that scourge of the modern age . . . central heating.

>It attacks my sinuses,= he proclaims as we walk from the aquarium to the giraffe house. >They=ve also started to go for that stuff they put in lavatories to make them smell nice. Perfume and women=s stuff they put on their hair is the same.=

>It was one of those places where they have stags on the doors of the lavvies,= he recalls, appalled. >The room was so hot it was definitely not for human beings to be in. So I spent the night balanced precariously on a bench in the station waiting room.=

>I never consciously place anything I=ve seen into the writing. During the day I keep my eyes open, and I experience all things through all my senses, which then go into my unconscious and get mixed around. In the small hours I wake up and start writing what comes up. I disregard the intellectual side of it and just listen to the noises.=

There=s certainly an evocative sound to Cutler=s words, which takes advantage of the full range of the Scottish language (an infinitely richer source of sounds and expressions than English). The Hoorgi House is immediately draughty, dusty and intriguing, a grut is a peculiarly penitent type of vegetable (or fungus more likely).

>Obviously my work is distinctly Scottish. It=s certainly guilt ridden, which I think the all pervading influence of the Free Church of Scotland, telling people they=re all going to ABurrrn@. There=s a sense of fear as well - I think the hills help in that.

>Dirrrrrty is another frequently used word as in ADon=t do that it=s dirrrrrrty.@ That was just a good word for just about everything.=

>No, I remember liking austerity, though. As a boy my two grannies used to make the same kind of cake, one making it with milk and one with water. I always preferred the one with water. Then when I got to 17 I went through a stage of drinking hot water at people=s houses instead of tea or coffee, and I=d try to savour the difference between one cup of hot water and another.=

There=s an inescapable atmosphere of austerity on >Gruts=, inescapable since it first formed on the surface of the cold cabbage water of 50's Britain. It smells of rot. I don=t remember Lyon=s corner houses, but I imagine them full of the maggoty inhabitants of Gruts.

>Yes I certainly remember them. They probably have quite an influence on me, specially in Camberwell Green - the poverty and grey faces of people who didn=t know what to eat, and wouldn=t have eaten good food even if they had the money. Sitting there trying to make everything last out as long as possible.=

>Tapirs!= proclaims Ivor with sudden enthusiasm. >Tapirs are my favourite animals. If I were to re-design the urban landscape of Britain I would use tapirs.=

Ivor Cutler for minister of agriculture. Now there=s an idea.