SXSWORLD

3 8 S X S W O R L D / M A R C H F I L M - I A 2 0 1 4 ho is Jarvis Cocker? As someone who learned to drink, dance and pass out to a BritPop soundtrack of Pulp, Blur, Oasis and Menswear (remember them?) and frequented Camden pubs in the hope that Jarvis and friends might be propping up the bar, I thought I knew the answer. However, Pulp's frontman refuses to fit into any of the cultural establishment's obvious boxes. An awkward character with his lanky frame, Cocker is creative but not gifted, clever but not cerebral and alternative without being a true outsider. is confusion is understandable if you con- sider that despite plugging away since his school days, Cocker only found fame in his early 30s. Even then, Pulp was seen as inhabiting the nov- elty end of the BritPop spectrum, with Cocker's insightful lyrics and gangly charisma adding depth to otherwise standard pop-rock tracks. His unmatched ability to find wit and drama in the mundane details of life are what have made him, and his music, so memorable. Appropriately, it wasn't Cocker's musical expertise that first propelled him to global superstardom, but rather his infamous stage invasion at the 1996 Brit Awards when he wiggled his bottom at Michael Jackson, lampooning the King of Pop's self- indulgent performance of "Earth Child." Discussing the incident years later, he said, "I guess lots of people have one incident that overshadows almost everything else they've done. Although I don't regret it as a moral action, the fact it will be the first line in my obituary is a little bit disap- pointing." At the time, he was arrested, falsely accused of assault and branded a national disgrace by the mainstream media under headlines such as "Off his Cocker." is makes his current transformation into a highbrow national hero all the more surprising. Cocker turned 50 last September, and of all the indie icons of his era, he always exuded a certain ageless androgyny. is attitude was embodied in the famous Cockerism on the back of Pulp's 1998 album is is Hardcore, which read: "It's OK to grow up, just as long as you don't grow old. Face it you are young." So far, middle age seems to suit this modern British Bard. He has grown a beard, produced and presented award-winning shows for BBC Radio, published his first book (a collection of lyrics entitled Mother, Brother, Lover) and become the editor-at-large for the historic publishing house Faber and Faber. His first acquisition, a book on the history of British folk clubs, is due to be published this month. e sheer accident of being less musically accomplished than his contemporaries has actu- ally helped Cocker carve out his own poetic niche. Unlike fellow Faber authors such as T.S. Eliot, Cocker is not a poet, but he has a flair for exposing the beauty in the seedier side of British life. e majority of his lyrics are either overtly or covertly focused on sex in all its gory glory: flabby, fumbling learning-on-the-job British sex, not Hollywood movie romantic coupling. Cocker has always been open about his fascination with what he calls "inappropriate subject matter," saying: "I was struck by the massive dis- crepancy between the way relationships were depicted in the songs I'd heard on the radio, and the way I was experiencing them in real life. (Could have been my technique, I suppose.) So I decided to attempt to redress the balance, to put in all the awkward bits." As he has matured both as a man and an artist, the tone has changed, but the one-track mind remains the same. His 2009 solo record, Further Complications, charts his midlife sexual crisis and was written in the wake of his marriage breakup. Gone is the innocent infatuation with sex and drugs of Pulp's heyday, and in its place is a more confessional eroticism with lines such as "If every relationship is a two-way street, I have been screwing in the back whilst you drive," and the heartbreak- ingly harsh "I'm not looking for a relationship, just a willing receptacle." But how far should we look for the "real Jarvis Cocker" in his lyrics? In his introduction to his book, he stresses that while the cover may resemble that of a poetry collection and the lyrics are laid out to look like verses, they do not stand alone. "Lyrics are not poetry, they are the words to a song," he writes, adding that "seeing a lyric in print is like watching the TV with the sound turned down: you're only getting half the story." You could say that the absence of melody leaves the words brutally exposed, offering a penetrating insight into the artist's soul. "I think that you don't really have much control over what does and does not stick in your mind: it's the haphazard nature of memory that gives you an original voice, provided that you can learn to recognise it and use it," Cocker writes. n The Pulp documentary, PULP, world premieres tonight at 7pm in the Vimeo Theater. Cocker will discuss songwriting and artistic vision on Wednesday, March 12 from 12:30pm-1:30pm in Austin Convention Center's Room 18ABC. His most recent musical project, Desperate Sound System, will also be perform- ing a DJ set at the SXSW Music Festival, see sxsw.com/schedule for details. Jarvis Cocker: Britpop Bard Still Inspired by the "Awkward Bits" by Serena Kutchinsky Jarvis Cocker in PULP C H R I S H A R R I S - P I S TA C H I O P I C T U R E S W

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