“It’s a very simple film, just one continuous shot, perhaps like those films they used to show on the Old Grey Whistle Test, some kind of discarded found footage in a rusting film can that seems to fit the bill. The images want to support and hold the song, without distracting. They reflect a feeling that is out of time, eerie, as the song has evolved, a cover version but not brought up to date, if anything made older, more antediluvian.
The pictures have a dreamlike texture that wash over you while you listen, but they have a strange quality, both smooth and jerky, maybe like a computer game, the subject not quite in charge, not sure how to be, where to go, how to act. It shows a fragment of a journey, maybe something like that of Tarkovsky’s Stalker, on a confused journey toward The Zone, abandoned, deserted.
The water you see is the Clyde Estuary, midway between Faslane and Coulport. I walk up here often, watching submarines, listening to audio books about philosophy while reflecting on the weapons of Global Annihilation hidden in the hollowed out mountains just a few miles away. The best and worst the human race has given the universe … Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile that we make them both. It’s Kinda Funny.”
“Josef K were a massive part of my life, especially at that crucial juncture when you’re 18, which is when I first saw Josef K performing at Glasgow City Hall supporting The Cure (as were Altered Images). At that point in my life I was very much an outsider, apt then that my duel companions were books (especially Camus, Capote, Cather) and my Article 58 cadre. I played guitar in the group, which was my primary point of expression, and as teenagers we would regularly go to see groups play at the Bungalow Bar in Paisley and Valentino’s in Edinburgh. The guitarists at that post-punk period in Scotland were as unique and original as the groups they played in (Scars, Orange Juice, Fire Engines), but my favourites were Josef K. It was a thrill when JK guitarist Malcolm Ross (along with Alan Horne) produced the only single released by Article 58 (released on Josef K manager Allan Campbell’s Rational label). Article 58 supported Josef K on a handful of English dates, JK were really firing on peak powers on the tour, their final tour before splitting up.
Josef K were largely known for their furious punk-funk, but their best record was their second single on Postcard Records. ‘It’s Kinda Funny’ is a plaintive, poignant song, written by Paul Haig on hearing the news that Ian Curtis had committed suicide, something I heard announced by Julian Cope from the stage of the Bungalow when The Teardrop Explodes played. Cope came on stage with the group and informed the audience they’d just been told the news about Curtis by their friends at Factory Records, an audience member went outside and phoned up John Peel live on his BBC Radio 1 show, Peel told the world.
I decided to do a Port Sulphur version of ‘It’s Kinda Funny’ for these dystopian times. The song is as soulful and relevant now as it was on its release 40 years ago.”