On the 12th Day of Mavericks ...
... my reader gave to me.
Peter Boam
as nominated by ‘Challenge 69’ reader Jane T
Clearly there’s an element of, “who?” about this one, but I have, nonetheless, been saving it up until last, as Jane’s nomination was, without question, the most personal and heartfelt entry I received:
“Well this is a hard choice, but I think the person I would like to put at the top of my maverick Christmas tree is my friend, the (as yet) little known Peter Boam (1964-2006).
Pete was only 15 when we first met and he had already been through significant trauma, dropped out of school, and recorded in a large London studio. He was a prolific song writer, could play just about any instrument and had a great singing voice.
Pete’s repertoire ranged from a twelve minute prog rock type piece called ‘Storm’, to haunting ballads such as ‘She’s My World’, a post punk sound, as in ‘The Spider and the Fly’, or perfect, catchy pop songs like ‘When Love is Not Enough’ and, one of my favourites, ‘Almost You’.
He was a major player in the Sheffield music scene of the early ‘80s, performing and running gig nights at the Hallamshire and George IV, and appearing at various venues around the city. Pete then formed a band, with my brother, called Mortuary in Wax and they were signed and recorded one song ‘The Face’ for a compilation album called ‘5 Miles to Midnight’.
He also took up acting, and was a very gifted performer, as well as writing plays (and even a musical), but possibly Pete’s closest brush with fame was joining Pulp, in 1982-1983, helping to co-write and record their first album ‘It’. Personally, I believe Pete had a huge influence on Pulp as a band.
(Slightly blurry photo of the inner sleeve of Pulp’s ‘It’ album, with a Peter Boam credit)
Throughout all of this, Pete’s lifestyle remained chaotic, he always did everything to excess. Sadly, Pete died tragically young in Hove, Sussex. Thankfully though many of his songs can still be heard on YouTube, and, even better, work is currently underway on a documentary about his life and music.
Pete was a talent (a talented maverick!) whose work deserves to be rescued from obscurity!”
Wow Jane, that’s quite a story.
Now I realise it might come as a big shock to people but, coincidentally, Stuart and I were both in Sheffield, and big followers of the local music scene, during the time that Jane relates! So I’m going to leave it up to him to comment on the ‘nomination’ detail, while I work on the logistics.
Jane and I exchanged a few emails about how best to represent Pete’s music given that nothing he wrote/recorded has, as yet, made it on to Spotify. We came up with a solution for the playlist, which I will come back to later, but in order to allow his voice (and songwriting) to be properly heard we decided to add a couple of Peter’s songs from YouTube.
Jane agonised over her choice, “it’s difficult to pick just one track . A lot of Pete’s music is best enjoyed with a stiff drink and a box of tissues (he is honestly brutal!) but as it’s Christmas let’s go for something a bit jollier; ‘Almost You’, recorded sometime between 1986-9.”
While I went for ‘I Close My Eyes’, from a cassette recorded in February 1985;
Peter Boam - 'I Close My Eyes'
Now that we have heard from Peter, it’s over to Stuart for a final judgement:
“Just when I thought Mitchell had taken the obscure end of these nominations as far ‘to the limit’ as possible with Arthur Russell, along comes Jane, right at the end, and trumps him.
A significant part of my ‘musical education’ took place in Sheffield in the early ‘80s, and we saw our fair share of local bands; Artery, Vendino Pact, The Comsat Angels, They Must Be Russians, ABC Radical Dance Faction (wonder what became of them?), but apparently (having consulted Charlie and his list), we never saw Mortuary in Wax.
I dare say though that Peter would, very likely, have been part of many of the same audiences as we were at the time; or, to put it another way, would have joined us ‘at The Limit’!
Perhaps at one or more of these 1979 gigs (I certainly remember U2!):
The various incarnations of Pulp, during their ‘wilderness years’, were always a bit of a revolving door regarding personnel, but to have been present to play a hand in the making of their debut album, especially ‘My Lighthouse’ (a favourite Pulp song of mine), certainly grabbed my attention.
More than anything else, Jane’s touching ‘maverick proposal’ made me reflect again on how much fortune plays its part in success (in any field). Thousands of people might start hundreds of bands (always have, always will), each of them talented in their own way; yet there will always, inevitably, be a ‘roll of the dice’ element as to whether they end up in the right place, at the right time, to translate that talent into success.
If the stars had aligned differently, after ‘It’ was released in 1983 then, just maybe, today we might all be celebrating Peter Boam as, “everybody’s favourite maverick’, while sitting and wondering just who this strange Jarvis Cocker person was that somebody had just put forward as an obscure nomination.
So, on behalf of all those musicians everywhere, whose dice ‘fell the wrong way’, I’m delighted to invite Peter Boam into Maverickdom as their representative.
And the best of luck with that documentary Jane, I’m looking forward to seeing it.”
Another successful nonconformist induction then, to wrap up our ‘12 Days of Mavericks’. Thanks once again to everybody who joined in.
Given Stuart mentioned it, and that there’s more than a suspicion Peter had a hand in the writing of it (he certainly once performed the song in duet with Jarvis), the obvious choice to be added to (and complete) our ‘12 Days’ playlist is ‘My Lighthouse’.