Frank Sidebottom

On Christmas Eve a couple of years ago I mentioned Timperley legend Frank Sidebottom with a link to his completely bonkers record "Christmas Is Really Fantastic"

Since then I have been meaning to go over to Timperley (where I used to live) to see the statue of him.

Frank was the alter ego of Chris Sievey who died in 2010. Eccentric doesn't really describe him but he was essentially an avant-garde performance artist who wore a giant papier mache head and performed childlike cover versions which were often centred on Timperley. For example Timperley Sunset (YouTube link) and Anarchy in Timperley. 

 The 2015 film Frank, starring Michael Fassbender, was loosely based on him and was written by the always entertaining Jon Ronson who used to be a member of his band. 

It is too early in the season to watch the YouTube video of  Christmas Is Really Fantastic  but if you want to watch something even more insane have a look at this YouTube clip of him performing a version of The Fall's Hit The North with Starsky and Hutch's David Soul on keyboards. It's as mad as it sounds. 

Anyway, today we went over to Altrincham to meet up with someone who was on our Vietnam tour and we had a really enjoyable few hours together. Beforehand we went into Timperley to see the statue for my blip. The extra shows the whole statue.