From Wales to Chicago, please give it up for Jon Langford and his mighty axe.
On my tax return it says artist-stroke-musician, which means through chaotic and heroic feats
of plate juggling and multi-tasking I am somehow, amazingly enough, a breadwinner. With my songs
and paintings and personal appearances, yes, graduates, I have no job, but I do win bread.
It is possible. I'm here to encourage you. Only last week I had enough money in my bank
account to buy a new fridge, and that's where we keep the bread that I've won.
Yes, many plates are juggled, some crash to earth and shatter into many million tiny shards
of personal shame and despair, while others soar like golden eagles upwards ever upwards
in glorious arcs of weightless triumph. I've been scratching away on the fringes of popular
culture for about 26, no, hang on, 36 years now, sorry. And by sharing some of my experiences
with you today, I hope to present myself as a beacon of hope that might guide you through
life's choppy and uncertain waters and help you avoid some of the pratfalls and -- you will encounter
on your way.
I'm a Cold War, space-age baby who graduated with a BA honors degree from the fine art
department of the University of Leeds. I arrived at art school in Leeds in 1976 with no clear
motivation other than to escape my hometown. As soon as I got to art school, the Sex Pistols'
Anarchy in the UK tour landed in Leeds Polytechnic. I didn't actually attend - I was at home washing
my flared trousers that night - but I was immediately caught up in the cultural shockwaves
of that event.
Smash the system. Break all the rules. The lid is off. Do you want to be in a band where
no one can play. Yeah, all right.
Throw away your brushes. Throw away your Blick student discount card. Who cares if you've
got fingers like sausages, steal an electric guitar.
Now the bacon commonly served in England is very different from your American bacon. It's
crucial that we make a national distinction at this juncture. American bacon comes from
the belly of the swine, while English is taken from the loin back, which provides a round
eye of lean meat flanked by a fattier extension, more similar to what you consume here in the
New World. If you stuck a piece of Canadian bacon to a piece of American bacon, you would
get a very crude caricature of English bacon.
Richard Branson took each rasher and ate only the tiniest mouthful of the lean area before
replacing it on his plate. As we all know he has lovely, evenly spaced white flashing
teeth. And I stared down in amazement at the pile of discarded rashers on his plate, each
with a perfect imprint of his choppers. A sensible buffer zone of lean meat and then,
the delicious tasty greasy fatty bit that the great man had scorned. "Are you going
to eat those?" I says. "No," replied Richard Branson. So I et them. And in that moment
I assume I must have consumed just a little of the precious billionaire DNA.
After Virgin fired the Mekons, I went back to art college, completed my fine arts degree
and graduated in robes almost as splendid as these, before entering Margaret Thatcher's
brave new world of mass unemployment. After two years I wangled a part-time job at the
health education department of a local hospital where I illustrated healthy eating leaflets
for old-age pensioners, who presumably had no idea what they'd been stuffing down their
throats for the previous 65 years.
And I had to fall back on my nonexistent backup plan which, even if I'd bothered to have a
backup plan, it probably wouldn't have been moving to Chicago and starting to paint pictures.
But somehow that is what happened. My wife is here at UIC doing architecture 20 hours
a day, 8 days a week. And I was at home in Bucktown at a complete loss with some paints
and a pencil and some paper. But by this time I had found it quite easy to collaborate with
my bandmates to make music, but in isolation in Chicago, making paintings was tough. I
had to kick down the walls between the two practices and discover that art and music
certainly bumped around in the same part of my brain. And as the differences between art
and music slowly receded, the similarities between the art world and the music business
reared up to humble me.
There are people out there who will only judge your work and your ideas and your worth by
how much money you can make them. They are to be avoided. I play in bands with friends
I trust. I work with clubs, gallery agents, record labels that don't make me feel like
I need to take a shower the minute I finish talking to them.
Don't wait for inspiration. Flexing your muscles, the muscles of your craft, by getting up early
and actually doing something, will turn on the creative faucet and a muse will flow through
you when you least expect it. Alcohol also helps. Keep a notebook and a jug of overproof
rum on your bedside table. This is just random advice.
One of the best things I was ever told by an engineer the Mekons worked with in Great
Britain was, you can't polish a turd but you can roll it in glitter. I've applied that
to almost everything I've done.
The hippies said never trust anyone over 30. Punk rockers said never trust a hippie. There
are people out there who wish you ill. Like hyenas and lions stalking the grasslands or
crocodiles lurking in muddy swamps, they cannot help themselves. So you must be very careful.
But don't worry, follow your dreams. Plow your own trough, dig your own grave, and by
the time you hit 30, and the hippies won't trust you anymore, people will suddenly start
giving you money for doing all the things you've been currently doing for free. At least
that's how it worked for me.
You will find people out there who will help you. Actually, while publicizing this event
through social media, I made the mistake of asking several thousand Facebook friends what
advice I should actually give you at this address. I received a glut of ill-informed,
meaningless prattle, but here we go. I thought this would break it up a bit.
Julian Murray says, tell them opportunity doesn't always knock, sometimes you have to
kick the door down. Eileen Pahl says success on someone else's terms don't mean a -- thing,
which is something I wrote. John Mead says, tell them we need to tear it all down and
start over, beginning with debt forgiveness on student loans and a massive new eco-infrastructure.
Right on, John Mead. Then tell them to learn to play a musical instrument. Go on.
Jeff Birkner says wow, I don't even remember who gave my commencement speech when I graduated
from UIC, this is pretty cool. Matt Pfeffer says you can tell them it was much worse in
mid-70s pre-Thatcher England. Tim Kelleher says history is written by the winners, Randy
Moe says I agree with John Mead, tell them to fight. Richard Parfitt says history was
written by somebody called Victor. Mr. Jay Em says pursue a career in which you can drink
on the job.
Philip Rupp says that life's grand design needs their nourishment and gentle nudging
to further the vision of the future that they have been composting in their unique brain
pans. I agree with that one. Jan Wills says get a job and stop whinging. Steve Gregoropoulos
says that education is a bunch of decisions made by other people and they have to make
their own decisions. Sally Timms of the Mekons says you should all wear dresses. Steve Reuter
from New Jersey says Slayer! And my wife Helen Tsatsos' advice is you should all marry up.
Congratulations graduates, family and friends, teachers and staff. The road ahead will not
be without its disappointments, setbacks, trauma, humiliation and crushing defeats at
the hands of insensitive Philistines who just don't get where you're coming from. I recovered,
look, I'm here, I'm giving a commencement speech at UIC. So no matter how bad it gets,
you can always come back.
But I think a bit of a sing-song will help prepare you and cheer everyone up. That's
why I brought my guitar.
The best bit of advice the Mekons ever got was from Tony Maimone, the bass player in
Pere Ubu. And he came on tour with us in 1991 and was appalled at our lack of any form of
organization. He sat us down and he said, you just gotta remember two things. Get the
money; don't leave anything behind. And that's the chorus of this song and I want you all
to sing along because this will be the most people who's ever sung along with me in this
song.
Get the money and don't leave anything behind. Just some pieces of your heart and fragments
of your mind.
If the orchestra wants to join in, it's in E.
No?
Take an orchestra solo, go on.
You're the best orchestra I've ever worked with.
OK, UIC Pavilion.
Get the money. Don't leave anything behind. Just some pieces of your heart and the fragments
of your mind.
One more with vigor.
Get the money. Don't leave anything behind. Just some pieces of your heart and the fragments
of your mind.
I've lost my hand up my sleeve.
Get the money. And don't leave anything behind. You sang so well, we'll do the big Bob Dylan
ending.
Just some pieces of your heart and fragments of your mind.
Thank you so much. Good luck!