GANTOB blog

STAY (Part 4, by GRAHAM)

Sep 18th, 2025

30 August 2025 (approximately 21:00). And then we’re onto the live set. All of the acts sing their own song, accompanied by The Gold Tips. So they have full production rather than the version recorded in The Cell of Curfew Tower. They also sing an Elvis cover. The Gold Tips leave their own Elvis covers until the end of the show. As you can see from the dates of the Elvis songs listed below, this was not a simple re-enactment of the 1968 Comeback Special.

A review of the STAY LP was posted by Geoff Topley before the gig.

The set list runs as follows, with additional detail about the history of the Elvis tracks from various sources, including Wikipedia.

The Gold Tips

True to the Trail (by Bill Drummond, from The Man, 1986). The Gold Tips version appears to add a twist of Steve Miller’s The Joker to the bassline in the live version. Intentional or not, I like it. It is worth noting that the version recorded for side 2 of the STAY LP was taped in Glasgow not in The Cell of Curfew Tower. It features whistling and finger clicking by Leo Condie and scat singing by Tony Wright. The fact that this was recorded in La Chunky Studio in Glasgow allows us to check on the birdsong and cawing (rooks perhaps) that appears on the other demos on side 2 of the record. It’s there too on Leo and Tony’s recording. Either they took the rooks and songbirds with them to Glasgow, or the avian cavalcade was added later. Perhaps this is what Bill is referring to in his blog post of 13 July: “In the beloved dead uncle’s attic, pieces of disturbing music are conceived and constructed and then sent to the temporary lodgings, where they are taken apart and sewn together with the sound of footsteps on stairs and doors closing and beds being chopped up and birthday cakes being thrown on the fire and bees buzzing and waves breaking and Rooks gathering and rivers flowing and bicycles falling and all those other sounds that we never notice enough in our passing lives”.
Do You Remember All The Lights (Eamonn McNamee of The Gold Tips). It’s a heart wrenching lyric – “I’ve been down that hole too long,/I’ve lost all my light I fear”).

Tony Wright, AKA VerseChorusVerse

40 Hours To Memphis (Tony Wright). It is interesting that he adapts the live Elvis album title “48 hours to Memphis”, perhaps to build in a reference to one of Bill’s favourite numbers (40). Beale Street, also mentioned in the song, is important to Elvis’ career, but also central to the recording of many other musicians and the civil rights movement in Memphis. Elvis didn’t record at Memphis after 1955, until early 1969, just weeks after his Elvis set had been broadcast to critical acclaim. That becomes relevant to songs later in the set.
Hound Dog (Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, famous for numerous hits including Stand By Me (1961), which they co-wrote with Ben E King). A blistering version of the song made famous by Elvis in 1956, but originally recorded by Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton with Johnny Otis and his orchestra in 1952.

Paula Flynn

Elvis is Alive (Paula Flynn and Eda Flynn). An upbeat and catchy song used to excellent effect at the very end of the film. It tips its baseball cap to final phase Elvis. He is in Hades, eating burgers and kissing pretty ladies. Unlike Annie in a song later in the set, the narrator receives a letter from Elvis.
Suspicious Minds (Mark James – see also Always On My Mind). Recorded 1969, in Memphis. Paula refers to this as Elvis’s last hit when he was alive – his last US number one. His decision to return to recording in Memphis has paid off.

Tanya Mellotte

Prestwick 249 (Tanya Mellotte, originally from Scotland, now based in Belfast). This song is narrated from the perspective of Annie Murphy (different sources also spell her name as Ann and Anne). She was one of the fans who met Elvis during his only touchdown on British soil – 3 March 1960 – while he waited to fly back to the USA. She wrote her number down for him at his request – the title of the song. A Scottish alternative to Glen Millar’s Big Band classic Pennsylvania 6-5000 perhaps. Tanya notes that Ann married Andy the “Prestwick Elvis”. Andy died in 1997 and was buried in his blue suede shoes.
Always On My Mind (Wayne Carson, Johnny Christopher and Mark James). Released by Gwen McCrae, Brenda Lee and then Elvis in 1972, with the latter achieving the success with the song, though it was the Pet Shop Boys’ version that topped the UK charts. Elvis’ version was recorded in California. He had left Memphis behind again. The song is thought to reflect Elvis’ feelings about losing Priscilla. It was recorded in March 1972 after their separation in February 1972. Tanya performed this as a rousing singalong.

Duke Special, AKA Peter Wilson

Forgotten (Duke Special and Andrew Doyle). A breakup song, with Peter effortlessly rising to meet the high notes of this plaintive song. Elvis was married just once, to Pricilla Beaulieu (the person not the spider), having met her at the age of 14 when he was still in the army. They married nearly 8 years later in 1967 and divorced in 1972 and again 1973 after Priscilla sued for fraud over the first divorce. Peter has Elvis wondering whether Priscilla thinks about the trappings of their time together at Graceland, from pictures, peacocks to the songs that he sang. My notes scribbled during the show say “Priscilla was going to have to sell Graceland to pay tax bills”. If Peter did say this, I am not sure if he means Beaulieu or the spider, and Memphis or the Glens of Antrim.
(Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame(Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, famous for this and many other songs, including Save the Last Dance for Me (1962) and Viva Las Vegas (1964)). Another rocking cover,Peter moshing away at the microphone. The song was originally recorded in 1961, first by Del Shannon, with Elvis’ version topping the UK charts for a month that year. If we wind forward the clock and are considering Elvis’ love life after Priscilla, Elvis dated Linda Thompson from 1972 to 1976. She went on to marry Bruce Jenner (now Caitlyn), alma mater Graceland College (in Iowa not Memphis), decathlon gold medallist at the 1976 Olympics. More famous nowadays for reality TV.

Arborist, AKA Mark McCambridge

Are You Still The King? (Mark McCambridge). He talks about having had a tight time scale imposed by Bill – just two days to complete the song. Mark spent some of his childhood years in Cushendall: he recalls his “stolen summers” fondly. The song is very much in the spirit of the Curfew Tower residence: “Have you found some kind of peace/ In that tower by the sea?”. Mark sings “Are you still the king?” one last time and an audience member shouts out: “Fuck yes”. Yes indeed.
True Love Travels on a Gravel Road (Dallas Frazier and A.L. “Doodle” Owens – a country music songwriting duo who wrote a string of US country chart toppers for Charley Pride, all completely new to me). 1969. Recorded at American Sound Studios, Memphis. Something to explore another day.

The Gold Tips, Eamonn McNamee and colleagues

If I Can Dream (Walter Earl Brown). Written and recorded in June 1968, this is a song from the finale to Elvis’ “1968 Comeback Special”. We can be precise about the timing because it was written specifically for that event and in response to the assassination of Robert F Kennedy, 5 June 1968, when he was running for the Democratic presidential nomination. Richard Nixon won that election on 5 November 1968, against Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey. The lyrics refer back to Martin Luther King Junior’s “I Have a Dream” speech (28 August 1963), with particular poignancy as Luther King had also recently been assassinated (4 April 1968), in Memphis. Elvis’ manager Colonel Tom Parker was not keen on Elvis performing this song. Elvis was keen to give it a shot, stating “I’m never going to sing another song I don’t believe in. I’m never going to make another movie I don’t believe in”.
That’s All Right (Arthur William “Big Boy” Crudup). This song was originally recorded by Crudup in 1946, with a re-release in 1949 as an early – perhaps even the first – 45RPM single. In fact, its origins go back further, with some of the lyrics traditional blues verses recorded by Blind Lemon Jefferson in 1926. Elvis recorded his version on 5 July 1954, with Scotty Moore (electric lead guitar) and Bill Black on string bass. All three musicians were credited on the record. Their version was much more up tempo than the original. Though Crudup was credited, he didn’t receive royalties, even after legal action, in part because of the much longer history behind the lyrics. The single was released on 19 July 1954 – Elvis’ debut. It didn’t chart nationally, but did reach number four in the local Memphis charts. It’s the final song of the evening. A fitting return to Memphis for The King.

31 August 2025. Bill posts about another track – Fairport Convention’s Farewell, Farewell, performed by Leo Condie, the musical director for The Penkiln Burn Players and the Hear Hard events. He is featured on the rough demo side of the record, for the performance of True to the trail with Tony Wright, but Leo did not perform at the 25 Comeback Special. It’s an interesting choice of song. It is yet another confirmation of Bill’s admiration for Fairport Convention. Leo’s rendition of the song was intended for the end credits of STAY, but that never happened “along with all of the other things that never happened”. It is a beautiful rendition of the song. The original (by Richard Thompson, building on the traditional folk song Willie O’Winsbury), features on Fairport Convention’s 1969 LP Liege & Lief, their fourth album. Bill mentioned their second and third albums in the lead up to his Cushendall event:

“Back at one of those turning points in between the release of What We Did On Our Summer Holidays (December ’68) and Unhalfbricking (July ’69), a Bill Drummond started to wonder if The Beatles were to release a single with nothing on the label, as in no information about who the band was, or the record label, or the writers of the song – just a white label, what would happen?”

This of course leads to all sorts of other Bill Drummond type explorations of his career.

But that is not where we should leave this step-by-step description of Bill Drummond and friends’ 25 Comeback Special. We should now consider its impact.

For that we need to return to one of his first pieces about Curfew Tower. His I Love Easy Jet pamphlet (1999). In 2025, by one measure a 25^th anniversary of the residencies at the tower, we can appraise this year’s event’s impact as an artistic endeavour. In the 1999 pamphlet Bill has the tower as a “real folly”, a gaol. Bill writes that Turnly was “fired by a vision of a New World Order and a system of beliefs enabling man to live at peace with fellow man. Cushendall was to be the centre of this new Jerusalem”.

While this was no doubt a reference to William Blake, it is quite possible that Bill was also thinking about peace in the Middle East, back to the K Foundation’s 1993 single K Cera Cera (War Is Over If You Want It), a period marked by the Oslo Accords of 1993-1995 with Yitzhak Rabin (assassinated 5 November 1995), Yasser Arafat and Bill Clinton. In 2015-16 Curfew Tower hosted Sagit Mezamer, artist, curator and clinical psychologist from Jerusalem. The resulting book, instigated by Raymie Watson, with contributions from the Israeli artists, plus Bill Drummond, is a black and white striped book called Ireland versus Israel (Penkiln Burn book 21, 2017), though much of the material had presumably been written before that point. It covers complicated topics, including conflict and troubles in the Middle East and Northern Ireland, with nuance and shades of grey. In it Raymie mentions tours of Ossian’s grave and other archaeological sites, plus tours of the more recent history of both Belfast and Jerusalem. Bill, in a chapter called A Game of Vanities, mentions a rotting albatross, Elvis and the North Pole, the Congo and the garden of Eden, and a third trip that he had planned for 2018, in the footsteps of Juan Ponce de León (1474-1521) searching for the Fountain of Youth with Mark Manning and Gimpo. This Gilgameshian quest was planned to end in Florida, USA. By that point, of course, Trump was installed as US President and was spending a considerable amount of time in Florida. Whatever the reason, I do not think that Bill, Mark and Gimpo made the trip.

I Love Easy Jet also mentions McAllister’s across the road (for Calor gas), but does not clarify whether there are thick paint brushes or rollers in the hardware store.

In the pamphlet Bill fears being seen as elitist for wanting to dedicate the tower to artist residencies rather than being a second home for a well-to-do family from Belfast. He notes the potential perils – “Curfew Tower was considered by the locals as their tower” – using it as the logo on all “local tourist, civic or sporting printed matter… it was seen as an icon that symbolised the whole community”. Anything else – including the dreams of a writer/ musician/ maverick – is temporary.

I Love Easy Jet was written on 10 November 1998, on the way back from Belfast to Luton, on an EasyJet flight. It was “randomly placed in the magazine pouches on the back of seats on Easy Jet flights” (KLF.DE), presumably in 1999. I notice when writing this up that Bill produced a story about the outbound journey for that trip – 8 November 1998, included in his book 45 (Little, Brown, 2000) – Art terrorist incident at Luton airport. The “art terrorists” in that chapter were not Bill and Jimmy, but a couple of young guys with a toy gun. A teapot with loose leaf tea takes a supporting role. He was clearly travelling backwards and forwards regularly to Belfast at that point. 45 has an earlier chapter called Towers, Tunnels and Elderflower Wine (September 1998) that features some awkward artistic props being ferried back to mainland Britain, retrieved from the tower for his friend Mark Manning.

But my main reason for returning to I Love Easy Jet is this: Bill states in 1999, “Long-term objectives: To create an event that the residents of Cushendall are both involved in and proud of, even if much of the work produced by the artists in residence does not fit within their/ our preconceived notions of ‘proper art’… To create a time and place where the artist in residence is happy to talk to any local who shows interest in what s/he is up to”.

I would argue that, though not securing world peace, or even ceasefire in the Middle East, Bill’s great folly of Curfew Tower has achieved his stated long-term objective. A large chunk of Cushendall seemed to be at the 25 Comeback Special on 30 August 2025. There was joy, reflection, dancing, singalongs, rock and roll, the summer homecoming of a McCambridge, and copies of a Penkiln Burn record sitting in the music collections of numerous households in Cushendall for the first time (unless they had bought Voices from the Galloverse earlier this year, or stolen Susan Philipsz’ 7”).

It goes almost without saying that Curfew Tower is an inspiration, even if you don’t stay there. From Susan Philipsz and her MiniDisc to the musicians from last night popping into the tower for a couple of hours to record on much more basic equipment, the tower has been a catalyst. It is there too, as the inspiration for a cat filled tower (Cushionpaw Tower) in the paintings in GANTOB’s new book, GANTOB’s 25 Paintings. But if it’s truly owned by anyone, it’s the residents of Cushendall themselves.

I also think that the 25 Comeback Special secured its short-term objective. The ghost of Elvis ruled last night, spreading his misty tendrils from Curfew Tower, along Shore Street, avoiding the left turn onto Layde Road, to keep going along Shore Road to Cushendall Golf Club. He brought the story of a puppet to life on film and guided a programme of music that stretched from the very origins of his career to his last big hit and beyond, without even including the crowd pleaser of In The Ghetto for KLF fans, a song which Bill has used more than once at different stages in his career. (In the spirit of completeness, I should mention that this song was recorded in 1969 in his American Sound Studio, Memphis phase; written by Mac Davis who also co-wrote Elvis’s posthumous hit A Little Less Conversation with Billy Strange, topping the charts around the world in 2002). Having known very little about Elvis previously, I, for one, will never view him the same way again since this brush with Elvis and Bill.

We can also answer the question Bill asked in Leith in 2019. Bill loves Elvis, and (The Ghost of) Elvis loves Bill. There’s not a paint brush bristle between them. The young Bill might have gravitated towards the 1950s hits, but the current Bill Drummond has coaxed some great songs about Elvis out of contemporary artists, and his event also breathed new life into hits from across Elvis’ career. Elvis’ ghost, as we have already established, is delighted with (and has shaped) the results.

Bill has posted some of his own thoughts on 25 Comeback Special on the Caught By The River website, which should be around for more than the duration of a Drummond webpage.

Stephen and Michelle drive us back to Belfast Port, for our return to Scotland. Our pilgrimage to Cushendall is complete. Stephen drives up the same road from the Antrim village that Tony Wright cycled down with his puppet Elvis. I look out for milestones at the side, but am not quick enough. On an overcast day it looks rather like the road from Dalwhinnie to Laggan in the Scottish Highlands – bleak. We spot a Circle K filling station. I start writing this piece in my head. I want to listen to music that I have never heard – I will start with Fairport Convention. I’ve had enough Elvis for a while. I want to read about Ossian. I want to learn about John Hewitt, the poet.

I wonder if Curfew Tower has artists in residence this year. I think about points that I had forgotten in the film, until now. On the door frame in the kitchen of Curfew Tower, one of the few parts not painted by Tony Wright in red during the film, there is a mark for “Raymie”. Either it was for a young child, or Raymond Watson was crouching. Perhaps I will check the door frame and ask Raymie if we go to another bonfire and curry night. I think about a crystal dangling in the window of Curfew Tower, Barbies and beach burials. It is a blustery day. They talk about using stabilisers on the ferry. I wonder if we will see the remains of the frame and canvas thrown out into Cushendall Bay, painted white on red, with the word “STAY”, as we pass across the Irish Sea.

THE END

I would like to thank Stephen and Michelle for their friendship, and all the lifts. Liz for her patience – most recently, over the past 15 months in Merseyside, Galloway and County Antrim. Stu and Carolyn for also being part of the K Circle. Bill for all the inspiration. Cushendall Library and the tourist information centre for all the interesting materials to peruse on a rainy Antrim Saturday. You for reading to this point, 10,000 words into a deep dive into the 25 Comeback Special. GANTOB for the copy of GANTOB’s 25 Paintings, the pamphlet What is Proof? and for hosting this sequence of posts.

GANTOB would like to thank JR for the comments, correcting typos, and the story about the KLF T-shirt facilitating transit through airports to Portugal. Rather a different experience to that of the art terrorists in Luton. Like the story of Heartbreak Hotel, I have been unable to establish the provenance of Bill’s EasyJet story…

The Benefaktor would like to thank Graham for the photo of Ossian’s grave and for transporting the new book and pamphlet to Stephen.

The Deputy General Manager of GANTOB (the project) would like to apologise to The Benefaktor for all the typos that were missed when uploading this piece the first time. If you are an email subscriber you will have a record of them in your inbox, and will be able to spot the additions that Graham has requested subsequently. There may well be more mistakes to correct. If you spot any, please do let us know, usual routes. Life is busy and things are often done in a rush.

STAY (Part 3, by GRAHAM)

Sep 17th, 2025

30 August 2025. It is due to rain most of the day.

When I received my package with two copies of the proof of GANTOB’s 25 Paintings (plus What Is Proof? pamphlets), in neatly secured bubble wrap, there was a handwritten note inside. It read, in a left leaning italic script, written with a blue fountain pen:

Graham,
I thought that the enclosed might appeal. Please read the pamphlet and do the needful.
If time, when you are in Cushendall, would you mind taking a photograph of Ossian’s grave?
Many thanks, The Benefaktor

Stephen, Michelle, Liz and I take a trip early on to Ossian’s grave, on the hill behind the B&B. I know some of Ossian’s story from trips to the National Trust’s Hermitage in Perthshire, but learnt more when reading The Benefactor’s piece “Mountebanks”, as featured in the proof for the new GANTOB book. It is a submission for a missing year in Bill Drummond’s biography The Life Model (2023). The grave is also mentioned in local tourist literature. We walk up from the carpark, past some other hikers. In a field near the top, with views over the rolling hills, nestled in among rowan trees, we come across a cairn dedicated to John Hewitt (1907-1987) and his “chosen ground”. Not Bill’s collaborator. This John Hewitt was a celebrated Northern Irish poet. Coincidences and connections in Bill’s web of ley lines.(#) In a dip in the field, stones mark the site reported to be Ossian’s burial site. There are orphan stones of the same type lying elsewhere in the field. It is starting to rain. We head back, past others coming up to visit, trying to beat the rain.

I note that Emma Must’s piece for The Curfew Tower is Many Things mentions both Ossian’s grave and the John Hewitt cairn. As a Northern Irish poet, Emma would know who that John Hewitt was, but presumably not Bill Drummond’s former associate of the same name.
Also, on looking through After Curfew again, I spot that Ossian’s grave is mentioned in Skye McDade-Burn’s chapter.
Beyond that, I cannot see any particular reason why The Benefaktor would be interested in Ossian. I haven’t found Bill referencing the grave, but it may well be tucked away in a corner of his writing, and I imagine that he would have explored it, even if just as a tourist visiting the area for the first time.

(#) I spotted a pub named after the poet when I was in Belfast in 2023, staying in a Premier Inn in the Cathedral Quarter. Looking it up now I see that Bill was artist-in-residence at the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, 2004, making soup. The John Hewitt pub is mentioned in a Belfast Telegraph article featuring Bill Drummond from that period.

We spend the rest of the day dodging the rain. In the library we find rows of history books about the Glens of Antrim, including standalone books and bound volumes of the journal Cushendall Focus. Curfew Tower features prominently. We find a feature in Cushendall Focus on The Big Scarf by artists in residence Jane Twigg and Astrid Bin (16-24 February 2008). In the Cushendall Local Information Office, which doubles up as the Glens of Antrim Historical Society, there is even more information about the town and area. Volume 29 of The Glynns (2001), Journal of the society, has a picture of Curfew Tower on the front. There is not an article about the tower inside, but I spot an obituary for a James McCambridge, and wonder if he was a relation of Mark, AKA Arborist. I flick through an article on postcards (sometime medium of Bill Drummond), and learn from an article by Robert M Bonar, that postcard collectors are called deltiologists, from the Greek word deltion, meaning a small writing tablet. Volume 44 of The Glens (2016) has a feature on fifty years of archaeology by Cormac McSparron, mentioning Ossian’s grave in a section on the earliest farming communities. It is a passing reference. Volume 49 (2022) has an article by Fr Kevin McHugh on the literary hoax around Ossian’s poems, which takes us full circle to The Benefaktor’s Mountebanks chapter. Cushendall is an area so steeped in history, real and imagined, with so much documentation.

I wonder what Robert M Bonar would make of Bill Drummond’s twinning project: see city 1, Belfast, 2000: “Twinned with your wildest dreams”. The photo is taken underneath a motorway sign dividing the road into lanes – Belfast, Belfast East, Bangor. I should note in passing that I have history with Bangor, involving a painfully on-off relationship in my late teens and early twenties. The less said about that the better.

We bump into Zippy, out with his family. He tells us that tonight’s gig is sold out. Two hundred tickets were available and he has sold 50 to locals, but likely more have bought tickets online. We have lunch in North Coffee. There is a counter for John Healy Photography which sells, among other things, Curfew Tower fridge magnets.

Eventually we brave a walk through the mizzle up the road towards the ruins of Layd Church. The tiny church packs a punch – the hole stone, with its connections to the (“infamous”) MacDonnell family, and perhaps a much longer (even pre-Christian) history; and the burial site of James McDonnell (1798-1845, with a grave marked by a more traditional Celtic cross) a physician with a social conscience. We don’t hang around. It’s pouring. Indeed, it’s too wet and slippery for the cliff path. We head back to the B&B for a short break from the elements. And then it’s time for the 25 Comeback Special.

Doors open at 18:00. There is a strong sense of anticipation. I spot Duke Special (AKA Peter Wilson) setting up at the side. I introduce myself and tell him that my kids, particularly our second daughter, loved his album Songs from the Deep Forest, particularly the song Last Night I nearly Died (But I Woke Up Just in Time). When Iona was 4 years old, October 2006, I was heading off to see Duke Special and Divine Comedy at Liquid Rooms, central Edinburgh. Iona asked for a story before I headed out. And in the process I missed Duke Special’s set completely. I’m looking forward to seeing him play tonight. We take our seats. But the show does not begin until 18:45.

Bill comes on and talks about negativity. He would rather that 40 people saw the film rather than 200. He is on good form. The audience, which seems to be made up mainly of locals, laps it up. He tells us that the film will be seen by no more than 1000 pairs of eyes.

And then we are some of these lucky few pairs of eyes. The film, script by Bill Drummond (which is made available for a couple of days on the Penkiln Burn website after the performance), can be viewed in a number of different ways. An early scene in the film has a long shot of musician and actor Tony Wright cycling down the hill into Cushendall, but not the coastal road that Liz and I took on the bus. They take the inland route. Tony is talking to the puppet Elvis, who is in the basket at the front of the bike. I had read about Tony on the Penkiln Burn website. Bill had written: “My former colleague alerted me to the fact that this unemployable musician was a complicated person. That he had is [sic] issues.” These were, of course, selling points for Bill: “he was the right man for the job. Choice was not an option”. So, when I watch the film, I imagine that the words I am hearing, between Irish and American accents, are not just spoken by Tony, but originally conceived by Tony. It is all very deadpan but endearing. Tony’s facial expressions are extremely well acted.

Puppet Elvis: What are They
The Artist: Lambs
Puppet Elvis: What are Lambs for?
The Artist: For eating, we eat Lambs, or at least humans eat Lambs, puppets don’t have to eat.
Puppet Elvis: What eats humans?
The Artist: Time and mosquitoes.

Later there is a lamb skull. Life is a cycle.

There are yellow flowers. I think of ragworts. There is no doubt a lot of symbolism that would not be spotted the first time watching. There are stickers on back of the picture frames. I noticed them in May when a group of volunteers, recruited from the audience at the Voices from the Galloverse events, helped Bill and Tracey move the 25 Paintings across Penkiln Burn onto an island. I recognise a Great Yarmouth sticker on one of the picture frames in the film.

The script mentions imagery that might only be detected subliminally, at the very start. Perhaps it is just as well we can’t buy the DVD and rewatch the film, driving friends and family mad with our finger on the freeze button.

Tony and Elvis discuss photos of Elvis and Bob Dylan. One is deified, the other vilified. Bill has complicated relationships with past heroes.

Watching Tony go through the stages of a residency in Curfew Tower, reinforces this feeling that the film is about him, with Tracey Moberly invisibly on hand to capture the key moments.

He bakes a cake. Elvis compliments his one-handed technique for breaking eggs.

He makes a bed, as detailed in Penkiln Burn Poster 283 (2024), shown and read out in full in the film. He destroys another bed. Life is a cycle.

There is a house spider in the bath called Priscilla, Queen of The Glens.

There is knitting required, to keep Elvis comfortable. I think of the scarf I learnt about earlier in the library, keeping the tower warm.

He burns the ruined frame of the bed, like the cake, in the small walled garden behind the tower. The grass does not appear burnt in the next scene from the garden. Life is a cycle. Or there is something positively Lynchian going on with time, like Mulholland Drive.

He has a contretemps with a huge painting of scissors. He paints over it with the word Stay. He doesn’t shine shoes. He doesn’t make soup. He doesn’t mention rookeries (though there is a dead crow). But otherwise, the activities are straight out of Bill’s book 25 Paintings and other writing.

How could I be so stupid. Stephen realises that the film represents Bill’s life from the start I think – the cake is destroyed on the bonfire, representing the family birthdays missed by his madcap activities. The distressing phone call to family from the public phone box outside the tower. The tortured, twisted painting of the tower. Having Tony paint the inside of Curfew Tower a visceral red, with a narrow brush, can no doubt be linked with another aspect of Bill’s life.

But then there is the song – 40 Hours to Memphis. This is clearly Tony’s work. He wrote it, and recorded it, first in The Cell at the bottom of the tower, on a basic tape recorder, and then in the studio with The Gold Tips. There is a blurring of lines between Tony and Bill. And there is uncertainty about the terms of the residency. Did Tony really live in the tower during filming? Would there not have been rather strong paint fumes? Would this not have damaged his health and voice? Did any of the artists on the STAY LP that we are about to hear performed live, stay, write and record their song in the tower? It doesn’t really matter of course. Nothing is what it seems.

At times the imagery is Sisyphean (carting a large canvas up a hill or a long road), or biblical (the frame of the picture that Tony carries is like a crucifix; he walks past a cross on a hill). The script in scene 23 states: “inserted dialogue forty… CROSS”. The puppet is instructed to stop asking questions at this point (though he doesn’t comply).

There is a sign by the road, on that final walk, apparently marking the spot of an execution. There was a rifle earlier in the film, but unlike the rule named after Chekhov (somebody who is referenced several times in the new GANTOB book), it doesn’t have to get used.

Things get darker in the film, in a different way. Try to watch it if you can.

There are points that only people viewing the whole process, from Bill’s first blog posts on the 25 Comeback Special in early June, to the screening of the film at the end of August would spot. In the very first of the blog posts, 3 August 2025, Bill writes: “these artists will perform live their second-best song ever written”. When Tony reads out Penkiln Burn Poster 282 during the film he states: “You are an artist in residence here in Graceland in The Glens. It is your duty to write a song for The Ghost Of Elvis/ This song must be the best song you have ever written”.

Bill has asked for questions about the film. Mine would be:

Is it the best song or the second-best song that he wants the artists to record?
Why not use a bigger brush or even a roller to apply the paint? There’s a hardware shop diagonally opposite the tower for goodness sake.

I might email them to him. I might add in a question about the timing of the event and Dallywood earlier in the month.

There is a break after the 90-minute film. We move our chairs, clearing space so that the Ariffe Dancers, a local dance troop, can perform Into The Graceland, accompanied by sounds and songs from the film. It’s an engaging set. I take some footage, as instructed, to send to Tracey Moberly.

There is a lot of local involvement in the evening’s activities, in addition to the Ariffe Dancers. The lighted and open window facing Curfew Tower is a character in the film. The background music in the film is, as Bill writes on his blog: “any number of the community groups and local work colleagues in Cushendall, each singing their single note drone to create the pentatonic scale to lift Duck’s pigeons to the Sky above Cushendall, at the same time be used in the musical score of the film STAY”. The notes of the C major pentatonic scale – C, D, E, G and A. It’s like The Harmonics, but with an extra note and with representation from a whole community rather than just a bunch of middle-aged white male artists. More like The17 then. We also hear that Arborist, Mark McCambridge, spent his summers in Cushendall as a child. Perhaps that was a relative I spotted in the library earlier.

I check my phone, and there is a reply from the GANTOB email account:

The Benefaktor thanks you for your earlier photo of Ossian’s grave, and additional information about John Hewitt.
He replies with a poem:

The watchers
We crouched and waited as the day ebbed off
and the close birdsong dwindled point by point,
nor daring the indulgence of a cough
or the jerked protest of a weary joint;
and when our sixty minutes had run by
and lost themselves in the declining light
we heard the warning snuffle and the sly
scuffle of mould, and, instantly, the white
long head thrust through the sighing undergrowth,
and the grey badger scrambled into view,
eager to frolic carelessly, yet loth
to trust the air his greedy nostrils drew.
John Hewitt, 1950

I trust you enjoyed the film.
Yours,
DGMoG (tp)
——————————-
There is a cough behind me.
I turn.
Is The Benefaktor observing (or perhaps GANTOB’s albatross)?

I recall that a badger featured in The KLF’s return after their 23-year moratorium. And there are several mentions of badgers in GANTOB’s 25 Paintings. What is going on?
Luckily, I don’t have time to think any more about this.
The rest of the show is about to begin.

To be continued

STAY (Part 2, by GRAHAM)

Sep 16th, 2025

Friday 29 August 2025. We walk along the River Lagan(+), past six stained-glass sculptures inspired by the Game of Thrones (the Glass of Thrones trail) to the Titanic Museum. We do not have time to go round the full exhibition. Instead we visit the gallery displaying Lucian Freud (1922-2011) in the same building. His etchings, carved into a lay of acid-resistant waxy resin called “the ground”, using a needle, are shown at various stages, with the re-waxing of sections by master printer Marc Balakjian (1938-2017) for re-working by Freud. Etchings of Leigh Bowery (1961-1994), Australian performer, are perfected. Lucian’s daughter Bella is given the same treatment, in a T-shirt featuring an image of Freud’s dog Pluto.

(+) Lagan (Laggan in Scotland) is a word shared across the Irish Sea, meaning “little hollow” in Irish and Scottish Gaelic.

I think of Bill Drummond’s rumoured GRAFFIC MODEL (announced 20 May 2024), using wood cuts based on pencil drawings of scenes from his electronically published novel The Life Model (2023). Wood cuts sound a less malleable medium than etching into wax. I can’t even start to imagine what level of skill would be required to produce a wood cut. The project is conditional on receiving 100 pictures.

There are Lucian Freud proofs with a large cross scored across the page. I am reminded to pick up my proof copy of the GANTOB book for Stephen before we head north.

Print of Lucian Freud’s daughter Bella, in various stages of preparation

Liz and I stop for lunch at St George’s Market, and then we’re on our way again, by train from Lanyon Place Station to Ballymena and then bus to Cushendall. This last leg is another scenic trip, with green pastures giving way to forest and then a coastal road that sweeps down to the village itself, through the Red Arch, built by landlord Francis Turnly (1765-1845) in 1817. Turnly, we find out from a tourist information trifold white paper pamphlet with yellow surround called Cushendall’s Curfew Tower was an “East Indian Company nabob (Urdu nawab: a high official or prince), who made his fortune in China”. He erected the tower “as a place of confinement for idlers and rioters”.

Bill Drummond, who contributed pieces to The Idler journal and has at times recommended rioting(*), perhaps felt that the balance should be redressed, to make up for Turnly’s punitive ways.

(*) In a piece for The Guardian (Bill Drummond’s 10 Commandments of Art, Sunday 15 June 2014) he wrote: “9 Riot now, pay later
Take risks. Don’t rest on your laurels. Don’t ask permission. But be prepared to suffer the consequences of your actions. Don’t blame others. Don’t expect success – not even after you’re dead. Remember, to get one good artist you need to have at least a thousand others struggling in their garrets. If you or I are one of those struggling ones, we’re still doing our jobs”. This was written at a time that Drummond was undertaking an exhibition and artistic residency at East Side Galleries, Birmingham, featuring his book 25 Paintings.

The Cushendall pamphlet goes on to note that Curfew Tower “was purchased and restored by Hearth Revolving Fund [Director, Marcus Patton] in 1992-93… Its present owner, the writer Bill Drummond, established a residency there for artists in 1999”.

Residency. That is the key word for Curfew Tower. A place that people come to live. To stay. To create art. It is a topic well covered in the Bill Drummond pamphlet I Love Easy Jet (1999; Penkiln Burn pamphlet 2). He flew from Luton rather than Elvis’ chosen UK airport, Prestwick. I have a copy of that pamphlet at home. It is an important document in Drummond’s biography, and central to understanding the purpose of his artist residency programme in Cushendall. It expresses concerns that the tower, hundreds of miles away from Drummond’s home, could stand vacant for long periods of time, and therefore be prone to vandalism and other deterioration. It notes the establishment of a trust called In You We Trust with architect Marcus Patton and artist Susan Philipsz, before going on to explain that “Artists of any age, medium, place of birth and professional standing can apply to the trust to stay in the Curfew Tower for a period of not less than one week and not more than one month. While in residence they have to produce a work that in some way relates to the environment (tower, village, glen, state of mind, etc)”.

Towards the end of the “pamphlet” (which is in fact a laminated sheet, text on one side, a solid block of easyJet orange on the other), it explains “Long-term objectives: To create an event that the residents of Cushendall are both involved in and proud of, even if much of the work produced by the artists in residence does not fit within their/ our preconceived notions of ‘proper art’… To create a time and place where the artist in residence is happy to talk to any local who shows interest in what s/he is up to”. I am quoting selectively, but I think that we can see how these ideas eventually settled into the bonfire and curry night.

I cannot remember when the Curfew Tower bonfire and curry nights started. There is a mass-produced postcard for at least one of these events, but it does not state a date. There is a list of participants in the Curfew Tower residencies in the credits to STAY, as shared by Bill on his Penkiln Burn blog in the weeks before the event, and previewed in a post “THE CURFEW TOWER PRESENTS” (7 July 2025). This states that the “Curators” of the tower were In You We Trust (Marcus Patton, Susan Philipsz & John Hirst) 1999-2008, and then a list of individuals and collectives starting with VOID, Derry in 2009 through to Searching for The Miraculous, USA 2019. There are two years marked for Sagit Mezamer, Jerusalem (2015-2016). After two COVID years the Curators are listed as Independent Republic of Užupis (2022), Caught by The River (2023) and of course The Ghost of Elvis (2024). I wonder who the current curators are. They aren’t mentioned in the whole time we’re there.

As I flick through various books produced about Curfew Tower I see the list of curators developing over time. The website version for the 25 Comeback Special is obviously the most complete. The credits also list the various groups contributing to recordings of the C major pentatonic scale. There’s a bakery, RNLI, Ariffe Dance Group, hurly team, youth club, café, men’s shed, inn, drama group, a music group (Comhaltas) and butcher

I look for further information about the bonfire and curry nights, turning to Bill’s pamphlets. The earliest Penkiln Burn pamphlet – My Favourite Colour (Penkiln Burn pamphlet 1, 1999) – is about something entirely different. It’s rather KLF-focused for Drummond’s writing from that era. He’s deliberating on a show at the National Centre For Popular Music in Sheffield, making arrangements with the curator John Hewitt to play a CD copy of The KLF’s Chill Out and display a poster called 3AM Somewhere Out Of Aylesbury. Drummond’s favourite colour is, of course, grey.

Subsequent pamphlets are more useful: Making Soup (PB pamphlet 5, 1998*) introduces us to Drummond’s early experiences in Belfast, and an earlier meeting with Susan Philipsz and Marcus Patton. In Please Pay Me (PB pamphlet 18, 2001) we have Philipsz recording As Tears Go By (the Rolling Stones song made famous by Marianne Faithfull) to play on a record player in an alcove in the tower. There is/was only one copy of this record. Bill notes the likely temptation of stealing such an item. And a little later we have Two Paintings (PB pamphlet 20, 2002) that has Bill heading off to paint his first paintings since 1972. By 2014 he had the 25 Paintings, which in 2022 had their own café (including Corby). One of the paintings featured in the Bill Drummond book 25 Paintings (PB book 19, 2014) was STAY, white words on red canvas, under Spaghetti Junction. Elvis is mentioned in passing in a later chapter of that book. These ideas have had a long gestation.

* The numbering and dating of Penkiln Burn pamphlets can be counterintuitive.

A reminder of Bill’s fierce financial independence in art projects. I’m not sure that he would approve of GANTOB’s arrangement with The Benefaktor

We walk past Curfew Tower, the key-holder Zippy’s butcher opposite which is displaying copies of the STAY LP in the window, past a café and bars, the current Layde Parish Church and then up the road from Cushendall towards our B&B high in the hills behind the village. We hear a shout, and there are Stephen and Michelle offering us a lift. Stephen is the author of the Searching for The White Room Facebook page. They have travelled from Sligo. We accept the lift gratefully. We talk about Drummond on the drive up, speculating on the night ahead and tomorrow’s celebration. This is Stephen’s third bonfire and curry night at Curfew Tower. This is Stephen’s third bonfire and curry night at Curfew Tower. His first (August 2016) was for Israeli artists. Stephen emailed me later that “It was really great fun, an annual event hosted by Bill Drummond and Tracey Moberly during the Heart of the Glens festival. There was also a theatre/choir performance in a community centre down the street directed by Yonatan Levy, who had previously been on a residency there. Then it was back for the bonfire”.

We do not think that there has ever been as elaborate a celebration of Curfew Tower residences as the events planned this year. Graceland has come to Cushendall this year.

I am interested in the Memphis connection. I had assumed that Elvis recorded most of his work in Memphis, but learn that this was not the case. After the 1968 Comeback Special he recorded in Memphis for the first time since 1955. I read on Graceland.com that ‘In 1969, Elvis and his producer Felton Jarvis were impressed by the incredible music being made at Chips Moman’s American Studios in Memphis. Just a few of the hits recorded there include “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond, “The Letter” by the Box Tops, B.J. Thomas’ “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” and Dusty Springfield’s legendary LP, “Dusty in Memphis.”’
The Box Tops are a band I’ve come to relatively recently, via Big Star. The Box Tops were fronted by Alex Chilton, who was just 16-years-old when their track The Letter (written by Wayne Carson Thompson) hit number 1 in the USA in 1967 and was a smash internationally. They achieved considerable commercial success before they split in 1970.
Bill wrote in his book 25 Paintings that “It is those early exposures to pop music that can determine your musical prejudices for the rest of your life. For me Elvis will always be King and there will never be a better band than The Beatles. I guess it is the same with art”.
Bill goes on to note the reverse of the coin, about talent and unobtainable goals (for him this is Rembrandt): “Even if I could master his techniques, I could never in a thousand years of trying, come close to delivering the emotional depth he could. I had more chance of singing like Otis Redding”.
I am with Bill on The Beatles. They were a huge part of my musical upbringing, and remain far and away my biggest musical influence (the band and their subsequent solo careers, particularly Paul McCartney).
Big Star – Alex Chilton and Chris Bell’s early 1970s band – is one of the few genuine and enduring musical loves I have discovered in adulthood. The band did not achieve commercial success the first time round. Chilton and Bell grew up in Memphis, but the music for which they are best known had its origins in Liverpool. Chilton and Bell were just 15 years old when The Beatles swung through Memphis on 19 August 1966, playing two performances at the Mid-South Coliseum. This was the 8th date of the Fab Four’s last tour (12 – 29 August 1966, playing in 14 cities – 12 in USA, 2 in Canada, playing to 400,000 people). Their final performance to a paying audience was at Candlestick Park, San Francisco on 29 August 1966 – exactly 59 days ago today.
Bell was keen that Big Star would follow a similar approach to Lennon and McCartney’s early song writing, bouncing ideas off each other, crediting themselves as Bell/ Chilton. Their writing process was very organic, refining their songs in the studio (Ardent Studios, Memphis). In one telling Chilton is the edgier character, Bell more melodic, bringing brilliant harmonies to their shared lines. Later their recordings become looser and more shambolic, but still compelling and worth repeated listens. Their body of work, recorded 1971-74 is unlike anything else that I have heard. Give them a go.
That is a diversion though. In 1969 Elvis wanted to capitalise on the Memphis sound embodied by the Box Tops. We will see some of that Memphis influence in the 25 Comeback Special performance.

We have a quick turn around in the B&B. I give Stephen the heavy GANTOB book in the brown paper bag. I see the pamphlet sticking out the top underneath the bubble wrap protecting the package. We head to our rooms. I manage a few minutes collecting my thoughts. In addition to the pamphlet on Philipsz’ recording, I can recall four books about artists’ time in the tower.

Penkiln Burn Book Five, published 2001, was a slim volume written by Bill Drummond, Duncan McLaren, Susan Philipsz (of 7” Penkiln Burn record fame) and Marcus Patton. Strictly speaking it was volume two of three. PB poster 397 (2012) has volume one as fanzine (In You We Trust: Stay Here & Make Art) and volume three as the website curfewtower.com (which now states simply in grey, on a darker grey backdrop: “THIS SITE HAS BEEN CLOSED FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE”).
A trio of books over a decade later celebrate residencies by Irish, Israeli and Scottish writers: respectively The Curfew Tower is Many Things (Penkiln Burn Book 20, 2015) edited by The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast; Ireland Versus Israel (PB Book 21, 2017) edited by Raymond Watson; and After Curfew: Neu! Reekie! (PB Book 23, 2019) edited by Michael Pederson and Kevin Williamson. Bill contributes pieces to each book, in emails (like his work with The Harmonics), the occasional chapter, or an interview.
There has not been an LP at one of these post-residency parties previously.

I met Duncan McLaren once, in Blairgowrie, as documented in an earlier post for GANTOB – What is GANTOB? which includes a link to my pamphlet Who Were The Harmonics? which was included in copies of the What is Harmonic? box of emails sold in the last couple of years by East Side Galleries. The outcome of Bill Drummond, Duncan McLaren, Simon Wood and Gavin Wade’s musings was a further Penkiln Burn 7” called This is Harmonic (PBR 003, 5 copies, as documented in PB Poster 51, 2003), which featured the four men singing selected notes from the pentatonic scale. I don’t think that Duncan attended a bonfire and curry night. Gavin might have following his later residency (Eastside Projects, Birmingham, 2011).

I can imagine the poets and writers of the subsequent books reciting their pieces or chatting with regulars at the bonfire and curry nights. My main recollection of the 2023 event was Bill talking about a bike left by one of the artists from the Republic of Užupis. The artist had ridden it from Belfast airport, through the rural countryside, and then perhaps down the hairpin coastal road that we have just travelled along. He had decided against cycling back, so had left the bike in the garden behind Curfew Tower, as a prop for Bill Drummond. I don’t remember seeing any of the artists at the 2023 bonfire and curry night.

But we don’t have much time to rest. We have to find firewood for Bill’s bonfire (he is calling it a “bond fire” this year – writing on the Penkiln Burn blog that “it will be the night we can all celebrate either physically or conceptually throwing our ‘bonds with the future’ onto the Bond Fire”.

We spot Bill and family walking back towards the tower as we are heading down towards the beach, near the golf course where he will be holding the 25 Comeback Special tomorrow night. He nods a brief acknowledgement. They have left us some driftwood to collect. After buying zero beers from Cushendall WineFlair on Dalriada Avenue, we head down to Curfew Tower for 19:30. Bill is there with his family, Zippy, some musicians who we do not yet recognise, but will become very familiar faces by tomorrow night, and film maker Tracey Moberly. The choice is chickpea or chicken curry. We opt for the former. It is very hot. Apparently one of Bill’s sons has left the seeds in the chillis when he chopped them up. Stu and Carolyn arrive. We know them from walking a stretch of the K-Line June 2024. They have flown to Belfast and driven to Cushendall. It’s good to see them.

We spot other familiar faces: Raymond (Raymie), who lives locally, is there with his partner. He tells me about his new book What Sort of Artist Are You? Marcus Patton is the best dressed person there, faithful as ever to the trust. Furryman AKA Steve Lally is wearing a hand painted T shirt and tells us about his story telling at Belfast Children’s Hospital. Ann McVeigh and Ken Bartley from ArtisAnn Gallery in Belfast are collecting names of people ever associated with the tower in a folder.

And then it’s time for the activities around the bonfire. Bill keeps a low profile, lying by the fire, clearly enjoying himself. Eamonn McNamee of The Gold Tips plays True to the Trail, Bill’s song from The Man LP (1986).

True To The Trail is a song that Bill has mentioned many times in his writing career. He has a 7”, I think using the version of the song from The Man LP, that he plays to prepare himself for a public performance. It’s mentioned during his activities around A Smell of Sulphur in the Wind. It is there again in The 25 Paintings (2014), quoting from a story 25 Paintings, from June 2005: ‘The performance starts with me walking out on to the floor clutching a toolbox and a record player. I place the toolbox on a table and the record player on the floor. I plug it in, switch it on. Take a 7” single from the toolbox and put it on the record player. The record is called True To The Trail and is a country rock toe-tapper and it is my signature tune’. This story is an update on his pamphlet Two Paintings (PB pamphlet 20, 2002).

Tony Wright, AKA VerseChorusVerse, sings and speaks 40 Hours to Memphis, after a false start where he complains that he “can’t find the key”. We might glance at Zippy, butcher, key holder of the tower, who makes a number of interjections through the evening to promote the STAY LP for sale in his shop. Finally, from the group of performers due to play tomorrow night, Mark McCambridge AKA Arborist, sings Are You Still The King? with such intensity that I wonder if the neighbours might complain. These are three songs that were recorded in The Cell at the base of the tower. We visit the room, taking in the words painted in white on the white wall – “This is Graceland” – and the poster (PB Poster 282, 2024) about the tape recorder in the room. It is claustrophobic, like standing in a red blood cell. It is no wonder that the versions of the songs recorded here are raw and heartfelt, like the versions we have just heard around the campfire.

Last but not least, Ronita sings Elvis’ song Heartbreak Hotel. She holds the audience with her well-judged phrasing. Pleasingly, this was also one of the songs included in Elvis’s 1968 “Comeback Special” TV programme. It wasn’t called Comeback Special in an official release until a CD reissue thirty years later. Originally the TV special, recorded live in June 1968 in California and broadcast on in the USA on NBC on 3 December of that year, was simply called Elvis. It was not shown in the UK until 31 December 1969 under the title The Fabulous Elvis.

Heartbreak Hotel (Mae Boren Axton and Tommy Durden) was written in 1955, apparently about a man who jumped from a hotel window, leaving a suicide note saying “I walk a lonely street”. Elvis, who had just left Sun Records in Memphis, recorded it at his debut session at the RCA Victor studio in Nashville. It was also his first million selling single.
Elvis first heard the demo in his hotel room on 10 November 1955. The song had been written by Axton (a teacher) and Durden (a singer-songwriter) in less than an hour, and was recorded first by Durden and then that same day in an imitation Elvis voice by local singer Glenn Reeves (who had originally refused to take it on). After a number of setbacks they managed to play the song to Elvis, who insisted on listening to it ten times over to memorise it, and then performed it at a gig in Arkansas on 9 December 1955. He told the audience it would be his first hit.
Elvis Presley died on 16 August 1977, found unresponsive by his fiancée Ginger Alden on one of the eight bathrooms in Graceland. I note, for completeness, that Graceland has 23 rooms.
Axton died at home on 9 April 1997, aged 82. She suffered a heart attack and drowned in her hot tub.
Durden died of cancer on 17 October 1999, aged 79.

Dallywood sign above The Glens Festival, 9 August 2023, spotted as we walked back after the bonfire and curry night. I wonder why Bill changed the date this year

We spot Elvis looking down from the top window of Curfew Tower. We learn later that it’s the 2016 double vinyl album The Essential Elvis Presley (released on RCA in the US). He doesn’t look ready to jump.

To be continued. Tomorrow we will take a tour of Cushendall, including Ossian’s grave, which is a special interest of The Benefaktor.

STAY (PART 1, by GRAHAM)

Sep 15th, 2025

Graham has contributed over 8,000 words of text about his recent trip to Cushendall. After some debate in the GANTOB Pamphlet Committee (14 September 2025), we have agreed that it provides detail and interpretation that may be of interest, and fits the level of detail recorded by various historical authors and societies in The Glens of Antrim. Watch this space over coming days, as we feel that it would be too much to read in one sitting.

Any comments about errors or typos, please let us know, usual routes, because this might end up in a print publication at some point.

DGMoG(tp), 15 September 2025

Thursday 28 August 2025. This is my second pilgrimage to Cushendall and Bill Drummond’s curry and bonfire night in Curfew Tower. The first was 2023, when I travelled solo. The focus of that night was the activities of artists from Užupis, a neighbourhood of Vilnius, Lithuania (or perhaps a self-governing republic).

This year I am making the journey with my wife Liz. I am carrying a proof copy of a new book called GANTOB’s 25 Paintings, produced by a collective of writers from around the world, to give to my friend Stephen, who is meeting us in Cushendall with his wife Michelle. Stephen and I have contributed material to some of the earlier GANTOB books. The most recent proof copy was delivered two weeks ago, in a brown paper bag marked “cheese savoury”, with a business card from “The Food and Literature Delivery Rider”. GANTOB HQ is reported to be in Stockbridge, a mile or two west of our house in Leith. There is also a trifold pamphlet titled What is Proof? on puce card in the bag. It is written by Gillian Finks, founder of the GANTOB collective. I have read both in some detail. The book and pamphlet are not related to the bonfire and curry night and are not to be mentioned or distributed at that event. These were apparently terms that Bill made when Gillian first contacted him about the idea of re-enacting a fictional book called Grapefruit Are Not The Only Bombs. That book – GANTOB for short – had been mentioned in 2023: a trilogy, a book written by Drummond and his KLF partner Jimmy Cauty in 2017. It is a long story. Most of the rest of this blog is about Elvis.

On 18 October 2019, Bill Drummond contributed to an event at Leith Theatre, Ferry Road. That is about 20 minutes walk from our house. The event launched the Neu! Reekie!’s book After Curfew (Penkiln Burn Book 20, 2019). At the event Bill asked the audience to resolve his dilemma: Does Elvis love me? Or Do I love Elvis? I completely missed the event, or even the publicity for the event, because I was very busy with clinical duties, working long hours in Fife. Bill returned to Edinburgh during the pandemic, as part of a Neu! Reekie! exhibition, which I did manage to attend with my daughter, on 9 June 2021. He exhibited a painting – ELVIS T’AMA BILL in white and black text on black and white horizontal stripes. There was accompanied by a pamphlet called Two (PB Pamphlet 33), featuring two plays. Bill also contributed a play (Life Model) to a Neu! Reekie! book (NR #3) in 2020. This is completely unrelated to The Life Model, Bill’s biography by ~140 contributors, published electronically in 2023.

Liz and I take the same route as I did in 2023, up Leith Walk, under the bridge where GANTOB (the person) is reported to have first encountered The Benefaktor, to Waverley Station, to catch the train to Glasgow Queen Street. An hour later we tramp across to Central Station in the rain to connect to Ayr by train. I think of Elvis Presley as we go through Prestwick International Airport Station, a few stops before Ayr. Elvis stopped off in Prestwick Airport, and even met some fans, on 3 March 1960 on his return from military service in Germany. It was the only time he ever set foot on British soil, but that is another story. Elvis is central to Bill Drummond’s Cushendall activities in Curfew Tower during 2025, referencing Elvis Presley’s Comeback Special, broadcast in 1968/69, depending on where you live. My Mum remembers it well, except for the details. I have only set foot in Prestwick Airport once, when my daughter and I flew on Ryanair to Gothenburg to see Paul McCartney at the Ullevi Stadium on June 12, 2004, when she was only 5 years old. She thought that she was watching The Beatles. I note that Ryanair signs are still displayed prominently as the train departs the station.

A few minutes after arriving in Ayr, we are off again on the bus to Cairnryan. We travel through familiar countryside, with Belted Galloway cattle, the view through the mist to Arran and then as the skies clear, Ailsa Craig to the south of Kildonan. Golf courses (including one owned by the current US President) give way to signposts to Galloway forest and Newton Stewart, prompting memories of our trip to New Galloway in May, to see the Penkiln Burn players perform songs from the Voices from the Galloverse LP. But we are still in Ayrshire almost right up to the ferry terminus. It feels apt to be departing from Galloway, with its strong Bill Drummond connections. But, as we are about to find out, this trip is not about his Galloverse – that will be the setting for another film – perhaps called Poppies in the Field, scripted by Kirsty Allison. We are off to the 25 Comeback Special in Cushendall, inspired by Elvis Presley’s TV special in 1968, but with Bill Drummond imagining his Curfew Tower as Elvis’s Memphis home Graceland. It is (another) long story.

There is a trail of clues. The BBC summarises it as follows in the description of their Radio 4 programme Graceland in the Glens, broadcast at 11:30 on Tuesday 9 January 2024: “In 2019, Elvis Presley Enterprises threatened to deconstruct Graceland and move it to Saudi Arabia, Tokyo, or whoever was the highest bidder. Artist, writer, KLF member and money burner – Bill Drummond – realised something had to be done. Bill’s relationship with Northern Ireland began before his relationship with Elvis – but at some junction, these two relationships were bound to collide. It seems the Curfew Tower at the junction of the crossroads in the village of Cushendall in the Glens of Antrim is where this collision will be taking place”.

That programme is no longer available on iPlayer. I don’t think that I agree that Bill Drummond’s relationship with Northern Ireland began before his love of Elvis. But I’m not going to argue.

Between 3 June and 1 September 2025, Bill Drummond’s Penkiln Burn website provides a wealth of information about the project, but that will no longer be available by the time you read this. I am going to write up my memories of the trip, because I feel that somebody should.

It is a long journey. We board the ferry to Belfast and find seats in one of the lounges. We take a tour of the upper deck, but it is wet and visibility is poor, so we sit down and read our novels. We take the bus into the city centre, past signs for Fortwilliam, and think of misty days beside Ben Nevis on the other side of the Irish Sea. That night in Belfast we have sushi and noodles in the university area. It’s a bustling cosmopolitan district, near the Botanic Gardens. Cafés and bars are open late into the evening, readying themselves for the Queen’s University students for another year.

To be continued. Next stop Belfast.

Featured image is skull displayed at Curfew Tower, 9 August 2023

CHEKHOV

Sep 8th, 2025
The Observer has, as part of the GANTOB inner circle, been proof reading a paperback copy of the forthcoming book, GANTOB’s 25 Paintings.

The Observer is, as you will no doubt know if you are a GANTOB regular, the ghost of an albatross stranded in the northern hemisphere.

GANTOB (the project) has been incorporating Chekhov parallels into its work since the arrival of the snail in the third GANTOB book (Little Grapefruit Takes the Bus). The new book takes this to a new level.

The Observer knows nothing about classic Russian literature, but does enjoy checking off proofreading tasks. Currently The Observer, as instructed by The Benefaktor, is making sure that every instance of a book, song, play or painting title in GANTOB’s 25 Paintings is in italics, a point identified by GANTOB contributor JR. That is challenging when your only cultural references are what you’ve picked up from snippets overheard from ship radios, discarded books in the debris of the North Atlantic and, when you’re invited, GANTOB Committee Meetings.

The Observer is therefore starting evening classes. The first lesson is attending Chekhov’s play The Seagull, with a fulmar friend, mid October.

THE OBSERVER, 8 September 2025, as dictated to DGMoG(tp) AKA Maureen

As a PS, JR responded with this picture, saying: “I also feel for The Observer in their quest to find unitalicised titles. I checked my library and I have a couple of books that may help”.

With thanks to JR
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PROOFING

Sep 7th, 2025
The GANTOB inner circle is proof reading a copy of GANTOB’s 25 Paintings.

Urs Kanning disagrees with her husband’s account.

Proceedings of the coronation within the cathedral were filmed and broadcast.

Four episodes of Nigel Kneale’s famous original TV series Quatermass remain elusive, however.

A hardback version of the book will be sent to contributors following proofing.
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PROOF

Aug 17th, 2025
The Benefaktor’s new cat is reading the proof of the new and final book GANTOB’s 25 Paintings (re-enacting a Bill Drummond book), and penultimate pamphlet What Is Proof? The first of five copies of the proof version and pamphlet have already been shared with a volunteer proof reader. That sets up a loophole of its own, for reasons that may never be explained.

The Benefaktor 17 August 2025
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ESCAPE FROM WOLFE ISLAND (9)

Jun 27th, 2025
Or I think Cocker says can’t rather than don’t
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