Music

Jim Bob is at Play in Milford Road, Reading, on Friday
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Carter's Jim Bob at Play tomorrow

By Linda Serck
May 17, 2012

Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine were massive in the 90s.

They are seemingly still unstoppable, judging by the endless number of reunion gigs – two are taking place in November in fact.

“We keep doing it for the last time ever,” laughs frontman Jim Bob.

But before the two dates in London and Leeds, Jim Bob, now also a novelist, is taking his new book Driving Jarvis Ham and some new songs on the road.

His tour takes him to Play in Milford Road, Reading, this Friday (which incidentally features the monumentally excellent Ben Marwood from Reading in support).

“I’m reading bits from my new novel and then playing quite a lot of songs. It’ll just be me and the acoustic guitar.

“In the book a lot of the scenes take place in old roadside cafes, so we’re going to have a specials blackboard with different songs on every night, so people can choose which songs they’re going to hear.”

The book is about a talentless celebrity. And, for the music fans, the hard copy of the book – which came out last Friday – comes with a secret download code to EP Day Job, unrelated to the book.

The tracks are far removed from the old Carter USM days of samples and drum machines.

But they still feature caustic words and a wry commentary on recent events, including the riots and ‘dictators who were brought to justice over the past couple of years’.

“I haven’t written that many songs recently but I had these four songs,” he tells me.

“It seemed like a different way to put them out there.”

Of course, his repertoire at his Reading gig will include vintage Carter USM tracks.

But he tells me that the band are not planning to write anything new ever again. “I just don’t think it would work, because it’s an old band,” he says.

“The old songs are of that time, so if we wrote a new song I don’t know what it should sound like.”

Jim Bob will be at Play, Milford Road, Reading, on Friday. Tickets are £10, with Ben Marwood and Damien A Passmore in support.