The official Boo Hewerdine website

You're there to sign your records. You don't want to. They don't want you to. Worse, you have to sing. Boo Hewerdine of the Bible grins and bears it.

In an industry where wasting time is an art form, the in-store is the pièce de résistance. What is an "in-store"? This is where a recording artist goes and sings in a record shop (usually followed by a brief autograph signing session). Sounds simple doesn't it. Only trouble is nobody wants it. The people working in the record shop don't want it (I know, I've worked in a record shop; I've comforted minor pop stars; I've said: "I think it went rather well, don't you?"). The customers don't want it. Unless you're Take That or East 17, hardly anyone ever comes. My friend Darden Smith tells of singing in a shopping mall to nothing but cardboard effigies of himself. Spooky. Do the record company reps want it? Of course they don't. Who wants it least of all? - the "artist". I should know.

Once in Manchester having poured my heart out to a few ennui-ed lunchtime shoppers I went behind the counter with a few of my CDs and awaited the crush of frenzied autograph hunters. The rep gave me a special "golden" pen. Ah! Here comes our first customer now. "'scuse me mate, where do you keep the compilations?"
Well, what would you reply? "Now listen here young man, do you know who I am? I am an international recording artiste of some standing..." Of course not. "They're over there behind the pillar," I said.

Leicester, another day, another in-store. "You're late, no time to tune up, you're on." So there I was on a six-foot high stage with a PA the size of a barn and as loud as Concorde reversing, with a sound man eager to show off his new echo machine. They'd also put up some crash barriers. Crash barriers! Were they expecting the two be-anoraked, hair-cut-for-a-bet, pale individuals at the back of the shop to suddenly rush the stage and drag me whimpering into a waiting van? You can't be too careful you know. Oh yes you can. After I'd damaged the hearing of everyone within a half-mile radius for 20 minutes or so, one of them approached me. "Can you sign this? It's not for me, it's for my brother, I think you're crap." Joy.

Then this:
Rep: "I've got an in-store for you today."
Me: "Mmm."
Rep: "In your home town."
Me: "Mmmm."
Rep: "It's in that shop you used to work in."

You know those nightmares about going back to school? Need I say more? And you know what? - I did it. This being the shop where I used to work, there was no stage, no PA, no audience. I stood in the corner of the shop and made a complete arse of myself. Midway through a particularly touching ballad, I felt a tap on my shoulder. "Mind yourself son, can I get to those cassettes behind you?"

While plying one's musical wares, life tends to veer between the odd and the degrading. Under oddness, we find a German TV show I was on about six years ago. A 70-year-old man had learnt to fly and he chose to commemorate this fact by singing a song he'd composed. It was called "Ich Fluge", and he sang it while wearing a bright orange jumpsuit and accompanying himself on the lute. Maybe it was his unkempt shock of white hair that quivered in time to the vibrato in his high tremulous voice or perhaps it was the gusto with which the audience joined in on the chorus, I don't know. Whatever it was, I soon found I was beside myself with mirth - until it was my turn to take a bow.

What about degradation? Here we find a gig in a 2,000-seat theatre in Maastrict. Six tickets had been sold and I was the support act. This meant that during my set, most of the "audience" was in the bar. My performance ended to the sound of a solitary handclap, it was either that or my tour manager slapping the promoter's face.

It is only through the in-store experience, though, that the sickening cocktail of weird and unwonderful is achieved. These days I'm slightly less eager to volunteer, but if by any chance you put out a record and a rep says "I've got an in-store for you today," do it. Nothing will ever seem so bad again.

Boo Hewerdine - 13th January 1995

With thanks to Dr. Phil Mason