Belle & Sebastian frontman STUART MURDOCH is planning to auction the members of the band for charity – perhaps to make-up for fan’s disappointment that the band will not be playing live this year.
In a posting on the band’s official website, [url=]www.belleandsebastian.co.uk, Murdoch said he had come up with the idea after seeing a talent auction at his local church hall.
He continued: “An old lady started the bidding at 10p for an hour’s dog walking, and we were off! It was like an auction of goods except it was manpower that was for sale. I successfully bid #35 for a gentleman to come and paint a picture of my house. Got to have something to remember it by!”
He added that as well as the band, he wanted their fans to email the site to auction their talents too, adding: “What I’m thinking is that we could do the same using the Internet as the saleroom. We would start by having people volunteering their talents, and sending them to our website. We would keep a list of say, the first hundred or so. Then over a specified four-week period, people would be free to bid for the particular talent that they fancied.”
As for the band, he said Richard Colburn would be happy to play all-comers at snooker at the local club and would even give a lesson and buy a few pints for the highest bidder, Stevie Jackson would “serenade a pretty girl, but for some cash he would serenade whichever pretty girl or boy you happened to be pursuing at the time. Over dinner or under a window!” and he said Chris Geddes would cook a vegetarian meal for whoever could make it round to his flat.
Stuart continued: “I think I could persuade all of the band to take part, and I’d stick mine down as well. Obviously there would be some geographical difficulties involved. A volunteer would have to decide how far they would be willing to go to utilise their talent. Chris might restrict his offer to Glasgow, in which case the successful bidder would have to find their way there on an agreed date. I’ll leave it at that just now and try and hammer out the details with Mick, and perhaps we could get the auction up and running in a month or so.”
Murdoch said that all money raised would be given to three Glasgow charities – Key Housing Maryhill Tenant Amenity Fund, Calton Athletic Recovery Group and The Lodging House Mission.
As previously reported, Murdoch has also posted on the site to apologise for the band’s lack of live dates. He said: “We had planned to go out and play a lot when we had finished the record. But it took so much longer, and was a bit of a struggle to tell you the truth, that some of us were pretty burned out.”