"I'm just trying to discover the way I play the piano," he explained. He is also at the South Bank tonight, playing songs with Costello that the two have written together. You never know where he'll pop up next. I met him in Paris, in a gym which has, for some reason, a corridor of piano-practice rooms. He has written for the likes of the Comic Strip and Lenny Henry, and can be heard on The World of Lee Evans. One of his solo albums, Keyboard Jungle (Demon) has just been re-released, and he is co-writing two theatrical works. After leading the band on Jonathan Ross's Last Resort, Nieve went on to provide music for Ross's other programmes, including the Viva Elvis documentary (Presley, not Costello). But calling him "the keyboard player of the Attractions" is like calling the ubiquitous Jools Holland "the keyboard player of Squeeze" (a role which Nieve has also filled).
Imagining "Oliver's Army" without Nieve's prickly playing is impossible. "The Stiff tour was the first time I'd been out of school, and I was on this coach full of lunatics." One of these lunatics (a Blockhead, to be precise) was Ian Dury, who rechristened the callow keyboard player Stephen John Nason became Steve Nieve. An audition later, he was asked to join Elvis Costello and the Attractions - and asked to leave the Royal College Soon he was on the Stiff Records package- tour of England. HE DIDN'T fit into the Royal College of Music, where he was studying in 1976, so he answered a music-paper ad posted by some people calling themselves a "rocking pop combo". We could all smoke cigars there."Another image of heaven, perhaps, but this time it's his own.! 'DOG PAINTINGS 1 to 45', 1853 Gallery, Salts Mill, Saltaire, near Bradford, 27 June to end September Daily, 10am to 5pm Admission free 01274 531163.. "Habit," he adds.His current complaint, however, is against the British government.
He is allowed to take his dogs to "rabies-infested Europe", but if he wants to bring them here he has to be separated from them for six months "I just couldn't do that. Two little creatures who have always slept in your bed? I could take them to Paris, of course The French love dogs They are allowed to sit at the table in the restaurant. Hockney was also dismayed recently to see young people sitting in a beautiful 18th century square in Nancy In France, dressed in grunge "It was as though they hadn't looked at their surroundings Very odd," he says, sounding old fogeyish Whenever he goes out he wears a tie. He has been obsessed for some time with California's health police - a pro-smoking essay by Auberon Waugh is stuck up on his studio wall in LA - and he writes regularly to politicians arguing for the right to smoke in restaurants. (Funnily, his father used to erect "Smoking Can Kill" signs in the middle of Bradford). Hockney has a number of on-going gripes against society, most of which are articulated with grumpy good humour. (Tired with creating opera sets, Hockney has settled on designing this year's programme).
Silver passes over the phone and we talk some more, this time about Britain's quarantine laws. He is about to go to Glyndebourne to hear Harrison Birtwistle. Bennett recently drew a self-portrait on a table napkin for a waitress in a restaurant in Italy and signed it David Hockney. Hockney has since returned the compliment by drawing a picture of himself and signing it Alan Bennett.As Silver shows me around the mill's vast shop, filled to the restored rafters with Hockney posters, calendars and books, the artist himself rings, much to Silver's delight. Hockney and Bennett grew up eight miles apart (Bennett is from Leeds) and they are frequently mistaken for each other. Tony Harrison, a friend of Hockney's, has performed plays there, Opera North has staged a community production of West Side Story, and last Christmas Alan Bennett read from his memoirs. But it has also become a focal point for other local artists.
It is here, along one 200 ft wall, that Stanley and Boodgie will be shown in all their glory.From Hockney's point of view, the mill is the perfect venue - a unique space close to his home town paying permanent homage to him - and he and his family have loaned the gallery a number of his paintings. One floor of the 1853 Gallery is dedicated to a permanent and free exhibition of Hockney's work (nothing is for sale), and the other floor houses Hockney exhibitions before they go on tour. In its heyday, in the 1920s, the mill employed 3,000.If Hockney is mad about dogs, Silver is mad about Hockney, whom he first met 30 years ago They have been friends ever since. Remarkably, Salts Mill is thriving once more and it currently employs around 1,400 people. Dressed in a scruffy cardigan and sporting stubble and a long ponytail, he is a familiar figure around the village. He drives about in a large Bentley but few begrudge him his wealth.
