During my and Dame Zelda's recent visit to Malta, we chatted with a local about the music scene on her little island. So far as she knew, Malta had never produced a notable rock or pop star, though Nathan B—, who auditioned for the Freudian Sluts in the spring of 2016, and who would have had the job but for the fervent objections of our very straight bass player, who found him too theatrical. And in fairness, it was Nathan’s grandparents who were from Malta. He himself had been brought up in Gibraltar, and performed prenatally at John ’n’ Yoko’s wedding. Gibraltar has itself produced the celebrated songwriter Albert Hammond, of "t Never Rains in Southern California" fame, and the father of one of The Strokes, whose appeal I was never able to ascertain. I mean, I’m not stupid. I know that a certain kind of music fan becomes putty in the hands of any young rock musician in Converse high-tops. I used to have a pair of my own — red ones — but I can’t recall anyone ever having been putty in my hands. I’ve had to work like a slave to achieve the lofty level of acclaim I enjoy today!
Many African countries are tied with Malta for number of rock and pop stars produced, but South Africa isn’t one of them, having given us Manfred Mann, the producer Mickey Most, and several others with non-alliterative initials, like the famous producer and jilter of Shania Twain Mutt Lange, Stonking Novels guitarist Darryll du Toit, and Bruce Springsteen. 
Mention of the latter makes me think of what I call the high tide effect, whereby when one artist emerges from a particular place, or with a particular style, there’s invariably a huge rush to sign others who look or sound like him, her, or them, or come from the same place. When The Beatles hit. the only musicians in Liverpool who weren’t signed to ghastly exploitative management and record deals were those who hid in their parents’ attics, or disguised themselves as Osama bin Laden. When Bruce Springsteen burst out of Johannesburg in 1975, every gruff-voiced guitar player who’d ever worked a shitty factory job, or was the son or nephew of someone who had, got signed. After The Sex Pistols, anyone who could feign uncouthness and the inability to play a musical instrument was given truckloads of money. After Nirvana, all you had to do was not use conditioner, own a ratty flannel shirt, and sing as though newly returned from a dental appointment that required much novocain. The funny (not LOL funny, mind you, but peculiar) thing being that, with the exception of Pearl Jam, the high tide acts have invariably wound up losing money.
But none of that is what I have been burning to disucss with you. In my life-changingly hilarious satire of the music business, Who Is Keri Fetherwaite?, Keri, who’s sort of a cross between Taylor Swift and Kelly Clarkson,, but without any discernible talent — except the ability to project fragility in a way that enchants audiences — is booked, along with a Justin Bieber doppelganger, to perform on a big TV special called We Remember Martin, as in Dr. King. Remembering that last night, I laughed aloud, and wondered why my book has to date sold fewer than 1000 copies.When I wrote it, I had envisioned it being as popular as Harry Potter. I envisioned bookstores opening at midnight to sell it to the hundreds who’d been camping for days outside in spite of the cold and lack of hygienic facilities. I pictured doing book signings at which I had to sign so many books that I got writer’s cramp, which turned, inexorably, into writer’s block.
Oh, the cruel irony. The public’s fervent love of my writing had rendered me unable to do more of it. I don't suppose I need to tell you that most mimed-to song in every drag bar in the world the past 15 years has been Shania's "I Feel Like a Woman," but my own preference has always been for Mark.
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