RADAR
KEY PLAYERS: Cocker, far right, and his collaborator Gonzales in the studio.
JARVIS COCKER stands in the living room of a north London apartment, vaguely waving his arms. “So if I’m coming in from the hotel corridor, the piano’s kind of here,” he says. “There’s a big window there, a closet there, then you’ve got a long couch here. I can show you some pictures if you like?” Cocker, once frontman of the 1990s band Pulp, now a solo artist, radio presenter and British national treasure, is attempting to conjure for me the charms of Room 29 of the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles—a room where he once had the pleasure of staying and that has now inspired an album and a stage show, written with fellow musician Chilly Gonzales.