They do say that the ‘grass is always greener on the other side’; mind you, people who make this kind of comment often say a lot of things, especially at times when you wish they would keep their particular self important brand of philosophy to themselves just once in a while.
However; at times sayings like these do contain a modicum of truth.
When I was in my teems I dreamt of being a ‘Rock God’, and I mean a proper one, not one that borrowed this moniker in way of ironic self effacement.
Like Jimmy Rabbit from the film The Commitments I would lie on my bed of an evening day dreaming of television interviews I would have with Michael Parkinson explaining why I was not like one of the typical brand of ego inflated rock casualties and that I intended to give so much more back to society and the world (thank the Lord, Bono beat me to that one and proved how irritating that kind of self righteous attitude can be despite the extremely honourable intentions).
Sadly my dreams of interview supremacy was not to pass, at least not with Parky anyway as he has now long retired from the chat show game, and I find myself reflecting more in these pages than I would have to an adoring national TV audience.
As much as it would have been fun to have been a giant in the world of men I think that perhaps I have done okay…at least to some extent.
The more I see and hear I come to realise that no matter how far we travel as troubadours we will never be satisfied with our lot.
The sight of Jon Bon Jovi moaning about how lonely and bored he sometimes gets all alone in his hotel room after a gig makes me feel like screaming “then buy a book or a pack of cards you ungrateful Muppet”.
However; in all seriousness the serious number of rock & roll casualties in terms of drink, drugs, relationships and mental health issues seems to suggest that the good ship fame and fortune is not all that its cracked up to be.
When you hear multi million selling record artists claiming that they tire of performing to hundreds of thousands in the worlds stadiums and would prefer to be reliving the intimacy of the pub/club circuit you are left feeling that it really is that tough at the top either that or they have very short memories, or, and this just a suggestion, they’re talking crap!
I would love to be there when some 80’s poodle perm turned musical colossus decides to truly relive that artistic intimacy of his early days and cart his own kit into the Frog & Hamstring (having dumped his van 3 miles away due to the lack of parking in the vicinity), set up in a space no bigger than a picnic table, having moved a rowdy crowd of inebriated office workers first, to perform to a totally indifferent crowd of chav teenagers and aging cider heads and then pack up the van in the rain. Oh, and barely cover the petrol back home for his troubles. Then perhaps they might be grateful for what they have got and trundle off to chat to the concierge or something instead of complaining at their lot in life.
All in all though, despite the lack of a road crew, despite the serious lack of cash that gets bandied about at the end of gigs and especially despite the hit and miss size and appreciation of audiences, it is still better to be performing in a rock & roll band that still has the ability to entertain than not. This is a cause for some kind of contentment.
Hey and at least I get to go home most evenings after the show to my large glass of post gig scotch and a pot noodle. I wouldn’t say that this is exactly living the dream, but it’s my home and it’s my Pot Noodle and generally at 1:30am in the morning I have ‘Mock The Week’ for company.
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
A face for radio
Well we did it, we actually set foot into the bright sun light and had our photos taken.
Bottom line….I think we may have to go back out and do it again. A comment about me closely resembling American actor John Lithgow has seriously dented my rock & roll ego and has resulted in my hiding my head inside a paper bag ever since.
Aaron was so self conscious about this rock & roll photo lark that you could hear the tension creaking from every limb of his body. Every photo resulted in him standing stock still with a fixed grimace of embarrassment on his face. Mind you this was not helped by his sister the photographer biting his head off every time his hands went near his pockets, which is sad really as my hands never left my pockets.
Mind you we have learnt a couple of valuable lessons about back ground, colour and not rolling out in a t-shirt when it’s freezing cold, you tend to look it.
Out of about four hundred pics these are probably the least embarrassing and even then they have stretched my photo shop ability to its maximum.
Bottom line….I think we may have to go back out and do it again. A comment about me closely resembling American actor John Lithgow has seriously dented my rock & roll ego and has resulted in my hiding my head inside a paper bag ever since.
Aaron was so self conscious about this rock & roll photo lark that you could hear the tension creaking from every limb of his body. Every photo resulted in him standing stock still with a fixed grimace of embarrassment on his face. Mind you this was not helped by his sister the photographer biting his head off every time his hands went near his pockets, which is sad really as my hands never left my pockets.
Mind you we have learnt a couple of valuable lessons about back ground, colour and not rolling out in a t-shirt when it’s freezing cold, you tend to look it.
Out of about four hundred pics these are probably the least embarrassing and even then they have stretched my photo shop ability to its maximum.
Monday, 12 April 2010
Bruce Willis Vs The Oscars
I think I may have mused this one before, but if you compared what we do as musicians to Hollywood movie stars, who would I be?
It’s a pretty stupid thought I know, but when you are sat in a corner of a pub listening to the many fine musicians that come through Bristol as part of an acoustic showcase your mind does tend to wander into uncharted territory.
I think part of this thinking was born out of the look of sheer horror that accompanied the faces of those ‘serious’ musicians that had to follow us during one of these showcases.
It’s not a gripe, just an observation, but if you have a party, or a celebration or an event that is designed to raise money then The Mudheads or The Loaders are your boys. However; if the event is more ‘high brow’ and with the intention of impressing people then we are the last bunch that ever seems to get invited.
I think this was no more appropriately illustrated than when Aaron & I performed at a local competition (for the full story go here). My memory of the event was that we received the biggest and most enthusiastic applause of the evening and yet we weren’t even short listed. Could it be that as entertaining as we might be, we lacked that certain credibility that is required to be taken seriously by the music community. (Perhaps my Mr Blobby costume was an ill advised idea after all).
I have long compared the live music scene with the Oscars in what the general public find credible and what they do not.
You might for instance have an absolute blockbuster that everybody wants to see like Avatar or Pirates or even Harry Potter and you know full well that none of the cast are ever going to walk away with an academy award. And yet it is obvious by the box office receipts that these are the kind of films that the majority of people really want to go and watch.
The films that do win the awards and receive plenty of in-house back slapping and kudos the majority of your cinema loving public have never heard of.
I know it’s a bit of a generalisation, but I wonder how many of you out there got to see Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart? because he got the best actor award this year. Sam Worthington was the lead in the most successful film of all time and he got nada, zip, diddly squat. That would be Avatar in case you were wondering and most of you did see it and perhaps more than once.
And I think this kind of attitude does tend to translate into the music world.
You have only got to listen to a room full of academics or bored musos talk about their music tastes and what you get is an apparent fondness for hard to reach indie, world or art house music that is as inaccessible as a French film noir.
They might make some reference to early Cold Play or some Leonard Cohan but apart from that it’s generally some tortured genius from 1968 who “blew his mind” in a frenzy of psychedelic self pleasuring.
I admit that we all like to be a little ‘snobbish’ when it comes to our record collections and I suspect that majority of us would rather die than let an acquaintance have a good rummage through our old vinyl, tapes and CD’s, only to rise holding aloft a hidden gem with the words “bloody hell, the Wombles” on their lips.
So perhaps we all claim a sensitive, well considered and academic leaning to our music taste when we are in company and yet air guitar to our hearts content when “Cum on Feel the Noise” by Slade comes onto the radio.
I have to confess to this artistic hypocrisy as much as the next person when somebody wanders into my office at work and are amazed at how fast my I tunes can be flicked from Hits of the 70’s to Nick Cave or Norah Jones.
However; to my original point, if what I do could translate into Hollywood, who would I be?
I suppose if I am honest I would be a bit of a Bruce Willis, and I don’t mean the lack of hair connotation either.
Old Bruce just keeps going and going and yes, going. Nobody EVER admits to liking him or rating him as an actor, but we will all sit down of a late evening with a can of something and a big bag of crisps and enjoy Die Hard for the umpteenth time. It’s just like admitting you had a bit of a soft spot for Duran Duran after all.
I suppose that if I had to be anybody though I would prefer to be Clint Eastwood, he just keeps on getting better and better and more and more popular the older he gets. And where as it used to be a bit of an embarrassment for the elite to admit that they watched Clint Eastwood films, now the guy wins Oscars.
Maybe rock & roll will once again become ‘cool’ and even Robbie Williams despite being a complete prat at times can claim his place as a good all round musical entertainer. I mean come on, 30 years ago, who would have predicted that Tom Jones would headline at a festival like Glastonbury and be seen as the coolest of the cool.
It’s a pretty stupid thought I know, but when you are sat in a corner of a pub listening to the many fine musicians that come through Bristol as part of an acoustic showcase your mind does tend to wander into uncharted territory.
I think part of this thinking was born out of the look of sheer horror that accompanied the faces of those ‘serious’ musicians that had to follow us during one of these showcases.
It’s not a gripe, just an observation, but if you have a party, or a celebration or an event that is designed to raise money then The Mudheads or The Loaders are your boys. However; if the event is more ‘high brow’ and with the intention of impressing people then we are the last bunch that ever seems to get invited.
I think this was no more appropriately illustrated than when Aaron & I performed at a local competition (for the full story go here). My memory of the event was that we received the biggest and most enthusiastic applause of the evening and yet we weren’t even short listed. Could it be that as entertaining as we might be, we lacked that certain credibility that is required to be taken seriously by the music community. (Perhaps my Mr Blobby costume was an ill advised idea after all).
I have long compared the live music scene with the Oscars in what the general public find credible and what they do not.
You might for instance have an absolute blockbuster that everybody wants to see like Avatar or Pirates or even Harry Potter and you know full well that none of the cast are ever going to walk away with an academy award. And yet it is obvious by the box office receipts that these are the kind of films that the majority of people really want to go and watch.
The films that do win the awards and receive plenty of in-house back slapping and kudos the majority of your cinema loving public have never heard of.
I know it’s a bit of a generalisation, but I wonder how many of you out there got to see Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart? because he got the best actor award this year. Sam Worthington was the lead in the most successful film of all time and he got nada, zip, diddly squat. That would be Avatar in case you were wondering and most of you did see it and perhaps more than once.
And I think this kind of attitude does tend to translate into the music world.
You have only got to listen to a room full of academics or bored musos talk about their music tastes and what you get is an apparent fondness for hard to reach indie, world or art house music that is as inaccessible as a French film noir.
They might make some reference to early Cold Play or some Leonard Cohan but apart from that it’s generally some tortured genius from 1968 who “blew his mind” in a frenzy of psychedelic self pleasuring.
I admit that we all like to be a little ‘snobbish’ when it comes to our record collections and I suspect that majority of us would rather die than let an acquaintance have a good rummage through our old vinyl, tapes and CD’s, only to rise holding aloft a hidden gem with the words “bloody hell, the Wombles” on their lips.
So perhaps we all claim a sensitive, well considered and academic leaning to our music taste when we are in company and yet air guitar to our hearts content when “Cum on Feel the Noise” by Slade comes onto the radio.
I have to confess to this artistic hypocrisy as much as the next person when somebody wanders into my office at work and are amazed at how fast my I tunes can be flicked from Hits of the 70’s to Nick Cave or Norah Jones.
However; to my original point, if what I do could translate into Hollywood, who would I be?
I suppose if I am honest I would be a bit of a Bruce Willis, and I don’t mean the lack of hair connotation either.
Old Bruce just keeps going and going and yes, going. Nobody EVER admits to liking him or rating him as an actor, but we will all sit down of a late evening with a can of something and a big bag of crisps and enjoy Die Hard for the umpteenth time. It’s just like admitting you had a bit of a soft spot for Duran Duran after all.
I suppose that if I had to be anybody though I would prefer to be Clint Eastwood, he just keeps on getting better and better and more and more popular the older he gets. And where as it used to be a bit of an embarrassment for the elite to admit that they watched Clint Eastwood films, now the guy wins Oscars.
Maybe rock & roll will once again become ‘cool’ and even Robbie Williams despite being a complete prat at times can claim his place as a good all round musical entertainer. I mean come on, 30 years ago, who would have predicted that Tom Jones would headline at a festival like Glastonbury and be seen as the coolest of the cool.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Every Picture Tells a Story
I HATE having my photograph taken, I really do, which as you might imagine being an earnest rock god eager for public attention can create quite a dilemma.
The problem is purely and without apology ego and nothing much else.
I look in the mirror of a morning and wince. The older I get the bigger the groan as I peer half heartedly at my own reflection and ask for the billionth time why I don’t possess the rugged good looks of some Hollywood heart throb or rock superstar.
As the lines on my face begin to resemble a google map and my hair recedes faster than the tide at sunset I reluctantly contemplate that I possess a face and physique for radio.
Over the years I of course have had to endure said photo shoots for the sake of publicity and generally I have got away with it. At least I think I have.
The problem is purely and without apology ego and nothing much else.
I look in the mirror of a morning and wince. The older I get the bigger the groan as I peer half heartedly at my own reflection and ask for the billionth time why I don’t possess the rugged good looks of some Hollywood heart throb or rock superstar.
As the lines on my face begin to resemble a google map and my hair recedes faster than the tide at sunset I reluctantly contemplate that I possess a face and physique for radio.
Over the years I of course have had to endure said photo shoots for the sake of publicity and generally I have got away with it. At least I think I have.
My first proper and serious photo session in a studio was for the cover of the first album I was ever involved with. I was all green flight suit, long blond hair and sultry 19 year old glare and I think I managed to pull it off. Besides, my friend and comrade took all eyes off me by sitting on a piano stool. By the time the photo had been processed the moody shadow that framed us made it look like that he was only four foot tall. He was NOT happy.
Over the years I have had to endure the indignity of having a camera thrust in my face in order to get THAT shot that would sum up the rocker that was within.
This was all very well and good until I hit the dreaded 40’s and my waist line began to indicate that this particular rock star was going the way of Elvis and enjoying perhaps one too many beefburgers.
The last serious shoot I had to face was for the cover of the Mudheads Monkey album, Shout!!
The trouble with this album photography session was that it was actually a freezing cold day and the photo that we used turned out to be one of the very last shot. My gormless expression has rather more to do with my chops being frozen stiff than actually an endeavour to project any particular kind of mood.
This was all very well and good until I hit the dreaded 40’s and my waist line began to indicate that this particular rock star was going the way of Elvis and enjoying perhaps one too many beefburgers.
The last serious shoot I had to face was for the cover of the Mudheads Monkey album, Shout!!
The trouble with this album photography session was that it was actually a freezing cold day and the photo that we used turned out to be one of the very last shot. My gormless expression has rather more to do with my chops being frozen stiff than actually an endeavour to project any particular kind of mood.
I was also beginning to show the tale tale signs of middle age and several of my closest friends took great delight in pointing this out as the CD was sent all over the globe.I kind of lost my confidence after that and have avoided the camera like the plague ever since.
With my current incarnation in The Mudheads I have managed to avoid this particular humiliation for the past seven years. That was until the current depression in live music in the south west has forced our hand to repackage ourselves as a serious bet and put together a highly polished highly professional promotion pack.
My excuses have finally run out especially as my daughter is a photography degree student, and as a band we are going to be getting out and about during the next weekend and trying to get just one decent shot of the band.
You’ll know me, I’ll will be the one hiding behind the younger and slimmer guitarist.
Emma has promised me that she is a whiz with photoshop; however even then it will be such a huge piece of software manipulation that should she pull it off she will be able to submit it as part of her course work…..she ought to be able to get a first out of this.
If you are interested, I have marked out some of my photo history on Face book. I will be adding new photos when we have done them.
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Grab & Smash
Like most people, the musician has processions that are precious to them. However; none are more precious than their instrument of choice, in my case my guitars.
Every guitar I have ever owned demands a place of affection in my heart, with the possible exception of the two twelve string acoustics I owned as a teenager, which were subsequently the only two guitars I ever got shot of.
I still have the 20 quid classical acoustic guitar that my parents bought me for my failed guitar lessons at school (my teacher did not like rock music, considering them to be sub level musicians and rock was the whole point of learning as far as I was concerned).
It may be battered, cracked to be exact, when a teenage girl I had been teasing took acceptation at one of my stupid adolescent remarks and endeavoured to kick me in the shin sadly putting a thumping great hole in my guitar instead. It wouldn’t be the last time a guitar would get between me and a girl that’s for sure. It is also pretty grubby and now lives in the loft, but I still own it. And strum it from time to time.
I have my first electric guitar, purchased for me with great love and affection by my then girlfriend, now wife. Boy has she learnt to regret that decision as she became a ‘band widow’ at a very early age and to add insult to injury Aaron, our son and Mudheads guitarist cranked out his first power chords on that thing. It now lives in his living room and it is this that he drives his fiancée nuts with as he strums away of an evening.
Each guitar for me has a story, a history a special place in my memory and heart. I would no sooner get rid of one of them than I would one of my own children.
So it was with great empathy that I stood beside Aaron at our last acoustic gig when in a fit of haste he dropped the lid of his acoustic case down onto the body of his pristine and much loved acoustic guitar and catching the body with the lids catch leaving a four inch scratch right across the front. It will be a constant reminder to him that these things apart from being extremely expensive are also fragile.
It brought memories flooding back of the two occasions (other than the kicked classical) I managed to damage guitars and that sick feeling you are left with in your gut.
The first occasion was not my fault and I had to fight the urge to separate somebody’s breath from their bodies when they knocked my bass guitar over and snapped the head stock clean off on a drum riser.
The next time was doubly sickening as in a fit of ill humour brought about by having to perform at a gig I REALLY did not want to do I snatched up my acoustic guitar not realising that I had not put the catches down on the case.
It was with that slow motion look of horror that is brought about by the inevitable disaster that is unravelling before you that painted my face as my acoustic flew out of the case, sailed across the living room and came into sharp contact with the corner of the dining table leaving a hole the size of a 50 pence piece in it. It did nothing to improve my mood that was for sure.
I have always marvelled and perhaps envied those rock guitarists that can lift their hallowed axes aloft and then smash the living daylights out of them for the edification of their audiences without bursting into tears or falling to their knees in sickening realisation of the heinous act they have just committed.
I always remember a public school boy of mine pontificating at length about how Jimi Hendrix would pour light fuel over his guitar and set fire to it out of frustration that he could not extract that perfection he so desired and sought from it.
I think probably more cynically that he realised early on that the audience were mad for it, knowledge that has forged the need for guitarists like Ritchie Blackmore taking a dedicated guitar tech on the road with him in order to reassemble the guitar he would smash every night.
However; I think I am definitely too sentimental to take such drastic action upon any of my beloved guitars and will, along with my son and heir, observe a two minute silence in recognition of the terrible scarring his guitar suffered for the sake of rock & roll.
“For those about to be scratched, we salute you”.
Every guitar I have ever owned demands a place of affection in my heart, with the possible exception of the two twelve string acoustics I owned as a teenager, which were subsequently the only two guitars I ever got shot of.
I still have the 20 quid classical acoustic guitar that my parents bought me for my failed guitar lessons at school (my teacher did not like rock music, considering them to be sub level musicians and rock was the whole point of learning as far as I was concerned).
It may be battered, cracked to be exact, when a teenage girl I had been teasing took acceptation at one of my stupid adolescent remarks and endeavoured to kick me in the shin sadly putting a thumping great hole in my guitar instead. It wouldn’t be the last time a guitar would get between me and a girl that’s for sure. It is also pretty grubby and now lives in the loft, but I still own it. And strum it from time to time.
I have my first electric guitar, purchased for me with great love and affection by my then girlfriend, now wife. Boy has she learnt to regret that decision as she became a ‘band widow’ at a very early age and to add insult to injury Aaron, our son and Mudheads guitarist cranked out his first power chords on that thing. It now lives in his living room and it is this that he drives his fiancée nuts with as he strums away of an evening.
Each guitar for me has a story, a history a special place in my memory and heart. I would no sooner get rid of one of them than I would one of my own children.
So it was with great empathy that I stood beside Aaron at our last acoustic gig when in a fit of haste he dropped the lid of his acoustic case down onto the body of his pristine and much loved acoustic guitar and catching the body with the lids catch leaving a four inch scratch right across the front. It will be a constant reminder to him that these things apart from being extremely expensive are also fragile.
It brought memories flooding back of the two occasions (other than the kicked classical) I managed to damage guitars and that sick feeling you are left with in your gut.
The first occasion was not my fault and I had to fight the urge to separate somebody’s breath from their bodies when they knocked my bass guitar over and snapped the head stock clean off on a drum riser.
The next time was doubly sickening as in a fit of ill humour brought about by having to perform at a gig I REALLY did not want to do I snatched up my acoustic guitar not realising that I had not put the catches down on the case.
It was with that slow motion look of horror that is brought about by the inevitable disaster that is unravelling before you that painted my face as my acoustic flew out of the case, sailed across the living room and came into sharp contact with the corner of the dining table leaving a hole the size of a 50 pence piece in it. It did nothing to improve my mood that was for sure.
I have always marvelled and perhaps envied those rock guitarists that can lift their hallowed axes aloft and then smash the living daylights out of them for the edification of their audiences without bursting into tears or falling to their knees in sickening realisation of the heinous act they have just committed.
I always remember a public school boy of mine pontificating at length about how Jimi Hendrix would pour light fuel over his guitar and set fire to it out of frustration that he could not extract that perfection he so desired and sought from it.
I think probably more cynically that he realised early on that the audience were mad for it, knowledge that has forged the need for guitarists like Ritchie Blackmore taking a dedicated guitar tech on the road with him in order to reassemble the guitar he would smash every night.
However; I think I am definitely too sentimental to take such drastic action upon any of my beloved guitars and will, along with my son and heir, observe a two minute silence in recognition of the terrible scarring his guitar suffered for the sake of rock & roll.
“For those about to be scratched, we salute you”.
Thursday, 18 March 2010
Size Does Matter
Back in the day, Bassbin and I hammered the final nail into the coffin that was our formal education by bunking off of the sixth form to decant to his mothers house in order to sample the forbidden pleasures of her drinks cabinet and air guitar to our spotty little hearts content to the new musical passion of our lives; New Wave.
It was 1978 and the new sound of the suburbs was being thrust at us by bands such as The Jam, The Undertones, Blondie, Eddie & the Hot Rods, The Stranglers and the Sex Pistols and we day dreamed that one day we would be producing our own two minute offerings of rock & roll paradise as with heads bowed in mock concentration and sincerity we crashed around the living room believing that we truly were, Paul Weller, Hugh Cornwall or Fergal Sharkey.
For us the much hallowed 8 minute anthems of Stairway to Heaven, Child in Time and Freebird were still held in kind regard but now much more in the vein that you esteem an elderly grandparent (“yes I know you fought in the war, but do you really have to go on about it EVEY time I see you”) and had been relegated to the song that signalled the end of the slow dances with our girlfriends during the Tuesday night Rock Shows at Tiffany’s.
In terms of our musical growth a song should now last no longer that 2 ½ minutes, 3 at the most and contain nothing that could be considered pretentious, educated or fantastic (14 minute epics about hobbits was totally out).
Now, our heads were full of the real poetry of youth; “Gordon is a Moron”; “He got an ice pick, that made his ears burn”; “Read the graffiti of a slashed seat affair”; “Teenage kicks are so hard to beat”; and of course this new found poetry had to bow to our teenage attention span and be nothing if not short!
This is something that has stuck with me and I have taken the philosophy of ‘Keep it real and keep it short’ with me into adulthood and my continued privilege to be able to perform in front of a live audience.
This very much came into play and certainly to our advantage a couple of nights ago at a popular Bristol venue called The Louisiana.
Now with most dedicated music venues these days it is policy to cram as many bands onto the night’s entertainment as you possibly can in order that you might generate a crowd.
The Louis is one of the more generous venues and only tends to put three bands on at once in the hope that each band brings at least 20 people, giving the business at least 60 paying customers through the door and about 15 band related members on top of that supping the local brew at 3 quid a pint.
Because of the number of people playing your actual performance time is restricted to strictly 30 minutes each (unless you are the headline, although we avoid that as we have noticed that the largest audience are to be found at the crossroads of the acts slap bang in the middle).
30 minutes does not give you a lot of time, especially for most of the bands we have witnessed in our 7 year history.
Normally the bands like a decent bit of ego worshipping during a song in the form of long lead guitar solos and then they like to pass the time of day by discussing the weather, cricket or who fancies who in between each number.
We have seen bands gets away with about 5 songs in total because they have spent too much time mucking about in between numbers.
I have a different philosophy. You can cram one heck of a lot of songs into 30 minutes if you keep them short and you don’t stop…..at all.
We went for it big time. No stops, no chance to sip water to refresh a frazzled larynx. No chance to mop perspiration soaked brows, no introductions or passing the time with the crowd.
No chance….1, 2, 3, 4 and we were off.
As I mentioned most bands manage 5 or if they are lucky 7 songs in their allotted time. We make 13, yup 13 songs and we didn’t go a minute over time.
The poor kids that had come to watch the headlining band of Artic Monkey Wanabies stood no chance. We frightened one poor girl to death with our ear splitting opening crash chord and then the onslaught.
Suddenly this group of 17 somethings were introduced to the experience their parents had had in their youths as the Punk Rock/New Wave has hit the scene and blew away the cobwebs of ‘disco’ and ‘middle of the road’.
And do you know what, they loved it.
Perhaps they felt some of the raw excitement I had felt as I pogo’d around Bassbins living room, or the sheer thrill of my very first live concert.
Maybe I did a little bit to introduce these kids to a new energy of music that is felt and lived every bit as much as it is heard.
Who knows, all I can say is that it is three days later I am still buzzing.
Incidentally, as an aside. The only member of our childhood Rock Stardom seeking triumvirate to make it through education and even onto university was Quick Sketch. He of course had to be the one that wrote a hit selling no 1 record, got the highest singles sales of the decade and he won TWO Ivor Novello awards. Somehow I think Bassbin and I might have got off at the wrong stop.
Just a thought!
It was 1978 and the new sound of the suburbs was being thrust at us by bands such as The Jam, The Undertones, Blondie, Eddie & the Hot Rods, The Stranglers and the Sex Pistols and we day dreamed that one day we would be producing our own two minute offerings of rock & roll paradise as with heads bowed in mock concentration and sincerity we crashed around the living room believing that we truly were, Paul Weller, Hugh Cornwall or Fergal Sharkey.
For us the much hallowed 8 minute anthems of Stairway to Heaven, Child in Time and Freebird were still held in kind regard but now much more in the vein that you esteem an elderly grandparent (“yes I know you fought in the war, but do you really have to go on about it EVEY time I see you”) and had been relegated to the song that signalled the end of the slow dances with our girlfriends during the Tuesday night Rock Shows at Tiffany’s.
In terms of our musical growth a song should now last no longer that 2 ½ minutes, 3 at the most and contain nothing that could be considered pretentious, educated or fantastic (14 minute epics about hobbits was totally out).
Now, our heads were full of the real poetry of youth; “Gordon is a Moron”; “He got an ice pick, that made his ears burn”; “Read the graffiti of a slashed seat affair”; “Teenage kicks are so hard to beat”; and of course this new found poetry had to bow to our teenage attention span and be nothing if not short!
This is something that has stuck with me and I have taken the philosophy of ‘Keep it real and keep it short’ with me into adulthood and my continued privilege to be able to perform in front of a live audience.
This very much came into play and certainly to our advantage a couple of nights ago at a popular Bristol venue called The Louisiana.
Now with most dedicated music venues these days it is policy to cram as many bands onto the night’s entertainment as you possibly can in order that you might generate a crowd.
The Louis is one of the more generous venues and only tends to put three bands on at once in the hope that each band brings at least 20 people, giving the business at least 60 paying customers through the door and about 15 band related members on top of that supping the local brew at 3 quid a pint.
Because of the number of people playing your actual performance time is restricted to strictly 30 minutes each (unless you are the headline, although we avoid that as we have noticed that the largest audience are to be found at the crossroads of the acts slap bang in the middle).
30 minutes does not give you a lot of time, especially for most of the bands we have witnessed in our 7 year history.
Normally the bands like a decent bit of ego worshipping during a song in the form of long lead guitar solos and then they like to pass the time of day by discussing the weather, cricket or who fancies who in between each number.
We have seen bands gets away with about 5 songs in total because they have spent too much time mucking about in between numbers.
I have a different philosophy. You can cram one heck of a lot of songs into 30 minutes if you keep them short and you don’t stop…..at all.
We went for it big time. No stops, no chance to sip water to refresh a frazzled larynx. No chance to mop perspiration soaked brows, no introductions or passing the time with the crowd.
No chance….1, 2, 3, 4 and we were off.
As I mentioned most bands manage 5 or if they are lucky 7 songs in their allotted time. We make 13, yup 13 songs and we didn’t go a minute over time.
The poor kids that had come to watch the headlining band of Artic Monkey Wanabies stood no chance. We frightened one poor girl to death with our ear splitting opening crash chord and then the onslaught.
Suddenly this group of 17 somethings were introduced to the experience their parents had had in their youths as the Punk Rock/New Wave has hit the scene and blew away the cobwebs of ‘disco’ and ‘middle of the road’.
And do you know what, they loved it.
Perhaps they felt some of the raw excitement I had felt as I pogo’d around Bassbins living room, or the sheer thrill of my very first live concert.
Maybe I did a little bit to introduce these kids to a new energy of music that is felt and lived every bit as much as it is heard.
Who knows, all I can say is that it is three days later I am still buzzing.
Incidentally, as an aside. The only member of our childhood Rock Stardom seeking triumvirate to make it through education and even onto university was Quick Sketch. He of course had to be the one that wrote a hit selling no 1 record, got the highest singles sales of the decade and he won TWO Ivor Novello awards. Somehow I think Bassbin and I might have got off at the wrong stop.
Just a thought!
Friday, 12 March 2010
Cider House Rules
Every so often a gig comes along that makes you wonder why you bother……..I’m sorry, I think I may have written this line before…on several occasions.
Anyway, Aaron & I were booked to perform at a new venue in Bristol, and by new I am referring for the promoter (a thoroughly decent guy who is committed to keeping music live in this fair city of ours) as opposed the building itself, which quite frankly looked like it had last seen a lick of paint during the Crimea War in celebration of the safe return of our brave troops.
Anyway, it was one of those gigs where the filthy lukka was waved seductively under one’s rather impoverished nose (those few months directly after Christmas are always a bit of a lean time) and so myself and the boy got ourselves booked.
I sadly had to abandon the significant birthday of an old and trusted friend in London to scream back down the motorway in order to get home in time to grab the PA and guitars and get to the venue.
I had done the obligatory promotion of the gig, sadly with no success as not one single person that we have ever met attended the session, and we set off for the venue itself.
Now I don’t know what pubs are like in other parts of the country or even the world but the West Country does seem to have its own particular brand of bar, which can only be affectionately known as ‘Cider Houses’.
This is generally a bar that is frequented by groups of men (or women) who have a rather dangerous fondness for the juice of the apple.
And when I am talking ‘Cider’ I am not referring to that nice clear fizzy stuff that is especially imported from Ireland to be consumed by groups of gay young people (and I by that I mean the traditional happy variety) in tall glasses with plenty of ice.
No, what I am referring to is ‘Scrumpy’.
It has been said that if you can see clear through a glass of cider then it isn’t scrumpy. I would say that after four pints if you can still see (or feel) your feet, then again it isn’t scrumpy.
Scrumpy is traditionally brewed in hidden places by farmers of dubious morals and reputation and includes anything they can find to lob into the mixture to give it ‘body’.
Now my father-in-law before retirement was an accountant and he once did the accounts for a rather famous West County Cider maker and was there when they emptied one of the massive vats. From within its murky depths was hoisted copious amounts of dead rats, cats, a dog and even a bicycle and this was from a reputable company with Health & Hygiene certificates and large contracts with major supermarket chains.
The scrumpy I am referring to does not fit into this category. The bodies of rats and the occasional sheep are considered to be a vital ingredient in this concoction. In fact if you are extremely lucky and you are drinking a particularly good vintage you might even find the foreskin of the original brewer in it.
It was into the domain of drinkers of this fine beverage that Aaron and I stumbled.
Every head turned to glare at us as we entered the room and the full weight of ‘cider breath’ slapped us firmly between the eyes. We had arrived, the afternoon’s entertainment, fresh meat.
As we struggled to carry our equipment down the full length of the narrow bar we were heartily jeered and heckled.
As we gingerly put together the PA the body of somebody looking, and walking, like the scarecrow in the wizard of Oz stumbled past us towards the bathroom facilities tripped over his feet and said…….”oh, tripped over your stuff I’d better make a claim”. He then collapsed into a hacking fit of laughter and smokers cough highly amused at the hilarity of his own humour.
That was irritating enough but he went through the whole routine on the return from the toilet to his seat.
Once the PA had been assembled and guitars had been tuned we set to get ourselves ready to roll.
I asked Aaron if he would like a glass of something local. His “hell no!” left me in little doubt that a couple of pints of lime and soda might be the safest option for the occasion.
We then launched into a two hour set performing to a wall.
The only people we saw were those performing the swaying dance of the sailor in rough seas as they fought their unsteady way toward the toilet and then back again. With each passage muttering some nonsensical rubbish that only they found to be in the height of good humour.
We were delighted when a group of students appeared about three songs from the end, however; we were just as quickly crestfallen as they marched as one out into the beer garden for a cigarette and to presumably converse with those already in the open air toilet.
It was a pleasant delight to get out of there with our bodies if not our egos in tacked.
I’m sure this wont be the last time I will be uttering the immortal words “Why do we bother”
Anyway, Aaron & I were booked to perform at a new venue in Bristol, and by new I am referring for the promoter (a thoroughly decent guy who is committed to keeping music live in this fair city of ours) as opposed the building itself, which quite frankly looked like it had last seen a lick of paint during the Crimea War in celebration of the safe return of our brave troops.
Anyway, it was one of those gigs where the filthy lukka was waved seductively under one’s rather impoverished nose (those few months directly after Christmas are always a bit of a lean time) and so myself and the boy got ourselves booked.
I sadly had to abandon the significant birthday of an old and trusted friend in London to scream back down the motorway in order to get home in time to grab the PA and guitars and get to the venue.
I had done the obligatory promotion of the gig, sadly with no success as not one single person that we have ever met attended the session, and we set off for the venue itself.
Now I don’t know what pubs are like in other parts of the country or even the world but the West Country does seem to have its own particular brand of bar, which can only be affectionately known as ‘Cider Houses’.
This is generally a bar that is frequented by groups of men (or women) who have a rather dangerous fondness for the juice of the apple.
And when I am talking ‘Cider’ I am not referring to that nice clear fizzy stuff that is especially imported from Ireland to be consumed by groups of gay young people (and I by that I mean the traditional happy variety) in tall glasses with plenty of ice.
No, what I am referring to is ‘Scrumpy’.
It has been said that if you can see clear through a glass of cider then it isn’t scrumpy. I would say that after four pints if you can still see (or feel) your feet, then again it isn’t scrumpy.
Scrumpy is traditionally brewed in hidden places by farmers of dubious morals and reputation and includes anything they can find to lob into the mixture to give it ‘body’.
Now my father-in-law before retirement was an accountant and he once did the accounts for a rather famous West County Cider maker and was there when they emptied one of the massive vats. From within its murky depths was hoisted copious amounts of dead rats, cats, a dog and even a bicycle and this was from a reputable company with Health & Hygiene certificates and large contracts with major supermarket chains.
The scrumpy I am referring to does not fit into this category. The bodies of rats and the occasional sheep are considered to be a vital ingredient in this concoction. In fact if you are extremely lucky and you are drinking a particularly good vintage you might even find the foreskin of the original brewer in it.
It was into the domain of drinkers of this fine beverage that Aaron and I stumbled.
Every head turned to glare at us as we entered the room and the full weight of ‘cider breath’ slapped us firmly between the eyes. We had arrived, the afternoon’s entertainment, fresh meat.
As we struggled to carry our equipment down the full length of the narrow bar we were heartily jeered and heckled.
As we gingerly put together the PA the body of somebody looking, and walking, like the scarecrow in the wizard of Oz stumbled past us towards the bathroom facilities tripped over his feet and said…….”oh, tripped over your stuff I’d better make a claim”. He then collapsed into a hacking fit of laughter and smokers cough highly amused at the hilarity of his own humour.
That was irritating enough but he went through the whole routine on the return from the toilet to his seat.
Once the PA had been assembled and guitars had been tuned we set to get ourselves ready to roll.
I asked Aaron if he would like a glass of something local. His “hell no!” left me in little doubt that a couple of pints of lime and soda might be the safest option for the occasion.
We then launched into a two hour set performing to a wall.
The only people we saw were those performing the swaying dance of the sailor in rough seas as they fought their unsteady way toward the toilet and then back again. With each passage muttering some nonsensical rubbish that only they found to be in the height of good humour.
We were delighted when a group of students appeared about three songs from the end, however; we were just as quickly crestfallen as they marched as one out into the beer garden for a cigarette and to presumably converse with those already in the open air toilet.
It was a pleasant delight to get out of there with our bodies if not our egos in tacked.
I’m sure this wont be the last time I will be uttering the immortal words “Why do we bother”
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