Suffering For Our Art

To be fair, it’s been a quiet year music wise. A hand full of gigs, all outside of the borders of central Bristol, culminating in an excellent gig for a North Somerset bikers group in aid of Children’s Hospices South West this month.

Now you could be forgiven for stating that this isn’t exactly living the rock & roll dream. And my response would be “No, it’s not”. However; unlike many of our peers who entered the world of local performing at the same time as us over a decade ago, we are still playing (better than that we are still friends, which really does say something). Most have entered a grudging retirement with little more than a demo, a few gig photos, that promo pic and some fond memories of when they too were ‘in a band’.

To be honest we came very close to knocking it on the head ourselves a short while back. It has become next to impossible to pull the three strands of the band together for rehearsal due to work and family commitments and we found ourselves losing just once too often to the Sky sports ‘Big Screens’ and a plethora of well lagered youfs who still don’t understand why we can’t just ‘wing’ a couple of Kings of Leon numbers or that it is not going to happen when they request that we’ let their mate have a go on the drums’.

The ability to get gigs in the first place is becoming increasingly difficult and the demands on the jobbing musician are growing as publicans demand more music for less cash. It has become common place now for us to be booked into venues with the express purpose of trying to keep the punters in their bars as opposed to wander off to the nightclubs at midnight or beyond of an evening, which means performing to the small wee hours of the morning having arrived even earlier to set up. This is for a lesser remuneration than we would have expected over 10 years ago when we were a three piece acoustic set up with a tiny PA and no nights.

We are all also beginning to show the tell-tale signs of our rock & roll ways (and age) in terms of injuries. It has been commented that The Mudheads audience has long since suffered for our art, but now it is our turn. CJ has well and truly jiggered his knee and may well require an operation. Aaron, the baby of the band, has developed repetitive strain injury in his left hand and has been banned from playing the guitar for a good month and I have pulled so many muscles in my left foot and right shoulder I swear my body is in competition with itself as to who can inflict the most pain on me. Bottom line……I’m knackered.

That being said, faced with life changing decision to turn off the machine and to simply let the patient die we found, just like Mott The Hoople in the Ballad of Mott (good to know your musical references), “We just felt too much inside”. We just couldn’t flip the switch and say goodbye.

However; for the first time in forever we are closing the band down for the rest of the year. Firstly so that we can try and find what Virgin media has done with our drummer, secondly to completely re write the set (we’ve been playing many of our songs a VERY long time) and thirdly to find a way to rehearse. CJ moved house and in that we lost our much cherished practice room, great for CJ and his family, not so good for The Mudheads.  That being said we have thoroughly enjoyed a decade of rent free rehearsal space for which Aaron & I are eternally indebted to CJ (and his long suffering family). Mind you, it might discourage us from being quite so lazy in practicing if we actually had to pay for rehearsal space.

There’s bound to be much hilarity whilst we do this and endeavour to move forwards and I am hoping that it will fuel my imagination, giving life to some more interesting blog entries for you oh faith and utterly patient reader.

So in the words of the Governator……….”I’ll be back”.

'Ol knackered wrists'

It is with great shame that I have to admit that I haven't written anything on this site since March 2012 (last year).

I do have an excuse though honest governor.

I had developed Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, a condition very popular amongst guitarists and drummers, which is where the nerves that run from your arm, down through a tunnel of bone and flesh into your hands and fingers basically gets stuck. The Carpal Tunnel as it is called, constricts and you get the worse case of pins and needles you can imagine.

At first they tried to cure it by getting me to wear splints at night...personally I thought they were something that were predominantly worn by old men and I flaming well hated the things. However; I did endure, as playing the old 'Instrument of shame' was becoming something of a painful experience. Not fun.

Well, the old duffer splints clearly didn't work so that only left one option, surgery. Gulp!!

So back in September 2012 I was admitted to hospital for the first of two operations on my hands.

Now I have had injections before but the one in wrist in order to render the whole procedure painless was in itself SO painful that I nearly kicked myself in the nose. And then the surgeon set to on my poor defenseless pud, and I could feel every slice, tug and pull. Not painful but not pleasant, especially in the knowledge that a month later he would be doing all over again on my other wrists.

So the long and the short of it is, I haven't been able to play, so I haven't had anything to write about, hence the lack of blogs.

I am in the process of trying to get the band back together and we have a gig booked for the end of February, so hopefully I will have something for you.

We'll speak then, but until then, let me gross you out

 

 

Amaziah - No 1 video

'No 1' relates to the song incidentally not to any egocentric longing....although you never know.

Well it finaly happened and Amaziah's straight talker has been released in a stunning package of CD loveliness.

It's been quite a journey but we got there in the end.

Check this out as one of the tracks out to pictures. You can finally 'hear' what I have been talking about for so long.....it was a long time ago mind....AND I was very young.

I've not posted a video on Blogger before so you will have bear with me in the vein hope that I have done it correctly.

This a photo collage of Amaziah, the band I toured with when I was 18 years old.

The song behind it was recorded as a demo in 1980 and has been added as a bonus track on the remastered version of 'Straight Talker'.....available through me at Mudheads@gmail.com I hasten to add. 13 tracks of history I can tell you.

Enjoy and let me know what you think

Back to life, back to reality

I am beginning to run out of excuses for having not blogged for nearly four months.

I do actually have two extremely good reasons. The first being that my wrists, a vital component in the world of the budding rock star as they are required to thrash their ‘instrument of fame- to quote Mott The Hoople’, packed up on me.

Old and worn out fart that I am I managed in the space of just a few short months to succumb to the ravages of 35 years of constant guitar based mistreatment and develop Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Tendinitis and Tennis Elbow (how I will never know as I haven’t played Tennis competitively in my life).

These three ailments combined left it impossible to play my guitar, difficult to type and a few other more mundane tasks that are probably best not discussed in these pages.

Not being able to play has been a cross that I have found extremely difficult to bear and my enforced abstinence has left me feeling uncreative and maudlin as well as a miserable old git into the bargain.

The second reason, which dovetailed nicely in to the above temporary disability, was having been stupid enough to have agreed to go onto a management secondment for seven months.

Now a wannabie rock star like myself does not take well to the responsibility of management as it goes against every rebellious and egocentric instinct I might have.. Besides I am used to the adoring attention of the female of the species (cough) and was not used to being constantly harangued by about 45 of them for every conceivable complaint they had. To put it bluntly I have had seven months of ear ache. I can assure you that this is by no means a sexist observation as I can guarantee you that had there been a smattering of blokes amongst them; their level of objecting would probably have been louder and more heated than that of the ladies in my charge. This did nothing to add to the already declining flow of creative juices

However; all excuses aside, I have had more needles stuck in me than Keith Richards arms and the wrists appear to be on the mend and I have forsaken the heady life of top floor executive comfort and am eager to get back to straight forward ‘rock & roll’, ‘keeping it real’ and generally making a pratt of myself for the edification of the British public.

With this, I am hoping that there will be a plethora of tales to tell.

The first being…….a new album has been released!!!!!

But you’ll have to wait until next week to hear about that one.

Laters dudes.

Oh come on!!!!

The trouble with putting shows all about hard working bands on television or in the movies is you invariably get scenes where the band arrives with most of their gear on the back of a scooter and having literally ‘thrown’ their kit in the general location of the stage, rock into a finely produced set of songs that U2 would have been envious of.

Normally these kinds of events take place at the end of some Disney movie or other and leave the viewer truly believing that ‘a band can actually fly’.

What people fail to take into account is that it’s ‘made up’. That it has all the artistic reality of Dumbo and that it doesn’t actually happen this way.

Firstly in no way in this world or the next does anything sound as tight and as crisp and more importantly in tune as do the songs in these movies. It just doesn’t happen like that. Even if you do get to see a genuine live performance on TV it has had every bum note, guitar gaff, missed beat and mistake finally and carefully produced out of it. A great example of what happens if this hasn’t happened was the recent filming of Bon Jovi playing live at Hyde parks London Calling. This was not doctored in any way and what you saw is what the crowd in London got. Even my good lady who is an ardent Bon Jovi fan said “bilge he’s singing flat isn’t he”. This isn’t reflection on the musicianship of artistes it’s just life.

The second reality check and the most pertinent to this tale is at no point do the band turn up with all their equipment in a shopping trolley and are ready to play in four minutes flat.

The Mudheads have a horse box, which is enormous, black and has frightened the dickens out of several motorists following the band on many occasions. CJ found it hilarious to paint the insignia “Have a Nice Day” on the back of it which would be the last thing that the terrified driver would see as this wheel crazy leviathan veered wildly and ran them off the road.

This horse box is so loaded with equipment that we have snapped the axel on it several times and have had to fit a new fly wheel that could just about lift a tank.

To unload said horse box, carry approximately 2 ½ ton of electrical kit into a venue and then set it all up ready for action, even with a finely tuned work force like ours (cough) takes a minimum of two hours.

So when we are faced with the prospect of undertaking a benefit type event, in the outdoors, in what transpired was heavy rain and they want us to perform for 15 minutes as everybody is leaving I think the expression is ‘”get lost”.

Honestly where do people get their ideas from. Walt Disney’s company have a lot to answer for.

It had to be the drummer

Now I am not going to be disparaging or needlessly rude about anyone, but it does have to be said that if there is ever anybody in a band that seems to break wind as a form of artistic expression then it has to be the drummer.

CJ is a genuine virtuoso at this.

It could be because of his fondness for spicy food. It could be that he excels at growing his own vegetables and has a healthy level of fibre in his diet.

What ever the reason, in every school class, there was a kid that sat at the back with a self satisfied grin on his face as everybody else was hanging out of the windows. I genuinely believe that CJ was our man on the ground in those situations.

This has been a long standing issue for the band, especially when we were locked in the studio together recording our first album.

When you are locked in an air tight, sound tight, generally claustrophobic space and CJ decides to ‘relieve’ himself of built up pressure you have two choices, die, or invent ever creative ways to subdue the gaseous beast that had been released.

It was on this occasion when yet another ‘take’ had been abandoned and the guitarist, Matt and I had gone a strange shade of green that our producer introduced us to the concept of the candle.

Candles were lit in the studio not in order to induce a new aged ambience but as a means to ‘eat’ the methane gas that was emanating from the drum booth.

Keep this thought in mind.

Over the years we have not been plagued by this ‘creative’ expression too badly although it is always wise to have one finger poised in readiness over the window button in the car on the way to a gig.

Performing in a myriad of pubs, clubs and bars had not been a problem as anything CJ could produce was soundly disguised by cigarette smoke. This of course changed dramatically with the introduction of the smoking ban and we suddenly realised that our erstwhile drummer was not alone with half the cliental ‘farting’ for England. To be honest the average Saturday nights public house smells more like a packet of dry roasted peanuts.

At least we have a small bank of electric fans to blow anything acrid or noxious back at the drum kit.

In our practice room we are not so fortunate and I knew we were in trouble when CJ proudly announced that he’d had a particularly fiery and spicy curry for lunch.
An hour into the practice all went south when CJ could not contain himself any longer and ‘let rip’.

As the singer I have to gulp in more air than the other two. This quickly became a distinct disadvantage as the result of CJ’s lunch time frailty caught me soundly in the back of the throat. I nearly introduced them to what I’d had for tea at the moment as I gagged violently into the microphone.

Even CJ got caught violently off guard within the full force of his own creation and nearly fell back off his kit.

Knowing that this could quite probably put a crimp on the whole evenings work he threw open the sliding doors and disappeared into the labyrinth that best describes his garage.

He returned with what could best described as a flame thrower.

As a sheet of flame shot out of the end of the metal rod and canister he held ominously in his grip into the room where Aaron and I stood, memories of those idiots you see on Youtube who seems to think that girls are thoroughly impressed by somebody who can actually light their own farts came to mind. Methane gas is highly flammable as far as I can remember.

Our little practice room has an emphasis on small and Aaron and I had no place to hide and we had visions of the opening scene of Die Hard 3 being re-enacted in Bristol.

Thankfully, nothing exploded but we were left with the gaseous stench of the fuel that had produced the flame in the first place.

It just had to be the drummer.

I am officially getting old!!

I am officially getting old!!

I don’t mean in terms of advancing years (although it would be helpful if they too could slow down a little). No I mean in terms of the things I don’t understand.

This is a musical blog entry but on a slightly different vein.

I got a call from my guitarist son Aaron asking what I would be doing on this coming Thursdays tea time. I am always suspicious of this question from either of my two offspring as it invariably results in me having to drive them somewhere.

This time it was not a transportation request but something of a more interesting nature.

His wife, my daughter-in-law, is a primary school teacher (that’s kids up the age of 11 yrs if you are reading this from outside of the UK) and they were due to hold their annual leavers disco on that Thursday.

They had sadly received a call from the grieving widow of the chap that normally did the disco for them who had reportedly and rather tragically had a heart attack and had dropped down dead whilst on holiday. I wondered why they had used the services of such an elderly gentlemen any way for entertaining young un’s when I was informed that he was exactly the same age as me….gulp!

Aaron phoned and asked if I could pull the bands PA and lights together so that a disco could still go ahead. I enquired if he would like me to do it with him. His response let the colour fall from my face when he said “no, not me, I’m working….you”.

Now, like most people I have always fancied being a radio DJ. I even signed up to be one on hospital radio in Poole, Dorset, but they closed the station the week before I was due to go on air (some would say a lucky escape from the already suffering patients).

The idea of spinning the discs whilst indulging in some witty but none the less gentle banter has always appealed to me. I have always enjoyed my stints of being interviewed and performing on radio.

However; running a school disco for about 60 ten to eleven year olds was an entirely different prospect indeed.

You have to remember that these kids were now the biggest in their school. They were way too old for this place now and they knew it. Cocky beyond reason they would strut around the place as if they owned it and in their pre-adolescent minds…they did. The only solace for the weary battled fatigued teaching staff struggling to maintain control was that these Billy and Belinda ‘know-it-alls’ in just under two months time would once again be the smallest kids in another school and would have those smug expressions whipped clean off their faces.

Anyway, it was for these little urchins that I was being asked to provide an evenings entertainment.

I’m not too proud to admit it but I panicked.

What did I do when I am in similar situations…..I called CJ that’s what I did.
Primarily I phoned him to see if he could drag our kit out for me to collect and to ask him for a few suggestions (he has school aged daughters one who is also leaving primary school so in his role on the PTA he has himself provided several discos).

I have always maintained that CJ is a diamond geezer and one of the most helpful people I know but this time my gratitude went onto a new plain of thought when he chirped up. “Tell you what, I’ll come and do it with you”.

This was going to be a new experience for me I can tell you.

Thursday arrived and CJ and I met down by the school (in case anybody out there is wondering both CJ and I are in receipt of CRB certificates in relation to our employment….we are considered ‘safe’ to work with children. Besides, there were teachers everywhere. Even so it didn’t stop a growing sense of dread building in the pit of my stomach.)

It was here that the first incidence of my aging comprehension had its first bite of the cherry.

Bearing in mind that we are talking about children here. Little un’s….kids that still perhaps wearing Barbie Doll/Action Man or High School Musical pyjamas to bed, I was floored when a whole fleet of stretch Limousines turned up and out poured a throng of giggling school girls dressed like they were at the opening night of the Oscars.

What the hell was all that about???

Now I know that the fascination for the American High School leaver’s ball has entered our shores, perhaps a couple of decades ago. And I know that this has attracted the use of Limos for the arrival.

But 11 year olds?....oh come on!!!

Shaking my head in despair we decanted the PA and lights in to the school hall and prepared to…’rock’!

Now the modern disco is really a thing of beauty as no longer does the poor struggling DJ have to load in massive speakers and case upon case of Vinyl records or CD’s (if you are that little bit younger).

Nowadays, the speakers are far more efficient and smaller in size and both of us carried in our entire record collection on a couple of Ipods and a laptop computer (God Bless the inventor of Itunes).

I was all for downloading the last three editions of ‘Now that’s what I call Music’ but CJ promised me that he had it covered.

And then THEY arrived.

I love the difference in the maturity of boys and girls (something my wife insists never changes).

The boys all bounced in, decked out in sports clothes with perhaps the initial attempts of spiking their hair up…..just a small nod towards the fact that give it two or three years and they would be thirteen and it would begin….bring it on.
The girls however; were a completely different kettle of fish.

Many of them clearly wanted to be 19 yrs and dressed as such. I didn’t know where to look……I bet their dad’s didn’t see them going out like that. Why can’t kids just be kids??

Ah well, nobody else seemed to be bothered by it and so I elected to get on with the job in hand.

This is really where I left reality.
The kids started to pour up and ask for their favourite tunes….all of which were a total mystery to me. I hadn’t heard of one of em!!

Perhaps if I listened a little less to Classic FM and Planet Rock and little more to Radio One and Heart FM I might have a little bit of inkling as to what they were asking for.

As it was I felt like I was working on the reception of a specialist Emporium for the more discerning weirdo!!

“Do you have any S&M”?

“You can’t ask for that!! You’re 10 years old!

“It’s a song by Rihanna”

“Is it?.........whose Rihanna?”

The boys kept asking for a track by a band called LMFAO. CJ had to explain to me that this in fact stood for ‘Laugh my ****** ******** off’ (you can fill in the blanks) I was stunned.

When I was 10 years old we had ‘Gimme Dat Ting” and “Bridge over troubled water” for heavens sake.

The funniest thing was being terrorised by a mini Emo in the making.

At the beginning of the evening this sullen rather rotund child stormed up to us with her arm outstretched clutching some sort of dance CD. I asked her if she wanted us to play a track off of it. She replied “No, all of it” and stalked off.

Now neither CJ and I had any idea of what any of it was on the CD and we were not about to take any chances given that the kids were already ‘getting down’ to S&M, it could have been wall to wall sex for all we knew. So we stuck it to one side in the blind hope that said child didn’t notice.

She did!

You’ve heard the expression ‘if looks could kill’….well I got one of those…..it withered me where I stood. 28 years of marriage and I have done some stupid things in my time, but I have NEVER had a look like that from my beloved…..eech! I’m surprised I could sleep that night.

However; taking CJ was the coup of the century. He played song after song after song that the kids loved….I hadn’t heard of one of them.

They would have eaten me alive if I had gone on my own. I’d considered playing a song from the Wombles, you know, just for a laugh, and of course I would have had to have put a bit of Status Quo in there.
Thankfully the evening was a short one, which was just as well, as by the time I got home I was in desperate need of a large glass of wine. My level of respect for my daughter-in-law and her colleagues has risen through the roof.

CJ was a proper trooper and I was once again utterly grateful that he had saved my back side.

However; in the words of the immortal Terry Wogan

“Is it me”