Again I have to apologise for the dearth of written word of late, it certainly isn’t due to the lack of things to write about I can assure you, I have heaps. It is that I have been struggling to find the time to metaphorical put pen to paper.
Not that I am complaining I promise you.
A decade ago I thought that my opportunity for creativity and especially for music was over. However, ten years on I am almost overwhelmed with articles that need writing and gigs that need playing. And for this I am eternally grateful.
So please do not give up on me just yet and if like this entry, the writing is rushed and the spelling and grammar a little, shall we say, off, then accept my apologies and trust that I am not getting sloppy, I just want to give you something to read on a more regular basis than of late.
Last night, at The Louisianna, a popular venue in Bristol, I was reminded why I got into rock & roll in the first place.
The gig was always going to be a little weird as we had been booked as a band to be sandwiched between two heavy metal bands. Real rock if you like. They actually wanted us to headline but we prefer the middle spot for a variety of very good reasons too long and boring to go into here. However, our drummer CJ found himself sent on an important course at the last minute and Aaron and I found ourselves in the position of playing acoustically.
This isn’t a problem as we have done this before and already have a reputation for being a couple of ‘nutters’. So we should fit in.
However, it had been a long week, and it was only Tuesday and to be honest I really had lost interest in the gig, which isn’t what I am normally like at all.
We had got out of work late and got a phone call from the venue asking where we were as we were late for the sound check. I thought at first that this was a little pushy as we were only two acoustic players, they could sound check us at the drop of a hat. However; the reason for the panic was revealed when we got there…the headline act had pulled out.
“You’re going to have to headline lads” was the opening response from the Californian sound engineer. Actually that’s not quite true, his first words were to apologies for us having been put in this position. That position was to be following a hard core heavy rock band……I don’t think so!
“Look pal, we can play for three hours if you want us to, but there is not way in this world or the next that we are following a band sporting that many tattoos”
However; as is often the case in these situations, they turned out to be the nicest bunch of blokes and as they had brought along a large crowd, and not one single person had come to see us they were more that happy to take the hallowed spot.
We were given a nice large chunck of time to perform and bang on 9pm we hit the stage and rocked our socks off!!
The thing about The Loaders (that’s our acoustic name in case you were wondering), we are on a mission to prove that it is not only doom laden, cheese cloth wearing, patuli oil smelling folkies that get to play the acoustic guitar. No it’s dyed in the wool punks and rockers that get to create mayhem on a Tuesday night to an audience of heavy metal heads that look like they would eat us if they didn’t like what we were playing.
We worked hard, we sweated buckets, I tore the back of my throat clean out, strings were snapped, guitars were hammered and nothing was safe as we tore through every punk orientated song we knew….and the crowd loved it.
Talk about a positive response.
I think that people are genuinely surprised by the passion that can come out of a) acoustic guitars, and b) a bloke in his near 50’s performing with his son.
As we swapped places with the headline much back slapping and words of encouragement was to be had “That was f***** awesome man…you rock”
Mind you the best was to come. As the band took to the stage and having pinned my ears back against the back wall the guitarist using his best Anglo Saxon expletives thanked The Loaders for our set and then said “I wish he was my dad”.
Aaron was choked. I missed what he said due to the newly acquired state deafness that had rendered me in a state of total confusion and I thought he had said that he wished that somebody had been his ‘lad’.
Anyway, on the long walk to the car in the rain, Aaron patted the old man affectionately on the back and mutter “proud of you dad”.
Now that to me is what rock and roll is all about.
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
The Roadie
Friday night’s gig reminded me once again why I would like to be a successful rock star.
Not for me the trappings of fame and fortune. Not the glory of being idolised by the masses. Not even the recognition of my industry peers, although that would be very nice.
No for me, the one thing I have always dreamed of in the context of being a world class rock star is that I would be entitled to a world class road crew.
The manager at Fridays venue pointed out, as it has been pointed out many times before, that we have considerably more equipment than any other band that he has playing there.
It is not particularly an ego thing. It is not necessarily that our guitarist has access to lots of kit at great prices and it not really that we are now in a position financially to be able to afford this kind of stuff. We need this amount in order to create the HUGE sound we are becoming known for (at least that is our excuse and we are sticking to it.)
However, this mountain of wood and wire comes with a price and on Friday it was a VERY heavy price.
We had to cart the lot up two flights of stairs across the whole length of the venue, nearly two hours set up (it was a tight space). Perform for two hours, Take it all back down again (that takes about an hour) and then lump the whole lot back across the venue, down two flights of steps to the truck where CJ was having to negotiate his way through a fleet of taxi’s that had taken up residence out side the venue in order that he could get close enough to the front doors (I think he would have still be there now had not a friendly bouncer taken pity on our man and threatened to rearrange the face of a driver who had point blank refused to get out of CJ’s way). Finally we had to pack the whole lot back into the truck, which is a feat of alchemy in itself that only CJ holds the secret to. I have never known any man or women pack so much stuff into such a tight space. Even my wife who is a genius at packing the holiday suitcases into the boot of a car would fail to compete with the wonder of CJ’s magic. You can, at a push, squash a suitcase or bag to get it to fit, you can’t do that with a Marshall 4 x 12 guitar speaker.
This was Friday. Saturday morning I felt like I had been driven over by the full length of a British Rail train. A long train that had been hauling coal, lots of coal.
It was as I gingerly hobbled around the house aching from every part of my body that was capable of aching that I longed for the days when I could have a crew of ‘Roadies’ that relieved this burden from my aching shoulders allowing me the luxury of the heaviest thing I would have to lift of a gig being the pre gig beer and of course my bass guitar.
I marvel at those live gig DVD’s of super groups like, say U2, when the band all appear to the rear of the stage in separate limos, go through their pre gig ritual and get on. Then as soon as the gig is finished they climb back into their limos and bog off leaving the road crew to de rig the lot.
I watched an interview with Jon Bon Jovi stating that he often gets very lonely after a gig sat in his hotel room with nobody to talk to. I thought, count yourself lucky pal, you could be risking your back as well as life and limb trying to haul your kit through a crowded pub into the awaiting disdainful embrace of a load of non English speaking taxi drivers….in the rain!
This is not to say that I have not had personal experience of roadies before, it is just that they were invariably as mad and unstable as the band and created no end of entertainment and chaos as opposed to the slick rigging and de rigging of equipment.
My first experience of the mystic roadie was when I was in a band called Amaziah. We all took a pay cut (we were playing full time by then) to employ our drummer’s best mate who was sick of working for the post office.
His first gig, in Belfast resulted in him falling off of the stage even before the gig had begun and breaking his ankle. So for the rest of the tour not only did we have to lug our own equipment we had to carry him.
He did alright though. Following the demise of Amaziah he went to work for Malcolm Hill a massive PA company and went on tour with Robert Palmer and AC/DC. I don’t think he finished the AC/DC tour though as his accident prone nature caught up with him and he fell of his motor bike (again) and smashed his fingers up.
He must have recovered as I last heard he is the front of house sound engineer for Status Quo and you may scoff but they always have a crystal clear PA mix so fair play to him I say.
Other roadie’s have been equally memorable damaging more equipment than we owned (I remember one guy leaping up and down on top of a venues extremely fragile stage rack mount, which would have bankrupt us had he have gone through the case…….it was the look of sheer blank non understanding that painted his face as the in-house sound guy screamed at him that said it all.
We have had roadies that have killed the vans, dropped guitars, wired all the equipment up back to front, got into fights, eaten all the food laid on for the band, nearly been murdered by band members, the lot.
And through this whole experience I have invariably and without exception had to carry my own flippin equipment. Where did I go wrong?
So the next time I listen to some ageing rock star moaning about a lack of things to do before or after gigs the DVD will be going in the bin.
Not for me the trappings of fame and fortune. Not the glory of being idolised by the masses. Not even the recognition of my industry peers, although that would be very nice.
No for me, the one thing I have always dreamed of in the context of being a world class rock star is that I would be entitled to a world class road crew.
The manager at Fridays venue pointed out, as it has been pointed out many times before, that we have considerably more equipment than any other band that he has playing there.
It is not particularly an ego thing. It is not necessarily that our guitarist has access to lots of kit at great prices and it not really that we are now in a position financially to be able to afford this kind of stuff. We need this amount in order to create the HUGE sound we are becoming known for (at least that is our excuse and we are sticking to it.)
However, this mountain of wood and wire comes with a price and on Friday it was a VERY heavy price.
We had to cart the lot up two flights of stairs across the whole length of the venue, nearly two hours set up (it was a tight space). Perform for two hours, Take it all back down again (that takes about an hour) and then lump the whole lot back across the venue, down two flights of steps to the truck where CJ was having to negotiate his way through a fleet of taxi’s that had taken up residence out side the venue in order that he could get close enough to the front doors (I think he would have still be there now had not a friendly bouncer taken pity on our man and threatened to rearrange the face of a driver who had point blank refused to get out of CJ’s way). Finally we had to pack the whole lot back into the truck, which is a feat of alchemy in itself that only CJ holds the secret to. I have never known any man or women pack so much stuff into such a tight space. Even my wife who is a genius at packing the holiday suitcases into the boot of a car would fail to compete with the wonder of CJ’s magic. You can, at a push, squash a suitcase or bag to get it to fit, you can’t do that with a Marshall 4 x 12 guitar speaker.
This was Friday. Saturday morning I felt like I had been driven over by the full length of a British Rail train. A long train that had been hauling coal, lots of coal.
It was as I gingerly hobbled around the house aching from every part of my body that was capable of aching that I longed for the days when I could have a crew of ‘Roadies’ that relieved this burden from my aching shoulders allowing me the luxury of the heaviest thing I would have to lift of a gig being the pre gig beer and of course my bass guitar.
I marvel at those live gig DVD’s of super groups like, say U2, when the band all appear to the rear of the stage in separate limos, go through their pre gig ritual and get on. Then as soon as the gig is finished they climb back into their limos and bog off leaving the road crew to de rig the lot.
I watched an interview with Jon Bon Jovi stating that he often gets very lonely after a gig sat in his hotel room with nobody to talk to. I thought, count yourself lucky pal, you could be risking your back as well as life and limb trying to haul your kit through a crowded pub into the awaiting disdainful embrace of a load of non English speaking taxi drivers….in the rain!
This is not to say that I have not had personal experience of roadies before, it is just that they were invariably as mad and unstable as the band and created no end of entertainment and chaos as opposed to the slick rigging and de rigging of equipment.
My first experience of the mystic roadie was when I was in a band called Amaziah. We all took a pay cut (we were playing full time by then) to employ our drummer’s best mate who was sick of working for the post office.
His first gig, in Belfast resulted in him falling off of the stage even before the gig had begun and breaking his ankle. So for the rest of the tour not only did we have to lug our own equipment we had to carry him.
He did alright though. Following the demise of Amaziah he went to work for Malcolm Hill a massive PA company and went on tour with Robert Palmer and AC/DC. I don’t think he finished the AC/DC tour though as his accident prone nature caught up with him and he fell of his motor bike (again) and smashed his fingers up.
He must have recovered as I last heard he is the front of house sound engineer for Status Quo and you may scoff but they always have a crystal clear PA mix so fair play to him I say.
Other roadie’s have been equally memorable damaging more equipment than we owned (I remember one guy leaping up and down on top of a venues extremely fragile stage rack mount, which would have bankrupt us had he have gone through the case…….it was the look of sheer blank non understanding that painted his face as the in-house sound guy screamed at him that said it all.
We have had roadies that have killed the vans, dropped guitars, wired all the equipment up back to front, got into fights, eaten all the food laid on for the band, nearly been murdered by band members, the lot.
And through this whole experience I have invariably and without exception had to carry my own flippin equipment. Where did I go wrong?
So the next time I listen to some ageing rock star moaning about a lack of things to do before or after gigs the DVD will be going in the bin.
Tuesday, 19 January 2010
A Bass Player by any other name
The big day arrived and the re-mixed version of the old Amaziah track, ‘Slowly’ landed on my doormat in the form of a vinyl 10” single and as a compilation track on a CD. All nice, remixed and full of life.
The best thing was; for the first time since I was 18 years old I could hear the bass guitar that I had played.
Sadly the original album had been so poorly mixed that the bass guitar was practically non existent and so for the first time in over 30 years (cough) the sound of my bass guitar playing shook the speakers of my car…..’like a good un’!
The only down side to this was that I was faced with the reality that as an 18 year old bass player I would have made a good brick layer.
To the trained ear you could tell that I was a) a complete novice and b) terrified.
I have always found the process of ‘recording’ really boring, however; I also find it an extremely stressful experience and when the sound engineer points towards you and mouths something like ‘rolling’, my buttock cheeks clench to the point where an ‘unclenching’ might possibly require surgery, my heart pounds fit to leave my chest and my whole body becomes as rigid as a garden hoe.
The problem was that this particular track ‘Slowly’ was supposed to have that funky kind of loose groove to it, the kind that bass players are supposed to love. However; to be brutally honest with myself my playing was as stiff as a McDonalds milkshake and quite frankly …….boring!
This whole experience has reminded me that despite having played the bass guitar in one form or another for the whole of my musical life, since I blagged my way into Amaziah at any rate, I have never acknowledged myself as a ‘bass player’.
I have always just been ‘standing in’ for a bass player that had quit or until a proper one could be found.
Even now with The Mudheads, with my limited edition Fender Bass guitar and a Marshall stack so large that it has snow on the peak and requires the services of a Sherpa to traverse the climb in order to ‘twiddle’ with the tone controls, I still would not consider myself a Bass Guitarist.
I have always, and I mean ALWAYS considered myself to be a Rhythm guitarist, despite the fact that the number of years I have performed in bands with said instrument could be counted in dog years.
Besides, my son and heir often remarks that as a guitarist I make a great bass player and as I have said…as bass player I make a great brickie!!
However; if you do not include all my acoustic guitar playing, I have spent the last seven years firmly planted in four string territory with no signs of change on the horizon.
Mind you, a real moment of pride for me, with a bit of a sting in the tail, was when Dave & Kev Steel from Amaziah came to see The Mudheads last year for the first time and remarked “Blimey it’s a shame you didn’t play the bass that well back in Amaziah days.
I think they meant it as a compliment…….but one can never be sure!
The best thing was; for the first time since I was 18 years old I could hear the bass guitar that I had played.
Sadly the original album had been so poorly mixed that the bass guitar was practically non existent and so for the first time in over 30 years (cough) the sound of my bass guitar playing shook the speakers of my car…..’like a good un’!
The only down side to this was that I was faced with the reality that as an 18 year old bass player I would have made a good brick layer.
To the trained ear you could tell that I was a) a complete novice and b) terrified.
I have always found the process of ‘recording’ really boring, however; I also find it an extremely stressful experience and when the sound engineer points towards you and mouths something like ‘rolling’, my buttock cheeks clench to the point where an ‘unclenching’ might possibly require surgery, my heart pounds fit to leave my chest and my whole body becomes as rigid as a garden hoe.
The problem was that this particular track ‘Slowly’ was supposed to have that funky kind of loose groove to it, the kind that bass players are supposed to love. However; to be brutally honest with myself my playing was as stiff as a McDonalds milkshake and quite frankly …….boring!
This whole experience has reminded me that despite having played the bass guitar in one form or another for the whole of my musical life, since I blagged my way into Amaziah at any rate, I have never acknowledged myself as a ‘bass player’.
I have always just been ‘standing in’ for a bass player that had quit or until a proper one could be found.
Even now with The Mudheads, with my limited edition Fender Bass guitar and a Marshall stack so large that it has snow on the peak and requires the services of a Sherpa to traverse the climb in order to ‘twiddle’ with the tone controls, I still would not consider myself a Bass Guitarist.
I have always, and I mean ALWAYS considered myself to be a Rhythm guitarist, despite the fact that the number of years I have performed in bands with said instrument could be counted in dog years.
Besides, my son and heir often remarks that as a guitarist I make a great bass player and as I have said…as bass player I make a great brickie!!
However; if you do not include all my acoustic guitar playing, I have spent the last seven years firmly planted in four string territory with no signs of change on the horizon.
Mind you, a real moment of pride for me, with a bit of a sting in the tail, was when Dave & Kev Steel from Amaziah came to see The Mudheads last year for the first time and remarked “Blimey it’s a shame you didn’t play the bass that well back in Amaziah days.
I think they meant it as a compliment…….but one can never be sure!
Friday, 8 January 2010
Black Plastic Gold
A very Happy New year to you all, I trust that it will be a blinder for you what ever happens.
Now that Christmas has sadly passed into a distant memory I must reflect upon the totally appropriate Christmas gift the present Mrs Rock God purchased for me. This was a record deck, a hi-fi turntable, something on which I can play my vast collection of Vinyl albums once more.
You may think that in this day and age of the CD or better still the MP3 player where I store my entire record collection from nearly forty years of musical fanaticism onto a machine the size of credit card, and it’s only half full, that the purchase of something as archaic as a ‘record player’ is a bit of a case of buying something for the sake of it.
However, there is method in my madness and the inspiration was very timely.
As I have mentioned several times in these pages, I used to perform in a band called ‘Amaziah’ and we recorded an album which has since become highly collectible.
Back in the summer I received an e-mail from a chap who being a DJ of note had with his colleagues been reflecting on the songs that had been the soundtrack of their youth. Blow me down but the guy has picked a song off of the Amaziah album and was requesting that he take the song, re-master it and then turn it into a 10” dance remix.
This has now been done and I eagerly awaited the finished result. I have never had the honour of having been ‘re-mixed’ before, let alone to become a dance track (talk about getting down with the kids).
The trouble of course was, like so many now, the 10” re-mix would be on vinyl and I would have had nothing to play it on. Problem solved, my wife had no idea what to buy me for Crimbo and a quick trip to Richer Sounds solved the problem in one go.
Of course, now I can play my old vinyls again I have been embarking upon a massive trip down memory lane, a journey which very much maps out my growth as a person and as a performer.
The very first album I purchased was ‘Alan Freeman’s a History of Pop’, which featured songs from both the 50’s and the 60’s. I have always maintained that I was grounded in good old fashion rock & roll and this record proved it.
My first ’45 single’ purchase (remember those seven inches of wonder which usually meant the investment of a couple of weeks pocket money and driving your parents crazy playing the same song over and OVER again) was not quite so auspicious. It was ‘Do you want to touch’ by Gary Glitter. Now in the light of recent years events the answer to that question would be a resounding ‘Absolutely NOT’, however; you have to remember that this was the 70’s and Glam was very much the thing and GG was the king of glam.
I hope that I redeemed myself with my second single purchase, which was ‘Part of the Union’ featuring an amazing honkey tonk piano solo by a then unknown keyboard player ‘Rick Wakeman (I was actually asked to tour with him as a support many years later, shame it didn’t actually happen in the end).
My album purchases started off being, shall we say, a tad embarrassing to say the least, however; I look back now with great fondness and pride. ‘Mud Rock Vol 1’, it cost me £1.99 and took me weeks to save up for. Listening to it now it sadly isn’t that great, but then it was the bees knees.
Does anybody remember ‘Top of the Poppers’? My copy was from 1972 and featured artists covering the hits of the day such as ‘Long Haired Lover from Liverpool’ by little Jimmy Osmond. ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing’ by the New Seekers and a song by a band I hadn’t heard of before but who blew my socks off, ‘Gud By T’Jane’ by a band called Slade.
From that point on I stopped buying pop records and purchased stuff that had more of a rock element to them. Of course anything and everything by Slade, I became and remained a HUGE fan (more of them at a later date), Status Quo, Deep Purple, Mott the Hoople and then a massive find deep in the middle of 1973 by an unknown band of the time ‘Queen’.
All these records I still keep and I intend to play them all again faithfully and religiously despite having virtually all of them on my Ipod (except ‘Top of the Poppers’ maybe). The thing is, as much as I adore the medium of digital music and downloads you just can’t recreate the sheer joy of cradling the album sleeve whilst you listen to your knew purchase that it has taken you weeks to save for and track down and purchase.
You also can’t recreate that gut wrenching moment when the damn thing sticks and then scratches right across the full length of the record leaving a pure white groove as it goes. Now that I don’t miss!!!!
Now that Christmas has sadly passed into a distant memory I must reflect upon the totally appropriate Christmas gift the present Mrs Rock God purchased for me. This was a record deck, a hi-fi turntable, something on which I can play my vast collection of Vinyl albums once more.
You may think that in this day and age of the CD or better still the MP3 player where I store my entire record collection from nearly forty years of musical fanaticism onto a machine the size of credit card, and it’s only half full, that the purchase of something as archaic as a ‘record player’ is a bit of a case of buying something for the sake of it.
However, there is method in my madness and the inspiration was very timely.
As I have mentioned several times in these pages, I used to perform in a band called ‘Amaziah’ and we recorded an album which has since become highly collectible.
Back in the summer I received an e-mail from a chap who being a DJ of note had with his colleagues been reflecting on the songs that had been the soundtrack of their youth. Blow me down but the guy has picked a song off of the Amaziah album and was requesting that he take the song, re-master it and then turn it into a 10” dance remix.
This has now been done and I eagerly awaited the finished result. I have never had the honour of having been ‘re-mixed’ before, let alone to become a dance track (talk about getting down with the kids).
The trouble of course was, like so many now, the 10” re-mix would be on vinyl and I would have had nothing to play it on. Problem solved, my wife had no idea what to buy me for Crimbo and a quick trip to Richer Sounds solved the problem in one go.
Of course, now I can play my old vinyls again I have been embarking upon a massive trip down memory lane, a journey which very much maps out my growth as a person and as a performer.
The very first album I purchased was ‘Alan Freeman’s a History of Pop’, which featured songs from both the 50’s and the 60’s. I have always maintained that I was grounded in good old fashion rock & roll and this record proved it.
My first ’45 single’ purchase (remember those seven inches of wonder which usually meant the investment of a couple of weeks pocket money and driving your parents crazy playing the same song over and OVER again) was not quite so auspicious. It was ‘Do you want to touch’ by Gary Glitter. Now in the light of recent years events the answer to that question would be a resounding ‘Absolutely NOT’, however; you have to remember that this was the 70’s and Glam was very much the thing and GG was the king of glam.
I hope that I redeemed myself with my second single purchase, which was ‘Part of the Union’ featuring an amazing honkey tonk piano solo by a then unknown keyboard player ‘Rick Wakeman (I was actually asked to tour with him as a support many years later, shame it didn’t actually happen in the end).
My album purchases started off being, shall we say, a tad embarrassing to say the least, however; I look back now with great fondness and pride. ‘Mud Rock Vol 1’, it cost me £1.99 and took me weeks to save up for. Listening to it now it sadly isn’t that great, but then it was the bees knees.
Does anybody remember ‘Top of the Poppers’? My copy was from 1972 and featured artists covering the hits of the day such as ‘Long Haired Lover from Liverpool’ by little Jimmy Osmond. ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing’ by the New Seekers and a song by a band I hadn’t heard of before but who blew my socks off, ‘Gud By T’Jane’ by a band called Slade.
From that point on I stopped buying pop records and purchased stuff that had more of a rock element to them. Of course anything and everything by Slade, I became and remained a HUGE fan (more of them at a later date), Status Quo, Deep Purple, Mott the Hoople and then a massive find deep in the middle of 1973 by an unknown band of the time ‘Queen’.
All these records I still keep and I intend to play them all again faithfully and religiously despite having virtually all of them on my Ipod (except ‘Top of the Poppers’ maybe). The thing is, as much as I adore the medium of digital music and downloads you just can’t recreate the sheer joy of cradling the album sleeve whilst you listen to your knew purchase that it has taken you weeks to save for and track down and purchase.
You also can’t recreate that gut wrenching moment when the damn thing sticks and then scratches right across the full length of the record leaving a pure white groove as it goes. Now that I don’t miss!!!!
Monday, 21 December 2009
Suffering for your art!!
Today is proof that miracles still happen at Christmas.
We have a new UK no 1 single, which due to sheer bullheaded promotion by the British public themselves isn’t a record from the X-Factor…..my joy is complete.
Add to this that my view from my office window is of a winter wonderland and it has to be said that I feeling slightly festive.
However; I didn’t feel quite so festive at the end of last week when we were called upon to perform our last gig of the year at Aaron’s local.
It’s a great place as they are always so friendly and enthusiastic towards us.
However, tonight there was a slight problem. My microphone kept on giving me electric shocks throughout the whole evening.
Despite swapping mics and leads throughout the set I maintained a steady stream of electrical jolts through my lips. Now not being one of those children that risked getting a stroke by licking the end of live batteries I have never been overly keen of getting electrical surges thrust unwillingly into my face.
My son and heir offered his usual hand of support and sensitivity to my painful plight and just rolled his eyes at his old mans obvious girl like behaviour in the face of unwelcome pain.
This gig was supposed to be a celebration in honour of the Christmas season; instead I was beginning to be in danger of looking like Beetlejuise at a Halloween party. Also, the prospect that one of these shocks could suddenly amp up the surprise a little and send me crashing back through the drum kit and CJ’s waiting embrace did not fill me with confidence. Remember people have died from being fried by their own Microphones (Suzie Quatro was rather dramatically electrocuted on an episode of Midsomer Murder…and yes, before you say it, I know that this particular scenario is ‘made up’). It was noted on several occasions that as I sang I was backing further and further away from my microphone with a look of uneasy concern written all across my face.
Anyway the result for me was that as opposed to rocking the night away full of Christmas vigour and rock & rill excitement I spent the night as the condemned prisoner on death row awaiting the throwing of the switch.
Talk about suffering for your art.
We have a new UK no 1 single, which due to sheer bullheaded promotion by the British public themselves isn’t a record from the X-Factor…..my joy is complete.
Add to this that my view from my office window is of a winter wonderland and it has to be said that I feeling slightly festive.
However; I didn’t feel quite so festive at the end of last week when we were called upon to perform our last gig of the year at Aaron’s local.
It’s a great place as they are always so friendly and enthusiastic towards us.
However, tonight there was a slight problem. My microphone kept on giving me electric shocks throughout the whole evening.
Despite swapping mics and leads throughout the set I maintained a steady stream of electrical jolts through my lips. Now not being one of those children that risked getting a stroke by licking the end of live batteries I have never been overly keen of getting electrical surges thrust unwillingly into my face.
My son and heir offered his usual hand of support and sensitivity to my painful plight and just rolled his eyes at his old mans obvious girl like behaviour in the face of unwelcome pain.
This gig was supposed to be a celebration in honour of the Christmas season; instead I was beginning to be in danger of looking like Beetlejuise at a Halloween party. Also, the prospect that one of these shocks could suddenly amp up the surprise a little and send me crashing back through the drum kit and CJ’s waiting embrace did not fill me with confidence. Remember people have died from being fried by their own Microphones (Suzie Quatro was rather dramatically electrocuted on an episode of Midsomer Murder…and yes, before you say it, I know that this particular scenario is ‘made up’). It was noted on several occasions that as I sang I was backing further and further away from my microphone with a look of uneasy concern written all across my face.
Anyway the result for me was that as opposed to rocking the night away full of Christmas vigour and rock & rill excitement I spent the night as the condemned prisoner on death row awaiting the throwing of the switch.
Talk about suffering for your art.
Friday, 11 December 2009
"So this is Christmas"
If I were a gambling man, which I’m not incidentally, I would lay good money on the fact that this years number one Christmas record will again come from the Simon Cowell, X-Factor school of music.
It wouldn’t be so much a gamble as a sound investment. However as the chance of said record reaching number one is a ‘dead cert’ then the odds would be pretty low and I would probably just get my money back with no interest.
I am not having another one of my monumental moans about X-Factor incidentally, I am just lamenting the disappearance of yet another British tradition of weeks of wonder culminating in everybody huddled around their transistor radios on the Sunday before Christmas to listen to the chart run down and to find who had made that hallowed spot that year.
When it’s already been set in stone by a 13 week promotional junket on national television and the press, it kind of loses its excitement.
I am in fact a big fan of Christmas music as well as Christmas itself and every year I hang on and fight the temptation to fling on a few Crimbo tracks before the end of November (this year I crashed and burned when feeling particularly stressed I stuck on a Christmas album by an American band called ‘Mercy Me’ about a week before December. Their rendition of ‘Rocking around the Christmas tree’ is second to none and it really cheers me up).
However, have you noticed that the majority of Christmas albums that are released every year are full of ‘Rat pack’ songs from the 50’s, with the 70’s as a stop gap and that is pretty much it (if you allow the timeless classic ‘A fairytale of New York, which came from the 80’s of course).
Is it that we have lost the vision for Christmas songs? That no matter how hard we sing ‘Let it snow, let snow’ it won’t. That the very mention of ‘A long time ago in Bethlehem’ will send councils across the nation into a state of sheer panic. That ‘Peace on earth, good will to men’ is but a fairy tale that we give to children and that most adults cynically no longer believe in. That ‘Last Christmas’ is likely to be as expensive as this one is turning out to be.
It is a sad fact that we do not seem to be producing the ‘Christmas Records’ that once we did (I know that I ought to mention the all time classic ‘A Millennium Prayer’ co written by our good friend and sparring partner Quick Sketch. However, as it is not strictly a Christmas record I will let that one slide…although it’s addition to any new Christmas compilation does help the Quick Sketch family eat during the dog days and long may it continue).
However, I refuse to give up on my favourite Christmas tunes no matter how cynical we become. The mere happening across a few notes of certain tunes can send me hammering back into the mists of time and memories of happier occasions.
‘So this is Christmas’ by John and Yoko never fails to transport me back to a school, disco in Hartcliffe school and the memory that all was well, and that these girl things, although not to be understood, were actually rather nice and that whenever I got close to one my heart rate would increase….strange that.
‘Slade’s ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ takes me to a party at the Railway Club at Templemeads Station in Bristol, where myself and good friend Bassbin had weekend jobs when were kids (we sold newspapers and the like on the platform…..ah, heady days). I remember bobbing my backside off at the party….and believe you me, this boy don’t dance (normally)
And I am not ashamed to admit that listening to Country Christmas songs by John Denver will always put me immediately into a very good Christmas mood indeed. You see my father was, and is, a huge John Denver fan and so Christmas in our house was not only a happy affair but had that county festive stuff as it’s sound track.
As I type this my Itunes on my PC is playing yet another version of ‘White Christmas’. I mean, it’s been covered more times than a hospital bed during a Norvo virus outbreak, but hey, this is nice gentle version by some Celtic women and so I am feeling relaxed and festive.
Long may it reign.
I wonder for those that are reading this, what Christmas songs ring a certain note with you and would you be brave enough to share it.
It wouldn’t be so much a gamble as a sound investment. However as the chance of said record reaching number one is a ‘dead cert’ then the odds would be pretty low and I would probably just get my money back with no interest.
I am not having another one of my monumental moans about X-Factor incidentally, I am just lamenting the disappearance of yet another British tradition of weeks of wonder culminating in everybody huddled around their transistor radios on the Sunday before Christmas to listen to the chart run down and to find who had made that hallowed spot that year.
When it’s already been set in stone by a 13 week promotional junket on national television and the press, it kind of loses its excitement.
I am in fact a big fan of Christmas music as well as Christmas itself and every year I hang on and fight the temptation to fling on a few Crimbo tracks before the end of November (this year I crashed and burned when feeling particularly stressed I stuck on a Christmas album by an American band called ‘Mercy Me’ about a week before December. Their rendition of ‘Rocking around the Christmas tree’ is second to none and it really cheers me up).
However, have you noticed that the majority of Christmas albums that are released every year are full of ‘Rat pack’ songs from the 50’s, with the 70’s as a stop gap and that is pretty much it (if you allow the timeless classic ‘A fairytale of New York, which came from the 80’s of course).
Is it that we have lost the vision for Christmas songs? That no matter how hard we sing ‘Let it snow, let snow’ it won’t. That the very mention of ‘A long time ago in Bethlehem’ will send councils across the nation into a state of sheer panic. That ‘Peace on earth, good will to men’ is but a fairy tale that we give to children and that most adults cynically no longer believe in. That ‘Last Christmas’ is likely to be as expensive as this one is turning out to be.
It is a sad fact that we do not seem to be producing the ‘Christmas Records’ that once we did (I know that I ought to mention the all time classic ‘A Millennium Prayer’ co written by our good friend and sparring partner Quick Sketch. However, as it is not strictly a Christmas record I will let that one slide…although it’s addition to any new Christmas compilation does help the Quick Sketch family eat during the dog days and long may it continue).
However, I refuse to give up on my favourite Christmas tunes no matter how cynical we become. The mere happening across a few notes of certain tunes can send me hammering back into the mists of time and memories of happier occasions.
‘So this is Christmas’ by John and Yoko never fails to transport me back to a school, disco in Hartcliffe school and the memory that all was well, and that these girl things, although not to be understood, were actually rather nice and that whenever I got close to one my heart rate would increase….strange that.
‘Slade’s ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ takes me to a party at the Railway Club at Templemeads Station in Bristol, where myself and good friend Bassbin had weekend jobs when were kids (we sold newspapers and the like on the platform…..ah, heady days). I remember bobbing my backside off at the party….and believe you me, this boy don’t dance (normally)
And I am not ashamed to admit that listening to Country Christmas songs by John Denver will always put me immediately into a very good Christmas mood indeed. You see my father was, and is, a huge John Denver fan and so Christmas in our house was not only a happy affair but had that county festive stuff as it’s sound track.
As I type this my Itunes on my PC is playing yet another version of ‘White Christmas’. I mean, it’s been covered more times than a hospital bed during a Norvo virus outbreak, but hey, this is nice gentle version by some Celtic women and so I am feeling relaxed and festive.
Long may it reign.
I wonder for those that are reading this, what Christmas songs ring a certain note with you and would you be brave enough to share it.
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Wild Horses
I was traversing the terrors that are the early morning rush hour on the way to work a few weeks back, relieving my growing stress levels by partaking of some breakfast radio when Sir Terry (that’s Wogan for those of you not in the know) played a song that was beautiful.
The song was originally written and sung by the Rolling Stones and was called ‘Wild Horses’. This time the song was stripped back and simply sung by what I assumed was some young Celtic princess from the school of Enya or Clannad.
To be honest it was so moving that it almost brought a tear to my eye. I certainly had a lump in my throat that’s for sure.
I nearly crashed the car when Sir Tel sited that this was the new single from Susan Boyle.
If you have been living in a cave for the past twelve months, on either side of the great Atlantic pond, then you would be forgiven for not knowing who Susan Boyle is.
However for the rest of she has become somewhat of a legend and has been entered for ever into the hall of fame for the greatest televisual moments.
The show was another one of those awful talent shows, Britain’s Got Talent, where the unsuspecting, pre-prepped wannabies are wheeled onto the national stage in order to make utter fools of themselves for the nations delight.
Susan Boyle was a wannabie that guaranteed to bring the television nation to its knees in a fit of collective hilarity.
She certainly had the look of somebody that had been ‘cared for’ for most of her life.
Nobody had told her that you are supposed to have two eye brows and not one. They had also failed to mention that white shoes definitely do not go with light grey dresses and black tights.
I spend 10 months working in a community care home. I had several clients who would have been dead ringers for Susan. And yet some friend of humanity thought it would be highly entertaining to present this vulnerable lady in front of a blood thirsty Simon Cowell for our pleasure and out she came.
The audience and judges in unison collapsed in mirth.
Simon politely, yet patronisingly asked what she would like to achieve from being on the show. She replied that she wanted to be a professional singer. By now, people were wetting themselves and were visibly having difficulty breathing.
She had opted to sing a song from Les Miserable’s. The nation thanked the Lord that she was not going to murder ‘Feelings’ or there could be a couple of fatalities in the audience.
Then she opened her mouth and sang.
I was sent the clip on Youtube, which was where I first saw it, and my reaction was pretty much the same as everybody else. Mouth wide open and staring in wonder.
This ‘special case’ had the voice of an Angel.
Immediately the laughter ceased and was replaced by a gentle sobbing. Many moved by the beauty of this ladies voice. Other’s moved to tears by the weight of their own guilt. They, like us all had judged this book by its cover and now we all felt collectively ashamed.
She didn’t go on to win the competition. Then again, it was almost guaranteed that she wouldn’t with the way these things work.
However, she has become stellar in her fame, especially in America.
Her debut album is the fasting selling début album of ALL time. She is now a house hold name.
Surprisingly the album is made up of mainly hymns and gospel classics including ‘How Great Thou Art’ made by famous by Evangelist’s Billy Graham's resident singer, George Beverly Shea. Not the sort of thing that the great British public would normally rush out to buy.
I wonder, could it be true as sited by comedian Russell Howard that everybody has rushed out to buy the album to ease their guilt and that every mother in the land will discover it in their Christmas stocking this year. I suppose the second album will prove or disproof this theory.
All I can say is ‘fair play’. Susan Boyle took the nations love of humiliating the under dog and she rammed it down their throats.
I don’t know what the future holds for her. The media alone would love nothing more than for her to have a massive meltdown, and if they can help make it happen they will.
I don’t know if she really is nothing more than a novelty act. I hope not.
Either way, her version of ‘Wild Horses’ is testament to substance over style and I for one salute her for it.
The song was originally written and sung by the Rolling Stones and was called ‘Wild Horses’. This time the song was stripped back and simply sung by what I assumed was some young Celtic princess from the school of Enya or Clannad.
To be honest it was so moving that it almost brought a tear to my eye. I certainly had a lump in my throat that’s for sure.
I nearly crashed the car when Sir Tel sited that this was the new single from Susan Boyle.
If you have been living in a cave for the past twelve months, on either side of the great Atlantic pond, then you would be forgiven for not knowing who Susan Boyle is.
However for the rest of she has become somewhat of a legend and has been entered for ever into the hall of fame for the greatest televisual moments.
The show was another one of those awful talent shows, Britain’s Got Talent, where the unsuspecting, pre-prepped wannabies are wheeled onto the national stage in order to make utter fools of themselves for the nations delight.
Susan Boyle was a wannabie that guaranteed to bring the television nation to its knees in a fit of collective hilarity.
She certainly had the look of somebody that had been ‘cared for’ for most of her life.
Nobody had told her that you are supposed to have two eye brows and not one. They had also failed to mention that white shoes definitely do not go with light grey dresses and black tights.
I spend 10 months working in a community care home. I had several clients who would have been dead ringers for Susan. And yet some friend of humanity thought it would be highly entertaining to present this vulnerable lady in front of a blood thirsty Simon Cowell for our pleasure and out she came.
The audience and judges in unison collapsed in mirth.
Simon politely, yet patronisingly asked what she would like to achieve from being on the show. She replied that she wanted to be a professional singer. By now, people were wetting themselves and were visibly having difficulty breathing.
She had opted to sing a song from Les Miserable’s. The nation thanked the Lord that she was not going to murder ‘Feelings’ or there could be a couple of fatalities in the audience.
Then she opened her mouth and sang.
I was sent the clip on Youtube, which was where I first saw it, and my reaction was pretty much the same as everybody else. Mouth wide open and staring in wonder.
This ‘special case’ had the voice of an Angel.
Immediately the laughter ceased and was replaced by a gentle sobbing. Many moved by the beauty of this ladies voice. Other’s moved to tears by the weight of their own guilt. They, like us all had judged this book by its cover and now we all felt collectively ashamed.
She didn’t go on to win the competition. Then again, it was almost guaranteed that she wouldn’t with the way these things work.
However, she has become stellar in her fame, especially in America.
Her debut album is the fasting selling début album of ALL time. She is now a house hold name.
Surprisingly the album is made up of mainly hymns and gospel classics including ‘How Great Thou Art’ made by famous by Evangelist’s Billy Graham's resident singer, George Beverly Shea. Not the sort of thing that the great British public would normally rush out to buy.
I wonder, could it be true as sited by comedian Russell Howard that everybody has rushed out to buy the album to ease their guilt and that every mother in the land will discover it in their Christmas stocking this year. I suppose the second album will prove or disproof this theory.
All I can say is ‘fair play’. Susan Boyle took the nations love of humiliating the under dog and she rammed it down their throats.
I don’t know what the future holds for her. The media alone would love nothing more than for her to have a massive meltdown, and if they can help make it happen they will.
I don’t know if she really is nothing more than a novelty act. I hope not.
Either way, her version of ‘Wild Horses’ is testament to substance over style and I for one salute her for it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)