On Saturday I made a quite a spontaneous trip to York to see Mick, June, Laura and Danny. It was a lovely cold, sunny day, but York was on the cusp of being flooded after having had a very rainy January.
We sat in the basement room of Betty's surrounded by wood panelling, drinking tea and eating fabulously cooked food. We had a lot of catching up to do, as always, and by the time I left we were all smiling and very glad we'd seen each other.
Sunday, I headed down to the Betsey Trotwood for the celebration of my brother James McCallum's life. I know we have to have funerals: they are an essential ritual that marks the end of a life. But the memories of the person haven't gone away, and I just thought that the legacy of sadness, that exhausting energy, should be diverted into something more positive, a musical get-together because James really did love a party! His son Alex's band Gillterwound had agreed to play, and Alex's guitar duo, Ephraim Maaler.
It was a task for the resident sound engineer, Joao, to set up Glitterwound, who are a seven-piece of multi-instrumentalists. 'Don't worry, they are a bit scared of me', I whispered to him. The day before they'd had a band in who had spent their sound check time rehearsing, and I think it had been a bit of a trial. Actually, Glitterwound's sound check was all done and dusted reasonably quickly. 'Stop chatting everyone', said Raz the bar owner. Paul and me also had a quick check before people started showing up. We were playing Freight Train with Alex guesting on trumpet, and Femme Fatale.
I'd had to rely partly on word-of-mouth that people would remember to come, even though Offsprog One had made a fabulous invitation. There was a brilliant turnout, with lots of people from the Camberwell days (Litza, Nat, Mark), Brighton (Pete Chrisp, Glen and Eric, and Claire), Mike from London days, Valerie, and loads of relatives. Cousin Pete came down from Northampton and absolutely roared through Donald Where's Yer Troosers wearing one of the hats that Paul had supplied (the red tartan ones with inbuilt ginger wig) as the whole pub got it completely wrong. It's one of those songs that's designed for getting wrong, isn't it?
When the band did a cover of James's song Nutty the Squirrel, emotion completely overcame me. He would have loved his party; he was a very loved man, and I'm glad we could get together and feel that again.
In the evening I went over the The Spice of Life for the Country Soul Sessions Robert Burns night. It was an early start, with poetry, haggis, neeps and tatties. NB Herd started the musical side of things with his strong, folk-influenced music: a band in a man. In between the music, there were readings from Rabbie and even a William McGonegall poem, a three-line wit. I'd learned Charlie is My Darling, a favourite from schooldays, and was delighted that people automatically joined in the chorus. I also sang Cailin Morun Sa a cappella and some of my own songs too. I love these nights that Drew and Alex put on. But I was so emotionally worn out by James's party that I had to leave early and was sad to miss Emma Scarr's set. I also left my hat behind, but they found it.
I've been battling against AI auto-correcting this posting. I've had to keep correcting it. Isn't that ironic? It wants to interfere and re-spell words that it doesn't know, in order to pull them into it's familiar territory, and it's been making me write nonsense. It's bad enough being dyslexic without all that going on! The computer thinks it knows best. How long before we abandon computers and just go back to pens and paper again?
Never celebrated Burns Night before? It's never too late to start! Loads of music and poetry from bands who really know how to make an evening convivial!
I'm learning my Burns song right now, and will also sing 'Cailin Morun Sa' A Capella
P.S. if you are coming to the afternoon to celebrate James's life, this is a separate thing to that- I'm doing both!
I have received a f*cking award for my embroidery! It will be at The Fishlab Gallery alongside work by the group members, from the 11th to the 16th February
I'd had a few sleepless nights before the gig, especially after the Friday before when I'd travelled over to Stoke Newington on a 73 bus to put up posters and found the library was temporarily closed. The bus kept stopping 'to regulate the service' or change drivers. How would people get there? And it is January. And a Thursday. And it was raining. And the Piccadilly Line wasn't working. I started to get a migraine.
Once we got there, being busy was a good distraction. I'd made a detailed tech spec and stage plan. Everyone would get to play for around ten minutes, sometimes sharing gear, microphones, and so on. We needed chairs for sitting out songs people weren't playing on or singing. The sound engineer Andre, and his assistant Dmitri, were ace. They set everything up without freaking out as the stars started to arrive.
It was a revelation in the sound checks to see just what everyone was going to do with their allotted time. Lester Square had missed the email about having a slot and he dashed home to pick up some poetry. Meanwhile, everyone else had a quick check. Terry Edwards' soundcheck was so hilarious that I burst out laughing and the migraine immediately disappeared.
People started appearing!
The first star on the stage was Ruth Tidmarsh. Ruth is so often behind the scenes as a bass player and backing vocalist, or making videos for people or doing photo sessions. Tonight, she was in the spotlight and she did herself proud. Her first song was sung over a backing tape, the second with me accompanying her on guitar (although I can't mimic her own playing). Not only are her songs really strong (I can't get The Teacher out of my head this weekend), but she has the most beautiful, clear, unaffected voice. I hope she does a lot more of this- I do hear plans are afoot to make new recordings of her songs and I hope those plans are realised, with Ruth steering the arrangements and productions, because she is bloody good at that too.
Robert Rotifer was next. He had flown in from Berlin for this gig, and he serenaded us with two of his wonderful songs. He is a really great songsmith with a distinctive vocal style and a big, big voice. I have always been struck by the passion in his singing. Robert is a political being who notices the way that the minutiae of life intersect with the enormous political forces that drive our lives. It is always worth listening closely to his lyrics and you could see the audience engaging with his songs, and his drive to perform them with authenticity and fury. A complete change of mood, but just as good.
Well, if the audience was resting on its laurels thinking they knew what was going to happen, they were soon toppled from their assumptions. Up came Karina Townsend, inflated yellow B&M rubber gloves stretched over black plastic tubing and a cacophonous bagpipe-like skirling and whining filling the room. No need for microphones here! The gloves took on a life of their own: waving at us, trembling, flapping, wobbling relentlessly. Would Karina manage to keep everything under control, or would the gloves win? The audience was on tenterhooks and didn't know whether to laugh or cry; most of them were crying with laughter! 'Squeeeee-eee-eeek! Whiiiii-iii-iiine!' What a wonderful way to blast the January blues out of the door and under a bus!
The mood did an about turn again with Jack Hayter's country blues. Jack has an amazing feel as a guitarist, and his songs are deceptive and quietly humorous with a strength in their style that meant that he could follow even yellow rubber glove bagpipes without the songs losing their force or meaning. As a performer, a quiet confidence emanates from the stage. He has things to tell the audience, and song is his means of communicating with them. I'm looking forward to our gig supporting Micko and the Mellotronics at the end of the month at the Aces and Eights in Tufnell Park.
Next, Lester Square took to the microphone. Again, an about turn in the mood: his poetry is short, sharp and funny. He did offer to let people escape and I'm glad nobody took him up on that. Gradually, people realised just how funny the stories were. His deadpanning had led them to believe that he was an earnest poet trying to earn their attention. Punchline after punchline started to hit home and you could imagine him laughing out loud himself as he shaggy-dogged his way to the end of the story. The one about opinions on Picasso's work was brilliant. Ayes to the left, Noes to the right. Genius!
I couldn't work out why Terry Edwards had asked to borrow my guitar, but discovered why in the sound check. Honestly, I almost laughed my head off my neck. He did a couple of blues numbers for the crowd, the second of which involved a combo of squealing sax misery and vocal bellowing. Where did that enormous voice come from? Terry is quiet and well-mannered normally. The voice of a tortured bull roared form the stage as he expressed his misery about his Baby Done Gone. Terrifying- or perhaps Terry-fying! Open-mouthed, the audience wondered whether it would be a mistake to find his lost love for him. Maybe he would sing and play sax at her like this, which would not be a good idea at all. Poor Baby.
Last but definitely not least was Gina Birch. She gave it her all as she sang completely solo with an electric guitar I Am Rage and the Feminist Song. Over time her live performances have developed a considerable degree of sophistication, which has been wonderful to witness. But it was great to see and hear her in this simple and direct format, colourful, loud and thrashing that guitar as if there were no tomorrow. There was a spontaneity here that was almost as though the songs were being written as she sang them, and this is actually the songwriter's ideal- to be raw and live and fearless and in people's faces. It was a brilliant performance.
Oh phew and after all that... it was my turn!
We'd never played Sixties Guy live before and Robert had been in Berlin when me and Ruth rehearsed it, but I think we did fine, mainly because I remembered all the lyrics. How did that happen? One of the tortures of the week before had been a complete inability to remember the words. I'd just get one verse learned and then forget another one. But I think it sounded OK (please don't tell me it didn't!). Then we did Puppet, and Metaforte, by which time Karina was on stage and singing too. We did Almost There, at the correct speed, then Lester Square joined us for It Wasn't Me. At this point, I have to say that half of the band hadn't met the other half until this show. So Lester hadn't met Jack or Robert or Karina or Terry, and I don't think Terry had met Gina. One of the intriguing things was watching and listening as different bits of the band jigsawed together. We played The Ginger Line with an admirable overcoming of melodica-fear by Karina, and with Gina now joining us on backing vocals, and the The Porter Rose at Dawn with Jack on lap steel (oh, that sound!). By Reaching for Hope we'd all got into our groove, and I dared to notice that out there we had a pretty good crowd who seemed to be really enjoying themselves. We'd learned The Sea because it is a necessary song in these times, and we had a really, really hearty audience singalong for that one. Lester and Jack had worked out complimentary parts to augment it all, and from where I was standing it sounded epic. And we did Women of the World (yay Terry for working out the trumpet parts I'd written by singing them on to a phone a few years ago, and for letting rip with a fabulous improvised section too). We finished with Three Cheers for Toytown, with everyone on stage joining in, and quite a lot of tuneful roaring from the audience.
We were too knackered to do an encore, at least I was. What an amazing night! And despite the tempting and free Ray Stevenson exhibition in central London, we had a pretty good turnout. John and Gabi from Tiny Global had flown over from Valencia, and Ian from Damaged Goods also came along. Miki Beryeni, Jowe Head and Lucy O'Brien came, and Terry Tylseley and Geoffrey Harvey Pinball Man from the Repair Shop. Mike came up from Brixton but went home because he was poorly. My Champagne and Artist friends came all the way from Lewisham and Dulwich respectively, and it was a lovely surprise to see them. Chris and his partner came, and Paul Eccentric and Donna. And Richard Boon and his partner. And Offsprog Two and her partner. And more, and more. It was good!
Big Luv to Caryne and Dave for putting on this gig (and many others). There are videos on Youtube. I loved it. It's January, and I'm happy. It had to happen in January because people are going on tour- big thank you to everyone who played, for giving the night 200% of themselves!
I think every performer on the bill is doing something unfamiliar and challenging, but our rehearsals have been simply wonderful! I have given up on being nervous. This isn't a repeatable event so do please join us if you can!
It kicks off at 8.50: we have a lot to fit in. These are such brilliant and unique musicians and I can't wait to see what they come up with in their mini-sets.
We will join together in various manifestations for a set of songs from Showtunes from the Shadows and more at 9.30.
Still tickets available at the door is you feel like some January joy!
I can't believe it's been so many days since I last did a posting.
Submitting my accounts took up a day, then a fruitless journey to Stoke Newington to put up posters and finding that the library has closed so there wasn't really a space for the poster anywhere...
I've been rehearsing a lot for the gig this week, and learning Ruth's songs. My fingers are thick with callouses with all the playing, and my brain is frazzled with learning lyrics for songs that I haven't really played yet. I'm really looking forward to the gig, which is giving every indication of being an almost-party, but trying not to think of the things that might go wrong.
I've already slipped and fallen over on the ice, but apart from some aches and pains and torn trouser-knee, things seem to be OK.
And an embroidery that I did has been shortlisted in a competition. More about that later.
Chairs set up, amps at the ready, jacket potatoes cooked, crisps purchased, vegetables roasted...
This afternoon, Ruth and Lester Square will be over to rehearse It Wasn't Me. Exciting!
This evening, Gina will be over to rehearse backing vocals and melodica, and tomorrow Ruth will be here again so I can learn her duo of songs for next week's gig.
Today's going to be a long day, but rehearsing like this is really nice.
In other news, the fox has eaten through the lid of the compost bin and tried to nab the crust of a quiche from last week. I've piled plant pots on top of it for now. The fox itself is sleeping on the roof where the cats normally congregate. Everything recalibrates in cold weather.
