Coming Up In November In Glasgow

Only just over a month away! I hope I know all the words of my new songs off by heart by then!

Support is from songwriter extraordinaire Lorraine Lucas

Tickets here: https://wegottickets.com/f/26674

A Flying Visit

Yesterday, I hopped on a train to Newcastle to interview Molly Tie for a pilot Community Radio show. I will divide it into two sections: A Postcard From Newcastle, and a Postcard To Newcastle. On Friday, I'm due to interview Johny Brown of the Band of Holy Joy, who was brought up in North Shields and has relocated to London. Molly has moved to the Toon from Portsmouth, and her 'postcard' is all about what she has discovered since she has been there.

Molly did a really great interview: she said lots of really interesting things. I will be putting it all together next week. 

It was a lovely sunny day, and I whizzed up Northumberland Street hoping for a haircut at Wildes, which unbelievably has been there since I was seventeen. I had a cut there when I was working at the RVI in the X-ray darkroom on another very hot summer years ago. Alas, it was closed because it's relocating to Blackett Street.

I had a quick dip into Fenwick's (their store detective followed me around last time because I had my fave scruffy green cord jacket on, so I'd dressed posh for the occasion). 

We had chatted for a longer time than I'd thought so the Grainger Market was closing and so was Mark Toney's, but it was so refreshing to be there. I still find new nooks and crannies on every visit, even though it was my stamping ground as a teenager.

Big thanks to Molly: we will be on a panel together at Louder Than Words in November, along with Penny Kiley. I'm looking forward to that a lot- and to interviewing Zoe Howe about her revisited book The Story of the Slits.

One Of Those Days

Tissue in the washing machine.

Pearly Queen Watches Magician

 

Next Gig! Matinée At The Betsey Trotwood

https://wegottickets.com/f/22135

Tricky Song Finished

A tricky song, hours of trouble, hours of strife. 

It wouldn't sound right and it wouldn't look right either (it was the sound waves: they looked like scrumpled-up paper) 

Then

It worked

Phew.

Mouldy Warburtons Toastie On The Ground, Gypsy Hill

 

50 Years Of She-Punk, And Contributions To The Documentation Of Hidden Women Musicians

I registered the words she-punk in 2018 when it became apparent that the words were being exploited commercially without proper acknowledgement of the fact that they originated with me. In academia this is called plagiarism.

You might not believe it, but the term didn't exist until 2015 when Gina Birch and me proposed a documentary idea to Andy Linehan at The British Library, followed up by a commission to show the work-in-progress of Stories From The She-Punks: Music With A Different Agenda at The British Library's celebration of 40 Years of Punk in 2016. He asked us for a title and I thought of it the same day- a riposte against the tabloid term of the time, 'punkette' (yeuch) which I'd had a few conversations with, including with Zillah Ashworth of Rubella Ballet (an east London punk band), who had also made a film about punk women, She's a Punk Rocker. The difference is that ours focuses primarily on instrumentalists, with interviews with many of the women I'd spoken to for my book The Lost Women of Rock Music- female musicians of the punk era.

Here's a link to the event in 2016: https://web.archive.org/web/20201108112648/https://www.bl.uk/events/stories-from-the-she-punks

Here's a link to the film, in case you haven't seen it yet- it's very DIY, very easy to dip into, and features women from those first punk bands from lots of different places in the UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zki9nj8tjZA&t=1393s

Here's a link to Zillah's film too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHoJHMV0ybA&t=3s

The term she-punk seems to have entered the vernacular, which is a good thing (I think), but isn't it ironic that a woman who has spent a lifetime making 'invisible' women instrumentalists visible (not just punks, but also engineers and producers) is being rendered invisible years later? 

You might be interested in this book if women instrumentalists in punk bands are an inspiration to you (I do sometimes have these books at my gigs):

https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-lost-women-of-rock-music/helen-reddington/9781845539573

And this one if you're interested in why it's important that we have female sound engineers and producers as well as men (incidentally, that sound wave is someone saying 'she's at the controls'):

https://www.waterstones.com/book/shes-at-the-controls/helen-reddington/9781781796511

However, I am delighted that women punk musicians are being brought to the forefront in the anniversary celebrations: hats off to everyone involved, then and now. 

Businessmen In Blue Suits Having A Street Meeting (unfinished)

 

Silly

1. I made a messy sandwich that was slopping all over the place.Tucking the plate close to my chin so I didn't drop food all over the place, I failed to notice that the flap of my shirt pocket had slipped between the slices of bread, and took a big bite of fabric.

2. I thought a box of spring bulbs had been delivered about ten days ago. The box was in the bathroom. I've just opened it to see what recommended dates they gave for planting, as I fancied an afternoon's potting. It was a box of records and CDs from Tiny Global. They are no longer trading, and had kindly sent me the remaining stock.

Caroline Trettine At The Waiting Room, And More

After a long, slow bounce from north to south and back again (wonderful children's collaborative song writing session in the afternoon!), I was glad to see The Waiting Room waiting for its evening concert. Katy Carr was doing her soundcheck as I arrived, with Tamara the superstar sound engineer who can get a sound out of a carrot and make it beautiful. 

The idea of shouldering two guitars had beaten me and the nylon-strung guitar was multitasking. Alas, its internal amplifier failed and Tamara had to mike it up instead. Musicians always inadvertently look for signs of irritation when sound engineers are challenged by things like this but all was calm and smooth, not only for me but also for Caroline's motley crew of musicians (there was to be a line-up change halfway through).

Soon we were all ready, and John Hegley kicked off the evening with a very apt song about two bus conductors who fell in love with each other. Men. Years ago, he came in to talk to the University of Westminster students and he has lost none of energy and wit in the intervening years. 

Katy had been invited by Caroline to concentrate on some of her earlier material and it was actually lovely to hear those songs again; John joined her for Turpin, the duelling mandolin and uke sounding spot-on. 

The venue had filled up with a lot of people, many of them friends. James and Bettina were there, Valerie, a lot of the Scaledown crowd. There was a warm atmosphere to play to and although I'd used up a pile of energy being a song writing facilitator in the afternoon, the audience replenished all that and it was a really nice experience. I do love The Waiting Room.

Next on was James Hutchins Daniels, a solo artist who told us that he loved David Bowie. But in his songs, I heard Anthony Newley, Scott Walker and a snifter of Jacques Brel. He was a real chordsmith, and despite denying the fact, a storyteller also.

Then it was time for Caroline's songs with her first set of musicians. She had an acoustic bass guitar player, which was an unusual and very apt addition to her music. It's hard to describe her persona on stage: she seems to tap into a flow of strength and stillness that makes her quite mesmerising to watch and listen to. Her musicians are clearly alongside her; there was no 'sessioning' going on. In the second line-up, Dave Chapman (a fellow Blue Aeroplane and a fellow colleague at UEL, where he taught film) and Mark Braby (Scaledowner-in-Chief) joined on bass guitar and electric guitar respectively, and the texture of the music changed. The cello player was fabulous, as were the backing vocals. Nobody overpowered the overall sound and there was space for Caroline to carve her vocal melodies into the flow of music quite perfectly.

The day had had its hectic moments, but by the end of the evening it felt like it had been rather  a beautiful and hopeful day. Caroline's latest album Hymn to the Light Universe is well worth a listen.

Karina had offered me one of Lorraine Bowen's spare tickets to see The Would-Be-Goods and Railcard in Brighton on Sunday. Lorraine had suddenly been asked to be the half-time entertainment at The Alternative Miss World in Regent's Park. How could I resist a day out in Brighton with Karina? We met at London Bridge at the everybody-play organ where she was creating all sorts of interesting tones, much to the interest of fellow travellers. After chips on the pier (none for you, seagull!) we wandered up to the Railway Club, which is one of those venues that lives in a bubble of its own time and place regardless of the miseries of the world. 

Just in time for the Would-Be-Goods! Their songs are short, crisp and perfect and always a joy to listen to. Railcard were also on form and the adventures of Alison locked in the toilet were an added bonus. What great vocal arrangements they have. I like the judicious use of unison singing, where the textures of their voices do the work. This is very much on my radar, with the stuff I'm mixing at the moment.

Speaking of which, I've just tried out three separate bass lines for a song that I thought needed bass on it, and I've now decided it doesn't. I'm not even convinced that I need to replace as many vocals as I'd thought. One guitar part, perhaps, and some of the songs have mixed themselves while I wasn't watching (or listening). Funny how they do that. Just a bass part from Ruth Tidmarsh to come and then I can start shuffling it all about, tying up loose ends, a bit of vocalising and playing, but chiefly learning the words for the gig on the 11th October!

The Darkside Truth

It's been a very busy few days, and I will post about it all possibly tomorrow. Today, however, there are myriad things to do- firstly to post about the next gig on Sunday October 11th at The Betsey Trotwood at 2 p.m.

Robert Rotifer will be playing sofas (shall I just leave that? Autocorrect has gone bonkers!) from his album Radical Friendship Theory, and I'll be playing a brand new set of songs from my forthcoming (and as yet, homeless) album The Darkside Truth, which is an account of the early Brighton punk scene from a very personal perspective.

History books (and also groups of older scenesters) gravitate towards the idea that there is only one story to tell, but everyone who experiences a youth movement from inside it has a completely different account of it. 

I won't write here and now about why these songs suddenly materialised, but there is so much more to say, and there's a documentary about the Brighton punk scene to be shown later this year. I haven't seen the whole thing yet, but it's going to be a dude of a doc.

Anyway, the artwork for the cover of the album is finished before the mixing! 

Here it is again, and here is the ticket link: https://wegottickets.com/f/22135

Tonight At The Waiting Room

https://dice.fm/event/yow2w2-caroline-trettine-12th-sep-the-waiting-room-london-tickets

Looking forward to this unique night!

Invisible Photographs

For some reason, Blogger's not uploading photographs at the moment. I have a great photo of Gran's banjo, which I went to collect yesterday and which has a new bridge, tuning peg and fake-gut strings. It sounds lovely. I can't remember how to play one, but it can sit beside me on the sofa until I work it out!

Well, there you go. You now have to upload your photos to the Google Drive. What a fuss.

I wonder how long it will be until people stop using the Internet altogether?

Reminder To Self

This is a reminder-to-self to always make my own audio recording of Zoom calls in which agreements are made, because the link to the recording made by the other party won't turn up in your inbox. Stealing ideas is unethical; flaunting the fact is dishonourable. That is all I have to say on the matter.