Walking Scotsman

 

Nest Gig: Glasgow Old Hairdresser's, Thursday 12th November

No sooner have I caught my breath after last week's three documentary film panels, then next week's gigs, panel and interview are rearing their beautiful heads.

I've approved the album masters too.

There is always a spanner in the works though, isn't there? I found out that my 'sore finger' is actually a broken finger, and spent many of the daylight hours last week on a tour of Accident and Emergency facilities to end up with a customised splint and instructions not to remove it at all until it's replaced next week. I've worked out that I can play half my set live on the nylon-strung guitar, and will run the rest from my laptop using the mixes that I've spent the summer completing (they do sound rather snazzy), singing over the top and storytelling around the edges.

This means that I played the Betsey Trotwood gig with a broken finger. How punk is that? 

It doesn't really hurt enough to feel broken, but the x-ray doesn't lie. So I had to get the guitar pickup checked over, and restring it, and then check the type of leads that you need to run a laptop into a PA system and get hold of those. All done, when really I should have been learning the words to the new songs. Oh busy!

Maybe this is why I've been incredibly lazy over the past two days, mostly reading, eating chocolate and sleeping. 

So the gigs are Glasgow Old Hairdresser's on Thursday 14th November and Todmorden Three Wise Monkeys on Friday 13th, followed by a panel with Penny Kiley and Molly Tie (chaired by John Robb) at Louder Than Words in Manchester the following day and interviewing Zoe Howe about her revised book about The Slits on Sunday, plus four mini-sets on both days before other panels and interviews.

The experience of the documentary screenings, both Punk Brighton and Stories from the She-Punks, has really validated the new song project. I could sit in a corner and meep over the finger issue, but actually I feel energised by the whole palaver. 

At the beginning of last week I felt like Brighton's West Pier: every time it's stormy, a bit falls off. This week I feel: stick it all back together again, get me hair cut and maybe even dye it red! 

How will you know if I do? 

You'll have to come to a gig to find out!

Advance tickets for Glasgow here, but also available on the door: https://wegottickets.com/f/26674

Todmorden is free, but there will be a pass-the-hat service, I believe.

In the Café

 

Screening of 'Stories from the She-Punks' at The Museum of Youth Culture

We were invited to show the documentary as part of the Up Yours! Collective's celebration of Poly Styrene's life on Sunday evening. At first I wondered if it might be better for Gina to do the presentation herself, but she asked me to join her. The moderator Marie Aleth Skov was perfect for the panel, because she is an academic based at the University of Aarhus in Denmark and as such was able to have a neutral overview of what the film is about, and the ways in which it relates to the punk community of 50 years ago.

We were perched on a huge sound-system for the Q&A session, and talked about the origins of the film and what we'd brought to it as individuals- and the wonderful screening we had at The British Library in 2016. Some of the musicians from the documentary came along- Enid Williams came all the way from Hastings, and Gaye Black was there. It was a varied audience in terms of age and gender, which was really good. I don't think many people had seen it before.

The Museum of Youth Culture is housed in a lovely building that has just enough of the meanwhile space about it to make it feel very friendly, which I greatly appreciated. They have an extensive education programme and a team of paid volunteers: it must take a lot of energy to run it. The Up Yours! Collective have put together an extensive exhibition of art, photographs and music that illustrates the London end of punk comprehensively, and that is proving very popular. It's free to get in to the exhibition and there is a very accommodating café there too.

You can watch the film here now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zki9nj8tjZA&t=2103s

Folkestone

Yesterday I went to Folkestone with Joan to visit a lovely house on the seafront at Sandgate with panels of framed Delft tiles on the walls. It was very sociable and such a change from the rest of the week; we sketched our favourite tiles and chatted with our host, who delighted in showing us around his very historic house and garden. It was a lovely glimpse into different world.

The sunset was beautiful, and you could faintly see Dungeness in the distance.

Punk Brighton Screenings

On Wednesday, I went to the Duke of York's Cinema in Brighton to watch Kevin Wright's Punk Brighton documentary. It's been 15 years in the making and quite a few years ago a whole bunch of us met up at the Prince Albert to be filmed yakking about our own experience of punk in Brighton.

I wan't sure how it would turn out- I think Kev was born in 1983- but he had done loads of research. It wasn't just masses of old photographs: he'd found audio of Vi Subversa talking, some footage of Peter and the Test Tube Babies, and basically did a whole slice of the scene complete justice. It was a real coup to get Rose Barnard talking about The Mockingbirds, a band of women fed up with being left looking after the kids while their husbands and partners were off making music with their bands- so they made their own band, and had quite a degree of local success, including a track on one of the Vaultage albums. It was obvious how different we all were from each other, and it was touching to see Darris Golinski paying tribute to the Piranhas. There was a substantial section on Rock Against Racism that featured Tony Greenstein talking about taking on the National Front. He used to live upstairs in the squat in Lansdowne Square, and so we had a lot of conversations back then. Even he had a guitar, but he was definitely a Dylan fan; you'd hear him singing away some evenings. There was also a section with Attila the Stockbroker and Norman Cook talking about the campaign to build a new Brighton football ground, using a cover of The Piranhas Tom Hark, which charted and would have been number one if Busted hadn't broken up that week! I had a teary moment seeing photos of The Chefs with James in them. How he would have loved this film.

It was very well-received- the cinema was full. Tracy Preston came, and it was lovely that Sara Furse could come to (one of the first bands I was was her band No Man's Band, with Ian Loeffler in a dress playing guitar so he fitted in with the girls. And that was before punk even hit Brighton!

I had to rush back to London straight afterwards but could see Phil and Barb there, Hoggins, Stu Jones, Suzy Horne, and of course Dave Barnard and Del Ford who both did the Q&A with Kevin and I, hosted by Jak Hutchcraft.

On Thursday, the documentary was shown at The Rio in Dalston to a much smaller but I think equally appreciative audience (hello Terry, and Rob!). My friend the artist Charlotte Worthington came, and remembered that she'd been in a band called Austin and the A40s, again before punk started. I was sole panel member (just a pan?), interviewed by Karen Shook, and we carried on talking all the way back to Highbury and Islington. Oh, you awful dirty music industry! I had an epiphany about an unexpectedly flirty message I'd received from a married, and supposedly very worthy, songwriter. Oh deary me. 

Next Gig: Glasgow Old Hairdresser's

Only two weeks to go!

What was punk really like in 1977?
Not anything like the nostalgic memories would have you believe. This new set of songs tells it like it was, from the frontline.Glasgow Old Hairdresser's, 12th November
with Lorraine Lucas
Presented in conjunction with Glas-Goes Pop
Tickets: https://wegottickets.com/f/26674/
Photo: Jeanie Jean, from Rebellion Punk Music Festival Almost Acoustic stage where I played the fledgeling songs. This time I'll be standing up- and won't need the words (I hope!)

Good News

Also, I have some great news. the label Spinout Nuggets will be releasing The Darkside Truth in April next year. I sent the final mixed tracks to Lee Grimshaw a couple of day ago, and it's all systems go! 

They will be mastered by Ian Button, and then I'll get the artwork sorted properly.

Here are the pre-release gigs before Christmas, when I'll be taking a break for a couple of months to sort out a tour to support the release:

12th November: The Old Hairdresser’s, Glasgow, with Lorraine Lucas

https://wegottickets.com/f/26674

13th November: Three Wise Monkeys, Todmorden with the Sunbathers (free entry)

14/15th November: Louder Than Words, Manchester 4 mini-sets before interviews

22nd November: Knowle Constitutional Club, Bristol with Anna Kissell (donations)

26th November: 12 Degrees Micro Brewery, Rochester with Allan Crockford (free entry)

29th November: Servant Jazz Quarters, London supporting Nat the Hammer, Quantum Flirts album launch https://wegottickets.com/f/29241/

18th December: Prince Albert, Brighton with Asbo Derek

https://wegottickets.com/f/23920

Walking In The Rain

When autumn comes, you have to grab it by the windy, rainy horns. Yes, it's tempting to sit inside with a cup of tea and watch whatever grot the TV throws at you, or read an Ian Rankin book for the umpteenth time. But if you do that, then that is going to be your fate for the whole winter. You need to be out there in the weather wearing the Weather Clothes, striding through the puddles and allowing the rain to completely soak your trousers, probably.

What was tempting was the exhibition in the quirky little The Gallery of Everything of work by Sam Doyle. It's not just the 'story' behind the paintings (he grew up on St Helena Island, South Carolina and painted on scrap metal that he found about the place). It's that they are absolutely gorgeous- the colours, the sheer stylishness of his work. In a funny sort of way they remind me of mediaeval illuminated manuscripts: there is a formality about them even though they have rough surfaces and some occasional splodginess. I don't care a fig for the hype around the Bayeaux Tapestry (saw it when I was a nipper in France, then went to see the perfectly serviceable censored version in Reading Museum with the Offsprogs a couple of years ago). I care a fig for these lovely paintings. I wish I was rich because I would buy one if I was.

Yes, I got absolutely soaked, but it was worth it.

Mixing Book And Me

I realised that what made it take such a long time was having a different sound and a different vocal mood for each song- you couldn't just choose a setting and have it the same all the way through, like you can with some records. One more headphone listen later, and then it's going to be uploaded for sending off to be mastered.

Finished Mixing!

I think I have!

It's been quite a challenge because each of the song has a very different mood. Today I even sang one for about the fifth time. I spent ages getting things in time and listening out for 'holes' in the sound.

I will have to have another couple of listens, but it really is finished. Now what shall I do?

Knitting At A Desk In The Shop

 

Friday 13th November at Three Wise Monkeys, Todmorden

 

Hosted by Miss Airedale, AKA Phil Fowler, who used to saw people in half for us when we did Dr Calamari's Music Hall of the Macabre

British Birds At Rough Trade West

Over the past few months, tracks by British Birds have consistently made my ears prick up when I've been drawing along to Riley and Coe's show on BBC6.

Despite the tourists taking selfies on the street down to Portobello Road, very little has changed over the years: there are still stalls selling bunches of silver cutlery tied up in bundles, boxing gloves with a stall to themselves, vintage magazines, old-fashioned china tea-sets, hats, grumpy stall holders and a line of very cheap fruit and vegetable stalls. 

Gentrifying cafés struggle to fight against the waves of tat and the determinedly working class vibe, especially at the Golborne Road end. A splatter of rain began to fall; destination Rough Trade West!

In the shop (I think it's the same people in there too!) Rob and Amelia were there supporting the band as they set up. I bought an vinyl album, which means I'll have to set up the record player again after deconstructing the kitchen and having the floor replaced. It's good to have a reason to do so.

The band set up amongst the racks of records, the punters flowed in (a very large number from Lancashire, home of the band, apparently), and they started with their catchiest two songs. 

Listening to music like this is a very welcome relief from mediated PA-system gloss. You could have heard a pin drop. The electric guitar, bass and electronic keyboard were very slightly amplified but the vocals weren't at all, so you could hear the care that has gone into the vocal arrangements. It helps that the singers sing perfectly in tune and have exquisite timing. It was just lovely in its apparent informality, but you can only really do something like this if you are very, very good musicians. Hats off to the drummer, who never drowned the sound and who had the light touch of a marching band drummer that I last heard when I was teaching some Nepalese students at UEL (they made the most incredible wonky hip hop, but that's another story).

There was just the right amount of good natured banter too. They charmed the crowd without being twee, and their lyrics had a surprising amount of darkness, which was really appealing: lyrical honesty seems to shore up the positivity we all need so much at present. The opposite should be true, but actually telling it like it is seems to help.

I heard echoes of Orange Juice and even the Beatles, but ultimately I felt that they had created a musical (the time and pitch changes were sometimes quite theatrical) whose songs floated up into the clouds and drifted like a hot air balloon. There was a feathery lightness to the whole show that was utterly unique. 

This is their album: https://britishbirds.bandcamp.com/album/murmurate-oscillate

Woman Cleans Big Window