I've 'laid down' the guitars for the last song of the album, and also re-recorded the guitar parts for another song and made them worse.
It's time to watch Boon, nestled as it is between ads for funeral plans, will pledges and stairlifts. How cheery! The approaching full stop of life has never looked so enticing!
Might have another go at those guitars after Boon. In the afternoon, after Boon. Ha ha!
It's so peculiar- I feel as though I have been away for months, but it's only been three days.
On Saturday afternoon I went to Dumfries by train, via Carlisle. As usual, the west coast service was late (the doors got stuck at Preston and we then followed a slow train up the line, they told us). I caught the Dumfries train by the skin of my teeth. Many drunken Scotsmen and their families were on board, talking at maximum volume. A young girl sat opposite me and smiled, then did a bunk at Gretna Green after the conductor asked for her ticket.
The hotel was very 'Blackpool'. There were no batteries in the TV remote, the curtains didn't close, and the used tissue with lipstick on it told a story of unwashed sheets. Oh, the joys of travelling. I also forgot the toothpaste and had to brush my teeth with bubblebath. Delicious, refreshing!
There are three buses to Gatehouse Of Fleet from Dumfries on Sundays. Apparently the dastardly company Stagecoach used to run the service, but pulled out after they asked the council for more money and the council said 'no'. But in Scotland the buses show up and fill up, gradually. It was an easy journey.
The Galloway countryside is completely beautiful: it is lush, intensely green and it undulates with small hills. At Castle Douglas, a huge bull made of wicker glowered across the park at the bus full of Sunday morning travellers.
With several hours to kill before the gig, I went to the Mill Café, where an open mic fringe event had already started. This village loves its music! I was asked to play a couple of songs and checked in with the festival organiser Alan McLure, who said it was fine. There was a lot of great singing and playing, all embedded in storytelling; even the cover versions had significance to the people singing them.
After a while, I went to the lovely little park which was absolutely humming with the aroma of roses. That's where I finished the song about Vi Subversa, sitting on a bench surrounded by flowers and soft sunshine.
When I got to the Community Centre (great grandfather's old school building, now repurposed), the other musicians of the afternoon were there, a duo called Sunshine and the Silver Seams. They started the afternoon off with a set of perfectly-pitched folk-pop, with such tight harmonies that they seemed to sing as one. The community centre was pretty packed and they got a wonderful reception.
Actually, the whole afternoon was really great. I'd made a set list that had everything from the more emotional side of things (All I Want Is The Sun To Shine For You) to the damn silly (At The Bathing Pond), and there was some delightfully lusty singing for the latter which continued for the encore, Three Cheers for Toytown, which sprouted rather a lot of extra human-sung trumpet breaks when it became apparent that the audience participation wasn't going to stop! What a lovely, welcoming community of people. They had listened to the words, which doesn't always happen. I got compared to both Victoria Wood and the Marine Girls, and was told a wonderful anecdote about an incident at a Poison Girls gig witnessed by the Treasurer's partner (shhh!). There was lots more chatting afterwards, and to round the afternoon off, I had a raspberry ice cream before getting the bus back to Dumfries.
While waiting for the train at Dumfries next morning and to escape the diesel fumes, I walked along the platform to an inadvertent little nature reserve where there was a lovely aroma of lime trees, some unusual bright red weeds, and the discarded empty fur suit-skin of a poor rabbit that had been feasted on, probably by a buzzard or something.
On that train, a woman tried to photograph her friend and took a picture of her bare foot instead, much to the merriment of everyone around her. The train guard was whistling Sing Hosanna slightly out of tune for the whole journey, which I imagine might be rather threatening for a young person wishing to bunk their fare. Travelling back through Carlisle, I managed to resist some rolls of leopardskin wallpaper that were for sale in a charity shop for practically nothing. I have no spare wall space, alas.
I sat and ate a sandwich in the sun, and a gull stalked me for ages before making a swoop. I'd already seen two huge gulls barking aggressively at a man innocently eating a marmite sandwich (he told me) on a bench, so I wasn't having it. There was a discarded cup of cold tea on the table, and I chucked the tea at the gull and shouted 'YAH!'. It got the shock of its life and flew off to a polite distance, throwing me slightly hurt glances to try to spoil my lunch. No way, hosepipe! Go to eat some fish and leave me alone.
I was quite surprised at how assertive I felt. Must keep this, must keep this, note to self.
So that was a lot of travel, but it was definitely worth it to play such a gem of a gig!
I have now got 12 songs for the new album, and possibly 13 (how wonderfully 'unlucky'!)
It's too hot to do anything: I've just cancelled going round to Gina's. I haven't seen her for so long I have almost forgotten what she looks like- except I haven't, of course. I am pretty sure we keep each other sane, and that matters a lot.
After a break from hearing my new stuff, I've been properly listening this morning and doing a bit of guitar editing. I need to write more lyrics for a couple of the songs and simply play some of them better, because they are 'feel' songs rather than songs that should accurately march along. I did a lot of backing vocals about ten days ago that I'd completely forgotten about, and they do sound good.
What is going to be hard is getting the lead vocals right. This is not a problem when I'm singing live, but more to do with dynamics when I'm recording. I will have to sing a lot next week, I think, after the gig in Gatehouse of Fleet and when the weather is not so hot. I'd adapted to singing around a cancer in my lung, and now it's been removed my voice is sounding a bit overpowering. I can't dial up a different voice from anywhere, so it will be a case of meeting my expectations with what is physically possible. Ironically, I'm probably better at singing than I was before, but modulating the volume and tone is weird; imagine being given someone else's voice and being told 'sing with that'! You wouldn't believe how grateful I am to even have this 'problem'. I'd thought I might not ever be able to sing again, and was contemplating speaking over music with an instrument playing the melody in rhythm with the voice, or even using AI to mimic my own singing voice. The bottom line is that there is nothing like the feeling of singing, especially if it is your own song that is expressing an emotion you are trying to communicate. Oh Professor Lim and your team, how wonderful you are! God Save The NHS!!!
Right, now I'm ready for more playing. Wish me luck- and fortitude!
That went by quickly! It's been a week since the Golden Hinde gig.
It was the exact opposite to the Brighton gigi terms of mood, sound, everything.
The boat is moored on the Thames not far from London Bridge station; it's one of several replicas of the original boat and is just as low-ceilinged and many-laddered. For such a small ship, it has a remarkably complex layout, but thankfully two toilets.
The sound man was Robert Sekula from 14 Iced Bears, something I found out when I mentioned doing a song by The Chefs and he asked if it was Sweetie. They formed in Brighton in 1985 and I suppose we must have left an echo of our former selves there when we left!
It was one of those simple PA systems, but because of the amount of raw wood, in other words, the whole venue, the sound was very mellow and suited both Pauline and me perfectly. I think it must have been sold out, or almost, and it was nice to see Johny Brown there as well as Gaye and Eric and various other pals.
Seated on benches under the bones of the deck, the audience was a listening crowd and it was really enjoyable to play for them even though most of them had come to hear Pauline. For her, this was a lovely gig: she soon settled into a really beautiful-sounding set and the sound did her proud. I came away with Don't Dictate on my mind, although When we Were Young is probably my favourite song in her current set.
The evening rounded off the weekend perfectly- the chaotic drama of Saturday and the peaceful wooden calm of Sunday. On Monday I went away for the week and had a fantastic time, but by Friday I had the most horrendous cold you can possibly imagine. A whole box of tissues a day!
My great-grandfather was a schoolmaster on Gatehouse-of-Fleet, and my grandfather was brought up there. What a pleasure it will be to play this festival!
The café we'd arranged to meet in was closed, and there were drifts of people heading towards the station as we headed towards the Prince Albert for the Brighton gig with Pauline. We met her on the way and went to sit outside the pub with a coffee as more and more people started to appear, all very fired up with the desire to rebuff the attempts by the fascist crowd to congregate in their lovely, diverse city and poison the atmosphere. A phalanx of police horses trotted by all self-important and snooty.
It was relatively calm outside when we did the soundchecks. The sound guy there is wonderful, and it's a great room to play. But outside the energy was building. Caryne and Dave had arrived for the gig and for them, too, I think it was quite an extraordinary afternoon. People came to the gig- those who could get past the dense crowds of people who were all dressed in their best carnival clothes.
It was time to go on stage, and outside the chants got louder and louder. Keeping my mind on the songs with the rhythms of massed chanting voices was very hard. But the audience was incredibly supportive, and for Pauline too. I think she had to cope with even louder chanting- the police had rather stupidly shepherded the fascist crowd to the cramped street space right outside the pub. The road was rammed with neo-fascists with their angry faces and cheap flags. But the audience was willing Pauline on, and she has the wisecracks to deal with a situation like that; she put on a fine show.
The words of The Sea have never before been so apt. Thank you everyone for singing the chorus, and for being such a positive audience for both of us. It was a very hard gig and would have been scary if anyone had panicked, but nobody did. By the time we finished, the baddies had gone home and there were only a few goodies left, dancing to a little sound system and clearing up the streets with big bin bags.
Great to see you Jerry and Alice, and Sally, and Mark, and Stephen, and Smelly too, who bought two records and was delighted by the whole thing (apparently he was swinging them round in a bag in the pub later).
Tonight we're both at The Golden Hinde, and hoping for a calmer evening. I think there are still some tickets left so please come on down and enjoy the calm with us!
Looking forward to supporting Pauline Murray at the Prince Albert in Brighton, 2 p.m. tomorrow afternoon
Tickets: https://www.seetickets.com/event/pauline-murray-helen-mccookerybook/the-prince-albert/3616963
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I got to the centre around lunchtime and helped (a bit) in finishing the setting-up of the punk art exhibition, mainly by having a lateral brainwave that hair-grips would be the way to anchor Pauline Murray's large photographs to the broad weave canvas display screens in a way that would prevent them from curling up. The work looks absolutely great- there are even painted drum skins, and of course Pauline's painted shirts.
Later on the volunteers at the centre, led by Nick Jepson, set up the stage so I could interview Gaye. There was a very decent crowd and I was delighted to see Foolish Girl again- it's been such a long time! Gaye Black has been doing a lot of interviews recently, and I thought that most of them had probably concentrated on her involvement with the original punk movement, so tonight I asked her about her own collage artwork and about being a curator, because in the UK she really is at the forefront of curating exhibitions by punk musicians who make art in various forms. We also talked about her support for hunt saboteurs and her fostering of fox cubs. I thought it would be interesting to see the ways that she has carried punk's generosity of spirit and campaigning on from the original movement up to the present day. She delivered a magnificent one-liner at the end which I can't get exactly right so I won't write it here- but the event was filmed, so it will probably appear online at some point. She got a massive round of applause at the end.
Then Bobby the venue manager showed the film, and again it got a really good reception. We were sitting close to the front, but behind us you could literally feel people getting really engaged with it. Because it's been dormant for a while, it's easy to forget just how well the women that Gina and me interviewed come over: funny, in the prime of life and definitely thriving despite some of the fairly gruesome things that happened in their careers as punk musicians. Afterwards there were lots of positive conversations, signing of CDs and albums, and selfies. The best thing was the people who worked at the venue being so delighted by the way the evening went down.
It was an extra bonus to see Sheila Ravenscroft, John Peel's wife, after so many years. We had a really nice chat and I think we will keep in touch now.
I'm just resting before going back. Charlie is going to sound-check around 5, then the evening will start at about 7.45 with an interview with him, my set at 8.30, his at 9.15. I hope it's as good as last night! I even sold a framed print of Poly Styrene.
Who's coming to the John Peel Centre in Stowmarket on Tuesday?
I'll be showing 'Stories from the She-Punks' after interviewing Gaye Black of the Adverts.
Yesterday a bunch of us met up at the RFH on the South Bank. When my siblings and their partners' children and our children were small, we all used to meet there regularly. It's a cavernous space with long sightlines. The six children we had between us could potter about without us breathing down their necks, and we could sit and sip coffee and be adults together. Often there would be a band playing; the sound would float around and disappear into the roof. People would walk past, often with black violin-cases to join an orchestra that would be setting up for the night. Nobody ever moved us on, and it was a boon to have the space to congregate especially in hot weather with the cool of the River Thames nearby, rushing past and ignoring us all.
It's still like that, a big communal area that you don't need a lot of money to enjoy. We took a picnic, and realised we'd inadvertently arranged to meet on the day of the hip hop dance competition. We threatened to sign each other up for it. Seventy two (at least) competitors took part, one after the other: 'Three, two, one...'. My favourite was a South Asian woman who danced a hybrid of Bollywood (hands) and hip hop (body), but there were also some phenomenal child dancers. Some of the dancers were very audience-conscious, and they were the better ones. Around the edges, young men practiced their moves, and downstairs we could see couples dancing Salsa to the music- I'm not sure whether that was just an anarchic pop-up thing happening.
I felt a flood of emotions, not just because of James but also because of the South London estate music projects that I used to work on all the time, writing songs for and with community groups. Some of those estates have been demolished and replaced by private housing; the Elephant and Castle is so close to Central London that the developers must be able to make a lot of money. Back in the day, the children I worked with were experienced in doing TV work, for instance: they were so close to where the shows were made (London Weekend Television had studios along by the river). It was a natural way of being inclusive: everything was just on the doorstep. Even the people with learning disabilities that I worked with had been on lots of TV shows, and mentioned it casually sometimes.
The dance competition on Saturday had that same focus on fun and community. Who cares what the toxic racists are up to? Their posturing means nothing when there is so much creativity and energy being created by groups of people who naturally integrate with each other. The competitors weren't even stars for a Warhol-15-minutes-of-fame; it was more like 45 seconds per person. But everyone was watching raptly and cheering the really exceptional dancers. It made my heart happy to see it. I live in a different musical world, but sitting with my family and friends- choir singers, a successful covers-band sax player, an indie guitarist, a brand video production person, a fashion shop manager, an embroiderer and knitter, a photographer- we were immersed in a world of positivity and creativity. As the lid of negativity and hopelessness is nailed down, we pop the nails out and bust our way out of it all the time: we can't help it.
And upstairs, downstairs, round the corner in different bits of the Royal Festival Hall, other people were doing the same: more formally (the classical music programming) and more informally (the skateboarders in the Undercroft). None of it was online: it was all Real.
