Saturday, April 07, 2007

Life is stranger than fiction. Perhaps life is fiction?

I'd had a call from Vi Subversa, from Spain. Oh, how I want her to come to the Lost Women Party! She more or less organised it so Joby and the Hooligans could do our first gig; Sue (the bass player from Poison Girls) lent me her bass guitar, which had belonged to the Buzzcocks, and Vi lent us her son, Danny, who was 14 and played drums for our first couple of gigs till we got Dub Duncan (wonder where he is now?) But Vi just expected us to get on with it. Boy, she took a lot of flak, being an older woman with all those punks. But she just did it anyway, and she got loads of respect in the end.
Anyway, I dailled the number I had in Spain and for some reason got Joby instead. Isn't that strange? Anyway, we yakked about the soundtrack I'm doing for his little movie, and I re-dialled Espanya, and had a nice chat with Vi, and I think she might come over!
In the evening, I travelled down to the Ship in Borough. Katy and Sharon were lighting lilttle candles and setting them out on tables.Paul Davey had said he wanted to come along (used to play sax in Helen and the Horns) and I suggested that he should bring his clarinet down. It was a unique evening- we all sat together (there was another singer/songwriter, Paul), took turns in playing songs most of the time, sang harmonies to each others songs, chatted. So informal, totally unplugged. There were a couple of Medeaval Babes there in the audience who also hummed along in places, and a Medaeval Babes' mum (well of course, babes have to have mums, don't they?) and a swirly-carpet-to-end-all-swirly-carpets. Very nan'n'grandad, but it all helped to add to the atmosphere. Eventually, things hotted up and Katy and a few others started dancing, at which point two Scottish girls disappeared very rapidly out of the door! Sharon sang a lovely song written by a friend of hers about a visit to Jerusalem; Katy sang Sharksville which is my favourite song of hers.Paul played along on clarinet, and the other Paul got everyone going with a PAtti Smith song.
When I played 'London', a very appropriate police siren started up outside, just towards the end of the song. I couldn't have orchestrated it better if I'd tried.
I'll post a picture of the audience later today when I am awake.

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