It's Toadstool Time

Big luv to Wormhole World for including my weird track on their Christmas Compilation!

https://wormholeworld.bandcamp.com/track/its-toadstool-time 

Man Doing Press-Ups In The Fresh Air On Regents Canal Towpath

 

Man Banging Little Bass Drum And Singing

 

Going to Comic Con

 

Playing an Open Mic on Friday, High Street Kensington: cancelled

Sorry for short notice- I have had to cancel this gig!

Reporter on Cold Day, with Passing Dog

 

Mental Recalibration

Well, the last 18 months have been quite shocking. I always find it harder to see terrible things happening to people that I know and love that I do to experience them myself.

Yet terrible things have happened to me, too. I have been wondering why I have not really written any songs despite having literally hundreds of ideas (how am I going to crack open that parcel of words and music?), but looking at it from the outside, it's not surprising.

I know the creativity is still there: I've been writing songs with a group of people with complex physical disabilities, and songs for a purpose always appear just when I need them. I press the start button, and we move on incrementally from there.

Last night, a line for a song appeared and I realised that I'll start writing again soon. I've been putting a lot of energy into other people's projects (which is a privilege and a lovely thing to do) but it's time to look inwards again, even if what's there might be uncomfortable to unfold.

Strangely, I think the thing that has prompted the idea of starting to write again has been reading a book that I don't like. It is full of poetry and beautiful concepts used in a completely facetious way. 

It's almost as though my songs need to be written as a protest against the misuse of words that don't tap into any sort of meaning.

I am still grieving for my brother: my annoying, funny and intelligent ally. We were literally co-diarists of each others lives and co-defendants in a non-existent court case of deceit and abuse. I'm so glad we spent so much time together at the end of his life, talking about songs and making sure he left a musical imprint of being here. He had so much to say; his songs are packed with words and humour saved up from a lifetime of suppressing his wish to be a musician and earning a living to support his family.

I care so much about humans, and this has been brought to the forefront after what happened to James. We need to see through the fog of hatred that has landed on us all. Life is so short, too short to spend any time stoking fury at people who we think don't match our idea of what a human being should be like. If this is what we feel maybe it is ourselves we should be looking at. These feelings come from fear and discomfort with change. Even though the hatred is mainly targeted at other people and communities, I can still feel it in the air, poisoning the atmosphere for everyone. Unfettered anger belongs to toddlers, not adult humans; we are supposed to grow out of it. 

Being kind is not a weakness, it's the most difficult and powerful strength of all.

The Internet has taken on the role of and Old Testament God, with all the associated scariness, punishment and drama; the new religion's priests are psychotherapists, who manipulate people's inner feelings and dash away from the consequences of their actions before the temples collapse. 

Heavy, dude! That's enough thinking for the day. 

Woman Busking in the High Street

 

Podcast About The Chefs, Radio 3 Madrid

Thank you to Diego for sending this link, via Ian Ballard at Damaged Goods:

https://www.rtve.es/play/audios/el-sotano/discos-historia-chefs-20-11-25/16824690/

Photo by Claire Barratt

Poet for Hire

 

Man Collects Leaves with Giant Grabber

 

Last Life Drawing Class

It was a therapeutic thing to take part in each week, and last night we had the opportunity to draw the model for a long pose of almost two hours. I drew big- which meant a lot of re-drawing to work on the proportions. I didn't finish the drawing, but I don't think anyone did. The model was the best one ever- they managed to stay completely still, and most importantly, not sag under the physical pressure of keeping themselves in one position for such a long time. There were a few short breaks, but by some miracle they managed to get straight back into the same pose with very little change.

Singing Louder and Listening

Over the past week it feels as though my feet have scarcely touched the ground. It has been a long time since I forgot to eat, or indeed didn't have time. This has been such an occasion.

One Tuesday, there was a rehearsal for Gina's choir in the basement of Third Man Records. Hats off to everyone, they had put the work in learning the parts. They are all excellent singers and there was no time wasted: we spent around two and a half hours running through both of the songs and working out the minimum of backing track that could be used to anchor the vocals. By the end of the rehearsal, we were singing as one, which is exactly what a choir should do: listening to the vocal blend at the same time as creating it. It was all the more of an achievement because without exception the members of the choir have their own solo projects as writers and performers, and kept their egos in their pockets to make the whole thing work.

On Wednesday we met at the Union Chapel, where the house sound engineer had prepared microphones for each of us, and he sorted the backing tracks so they sounded good over the PA. I had to leave for a while because Devendra Banhart uses incense and I found that like bonfire smoke, my lungs cannot cope with it. I went and stood out the back with the catering staff who were phoning their families- and eventually, lighting up their fags, so I went back in again.

It was a house full to bursting, and the audience responded really well to Gina's music. She is an accomplished front-woman full of wit and charm, and soon they were eating out of her hand. We stood in order behind the big velvet curtain and slipped into place on the stage after being introduced. It went past in a whirl. I could hear it all working (phew!), and we marched off singing 'Keep to the left..'

What an amazing thing to do, and also what a responsibility. It's been a long time since I arranged vocals for live; it's all been for recording recently, and for live I'd made some call-and-response sections to make the dynamic more interesting. I thought they worked!

Afterwards, Devendra took a photograph of us all on the stairs. He is a witty chap. Earlier, I'd been out to look for somewhere to relieve myself. 'Is this the toilet?', I asked a person standing in the doorway to his dressing room. 'Sometimes people call me that', he replied.

On Thursday morning, I went to my new freelance job writing songs with people with complex disabilities. It was a good session, and I left them with some homework for the next song, which will be a protest song. 

Then it was time to head off to the BBC studios at Maida Vale to a live BBC3 recording of the BBC Orchestra. This was a wonderful thing to do, to listen after so much doing. It was also a watching experience because the orchestra interact with each other and with the conductor constantly. There was a piece by Tchaikowsky where the violins started to the left of the stage, and the arrangement moved through the violas (left of centre) to the cellos (right of centre), and ended up with the massed basses on the right. It was brilliant. Panning sounds on a small laptop all the time is so insular, to see this happening in real life was incredible both visually and sonically. How wonderful to be an orchestral composer and see this dynamic in action after imagining it in your head! Here it is (at least for a while. Can you hear us clapping?): https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002lq0l

Friday was a breathing day, although I did prepare and time the mini-sets for the Louder than Words Festival, where I had been asked to play three 15 minute sets before the interviews with Justin Currie (The Tremeloes), Richard Jobson (The Skids) and Eddie Tudor Pole (Tenpole Tudor)

On Saturday I got the train to Manchester. Delays on the network meant that I completely missed Debsey Wykes of the Dollymixture, who was apparently brilliant, and Claire Grogan of Altered Images, who was also apparently brilliant. I did hear her singing through the doors of the Green Room and her lovely voice has not changed a bit.

Cazz Blase and Shelina Brown were there and we had some great conversations about it all, and about how some men are so threatened by intelligent women. Thankfully, not all of them are, but the ones who are have disproportionately loud voices. There are a lot of exceptions, mercifully: for instance I talked to Dave Barbarossa backstage, who is wonderfully funny and tactful. 

I also have to thank the sound engineer Ash for getting a really great sound. He was calm and collected, and there was a room change (Baz from The Stranglers instead of Eddie) which was made all the easier for the fact that he's already done the other two sets I'd played.

What about the punk panel? Well, it was very lively. Chris Sullivan and Stephen Colegrave have published a book called Punk, the Last Word which they say is a tongue-in-cheek title because there is no last word. It was such a big panel that we almost fell off the podium: Russ Bestley, who designed the Pauline Murray biography, Carol Hodge, who performs Crass songs all around the world with Steve Ignorant, Chris, Marco Pirroni, Ryan Walker (journalist from Louder than War), me, Stephen and Mike Dines from the Punk Scholars Network sat in a semicircle with John Robb convening us all. Or reining us in, where necessary. The discussion became heated at some points but John managed to keep things polite and as unmansplainy as possible with so many strong male viewpoints. I think Carol and me held our own, and there was a very interesting point at the end where there was a debate about the origin of the word 'punk', and the familiar conclusion that it came from the nickname of young men in prison about 100 years ago who sexually serviced the other male prisoners. From the back of the audience, Cazz pointed out that her own first discovery of the word was in fact in Shakespeare, where the word was used to describe a female prostitute. Game, set and match to Cazz for that! 

My own issue came with The Pink Fairies and Hawkwind being held up as examples of early 1970s countercultural music. To me, they were in the same male boat as Led Zeppelin (squeeze my lemon), and that led to a very interesting after-panel discussion with the woman who had proposed the idea. In the end, I said 'You should write about this!' (I didn't say 'This is why I wrote the song 'Thrush'!).

The next day, I played an early set before Richard Jobson's talk, and then went to a talk on a history of graphic design and DIY printing in the punk and post-punk era. It does sound like a very interesting book, but unfortunately the author couldn't resist the urge to be controversial at my expense. After the talk, in the questions part, he mentioned that he didn't like Cold War Steve. I actually love him- that constant snarling and biting, even on days when the quality of collage is not brilliant. It's the biteback that I find really heartening. I brought up how I felt. 'Hermann Goering would agree with you', said the speaker. What a silly swipe! I have seen this guy do something this before, so I let it rest. I could have asked him to wash his mind out with soap and water, but I didn't. Funnily enough, I mentioned it to Offsprog One this morning. 'Is he a graphic designer?', she asked. Ha ha! 

So, on the the final short set where I had to develop a pair of cojones to get past the rows of folded arms, but I think it was OK. They clapped! Then I hared over to Eddie Tenpole to hear his interview, and it was absolutely hilarious. Years ago, he came to audition for one of the mad Music Halls that I did with Lester Square but kind of disappeared after that. On Sunday afternoon he was energetic, terrifying, honest, animated and exhausting. Life has chewed him up, but he has chewed it up back. Can you imagine being asked by Malcolm McLaren to go to Paris and have sex with underage girls while singing? Eddie was still clearly disturbed by this, and of course he said no. His talk was packed with people, presumably because of his hosting of The Crystal Maze. He did wonderful impressions of Edward Fox- and of himself being auditioned. He was like a box of fireworks; at the beginning it had seemed that he'd made the decision to just give yes/no answers, but this was clearly impossible for a man with so much explosive energy. It was a great way to end the festival, even though there was so much I missed. 

I had a great chat with Jill Adam, who organised the whole thing so beautifully, and headed home to think about it all. There has been so much food for thought this seven days: every day a different flavour.

Louder than Words

I'm heading to 'Louder than Words' tomorrow where I'll be taking part in a punk panel with John Rob, Chris Sullivan, Stephen Colegrave and Russ Bestley at 6.15 p.m.

I'll also be playing three 15-minute mini sets on Saturday and Sunday if you're going and would like to hear my songs:

3.45pm Saturday 15th - before Justin Currie

11.45am Sunday 16th - before Richard Jobson

3.45pm Sunday 16th - before Ed Tudor Pole

Backstage at the Union Chapel

This photo is from last night. Gina supported Devendra Banhart at the Union Chapel in London, and a choir of friends and associates sang on two of her songs, Live Forever and Keep to the Left.

I did the vocal arrangements, and after one rehearsal at Third Man in the basement (due to touring and other time restraints), we donned our black garb and joined her on stage.

Thank you choir for making those arrangements sound so good! Thanks also to Gina for inviting me to do it. It's a very different kettle of fish to the job of arranging backing vocals for recordings, which I do for myself, Gina, Robert and various other people.

This is a rushed posting; I'm up early for work but might write more in due course.

Young Fleas4U In the Kitchen with a Box and a Bag

 

McCookerybook Chili Recipe

New Zine Alert!
From Jane Duffus, writer of 'These Things Happen: the Sarah Records story'
'Zine Things Happen' includes my recipe for Black Bean Chili.
(substitute vegan sour cream if required)
What a neat publication it is- I love it, and am honoured to have been invited to share my just-about-only recipe!

Coming Up In Jolly January!

Have you got your tickets yet?

This is going to be a unique event, a one-off night of music in north London's Stoke Newington to brighten up your January!

https://wegottickets.com/f/14034

Last Night at the Prince Albert

 

Rachel Love playing her set- they are such a well-rehearsed band. It's incredibly moving to hear Rachel's song lyrics, all the more so because of the beautifully-arranged music behind them. Good luck in Glasgow!

Below, The Last of the Lovely Days sound checking. They play powerful-sounding pop songs with a lot of punky energy.

Photo by Steve Clements. Thanks to all to came- lovely to see Steve, Jon Chrisp (The Chefs London Manager) and his family, Mark Erickson from Asbo Derek (we Gaelicked at each other, briefly), Charlie Harper from UK Subs and Yuko, Jerry and Alice, and Rachel's lovely sons and their partners. As always, the sound was immaculate. Thanks to everyone who sang along to The Sea. Haven't played that one for a while!

New Collaboration with Willie Gibson

https://williegibson.bandcamp.com/album/cailin-mo-ruin-sa-ailein-duinn

Dog Being Groomed

 

Arranging

After a rehearsal of tomorrow's songs (got to keep those guitar-players callouses going!), I went round to Gina's to finalise the parts for the choir arrangement that's going to happen on two of her songs when she supports Devendra Banhart at the Union Chapel next Wednesday. One one of them, we added her existing vocal parts to the ones I've been working on, and the other I think is complete anyway. She's going to send the parts out to everyone today so they have time to learn them.

It's going to sound absolutely great. I am delighted that Ruth and Karina are going to be part of it; Miki Beryeni, Rozi Plain, Estella Adeyeri, Jenny Green, and more will also be there. 

I had admin to do today- some PRS registrations. The Gaelic electronica songs are going to be released tomorrow. I also had to cut out the printed download codes and clip them to the lyric books for tomorrow.

Tomorrow at the Prince Albert in Brighton supporting Rachel Love & The Last of the Lovely Days It will be a night of warmth and colour!

Tickets: https://wegottickets.com/event/673409

I'll play some songs from 'Showtunes from the Shadows' and from this now sold-out album. The lyrics/chord/colouring book book I made to go with it + download codes will be only £5 (cash) on the night!

Man Sketching Other Passengers On The Tube

 

Pencil

I came all the way back from life drawing last night with an Indigo coloured pencil crayon sticking up out of my hair. I'd been keeping the colours there for when I needed them. I didn't realise till I saw my shadow on the fence when I walked up from the tube station. Nobody on the train appeared to have noticed.

Monday...

... and I haven't done a posting since Thursday! Blame a visit to the V&A Storehouse, McSis's birthday, continuing revisions to Gina's choir parts (she's back from tour and we are fine-tuning), a long walk, and the beginning of rehearsing songs for Thursday's gig in Brighton.

Oh yes, and a paid-for Covid jab with a very inquisitive health professional. He will have plenty to tell his family at teatime today.

Time to get ready for life drawing...

Playing with Rachel Love/The Last of the Lovely Days in Brighton

A week today in Brighton!
I'm going to play mostly tracks from my 2017 album 'The Sea', and I'll have the lyrics book (a colouring book with the chords and lyrics) with download codes for the songs- just for a change!
Great bands!
https://wegottickets.com/event/673409

Music, Music, Music

Willie G and me are just putting the finishing touches to our collaboration- I believe the lathe cut version of our release is going to turn up today, and the cover is almost complete. It was a real challenge to not only earn the Gaelic, but also to sing in a more gentle, lyrical way. Cailin Morin Sa has very few recorded versions but Ailein Duinn has lots; the general feel of the vocals in those versions is of keening, and I wanted to make a vocal performance that was more gentle and yearning. I hope it's been successful.

Meanwhile, I've been working on a song about Toadstools. We were out looking for Fly Agarics, the spotty ones, and couldn't find any. They are often late, waiting for rain, but we think that the trustees of the common have mown the grass so radically that they've stopped the toadstools from growing.

I remembered doing a track for a friend of Joby's back in the day at Rick Parfitt's studio in Camden, paid for with an accordion that I bought in a charity shop. Curiosity took me to an old computer, and sure enough I found it. I've been putting vocals on it and experimenting with storytelling. It's nearly finished: the experimentation part was a failure and I have to tame the sound before I send it off.

And today? A song writing workshop with people with complex physical disabilities, the second one I've done. 

I have a part-song ready to go and I hope it works!

Man Tends To Shire Horse, Rothesay

 

Man on Fish Stall at Market, with Fish

 

Cover Art

 

Arty Musicky Day

I spent part of the day recording the choral arrangement for Live Forever for Gina's November support concert with Devendra Banhart at the Union Chapel. It's quite close to the recorded arrangement, but with added call-and-response, which I think will look good.

When my voice wore out (I'm singing 8 parts), I did a little bit more of the cover for Willie G's Synthecosse project. I'm not sure which song is going to be the A-side so I can't quite finish it. It was visually unbalanced so I'm working on balancing it up a bit; I flipped it, and it leans to the right. More heft to the left, dear.

Excellent opportunity to laze about and watch Hamza's Hidden Wild Isles on BBC1, and eat pistachio nuts and mince pies. Tomorrow, life drawing (if I get there). Will I be brave enough to do colour like two weeks ago? It depends on the length of the pose. Last week's longest pose was 25 minutes and shortest was 30 seconds; there were many changes in a two and a half hour session and I felt sorry for the model. It may be that I need to go to a class at another place to draw at a slower pace, but that's OK. Monday evenings are intense and therapeutic- and surprisingly physical. Standing up for such a long time, stretching and looking at a huge sheet of paper is not normal behaviour. It's wonderful to be able to work big. My drawings of working people are A4 sized and each one is done in an hour, listening to Riley and Coe's BBC6 show. I've got larger paper at home I could work on and eventually I'll get round to that too, merging the scale of the life drawings with the subject matter of the photo-based ones. A plan!

Sixties Guy!

Watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTXV7MTpSFg

Nun Waiting Outside The Post Office

 

The Lump on the Sofa

That is me! After a second visit to see Do Ho Suh's wonderful artwork at Tate Modern and a solid two and a half hour life drawing session (where the tutor homed in on criticising my work relentlessly for no apparent reason), I hoofed it up to Huntingdon today. Well, sort of hoofed it through the chaos of tube and train delays and folded-up people in crowded carriages. 

George (AKA Willie Gibson) picked me up at Huntingdon station and we spent a solid chunk of time mixing Cailin Morun Sa and making it sound good. His attic room is full of analogue synths and other such accoutrements, but a song is a song is a song and making it sound good still needs careful listening and editing. We were both very happy with what we did, and it fits perfectly as a duo with Ailean Duinn. 

God only knows what sort of foreign accent I have in the Gaelic language; maybe I sound a bit like an equivalent to those packets of Czech biscuits called Crapsy-Pants. I did try, honest: the callout went on social media but no fish nabbed the bait. I got offered Irish Gaelic accent-checkers, but of course that's not the same at all.

I did the first of Gina's choir arrangements on Sunday (third attempt lucky), so it's been an intense few days. 

In fact, I think I deserve a cup of tea.

Sixties Guy: New Video

 

A DIY Political Song In An Hour

Yesterday evening, I ran a song writing workshop for the Antiuniversity at the House of Annetta in East London.

Doing something like this is better if you don't walk in with a ready-made song for people to copy: it's one of those situations where you start the process and only intervene when things get 'stuck'. 

It's amazing how far we got: a chorus, three verses and even harmonies. Too much, perhaps: I lost the plot halfway through and insisted that the harmonies went over a chord in the wrong place. Sorry to the participant who called that out! 

It was a rousing song in the end, that captured the concerns of everyone who participated, I think. We worked very quickly and everyone put a lot of energy into it so the ideas came thick and fast. At the end it became a song that belonged to all of us, that can be taken away and changed and adapted by anyone who was there and used for their own purpose. 

Inadvertent star of the evening was Cat. Cat decided to walk across the table, right across the centre of what the humans were doing. The table consisted of four narrow trestle tables in a square formation with a gap in the middle that was covered by a large white paper tablecloth; of course, when Cat got to that part of the table, it disappeared down the hole in a completely undignified fashion along with a pen or two and all of its self-assurance. Poor Cat.

I almost cancelled the workshop because the remnants of the virus are still punching my body and stuffing my brain, but actually I'm very glad that it went ahead. We wrote a catchy song from absolutely nothing in just an hour, and now everyone who came along knows how to do it themselves. 

That's the way to do it!

Hulling Strawberries, Borough Market

 

Big Life

 

The (Distorting) Mirror

With nothing better to do than become immersed in the entire Saturday newspaper, virus-calibrated cogs of my brain worked like a slide rule to juxtapose articles I'd been reading into strange configurations. 

An article on copyright and artificial intelligence, calling out big tech for stealing absolutely everything from absolutely everyone to 'train' AI, merged with one by a TV writer bemoaning the fact that her now-grown children had left home, and there was now nobody there to 'inspire' her scripts. Nobody there to steal from, she meant. 

It's not an enormous conceptual leap to land squarely in the lap of songwriters, plundering our private lives for our lyrics. Our ex-partners anxiously scan the words of our songs to see if they are there (often they are not: who wants to give them additional publicity?). Sometimes our songs explain things to us that we didn't know: we think we are writing about one thing, and year later we realise we'd been articulating something else entirely. 

Our 'secret' method of communicating in lyrics and music still involves the plundering of episodes that half-belong to other people. One side of a story becomes a story; one person holds up a mirror to the other, but it's a mirror that they made themselves. A bit like A1 reflecting the interests of the tech bros, or rather, the self interests. An avenue of fairground crazy mirrors, it twists the way we'd like to see ourselves into something hideous, which perhaps we are.

Oh, now it has become too complicated. I'm going back to sleep.

New music video coming soon!

 

An Apostrophelipse!

And do you think all those badly-spelled, badly-punctuated 'working class right wing' tweets and postings are created deliberately to make people scornfully share the message, and therefore gain more clicks?

Illness and a Disappointing Monkey

Moan, moan, moan: I am ill with a horrible virus that isn't Covid (so the test strip emphatically says) but might as well be. It's wracking my lungs with coughing, something I'd be really worrying about if my head wasn't on tour of outer space), it's hurting my throat and mouth, my back, and my feet (even my feet!). Every couple of hours, the virus has an idea and decides to attack another limb or body organ in a new and painful way.

I've had to cancel the week: no heading to Huntingdon to mix the Gaelic tracks with Willie G, no Tate Modern catch-up with my pals. I've been asleep for hours on end, only waking to read cruddy crime novels and make tea.

I'm supposed to be arranging vocals for a superstar choir for one of Gina's forthcoming gigs in London, but that idea is resting for now. I also have an idea for a little graphic story that ca't come out of my head on to the page until I feel better.

My computer is of only fleeting interest. I did hazily amble through eBay, and found this toy that we used to have when we were little. It looks as though the felted feet of this one came off, just like ours, and the paint job on the face was just as rubbish. The only nice thing about it was the feel of the spiky mohair in your hands. McMum used to regularly give away (and throw away) our toys, and I guess that's what may have happened to the monkey. Part of me, guided by my brain soup, wanted to buy it for nostalgia's sake, but the other part of me said there was a reason that McMum got rid of this one.

Cheery Men Shovelling Sand

 

Fifteen Quid

From the November issue of Record Collector, 'The Best Brighton 45s Ever'.

A Song In An Hour

A song in an hour

Wednesday evening, near Liverpool street Station, London

https://festival.antiuniversity.org/event/$RsmlFmo8ML5CXtjjXLY_bj0tXleqZh4hFdNroWaLsP0

Edwyn Collins at the Royal Festival Hall

I think I must have bought the very last ticket for this concert after baulking at the price and tussling with indecision, then deciding to go with it. I never saw Orange Juice back in the day: we were having a parallel modest career with Helen and the Horns, and unless we were sharing a bill with someone, you rarely got to see any contemporary pop musicians gigging. But of course I bought that album and delighted in the language and seemingly careless construction (or rather deconstruction) of the songwriting, and Edwyn's casual, insouciant singing style. That bass-y chest tone came naturally to him, and his pitching was almost like a Highland road through a mountain landscape: rolling, forging, trembling and faltering. Falling and Laughing!

They had a reputation for drinking that echoed across the UK as the splaying routes of touring artists spread and intersected: "Guess who we had here last week! Guess what they did!', said the social secretaries of colleges and the promoters of small venues. But at the same time, Edwyn's star began to rise. His songs became popified both through collaboration and through his increasingly-honed writing skills, and they started to become polished vehicles for his singing style.

Apologies for the digressions, but it's Sunday and I wasn't even going to write about this concert. The tour is going to be well documented, especially by articulate fanes who have been moved to tears by the shows they've been at. Beforehand, I went to Gina's birthday party. I gave her a melodica, because they are such fun. Even early on, her house was filling with friends and pop stars. I had a nice chat with Suzanne Ratigan, and Richard Boon told me about the Buzzcock's Glasgow gig, where a pre-fame Orange Juice turned up at load-in time at the venue to help the band get their amps and drums into the place. Now that's dedication for you! After a couple of hours in great company, I ran to the tube station and then across Embankment Bridge to the Royal Festival Hall.

The RFH was packed and humming. The staff were visibly excited and wanted to talk to the punters, which was extremely sweet. I heard the main support band The Hanging Stars do a great set from outside the door; I couldn't cope with climbing in the dark to the almost-perpendicular seating up there in the Gods. Before that, I'd bumped into Billy Reeves and his pals and had a jolly yak (probably mostly me, actually: I was very excited). Once the lights went up, I was able to climb the seat mountain and took my last-seat-going at the end of a row, just in front of Andy (from David's Records in Letchworth), and his partner.

I'm won't go through it song by song, but I'm going to describe the night. 

Edwyn is slow to walk across the stage, with his natty sliver-topped walking sticks. He has an assistant to help him to sit at a small table at the front of the stage and his name is picked out huge in lights behind him, and there are individual lights on stalks stick up amongst the musicians. Patrick from the The Hanging Stars is also in his backing band, and boy have they done their homework. It's not just the musical homework they've done, it's the etiquette. At no point do they worship, vamp-it-up-over, show off about, dominate, or interrupt Edwyn. He is the centre of our interest for the evening; he is a large, wispy presence who makes himself understood, though at times it is clear he still has language difficulties due to the enormous strokes he had several years ago. The band harmonise beautifully and respectfully and play flawlessly; he couldn't have found a better group of musicians to back him.

His voice is still there, powerful and deep. He tells us he is worried about the high notes, and that tonight his son can't be there because he's ill. But the band have stepped in and stepped up, and the high notes are there too. It's only when he stands up to sing halfway through the set that we lose the power of his voice but I think everyone understands how much he needs to do this, just to prove that he can. Here comes Dennis Bovell, shining in a blue suit, to join him in a song. Dennis is clearly delighted to be there. What a collaboration that was! The lady sitting next to me is a mega-whooper and arm-waver and I wish she'd shut up but we all enjoy music in different ways, and gradually I learn to tune her out. There is a magnificent guitar solo by Patrick Ralla. We hear Orange Juice songs and we hear Rip It Up, a song that seems to personify Edwyn's take on life and his music in one glorious snowball of a song. We are all with him, every single person in the huge audience. There are a lot of women who know his material as well as the men, which is possibly quite unusual for an indie artist. Edwyn is self-deprecating, but also full of humour and clearly delighted by his reception. Paul Cook and Vic Godard join him for a song, Vic in his sheepskin bomber jacket, mates from way back; it is a charming moment. we hear songs from the new album, which is so good that I went out and bought a record player just to play it on. Howzat, Edwyn!

Goodbye... I think it's time to go and head for the exit to avoid the crowds. But no! Here he comes for an encore. We collectively will him across the stage, and a member of staff kindly motions me to a fold-down seat by the exit doors where I can sit and watch again. James Kirk and the original OJ drummer come on for Felicity, the former being really the only showoff of the night, but who can blame him? What a great song! And there is a final goodbye song from Edwyn, who has been a steady and trustworthy performer for the entire full set. All of us give him a standing ovation, including the staff.

He thanks his helper, and leaves the stage to go off on the next date of the tour. I leave with the feeling that the energy of the crowd is willing him on every night, fuelling him with love. People have been in tears, and every single song has elicited an intense sort of listening and an equally intense flood of applause.

I think each of us left to go home with a different thought to take with us. Really good music has that effect: it is both personal and collective at the same time.

On the tube platform on the way home, the Edwyn Collins experts were in full flow, Edwynsplaining all sorts of things to their patient companions. I was playing the songs again in my head, marvelling at the audacity of ending a song with the words 'Ha, ha'.

Photo nicked from Robert Rotifer's Facebook page.

Bandcamp Bargain!

This weekend only! For BandcampFriday

The Pop-Up Chefs vinyl EP only £7.00

https://helenmccookerybook.bandcamp.com/album/the-pop-up-chefs-ep

Sax Player in the High Street

 

January Spectacular!

It's worth getting tickets early for this, cos our last one sold out!

Something to look forward to in January

https://wegottickets.com/event/678027/

Tiling, Camden

 

The Cords and Sassyhiya at The Betsey Trotwood

I heard The Cords on Riley and Coe's BBC6 radio show, and that's always a good omen for seeing music live. I didn't realise that Sassyhiya would also be playing, so the night out was two for the price of one. It had been a tiring week, but everyone who plays live gigs knows that there is no life in gigging unless you can also be in an audience listening to other bands.

Both bands are signed to Kent label Skep Wax, a label set up by Heavenly's Rob Pursey and Amelia Fletcher.

Sassyhiya are an unpretentious group image-wise, looking like a group of friends you might meet in a café anywhere in the UK. This in itself is quite an appealing image, almost as though a collection of musicians from the open mic circuit have collided together like a bunch of asteroids and created a mini-explosion of creativity. I only know one name- their bass player Helen- because we agreed that it is a fantastic name. But I'm not a reviewer, I'm a gig-going musician, so I'm excusing myself from details for the day. 

What is important is the music, and I absolutely loved their set, especially the new songs. Their drummer is excellent, scooping up the music into neat, punchy sections with a lot of imagination and skill. All of them, though, fit their respective instruments together like a complex yet very catchy jigsaw; the bass underpins the songs with riffs tailored to the different flavours of music; the rhythm guitar is steady and the lead guitar plays just enough catchy little runs to catch the ear and make you smile. The lead vocals are almost delivered deadpan live, but that just adds to the fact that the band are (oddly) serious songwriters. Some of their early songs belie this, but especially with their new songs you could hear the thrill they have in their creativity: 'Shall we try this? Yes! It works!'. I found this inspirational. I'm just about to start writing songs again, jumping into the sea of ideas, and it was lovely to see a band who quite obviously enjoy the journey of discovery as much as anything else. And as much as me! Go to see them- I know you will enjoy them.

The headline band was The Cords, who more than delivered on their promise (sorry for using the word 'deliver'). Loud, fast and relentless, they played pop-punk in the manner of The Ramones, again with a deadpan delivery: song title, song, quiet thank-you, song title, song, quiet thank-you, for 45 solid minutes. Their set was almost a continuous piece of music apart from a broken string incident, which was prepared for (I have one here that I prepared earlier), because thrashing a guitar like this is bound to break a string. But each short, punchy song was distinctive within its style, variations on a theme exploring just exactly how much you can do with guitar, drums and one vocal. The singer has a strong, strong voice with absolutely no frills and curlicues; it's absolutely great to hear a vocalist singing in a voice that is in effect their speaking voice, except singing. I love this. It's a major thing as far as I'm concerned that singers sound like themselves, and not like whatever machine is processing vocals at any particular point in time. Not once during the entire set did her voice falter, nor hers nor the drummer's energy levels decrease. They are Duracell musicians, with the same intensity at the end of the set as at the beginning. And did it bother them, the over-50s maleness of the audience? Who knows? We are all grateful that people come out to see us, whoever we are and whoever they are. There's a surprisingly big world out there for independent and DIY musicians. 

They had already played Rough Trade West that afternoon and they were going on to do a session for John Kennedy after this gig. What stamina! I felt protective of them, because the music industry is a terrible beast with multiple sets of fangs. How patronising though: we all have to live our lives the way they pan out, good, bad, dangerous and exciting in equal measure. The music industry is something you dive into; it's like swimming across a sea and negotiating not only the shipping lanes but also the stinging jellyfish, copious effluent, and not even really knowing what your destination is a lot of the time. The prizes that show up are not from the competitions you entered (or sometimes, did not enter). 

Before he died, my brother asked me a question that had clearly been bugging him for a while. 'What makes you carry on doing it?'. 'I don't know', I said, 'I am driven'. Afterwards, I realised that it's curiosity. What will come out next, and how will it appear? The genie of ideas never rests, and that is something that was apparent with both of Saturday's bands: an absolute revelling in ideas and what can be created by the 'tools of rock' a million miles away from the stadium and the Big Boy hustlers. Oh the joy of small corners on a Saturday night!

Next Gig: Brighton with Rachel Love and the Loveables

Tickets here: https://wegottickets.com/event/673409

A Rock and Roll Week: Essential Logic and Gina Birch and the Unreasonables

Actually, that's completely wrong: rock and roll is a men's music label, and the punk-rooted music I'm going to be writing about owes little to standardised rock anyway. I think it's just that it feels as though that's what happened this week, according to my body and head!

Tuesday night at The Lexington was Essential Logic's triumphant return to London after what sounded like an amazing gig at the Paris Popfest. The whole night had been assembled with great care. DJ for the night was Estella Adeyeri, who in another guise sings and plays bass as part of Big Joanie. Her selection of tracks was perfect for the night and included Mind Your Own Business, an all-time favourite that is easy to overlook in the cacophony of great post-punk singles.

The first support act was The Exotic Pets, who had travelled from Birmingham for the gig. They were loud, confident and committed, and reminded me of The Ocees not only in their delivery, but also in their sound- and their ability to change mood mid-set and play a song that was much more contemplative than their more in-yer-face songs before returning to those more dynamic ones. Great music!

We were on next, and with Wing Commander Ruth Tidmarsh on bass and Wing Commander Robert Rotifer on guitar, it felt like a good chance to play the most political songs that I've written, including The Sea, a necessary dig at the fool politicians who stir hatred in people's hearts just for the craic. Ugh. I think we did a good set and it's always good to have the harmonies and the drive from Ruth and Robert.

Essential Logic have their own 'world' that they bring with them, a world of sound (oh, the interplay between Lora's sax and Marley's vocals!) driven along this night by pre-recorded drums and original member Phil Legge's thrashing guitar, the whole bound together by Lora's serenity. It was an utterly absorbing performance, impossible to look away from. Little Bruv had come along, and he remarked just how unexpectedly punk a sax is, and how natural it seems once you hear it. They finished with a blistering rendition of Oh Bondage, Up Yours!. Lora said it was just as good as Paris- which was great to hear. And the stars in the audience! Gina Birch (Raincoats), Lester Square (Monochrome Set), Lesley Woods (Au Pairs) and more.

The next night was Gina Birch and the Unreasonables at the 100 Club. They were supported by Taliable, who wore a mask and a ruff and who reminded me of one of my puppet people! They had a chap on decks and beats, and they were very LOUD but also very funny and friendly- they're a very good performer and we had a laugh in the dressing room afterwards as well.

Vanessa from Doc'n'Roll was projecting videos for Gina's set, and the three coloured crayons (orange, yellow and mauve) set off on their musical journey to an audience who were well up of it from the beginning. In the distance I spotted Lucy O'Brien, Nadia Buyse, Gemma Freeman, Kat Five (actually, I talked to those two!), my artist friend Charlotte Worthington and more, and more. This time I managed to get all the backing vocals right and had a good old sing. They went down a storm.

I love the defiance of this: pulling away from punk's sticky mud and making our lives into a new musical adventure. The template was there and the spirit is there, but this is new music from all of us, wherever we are on the scale of public profile or mediated success. The success is in still having ideas and still having the guts to go out there and share them. 

Long may we, our ideas, and our music reign!