Arty Musicy Things

It's often the artists and musicians whose lives alter most quickly after a change in Government.
Back in the 1980s, I would start a community music job, do it for about three weeks, and then the funding would be cut and I'd be back on the dole again.
Half Moon Young People's Theatre, Cambridge House Youth Project, you name it, I did half of it!
The sensation of walking across quicksand is always with me, and the sand is slurping and sucking away again; the tide is turning and anyone artsy is going to have to run for their lives.
Prepare for lift-off!

Sign

On the way to Northwick Park to pick up yet more marking, I noticed the road sign

Harrow
Pinner


Aha, said my distracted brain, 'Harold Pinter'.

A Rather Poor Joke

What do you call the Queen of the modern highway?
Roadicea

GIG ON THURSDAY

Yes, I have to SHOUT about this one, at the Perseverance, because clever Myspace has revamped themselves to make themselves yet more user-unfriendly (see rant a few posts ago) and if you're not selling tickets online, you can't tell people about your gigs.
It used to be a site for the small fry, but not any longer.
So THIS THURSDAY the Ramble My Rose songwriters are playing with Acton Bell at the Perseverance.
We will be playing the songs we have written over the past year and a half, many of which I have recorded for my next album.

Barbaraville

I've just got back from Barbaraville, where I was helping Martin to finish his album dedicated to Buck Easley, the fiddler who played with Charlie Poole. I have done lots of illustrations for the songs and did a couple of backing vocals for it.
We also recorded some songs for our next together-album, The Cafe of Tiny Kindnesses, and managed to do quite a lot of that, in between visiting some of Ross-shire's and Sutherland's beautiful beaches.
North-east Scotland is beautiful at the moment: there are huge, huge fields of fragrant and bright yellow rape flowers, bordered by massive craggy mounds of deep yellow gorse. The roads are lined with larch trees dripping with fresh green foliage and dandelions peppering the grass verges.
The lochs are still and flat and the sky is huge. Enormous lorries charge down the A9, bound for south from north, and busy vans overtake people like me who have been done for speeding recently and are now very careful. I was overtaken by the same white van three times in different locations on Friday.
It is quiet and full of birdsong; every so often, a fiendish army jet roars through the sky practicing martial exercises.
That reminds me of a story about Perthshire, where the McParents used to live. A shepherd called Gideon who wrote Mills and Boon novels under a pseudonym, had the roof of his house taken off by a low-flying aircraft.
 Naturally, he was furious but he was placated by a new roof and the offer of a ride in a high-speed army jet one day.
Deep Scotland is full of surprising people and odd stories. I suppose London is too, but nowhere is boring.

So now I am back, plunged back into the business of life. Fifty pieces of work to mark this week and various other things to sort out, many of them seeming like steep climbs up slippery mountains for a pointless view.
Offsprog 2 is revising in the tiny kitchen, listening to Beach Party (great band). There are other things too, and photos, but they will have to wait for later.

Dummies

I have always loved dummies- in the 1970s I used to go round photographing those sinister collecting-boxes shaped like children.

The man on the plane is from Hendon Aircraft Museum, and the beautiful lady is from a shop at the bottom of Muswell Hill called Audio Gold which has a fantastic collection of vintage audio equipment. And her.

A Serious Moan About Myspace

When I first started using Myspace Music about four years ago, it was user-friendly for artists like myself, not fiendishly ambitious, but wanting to tell people about gigs and releases in a simple and direct way.

It has now become increasingly corporate- six games which I haven't asked for have been put on my site, 'friends' are accepted without me checking them out, it is assumed that I want to post from twitter to market myself, the song counter is totally erratic (one play one, day, three hundred the next), and what is prompting this rant is my attempt to upload a gig I have next week, and the fact that I can't do it unless I'm selling tickets online! It has also lost the records of all the gigs I have done since being on Myspace- or lost the location of them so I can't find them.

Signed artists who employ people to market them on social networking sites probably don't give a stuff about this, but I do.

I manage my own self, promote my own self, and need something quick and easy to let people know what I am doing.

Strangely enough, I have no desire to spend hours and hours interfacing with my computer and trillions of social networking sites to make me and my music ubiquitous.

Funnily enough, I would rather be writing, recording and performing my songs.

Am I the only Myspace user to feel like this or does everyone else want games, widgets, blogs, and all those Facebookbebolinkedinsoundcloudcdbaby things?

O for a simple life!

Listening to Songs

I have been listening to student songs from the University of the West since 8.30 this morning.
It's one of my favourite parts of my job, helping songwriters to make their work better.
Ears-rest now, and a cup of tea.
Katy Carr's coming round with the dog she babysits for.
Don't forget the Desperado Housewives gig tomorrow at the Perseverance in MArylebone- it starts at 8 p.m. and we will all be doing some new songs!

Roberto's CD Cover, and a Drawing of a Squirrel

Month of Sundays

I can't do a recording today because my iPhone doesn't work and I'm waiting for a new one.
Last Sunday's songlet is tucked on to Myspace. Will resume next week!

Mills, Piano, Berry

Is that Mrs Mills playing piano in the background on Chuck Berry's Maybelline?

Cleggaron and Cameregg, Dum and Dee: Dum-Dee-Dum!

A fellow detainee from the Speed Awareness Course sped past me breaking the speed limit on my way home.
C'est la vie!

What news?
Chuck Warner is putting the finishing touches on two CDs on the Messthetics label, a label that specialises in releasing DIY stuff.
One is Let's Talk about Prams (named after a brilliant track by Norwich's Vital Disorders), and the other is a Bournemouth-to-Brighton 1978-82 compilation.
Exciting!
I have got the paperback rights to the Lost Women of Rock Music, and I am hoping to sign a contract for a revised edition soon.
I have just finished drawing a CD cover for Roberto Cassani and I'll be sending him the drawing tomorrow: I hope he likes it!
Martin has sent me some notes on the songs I recorded on Monday and I'm going to blend them with mine and send them off for a bit of fine-tuning (quite liderally)
My iPhone has broken, so if I normally phone you and haven't, that's why. A new one is coming on Monday, meaning I have to stay in and mark assignments all day.
Huff Puff.

It's sorely tempting to write a cheesy duet for Cleggaron (Cameregg?).
They are the boy-band of politics, bashfully smiling at each other and flicking dust (or could it be dandruff?
Where's the Head and Shoulders?) off each other's lapels with a coy grin.
At any moment I expect a massive orchestra swell, and they will turn to the cameras and sing a sincere ballad called This Thing Is Bigger Than Both Of Us.
The assembled hacks and lackeys will join in a rousing chorus, and life will be declared a joke as the credits roll.

I Was Naughty

I'm off for speed awareness training this morning; I was caught just outside Gateshead about six months ago.
My head is bowed, I am ashamed, I will never do it again (until the next time).

The Slits at the Islington Academy

The support band was loud and the lead singer/guitarist looked as though he had been practicing looking wrecked in front of a full length mirror. Maybe I was just a mite impatient, after yesterday's long drive. The music wasn't bad, it was just that the drummer had the grace and agility of an elephant's foot...

On bounced The Slits, with Ari in yellow and green, her dreads bunched above her head in an Ancient Greek style (too much Medea in my life!).
The bass started up and started making my jaw shake immediately: Tessa was looking very happy; Anna looked stern at first but soon relaxed into the vibe. The new guitarist Honey Chile concentrated hard on her playing and Holly stood behind the keyboard.
They started off with some of their earlier songs- including Shoplifting and Typical Girls. It's amazing how sophisticated those songs sound now! Their first new song, Reject was very punky and they gave it the full energy treatment. It was most definitely a Slits song even though it was new.
Ari got the audience participating with jungle noises and told us all about seeing an interview about the Runaways being the 'first all-female punk rock band'; she was annoyed by the continuing myth-making about it all.
Another new song was a lover's rock song that featured Holly on lead vocals, Tessa on Keyboards and Ari on bass. It was lovely, actually- I really like lover's rock and their boisterous take on it works really well. They definitely have the voices for it.
Ari was on saucy form and was also having huge fun- she accidentally did a little dance and made it into a little sketch with Anna and Tessa where she was a bull charging into an imaginary cloak, with Anna making the drum rolls and the crash as Ari hit her target.
They did Grapevine with Andrea Oliver and Tessa's daughter Phoebe (except their version is Bassline).
At one point Ari asked the crowd what they were doing in '76 and misheard the answer from a punter.
'You shot your puppy?' She was horrified.
'No, I shit my nappy', said the horrid audience member.
Ari sang an acapella song called Bashment (that's a Jamaican party) while Holly went to relieve herself (she threw a glass of water over the audience afterwards that left everyone wondering what was actually in there).
The next song, Trapped Animal, featured Honey Chile on vocals, Ari on drums, and Anna on guitar.
At the end, Ari sent the set lists winging into the crowd and picked up her huge array of clothing (from the Bronx: she had been dressing and undressing all the ay through, and she's in bloody good shape!), and the band bounced off as energetically as they had appeared.
I have seen a lot of contemporary pretenders to the Slits' crown. There isn't anyone like them: so many of the younger bands have manufactured themselves in their image and make copies of their music without understanding what generated it in the first place. I am very much in favour of all-woman bands, obviously, but most especially when they have their own voice, something that the Slits discovered many years ago.

On the way back to the tube, a lone busker played and ear-splitting version of The Wild Rover on a penny whistle.