Frog Morris's Cowboy Night and Coincidences

Down to the deep, deep South I headed: a passenger on the packed train to Peckham helpfully pointed out the luggage rack for my guitar so she could stuff her shopping in the footwell.
Serenity became necessary.

I sat at a bus-stop eating yesterday's quiche; the pub did not open till seven and a selection of energetic twelve-year-olds skidded about hazardously on bikes on the pavement. I mused on my chance meeting with Tom Perchard, a former colleague at the University of the West, who was just returning from work at Goldsmith's. We'd had a therapeutic laugh at the lot of the academic, skint but feted in their field.

Once inside, I picked a slightly less sticky seat and table to sit at. The pub is pitch black inside and lit by fairy-lights to gloss over the grime. The tapestry seats are darkened and stiff with age and I dread to think what else; glowing copper vessels hang from the ceiling and a zebra and wildebeeste ride a static stagecoach, bound for a selection of board games, including Trivial Pursuit.
Everywhere, more stuffed animal heads peer into the gloom, angled like closed-circuit cameras with gimlet glass eyes watchful lest normality should enter the door.
I was conscious of many drunken nights, frequent beer-spillings and a temperamental cleaner. Behind the bar two extremely ancient and dignified bar staff glided along as if on rails, fetching strange-flavoured lagers for the curious clientele.

Frog Morris introduced the night and a competition began; the audience was unwilling to yodel at high volume but painfully slowly, a group of semi-finalists was selected.
My Champagne Friend had come along and for some reason we had a conversation about how horrible goat's milk tastes when you put it in tea.

The Desperado Housewives took to the stage, starting with When a Cowboy Met a Cowgirl and finishing with Dan McGrew, taking a tour of Cowboyland in between. We all sang: Kath played concertina and harmonica, I played guitar and sobbed in Old Ned, and Jude yodelled. We made a fine, if ramshackle, display.

Frog got up and did a sketch about how horrible goat's milk is. What a strange coincidence (and not the only one of the evening!).

We watched a couple of songs by a very good duo, two girls who had a 1920s sound. I will find out who they are and tell you.

When I got home, I put the rubbish out and locked the door, only to discover that a frog was standing on the door mat! It looked a bit embarrassed, as though it had been sent by fate to provide another coincidence in spite of its personal reservations.
Yes, the night the Desperadoes play for Frog, a frog makes a midnight visit.
I let it out; it could have been one of those 'Kiss Me And I Turn Into A Prince' frogs, and I don't need one of those.

Sarah Clarke's Photo

This photo is from a whole lot taken by Sarah Clarke at the 12 Bar the other day. She is a friend of Jude Cowan's and she took some lovely ones of Jude on the same evening.

Trumpets and Cowboys

Busy times, busy times: back to work, and a reminder of the joys of jobsworthiness.
The happy smile as a member of 'support staff' tells you that something or someone is not available, or describes the torturous route to doing something very small and insignificant that involves a firewall of yet more smilingly unhelpful 'support staff'.
Bliss!
Yesterday's Helen and the Horns rehearsal went very well although the puffing, blowing and hollerin' took its toll and we were well and truly blown out at the end. The seasoned hands were patient and supportive of Alex, who is positively blossoming as a section player although his confidence leaves him just at the cusp of brilliance.
I described my four failed driving tests, during each of which I thought 'I haven't made my terrible mistake yet', and then proceeded to make my terrible mistake and thus fail.
I passed the fifth when I was nine months pregnant with Offsprog Two. I was huge, round and grumpy and had nothing to lose. I was so surprised that I passed that I burst into tears.
Alex understands this self-sabotage (Martin's words!) and picks up his confidence again. He is classically trained and has the most beautiful trumpet tone.
I have just been up in the loft and extracted two lovely cowboy shirts for Kath and Jude to wear tonight at Frog Morris's cowboy night at the Montague Arms in New Cross. It starts at 7.30 and there are all sorts of things happening, including the Desperado Housewives doing a cowboy set.
We will be singing harmonies on each others songs as well as crying, I believe.
If you want to hear some Helen and the Horns stuff go to www.myspace.com/helenandthehorns
And if you'd like to listen to Martin's Scullyville album, up for one week only, go to www.reverbnation.com/martinstephenson where you will also see the drawings I did for the songs.

Blank

I've just spent half an hour typing a posting, hit a key and deleted the lot.
No energy to re-do it; please imagine its contents!

Ship Hell

I am tempted to grump about work, especially about some rather unwelcome changes that have appeared on my menu east of the horizon.
Then I remember a friend of mine from many years ago who had a job in the Faroes, stripping and painting the inside of ships' hulls.
The hulls of tankers are made of a double layer of steel, both of which have to be maintained inside and out.
His job was to slip between the layers of steel, remove the old paint and re-paint again.
What a hellish occupation!

The Conversational at Reel Rebels Radio

Yesterday p.m. I braved the Givusachoons (give-us-a-tune, love!) and the looming Tube strike and legged it down to Stoke Newington with my guitar, where an unfriendly 106 bus driver dropped me off a stop too early.
In a strange little Arts Centre, one of two number tens (there are four number twelves as well in Manor Road) lives Reel Rebels Radio, staffed by the friendly Alicia and operating from a room stuffed with bottled water and orange juice, just in case of a National Shortage.
The Desperado Housewives are to be part of a broadcast on National Poetry Day, 7th of October, alongside some very charming and eloquent poets.
The interviewers were Jude and Naomi, and we perched on various chairs and couches waiting for our cue.
The poets were Raymond Antrobus, who runs a night called Chill Pill and whose poem addressed people's attitudes to deafness; Zena Edwards, who did a fantastic poem about laughter; Jiffa, whose poem was about skin; Matthew Caley whose work centres on a fantasy University; and a guy called Nathan who has written a show based on Uri Geller that the great spoonbender apparently insisted on coming to see.
Nathan read a dreadful poem from Geller's memoirs. For some reason, I found it rather endearing that he's a lousy poet!
Jude, Kath and myself each played a song live and Naomi read one of her poems too.
I will let you know when it is broadcast: I love live poetry and rarely get to see/hear it, so this was a real treat, especially as the poets had such different writing and performing styles. Quite inspirational, in fact.
On the way back, an even more unfriendly 106 bus driver dropped off his passengers and roared off without picking anyone up although his bus was empty. What a rotter! I walked halway to Finsbury Park before giving up and waiting for the next one. It took two hours to get home, but it was worth it!
Pic shows Jude and Naomi (presenters) and Alicia (technician).

Ramblepost, Ramblepost

I'm afraid that last posting was a bit of a ramble, wasn't it?
I have been taken surreal, in the grip of tiredness!
Tomorrow promises to be a practical day; I will excavate the cowboy shirts that lurk in the loft, so the Desperadoes are properly attired for the gig at the Montague Arms.
The cowboy shirts think they are in the Wild West, and may be rather disappointed to discover when they are unpacked that they are actually in cold and rainy north London with no pistol packin' papas (but plenty of nostril-pickin' grandpas).
I haven't even got any cacti any more, because when I was moving house they kept stabbing me with their spines so I abandoned them as a punishment.

I got
No Tequila
No Mexican Bandits
No Cattle (or cats)
No Guns (one water pistol)
No Desert (or desserts)
No Hosses (does a rockin' hoss count?)

I got Beans (baked)
I got Cowboy Boots (2 pairs, one plain, one fancy)
I got Bolo Ties (a handful)
I got a Buckskin Jacket (knackered)
I got a book of Cowboy Songs
I got a Cowgirl Guitar
I got a Cowcar
oops
sorry
getting surreal agin!
Time fer some shuteye!

Yarooh!

Yarooh!, squealed Billy Bunter, all the time.
I've just Done a Bunter.
There was a fragment of glass on the bathroom floor and it lacerated my foot.
I left a satisfyingly crimson trail behind me as I searched vainly for a plaster; they had all gone and I am sitting with a scrap of loo roll stemming the flow.

Anyway, that wasn't what I meant to say!
I've had a busy day. the afternoon was particularly pleasurable but more about that tomorrow when I have processed it properly.

This morning I checked through the recordings for Take One to make sure they were in the right order, and a funny thing happened.
When I draw, I often have the TV on in the background and the flavour of the TV programme gets embedded in my memory so that every time I look at the picture I feel the atmosphere of the time I drew it.
Exactly the same thing happened when I listened to the recordings- I could almost feel the pressure of the headphones on my ears and see Sean and Martin through the glass in the control room, and beyond them the Ouseburn and the white January sky outside.
The memory was as clear as a bell, and I realised that most times when I make recordings, there are layers and layers of sound, whether backing vocals, a guest guitarist, cellist or sax player, that often get added to the recording on different days and sometimes in different locations.
Each layer has its own memory of the day it was recorded: sometimes I can disentangle them, sometimes I don't bother.
But as a listener to my own music, I 'hear' the whole recording experience.
The music comes along with the memories, and the more layered the music, the more complex the memories.
Because the tracks on Take One are all spontaneously-recorded single performances with no overdubs at all, they sound to me as though I recorded them yesterday and I can even hear the colour of the studio walls and see the music-stand in front of me with the doodles and scribbles decorating the lyrics.
I imagine the seconds before recording and the seconds afterwards, when time stands still, and the world inside your head when you are only conscious of 'now': each sound, each note, joined to the next one in a tension of hope that you aren't going to make a mistake, the song progressing in milliseconds, 'heard' in infinite detail by the recording equipment.
And that rare funny feeling when you know you have got it just right.
And the awful feeling when you know you can't get it just right.
Steeped in sound, your life is measured out just for a few minutes as a song rather than as a human being.

A Trip to Yorkshire, and Budgies

Jim, Jimmy and Martin sit outside the Church Hall at the Wombwell Festival, working out keys of songs so the banjo didn't need to be re-tuned too much.
I so wish I had recorded them; the sound of the three instruments blending on a gentle breeze was beautiful. Next time, next time...
They are not competitive players so their styles complement each other: they do sound good amplified but they are even better unplugged.
They played a great set, hilarious and full of bouncy ragtime. They went on a walkabout and ended up on the balcony with the audience craning their necks to see them. Martin invited me up to play Freight Train and The Airship Song, and Jim did a splendid job on converting the trumpet solo of Freight Train to a fiddle solo. Mike and June were there, and the other acts included the former guitarist of Wet Wet Wet playing guitar for his daughter, who has a lovely voice.
Afterwards when we went to eat, the conversation turned to budgies, and Jim told me that a man called Mr Jepson used to visit their estate in Harrogate in a Robin Reliant and sell budgies; his parents bought a couple from him, apparently.

Tinned Peas

Memories spring up at strange times. I was driving Offsprog One to the storage place at the Hyde in Brighton and we went down a little street- I remembered going to a party in one of those houses 30 years ago.
The talking point was a huge stacked pyramid of tinned peas; every can was a different brand, and had a different picture on it.
The party-goers were divided in opinion, which made it a very successful talking point.
We stood in front of it.
"Pretentious rubbish!" snarled the pretentious amongst us.
"Weird" puzzled the 'straight' amongst us.
It had a fascinating presence; I wished I'd thought of it!

Stephenson's Rocketts

http://www.reverbnation.com/stephensonsrocketts

Slugs...

... the Devil's critturs.
Fast as you get rid of 'em, new ones spring up to replace them.
Scary!

The Mysteries of Myspace

I've just been doing a little tour of Myspace to see who has stayed and who has gone; it is changing so rapidly and with great uncertainty.
I have a feeling they are unleashing hordes of work experience programmers on it, in a gigantic sprawling experiment, changing little bits here and there in a totally random fashion.
All our past gigs have got lost, and it has become more and more difficult to post new dates.
Still, musicians are using it more than any other social networking site to promote their gigs, I think, and it's still a major communications route, in spite of the fact that using it seems rather like trying to ride a rusty cycle uphill.

Smoove Move and Crusty Fingers

It's done, it's dusted, and all after three hours sleep.
Serves me right for seething with rage all night at everyone who has ever annoyed me, past, present and future! I couldn't believe it when I went down for a glass of water and saw that it was 5 a.m.!
I can't slob in front of the TV because the mini-living room is full of Offsprog Two's teenage friends debriefing themselves on the first day back at school. They had to draw a circle round something, show it to someone and then come home, apparently.
Loud voices, legs, pizza and perfume.
I hover on the stair like a wraith (not hoover the stairs like a wife, which fortunately I'm not any more) and  plan how to assuage my starving-ness with the minimum of effort and maximum of food.
The move went smoove, but I've still got crusty fingers like parrots' claws and shoulders that feel like I left the coat hanger in my clothes.
Stuff it though, I'm glad it's done. I didn't manage to meet up with Kim though.
Now to tackle finding a rehearsal studio for the Horns: the temporarily mislaid trombone player has reappeared and we need to get organised, don't we!

Gathering Strength

I have been gathering strength, harvesting shreds of forgotten muscle-power, aligning my brain-waves in a positive and sturdy direction, flexing my fingers....
Offsprog One moves back to Uni tomorrow, and Mother (that's me) is Official Driver and Mover (not Shaker).
One quarter of her possessions are here, under my feet and tripping me up, and the rest is in storage: up above head height in a rickety tin cupboard in the cheapest storage facility in the Universe.
Tomorrow we load up the patient little car, sit in traffic jams till lunchtime, unload, and then do relay journeys with the rest of her stuff from the high tin cupboard into her new room, praying that it's not damp like the last one.
Halfway through, my muscles will refuse (like a steeplechase horse at a daunting jump) and I will have to force them to complete the task in spite of the fact that her books and bedclothes will have mated and multiplied in the month or so they have been in storage, and there will be twice as much to move in as there was to move out.
Oh, think positive, think positive!
It will all be lighter, easier, smoother, jollier, and gentler and I will NOT arrive home tomorrow evening a trembling exhausted heap of spent muscles, barked shins and dusty hair like I did the last time.
I will NOT!