Spooky Ad. Ugh

Soon as I'd posted that, this appeared:
Join a Modern Choir

Singing Pop, Rock, Disco & Gospel in Essex Suffolk & London

www.funkyvoices.co.uk

Yesterday All My Troubles Seemed So Far Away

I shook hands with Basil Meade yesterday, the musical director of the London Community Gospel Choir. How exciting! I have a live tape of them performing somewhere that I got off the radio, one miserable Christmas when I was just out of my teens. It cheered me up not end. I also went to see them once at the Royal Albert Hall. They have phenomenal voices and the vocal arrangements are like being fed gorgeous food!
Later, I went to Jame  and Jacobs warehouse in Barnet (no, I didn't believe there were such things either!).
It is a huge white-painted space with red chairs and red tulips in a glass vase. Jamie is an amazing cook and he made us a three-course meal and we talked until out teeth fell out of our mouths. Almost!
Thank you, you two, for being such great company.

Spin

The dying chap on the detective programme is whispering the secret of it all with his last breaths... the washing machine has leapt into spin cycle... RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
Now I'll never find out who the murderer is!

Christmas Tree

Still up, in an upstairs flat in East Barnet Village. Or early for next year?

'Girls'

Tomorrow I shall purchase Girls by the Moments and Whatnauts.
"The ones that aren't so good-looking, they're the ones that do the best cookin'."
Ha ha! Eat your heart out, Gangsta Rappers!
Also on  my shopping list is Led Zeppelin's Lemon Song and Some Girls by the Rolling Stones.
A shopping list of offensive songs jus in case I need 'em.
The guitarist from Joby and the Hooligans (who had been in a relationship with a man before we got together) used to sing Girls to one of the lesbian women at the Resource Centre where we used to print posters for our gigs upstairs from The Vault in Brighton, in an attempt to wind her up.
It completely backfired.
Is this what is called being at the forefront of the sexual revolution?

Ahem

Some Big Band music sounds like 50 people clearing their throats at once.

Boy in a Dress by LaJohn Joseph

My nephew came over yesterday to do work experience with me; we sat in the kitchen at the computer, puzzling away at Logic and adding backing vocals to one of Shippy's tracks, playing with reverbs, equalization and stereo. I showed him how to edit and how to loop. We exhausted ourselves. As McSis came to collect him, Gina phoned and invited me to the Oval House, just next to the Cricket Ground in South London, to see Boy in a Dress, an autobiographical play by LaJohn Joseph. It sounded like the perfect antidote to a week of hard work and I put on my best skirt and hoofed it to the tube, armed with a copy of No Logo by Naomi Klein, which I have been reading as I'm doing a lecture on branding this coming week.
I recognised LaJohn as being one of the Teaists, a group of artists, musicians and flaneurs who met up every so often for tea in fancy places. I had taken tea with them at the Wallace Collection (postings passim) and was looking forward to seeing what LaJohn did apart from taking tea!
Gina's cousin, Sarah Chew, has directed it and we said hello before the start. The Oval House is a modern and inclusive venue. In spite of living literally five minutes down the road for thirteen years, I only think I have ever been there once before. London has so many layers of activity and the venue is indentified with queer theatrical performance rather than music; at the time of living in the area I was either a musician on tour, or a Mum. I never even went to the Oval cricket matches (the ground is just opposite), even though as a sometimes-unemployed resident I would have qualified for free tickets. But I digress.

LaJohn has a remarkable twinkling cap of red hair, celebrated throughout the performance with red sequinned gowns, a red tracksuit and even a bright red cocktail- all the things you are supposed to avoid if you have red hair. She told us harrowing tales about her childhood- her four 'fathers', one of who was caught with his trousers down just about to do something horrible to next-doors' six year old child, and another of whom smashed everything breakable in the house with a hammer when LaJohn intervened by getting a neighbour to prevent the husband from smashing his mum with it. From early childhood, LaJohn was mistaken for a girl, and she described her child's habit of gendering everything: a cat as a girl, a dog as a boy, forks as a girl, knives as a boy, and a spoon... that was LaJohn herself, in between an knife and fork, with a space of her own.
There were songs, played with aplomb by Jordan Hunt (one of the Irrepressibles), and Anna Lewenhaupt performed roles as diverse as a transvestite man, a party girl and a scene-changer, chalking on the floor or painting LaJohn with thick blue paint, spray painting around him and chalking a New York skyline on the scenery, emerging from a wardrobe whenever she was needed.
There were stories that made some of the audience laugh (wry wit can mask a lot of pain). I couldn't laugh, but I found the stories mesmerising, as many stories of survival against the odds are. I am so glad that she has made such a vibrant and entertaining show from her life: we need to hear about the different routes that people take from there to here, all the many different ways of being alive and yes, surviving.
Afterwards, we all applauded loudly and sincerely. I left feeling energised and full of appreciation for right here and now. Thank you, LaJohn, for a fabulous evening!
(I think it's on for the next two weeks, starting at 8 p.m. See http://www.ovalhouse.com/)

Review of Aretha Franklin, by Daniel Coston

This is a really fantastically evocative review of what seems to have been a unique evening (see February 14th)
http://danielcoston.blogspot.com/

Two sausages.

A Once-In-A-Lifetime Opportunity

If I hear anyone else utter the above phrase in connection with the Olympics, I will turn into a sausage.

Bufff-eh?

Remembering you today, Dad.

News from the f-Word

Many thanks to Cazz Blase at the f-Word for posting this about the Hyde gig:
http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2012/02/music_paste_up_8

Fruity Storylet

As a little child, Offsprog One could not say 'helicopter': she called them 'heliclo'.
Sh did, however, hugely enjoy eating apricopters.

Art and Rocketts

Our gig in Gateshead was lovely: the Shipley Art Gallery is a big airy space, and watched over benignly by paintings, Pauline Murray played a short but sweet set of self-composed songs. She has become much more confident since last year's February gig with Gina and Viv and it was a pleasure to hear her play again. Her whole family had turned up to hear her play: that's her partner Rob (bass player with Penetration), Martin and Pauline over there on the left.
I borrowed Martin's Telecaster to play (the Martin acoustic is playing up and won't give me nice clear bass notes to play although it's going to Brian's shop to get fixed up tomorrow) and felt quite rocky at times; Martin and Fin McCardle joined me for a couple of songs and after a short break Martin played his set which included one of my favourites of his, Nairn Beach. He had his Line 6 radio-controlled DI and wandered round the gallery playing; it was very funny, especially when he caught a punter dozing over his beer and serenaded the poor unsuspecting guy until he woke up with a start! It was an amazing venue to play, everything about it was special. It even has old-fashioned Victorian locks on the doors and the staff were sweet and smiley, the sound was perfectly clear, Shippy the promoter was in very good spirits and it couldn't have been better.

This afternoon, we went to Colin's studio-in-his-garage in Darlington and recorded a couple of tracks with Stephenson's Rocketts. It was great to see the guys again, and with Colin's help we recorded a couple of rockin' tracks, Sugar Hill and Sweet Sally, with Joe Guillan's scorching guitar, John Cavener's steady bass, Martin's energetic rhythm guitar and Keith Shepherd's skittering drums, with Colin at the controls (that's him on the left). He is the lead singer with the Sureshots (Joe's band) and his partner Mandy is a double bass player. What a brilliant band to play with; it's so exciting when we all get going: learn the song, run it a couple of times then record it. We have not all been together in the same room since the Loch Lomond gig in the summer, and we just need Young Johnny's sax and then the songs will be finished.
Spontanaiety, the spice of life!