Every so often, life gives me a break and I dream a nice song. Last night, I dreamt I was consoling a very sad singer. He looked little bit like Cat Stevens, but also a bit like Zack Condon from Beirut. He was playing a very sad song about a friend of his that he was meeting up with, that he'd written because of his mixed feelings: partly happiness to see his friend, and partly sadness because his friend was having a hard time.
The singer was an empathiser, who was feeling his friend's pain. The song was all about having two hearts, a happy one and a sad one. I keep the music in my head until I got up, then I sang it onto my phone. The friend had an odd name, Miljuda, which I have discovered is Lithuanian. Remembering the name was the hardest bit- and I can only remember the 'punchline' of the song melody, but that's enough.
I have half a mind to write a song every other day in January from all of the fragments of music and lyrics that swish about my house on scraps of paper and phone recordings, but I also have an album to finish, with a benchmark song that sounds exactly the way I want to sound. My feet on the ground and my head in the heavens, that's the sound.
I've been recording and mixing something radically different to that this weekend, but more of that later in the week.
Although I know as well as anyone else that people say just as many stupid things in real life as they do on Social Media sites, Nextdoor takes the biscuit. What shockingly horrible interactions!
I think, therefore I am.
Oh so you think, do you? Your sort of people are invariably wrong when they self-diagnose like this!
Who are you to say you are, anyway? Surely that's for other people to decide, not you...
Idiott! I dont like psotings like tis!
Leave him alone! He has a right to say what he feels!!!!
But what she feels may be wrong, you snowflake!!!!!
A couple of days after the event, but it's not too late to write a few words about Sunday night.
The Hope and Anchor gracefully moves from era to era, weathering all the different storms of music that tumble into its basement from the streets and unfold on the stage. Back in the day, it used to be a yellow room, with punk bands and after-punk bands. I saw the Meteors there, and Brighton band Daddy Yum Yum, whose chief fan was Jamie Reid, the Sex Pistols designer. Strange but true! He propped up the bar on one elbow and waxed lyrical about them. The Chefs played there, with the Dollymixture. I sat and talked to their drummer Hester in the dressing room. One of us was knitting (I can't remember which).
Last time I played there solo was a Loud Women event. It's the sort of venue that people go to just on spec and for a band or artist that makes it a place to play to new audiences, which is always an exciting challenge. It's also a place for you to check out new music, playing shoulder to shoulder and cheek by jowl with other bands and hearing what's out there.
The venue was pretty full even as the doors opened for the first band, Parenthesis. Their gadgets included an electronic woodwind instrument and what appeared to be an electronic shoulder bag, from which emitted some classic-sounding, and classy, electronic pop music with witty lyrics about London nightlife and the shared loneliness of the dark hours. They started the night off with a lively and energetic bang, a positive pop experience that burst through the Sunday gloom.
The Rhynes were a complete contrast, a duo who played delicate and gorgeous songs that were very much more than a sum of their parts. Guitar and bass sounded like a full band, and with their perfectly pitched vocals they created a unique sound that you could engage with on first listen. Good songs too. I need to hear more.
Then it was my turn. Thankfully someone shushed the audience because I was the only solo performer of the evening. And people listened. Off to one side, someone clicked their fingers to So Long Elon. I had to sing mine and Robert's contribution to the WIAIWYA Christmas album by myself and do Robert's vocals in the talking section. Apparently I sounded nothing like him. I guess our duo is safe.
After a break, European Sun took to the stage and treated us to their gentle and humorous pop, interspersed with storytelling and great bass playing from Rob Pursey, normally to be found playing guitar with The Catenary Wires. Amelia was at home looking after their daughter so the chaps shared out her parts between them, apparently only realising they needed to do that once the song was under way. Who needs The Beatles film when you can witness real things happening in real life?
Pete Astor was the penultimate artist; he was accompanied by Ian Button and Rob on bass, and he sang his perfectly crafted songs with a winning charm that invited the audience into his songs about Bekonscott model village (nice witty bantz with an audience member there), and a very touching tribute to Pat Fish. Pete's lyrics make the apparently ordinary extraordinary: he is an observer and celebrator of the details of life that pass a lot of us by.
The evening finished with Golden Spike, a band that includes members from several continents. All dressed in white (was that snow?), their first song had a hilarious moment when the band member holding up cards that illustrated the lyrics got stuck halfway through and was unable to shuffle his way out of a visual traffic jam. The faux pas only endeared them to the audience, and their vocal harmonies soared around the room as a lovely finale.
Ahem... Rob and Pete had asked me to stand in for Amelia and sing Walking in a WIAIWYA Wonderland for John Jervis, the man behind the label. I'd agreed so long as we didn't miss the last train home. We had the time, so we sang the song, with the audience merrily singing along and not caring one bit that the lyrics had been changed. They just wanted to join in. It was fun!
So there you go. No more gigs till the New Year now: crowds are too risky for my family. There could not have been a better way to finish the gigging year, in which I've been much busier than I thought I would be. Big thanks to John Jervis for releasing the album, and to Caryne as always for arranging the whole thing so impeccably!
A woman in TK Maxx engaged me in a long conversation about saucepans and casseroles yesterday. I have no idea why she asked me and not the shop assistants, and I also have no idea about saucepans.
Review to come (it's a work day) but here's a photo from the finale.
Super-masked, distanced, not too crowded but with a great audience up for as much craic as the musicians could give them.
Rob re-worked the words of Winter Wonderland. Amelia was at home with a poorly daughter, so I stepped in to do the honours, and the audience roared along in the choruses!
In life, you have to recalibrate regularly, don't you?
Every day that you wake up the world has changed in ways that you can't, and couldn't control, and you adjust your sights to navigate what lies ahead- or what you think lies ahead.
There are a couple of gigs I was going to do that I will sadly miss playing- the celebration of Brian Blaney's life at the Prince Albert in Brighton, which I know will be a wonderful and warm-hearted night in a venue that feels like home. The other was supporting Daniel Takes a Train at The Troubadour in Fulham, which was a lovely gig to be invited to do because Paul Davey, sax player in Helen and the Horns, joined the band when we split up.
We are, however, still in the middle of a deadly global pandemic and nobody in their right mind risks their family's health. Socialising is going to be mostly virtual this Christmas. I've excavated as many old Christmas lights as can find, and the tiny Christmas tree that lives in the back yard has been removed from the shadows and is waiting patiently to be over-decorated (it comes into the house late, so it doesn't perish because of the central heating). I'm going to stock up on piles of peculiar food, and make sure the ingredients of many cakes are in the store cupboard and fridge.
Although I won't be joining in the festivities after tonight, I have played some really nice gigs this year and have plenty of good memories. Tonight's gig at the Hope and Anchor is the last one of the year, celebrating the release of the WIAIWYA Christmas album with various artists, including Pete Astor and Amy and Rob from Swansea Sound (and many other musical incarnations, including Tallulah Gosh). One of my Christmas dresses in in the loft, and it's cold up there, and the dress is scratchy knitted red acrylic 'wool' from Primark with white fluff (see below). The other is perhaps too short, but maybe mutton dressed as lamb is 'on point', and that one's easier to access. As to the song: who knows whether I can pull it off? And shall I play a new one? All the dare-to-eat-a-peach questions!
Below, a kitchen video of a Christmas song that was originally released on the Christmas Assortment EP in 2007.
Next one is on Sunday evening. What a line-up! We are all playing the Christmas songs we contributed to the WIAIWYA compilation plus a short set of our own songs. I'll be playing Takeaway on Christmas Day solo, because Robert will be in Spain.
I'll write more about the evening tomorrow; I'm just on my way to work. But what an evening. One of the best things about playing out there in the live music scene is watching the other bands!
Last night there was a celebration of Pat Fish's life at The Dublin Castle in Camden. It was a freezing night but the venue was warm, not just in temperature but also in mood. I can't write much because I'm getting ready for tonight at The Lexington, but the extent of musical co-operation was extraordinary. Jazz Butcher drummer Dave Morgan has rehearsed a backing band for many of the acts (which included Heidi Berry, who was in fine voice). Sets were two to three songs long, and master of ceremonies Jem Price threaded his good humour throughout the night and sang three of Pat's songs himself.
I met Pat at a gig with Asbo Derek in 2019, coincidentally at a gig at the Latest Music Bar. He was a gentleman, playing solo to a boisterous audience who settled down and listened with great interest once Simon Rivers (of Bitter Springs fame) intervened and told them to listen to this great song writer. I think everyone needs a Simon Rivers to do this for them at some point in their lives. And of course, once people listened, they were won over by Pat's distinctive songs.
The stage was full: bass players, guitarists, keyboards and on one occasion, two drummers, who covered not only some of Pat's songs but also songs by artists that he liked. I contributed a version of Femme Fatale helped by some very lusty backing vocal singing by the audience, who clearly needed to express how they felt in a positive and vocal way.
Returning home early because of Covid worries, we watched the rest on live stream from the venue and caught Pete Astor's set onwards. Although I believe the internet cut out part of the way through (Heidi's and mine bits: designed by men? I think so! Ha ha!), the stream will be on Facebook to watch. However' I'd prefer to share a film of Pat from the Latest Music Bar that I recorded on the night:
What a lovely new music pub in Cambridge with a musician host, an attentive audience and a good PA. What more could a band want for their debut gig? Here is Ian Button at the sound check with a canine companion waiting for its turn to try out barking in the microphone, and me and Robert.
Just in time for the gigs this weekend, here's the digital version of EP2!
If you buy the downloads you get a lovely postcard with the codes, and also a discount on the future vinyl 10", when the pressing plants aren't so busy and we can go into production.
We just wanted to share out music NOW when it's fresh out of the oven! Take a listen, maybe buy track (or six), and sing along on Friday at Tall Trees in Cambridge, or on Sunday at the Lexington:
