Playing!

See daintees.co.uk for details. The new skiffle CD is ready and waiting: I'll have them at the gigs!

Upcoming London Gig

I'll be playing a full set at this one!

A Day In Brighton

After a meandering train journey that took in Littlehampton and Pulborough, complete with flooded fields, we pulled into Brighton Station and I headed down the hill to meet Offsprog Two and her partner.

Offsprog One made her a brilliant Sean Paul cake for her 21st birthday, which almost tops her Alan Partridge, but not quite (the hideous fluffy grey sideburns take the biscuit). The town was swarming with police because of the EDL march but none of the thugs were about, just a lot of excited cops doing Manoeuvres and Strategies. 'Reverse, reverse! No! Yes! Orright! Stop!'
I gazed at the spectacle for a while before moving on.
I had to stay the night because the trains were so awful and my hotel was a million miles away from town, or at least it felt that way with a Telecaster on my back. But actually it was nice to walk along the seafront and look at the identical terriers that everyone seemed to have, being walked on the pebbles in the early evening. I made a mental note never to take any children to play on the beach at any point in the future, considering the quantity of dog-dump that was probably hidden amongst the flints.

Ugh. Perish the thought.

I watched the Nightingales, who are a bunch of amazingly friendly people, sound checking (sorry about the picture quality) before going for another wander- the air is just so fresh in Brighton and I wanted to drink my fill of it.
The gig filled up fast. The band have had some ace reviews for their new album and I reckon there ended up being around 150 people there by the time they came on.

I have to say, even though it was fairly daunting playing to so many black-clad chaps, they gave me a fair hearing and I was delighted that Bongo Pete and Way Out Woolfie were there to cheer me on. Offsprog One and pals showed up too and I could see their hairstyles standing out against the punkier grooming of the black-clad chaps (who, as I have mentioned, gave me my share of black-clad claps at the end of my set) (sorry).
Ted Chippington was the other support and I found him to be highly entertaining; I wasn't sure whether his confession to being daunted by the lighting was part of his act or not: Ted had to contend with disco lights or something like that, and a bigger sea of black-clad chaps as the room filled up.
Seamlessly, the Nightingales segued on to the stage and took up their positions. Robert had been eyeing up a fluorescent yellow-green shirt during the sound check but he was dressed in his Birmingham Council chic. They started up with a bang and roared through their set, song following song in a relentless tumble of noise and passion. I love the fact that they are such complex musicians yet so un-flashy at the same time; and there are so many ingredients in those songs! Walking bass lines pass by in one song, rockabilly guitar clangs through another, Fliss taps smartly on the hi-hats and then moves on to thrash the hell out of the kit, and over the top of it all, Robert croons, baas, snarls like a chainsaw, talks us though it, vocalises like no other.
'Bryan Ferry?' mused a chap standing next to me at the bar: 'No, much better'.
Everyone sings, but Robert is the un-star star: he is focused, in control, authoritative.
I want to go to his school! They learn better things there!
I have the first Nightingales album, Pigs on Purpose. I loved them then and I love them now; in their music is hidden the throes of Black Country heavy metal, the JB's of Dudley noise reconstructed into an entirely different personality and performed by four people who are all fascinating to watch.
Go to see them now!


 Pics all by self apart from one of self which is by Spinninchilli.

Poetry and Talk

This is artist and textile designer Kay Davis, one of the people I met yesterday at Masol's event. What style!
It was a really enjoyable day, representing young artists, writers and musicians who want to forge a community identity for themselves in the face of the powerful and entrenched urban and political organisations and groupings whose tide they are swimming against. My fellow panel-member, Therryi Jay Brown, is a youth mentor and community business activist who has her own radio show.
When Masol runs her next event in August I'll let you know.
Masol is intent on encouraging young women to be confident through creativity and she has my support 100% in that. She is also an amazing producer and DJ and works with her Mama sometimes on musical and poetry projects that reflect African culture.
Meanwhile check out Kay's work at kaydavisartist@tumblr.com

Poems Alive, Camberwell, This Afternoon

This event is organised by Masol and is intended as a networking/advice session for young women.
I will be there to talk about music-related issues.
http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/youdefine-wedefine-redefine-registration-10935433175

Writing

Over the past few days I have dabbled in writing up my most recent research; some interviews are still being transcribed but I hope to reduce the book pile in the kitchen in gradual increments until that part of the kitchen at least looks like a kitchen again. Today is a proper writing day.
Next week and the following week I'll be doing lots of gigs with The Daintees, for which many thanks! I hope the new skiffle album will be ready by then- a limited edition pressing- and I will be taking it with me. I've been learning the songs gradually day by day and shredding my fingers in the process; I'm not used to strumming at high speed although I used to do a lot of casual strumming when I ran childrens' songwriting projects a few years ago.
My hands and nails are protesting and a diet of strawberry jelly cubes beckons, which is what I lived on in the 1980s when I swapped from bass to guitar for Helen and the Horns.
It will be fantastic to be completely steeped in music for a couple of weeks; when I went on tour with the guys two years ago I didn't want to come back to reality at all.
I shall be returning to a mountain of marking, selling the car, fixing the roof, trading in the computer and digging through the giant 'sell-me-on-eBay' bag.
Until then, I'm a researcher and a musician and hats off to that!

Silence Falls

It's going to rain. It's fallen silent out there, and the Barbie Girl blackbird is holding court, it's twurglings and chippings sounding very close by.
Two fresh new cats have been playing Pounce in the yard and I've had to cover up a plant pot that they assumed was a litter tray. I don't mind them passing through though, along with the fat squirrel and a stray sparrow that has lost all its friends in the missing sparrow mystery.
The white sky is slowly clouding over with skeins of brooding grey; a distant blackbird sings a different song, telling the neighbourhood where its territory lies.
Also in the distance, buses squeeze their way down impossible streets choked with parked cars, their diesel roars of anguished impatience echoing across the back gardens.
The birds dread the downpours that soak the spring out of our anticipation. It's as though they are uttering their very last words, clear and precise: prophets of doom on a Thursday afternoon.

Mindless TV

After a three-hour lecture with the third years, I left work in a daze and headed home to rest my mind.  Then I got a text from Gina and realised that I should have been at the Horse Hospital to watch Kitty Finer. The head said Not, and so did the body.
How I wish I'd gone. Watching TV does absolutely nothing for the brain.
Did I tell you that the other day I went over to Gina's to sing harmonies over some of the tracks for her new album? There is some lovely music there; I am looking forward to hearing what it all sounds like when it's been through her mixer masher processors!
Soundscapes one day, Peter Seeger another.
Life is a rich tapestry punctuated by mindless TV that is very much a threadbare cushion cover.

Pete Seeger

Loose End

If you're at a loose end tomorrow evening, come down to the Boogaloo in Highgate where a motley crew of musicians will be playing tributes to Peter Seeger at one of Nat Loughran's wonderful 'Under The Influence' nights. It's three quid to get in and worth getting there for the kick-off at 8.30 because the acts go on in a random order. Everyone plays two of their own songs plus a Peter Seeger. I'm playing The Banks Are Made Of Marble which I think was actually a Weavers song; it's uncannily relevant today. I will also play a couple of the new skiffle songs but no albums just yet: I think they'll be arriving later in the week. I will bring some Helen and the Horns albums though.

Pop Birdsong

A blackbird is singing the first bit of Barbie Girl out there.

Bande Dessinee

Another Joke (for Anne)

What search engine do dentists use?
Gargle.

Home Again

From Edinburgh I travelled to Ross-shire, which was all gloriously decked out in Spring yellow: wild gorse, semi-cultivated daffodils (thousands), and farmed rapeseed fields as far as the eye could see.
We watched a strange winged fish in Ullapool harbour dawdle in the oil-streaked waters, and bought fish and chips in Golspie to eat by the side of the Loch.
The air rang with birdsong. 'It's never winter here, oh no!'. they trilled, saturating the soundscape with a multitude of melodies.
We bought ice cream at the 1950s cafe in Strathpeffer, and sat on a bench to eat it, warmed by the Highlands sunshine.
I came home to a flood of emails, but I read the week's newspapers with the remaining relaxation lest it leave me too soon.

Joke

What's the festival of cattle called?
Beefstock.