The thrill is gone

We live in strange times don't we? Well I think that we do - another 5 years of Tory (mis) rule have arrived seemingly by accident, or at the very least against the run of play; anyone who dares to question anything that they say and do is labelled at best a troublemaker and more likely a loony lefty revolutionary ready to take the 'great' out of Great Britain. Most of the country didn't vote for them of course, but that hardly seems to matter - millions struggle to keep a roof over their head and put food on the table while The Royal Family casually add another member who will live with all the luxury and opulence that they've come to consider 'normal'. For what my opinion is worth I think that the very existence of The Royal Family is an insult to the working people, indeed the working class of the country, but I guess that just makes me a loony lefty revolutionary troublemaker. If you're lucky enough to have a job then you're not supposed to have a opinion, if you're lucky enough to have a opinion then you don't deserve to have a job; in the meantime former contestants on television talent contests are now considered to be 'artists', the winners are referred as 'legends' while others are now presenters or indeed judges on said programmes. A self-fulfilling prophesy? Maybe... 
If B.B. King had have showed up on the set of The X Factor he'd have lasted a few seconds at best - too old, too heavy, not able to sing and play guitar at the same time, not even trying to dance, all of which means that he will have to be content with being remembered as one of the greatest and most respected blues guitarists of all time. His playing is literally the stuff of legend - yes, legend - with sad men like me spending their entire lives trying to get even near to it. We all bend strings, but no one bends a string like B.B. King. Did he invent it? Well probably not, but as he himself once observed, nobody did it before him. And then there's that vibrato - often imitated but never equalled, it almost redefines the term 'industry standard'. As an artist - yes, an artist - he stayed true to himself and his music throughout his long and illustrious career, and as such should be seen as an inspiration to musicians everywhere. There is thankfully a huge amount of superb live footage, most of which confirms his graceful greatness and total commitment to his music, so here is a clip of 'How Blue Can you Get?' recorded at Sing Sing Prison - somehow he even looks cool hitching his pants up doesn't he? What a player, and what a man - we are sadly unlikely ever to see his like again. R.I.P. B.B. - and thanks.

It's been a busy few days in mad-guitar-land, starting with a show by The London Sewage Company at The Dublin Castle in Camden Town. I'd not played there before and so was particularly looking forward to the evening, which turned out to be highly enjoyable despite there being hardly anybody in the audience. It had been raining heavily all day which probably had an effect on things, and it's often the case that a big show (we played at The Shepherds Bush Empire last month) is followed by a much smaller one. Still we played well and we're back at the same venue on June 4th for another show in what could well turn out to be a monthly residency for the band. Support came from The Uppercuts (Oooh! That's a dodgy name for a band!) and Dirt Royal (both of which were excellent) and earlier in the evening I found time to visit The Rock 'n' Roll Rescue shop next door - time to donate some of those books that I haven't read for ages methinks!

Two Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks gigs saw the band return to The Riverside Club in Staines on Friday night before heading up to the previously uncharted territory (that's uncharted by us - other people have been there!) of The United Services Club in Dunstable the following evening. Both shows went well although I for one wasn't sure that they would - the first one was rather sparsely attended while the next night had a real 'go on then, impress us' feeling about it from the moment we arrived. However I'm pleased to say that in both cases the band rose to the occasion, playing with plenty of energy while Al's showmanship soon had the people on our side. Indeed both gigs saw plenty of dancing and general merriment which is always a good thing to see.

On Sunday I (re)joined my old mates Neck for a how at The Cursus Festival in Dorset. With no chance to rehearse with the band I'd worked on the songs on my own, and I'm glad that I did as the projected set list was changed on the day when the band got to the site. This sort of things happens a fair bit as it's always good to react to what's happening on the day, and when we realised that there was rather a lot of cider around (I'll leave you to think about the implications of that development... got the idea?!?) we changed the set to be a bit more, shall we say, danceable... it was a tactic that worked too, as our show saw a great amount of jollity from the assembled multitude, and an excellent time was had by all.

This coming weekend Ruts D.C. are playing in Bologna (I've not been to Italy before so I've been looking forward to this show for a while) and at Strummercamp at Manchester Rugby Club - Bologna and Cheadle Hulme has to be the most unusual and indeed unlikely back-to-back gigs that I've ever done! In the meantime it's Pete Townshend's 70th birthday tomorrow - when push comes to shove he's my favourite guitarist of them all, so here is some incredible footage of The Who at The 1970 Isle Of Wight Festival touching musical heights that few if any will ever approach. 
Enjoy!

Ships in the night

This posting was written more-or-less as soon as I arrived home, and it's somewhat disjointed structure reflects my tiredness at the time. I've thought about re-writing it but it seems to sum the previous 2 days up for me. See what you think...

Arriving at an airport at 6.45 on a Wednesday morning isn't always an enjoyable thing to do; on this occasion it wasn't too painful, and as I picked my way through several gangs of holidaying lads I half expected them all to wearing t-shirts that we'd printed in the shop. (We've been doing rather a lot of that lately!) I was just paying a small fortune for a thimble full of coffee and a plastic croissant from The Stansted Landslide (that's what it said it was called on the till, honest! You may know it better as this...) when a text message arrived from Pete - 'How are you doing mate?' was the cheery question; my reply of 'bored, tired, fed up - usual Wednesday morning, except I'm at Stansted Airport' seemed to go down well. I was sat attempting to drink coffee that was hotter than the surface of the sun when Pete, his wife Jayne and P.R. man Paul arrived. When we checked in with B.M.I. Baby I received the surprising news that I was allowed to carry my guitar on to the aircraft as hand luggage. I don't recall ever being able to do that before, although it may have had something to do with the fact that there were only 30 or so people on the flight. The flight to Belfast passed quickly due in no small part to the latest copy of 'Vive Le Rock!' magazine, and it was strange to walk straight out through arrivals without having to look for outsize baggage. A short taxi ride later we were checking in at The Stormont Hotel - I'm sharing room 234 with Matt who's arrived on another flight, and we've got everything from Them Crooked Vultures and Howlin' Wolf playing on the iPod dock in our room before very long. We're here for a showcase performance of 'White Star', a new musical based on the story of The Titanic. Pete and Paul are involved in promoting this and another show called 'Celtic Dreams' which is also being showcased at the same event at The Andrews Memorial Hall in nearby Comber. The music for the show has been written by Sam Davidson and John Wilson, both of whom play in the reformed version of Rory Gallagher's old band Taste. (John is the original drummer in the band.) I met Sam when we played in Belfast a couple of years ago (click here for the story) and had been given some demo recordings to learn the songs from as well as talking to him a couple of times on the phone. I spent much of the afternoon with Sam at Holywood Studios (which he and John run) going through the multi-track recording of 'The Road To Paradise' deciding which guitar parts we would play live and which ones would be left on the backing track. He also played me some recent Taste recordings - they're about to change their name to WMD and release a new album which judging by what I heard should be well worth hearing.

After returning to the hotel and catching up on some phone calls we all went to The Ganges Indian restaurant in Holywood where my vegetable masala was both very red and very nice. Myself and Matt then spent a couple of hours in the hotel bar (oh yes!) before retiring to our room for some cans of lager (Matt bought them earlier - good boy!) and to watch an excellent live set from Beady Eye on the television.

Hay fever meant that I woke up on Thursday morning with sinus-induced deafness. Matt bellowing 'BREAKFAST FINISHES IN 15 MINUTES!' finally got through to me and a stumble down to the restaurant more-or-less woke me up. A lazy morning followed (good!) with punk rock on the iPod and tennis on the telly before Walter the driver took Matt and myself to The Andrews Memorial Hall for our allotted 3 o'clock arrival time. As we arrived 'Celtic Dreams' were running through their part of the evening so I walked down to the shops to get something to eat. Back at the venue everything's set up and ready to go - we're D.I.-ing into the P.A. rather than using amplifiers and after a couple of run throughs 'The Road To Paradise' is sounding good.

The evening's event lasted about an hour; I was on stage for around 4 minutes, by far the shortest performance I've ever been part of. Pete gave a short introduction during which he referred to the show as 'Maiden Voyage' - looks like he's changed the title? - before leaving the stage. He walks past us with the words 'listen out for the seagulls'; on our cue we walk out on to the stage, pick up our instruments and await the start of the track. As it begins we exchange anxious looks when we realise that our guitars aren't audible - they finally come on during the second verse to our collective relief. Our harmonised solo goes well, and then suddenly the song is over and we've completed our part of proceedings. As we walk around to the front of the hall we smile and shake hands - it went well. Good. With an audience largely consisting of potential investors it was a night to give a good performance, and from what I saw and heard everyone did.

Back at our hotel there's food and drink a-plenty; I'm given a bowl of something that's supposed to be a vegetarian meal although it looks and smells a bit fishy (literally!) to me. I end up with a few roast potatoes, a dollop of coleslaw and, since there's no cutlery left, a teaspoon. Sitting in a roomful of millionaires (well, that's what I decided that they were!) I felt angry, sad, depressed - eventually I retired hurt to room 234 where Pete came and found me, asking if I was alright, looking really worried... yes I'm alright, just want to be on my own for a while. I laid on the bed gazing absentmindedly at an episode of 'The Mentalist' on the T.V. - I reflected on the previous day or so, mostly spent in a very expensive hotel for a few minutes on stage followed by a plate of lukewarm spuds. What was all that about? And why hadn't I noticed how good looking the woman that plays the head detective in 'The Mentalist' is before now?

Matt arrived back in the room and snapped me out of my introspection with the suggestion that we go for a drink. Good man.

As I fought to switch my alarm off at 5.15 this morning I realised that it probably hadn't been a particularly good idea to finish working your way through several pints of Guinness less than 4 hours before you're due to leave for the airport to catch your flight home. Oh well. I shook myself awake and decided that with a flight this early it doesn't matter what time I'd gone to bed, I'd still be tired. Probably. We weren't quite so successful at getting my guitar to qualify as hand luggage this time, although that may have something to do with the flight being nearly full. One of the check-in girls tell me that they can walk it on for me and if there's a spare seat then it can go in that, otherwise it will have to go in the hold. Hmm... I once read somewhere that B.B. King always buys an airline ticket for his guitar in the name of Lucille King and sits next to it during the flight - when I was asked if I'd like to move from my seat in row 19 to sit next to my guitar in row 3 I jumped at the chance. Childish? Me? Yeah, right... as I fastened the seatbelt around it I thought about asking the stewardess to take a picture of me and my guitar for a laugh but instead contented myself with a bleary smile. It's a simple life sometimes.

Just before 8 a.m. I was back at The Stansted Landslide (why on Earth is it called that?!?) paying a small fortune for a thimble full of coffee and a plastic croissant; I then sat in the same seat that I'd been sitting in when I met up with Pete, Jayne and Paul just over 2 days earlier. And so it goes.

I got home just after 10 a.m. - I'll let you know what happens with the projected production of 'White Star' (or whatever it ends up being called) as soon as there's any news...