The Eton Rifles

It was the 75th anniversary of the Battle Of Cable Street on Tuesday - given some of their more dubious links there's a peculiar irony about it taking place during the Conservative Party conference don't you think? I somehow doubt that there were any commemorative events being held at the conference... still I did see an item on the London News about it, and The Mirror had quite a big article on it so at least it wasn't completely bypassed by the media. Back in the late 1980s The Price did a few gigs for Cable Street Beat (perhaps best thought of as the musical arm of Anti-Fascist Action) at a time when it seemed that extreme right wing politics were everywhere; at a show at The Electric Ballroom in Camden Town (we weren't playing - I think it was The Men They Couldn't Hang among others?) I met Solly Kaye whose memories of the day itself really were extraordinary and whose speech from the stage redefined the word 'inspirational'. In the meantime the ever-excellent Daily Mash summed up the Tory gathering better than I ever will - many a true word spoken in jest, as they say...

In the meantime 2 great - make that great - guitarists have recently left the building -

I only saw Bert Jansch play once (at a blues festival in Oxford since you ask) but I'll never forget it. I'd heard his name a million times but had not really heard him play - as he hunched over his acoustic guitar playing finger-busting chords whilst singing with a chilling other-worldy voice I realised why the likes of Jimmy Page always name-checked him as one of the all time greats. Along with Davy Graham he defined acoustic guitar playing for many, and he'll be very sadly missed.

I never got to see Marv Tarplin play but I've certainly heard him. And so have you although you might not realise it - his work with Smokey Robinson And The Miracles mark him out as one of the great players and indeed songwriters of what for many was Motown's golden era. That's him on 'Tracks Of My Tears' and 'Going To A Go-Go' for instance, and if that's not proof of his brilliance then I for one don't know what is. Another sad loss.

And away from music Steve Jobs has died, although I'm sure that you're aware of that as it's been in the news rather more than the above two stories. As I sit here typing on my MacBook I feel that even I owe him something, although I'm not really sure what. I'll have a think about that and let you know if I come up with an answer!

The Chicago Blues Brothers returned to The Theatre Royal in Windsor this weekend for 3-shows-in-2-days - previous visits have been for longer which I guess is indicative of how quiet things are for the band these days compared to the last few years. Still they were 3 good shows with Friday evening probably just edging Saturday evening in the 'best of the bunch' stakes; the Saturday matinee (hey, that rhymes!) was a bit odd to say the least, with only a hundred or so people in the audience and although we still gave a good show it was difficult to 'get going', if you know what I mean. Ben was depping for Dave on trumpet on Saturday (it was the A-Team all round apart from that) and he did a wonderful job, particularly on 'Minnie The Moocher'. Around halfway through the second Saturday show Squirrel and myself both realised that the black dots that were appearing on the stage were sweat that was dripping from Matt - that man's energy never ceases to amaze. After Friday's show Mike, Matt and myself decided to go for a drink - sometime after 2 a.m. we left The Old Ticket Hall in a rather more confused state than the one we had arrived in. Maybe that's why we decided to walk though Eton to the Slough Travelodge where we were staying rather than get a cab? Maybe that's why the matinee show was a little odd? Maybe that's why the last section of this posting is somewhat disjointed?

Well, maybe.

We got a hit!

So there we are then - we've had over 12,000 viewings of the Balcony Shirts song for Queens Park Rangers on YouTube and are in the top 30 country music downloads on iTunes as I type this, as well as getting a revue in no lesser publication than The Guardian! We'll be playing it live on the centre spot before for the first home game of next season at this rate!

Your humble narrator wasn't expecting to have any gigs over the weekend just gone, and so was readying himself for another episode of the all-too-sporadic 'Vinyl Rules!' column as I'd have time to transfer some more records over to digital format - however sometime on Wednesday I was asked by the long-suffering Shirley if I would like to contribute to a charity evening that she's involved in at The Battle Of Britain Club in Uxbridge on Friday. 'They're having a 'Britain's Got Talent' theme and Nick the organiser wondered if you'd like to do some solo guitar in the interval, maybe 10 minutes or so?'

What I should of course have said is something like 'I haven't really got time to get anything together at such short notice' - you and I both know I didn't say anything of the sort...

With Voltarol's radio show playing in the background (he played a 'Tommy' medley by Victor Biglione for me as well as mentioning this blog! Thanks Mr. V.!!) I re-strung my acoustic guitar and wondered just what I'd let myself in for. Solo acoustic guitar pieces are generally not very long - well the ones that I can play aren't anyway! - so I'd need five or so to manage the allotted time. Well there's the stuff that I played a Dave's funeral last week, and there's an Ike Isaacs piece called 'Just Funky' that I had a go at ages ago and might be able to remember, and I've been looking at 'Some Summer Day' by John Fahey, and there's that little idea of mine that I've been working on, and I've always fancied a go at 'Bron Yr Aur' by Jimmy Page... that should be enough shouldn't it?

As it turned out it was more than enough. I would estimate that 95% of my audience were young bank employees (Nick is a bank manager) unlikely to be interested in the likes of Isaacs and Fahey (I didn't bother playing either of their pieces - oh well, maybe next time?) even if they hadn't been queuing for their meals. Up until that point in proceedings they'd been entertained by 5 acts in 'Heathrow's Got Talent', although a better description of things might be 'watched some of their workmates make idiots of themselves and watch some others be surprisingly good at singing / dancing / comedy etc'. That said there were a few people listening, and a mention of Mr. Page got a beery cheer from the darkness to my left; I was just about to start said tune when a large gentleman came up to me repeating a car number plate several times in my general direction then demanding that I tell the driver to move it immediately. I referred him to the D.J.... I left the stage to what I thought was total indifference and thinking something along the lines of 'huh - I've been ignored by bigger and better audiences than this lot'; however quite a few people came over to say that they'd enjoyed it, and the long-suffering Shirley (who by now had been given the job of distributing the aforementioned food!) said that plenty of people had been listening. From my point of view I was relieved that I hadn't been as nervous as I'd been at Dave's funeral, and I played quite well although I feel there's still a long way for me to go before I (ahem!) launch my solo career - if indeed I ever do!

After the show Shirley and myself made the short journey to The Gardeners Arms to catch an hour or so of the Ace! club night, and very good it was too. Scott from Balcony Shirts basked in the glory of The Guardian piece, Shirley's brother Trevor introduced us to what felt like everyone in the place (he's a regular there, fairly obviously) and every record that was played was a classic. A good first night for Darren and Simon - let's hope there are many more to come.

In the meantime it's been very busy in the shop - maybe thanks to the song, maybe not? - and there is more acoustic guitar playing on the horizon this week. Following on from our impromptu performance last month I'm teaming up with Alan and Pete from The Good Old Boys for a performance at - you've guessed it! - The Load Of Hay next Sunday. Now officially christened The Rikardo Brothers (don't ask me, I only work here etc) we're rehearsing this evening- not entirely sure sure what material yet, but it should be fun...

All fingers and thumbs

In addition to beginning the long road to Balcony Guitars (the lads there want to open a shop called 'Leigh's Mad World Of Guitars'! Really!) the first 'no-gigs-this-week' week for a while included myself and Scott losing the keys to the shop on Saturday (if I told you where we found them you'd never believe me) and a Sunday evening viewing by East, Big Tel and myself of a DVD of the Madness musical 'Our House' (if I told you why we watched it you'd definitely never believe me!) I also had chance to catch the ever-amazing Kris Dollimore at The Crown in Leyhill last Thursday where he was as fabulous as ever, with a remarkable version of 'Castles Made Of Sand' standing out among an evening of standout performances.

The gap in gigging has given me a bit of time to do something that I actually don't get chance to do very often - practice (as opposed to play) the guitar. I've been promising myself that I'd spend some time with my acoustic guitar working on my fingerpicking and slide playing for quite a while now - Mr. Dollimore is something of a master of these styles, and when I mumbled to him something like 'I must get around to practicing some of that stuff' he replied enthusiastically 'yes, you must!' After discovering that we're both big fans of Rory Gallagher (especially this number) he went on to advise that I listen to John Fahey (a master of solo, or as he himself called it, 'primitive' guitar) among others. So sometime in the last few days I dug out my copy of 'Death Chants, Breakdowns and Military Waltzes' (now THERE'S an album title!) along with '6 and 12 String Guitar' by Leo Kottke and 'Folk, Blues and Beyond' by Davy Graham (I'm ambitious if nothing else!) and got to work.

An hour or so later and your humble narrator was getting frustrated and not a little annoyed. I'm normally quite good at working out how to play things from recordings, but this stuff - well I couldn't get anywhere with it. It's not that I couldn't hear what was happening, it's more that I couldn't work out how to play what is often 2 or even 3 independent rhythms and melodies at the same time. And if that's not bad enough all of these players sing at the same bloody time. Bah! Still, no-one ever got anywhere by giving up so I kept playing... and playing... and playing... and eventually hit upon the idea that transcriptions of this music must be out there on the Internet somewhere (yeah, I know it's second nature to most people these days to 'google it', but I'm really old ok?!) and so launched myself into cyberspace in search of some help. It turned out that there's acres of transcriptions including some on the afore-mentioned player's websites. Excellent!

Well I've all but worn out a set of strings but I'm still not much nearer to being able to play anything other than a faltering version of 'Anji' and I could already play that! (If you don't know the tune or you've never heard it before then here it is; if you want some more from Davey Graham then try this and indeed this - Jimmy Page was listening carefully at the time wasn't he?!?) Still I'm making some headway with John Fahey's 'Some Summer Day' and have, since I stumbled upon something that sounded a bit like the opening riff, attempted to put together a solo version of 'Every Little Thing' by The Beatles. Like I say, nothing if not ambitious... but in addition to it becoming increasingly clear to me that the term 'primitive' is highly subjective I fear a career as an acoustic troubadour specialising in fingerbusting fingerpicking will always elude me although it's something that I'd like to develop in the future if only for the practice at playing something different. Then again, perhaps I should just stick to this sort of thing... and I haven't got around to trying any slide stuff yet. But I will. Probably. After all, did I really think I'd master an entire style in a few days?

I've got a gig this weekend. Good.