They called it madness

I started this blog 4 years ago this weekend. Did I think then that I'd be publishing slightly disturbing photographs of entertainment industry professionals in someone else's indoor swimming pool? Oddly enough I probably did, if only because they don't have any swimming pools of their own...

The weekend featured 2 outdoor gigs, the first of which was a Chicago Blues Brothers show in the grounds ('garden' doesn't really do it justice) in the grounds of a large dwelling (again 'house' isn't an appropriate term) in Sutton Courtney near Abingdon. I'm not sure whether it was a corporate event or a jolly-up for friends and neighbours - it could even have been a bit of both - but there was a stage and P.A. set-up that would have done justice to a small festival and a marquee big enough to play football in, although to my knowledge nobody did. Pete and Mike were in the hats and glasses (and indeed in the swimming pool with trumpeter Dave) with Ian returning on keyboards after being away filming a live DVD in Denmark with Ray Davies. Squirrel's on bass, Ian's depping for Richard on sax and Bob from the Ali Mac Band was depping with us for the first time. We went for some food in the marquee just in time to catch the first set from a Bee Gees tribute act - I didn't catch their name but one of them looked a bit like Rat Scabies (sadly it wasn't!) and they were loud enough to cause some consternation from the band members sitting nearest to their speakers. By the time we started our first set at around 9.30 it was clear that many audience members were a little, shall we say, 'confused' - well the ones who spent most of our show on stage dancing certainly were... a surprisingly busy Bank Holiday Saturday in Balcony Shirts had seen me graze my right hand when I fell over running up the stairs (admit it, we've all done it!) which although only a small injury had resulted in enough blood to concern at least one customer (and if I'm honest, me!) and which came back to haunt me during my solo in 'Hard To Handle'. I touched the cut against the metal bridge of my guitar and the resulting wince-inducing moment was enough to make me play terribly out of tune for a few seconds. Well, that's my excuse anyway... Bob did very well especially considering that he'd not had much time to learn the songs (he took a DVD of the show on holiday with him - good man!) and the event organisers seemed happy with things which is always nice to see. Oh I broke my right hand thumb nail ('windmilling and being silly' again - will I never learn?!?) which was annoying as I'd been trying to grow it to help with fingerpicking - maybe it's time I got brave and bought a set of fingerpicks?

Sunday's show saw your humble narrator depping with Utter Madness for the first time in just over a year - that was in Belfast, this was in Sunderland. Richard (keyboards) and Tony (vocals) arrived just after 11.30 a.m. - with everything loaded into Richard's estate car and me safely installed in the seat behind the driver ('there's a child lock on your door' said Richard as I sat down) we set off on our epic journey. Around 2 p.m. we stopped at Donnington Services on the M1 where Richard produced a cool bag from which he bought forth seemingly endless amounts of minestrone, sandwiches and other refreshments. What a hero! (The long-suffering Shirley had sent me off with some cheese rolls which I didn't get chance to eat, but I've just had them now and very nice they were too. Thanks Shirl!) A thankfully uneventful journey North ended with us passing The Turbine Business Park just before 4.30, and pulling up in the backstage area in the shadow of rows of identical cars a few minutes later.

We're playing at the Nissan 'family day' which the company puts on for it's workers each year - Ian, Jon, Stuart and Ray (sax, bass, drums and backing vocals / dancing) were already on site as were about 100 or so people in a field that could have held thousands and probably would have had it not been so cold and windy. Mind you I'm saying it was cold and windy - judging by the number of people walking around in t-shirts I was either (a) mistaken or (b) a soft Southern ponce. Either is possible... I got myself some chips and gravy (oh yes!) and a cappuccino (just the drink for a soft Southern ponce eh? And yes, you've guessed it, the froth blew everywhere!) and watched a bit of ZU2 (pronounced 'Zoo Two') who did a very good job, especially considering that they had 50 or so people watching and listening to music that's normally played in venues that hold 50 or so thousand. Still at least the turbines were busy... no sooner had they finished then we were asked to bring our stage time forward an hour to 6 p.m. as people were drifting away from the site. Minor panic ensued on my part when I got locked in Richard's car (remember the child lock?) which I'd sat down in to sort out my stage clothes, although everyone else found it hilarious! Well - the wind blew just as I'd sat down! After the quickest set-up and clothes change in history (I hate rushing don't you?) we were on stage and into 'One Step Beyond' and my hands were so cold that it was difficult to hold my plectrum; by the time we got to a sticky-fingered 'My Girl' I'd warmed up a bit and was playing a bit better although I was aware that I could have done with a bit more revision on the songs. No one else noticed, or if they did they didn't tell me! Our shortened set was well received by the few brave souls still in attendance (you could tell how cold it was getting as the t-shirt wearers had disappeared!) and we encored with 'Our House' to cheery applause.

After the quickest get-out ever (I didn't bother getting changed as I hadn't been sweating!) we left the site just before our allotted stage time - strange but true! - and after a journey enlivened by various word games (rock'n'roll eh?) I walked back in through the front door exactly 12 hours (9-and-a-bit of which had been spent travelling) after I'd left. As I say, strange but true, and a good story to start my 5th year of blogging with. Stay tuned for further distractions, as they say...

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.