Dusty Rainbows

Musical Epiphanies #1: Levitated in Paris

2010-05-05T17:01:00.018+01:00

The initial expectation on the music scene surrounding the band Levitation was enormous, featuring as they did indie-guitar maestro Terry Bickers fresh from great hopes the House Of Love. There were tales of pharmecutically induced money burning in the back of the tour bus before he was unceremoniously dumped at a train station to make his own way back to reality.

Early solo demos showed a great deal of promise that not only did he have a great singing voice, but that he could write soft appealing songs too. It could almost be the House Of Love continued. The record company guys were drooling with anticipation, waiting to hear more, and queuing up with their chequebooks (in the days when record companies HAD chequebooks ha ha).

However....something profound (and pretty beautiful ?) must have happened to turn this plan off course and instead when Bickers emerged after a year or so blinking into the spotlight, it was with a bunch of self-styled `angry hippies' whose purpose was nothing less than to leave the planet, offer their souls to the cosmos and probably NOT be home in time for tea.

At the tail end of 1990 they played their first gig at The White Horse in Hampstead, a regular haunt of ours. It was likely to be as packed as a box full of bees, so I gave it a swerve....it was going to be so busy that you couldn't even get tickets for the pavement outside the venue.

They alienated almost everybody instantly ! "Prog Rock" wailed the NME, "write a tune" whined the Melody Maker (...and from later on, Steve Lamacq talking about our other good friends `Eat': "Eat exist at the frontiers of rock, but SENSIBLY so, unlike the orbiting Levitation") Owners of chequebooks expecting House Of Love MkII quietly slunk away...leaving them to begin their career on the `less than major label but with a heart of gold' Ultimate Records. (Oh how Maurice Bacon laughed when they asked him to bike over a copy of the newly pressed `Coppelia' E.P.)

I didn't hear Levitation live until the Honey Smugglers supported them on a couple of dates in April/May 1991 as Ultimate label-mates. The biggest of these dates was at La Locomotive in Paris right underneath the famous Moulin Rouge.

Honey Smugglers Paris May 1991: L-R Steve Cox, Ged Murphy, Steve Dinsdale, Chris Spence

Being in a district where much important business took place, the club had a strange arrangement with the surrounding offices that soundchecking for that night's show would take place BEFORE normal office hours. At 7-9am ! IN THE MORNING. This is something I have never encountered before or since. Imagine the scene, a huge club, tables groaning with coffee, croissants and orange juice, my bandmates barely awake after three hours sleep and unused to rock and rolling at such an ungodly hour, looking upon the ravaged individuals of Levitation, who it seemed had beaten the pain of the early start by simply choosing not to sleep at all.

Towards the end of their soundcheck, they're basically dotting the `i's and crossing the `t's (there are a couple of each in `Levitation') and they play through a tune I later learn to be `Attached'. Then one of them, probably Terry, suggests that they play `Bedlam' and finish up. If `Bedlam' were a three minute pop tune during which the final level checks could be made then fair enough, but no....what I was about to witness was a musical epiphany which had me rooted to the spot, wondering if this was really happening. It is perhaps also the only time I have ever wanted a band to keep soundchecking at the expense of our time.

The piece is based around a slow, spacious, mid-paced bass theme with Terry's trademark soft vocals intoning the instruction "don't question everything".... except that in the middle, there is a section where the song literally takes off into the most controlled, determined, frightening attempt to leave the ground. In that moment I understood why they were called Levitation. A glorious droning cacophony of jet engines, with Dave Francolini one step nearer to demolishing his drum skins at every stroke, getting faster and faster as they hurtle towards the vortex, with Bic Hayes running around frenetically mouthing strange languages to the gods, and Terry B swooping in the centre stage. It took over the whole building which I swear was about to lift off the ground. It was an out of body experience which seemed to last for a glorious eternity, like the best orgasm, before finally returning, spent, back to the relative calm of the song's conclusion.

Such was the intensity that I was speechless for several minutes, I could only shake my head in disbelief. I then had to remind myself that this was a soundcheck...at 8 o'clock in the morning.

When the Smugglers finally got their turn to I approached Dave Francolini to pay him the courtesy of thanking him for the use of his kit, which we were sharing. He had about an inch left of a large bottle of Jack Daniels and generously offered me a slug. It was a bit early, even for me.

L'Hotel Du Rock'n'Roll, Paris May 1991:

L-R Terry Bickers, Lawrence O'Keefe (Levitation)
Mark Browning (Belltower), Hungover Road Manager,
Bic Hayes (Levitation)

Check out the fearsome studio version here then go buy their albums if you can get them.
http://www.box.net/shared/r5hb009u0r

Pata-Particles

2009-11-25T22:11:00.009Z

The unforgivable deviation from the steady stream of rock'n'roll tales from the past, and indeed lack of entries of any kind can only be excused by one thing...a busy present. I am glad to report that part three of the saga which started in the summer on the 30th year anniversary of Age Of Berlin, continued through the reunion with Mark, Rich and Sandy, has now manifested itself in a completed new album by a project we have named `Pata-Particles'. It ain't in Fearnleys or Tony's Records just yet, but plans are afoot to release it to the world (on an LP !) It's all chopped together now and sounds amazing.

I picked a weekend in September at random and Mark said "that's cool, I'm playing with Damo on the Friday". What better circumstances in which to meet up again and begin a weekend's recording with Mark Spybey than a Damo Suzuki gig ? Damo gets everywhere....he says the same thing about me. I'm not in the band but turn up early anyway, and to have Damo to myself while the musicians are doing what musicians do at soundchecks is fine. There we are sitting together on the only two chairs in the place. He has a great pair of white sunglasses. I tell him he won't be needing them much longer, but he smiles back with "I am in Switzerland next week". I am amazed to learn that this show in Newcastle is his first in the city since 1972 with Can. A great night is had at a superb venue (The Star and Shadow). The backstage area is a lively throng of musicians,partners and friends gathered around a table of veggie food, and conversation is freely exchanged by people who have just met. Damo may sit there and observe most of the time but he is the reason these people are together in the same place. It really is a network in every sense, and to be valued and cherished. There's something wonderful about sitting in a tatty backstage space with 20 other souls and no television.

Out in the venue it's filled up to capacity and the Network roar through an improvised set of nearly two hours for a stunned audience, most of whom I would think have never experienced this before. Afterwards the night slowly dissipates, and I find myself heading for Warkworth Northumberland, in the pitch dark, with Mark's cousin the amiable Matt, following on his motorbike. A few whiskies and a great sleep later and we're into the late summer sun of a Saturday morning in Warkworth. We take a stroll arounfd the village to buy fresh bread, have a fantastic breakfast, Mark prepares the studio for occupation, Matt records a couple of cameos before roaring off on his bike back down South and we're off.....

24 hours later, I'm heading back to Yorkshire and Mark has a bag full of joint explorations, drum tracks I did when he took the dog out, filmic pieces recorded whilst watching Polanski's Macbeth, and all manner of other spontaneity. Mark's philosophy is `press record'. I heartily agree.

I send a bunch of half finished pieces I'd been working on in August, to which Mark adds vocals and other things , and Rich Sanderson who has been anxiously waiting in London for news from the North, sends his own contributions up to Mark who works tirelessly over the following weeks to blend the whole thing together until I get the call at short notice to come and help him finally nail it down. I find myself unexpectedly back up at the other end of the country from the RMI trip to Hampshire the weekend before, (with a week's work inbetween) in the first week of November. An overdub here, a drum track there, and much more besides and it is now nailed down.

It's good to make things a reality and carry out something we "always meant to do". It opens doors to the future. Even a 30 year gap isn't too long....in fact it's better, because we now know what the hell we're doing .

The Power Of Independent Blogging

2009-08-18T12:04:00.008+01:00

When I wrote the entry 3 or 4 weeks back about my first band `Age Of Berlin', it was largely to mark the occasion and get some of that nostalgia I am regularly plagued with out into the world. Certain significant dates in my life will always be there lurking in my memory, and will always be marked or remembered internally at least. There are many people I've met who place no value on what they did ten, twenty, thirty years ago, live for the day and take no delight in retracing old steps, but for me it is not only a source of quiet joy, it helps provide an understanding of how we all got to where we are now. It helps to make sense of things, and much amusement comes from memories of just how different things were back then.

The piece actually became a catalyst for some of the people from those days finding the motivation to get ourselves to the same place at the same time for 2-3 hours and spend a sunny afternoon reminiscing, jogging those memories and indeed seeing how we all turned out. So it was that last Sunday last I found myself in the Cleveland Bay Hotel in Redcar East, having hot-footed it up from Harrogate, anticipating the arrival of 3 friends who I hadn't seen for 10, 26 and 28 years respectively.

Rich Sanderson has lived more than half his life in London now, and was on a two week annual trip back to Teesside with his family, (he wasn't in Age Of Berlin, but his presence was felt at the time) the other two, Spib and Sandy, are in the North within striking distance, so it was the ideal opportunity to make it happen. They set it up, and I was happy to join them. Their histories together go back far further again than my mere thirty years, they formed their first band `Solaris' in 1974, so it was amusing to feel like the newcomer in their midst. The three have known each other since infant school, but had not all seen each other for some 17 years.

It was a special and affectionate 3 hours which only lifted the lid on detailed conversations which could have lasted days. I'm sure it won't be another 17 years before it happens again.

L-R Mark (Sandy) Sanderson, Mark (Spib) Spybey, Rich Sanderson

Tunes I Never Tire Of #6: Public Image Ltd `Death Disco'

2009-08-08T20:09:00.009+01:00

I am one of those music nuts for whom bands can lie dormant in the collection for long periods, only to bloom in all their glory once again, triggered by a single track, or a magazine article, becoming an obsession once again for a few weeks to the exclusion of just about everything else.

As I wrote my previous entry, I inevitably dug out a bit of PiL to refresh the senses. Here I am a couple of weeks later driving everyone in the house mad with `Careering' at 8 o'clock in the morning, and the criminally ignored and vastly superior single version of `Memories' for elevenses. It's one thing to catch up with a band via their recordings when their prime has slipped past (on account of not being born soon enough in the case of too many of the artists I love), but quite another to live through a band's development in real time, and between 15 in 1978, and 20 in 1983 when I left home, and they lost it, Public Image Ltd were one such band for me. Their debut single in late '78 had been a corker, and despite sniffy `king's new clothes' jibes from journos hell bent on hearing the Sex Pistols mkII, (yawn) the debut album acquitted itself pretty well, without being a masterpiece, it was certainly a statement of intent, and it certainly wasn't "goddam awful rock'n'roll either" as John Lydon would say.

However, nothing could prepare anybody for the shock of `Metal Box' as it slowly unfolded over the pivotal year of 1979 via advance singles and a couple of legendary TV appearances until it finally arrived as 3 x 12" 45's in a heavyweight film cannister towards the end of the year. It was £7.49 which I couldn't afford, so I taped it from the scary acquaintance who had once thumped me for liking Yes (see previous entry !). I eventually bought the LP version`Second Edition'. It wasn't the same, but at least it didn't turn to rust like the boxes apparently did, although that in itself was pretty cool really I suppose.

The calling card was `Death Disco' which emerged in the summer. A true cacophony was the only word for it. When I first heard it I wasn't sure if it was the worst thing I'd ever heard or the best, but I had to have it. The incredible thing about it was that it was played on daytime radio. Imagine that ! I don't think many of the poptastic DJ's of the time greeted it with anything other than indifference or incredulity, but played it certainly was. It reached the Top 20 ! Economics dictated that it was the 7" single I bought, which came in a scary picture cover with, strangely, the slot to get the single out at the bottom of the sleeve rather than the top. I never knew if this was deliberate or not.

There had been chart songs before about dying (the sickly sentimental `Seasons In The Sun', the comic strip `Leader Of The Pack' or `Tell Laura I Love Her') but nothing like this. This was a catharsis of stark, honest, harrowing reality as John Lydon lost his mother to cancer. "Watch her slowly die, sorry in her eyes. Choking on a bed, flowers rotting dead"; to a disco beat, with a bastardisation of `Swan Lake' as the guitar theme ! For sheer subversion it must be the greatest thing ever seen on `Top Of The Pops'. What a glorious racket, and note Jah Wobble's frankly deranged grinning throughout. These people were genuinely frightening.

Check It Out here:

P.S. Speaking of `Check It Out', PiL's July 1979 appearance on the dismal Tyne Tees `yoof' programme of the same name, is possibly my TV highlight of all time. My brother and I watched in awe (twice !), in the pre-VCR days, my Mum was less than impressed. Most of it is viewable across these two links, although neither are complete despite claims to the contrary.

http://www.muzu.tv/itn/pil-check-it-out-john-lydon-pil-music-video/34851
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXJiduNAjBI

The hapless berk with the `Sid The Sexist' hair arrangements is one Chris Cowey, who rightly disappeared into obscurity very shortly after this farce. Hang on, no he didn't, he became the producer of `Top Of The Pops'. You couldn't make it up...

For the full story/transcript behind events which led to what you see here, have a read of this from the magnificently authoratative `Fodderstompf' PiL fansite.

PPS: A couple of years ago I was down in London to see Van Der Graaf Generator with my friend Russell. I was in the midst of my last major PiL `phase' and had been hammering `Death Disco' having discovered the full 10 minute take which had just been issued. Being a cheery sort of soul, who knows how to show somebody a good time, Russell suggested a walk in the enormous cemetry between Archway and East Finchley in North London. As we ambled along chatting I was somewhat stunned, when out of thousands and thousands of graves I came across this one quite by chance: "In Loving Memory of Eileen Lydon. Wife and Mother. Sadly Missed".

Life can sometimes floor you.

It Was 30 Years Ago Today: Age Of Berlin

2009-07-23T12:02:00.026+01:00

June 1979 was the month when `O' levels were completed, school was out forever, (until sixth form college at least, and you could wear denim at sixth form) and a long summer stretched out ahead of us. We didn't look back or give a thought to those who we would probably never see again, which in the case of some of the girls was a shame. Karen Mustard where are you now ? Many of us who'd done `O' levels were on course to bag a couple of `A' levels and eventually fly off from our Teesside enclave to a university somewhere to start our own adventures in halls of residence and 'Young Ones' styled student houses in cities like Sheffield, Manchester and even Bromley. Others were destined to spend their whole lives in Marske-by-the -Sea. We saw no reason to spend the rest of our lives in the place where we happened to be born.

I recently saw an old female classmate in `The Ship' on one of my regular visits to my hometown. It came as quite a shock to me, she looked well over 50, and like she'd had a pretty rough life, no doubt with a pretty rough bloke or two. We were sitting next to her for twenty minutes before the penny dropped as to who she was. I'm sure she was even in my `top ten' back in Mr Hebden's class. I immediately revised any plans I had to attend the impending 30 year school reunion. Too scary, and let's face it, if you haven't tried to keep in touch with someone over the last 30 years, then maybe you never had a thing in common in the first place. I left Marske 26 years ago and never wished I'd stayed there. I love the place dearly, but only to come back to.

Of far more significance to me than leaving school, the summer of 1979 also marked the beginning of a magical and fun process which continues to this day; getting together in a room and making a purposeful noise with other people. I did it as recently as last Sunday and it was still fun ! In fact it was amazing. We kept the next band waiting outside 10 minutes while we finished up a most unholy and hallucogenic racket, and when we finally finished one of them had the grace to ask us who we were influenced by, "on that performance... I would say the devil" I could only reply, as the sweat dripped off me onto the floor.

Back in July 1979 when Duncan and I took our seats at the History table during our prospective sixth form's `meet the students' open day, it was actually our own personal histories we were unwittingly setting in motion. One of the students who'd volunteered to tell all about `A' level History was Mark Spybey. As was `de rigeur' in those days among 16 year old boys, I had my haversack on display lovingly painted with the names of my musical heroes, and discussion soon turned away from History and to their relative merits..."don't like them, don't like THEM, they're OK..." Duncan piped up that he'd been messing about with audio generators and tape machines at home. "Wow ! like Dik Mik from Hawkwind ?" said Mark. We all agreed Hawkwind was good. Mark then uttered the immortal words which would change our lives forever: "the college has a synthesizer you know".

So somehow before we had even properly enrolled at the place, we managed to blag their most precious educational tool, the Roland SH1000, on long term loan. We could scarcely believe it as it sat in Duncan's front room making random noises at us. Spybey brought his old friend Mark Sanderson round to marvel at Duncan's tape echo skills and give us his best robot impression to test them out. We formed a band right there and then. For me it was the moment we ceased to be schoolkids and moved up into a new world. They were only a year older than us, but it felt like a lot more.

A rehearsal was arranged for July 23rd, at Joe's parents' house at 81 Hummershill Lane, Marske-by-the-Sea. If you drive past it today you'll not notice a blue `English Heritage' plaque commemorating the event. Joe was going to be the vocalist but hadn't really got a clue, hadn't written anything, and spent his time farting about, eventually rendered speechless by the racket which ensued from those gathered in his unknowing parents' house. The rest of us meant business in a 16-17 year old kind of way. On guitar was Jon Davis, Led Zeppelin fan and ego-maniac, who brought his tape machine along too, placing it right next to his amp, so all he could hear on the recording was himself. His nemesis in terms of musical taste and personality was Spybey who was a tidy assured drummer. Sandy played Bass. Spib and Sandy had worked on a collection of riffs which we used as a starting point....and indeed a finishing point.

Then there was Duncan and me. Duncan had an Audio Generator and real tape echo for making swooping noises (that Ferrograph machine weighed a ton), and because I could almost pick out a tune, I got to play the synthesizer. Duncan and me had comically transported everything to Joe's house about half a mile away balanced precariously on Duncan's red Go-cart, after our primary mode of transport, a speed frame, had collapsed under the weight of the synthesizer, the aforementioned Ferrograph tape machine, and a flight case after (according to Duncan) "about 4 foot".

Mark Spybey had come up with a typed manifesto: "Harmony is Harmony. Noise is Noise: This is the noise" and a band name: AGE OF BERLIN (How thrilling to be IN A BAND, particularly one with pluralistic undertones, it would be another ten years before the wall came down) "Space-Rock, Psychedelic Renewalism" it continued. I'm not quite certain what the latter was exactly, but we have certainly become well acquainted with the former in the ensuing years. As we made our way precariously to that first rehearsal, we felt like we had arrived into a new world. Boy, did we have fun ! Duncan and I went through the same 18" speaker, which didn't stop Duncan being twice as loud as anyone else, and terrorizing us with everything from echo sounders ("Don't ! it kills yer !" I can be heard begging for mercy on the tape) to pneumatic drills ("Aaaaaagh ! Woooo!") as I wazzed around on a synthesizer for the first time; literally a kid with a new toy. Before the afternoon was out that speaker would already be well on the way to premature burn out.

It was also the first time I'd been within touching distance of an actual drum kit, and when Spib handed me the sticks during the lunchtime pastie break, it was the moment I'd been waiting for all my life. I already knew I was going to be a drummer, and this just confirmed it. He was also kind enough to let me have the kit on loan for the next couple of years when he went off to college, and I taught myself to play, to the joy and delight of all at 8 Wanstead Close and surrounding properties.

You could therefore say that July 23rd 1979 was one of the most significant days of my life. It was the first time we heard ourselves as part of a band and at full volume, the glory of a huge vibrating racket, and I immediately knew that nothing else could compare, we had a purpose in life !

Over that summer we spent evenings round at Spib's in Redcar, full of exciting ideas for the band while he played us all sorts of stuff from an impressive contemporary record collection: Gang Of Four, Joy Division, The Specials' debut single Gangsters, John Cooper-Clarke, Alternative TV, `Pop Musik' by M and er...Tubeway Army, but you can't win them all. Things were moving fast musically in the UK, the old guard had been jettisoned (by him not us, I was still listening to Genesis) but we found common ground in the likes of Peter Hammill, Hawkwind, Here and Now and Hillage. Before the summer was out Public Image Ltd unleashed the mighty `Metal Box' which changed things for everybody including me. Sandy actually handed over £7.49 for this artefact. I think he must have had a paid job, as it was an outrageous sum for us to contemplate as penniless students, fantastic though it was.

I had no problem ignoring the less savoury trends of the time like the godawful `New Wave Of British Heavy Metal 'which gave us Saxon, Iron Midden, Lef Deppelin and the likes, and I stuck to a core of all things progressive, who many of the `New Wave' bands liked anyway as it later turned out. (It was a sweet moment many years later when Keith Levene, guitar `enfant terrible' of Public Image Ltd admitted his favourite album of all time was Yes' `Tales From Topographic Oceans', idolised Steve Howe and had even roadied for them as a schoolboy ! Ha Ha Ha. I was once hit for liking Yes by a PiL fan !). I loved the humour, originality and DIY diversity of some of the wayward souls that the `new wave' threw up into the spotlight, there's never been a time like it since; totally non-corporate. I listened to and absorbed everything anybody cared to throw at me over the airwaves and in their record collections (apart from The Clash with their ugly sloganeering and joyless posturing. Of course, they inevitably became my younger brother's favourite band as is always the case in sibling conflict) .

One Sunday night at Spib's, his friend Russ Walker brought Gary Houghton round. He was learning the guitar, and happened to be in the process of moving to Marske from Redcar. Jon Davis slid off the radar sometime around Zeppelin's last stand at Knebworth, and Gary became our new guitarist. Age Of Berlin finished after nearly a year's apprenticeship, during which we rehearsed, never gigged, but learnt a lot (photos here taken in April 1980 at Zetland Church Hall). Spib went off to study Music Therapy, and eventually moved to Vancouver, surfacing back into our lives many years later with a highly impressive musical CV. Our reunion with Mark as a member of Michael Karoli's band in 1999 at the Can Barbican solo gigs was quite an occasion ("Yes I remember playing Redcar, where is there more booze ?" Michael Karoli)

Duncan, Gary and me had already started recording with the synthesiser at Duncan's by the end of 1979, and here we still are 30 years later, 30 and more albums later, having established Radio Massacre International as a way of musical life which has taken us to places we only dreamed of.

Here are a couple of tunes from the day when it all started, big cheers to Mark Spybey for being a mighty catalyst.

http://www.box.net/shared/rfzmva6sch

http://www.box.net/shared/o9tg24p9tn

The Worst Day I Ever Spent In The Music Biz or Why Promo Videos Are The Work Of Satan.

2009-04-22T00:35:00.000+01:00

When I think about developments between the two eras of the 1970's and 1980's, perhaps the most marked `step forward' is the music promotional video.

February 1991, I'm standing in an enormous disused warehouse somewhere in South East London within striking distance of Elephant and Castle. There is a single three bar electric heater for warmth in a freezing building the size of a football pitch and outside us on the wasteland there has been a substantial snowfall. Snow being a London video director's dream, we four Honey Smugglers find ourselves out in the white stuff in a spirit of what could initially at least be described as fun. With a couple of lunchtime pints and a shot or two of whisky, this is all a bit of a novelty...at first.

Ged, Stevie C and myself, are acting unconvincingly (being largely unconvinced about what the hell we are supposed to be doing) and are but a sideshow to Chris the singer's lip synched close-ups, which he does carry off extremely well in his leather fur-lined hat. The rest of us don't have instruments with us to pretend to play, so we look like a right bunch of aimless charlies as we piss about under the freezing afternoon sun, taking vague instructions like "it would be really good if you all walked off in different directions".

The outside shots finally under wraps, the wind blowing ever colder and the novelty having worn off along with the effects of the whisky, we return to the warehouse. Inside, the other star of the video is a child actor in a multicoloured hammock looking (for reasons which are never explained) through a telescope, while a record spins on a turntable. The song has a storyboard involving us trudging through snow, our singer reading a book about Hollywood and leaving a photo frame in the snow...... while a kid looks through a telescope in a hammock. An obvious BAFTA candidate I'm sure you'll agree.

As the kid's solo scenes are filmed , (he's been hired for a couple of hours only, probably to comply with child cruelty laws), we become gradually conscious of the fact that an hour or two in the snow has taken it's toll on the lower trousers, socks and shoes of us assembled would be pop stars. The temperature in the open sided warehouse is decreasing by the hour as the winter dusk descends, and it begins to dawn on me that making pop videos is perhaps a pain best endured only once. Or at least to not be so stupid as to let a director mess you about in sub zero temperatures when you could be at home on this Sunday from hell enjoying a warm and soft time in bed with your lovely young wife to be.

Standing around (there are no chairs, who do we think we are ? U2?) for hours in a freezing warehouse with wet shoes, trousers and feet, no warmth and no food or drink: this is the life ! I'm sure Duran Duran felt the same, being kept waiting in the sunshine on that luxury yacht off the Brazilian coast no doubt being fed champagne, canapes and cocaine by leggy models while they re-did Simon Le Bon Bon's hair for the umpteenth time.

On an hourly basis we treat ourselves to ten minutes huddled together in Steve's car with the heating on, until between visits the car is broken into by some `Sarf London' urchins, thereby creating unwanted ventilation through the hole where the side window used to be and defeating the object of us trying to use it for respite from the biting winds chilling our marrows in the warehouse.

I know making videos isn't easy, but there were whole hours where nothing appeared to be happening at all. Surely it can't be that hard to point a camera at something. It was made worse by a complete lack of communication from the video guys. Hanging around is one thing, but it's the not knowing for how much longer which really gets you down. This became an endurance test of mammoth proportions and was about as interesting and rewarding as standing at a bus stop for 12 hours.

It's evening and even colder by the time we Smugglers line-up for inside shots of us dancing amid glittery strips of foil hanging from the roof while Chris once again lip-synchs the lead vocal to cut to and from the snow shots. It takes an absolute technical eternity to get Stevie C, Ged and I lined up in one shot, why I don't know....there's this farcical passing of a photo frame from one person to the other (mine ended up on the cutting room floor) and then there are some shots of each of us reflected in a chunk of mirror.... until finally, late that evening, with food and drink but a distant memory of some 12 hours ago, we were mercifully done.

An end to the misery finally in reach, and having no money for a cab, (I naively thought we'd be finished while the buses were still running) and with barely a clue as to where the hell we are anyway, I beg Stevie `Vox Continental ' Cox to take me home to my door about 3 miles away in Camberwell. Our keyboard man is the only one of us smart enough to have a car to deliver us from this god-forsaken place, even if it does now have a busted side window. I've rarely appreciated a lift as much as I did that night. "One of the most testing days of my life", says the diary.

About a month later, one Monday, my friend Sally Wooly says she saw the video on MTV the night before and that she didn't quite know how to say this but........she couldn't really see me in it. That's right kids ! I had stood around freezing my toes off and starving for 13 hours for nothing. The video director, who we never saw again from that day to this, hadn't even seen fit to include a couple of token shots of the insignificant long haired drummer guy as some small reward for his misery.

In the 70's the only thing that mattered was the music. You heard new bands on the radio if you knew where to listen, and there was a magic and mystery about only hearing them and not seeing them. If you liked them so much that you wanted to find out more you generally went to your local city hall or university and caught them in the flesh. When I first heard such obscurities as Seventh Wave on my local radio station in 1975, they sounded like they were from the moon, and what's more I didn't give a second thought to what the buggers looked like. Who cared ? The music was the soundtrack to your imagination. Imagination is not a pre-requisite for listening, but it happens because by listening rather than watching, the music is given a chance to "conjure up images of sacred spaces" as my friend Archie Patterson once so eloquently put it. Archie may have been talking about the great Kosmische Musik but it applies equally to say, `Tangled Up In Blue'. Can you imagine the pointlessness of shooting a promo for this song, when every one of the millions of people who have heard Bob Dylan's masterpiece have their own set of images in their head, to be added to as every nuance makes itself clearer.

Then MTV reared it's ugly corporate head, and it soon became the norm that some fool would be employed at great expense (the artist's expense of course) to make a video for the `marketplace'. All of a sudden lame storyboards, exotic locations (not if you're the Honey Smugglers), punishing shooting schedules, and protracted editing sessions become another exciting way to waste vast amounts of money you'd never recoup...and in all honesty the net result of all this indulgence ? Well....how many great music videos can you name ?

Although I can see the lists forming in your heads already, I can't think of one I really ever want to see again. I just don't think they work as an artform. They chain a song down to an association with a repeatable visual image, and that in my view defeats the object of music in principle, whilst one can listen to the same timeless song for a lifetime, who would want to watch the video more than once or twice ? Visual information becomes very boring very quickly, but for some mystical and magical reason music bears repeated listening in a variety of moods, circumstances and over vast timespans.

The other long term effect on the culture of popular music, entrenched today, was that bands were just as likely to be signed if their faces were video friendly, as if their music was any good. Ben Wardle admitted as much in his recent blog about the ubiquitous Ms Boyle. That's why today we have endless bands who are more bothered about the way they look than writing any remotely memorable or ground-breaking music, although even this theory doesn't explain or excuse Coldplay.

I'm with Jimi on this one. When, in the 60's, Hendrix was innocently asked what he had thought of an early oil slide lightshow in the golden days of London's UFO club his response was "Man, I've got better pictures in my head". If he'd lived long enough to witness the advent of the promo video he'd have been very grateful indeed for what he'd seen that night.

Suffer with me one time, I'm in there somewhere if you don't blink, and it's not a bad song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVisdqi754I

Been Solo Without You

2009-04-01T09:04:00.000+01:00

As any music fan will tell you, the highlight of any album or live performance is the drum solo.

There is usually a mass exodus to the bar during the inevitable medley of a band's best known and loved numbers in order to stock up on drinks in preparation for the highlight of the night.
A wonderful 10, 15 even 20 minutes where the star of the show gets a chance to shine leaving the underlings in the band (guitarist, singer etc) enviously nursing a scotch and coke in the wings, secretly wishing that they were the drummer and could get all the girls, while our hero has the audience transfixed in a world of paradiddles, mummy/daddy rolls and triplets.

How many of us from punk rockers to folk fans have rushed home with a newly purchased triple live LP and gone excitedly to the longest track secure in the knowledge that between our favourite verses on what was once a 3 minute song, there will be 15 minutes of drum heaven from the smallest cowbell to the largest gong, with every single thing within the drummer's reach being hit at least once ? Including the bass player.

Here is my humble contribution to God's own form of musical expression, recorded exclusively for this blog just two days ago (actually Martin had gone to pick up Glynn and I found myself in the rehearsal room with just my kit for company, and rather like finding yourself alone with a woman I thought I'd better at least attempt to do something creative with my hands).

Sit back, relax and enjoy, lighters at the ready and don't forget to clap along kids !

http://www.box.net/shared/7pi198m4q0

The Two Ronnies

2009-03-11T21:21:00.000Z

I received Luke Haines' book `Bad Vibes' for my birthday, an excellent choice by Sarah it has to be said. I tore through it in a day and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm sure glad I wasn't in a band with the miserable bastard though.

He tells of his own personal journey through the music business, (as leader of The Auteurs and beyond) very truthfully, and is a great read. For the descriptions of Oasis' `Don't Look Back In Anger' as "a brainless, oafish anthem about nothing at all" and The Verve's `Bittersweet Symphony' as "the musical equivalent of a child's colouring in book: simpleton lyrics about life sometimes being good and sometimes being bad" he earns my special admiration...

Meanwhile back in Dusty Rainbows land, it's December 1989, and the Honey Smugglers are completing 3 songs in 3 days at Raezor Studios in South West London. We're recording in a 24-track for the first time with development money generously provided by a major record label, and it's sounding excellent beyond our wildest hopes. For the first time our individual parts are distinguishable from the rehearsal room murk we're used to.

Having recorded our tracks quickly and with spirit we move swiftly on to the mixing with Bernard the engineer. It's a tricky process which can make or break a song, and long hours are spent balancing the instruments in relation to each other. The state of the art computerised desk remembers every setting and fader movement, and after a day or more of moving towards the goal slowly but surely, viola ! ...sorry, voila !..everyone is happy with the final mixes. The studio standard monitor speakers are small Yamahas designed to give a definitive reference point should a band wish to record the drums in one studio, the vocals in another, and the bass trombone parts in yet another. Throughout the mixing process these speakers are the only ones we've heard the songs on.

By now it is well into the evening of the last day and friends and well wishers, (including some chums from late 80's popsters The Muscle Shoal) have started to appear, aware that the end is in sight, bearing bottles and smokes. It is the moment we've all been waiting for...time to hear it on THE BIG SPEAKERS. They are so huge they literally go from floor to ceiling in the control room, on either side of the window to the live room. Luke Haines reckons the official jargon is the `Ronnies' (Big speakers=Biggies=Ronnie Biggs=Ronnies). I'll therefore take that to it's logical conclusion and call them the Two Ronnies, given that they come as a pair.

The long hours of intense concentration are at an end, and it's time to party. When we get to the last of the three tunes, `Listen' the party is in full swing. I will never forget the feling of sheer unassailable joy at hearing this massive sounding THING we have created. I don't even care if nobody else ever hears it, it is the culmination of everything we've been aiming for in our 18 month life as a band. We sound absolutely bloody fantastic, and no-one can take that feeling away. Nobody can talk over it because it's too damn loud. It's loud, but it is as clear as a bell. You can feel the bass through the floor and in your ribs, the massive drums propelling it forwards, the soaring vocals bathed in reverb, the entire contents of the percussion box moving and shaking, and the gwirling, growling Organ are all there surrounded by their own halo of magnificence. If only you could invite the whole world to this studio right now to share this.

In the control room dancing breaks out, mile wide smiles abound, wine is drunk and life doesn't get any better. Three days ago this didn't exist, and now we've made something which will live forever. The massive size and quality of the speakers make it a wonder to behold. The moment is cherished, so much so that it remains clear to me virtually 20 years on.

You never forget your first experience with The Two Ronnies.

At the time I'm working at the BBC, and the next day is the Christmas party at the BBC Club next to Broadcasting House. I've spent the whole day at home listening to a DAT tape of the mixes from last night. It's not the same on my speakers. At the BBC party that evening, Sarah, Russell and I are robbed of the prize of a CD player in the raffle because Russell's number is being called out while he's in deep conversation elsewhere in the room, despite the fact that we know it's his. It goes to some girl who doesn't even work there anymore. CD players are a big deal in 1989, and more importantly I HAVEN'T GOT ONE. We leave the party in disgust at the injustice perpetrated upon us.

We go up to Russell's office on the fifth floor of Broadcasting House where he has a bottle of Scotch stashed away. Russell has not heard the recording yet. We put it on the hi-fi in his office in all it's digital glory. It sounds fantastic. We've had a lot to drink, so we open the door and blast it out down the stuffy, curvy corridors of the ship-shaped front of this bastion of the broacasting establishment. Fuck them all ! This is rock'n'roll and we'll show them ! One day we will rule the world !!

It's approximately 9.30 in the evening, and along in Studio 5A, a mere 100 yards from Russell's small archive selector's office, Radio 4's flagship arts programme `Kaleidoscope' is being transmitted. The clearly illuminated red light is a major clue to this. I'm at this point thinking it would be an excellent idea to give them an exclusive first hearing of the grooviest thing they'll hear this week or next, or the one after that, and set off down the corridor with the DAT tape.
I peer through the glass at the faces gathered around several beautifully suspended microphones, discussing goodness knows what, and wonder what I'm really going to do next.

At this moment I am brought back to sanity by Sahra and Russell who point out that it's likely I'll never set foot in Broadcasting House again if I even attempt to open that studio door. My glittering media career will be at an immediate end. Yours truly having finally seen sense, we retreat to Russ's office, and by way of compensation and still drunk, we manage to get the volume control on his amp all the way up to ten. The noise is deafening, but it still can't compare with the Two Ronnies.

The next day, Russell can't do any work because apart from a crippling hangover, his speakers are putting out an indistinct and pathetic flapping sound. We'd royally blown his woofers and tweeters to bits the night before and no mistake. He calls BBC premises department and they send a little man to replace the equipment without so much as a question as to how they ended up in this sorry state. People in the office remark about the incredibly loud music which could be heard the night before on the other side of the building. Our lips are sealed.

Put this on the biggest speakers you can find, but it still won't compare with the Two Ronnies !

Listen Link Below
http://www.box.net/shared/mp96vo6llc

A Little Something...

2009-03-11T19:17:00.000Z

As you know, I play with Radio Massacre International, which is a very much a group effort and all the more exciting for that. Lately I've taken to recording a few things at home, some of which might end up being adapted by the band, and some of which will constitute my winning entry in the race to release a solo album before Duncan and Gary can get round to it. How prog is that ? I always thought it really funny that when Yes went up themselves in the mid-seventies, everyone in the band insisted on doing one, including the drummer. His was rubbish of course, as was surprisingly perhaps, the guitarist's. The singer, keyboardist and bass player won the day...not that you probably care !

In fact I do have an album ready to go called `New Church' for which I just need the artwork finishing. Meantime I thought it'd be fun to post a brand new thing hot off the presses, which I recorded on March 1st. There's no grand concept, it's just interesting that whenever I fire the gear up I usually end up with something a few hours later. It won't change your life but you might find it a pleasant diversion for 5 minutes or so.

Listen/Download here:

http://www.box.net/shared/8g8e11mi1t

Tunes I Never Tire Of #5: 10cc - I'm Mandy Fly Me

2009-03-06T21:23:00.000Z

It's been a busy few weeks, and all quiet on the blogging front. Much of my time has been spent making tweaks to some new RMI pieces, distilling the essence down to something releasable and repeatable on discerning hi-fi systems across the globe. I love getting the music `back to the lab' for analysis and scrutiny, although believe me, listening to a synchronised crossfade edit too many times in a `late night frame of mind' can do your head in. We largely record everything live to multitrack in the rehearsal space we have used for many a year in Stockport (Greater Manchester).

By coincidence, a thread on Progressive Ears got me digging around for the magnificent and mind blowing `Consequences' by Lol Creme and Kevin Godley. These two left 10cc at their height and spent over a year holed up in the studio making this boxed triple album which cost an amazing £11 in 1977. It is now largely regarded as a grand folly, an indulgent failure and typical of 70's excess (yawn yawn). Well me and my mate Nige were two of the seventeen people who thought it was utter genius. Aside from the incredible music and out of this world recording techniques, what's not to like about a playlet entirely scripted and performed by Peter Cook in a multitude of voices ? Still...you can't teach ducks to dance.

Most of the work on it was done in Stockport, as were the early 10cc albums I inevitably graduated towards after unlocking `Consequences' once again. My listening for the week therefore has all originated in this proud Lancashire town, which is possibly the only place in the world to boast both a viaduct and a pyramid.

On reading up on 10cc's Strawberry Studio, I was quite flabbergasted to learn that it was the first commercial studio to be built outside London. I had no idea. I knew it was groundbreaking, but it seems amazing now that if you were a band from Liverpool, Manchester or Glasgow you had to go to London to make a record, even up until the late sixties.

I love the way that the four members of 10cc bought an empty space, started equipping it, and whilst messing about with drum sounds to test out their new multitrack machine, by sheer fluke ended up with `Neanderthal Man' (naming the band Hotlegs) and having surely one of the most bizarre No2 hits ever.

This was the springboard for 10cc, they honed studio recording to a fine art as nobody had done before, yet they never took their eye off the charts. In retrospect, those of us privileged enough to first become aware of pop music between 1972-77 were absolutely spoilt. The bar has never been raised as high since, and never will be again judging by the state of the bands we're churning out these days who seem to be more interested in their hair gel than spending three weeks overdubbing vocals in the spirit of sonic exploration. I absolutely recommend this article on the making of the legendary `I'm Not In Love' which will make you hear it once more with fresh ears. It was and is a towering achievement.

The following year, 10cc came out with `I'm Mandy Fly Me'. It was similarly epic but is now far less familiar to the majority of the population than `I'm Not In Love'. This is thanks to modern radio's oldies policy of choosing one or two hits by name bands and discarding the rest as if they never happened. It's easy to forget that bands like 10cc had 10 or 12 chart hits. In their quest to sound more like everyone else than everyone else, the oldies stations' entire music databases are now probably dwarfed by the number of songs on most people's I-Pod Nanos, and far less diverse.

The song is a poignant and personal tale of a guy on the street whose life is going nowhere, until he sees a poster for an airline with the hostess beckoning "I'm Mandy Fly Me". He gets whisked away and finds himself in the plane with Mandy which then crashes over the sea. He survives and is rescued by Mandy, only to find her missing and himself deposited back on the street staring at the wall. They really don't write them like that anymore.

More than anything it's the mixing and the construction of the song as a mini movie which makes it such a triumph, and there can be few more seductive introductions to any record....awesomely phased and panned white noise, backwards and forwards zither strokes swirling around the stereo image, as the introductory melody soars over the top. Is it played on a state of the art synthesizer they could no doubt afford by this time ? Is it heck, it's somebody whistling along to a Fender Rhodes electric piano. You try and better it !

The main feature is a great lead vocal by Eric Stewart, you're there with him in the story. There are carefully crafted changes of pace, key and scene. It's cinematic, and flows seamlessly. It stretches the boundaries, but never risks alienating the pop audience. It could be heard regularly on wonderful Radio One in the glorious early summer of 1976.

Listen and marvel one time at these four geniuses from sunny Stockport who went to the moon and back on behalf of pop music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ANr-OXMork

Slowly Slipping Into History Feel Us Go...

2009-01-24T14:39:00.000Z

The well publicized closures of two old and contrasting `indie' stomping grounds are part of the latest chapter in an endless tale of woe about the gradual death of the music industry as we know it. Both of them hold great memories for me.

The Astoria in Charing Cross Road, literally in the middle of London (Centre Point tower is opposite), served for years as one of the 'biggies' to play alongside the Kentish Town Forum a few miles up the road. It had a capacity of 2000 and you pretty much felt like you'd arrived if you played there. The bouncers were intimidating thugs and the drinks were served in atrociously overpriced cans which could have been bought round the corner for a fraction of the cost, but the trick was to arrive late full of ale, see the band and leg it back to the pub (usually the Pillars Of Hercules). In fact I seem to remember us making an early exit to the pub after about two songs when the Manic Street Preachers (or was it Blur ? possibly both) played there, but that's the luxury of guest lists for you. A decent pint becomes more important than a band if you haven't paid anything to get in.

It will be sadly missed by the indie kids of old though. It was one of the best `moshing' venues around. Its sticky floor a heady mixture of beer, ground-in fag ash and bodily fluids as testament to hundreds of nights of stage-diving abandonment and joy at volume levels which will no doubt be illegal very soon, along with enjoying yourself.

Now on the same patch of ground, they'll be building a new rail link, mainly so that businessmen can get to the continent more quickly. How marvellous for them, it'll be nice when they finish it years behind schedule and no doubt several billion pounds over budget, that's if there's any business left to be done by then. How totally irrelevant to the person of culture, taste and low funds who doesn't give two hoots about business, but just wants to boogie their face off on a Friday night while high on recreational substances. What could possibly be wrong with that?

I played there in October 1990 with the Honey Smugglers as the grand homecoming on our first UK tour as support to the mighty Eat, who were among the best live bands I ever saw. It was a joy to see and learn from them night after night throughout our glorious adventure through the windswept town centres of our fair country. When the Smugglers hit the enormous Astoria stage it was early and the place was nowhere near capacity, but we'd been invited by Eat to join them on their encores, by which time the place was full. They all doubled up on percussion, so with plenty of instruments to hand, I found myself hitting Timbales for all I was worth in a power duet with their human dynamo drummer Pete Howard, while our singer Chris danced deliriously alongside Ged on tambourine and Steve C on Organ. This was in front of nearly 2000 swaying people and I wanted that moment slap bang in the centre of London to last forever. It was certainly the place to be that night.

By contrast in terms of size (300 capacity) but not in atmosphere, is Leicester's more modest but equally legendary Princess Charlotte, which is 99% likely to close any time now because it's gone into receivership. A roll call of big names such as Stone Roses, Oasis, Arctic Monkeys and er, Pete Docherty (or Doherty or whatever the dismally untalented creep calls himself) have all passed through this unassuming city centre pub on their way to the top.

More importantly, this venue was a vital component of the affectionately known indie `toilet circuit'. From Southampton (The Joiners) to Hull (The Adelphi) and at least a dozen points inbetween, an abundant variety of groups on the verge of their big breakthrough, with a single in the shops, would slog their way through the provinces in battered vans of dubious provenance. The locals having read about them in the music papers (remember them ??) could check them out first hand for a few quid, and a following could be slowly built. The Charlotte was typical of these venues which were often unloved and unlovely, but somehow belonged to the kids who frequented them. The best ones were where the pub landlord had given over an under used function room to a keen young promoter, let him call it `The Electric Whirlpool' or the `The Psychic Pig' and enjoyed the greatly improved bar takings that the gigs brought in. There was no need for stringent security, your indie kids were generally a good natured intelligent bunch, and as long as a blind eye was turned to the odd spliff then there was no trouble from anybody.

The first time the Honey Smugglers saw the Charlotte was on a wet Monday in March 1991, and we initially wanted to turn round and go back home. The dressing room was painted entirely black with a single light bulb hanging in the middle. There was nothing resembling furniture as far as I recall. I was amused to see a poster advertsing The Mercurys (my brother's band) who had already beaten us to it. Leaving these somewhat dismal surroundings after soundchecking we went for pizza in town.

On our return an hour or two later the transformation was total. The place was buzzing with young indie kids. The bar was serving up fine ale and all was suddenly well with the world.
A venue is brought alive by it's punters, and to see the place busy made the band want to go on and have a good time too. We played a great gig with excellent sound, to a fine reaction. We celebrated what was our 100th gig in real style.

Two years later I was back drumming with my new band TV Eye (which included Paul and Max Noble from Eat, I was going up in the world) and this time we had a proper tour bus with a CD player and video (ooh get you !), as we rolled up outside the Charlotte. The trip itself had been a hoot because our singer Paul Kaye (pictured right on that very journey) had been on incredible form, and no doubt assisted by the several joints we had smoked on the way we had hardly stopped laughing. He's made a hell of a lot more people laugh since, but there was a time when we had him all to ourselves. You really had to be there to see the "Oh no lads I've stuck a Rizla to my hand by accident...the gig's off" routine.

On this tour I was now signing into guest houses as `Beeb Fader', my newly acquired alias, after my skills on the mixing desk had been noticed by Paul during a recording session. He was now `Jack Cake' and on the rare occasions we were required to give autographs, his sign off was "Have a slice of me". Jack's persona was known to occasionally take over in rehearsals and sing of "going to get me some ice-cream" or "we are toast" instead of the somewhat more serious matters in hand.

As we carved `TV Eye' lovingly into the wall of the dressing room at The Charlotte, we wondered if that light bulb hanging in the middle of the room had been changed in the two years since I was last here, the gig was great, intense and loud and we went down well in front of Thousand Yard Stare's audience, but the episode which sticks strongest in the mind was during the pre-gig pint and hanging around time in the bar of The Charlotte.

I stumbled into the middle of it having been out to find food. Basically Louis Jones our bass player was on the floor in such convulsions of laughter that he literally couldn't breathe and was begging for Paul K to stop, whilst emitting a high pitched whine in between gasps for air. "Stop what ?" I hear you ask. Paul had captured the exact characteristics of Louis helpless whine and was relaying it back to him pitch perfect, making him lose it even more. This was punctuated with declarations of "nothing to see here" in high nasal upper crust tones , and with a suitably daft face for good measure staring at Louis from close range he had the power to virtually hospitalize our poor bass player with split sides.

It was amazing to see the Kaye in action. Without doubt the funniest man I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. From then on he attempted to "light Louis' cummerbund of fire" at every available opportunity, including throwing himself down a motorway embankment, but that's another story.

Those great times have gone, now many of the places where they happened are going too...

Honey Smugglers `Need' @ Princess Charlotte 18/3/91 : Download here
http://www.box.net/shared/37nyi1u9rp

T.V.Eye `Wow' @ Princess Charlotte 25/4/93:Download here
http://www.box.net/shared/c3ixt7ocxu

Pictured Above: Paul looking like he's just about to set Louis off again. (Oxford April 1993)

A Very Big Blouse Christmas

2008-12-23T10:58:00.000Z

A mere 25 years ago this week there took place a significant musical event which resonates down the years, and here it is made public for the first time.

OK. Really it was a bunch of young people in the North East of England, getting up onstage and making a bit of Christmas entertainment for anyone mad enough to show up to a windswept nightclub on the Sunday before Christmas and party. Band leader and inspiration was Mark Raynes, who loved Marc Bolan and Marc Almond and spelt his name with a `c' too. I joined the band as you did in them days, by merely walking down the High Street in Marske at the right time. I bumped into old school mate Ian `Ely' Conlin, where it was quickly established that yes indeed I did play the drums and would be happy to join their band and make some new friends. They were doing their first show with a part timer on the skins , but had 2 more gigs lined up over the Christmas of '83, for which I had just instantly agreed to take over. I said I'd turn up for the first show and bring my Moog synth for a laugh.

As the band hit the stage on that freezing night in Saltburn at the legendary Philmores (not to be confused with Fillmores East and West which were in New York and San Francisco respectively) we didn't even have a name. It was to everyone's surprise that compere Tinker Dick took it upon himself to introduce us as `The Big Blouse Show'. Mark had a great collection of Glam style (OK OK, women's) clothes, which we all took great delight in wearing, and there were girls in the band too to do us make-up too. We kept the name.

Aaah the girls. I wonder where they are now ? Possibly mothers with kids of the same age as they were here. Before this gig, as far as I know none of them had ever sung into a microphone before, or indeed had experience of what is known in the business as a `desk tape' where everything they say or sing is picked up in brutal clarity. Throughout the gig, you can hear them saying things to each other "I was miming during that one", "I'm getting dead paranoid" and falling over giggling.

So, I give you a Christmas medley North East-style. We made our own fun in those days that's for sure. It's said that Punk instilled a DIY ethic in the youth of the day, and here it is in action. Those brassy Teesside girls bawled out `White Christmas' as if they were on the terraces at Ayresome Park. I love the way they are all singing different words at the same time too. You can almost taste the Cider and Black and Bacardi and Coke, and just about see the tinsel sparkling at the end of memory lane.

I was wearing some sparkly gloves I'd borrowed off my Nana, a colourful lurex `thing' and leather trousers. You can hear me swooping away for no good reason on the synth in the background. As the extravaganza finishes and we take a bow, on comes Tinker Dick, flat-capped MC extraordinaire who came to Saltburn for these gigs on his bike come rain or shine. A local legend who I am pleased to report is still around.

"A big bloody hand please !"

DOWNLOAD HERE:
http://www.box.net/shared/lt4k18g66y

and here if that wasn't enough...
http://www.box.net/shared/tcx1jrjr0u

Happy Christmas !

Nothing Is Sacred

2008-12-14T16:53:00.000Z

This year's `X Factor' winner has recorded Leonard Cohen's `Hallelujah'. I was horrified to learn this as I awoke to another day and hoped I'd dreamt it. This is one of those songs that truly qualifies as one of the greatest ever written, by anybody's standards, including God's. Legend has it that it took Cohen at least a year to hone it to perfection after discarding some EIGHTY verses. A Sistine Chapel of a song really. It is heartbreaking, bleak, eternally true and transcendently beautiful. Real tears are shed to this song by true music lovers all over the world.

But hey, along comes Cowell, who decides it's just the song he needs to give to the three finalists in his grand plan to ruin music and make himself richer. My initial reaction was one of abject paranoia. I felt as if the rising tide of mediocrity and disrespect had finally reached my door and threatened to destroy one of my favourite songs JUST TO ANNOY ME PERSONALLY. Work like this is the pinnacle of the art of songwriting. The emotional power of such a precious jewel can truly elevate people and take them to a sacred place. This is what music means to me, and thankfully I am by no means the only one. There are thousands upon thousands of us out there. It is an affront to everybody who was ever moved by this song.

The `X Factor' final was won by Alexandra. She's inevitably one of those soul divas who thinks that singing a dozen pointless notes in the space where one meaningful one will do is a substitute for soul and emotion. I forget her second name. Don't worry, everyone else soon will too. (Oh, apparently she's a Burke...damn you Wikipedia you know too much !)

What a wholly and completely inappropriate song for ANY of these pitiful lambs to the slaughter to sing anyway, given that it at least relies on some life experience before it could even begin to come across convincingly. Isn't it incredible that it didn't even matter who won the `million pound recording contract'* be it Burke, little Irish hair gel boy or J2O or whatever they're called, that any of them were deemed worthy of singing this song, and presumably any of the other 118,722 cattle who queued up in our rainswept towns and cities for hours in the hope of being humiliated by the musical philestine who brought us Robson and Jerome.

Q: Is nothing sacred ?

A: No, not any more

After my usual bout of ranting and raving (apologies to long suffering wife and child) and a visit to the Xmas Panto where Cinderella was determined to "accentuate the positive" I thought I'd take a leaf out of her book. After all, she got her reward in the end by marrying a Prince with tits.

Anyway I got to thinking of the absurdity of the situation, all those kids and musically challenged grown-ups who will go and buy the wretched thing, toss it aside after a couple of weeks but in the process line the pockets of a 74 year old genius poet from Canada none of them have ever heard of. This is indeed a sweet silver-lining because Leonard Cohen was recently relieved of most of his pension fund by his manager, and despite winning the court case against her was told he'll probably never recover the money. Nice manager, I hope she's enjoying the millions she stole. Don't you just love people sometimes ?

Futher research drew a groan of inevitability that...guess what ? The winner of `American Idol' in March this year also sang `Hallelujah'. God almighty, there really is no beginning to the imagination of Cowell, the man Roger Daltrey once famously and accurately described as a "turd" (I couldn't find his original quote but was delighted to find this instead....two turds for the price of one. Roger, put it there me old son !)

Reading on, I was delighted to learn that the ultimate outcome of the `American Idol' victory was that Jeff Buckley's definitive reading of the song topped the download chart instead, giving him a posthumous number one, thanks to a protest campaign by people who'd just about had enough of this shit. Don't you just love people sometimes ?

I am even more heartened to learn that there is a similar rising tide of disgust in the UK and that there are campaigns to do the same thing and stop this wretched, overwrought landfill from being the UK Christmas number one over here by downloading the Buckley version en masse over the week to follow.

Join the campaign on Facebook NOW.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=66500765224

The extra incentive is that Xmas `Top Of The Pops' makes a return this year. Wouldn't it be sweet to drink a toast to the mighty talents of Leonard Cohen and Jeff Buckley on the 25th December instead?

*When they say `Million pound recording contract' what they mean is that it will cost them a million pounds in manufacturing, promotion, mechanical royalties and paying Simon Cowell. The (ahem) artist is unlikely to see much if any of the money generated and will be back working in Tescos this time next year if she's lucky (there is a recession on you know).

More festive fun soon ! Sorry if I'm getting on my high horse a bit recently...I have a treat lined up from 25 years ago to lighten the mood next time. A true DIY Christmas musical extravaganza from the days when we made our own entertainment. Aye them were the days etc etc....

Tunes I Never Tire Of #4: The Roches - Hammond Song

2008-12-04T18:59:00.000Z

There's singing, and there's SINGING. These three sisters from New Jersey captured my heart almost the minute I heard them. Actually, they did seem a bit strange at first. They were performing their own peculiar take on Dylan's `Clothes Line Saga' on the Whistle Test back in the day, and they lodged themselves in my mind, biding their time. I eventually succumbed to their charms a couple of years later when I could finally afford their third album `Keep On Doing' and was blown away, not least by an acapella arangement of the `Hallelujah Chorus' (not something one attempts lightly,but they carried it off with such aplomb)

This though is from the debut. A great pleading tale to one sister not to go off with a plainly unworthy chap. Those long, exquisite harmonies sung with such force that they pin you to the wall. A force to be reckoned with. The icing on this richest of cakes is the liquid gold of producer Robert Fripp's guitar which threads it's way carefully through the vocal layers and is almost too much bliss for one song.

Hear here:
http://www.box.net/shared/o3gx2upm11

What's Your Vibe Man?

2008-11-23T18:24:00.000Z

It's late November 1991, and I've been kicking around at a bit of a loose end drumming-wise since the demise of the Smugglers in the summer. There have been a couple of no-hope `small ad' experiences I'm not anxious to repeat, and a couple of invitations from friends of friends, which while flattering, were not for me. I have got it into my head that it has to be something pretty big, as at 28 I ain't getting any younger.

A call comes through from Jo at Ultimate Records, saying that Cally (one of the exceptions to the rule in the music business, being generous of spirit and genuinely interested in music) has recommended me to Gavin Friday and to call his musical director Maurice to arrange a chat. Thus I find myself in a large and plush apartment in Notting Hill, where said Mr Friday and collaborator Maurice Seezer are over from Dublin to (ahem) `sequence the album'. In layman's terms this means that the record is done, but the tracks need to be arranged in an agreeable running order in order to benefit the album as a whole. It's something us mere mortals do on the back of a beer-mat after a few pints, but as an Island Records recording artiste it has to be done this way, at maximum possible expense to everybody concerned.

I'm way too assured, and even a little put out that they've never heard of the Honey Smugglers.I've also had a couple of `liveners'. I feel a slight bristle in the room when I ask for a beer when offered a drink, as they are both on small bottles of Coca Cola.They're assembling a band to tour Europe from February, and I'm being considered for the drum position. As I sit there nonchalantly in my tracksuit bottoms in front of Gavin and Maurice and their huge stereo, I am somewhat less than impressed with the tracks they play me.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=BkuT7Mv8uOE
(It sounds pretty good to me now, I must say. Ah, the arrogance of youth.)

Maybe if I'd bothered to find out who Gavin Friday was (no internet in them days mind!) I'd have had a bit more respect, but he kept saying in a strong Dublin accent, things like "every song is loike a movie" and "what's your voibe man?" just a little bit too seriously for what I regarded as quite ordinary music. Suffice to say I don't think we really hit it off, and politely went our separate ways. Even if I didn't like the music that much, I figured, I at least needed to work with someone a bit better connected if I was going to get anywhere in the wonderful world of Pop.

It was only afterwards that I found out he was best mates with Bono.

The Dumbest Thing I've Heard This Week

2008-11-22T13:39:00.000Z

BBC Radio 2 continues to offend in ways it can hardly imagine, and I don't just mean by playing too much Snow Patrol. I had the misfortune on my way home last night, (in-between poptastic CD's of my own choice naturally) to catch approximately 1 minute of Claudia Winkleman's show. It was Clem Burke from Blondie's birthday, and she'd played `Atomic' in his honour. As the record faded, her exact words were "...brilliant ! Happy birthday to Clem, they really should use that song in an advert".

I beg your pardon ? That's all these classic songs are fit for now? Timeless, crafted magnificent pop music reduced to being purloined and bastardised into selling something nobody really needs and ruining the song for everybody in the process? and idiots like her are encouraging this as if it's some kind of achievement and ultimate goal? I didn't think the ignorance of our broadcasters could get much lower, but I hadn't reckoned on Claudia. To some of us, many of us, music is a precious form of communication, a treasured soundtrack. It's a reminder of a time when weren't patronised by politicians and advertisers at every turn. To us thinking types, the music we treasure is one of our only refuges from the landfill which passes for mass culture these days. Our I-Pods the only insulation in public against the inane, intrusive phone drivel of those determined to microwave their brains as quickly as possible.

Remember the mobile phone ad which used Vashti Bunyan's `Just Another Diamond Day' ? The song was written in the late sixties while the author was on a two year sojourn to Scotland with horse and cart and no conveniences at all, never mind a 3G, bluetooth, 10 megapixel ticket to nowhere. Some advertising non-entity hears Vashti's charming little tune at a dinner party in Hoxton and amidst the canapes and coke decides to ruin it for everybody by foisting it upon an ungrateful nation so that rather than being a rare treat to listen to on exactly the right occasion, (on holiday in Pembrokeshire, say) it becomes a source of irritation as it's repeated at every ad break for months on end, under pictures which have absolutely nothing to do with the song. Nick Drake's `Pink Moon' used to advertise VW cars. What the hell was that all about ? Are we to be pleased with the fact that more people discovered this wonderful artist's legacy through this ad than merely by educating themselves and opening their ears in the first place?

John Densmore of The Doors lost his fellow surviving band members a lot of money by refusing to agree to license `Break On Through' to the advertising whores. He said "People lost their virginity to this music, got high for the first time to this music..... on stage, when we played these songs, they felt mysterious and magic. That's not for rent". Amen to that.

I'll be setting my car radio default to static from now on.

Tunes I Never Tire Of #3: Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & The Trinity `Let The Sunshine In'

2008-11-20T19:54:00.000Z

Oh wow man ! This is a hippie delicacy (from the musical`Hair') all the way from the dawning of the age of Aquarius, but Julie dosen't care about all that bullshit, she just wants to sing, and my god does she belt it out on this one. Although The Trinity are much better known for their absolutely fabulous interpretation of Dylan's `This Wheels On Fire', this one's right up there with it.

Brian Auger is as groovy on the Hammond as it's possible to be, the band is in the pocket, but the song belongs squarely to Julie Driscoll who attacks it with all the fearlessness of a lady who cut her vocal teeth alongside Rod Stewart and gave no quarter. "So for Timothy Leary...." at 1.45 kills me every time.

Driscoll became Tippetts, and turned her back on all the `Face of '68' nonsense she was saddled with by the Pop press to sing free jazz with her pianist husband Keith. They're still doing it, and they're still together. Isn't that great ?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=pLAbR7R_Ex0&feature=related

Extreme Noise Terror Over Teesside

2008-11-16T19:28:00.000Z

Growing up on Teesside did not exactly place me and Duncan at the centre of the musical universe. However, there were enough fellow freaks and a thriving pub music scene to ensure that the opportunity for us to hit the stage soon emerged. Over the course of a year in 1981-2 there were four gigs which served to establish a modus operandi which we still stick with today, albeit with a little more consideration for the audience.

At the age of 18 we discovered the joy of going onstage with an attitude and improvising a truly offensive racket. It was bliss ! This was the way to make music. No tiresome rehearsals, no songs to learn and practice over and over again, no cover versions of `Alright Now' or `Smoke On The Water' to please the guitarist and the audience. Just turn up, set up and turn up.

There were a few good bands in the Redcar and Middlesbrough area at the time, and lots of awful ones, heavy metal ruled OK, punk had disappeared up it's own arse and denim was largely still the order of the day. There was rubbish like Carl Green and the Scene and several other bands whose songs were so lame it's little wonder none of them were ever heard of again, but it at least made for a thriving music scene with several places to play.

Prince Toad couldn't be sure if they were hippies or punks, and were probably both, but they had a bunch of good original tunes, an attitude and a following to boot. The young folks were up for live music in them days, aye lad. No mobiles, no computers, no mp3 players and nowt on telly, (3 channels !) and as everyone still lived with their parents it made sense to meet down the pub, where unlike today you could actually afford a pint or two, even if someone who'd just had their giro ended up standing the round. One Saturday night I'd been out with another mate, and by chance bumped into Duncan in Marske square with my tray of egg fried rice. He'd just returned from Redcar where the upshot of his evening was that we'd been offered a gig. "When is it ?" I asked with interest. "Tomorrow night, supporting Prince Toad" he replied.

Thus a career on the fringes, in the fringes, and nowhere near the fringes of rock'n'roll was born. It was to be our first gig, save for a somewhat fraught attempt earlier in the year at our sixth form college, for which we had made the fatal mistake of rehearsing some songs. It hadn't quite gone according to plan thanks to a combination of acoustic feedback and new strings which went horribly and habitually out of tune....and the fact Jon Davis (who we were basically backing), had consumed `a few' in The Coble, a Sam Smiths pub near the college where a pint was about 35p. He was 18 and drank beer, we were 17 and didn't, although we soon learned.

This time it was to be out in the world proper, namely the sea spray swept environs of The Dolphin on Redcar prom. Sunday 6th September 1981. Bloody hell that's a long time ago. The band was immediately christened `Purple Roof' by bassist Mark `Sandy' Sanderson. These days he's a viking you know....but I digress.

After struggling down there on the bus with as much gear as we could carry we realised that we'd forgotten any means of recording the thing, and both of us stubbornly refused to trudge there and back on the bus for a tape deck, sadly therefore the events of that night remain lost in the sea sprays of time...what I do recall is feeling that this was possibly the best night of my life so far. (I hadn't yet hit the jackpot with those mysterious creatures known as girls...)

I got to thrash around the Prince Toad drum kit as I still didn't have my own, and I got to wear eyeliner. Who could ask for more ? I've always found having make-up applied by a young lady a very sweet experience. Goth pillocks Bauhaus were very popular at the time, so make up was `in'. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

It's hard to describe how we sounded, sitting back there on the drums in the corner of a pub floor with no monitors there was no chance of hearing what Jon Davis our vocalist (above, with Christine) for the night was actually singing, all I know is that the racket we were all making sounded thrilling and new in the way that it always does when you're making a racket that is thrilling and new. There's just something I love about beginning a performance not knowing what you are going to do. I can still remember the train-like beat I was banging out on Dave's toms to this day. It was the only time we played live with Dave Conn, Robert Linus and Mark Sanderson and certainly the only time they were all in the same band, so here's to them.

Live music was immediately banned from The Dolphin after that because Jon's lyrics based on the sex life of fictional couple Gerald and Cynthia was deemed obscene by the landlord. We were off to a good start, even if I hadn't been lucky enough to hear it all for myself.

It was the summer of 1982 when the next opportunity for extreme noise terror presented itself, this time at the Hydro in Redcar, a fantastic pub and regular haunt for the golden youth of the era. It was small and carpeted, having a balcony area running around the upstairs looking directly down on a space which while not exactly a stage, could at least be called a focal point . If there were a few people in the band, the keyboard man often found himself setting up on the balcony and looking down from above. Downstairs were a series of booths just like `Happy Days', and happy days they certainly were, this time being the occasion of Duncan's 19th birthday.

We now had guitarist Steve Roberts in tow. He was an art student with big hair and a penchant for all things gothic. He was certainly noticed by all on the Marske to Middlesbrough train as he made his way to art college every morning. This was of course in the days when nobody had dressed like that before. It was Steve who christened us The Whores Of Babylon, which I'm sure you'll agree is a great name.

He played guitar in a good way, ie he hadn't learned how to play the bloody thing properly, and was therefore free of all those rock'n'roll cliches. His combination of a cheap effects pedal (Colorsound I think) gave off a powerful swirling vibe of howling banshee horror. Duncan had built a little box of tricks of his own, basically a hand controlled oscillator and busied himself with that and bass guitar while I tossed about with the Roland Dr Rhythm Drum Machine and an impossibly crappy Italian synth whilst making aircraft crashing noises with an echo unit. The power was in our hands for half an hour of glorious fun.

There may be no photos of the gig but there is audio. We were always very good at recording things. Come with us now on a journey through time and space!

Whores Of Babylon , Hydro Redcar 30/6/82 (It's an edit, it was originally 30 minutes)
http://www.box.net/shared/3hmrnghc9f

If you make it through to the end, listen for the chorus of cheers which dies down only for an annoymous lass to declare it "Shit" with impeccable Teesside timing. Roadie `Nog' can also be heard giving his verdict, before signing off with a brief profanity delivered in a textbook Redcar accent. The Whores made a return visit to The Hydro in August when I was on holiday, I was gutted to have missed it. This time amongst the source material was a heavily processed interview with Pete Murphy on wonderful Radio One. Funny how Bauhaus figured so much in things back then. People actually used to like them you know.

A lunchtime in October of the same year: I was meeting Jon Davis and Tim Love in the Hydro and when I walked in, right smack bang in the middle of the band platform was a massive, ugly and immovable video jukebox. All of a sudden it was possible to watch Peter Gabriel's `Shock The Monkey' (as good as it got really) and unfortunately Duran Duran's `Rio' which looked even more absurd than it already was when viewed from grey, rainswept Redcar. The punters and the landlord agreed; the future had arrived. If ever there was a moment when the world changed, it was then. I have always hated music promo videos with a passion. 99% of them are an utter waste of time and vast amounts of money. It's a record for God's sake. You're supposed to listen to them, not watch them.

We rarely made it into the great metropolis of Middlesbrough (a mere 10 miles or so) even to see whatever top pop band was in town, our impoverished status as students put paid to that,
and there was a better than average chance of being beaten up if they found out you were from Redcar. We did however have one final clinching glory at Ossies nightclub on 24th August 1982, and even lived to tell the tale. Ossies was in that district of Middlesbrough which resembled Beirut on a bad day, and was usually a straightforward nite spot/copping-off dive for the cognoscenti of the area. Tuesday was a quiet night, so they decided to let somebody book bands.

Tim Love from Shock Headed Peter had sold his band to the venue as `modern dance music' to clinch the gig. `Modern dance' was Haircut 100 and all that shite at that particular time, but at least the Shock Heads had songs you could move about to and clap at the end of.

Unlike The Whores Of Babylon who were now augmented by Jonny Neesham from the art college. He could be heard reading from a prayer book through an effects pedal. (9 minutes into the audio). His startling entrance sounds like an invasion from the planet Endrogynon.

As we shuffled on to that stage a most fearsome racket ensued from the outset. Tim from the Shock Heads was heard to shout "DUNCAN!" in desparation for us to turn it down on more than one occasion. The audience were unusually close to the band due to the layout of the place, and believe me, conversation was not possible. Drinking was difficult enough, with the waves we were creating, and I'm sure if we'd `Memorexed' it, glasses would have shattered too. (Pete Murphy was in that ad too wasn't he ? He gets everywhere). There was me playing in tapes of a French brass band I'd recorded on holiday, Duncan working wonders with whatever instruments of terror he had at his disposal and Steve Roberts chipping in with his Tonebender pedal and guitar of disgrace (rather than `bend' tones it heated them up to meltdown temparature before hammering them completely out of shape).

The game plan for the gig was to eventually bring the Roland drum machine into the mix and then climb up to the drum kit and join in, but just as I'd finally set it off and made myself comfortable at the kit, the landlord decided he'd had enough. It's brilliant that it took him this long to decide that this was truly an unacceptable racket, (14 minutes !), but the drum machine was seemingly the last straw for him and he cut the electricity unceremoniously and without explanation.

On the recording you hear the drum machine start up for a short while, the juice then goes off causing the cassette motor to grind to a halt. The recording therefore speeds up, and just at the last instant I make my one and only contribution on the drums by playing a single crash on the cymbal. A big beautiful full stop on the brief career of the Whores of Babylon.

Power is soon restored and life carries on....the strains of floppy fringed flick-head* anthem`Favourite Shirt' by Haircut 100 fills the dance floor and civilisation is restored.

Listen for yourself here:
Whores Of Babylon: Ossies, Middlesbrough 24/08/82
http://www.box.net/shared/13g8tm8bgd

Quote from `Ossies' manager the next day when another Teesside band fancied a gig and called them up: "After the bands we had in last night from Redcar, we're only booking agency acts now".

That's three venues we'd never play again...we came, we saw, we made one hell of a racket.

(*Flick-heads were those fashion victims seen around the pubs and clubs who had that one sided floppy fringe which required them to forever be flicking it out of their eyes with a jolt of the head. They often had a single ear stud to go with it, the tossers.)

Tunes I Never Tire Of #2: Mott The Hoople - Roll Away The Stone

2008-11-08T22:38:00.000Z

It's back to the stack-heeled glory of the early 1970's for this one. Heralded by the kind of guitar figure which lets you know immediately that you're in for a good time, this fabulous slice of fifties influenced seventies rock is a delight. What the overbearing cultural commentators on the pre-punk era usually forget is just how much fun pop music was in the golden age of `Top Of The Pops' and this record epitomises it.

There are chugging saxes and big reverby drums reinforcing the speeded up Phil Spector feel of this paean to partying,"come out and have a good time !" it screams from the rooftops.

The girly backing vocals by the mighty Thunderthighs are splendidly exuberant ("sha la la la push push !") and after all, you can't have a good party without an almost equal amount of both sexes. The chorus is one of their best, and I love the middle eight as `anything goes' mad 70's pop at it's finest:

Ian Hunter: "There's a rockabilly party on Saturday night, are you gonna be there ?"
Backing girl: " I got my invite"
Ian Hunter: "Gonna bring your records ?"
Backing girl: "Ooh will do !"

This little exchange is finished off with a small vignette on the VCS3 synthesiser which covers the spare 4 bars leading back into the chorus. I can just see the mystery player (presumably pianist Morgan Fisher ?) `dropping in' and recording his take, grappling with the rate controls as his synthesiser struggles to stay in line, but making it soar up to infinity just in time. "Made it !"
declares Ian Hunter before crashing back into the glorious chorus to fade (or does he say "Lady" ? It'll always be "made it" to me)

Here they are doing it on Top Of The Pops, a joy to behold.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lOSt6kHU4BM&feature=related

Tripping Spires

2008-11-07T23:21:00.000Z

The Honey Smugglers show at Oxford University's Xmas Ball sticks in the memory for several reasons. Surrounded by dreaming spires, a sense of history and great learning it made a nice change from more familiar indie venues like the back room of the Dog and Sausage. It was also the only time I've ever been under the influence of LSD.

It was the end of 1990, and my diary reveals a busy schedule of gigs, rehearsals and band meetings, I honestly don't know how I managed to hold down the day job when I look back at this endless round of drinking opportunities and late nights.

We find ourselves in the inner sanctum of Oxford University, through endless corridors and staircases being shown to a remote dressing room with ancient stone walls on the top floor of an old and beautiful building. A generous drinks rider arrives and we quench our thirst before shuffling down to the sound check. This is over by about seven o'clock, so singer Chris and I end up going for a wander to a nearby pub, as we aren't due on stage until midnight. I don't know what the rest of the guys were doing, probably something sensible like eating some food.

A few pints later, on our way back through the campus, there is magic in the cold December air. Manicured lawns and Olde England's finest architecture, it's like another world. Everyone making their way to the ball is dressed in tuxedos and the most stunning ball gowns, and there's us in our battered jeans and baggy long sleeved T-shirts feeling like rock'n'roll peasants but really cool too, because we stand out a mile and are noticed everywhere we go. We're the only ones not dressed up to the nines, so we must be the band.

As we survey the scene, Chris unexpectedly produces a tab of acid from his pocket and suggests it might be a really fun time to take it, and at that moment I totally agree. It's the perfect unusual situation. I've never taken it before, but kind of know broadly what to expect, the timing is right, so we have a half tab each.

The night grows and grows into a truly great time, the dance floor of the old debating hall is heaving with wealthy and beautiful girls who look good enough to eat. We proceed to get pissed in time-honoured fashion, finding time to visit support band International Resque in their dressing room, where they are quietly reading a selection of literary classics and sipping tea. Only joking. They are actually having a contest to see how hard they can punch each other in the stomach, and doing unspeakable things involving cigarettes and their penises. Back on the dance floor, Ged is by now so hammered that he just has this beatific glazed smile on his face, some people get violent and nasty on booze, Ged just smiles at everybody. We dance with a few ball gowned beauties before getting down to the serious matter of the gig itself.

When it finally comes to stage time I'm hovering slightly above it all, the acid having fully kicked in, and feeling good. It has quite a `speedy' effect, sharpening the senses and cancelling out the alcohol. As the disco stops and we start playing, the beautiful people just keep on dancing in front of us, and as we hit our stride I began to notice two things through a kind of telescopic blur. Firstly that the colours seem very bright onstage, and more interestingly, there is a `slow motion me' battling for head space with the 'on the case' me. It's certainly quite entertaining watching my own arms powering away at the cymbals, my sticks bending one way and another like rubber and leaving motion traces. My mind is seemingly detached from the whole thing, but everything is under control. It's a wild gig; a loud, chaotic and fantastic explosion of sound and colour.

Towards the end of the set Chris is having a fine old time singing his heart out and grooving in that jerky and captivating manner of his. On a steady course to the next level of consciousness, he's swooping and diving across the stage with his guitar. For most onlookers, this is entertainment enough, but Chris has other plans.

I watch with some amazement as he suddenly leaps upwards, mid-song, guitar still round his neck, to try and grab hold of a huge chandelier which has been hanging just out of his reach throughout the gig, tempting him and beckoning him with it's curved brassy arms. He latches onto it perfectly and it holds his weight for long enough for him to be able to swing back and forth on it a few times, as everyone in the hall gazes on in disbelief. This is after all, the old debating hall of Oxford University, a sacred place where great minds have argued the philosophies and politics of western civilisation for centuries. Now there's a mad man swinging from one of the bloody chandeliers! It's quite a spectacle for a precious few seconds until the inevitable happens.

Luckily as it breaks he doesn't manage to wrench the entire unit from the ceiling and kill himself in the process; the chains which hold it are strong, but the bit he's been clinging onto soon comes away. Chris is a human pendulum between the stage and the audience, and fortunately he falls as he's swinging over the stage rather than break his ankles landing awkwardly in the audience, which as gambling buffs will remind us, he has an equal chance of doing.

Somewhere in the assembled mass of groovy people the promoter looks at Andy our manager and gestures the dreaded `cut throat' sign. We are docked £100 of the £150 we were due to be paid for the gig, but money can't buy memories like that !

Later into the early hours, I leave the still bouncing dance floor to see what everyone else is up to. Hiking up the staircases and corridors to our loftily situated dressing room , I arrive to find Chris alone, with a big smile on his face, following the emergency fire escape procedure. This means basically that he is just about to abseil 100 ft down the side of the old building to the lawns below. There's an old rope and pulley system mounted on the stone wall in case of emergency, and he's decided it needs testing out.

I immediately recall everything I've read about people's propensity for throwing themselves from great heights while under the influence of the `evil mind altering drug' (Daily Mail) coursing through his brain, and initially try to talk him out of it. But he is on a mission, and has such assurance that I soon understand that the best thing to do is to go with the flow and encourage him.

Not that he needs much encouragement. As I look up, he launches himself out of the window and down the side of the building with all the aplomb of somebody from the SAS. I make it to the window in time to see him covering the last 50 feet to a safe almost textbook landing. (here is the only pictorial evidence, fire escape harness and window can be seen at the right of the photo).

It was a charmed evening, distinguished also by keyboard man Stevie C's first romantic encounter with the future mother of his children. After a perfect night like that I've never felt the need to take acid again.

Jewels From The Oxide #1

2008-11-04T19:59:00.001Z

As those who know me will testify, I used to tape everything. I still do, except that it's digital (with a thing that looks like a shaver) these days. Rooting around in this mountain of cassettes can be the source of much amusement to pass the winter evenings, long forgotten gigs come alive once again at the push of a button. All are precious slices of time from which verbal exchanges like this sometimes make themselves known:

Chris : " I only joined this band because I couldn't get laid"
Steve : "Now you've got even less chance".

(Honey Smugglers: Islington Arts Factory 12/11/88)

Honey Smugglers meet the Barking Bard, with hilarious results !

2008-11-02T20:54:00.000Z

It's August 1990 and the Honey Smugglers are flying high; with write-ups in all three music papers that week, and gigs coming thick and fast on the eve of the release of our first EP `Listen'. At two days' notice we have landed a gig with Billy Bragg at the most happening Mean Fiddler in Harlesden. It's a great venue and sure to be full for Billy B who is at the top of his game and warming up for Reading Festival the next day. As we're soundchecking on the carpeted stage, we meet Billy and find him to be an ace chap. "Hello you Smuggler types" he greets us cheerily, and as I'm introduced to him he says "ah yes, the drummer. Always the one most likely to say "fuck" in front of your mother".

The reason we have the gig is that Mushi Jenner who's a young fan of ours, and her chaperone Annie, have persuaded Mushi's Dad/Billy's manager Peter to put us on the bill. He's not visible at the soundcheck, Annie confides "he says he's heard it all before". In this case, he really has. Who needs to hear our psychedelic pop quartet with an organ and visionary lead singer on scrambled guitar when the first band you managed was Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd ?

Inevitably when we do meet later, I can't resist from drilling him and his charming Japanese wife Sumi for information about some of the legendary figures (and indeed heroes of mine) he's looked after....Syd, Roy Harper, Kevin Ayers..."bloody hell" he protests "you'll be asking me about the Third Ear Band next !" (if he only knew). I thought he deserved some sort of medal for managing this most mercurial set of eccentrics, which can't have been straightforward to say the least, but belief in sheer talent goes a long way I guess.

The Mean Fiddler has two well-appointed dressing rooms, the main act's room is accessed through the support band's. Pre-show The Honey Smugglers made themselves comfortable, enjoying the luxury of something other than the more usual toilet with added chairs. As we're chatting, smoking and drinking the rider away, I happen to remark that tonight's a "bit of an incongruous bill" amongst other possibly indiscreet remarks.

About half an hour later out comes Mr Bragg from the dressing room at the end. We had no idea he was in there all the time. "Hello again" he says, "incongruous Bill here".

Tunes I Never Tire Of #1: Buzzcocks - I Don't Mind

2008-11-02T11:33:00.000Z

The first in an occasional series. Beware, it could be `Tarkus' next time. I can't see this building into one of those definitive and oh so `correct' Top 100 's of which we are all, I'm sure, heartily sick. This series is wont to take a much more random shape as whatever my idea of perfection is this week takes precedent over any numerical order.

Like many, I now have a collection of CDs so large that there are many I will never hear again in this lifetime, but amidst this sea of treasures there are certain songs which will always stand out like diamonds. The ones you reach for when nothing else will do. Songs which `spring to mind' for no reason other than there isn't a better way to spend the next few minutes (or in some cases, 20 minutes).

Everyone has their own idea of perfection. I personally only know it when I hear it, it is as elusive as quicksilver, so hard to define. This tune hits the spot in every way imaginable for every second of it's 2:18. Naturally, it did nothing in the singles charts, (Number 55 ! I ask you). Buzzcocks will always be known primarily for `Ever Fallen Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've), which of course rightly occupies a high position in their wonderful canon of perfect pop alongside another 20 or 30 peerless classics. But I think `I Don't Mind' takes the biscuit and the cigar.

At his youthful peak Pete Shelley had a naive, seemingly automatic way of coming up with these perfect pop songs (he tells recently of dropping his girlfriend off at Woolworths and having written `Love You More' by the time they met for lunch). Herein lies the magic I guess, get it nailed before there's time to analyse it.

`I Don't Mind' sits at the top of the tree for me because this tale of romantic indifference is so effortlessly melodic and original, the way the chord changes breathlessly follow the vocal line a bar at a time propelled by the urgent and perfect drumming of John Maher, like it's a race to the end of the song. The guitar roars like a chainsaw, and the part for me which kills is the simple yet devastating 3 note guitar part at 1:27 which leads to THAT sublime key change. Punk simplicity and a deliberate and playful 2 fingers to musicianship.

Go on, dig it. You know you want to...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UKV6n4b_mXY&feature=related

Gonna Be A Man

2008-10-29T22:08:00.000Z

When I first started sitting in pubs a couple of years back with a pint, some baccy and a notepad, I had the grand idea of seeing if I had enough material for a book, after all, everyone supposedly has one in them. My intention was to write down with fondness and perspective some of my experiences as a musician, particularly the heady days of my time in London in the late '80's and early '90's in a couple of bands who were big enough not to be small time, but small enough not to be big time. As a title, `Dusty Rainbows' sprang to mind and I've had it scrawled on my red folder of beer stained scribblings ever since. The rainbows I had in mind are the dreams manifested in hopes and struggles against fantastic odds trying to get somewhere in the business of music. What it is to be young and fearless.

I recently related a tale to Ben Wardle (after reading his excellent blog A&Rmchair www.benwardle.blogspot.com) about my own experiences with "the world's most argumentative band, and Europe's most stoned producer" and he strongly urged me to get writing a blog. Who's going to publish a book by me anyway and more to the point when would I ever have time to write it ? Small doses I think I can deal with though... time will tell.

`Dusty Rainbows' (the song) contains the immortal words "I was once a part, a part of the scene, I liked the kind of people who liked people like me", which just about sums it up. I have only recently come to realise that `Dusty Rainbows' was also probably intended by it's author to be the name of the character in the song (a kind of parallel universe Ziggy Stardust perhaps) as well as the song title. I love that. It's called poetry. I get all fired up by people with real inspiration, people to whom artistry comes naturally, flows through them and makes you say "Wow, I wish I'd thought of that". I was lucky that when I moved to London from Sheffield in March 1988, I immediately ended up in a band with one of them.

My digs were in Camberwell through a friend, in a lovely house, the bus journey to work was a mind-blower, up the Elephant and round the Castle, across the majestic River Thames past Westminster, up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square, round to Piccadilly and finally to that great ship itself Broacasting House.

I had landed a job at Auntie Beeb, in the Sound Archive, which was a dream enough in itself for a lad from the North East. All those Peel sessions I'd been dying to get my hands on, curated by the kind of fellow you want to meet on your first day in a big new job, who takes you down to the BBC bar for 3 pints (on a lunchtime) and becomes a friend for life. I got the immediate impression I was going to like it there very much. Phil and I were to spend many a lunchtime over the years having `just one more' and yakking about music until the cows came home, mind you we usually made it back to the office, unlike our boss.

It was at a cheese and wine `do' in the old archive office, stuffed with filing cabinets and bound volumes of dusty pages, that Phil introduced me to Ged Murphy, (now a senior Film Editor, but twenty years ago still working his way up through the ranks) who had written some songs with a friend of his and were looking for a drummer. "I'm your man" I said immediately, with all the confidence of youth. After playing in about a dozen bands in Teesside and then at my place of further education, Sheffield, I was pretty cocky. It was agreed that I needed to meet his friend, and where better than the astoundingly cheap BBC Club ? (Blimey, a pint of bitter's cheaper than it is in Sheffield !)

Chris Spence turned out to be a fascinating and engaging soul, he and Ged went well together, Ged being just about the nicest guy you could meet. He'd always buy you a pint but just loved other people's cigarettes (" I'll buy some later" soon became a familiar refrain). Their songs didn't sound like any of the other bands I'd played with, they were original and fun, and had proper tunes ! Initially a trio, we started gigging very quickly, we still had some way to go in terms of finesse, Chris and Ged used to swap between lead guitar and bass depending who had written the song, but the songs were great. It was the first time I can remember having a song pop randomly into my head while going about my day, and realise it was one of ours.

Ged had a big USA psych thing called `Gonna Be A Man' , and Chris had amongst others `You Are The Sun', a fully formed English pop classic. After a very short spell where names like Apricot Hair, The Flying Pavement and The Acid Spangles were tried and tested, we finally settled on Honey Smugglers from a poem on a Kevin Ayers LP sleeve. We'd started at `A' in my LP collection and the prospect of spending three days going all the way to Z probably hastened their eagerness to agree that it was a fine name.

I'd been in London for about two months, and was already in a band and out and about with my A-Z looking for the the bloody rehearsal room. The only way to experience London ! I'd written on my A-Z , `Get Lost In The World's Toilet' in a drunken yearning for Sheffield, but the truth is I loved the capital from the outset. If you wanted to be at the centre of possibilities, nothing else compared.

ACID SPANGLES `Gonna Be A Man' (Hi-Fashion, Caledonian Rd 21/7/88)
http://www.box.net/shared/u6btr1hz6f

ACID SPANGLES `You Are The Sun' (Hi-Fashion, Caledonian Rd 21/7/88)
http://www.box.net/shared/2sv5tlg85b