Manners will get you nowhere

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I suppose it kind of ties in with the whole ‘Joys of Mediocrity’ subject thread that those who succeed tend to be single-minded, ruthless and altogether unpleasant. This is a sweeping statement that will garner a huge wave of protest and the production of a series of exceptions that go an awfully long way to disprove the rule. But…

I watched the Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll movie a year or so ago (and terrifically good it was, too). In it Andy Serkis’ portrayal of the late, great Ian Dury showed a man so determined to succeed, and so convinced of his deserving success that anyone or anything that stood in his way was treated with such an utter disregard as could easily be interpreted as contempt.

Pop and rock music is littered with such people. David Bowie, Eric Clapton – in fact all three members of Cream – John Lennon, Eminem, Victoria Beckham even… And not just music, of course. A brief look at the life of Charles Dickens will produce a very similar picture. Brian Clough, anybody? Alex Fergusen? Robert Oppenheimer?

Single-minded people tend to work hard and push through obstacles and barriers. The hard work brings them up against more barriers than the lackadaisical, and the stubbornness keeps them battering at them until they give way.

I’m sure to their kith and kin, these people are as lovely as any other person on earth – certainly once they have achieved the important goals they seek – but to the rest of us… Well, we are just potential barriers or obstacles.

I kind of wish I had known this 40 years ago. If someone had had the foresight to instill this into me as an 11-year-old, I’m almost certain I would be far closer to achieving the things I want to achieve by now. I am sure that I would ‘be there’.

Instead, I am still trying to convince myself that it is worth being a little more unpleasant if it means getting what I want. Dammit all, I’m not exactly Mr Popular as it is – why the hell should I worry about what people I don’t really know think?

But I do.

Those of you following the news on the Mechkov website will be well aware that I have been gigging recently with a new band – a covers band playing the music of Cream and Hendrix and the like. This band began rehearsals in February with a mind to start gigging in March.

The guitarists, Nigel and George, were the protagonists in getting this band together and they called upon the skills of me for bass and vocals and Neil for drums.

Problem was, Neil was awful. Bad timing, bad rhythm and just all-round not very good at playing the drums. I kept schtum, thinking two things: first, he could improve if he takes it seriously and rehearses properly. Second, he has been brought here by the guys putting the band together.

Three weeks and lots of rehearsing later, we recorded the band in my little studio. It all sounded ok for the time we allowed ourselves… Except Neil. A friend of mine later said that his drumming sounded like someone falling down stairs… yes it did.

I finally told Nige and George that I couldn’t play with this guy.

“Oh, thank God for that!” they said. “We were just saying to each other that we couldn’t gig with him!”

“So why didn’t you say anything?” I asked.

“We didn’t want to upset you!”

Dear, oh dear! You see? Had I (or any of us) been a little more single-minded, a little more determined to get what we wanted and not let anything stand in our way, we would have ousted the dodgy drummer after rehearsal number one. Instead, we plodded on, wincing and grimacing, hoping that something would change or that someone else would do something to make a difference.

As Britons of a certain age, we are brought up that minding your Ps and Qs is an essential virtue. That might well be so, but no empires were ever built worrying about other people’s feelings. Sometimes you just have to say: “Please, stop. Please, go away! Please! Thank you!"

Keen

I’ve got a gig! Not a particularly earth-shattering piece of information, particularly as those of you reading this blog (hopefully all six of you) have: a) played with me at one of my recent gigs; b) seen me at one of my recent gigs; c) known about one of my recent gigs but had something much better to do on each occasion.

Most of my playing these days takes place either in private (not listening to my own advice), with my wife at our local pub (strangely lacking in invites to return after four or five appearances… Could it be we simply don’t attract the right quantity of audience – regardless of the undoubted quality) or at my local open mic night (here, most definitely taking my own advice).

The only time, however, I have played my own version of soundscapes/Frippertronics was at a sort of ‘freestyle’ open mic night at the Firestation in Windsor – the so-called Professor Hitchen’s Art Lab (or some such).

I’ve been down there a couple of times, actually, just to make some sort of observation of the reaction to a bloke standing there making bleeping and droning noises with a guitar, a giga-delay unit and various knobs, switches and pedals to make the whole experience as unearthly as is humanly possible.

Which was great – and the response was great, too. The thing is, it was, like any open mic night, a ‘blind’ performance. I emailed the organiser, explaining what I wanted to do, they responded saying ‘great, come on down’ and I played – although it was clear on each occasion that the MC had no idea who I was or what I was doing and on each occasion implied that I would be getting on stage with my guitar ‘to sing us a few songs’.

In a way, that was kind of cool, because if anyone was expecting a song, they would have been extremely surprised to hear the amorphous swoops and whooshes emitting from my guitar…

But I digress, yet again.

Yes, I have a gig – a gig playing my auraloramas – a gig in an arts centre – a gig with loads of other artists, musicians and dramatists… A gig where I had to send in some examples of my music to see if it was suitable.

An da man, he say ‘yes’.

It is the tenth anniversary of the Norden Farm Centre for the Arts in Maidenhead and the establishment is holding a special, all-comers celebration of the arts in Maidenhead. There will be drama groups, musical theatre groups, dance groups, artists and who knows what else, all performing in every possible square inch of the centre.

I’m telling people that I will be in the disabled toilet… I don’t know if that’s true, but it is possible – and who cares. The fact is that an arts centre thought my strange noises suitable for a multi-arts celebration.

I’m jumping the gun a bit here. I’ve just been on the Norden Farm website and the September 26th event isn’t even on the calendar yet, but hey, take this as a suitably previous teaser for the eventual blog I will write again once the chance to book tickets has arrived…

Bloody hell – that’s the problem with the mediocre: too damn keen…