Birth of a Band 17

The Cannie Man in Bracknell is a large pub on the edge of what I assume was once a council estate, before such terms became passé and Maggie Thatcher decreed that each tenant could buy theirs at a cut price should they so want to. They did.

Despite Maggie’s efforts to create owner-occupying English gentlemen of us all, such estates still tend to be a bit, shall we say ‘rough’? The pubs that were built for them somewhat rougher.

The estate is huge, so the pub was made accommodatingly spacious to contain the inevitable hoards that would throng there. Unfortunately, at the tail end of the worst recession the western world has seen for over a century, this pub served a handful of hardcore drinkers and shouters, who rattled about at the bar.

There was also a noise metre installed to keep the decibels low enough to prevent the neighbours from having their X Factor or Strictly Come Dancing viewing disturbed.

It has never ceased to amaze me that people move into houses next to (or even nearby) pubs, theatres, arts centres, clubs, restaurants, you name it, and then complain that there is noise. Of course there is noise! It’s a pub, theatre, restaurant, arts centre, club, whatever, you name it. There are going to be people there enjoying themselves and when people enjoy themselves, they tend to make a bit of noise. But that’s another blog, I guess…

The Cannie Man, Custard Cream’s first gig with Ant on drums, was good from the point of view of our playing, Ant’s ability to ‘telegraph’ the endings (thus meaning we all finished at the same time, which is a sure-fire way of making a band sound better than perhaps they might be) and in terms of the people there liking us. In terms of giving Custard Cream a fan base or furthering the cause of our high energy blues and psychedelic rock it was pretty pointless. We earned a couple of hundred quid between us, but I’m almost certain that the few people there had forgotten us before their heads had hit their pillows that night.

We weren’t asked back – and for the money they were offering, if they had, we wouldn’t have gone…

Our next gig was at the Dog & Partridge in Yateley, so different from the Cannie Man in many ways, yet so similar. The pub is pretty big – capable of holding a good couple of hundred people at a squeeze – and pretty empty, for much of the same reasons as the Cannie Man. The difference is that Yateley is a lovely little corner near Reading, found on a pleasant little village green down winding, bushy country rtoads.

The result was much the same, as well. The audience couldn’t have cared less about what we were doing, but didn’t object either. The landlord was new to the pub and we were the first band to play there. He also came from a rough part of Hull, so had a lot to talk about with Nige and George, both also children of that far flung North Yorkshire city. We were promised a return at a better price…

The next day (August 24^th) we were in Pulborough, West Sussex! How Nige came up with this one we will probably never know, but we were playing outside in a small, three-sided marquee. No-one at the pub came out, the landlord never showed, but a bus-load of punters from the next village came over with the express intention of seeing Custard Cream!

Yup, that’s how slow life can get in West Sussex villages. A band no-one knows is advertised as playing blues rock in the next village and you ship yourselves out.

These guys and gals were brilliant. They danced, cheered, hollered, requested and danced some more – and then nattered to us during our break and after the gig. It was a real treat to have a group of people actually listening to us and enjoying us. Shame it had to be so far away!

We promised to be back. They promised to invite us to play at their regular pub. Neither ever happened… Of course it didn’t!

Birth of a Band 16

The week that lay between auditioning Ant and our first rehearsal with him the following Wednesday I remember as being fraught. I hadn’t played with a drummer of Ant’s quality since Zhorro Varamezov and Ivan Latrinov in the No Breaks years in Bulgaria (93 to 96).

I must have been intimidated by him, although looking back now I can’t see why, but my memory is certainly of a deep-seated worry that he was going to turn round and say: ‘On second thoughts… Nah!”

I think this was probably reinforced by the fact that he didn’t respond to any of the emails that Nige and I were batting around. We had agreed, all three of us, that we would rehearse the following Wednesday, but for some reason, Nige and I thought that we needed email confirmation.

By August 2nd, Nige and I were really worried and Nige was starting the hunt for a new drummer. And then came an email. It had a surprised tone to it: “Been away doing a session in Wales since Thursday morning. Got back about an hour ago. Thought I already told you I was interested and was ok for Wednesday 7th? I'm ok for next week’s gigs too. I enjoyed last Wednesday. Thought we played quite well together for the first time. Cheers, Ant.”

And that was that. We got together the following Wednesday and Ant was officially our drummer. All of us had said at some point during the whole auditioning and hiring episode that we should get a dep trained up, too… This was forgotten.

My job now was to tell Angus he was out of the band. It took a while to pin him down. He kept wanting me to tell him why I wanted to meet up with him and of course the reason I wanted to meet up with him was to tell him what I felt would be wrong to tell him over the phone.

Eventually Angus got round to mine after work one evening and was completely cool and understanding. He knew what was coming, of course, and he even outlined to me (very accurately) why he thought he was being sacked. Since then, unfortunately, he and his girlfriend have taken exception to this blog, but, for the record, Angus is a fine drummer and decent bloke. Circumstances were against him and his priorities were different to mine and Nige’s. That’s all.

The rehearsal with Ant was a blinder. We went through just about everything and, as is the way with a quality drummer, Ant made us sound ten times better than before… And we sounded pretty good before. He also made us sound hard, heavy, down and dirty. A fine guitarist once said that drummers dictate the sound atmosphere of a band. I had noticed it before, but never quite so starkly as now.

On the Thursday I got a call from Gez that the Chequers gig had been cancelled and would not be reinstated. The pub had decided to go through an agency in Henley to get its acts. I was a bit pissed off.

South African Mark, the manager, would not talk to me about band arrangements and Gez, despite being told at least twice by me, would not go in and talk to Mark. Thus Mark said ‘enough’.

I went in and complained that you can’t cancel a gig the day before without paying something.

“How much?” asked SA Mark.

“Full price!” I responded.

“On your fucking bike!” came the retort. Fair enough. I knew I was pitching it a bit.

“Ok, how about half price?”

“I’ll give you a hundred.”

“Fair dos.”

And thus, when meeting at the Cannie Man in Bracknell for our Saturday gig, Ant became the first muso I have ever known who got paid for playing with a band before he had ever played with them! Pretty good going.

Birth of a Band 15

July 26th saw a flurry of emails regarding pics from the Chopper Club gig and general website maintenance. I was quite surprised when I saw the pics…

“Just looked through the pics,” I wrote. “Can I propose that we ban anyone in the band wearing shorts, please! Not a good, bluesy, rocky look, I must say. Let’s face it, we’re not going to win any Sex-God competitions, but let’s not draw attention to the fact! Ouch!”

This was primarily aimed at George, who really did look like granddad out for a spot of sun. All that was missing was the knotted handkerchief. Nige was a bit put out, however. I know he always makes jokes about being the ginger one, but deep down, I think he thinks he’s a bit of a catch… Well, with arms the size of tree trunks, he does make the ladies’ eyes flutter, so we’ll give him that one.

This day also began to separate the men from the boys. One of the ‘to-be-auditioning’ drummers – an American in Shepherds Bush – was kicking up with Nige about the auditions being during the day. Kept on about something to do with having a job and a wife and kids.

“My initial reaction was to tell him to go and fuck himself,” wrote Nige. “If he can't commit to an audition how can he commit to all of the gigs we are going to have. I require your diplomatic guidance old chap! Or, should I just tell him to fuck off?”

I added a diplomatic alternative to the ‘go forth and multiply’ option.

So, the auditions were down to two. A bloke called Barry and the ‘up for it’ Ant.

In between times, we (Nige, George and I) were batting around ideas for recordings. There is a place near Milton Keynes called Rockhopper Studios that does a package of four live recordings, plus a video shoot for one of the songs: £250 all in. It sounded like a good deal… But when?

The day of the auditions came, Barry was in first. He was ok, he could keep time, but there wasn’t much in the way of flair. I certainly didn’t rate him over Angus.

Then Ant arrived and set up. He gave a quick couple of hits on the snare and then a run around on the toms. I whispered to Nige: “We’re going to have to turn up, mate. This is the real deal.”

And so he was. He knew the vast majority of our material and hooked in to the endings without a murmur. The odd one caught him by surprise, but once he had heard it, he knew it. His power was unbelievable, his runs expert and appropriate, and he led us in the big endings with a great deal of aplomb. I was worried we wouldn’t be good enough for him.

Afterwards, we were nattering outside as he and Nige had a cigarette. His name was Ant. Ant what? Where did that come from? Where did he live? How did he live? All questions were met with (at best) evasive answers. The most we could extract was that he lived near Reading and lived off royalties from a successful gig back in the 80s and 90s.

Again, I thought he was being like this because he didn’t want to play with us, but he said he did – and he seemed to mean it… But he wasn’t going to get drawn on anything personal…