Birth of a Band 12

Out of the blue, on July 9th, the 3-fold Arts gig at The Chequers in Marlow was called off to make way for an Oye Santana gig elsewhere. I fired an email out to the band and, after a couple of ‘oooh, not sure’s the gig went ahead.

Again, it was the same battle with the management about noise levels for the first half an hour and then nothing as we slipped seamlessly into hard rocking and jamming.

A guy called Terry showed up and filmed and recorded us. He said we could have the material – he was just checking out new gear. Well, it’s now March 2014 and I’ve given up asking him. Some things, you know, are just never going to happen.

But the gig went down well and the money was appreciated… My smug face continued. I had earned us £1,000 in three gigs in a couple of weeks. It felt good.

After the success of the birthday party and the  Chequers emergency gig, our next gig was daytime, outdoors, on a Sunday… all of which are usually things to make a rock band wince. Not us this time. This was a gig for the National Chopper Club, Berkshire chapter.

If ever there was a group of people we thought would really go for what we were doing, this was it.  I reckoned we’d not only go down a treat, but get requests for future bookings at chopper gatherings the country over.

Nige was the same. In one missive, he said: “They keep mentioning it’s more about the bikes than anything else and that bands they’ve had previously just crack on without too much interest in them. Not wishing to sound conceited or anything, but I think we all know that’s not going to be the case on Sunday, now is it?” And we all agreed.

Sunday 14th July was a glorious day – hot… and then some… and then some more. It was brilliant. I’m not much of a one for exposing my fetta-coloured skin to the elements, so I was dressed pretty much as normal. The other three turned up in shorts and sandals.

Now, I’ve no problem with this per se, but George looked like something from It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum. Not a great rock image, but hey. The gig got underway (our first with all instruments going through the PA) and the grizzly, hard, tough, rough looking bunch that was our audience milled around the bikes, chops and hot rods on show.

It was an impressive lay out and no mistake. Trouble was, we could have been playing Bucks Fizz numbers for all they cared. There was no doubt that this was the right crowd listening to the right music, but they were all too busy with the business of the day and generally being cool to pay any attention to the band.

We battled on and by the end of the show, we had a few people standing and sitting around, actively listening to us – which I consider to be a success – but Woodstock, Monterey or Glastonbury it was not… It wasn’t even Stonehenge!

Once again, as is so often the case when we think we’re bombing, everybody says how much they have enjoyed the show. People just have different ways of expressing it.

And the National Chopper Club, lovely fellas though they are, are just waaay too cool to show emotion at a live show. Great day, though…

Birth of a Band 9

By the end of May, the gigs were flying in. June, July and August had long periods with two or three gigs per week in them. Nige was getting the bulk of them, but I was getting a few – and better paid a lot of the time.

Problem is, when one person does a job so well, why would one even try to compete. My gig getting days began to decline as soon as they had begun – a fact that would come back to bite me later on…

And the band was now out and upon its first real run of gigs, continuing with the first of two at the Dukes Head in Wokingham.

As I mentioned before, we had been called into this at the last minute, despite being booked at the same pub the very next Saturday. The landlord had a group of people in from a sort of “new to town, let’s meet” group – not a lonely hearts club, although there were a couple of those, too.

I’m afraid I just got angrier and angrier as the gig went on. Having spent three hours rehearsing the same day and tiring my voice out, a lot of the endings and parts we had rehearsed just went out the window. Now, I’m almost certain that I made as many mistakes as anyone else that night, but as memory always does that thing where it filters out the bad and leaves the good so that we don’t end each year wanting to kill ourselves, I am probably not alone in thinking that 'I' was all right, despite the others.

As it turned out, the gig was something of a success despite the band and the audience was very forgiving. By the end of the evening and an extended, encore version of Roadhouse Blues, everyone was rocking and feeling good.

I sent out one of my angry emails (I do wish I wouldn’t do that) afterwards, saying that I wouldn’t perform any songs in future that hadn’t been properly rehearsed.

The Dukes Head is not really set up for live music in its main bar – and no-one uses the secondary bar, where a band would fit quite nicely. For this gig, George and Nige ended up playing directly into a wall about three feet in front of them with (at the volumes they play at) all the subsequent feedback that turned the end of each song into a squeal fest.

It is interesting to note that a lot of guitarists that play at high volumes develop the habit of immediately shutting off the volume of their guitar when they finish a number. Nige still hasn’t developed this habit yet… And I have never had the guts to mention it… it just doesn’t seem to be my business… but I do wish he would.

The post-mortem email flurry after this gig featured (and I might be wrong here) for the only time, George dictating affairs. And he did it well, diplomatically, but forcefully. A lot of the song ending issues fell upon Angus on the drums – a fact he took on board extremely willingly – and after this, he was a lot more demonstrative and full of eye contact and the endings improved enormously.

Nige also came in with a view appreciating ‘all sides’. He agreed with George that we shouldn’t drop Worried Life Blues on account of missing the riff in the verses (an element I think gives the song its one and only raison d’etre). He did try to claim that he was ‘free forming’ and I could interpret this as his being either lazy or creative… I think he wanted it to be the latter, but I couldn’t help feeling it was the former.

But we all agreed that we needed to tighten up and that, despite the self-criticism, we were doing pretty well.

So, we patted ourselves on the back once more and readied ourselves for our first properly publicised gig… At the same place, the same time, the following week!

Don't forget, for all things Mechkov, visit the Mechkov website here.

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!"

Solo simplicity

They say that the simple things in life are free… Or is it that the free things in life are simple… Or is it that the best things in life are free… Or is it simple?

Oh, I don’t know, but sometimes simplicity acts as a highly efficient duster, sweeping away the cobwebs and clearing the way for a deeper, more significant activity. This is the value of creating soundscapes – or auraloramas – for me. It is an instantly accessible method of getting something done, putting something into my own personal reality that is capable of delighting me on an immediate level, putting into action theory and practice and, if I’m really lucky, laying the foundations of future compositions.

As you might have seen in my previous blog (here) I recently went through one of those downward spirals caused by one too many inopportune moments of taking it easy. As I discussed then, while things seem pretty hopeless from within the labyrinth of mental blackness, the cure is a simple one: get up off your arse and do something. I wrote a blog about it and felt a lot better about things as a result – it made me observe me from outside, as it were.

All well and good, but that was just the first step – the ‘wake-up’ if you like. The following morning I had to continue, so, forcing myself to get work and chores out of the way, I hurried down the garden to my studio and plugged in my guitar…

Whaddayaknow? I wasn’t so much short of ideas of what to do as standing in a dusty wilderness where ideas have the moisture sucked out of them before they can even take their first breath.

Thankfully, I was plugged into my Gigadelay unit, so I switched it on, eased in a couple of notes, layered a couple more chords and there I was, 15 seconds and I had a spontaneous ‘composition’ to deal with, add to, manipulate. The music was coming back at me, demanding attention and calling out for progression. I had to deal with it.

I immediately felt better and before too long, I had laid two separate chord sequences on two asymmetric loops (one about nine seconds, the other 23), into which I blended a sort of ‘filigree’, high-pitched collection of notes/sounds on a third loop (can’t remember how long). I really liked it, it made me feel good – and what is more it has given me a couple of ideas (as a result of the ‘accidental’ chord patterns) of a song – or maybe two.

Having listened to it for a while, I then recorded about four minutes of it, feeling it would go well on the next auralorama album (Meditation) and I was planning to go back to more conventional practice, but after I switched off the first two loops, the third carried on by itself – and I thought it sounded great, so I copied that onto a longer loop and started all over again, creating a longer, more dramatic soundscape.

I know I am easy to please, but this was, for me, very exciting – and not only the possibility of another new song based on the second piece, but a whole concept for soundscape performance. Build a piece up, then deconstruct and at some point use what’s left as the framework for the next piece.

(The first of these two auraloramas is now up on Youtube – called Acceptance – and can be found here.)

Needless to say, the next day, my work and practice were better still and my energy levels are still on the up. It’s simple, really.

Travis & Fripp in Gloucester

One knows one is getting old when one finds one’s self attending a gig in Gloucester alongside various sextogenarians at 7pm…

I could have started my blog like this, but then I thought, no – I refuse to give any of the ignorant sniggerers out there the pleasure. Thus…

One appreciates that quality musicians have found a way to both reach a more mature and higher quality audience, as well as the courage to experiment with exciting new venues, when one attends a concert such as Travis & Fripp in the Atrium of Gloucester College.

Actually, I could have written this about the Travis & Fripp gig I attended at Coventry Cathedral in May 2009.

New music, new audience.

The Coventry gig was the culmination of three or four previous gigs in small churches around the West(ish) Country and although I can’t say it took me by surprise, having been familiar with Fripp’s soundscapes for some time beforehand, it was A Big Event. I wasn’t expecting two guys to quite fill that space so completely and so appropriately. It took my breath away, particularly the final number of the second set, which reduced me to a blithering wreck.

Back to today, then (15th July 2010) and accompanied by two (yes, two) women and it was clear that this was a very different kind of gig. A hundred or so chairs set out in the Atrium of Gloucester College, a small stage and no colossal tapestries in sight…

That said, there were three fabulous paintings by PJ Crook and it turned out that today’s concert was by way of tribute for the unveiling of a new piece by the artist. It was also a charity event, organised by Crook and the College in aid of Crook's work with the National Star College.

(As an asides, my wife and I visited the Stanley Spencer museum in Cookham the other day and I was surprised how the similarity of the two artists’ styles had never struck me before. It was a treat for me as Lorraine loves Spencer and was equally thrilled by the work of Crook… Fripp she can take or leave…)

Now, I’m not sure whether it was my personal build-up to the show that made a difference (but I suspect it had something to do with it), but in contrast to the sunshine in Coventry, the perusal of the bombed out shell of the old cathedral, the talk by the bishop before the gig of the spirit of reconciliation, today’s pre-gig activity involved a grey, drizzling day, a shopping mall, a rather poor meal and a hunt through a confusing one-way system.

I was really looking forward to the players taking to the stage, but was feeling… well, normal. Within seconds, however, I was transported as wave upon building wave of shifting harmony engulfed me, washed me away, gently scrubbed the scars and entrails of normality from my being and left me feeling somewhat naked in the presence of beauty.

This show started, for me, in much the same way as the Coventry gig ended: in a powerful swirl of feelings tangled up in sounds that left me emotionally ragged. I was overwhelmed – utterly and delightfully.

The few seconds of applause that followed were needed by me to simply recompose myself. What followed from here was a personal and friendly journey through some delightful pieces – some seemed planned, others totally improvised, but after the emotional battering of the opening number, it was all thoroughly enjoyable.

The second piece was a quirky jazz, almost humorous, but solid in its direction. The third was Moonchild – starting with a clearer nod towards the original than the Coventry gig, but veering further away as harder rock elements entered the variations on the theme.

I think there were five pieces in all, but one stood out as it seemed that Fripp gave the nod to Travis to ‘just play something’. Travis seemed a little unsure, but eventually picked up the soprano sax and began a gentle, but complex series of runs of a ‘seventhy’ leaning.

The piece crawled, stood, stumbled, walked and then ran. It was such a delight to watch such a progression in what seemed to be total improvisation, but, despite the freeness it evoked, was perhaps the most ‘real’ music I have ever encountered.

After a mere 45 to 50 minutes, it was over. My other accomplice, Helena, who hadn’t seen Fripp since 1983 at the Hammersmith Palais nudged me and said ‘shout for more’. Even my wife said she wanted more… But I guess one of the cardinal rules of performance is ‘leave ‘em wanting more’. We certainly did.

Fripp was relaxed and smiling throughout, even giving his wife a wink during one of the numbers. The applause at the end was heartfelt and hearty.

It was a small meal, but an ultimately satisfying one. “I’m coming back tomorrow,” said Helena. Yes, that would be a good thing to do… But would it be the right thing?

Twice in a row, ten out of ten for Travis and Fripp. Open your minds, breath deeply and buy the albums here.