Birth of a Band 4

So, we had to oust Neil from the band (see here), but, as Nige wisely pointed out, even better to have Neil at a rehearsal than no-one, so we delayed telling him he was out until we could find someone to take his place. We all started putting our feelers out.

My first port of call was a guy called Angus who played with a really cool bunch of guys, but in a band that was clearly going nowhere. The lead singer preferred hiking and hockey to playing guitar and the bandleader is not the strongest character you will ever come across – though an absolutely lovely bloke…

Anyway, I thought Angus might be able to squeeze us in as well as his other band. As it turned out, he was champing at the bit to find a more serious band. I assured him that we were precisely that.

Thus, after an email from Neil on Feb 13th saying we should establish a set list to get used to playing the songs in order, Nige (having volunteered, I hasten to add) had short-straw duties to perform as our next rehearsal was Feb 16th…

Neil did not take it well, Nige told us, but (interestingly) after a long and painful silence, said: “Andy had made his mind up early on that I was not up to his standard, and it was only a matter of time.” Me?! I articulated my surprise to George and Nige at the rehearsal.

“Yeah, well you did keep giving him ‘The Look’,” Nige said. The Look?! “Yes, when we make a mistake you give us a look that can kill,” explained George. Really?! “Yup,” George continued. “And add to that comments like: ‘Why can’t you get it right? It’s the simplest, most classic fucking song ending in all of history!” Who did I say that to? “To Neil!”

Oh…

How little one can know one’s self sometimes.

At the rehearsal, Angus had had almost no time at all to get to know the songs, but he kept going with admirable stoicism and with his laid back, friendly demeanour, he won us all over. “I just can’t wait to get gigging,” he said. You and us alike, mate.

We arranged for Angus to come over to me (Feb 24th) to re-record the drum parts on the songs we had recorded and set about sorting out the next time we could all get together for a rehearsal. Saturday March 2nd was mooted, but Angus asked if we could do the Sunday instead. I thought nothing of it – it suited me, and anyway, George couldn’t make that weekend, so that was that. The next rehearsal was 9th March.

Angus came over for the recording – and it is here that I really should have seen the signs. He came around, set up his kit, recorded a song with a couple of mistakes, so I said, we should do it again… “Can we leave it till the end,” he asked. “I’d rather do the next one…”

We went through the songs like a dose of salts and he couldn’t wait to get away. I later got to know (for the wont of a better word) his girlfriend and realised what was happening. Poor old Angus spent his entire time with the band trying to balance his job, his girlfriend and the band, but the band always came last – and the girlfriend always hated the band.

After re-recording the drums, of course, we needed to re-record everything else. Not a bad thing, but more time. Looking back, I think I was very naïve to think we could have got a band from scratch out gigging in a month. We would have been playing for six weeks by our next rehearsal – and nowhere near getting a gig… Let alone having recordings to tout.

Birth of a band 3

You know what? I’m not the world’s greatest producer and I don’t have extensive recording facilities. I do, however consider myself to be very lucky in that I have a little ‘cave’ at the bottom of my garden, sound proofed, warm, full of gear and with a couple of Macs that can do some pretty high level recordings. It’s not Abbey Road – I can’t really record anything live – it’s just a single room – with not much room in it – but it is a recording facility and one where I have recorded four albums, so I’m pretty pleased with it. It has served me well and continues to do so…

So why, then, was it that Nige, before any discussion of what could or couldn’t be done, said: “I know you have recording facilities of some kind Andy. Would it be suitable to purpose because I get the feeling we're a band who would be better live and should record that way.”?

Hmm… Why am I suspicious of this? No matter, I said I would be happy to consider the alternatives. These turned out to be studios and services that ranged from £160 to £380 per day… the Yorkshire element – and I, to be perfectly honest, balked at the idea.

Nige’s ‘would it be suitable’ email was on Jan 8^th. On Jan 11^th, after realising that pro studio services were probably a little more than we wanted to pay, he wrote: “I recall you saying you have some recording equipment Andy? I wondered if it was in any way portable at all and, if so, would it be attainable to achieve anything decent with it down at the rehearsal rooms?”

How odd. Anyway, yes, I did (do) and, to be perfectly honest, no, I wouldn’t be able to get anything decent at the rehearsal rooms. From here, however, things began to move quickly. By the end of the day on the 11^th, we had arranged dates for Neil to come over to do the drums, Nige to come over to do his guitar and George to come in on the 27^th (the day after our next scheduled rehearsal).

Once Nige and I get into gear, things do get done, but we do faff about a lot before that happens! Then, of course, the snows came and George couldn’t make it down from Yorkshire…

Thus, by Sunday 27^th Jan, I had four of the five parts for five tracks recorded and George due down on Feb 3rd. By Friday February 8^th I had also recorded audience responses from my open mic night in Marlow, which I mixed in to our recordings to give them an authentic feel. I quite liked it… But I was really worried about Neil’s drumming. There were moments when it seemed almost random – and not in a good sense.

I broached the subject with Nige and discovered that he and George had had reservations from day one! (You can read about that here.)

He had to go – and we had to find a new drummer. It was February 10^th. The project had been on the go for nearly five months. Was it really worth continuing?

Birth of a Band 2

I’m not sure why men seem to think that ‘meeting up for a drink’ is some sort of positive, ‘getting-things-done’ sort of activity, but generally they do – while women do not. Usually, I would concur with the ladies on this one. Not that I’m averse to a drink – on the contrary, I love a beer, but I almost never mistake having a beer for having a meeting.

In this case, of course – as you can read here – simply seeing each other was in fact a proactive step towards actually doing something.

The emails from this late November period seem a bit strained. Neil and Nige were both obviously keen to be seen as easy going and humorous, but trying too hard in these areas tends to have exactly the opposite effect.

We met up on Saturday 15th at half two at the George & Dragon in Wargrave. During this meet (at which we all got along swimmingly) we heard George’s first reference to his having played in a gypsy jazz band and Neil’s first ‘well, we’re just hobbyists, aren’t we?’ comment. I suppose I should have seen the danger signs here straight away…

The really good thing about the meeting was 1) we set a date of January 5th for our first rehearsal and 2) what had started out as a good feeling became an excellent one. Again, I really don’t know why, but I knew this was going to work – and it seems that Nige did, too.

By Tuesday 18th The Rhoom had been booked for rehearsal and Nige was going through some odd explanations of how he and George would be playing Saw Her Standing There by The Beatles (“It would, on the surface of it, appear to be a simple evolution of both George, and myself to play our (completely different roles), put the two together, and hey presto (hopefully) it's the Beatles live on stage! Lennon is kinda working along with the Bass line creating a driving sound in the background, whilst Harrison seems to be kinda vamping along with the chord work and fills. Seems quiet simples"). 

What?!

Interestingly, however, is that a song list with ‘arrangements’ (read as: “keys and who will be playing the solos”) that Nige sent through on December 18^th contains 26 songs of which only seven are no longer part of the set – one of them, of course, being Saw Her Standing There!

And so it all went quiet for the Christmas period and, following a brief reminder email from Nige on Jan 4^th – he really is good at that. I guess it is the being prepared army training or some such. We met up for a six-hour rehearsal on Saturday 5^th…

Sunday saw various emails thrown about regarding song arrangements (Roadhouse Blues and Worried Life Blues) and a call (from me) for more rehearsals during the week with just Nige, Neil and me. I note there is no hint that we might be unhappy with Neil from these mails.

A word is spread that we can meet as a trio on Tuesdays and Nige is desperate to be out and gigging by the end of February.

Neil then comes back and says he can’t rehearse before 4pm… useless for me. In the end we went for a Wednesday from 6 to 9pm. Neil also sent through a couple of songs he’d like to do – one of which was an out and out country number. He never really got it, did he? Nige and I discussed the possibility of doing Spoonful, Crossroads and Voodoo Chile. George added Hey Joe.

(Nige also suggested Born Under a Bad Sign at this point, saying it was “a nice easy one”… I finally nailed it for our most recent gig on September 21^st!)

By the time we tried to get booked in The Rhoom, we had missed the chance. The Rhoom was fully booked. We called off all rehearsals until George could next make it down on Jan 26^th. In the meantime we started discussing recordings…

I was, by now, getting pretty frustrated…

Birth of a Band 1

If you scoot back over the news section of the Mechkov website, you will see that (apart from news of a cracking new soundscape album) there is a flurry of news regarding my new band, Custard Cream. From this flurry, it is also (I hope) clear that the band has managed to cement itself into the local gigging scene with some speed following its first gig on May 11th this year (2013).

I thought I ought to get down how this came about…

There is a rather spiffing little website here in the UK called joinmyband, through which musicians and singers can find other musicians and singers, and which I had been trying (unsuccessfully) to get people to hop in on my projects.

Ah! We are a funny bunch, we musos. We seem, when we are together, to have so much in common when together on a stage, but when a person has his own plans and ideas, getting others involved is a tough ask. They are all far too busy trying to find others to join them on their projects.

So, having had limited success on this, my wife suggested I join in on someone else’s project – and maybe earn some money while I was at it.

Unfortunately, the ad I followed up on the site is now long gone, but it went something along the lines of: “Custard Cream is moving to Berkshire and needs a drummer, bassist and a singer to join lifelong pals Nige and George on guitars for a blues and rock band. We have a lot of experience and our own Sharon Osborne.”

Can you tell what the clincher might have been for me here? Yes, of course, as with any musician, the thought of having someone actually taking on the responsibility of marketing, managing and promotion was too much to ignore – let alone hope for. I answered the ad immediately and pretty soon Nige and I were in correspondence. I’m guessing that he was attracted to me as an option because I could both play bass and sing AND I had my own website with original music. He wasn’t interested in this, but it does show I have some capability without having to go through the pain of a crap rehearsal.

The email chain goes back to September 26^th 2012 and it appears that Nige had said that the band would be able to meet during weekdays – this really did sell the project to me. Nige was moving to the area from Cornwall, so I figured it would be best to leave him and his family to the horrors that are moving house before pushing for anything more.

By mid-October, Nige informed me that he thought he had found a drummer – and, what is more, one that could rehearse on a weekday (one day per week), but that, following the move, he would have to spend a few weeks doing the house up before ‘Sharon’ would even let him think of going out to rehearse. Fair enough, I thought.

By October 19^th, we had shared set lists and George had come through with a sort of hybrid list based on all of our contributions of song titles and Nige was saying we would be in rehearsal by December at the latest and gigging in January. ‘Bloody perfect’ was my thought on the issue.

Come the end of November, I was champing at the bit to get into rehearsal, but Nige still hadn’t finished his ‘house work’ and so we agreed to postpone until after Christmas and meet up in the New Year. It also turned out that George (the other guitarist) would NOT be able to rehearse on weekdays… hmm…

In the meantime, the drummer, Neil, suggested that we meet up for a drink. Yes, all of this planning and we hadn’t even met – yet, for some reason, I felt sure this was going to be a good project…

Why? I have absolutely no idea. Normally when I have a gut feeling for something, I end up being so wrong, I have to pretend I was never really interested in the first place, but of course at the time it all seems to make perfect sense. I really did not see this as being something that was dragging on.

Manners will get you nowhere

-->

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!"

The end of one rainbow

-->

Now, why would I have gone to all that trouble of starting to document my task of documenting a new open mic night only to come to a shudderingly abrupt halt just eight weeks into the project.

Well, there are two reasons. First, my wife kept saying ‘do you really think you should be writing a blog when you are earning as little as you do?’ which is, sadly, true on one level.

Second – and if it hadn’t been for this point, I probably would have ignored my wife and continued – I chickened out.

When writing a blog, one needs to be brutally honest and true to one’s thoughts and opinions, however upsetting they might be for the people you are writing about. When organising an open mic night, one needs to nurture relationships and create a nucleus of loyal participants. Pissing people off could well be counter-productive.

The fact is, the main body of support I got for the Plough’s Tuesday evenings included Psycho Deano (a lovely bloke), Sassy Lozza (my wife), The Mafia (nice people, but always tricky in terms of conversation), Jeff the Jock (who is as lovely as he is boring beyond belief) and Not Manic Mark (again, as sweet as honey, but a real effort to talk to and play with). Among this group, only The Mafia would both play and sing. All the others either required me to play and/or sing. But I needed these people to make sure that someone was there in the pub to keep East End Bob happy.

So, taking the micky in a blog might not be the most conducive method of mollification of my muso masses. With these guys coming regularly, anything else was a bonus.

And so the Tuesday evening chugged on through up to Christmas and into the New Year, becoming stronger and more defined with each passing week. In order to keep East End Bob happy and in control, I agreed to a pay cut, but he was decent enough never to pay me the minimum amount – always adding a little extra on and often giving me the full fee.

Then the last week of March was upon us and – after a couple of quiet evenings – no-one came! For the first time ever, not a single person showed up. I was gutted. East End Bob was mortified.

This stung me into action. I immediately got on to the Slough Observer and wrote press releases, gave interviews and sent over pics (taken by The Mafia). The lovely people at the paper promised me good coverage.

Then I got a message to ring East End Bob…

“I think we’d better knock it on the head,” he said… At least I think that what he said. It could have been ‘a thud with berry knocker on the air’, but I took it to be the first one. The second one was just ridiculous.

The next Tuesday some 15 people turned up having seen the article in the Observer. I wasn’t there. I just smiled a knowing smile and thought to myself: “Bob, you chickened out. We’re as bad as each other.”

Open Mic: Just ridiculous

When running MI Pro magazine a few years ago, I interviewed a local musical instrument retailer who had just set up shop at the peak of the credit crunch, with the dark forebodings of recession on everybody’s lips – particularly the business media (I still wonder whether the resulting recession was just as much caused by Robert Peston and his ilk as it was by the greedy, robber barons of the financial world).

“Are you mad?” was the basic angle of my questioning. “Well, if we make it through this, then we’ve definitely done the right thing,” came the confident answer. (Three years later, by the way, Westmount Music in Marlow Bottom is thriving, I am very pleased to report.)

Scale down the annual turnover by several thousand pounds and the activity to creating a new open mic night at The Plough in Wexham (Stoke Poges if you are East End Bob, the landlord) and you have a very similar situation. Starting a new open mic night just as the London Olympics are about to begin, in the peak of summer with all and sundry off on their hols and one does have to ask one’s self whether, indeed, one is mad.

I guess I must be… a bit…

As I mentioned in the first of this series, there is still, decades after my first performances, this dreadful grating and churning of the stomach before a show. Will anybody show? Will I be playing to an empty house? It’s an unpleasant state of being, but one that has clearly resulted in good news rather than bad or I wouldn’t still be here telling you about it.

There has never been a time when no-one turned up… Never, that is, until two weeks ago. Sassy Lozza was away on business and Psycho Deano was on night shift. That was my two regulars gone.

Imagine my delight, then, when Andrew Williams turned up, guitar in hand. At least I would get a break, I thought. Diva Emelia also showed, but that meant I would still be playing.

As the organiser of an open mic night, I think, you need to be ‘on the shop floor’ as it were, as much as you need to be ready to support anyone who needs it. It is important to get to know people, to weed out the quiet types who would never approach you, to get the feedback of the general punters. Stuck at the mic all night is a performer’s dream, but not helpful for an open mic night.

So, after a half an hour of noodling through some well known tunes, I handed over, gratefully to Andrew and went over to Emelia to see what she wanted to do. As we discussed songs, suddenly everything went quiet. Andrew had stopped.

“Everything all right, mate?” I asked. “They’re talking,” came the odd reply. “Who is?” “These people.”

And indeed, there were a group of large and (let’s be fair here) not very intelligent men loudly indifferent to what was going on in front of them.

“Never mind,” I said. That’s what people do in pubs.”

“No, I don’t like that,” said Andrew and promptly unplugged, packed up his guitar and left.

Needless to say, I didn’t get away from the mic again that evening. It was a good show, I thought. Emelia sang, an old mate of mine from drama days turned up and did his idiosyncratic version of House of the Rising Sun, East End Bob did his regular couple of shouty numbers, but the rest of the evening it was just me.

As I said, as a guitarist and singer, it was lovely to have the stage to myself for the evening. As an open mic, it wasn’t quite what it said on the tin.

I must be mad.

Still, it’s September now. Autumn and the short days are upon us. I have survived the worst of times and now it is time for the best of times to arrive…