“Load up the four by four, it’s festival time….”

Last week I was at Fairport Convention’s Cropredy Festival, as an enthusiastic onlooker I hasten to add, not as one of the turns, although I did get to give guitarist Simon Nicol an award (I believe it's on the wall on his office) and shake a passing Bob Harris’s hand and tell him I am a big fan of his work. Obviously, in an ideal world, both of these situations would have been reversed, but that’s pettifoggery of the highest order. As I understand it, Cropredy (never ‘Croppers’) started out as a fund-raiser for the village, held on the lawn in someone’s back garden and which used the toilet facilities in the main house. By a simple twist of fate we in Songs from The Blue House this week found ourselves at a small fund-raising festival held in someone’s back garden and where toilet facilities were available in what looked like someone’s shed. From small things mama, big things one day come, as Dave Edmunds once sang. In the ever-convoluted world of Blue House line ups, we were today to be driven by the percussive charms of That Nice David Booth out of AloneMe (new album ‘Sketch’ available now, everybody) but sans Turny Winn on the banjo and TT on the pianner. I am informed of this by a frankly woozy Our Glorious Leader, calling from Heacham where he has been roadieing for a visiting James Hurley, who shares a name with a pivotal character from Twin Peaks, has the best sculpted sideburns since the glory years of Midge Ure and is a wonderful singer-songwriter from darkest California whose “All the vampires live in Southern California” is never far from being my mental screensaver. OGL has indulged mightily on the Brewers Gold (no apostrophe) and appears to be attempting to resolve the subsequent hangover by diligent application of haddock and chips. We agree to meet up in Littlebury, near Ickleton (the parish sign of which someone has added a ‘T’ making us feel very much as if we have stumbled into a children’s TV programme upon our passing through it). Upon our arrival at the site of the concert we are ushered solicitously through the gate and down the driveway by our hosts for the day, greeted warmly by the soundman-cum-booker and pointed at an area marked ‘artists only’ which contains two crates of BG, and some chickens. It is always good form to get on with the guys doing the P.A. at this sort of thing – the onstage monitors are the great leveller for all bands at these sorts of things, no matter how talented they are in the rehearsal room so we’re pleased to see that cabling has been sensibly buried, monitors are appropriately placed, and the out front rig looks more than capable of dealing with whatever we’re planning to throw through it. There is also another artist-only tent-cum-shed with a selection of filled rolls, beer, water, cherry tomatoes, hoummous and pittas – it really couldn’t be more middle class if it tried, and I’m sure that although seasoned veterans of the festival circuit would scoff at such largesse, when you’re usually treated to a couple of pints on the tab and use of the bar manager’s parking space at best, this sort of gesture does extraordinary things for the hearts and minds of the lowly folk-country-pop-rock-bluegrass-punk-shatner crossover artiste. As it turns out, we didn’t have a lot to be sold on. We were raising money for something which seemed to be called ‘Homestart’, which I’m sure is something I’ve got included on my A.A. package, but which actually helps new mothers with support and stuff that La Mulley enthusiastically endorses and also to help prop up the walls of the village church. As Camilla thanks us from the stage for coming, the church bells peal in agreement. And so to the gig. Our lack of banjo and keyboards has the potential to stilt the delivery of our smash number nine hit on The Big L Fab Forty’s performance, but the addition of TNDB drives it along in a sprightly fashion. He is also on hand to add a showbiz ‘kertisshh’ upon the incidence of a poorly received joke on my part, somewhat after the event as, as he explains, “I didn’t realise it was a joke”, something he shares with a majority of the happily picnicking throng. A good show, a good cause, and further grist to our celebrity star-spotting mill as it is revealed that the band on slightly lower down the bill is that of former Iron Maiden guitar-slinger Dennis Stratton, a text of which fact Stalker Bertie receives with barely-disguised glee.
James Hurley grasps my hand and congratulates us on our performance, Keith the soundman thanks us for coming, and Camilla wishes us a pleasant journey home. There are many other friends, helpers and organisers, too many to thank individually, those I miss you’ll surely pardon, butterflies are drifting in the breeze, and we leave this English country garden.

Shall I compare ‘Tree’ to a summer’s day?

I was considering not writing anything at all about yesterday’s beer festival show in Heacham (pronounced ‘Heem’)* in an “If a gig happens in a forest and nobody blogs about it, did it really happen?” fashion or simply just writing that it was so perfect that I was adopting La Mulley’s policy of keeping it all in her head, all pristine and untarnished, and not daring or bearing to look at the camcorder footage but then I reasoned that in doing that I’d be referring to it anyway. I’m sure there’s some sort of proposition which deals with this sort of thing – Foucalt’s Third Theorem of Theremin or some such, there’s bound to be. Still, after having shared the pain of an ex-member of Picturehouse who was mourning the fate of his creation at a wedding gig last week – “That’s not band I formed…” it was nice to be able to reflect that SftBH in its current stripe is exactly the band I wanted to form. Admittedly there was slightly less focus on three-way onstage monitor splits in the early days, and even Turny Winn was moved to comment that when he thought he was joining a nice folk/country/blues/pop acoustic autonomous collective (it isn’t, it’s a benevolent dictatorship, but as with all such successful regimes, the trick is to keep that bit from the proletariat. Or, as we call him, the fiddle player) he thought he might just turn up to gigs with his banjo, and here he now was in a people carrier humping (figuratively speaking) a couple of PA speakers, three guitar cases, a bass player, and a guitarist who appeared to have brought along the Sunday papers to help while away the journey (guilty as charged m’lud).
The show itself was really quite special – let me count the ways. The sound was great – I think I may be developing a mid-life obsession with having to hear properly on stage after literally decades of being grateful if I can even catch a low rumbling sound to indicate that the bass amp has at least been turned on. People, please believe that when I promise that if the Tertiary Donna up on the catwalk at your next festival gig is holding up proceedings for five minutes or so insisting on certain tweaks and turns in what seems to be a one-sided conversation with the ether, trust me, you’ll thank him for it in the long run. Good onstage sound equals porky prime cuts of performance off it, and the only thing that cheered Fiddly up more at a scorching hot Heem than having a monitor screaming violin-based foldback at him was the opportunity to concurrently have a nice cooling electric fan pointing up his shorts. He is a man of simple pleasures. We all are, aside from La Mulley who as an Oxford graduate sophisticate demands so much more from life than the rest of us. Oh, and is a girl. Whereas a certain proportion of the group find that simply being asked by the chap manning the barbecue to notify him when there are three songs left in the first set so that he knows when to put their steaks on (“I like mine rare” shouts Turny in response “Give it until the guitar solo in the last number”), our resident Diva demands more from life. Only such challenges such as expanding her harmonica repertoire by 50% in one sound check sitting (she now knows two songs, or six notes in total) can satisfy her continual thirst for knowledge, power, and good punctuation (she is one of those people who refer to Lynne Truss as ‘a lightweight’ and reading this sort of thing usually brings on a dull thudding pain in her temples and makes starburst flashes start to appear behind her contacts)… But it’s not all about onstage jokes, free food and relaxing into an abruptly terminated version of Born to Run in a marquee in an English country pub garden (although to be fair that does take up quite a large proportion of our time). Never, if you will, mind the bucolic - here’s Songs from The Blue House.



*It isn’t, except among the occupants of one particular people carrier somewhere on the A149 on that particular Sunday.

"I say, can you see....?"
Kelvedon Free Festival, July 12th.

I suspect it may be one of the seven signs of ageing, but when I was asked this week about an outdoors gig I'd been to I enthused at length about the car parking, the stewards, the food outlets and the availability of paper in the portable toilets. It wasn't until I was prompted further that I realised they wanted to hear about the bands. As a performer, your perspective on festivals does tend to be coloured very much by pretty similar concerns, and that's before you even get to whether the sound engineer can hear you pleading for some vocal monitors while he has a fag and chats up some impressionable young thing, or if they've supplied some free water, or given you a shiny laminate to stick on your pinboard at home. Last week, for instance, we had rain, the stage manager was holding the tech spec upside down while we were setting up, I had a slippy B string and we were summarily dismissed with a curt "that's it" due to earlier over-runningwhen we still had three songs to play. That kind of puts a downer on your day, especially when you're playing real good, for free. At Kelvedon, however, we are happy to enjoy the hog roast, a refreshing coffee, the close availability of Brewer's Gold and a sunny morning before setting up, taking in the sights and sounds of the festival circuit - gazebos, pretty tea dresses combined with floral wellies and the sight of a face-painted circus refugee of the persona of the commedia dell'arte. "Who's that clown?" remarks someone.
On before us are Relay, a classic-rock styled band who feature veteran Songs from The Blue House recording engineer Steve Tsoi, responsible for knob-twiddling duties on the first two albums and a thoroughly good egg. Their set is reliable riff-heavy open air fare and at one point they break into a remarkable metal version of Wuthering Heights, which is a first for me. A short break and then we're up - the increasingly standard live line up of two guitars, bass, flute, banjo, piano and fiddle (Our Glorious Leader, Myself, Gibbon, La Mulley, Turny Winn, TT and, er, Fiddly who, as we almost always announce, is a hundred and four and comes all the way from Thorndon). We have left the bouzouki at home today out of sympathy for the stress levels of the traditionally hard-pressed festival sound engineer. We are introduced by an enthusiastic MC who whoops the crowd up and gets the name of the band right (check). The usual couple of songs go by while we sort out whose monitors need tweaking and we have a great onstage sound (check!). I'm enjoying the free water (check) between songs and it occurs to me that the coffee stall, rather brilliantly, advertise that they can be texted from anywhere on site and they will deliver your latte to you. I mention this onstage and enquire whether I can get a coffee. Before the middle eight of the next song a (recyclable) cup o' steaming java is popped onto the lip of the stage. This is all going terribly well - once again the infallible back-of-the-neck hair raising second verse in Rolling and Tumbling hits the spot and our proto Who/CSNY crossover (may sound unlikely, but I've just heard a metal band doing a Kate Bush cover so all bets are off as far as I'm concerned) Raise Your Flag continues its journey from demo to fully-fledged anthem, albeit one whose title we can't quite decide on. Even at this early stage in proceedings things are over running slightly and a considerate stage manager gives us the subtle "two to go" signal - excellent, we've fitted in the single (Don't Fear The Reaper, iTunes lovers) we can adjust the end of the set properly so we can include the big closer (check). Unfortunately there are three songs left on the set list (we've dropped one mid set already) and there appear to be every possible permutation of these being suggested from all quarters of the stage. OGL steps in with an authoratative decision and we're off, despite mutterings from the stage left cabal of myself and TT. The sun is out, and we're playing "Risk" - how good does life get? A good one, only momentarily interrupted by the Essex Air Ambulance, which hovers over the stage mid set as a sort of thank you for the day's fund raising.
We are able to offload pretty quickly due to the portability of our acoustic-based equipment, leaving TT to transform himself into a posh suited member of The Committed a (yes) Commitments tribute band. In the interim there is a set by that most ubiquitous of white, middle class week night hobbies, the samba band. It is soon apparent that they feature a heavily made up be-headdressed frontwoman who is dancing in no more or less than a star spangled bikini. One of the thong-style ones. She is soon joined by a more modestly attired festival dancer (leggings, cut off t-shirt, dreads) and there is soon an entertaining dance-off going on between the representative of the spirit of Brazil in the (electric turquoise) blue corner and the spirit of The Spirit in The Sky in the (henna) red corner. It's pretty much an amicable draw. I take a natural break in the clean and fully paper-stocked backstage latrine (check) and sidle up to the sidestage tent to help pimp some merch.
The Committed, a tribute band to a fictional tribute band, I mean, really, and that's not considering the couple of versions already touring the corporate circuit. The musical snob in me feels the bile rising until they start playing and they are...brilliant. We are, let's face it, watching a white-hot band playing Stax and Memphis soul party songs out in the open air. What's not to like? The band are almost as tight as the girls' little black dresses - at one point we're pretty sure we can tell what blonde number two had for breakfast, and they can all sing. Really well. Someone inevitably shouts for Mustang Sally - two songs in - but I'm pretty sure they've remembered to put that in the set. The frontman is pretty much a doppelganger for Andrew Strong, at least what I'm pretty sure he looks like these days and he halts the set while a couple of idiots are ejected to a round of applause from the four thousand people present. At the merch tent someone comes up and asks if The Committed have a CD on sale. Well, perhaps they are unaware of the film. They play Mustang Sally. Very, very well. Party band and audience One, reformed cynic Nil.
I can't stay for Salt Dog or headliners Eddie and The Hot Rods, but I do catch Absent Kid. After a storming set a bunch of teens are giggling and trying to attract the attention of the excellent (and coolly good looking - think a slightly more handsome and much younger Alex James) drummer. I'm still in a good mood from the soul revue and so I go over and point them out. "Firstly, brilliant set, secondly, there are a bunch of girls who keep saying 'I wish he'd come over' and they're talking about you" I say. "I expect they are" he replies insouciantly. Twerp.
It's time to go, weaving through the smiling happy children and their picnicking parents, the indie kids, girls in tutus (check), dogs on strings (check), and the seventy year old man who's been grooving in the sun all afternoon (check). Thank you Kelvedon free festival. You ticked all the boxes.

Mallrats...

Hot news in The Blue House as our download-only single (Don't Fear) The Reaper bursts into online radio station The Big L's top forty with a bullet, or whatever means of propulsion is necessary to get a track at number thirty three and have Mike Read say "It's good". With the heady hand of success ruffling our hair, bass player Gibbon and I decamp to meet up with the rest of Songs from The Blue House at the Liberty Festival. In Romford. In a shopping mall. When Our Glorious Leader and I came up with a few hokey country tunes of our own I think we envisaged lazily strumming our way through them at a few bucolic beer festivals sat on hay bales, a refreshing pint of foaming ale to hand but fate is a fickle mistress, and a dreadful housekeeper, and so we find ourselves in a disused shop in a monument to mammon, waiting for Mungo Jerry to finish their set so we can hoist ourselves up onto the stage and whack out a faux-bluegrass cover of a (the) Blue Oyster Cult hit. While we wait for the unmistakable refrain of "In The Summertime" to echo out in the booming cathedral of commerce (surely heralding a call to arms for us) we amuse ourselves by spotting shop signs - "Sale shoes, £10 a pair or two for £15" is one, and in another fashion shop a notice advises "Female Upstairs. Lift at rear". Blimey, I didn't think it was that kind of shop. Meanwhile, Fiddly contemplates his grubby knees sorrowfully while spritzing his fiddling hand with a handy bottle. "I've spat on 'em up on the roof, but nuthin' seems to shift 'et" he says. "What's in that bottle?" asks someone. "Water" he replies. "Well, um, why don't you use that on your knees?". He is delighted by this train of lateral thinking. "They're good knees, they've seen me through a lot" he declaims proudly. "I bet you don't get this backstage with Duran Duran" remarks banjo- wrangler Turny Winn with no little measure of pride.
Afore too long the unmistakable jug band stylings of "In The Summertime", albeit filtered through the blues-rock kaleidoscope of the current line up, are ringing through the halls, and we push out gear-laden shopping trollies to the stage area in time to see a spirited run through a Tina Turner number, complete with guitar, bass, keyboard and drum solos. There is a brief discussion as to whether the singer is Ray Dorsey or Dorset, but whatever the name, he's in remarkably good shape, all in black, and washboard of stomach, although one onlooker rather unkindly remarks that he's bearing not so much a six pack as a buy-four-get-two-free pack. In undeniably good voice and grinning from ear to ear throughout though. He happily signs autographs and poses for camera phone pictures and slopes off to the artists area, or disused shop for a well earned rest.
Soundcheck over, we immediately ignore our own advice to keep chat to a minimum due to the well-like acoustics rendering any announcement well-nigh unintelligable and kick in to the set. A couple of feet finders, and then new songs "Rolling and Tumbling", courtesy principally of the delivery of OGL and TT on pianner does the remarkable trick of momentarily bringing the spirit of New York at christmas in a Romford shopping centre in July, remarkable work I think you'll agree. "Not That Kind of Girl", a feisty grrrl power pop song delivered by the Fragrant and Charming La Mulley, and decrying the placing of spiritual value on material things is similarly succesful in denying the incongriguity of the venue of it's delivery, and by the time we hoist out my "Special Kind of Love" even I am moved to pay tribute to the nearby branch of La Perla as it closes its shutters ("I'm a big fan of your work"). Whack out the single, close with big emo number "Risk" and we feel like we've come, seen, and if not conquered, then at least made our own little contribution to righting the karma slightly. All credit to the people who put the whole thing together, ran the battle of the bands competition, compered, and helped bring real music into place. The crew are splendidly kind as they pack up the stage and prepare for tomorrow's challenge - it's The Real Thing. For us, it's Ipswich music day, and the threat of inclemency. Will the rain gods look kindly on our works and reward us, or are we going to be playing to a muddy park and umbrellas. Again?

"They shoot hearses, don't they...?"

It has been a tricky day in Picturehouse terms. I have spent no little time corresponding with an employer regarding just exactly when and where we are required to be so that his big day runs logistically as close to perfect as is possible, which is entirely reasonable and proper. Unfortunately, this doesn't run quite so concurrently with the ideas of the bands' perfect days, which don't generally involve driving fifty miles to soundcheck at lunchtime and then be hanging around for eight hours until called upon to perform. This, we reason, is why proper musicians charge as much as they do for this sort of thing. As willing amateurs however, we're just grateful that we're invited to the barbecue afterwards. Mind you, we are tonight due in sunny downtown mid-Suffolk for a performance at a pub which is notable for the distance betwixt performance area and bar. This can prove tricky in terms of developing a satisfactory band/punter interface scenario, since we are pretty much stuck at one end of the building due to our reliance on fixed points of electrickery and they are free to sit at the bar, although guitarist/singer Barry does have one of those new fangled radio lead thingies, which means that he's pretty much free to wander as he pleases. This, it transpires, will not be an issue this evening as for some unknown reason a stag party of bright young things, none of whom look old enough to make this sort of decision, has chosen to pitch up here and enjoy the evening with us. Also along are regular supporters JohnandDonna and a lady who introduces herself at half time and is so charming and effusive that we break all our rules and do a request for her to kick off the second half. Not that we know the song to start with, but we have a head start in that it is by Snow Patrol, who may be one of the most popular bands in the universe but, my lord, talk about three chords and the truth...! Frustratingly, these half written anthems outsell anything I've come up with in the past by about three trillion to one, and so I'm really in no position to criticise, but hey, if A, A flat and D work for you, why knock it? Racing Cars it is then. This goes down terribly well, as does Frisky Pat's Moon-like demolition of his kit at the end of the set. We then have to put it back together for the encore, for which someone (hmmm hmm hmm, la la la) forgets to turn the out front vocal p.a. back on. At the close of the evening it's Pat's turn to lie on the carpet groaning gently and muttering that he can't play the drums. Usually that's Kilbey's job... At some point during the evening I muse that there is a machine in the toilets that dispenses a 300mg capsule of fifteen blended herbs guaranteed to 'enhance performance'. I've had a KFC on the way to the gig which boasts similar properties and was 79p cheaper, but no-one seems willing to test this theory out. Frisky Pat comes out with the money and relays that we need to get out sharpish as they need to clear up for a function the next day. We are drones - disposable, of the moment and performing a function. An, if you will, function band. This isn't what I dreamed of.

See use of the Oxford comma above, as I tonight learned that it is called. We don't just waste our time between sets , you know.

"Livin' the dream on G's and caffeine..."



Tonight's the night, everybody - welcome, my friends, to the show that never ends! To recap, our mildly cynical neighbour, a member of Her Majesty's Press, has been contacted by a gentleman who claims that he can teach someone to play guitar using the power of the interweb in a month. One recent graduate of the course was playing with a band within two weeks, it transpires. We are doubtful and, as ever when these sorts of conversations are held on licensed premises, we determine that we must discover if this be true and so our friend Producer Simon is volunteered in his absence as a suitable guinea guitarist. Once he shows up at the pub and is confronted with a tableful of mostly pissed and therefore overly insistent friends of his that he undertake the challenge, he agrees, I suspect mostly for the sake of a quiet life. However, with a deadline to meet and a set list and programme of forthcoming gigs despatched to Talbot Towers, it seems there is no escape for our hapless victim. I mean hero. The Mighty Picturehous are coming down off our friday night gig - the third in rapid succession at a pub in Colchester where we are currently flavour of the month and have done so many shows in such a relatively short time that we not only recognise a few of the punters, but also the pub's 'twixt and post-set CD collection - to be honest it seems a bit high camp (Copacabana, some Abba, a bit of George Michael, Dolly Parton's Nine To Five) but I guess no-one's going to start a fight to I Will Survive. On this occasion we missed the vital timing slot which means that the pub pretty much empties bang on a quarter past eleven so that the nighthawks of Colchester can get in at the late night establishment of their choice by the half eleven price hike. It's unnerving the first time, but we're generally getting better at it. Barry is louchely sipping at a nice Merlot and considering his options, the freshly re-monikered Sweetpea Ibbotson and I are considering why they built the castle at the bottom of the hill and not the top ("Romans, fucking idiots" considers the former Frisky Pat sagely) and Kilbey is reflecting on his evening's Jack Daniels consumption from a prone and frankly horizontal position on the bandstand. His conclusion seems to be that an apple a day may well keep the doctor away, but is not a practical daily diet on its own if you're going to celebrate the end of your four year certificate in training course in the company of Kentucky's finest. Wise words indeed. It is friday though, and no-one has to work tomorrow, which is a mantra he has been repeating ever more forcefully during the course of the evening. "Did I mention it was friday?" he asks one last time.

Our trip to the seaside at Felixstowe for Simon's grand debut the next night brings out a fair smattering of supportive friends, all eager to see how he will face the challenge. A photographer from the paper, detailed to capture his triumph in digital form contents himself with getting Si to throw a few shapes while we're setting up and assures him that these are the best shots he'll get and buggers off conveniently early for a prior appointment, very possibly an urgent assignment at an Indian restaurant, we suspect. We have decided to not prolong the new boy's agony for too long and bring him on third song into the set. Any possibility of a low key entrance subsides pretty swiftly as Kilbey welcomes him to the stage by announcing that he has been playing guitar for approximately four weeks and this is his first ever gig. A breathless audience readies its camcorders. Well, if there were nerves, they were beautifully disguised. I think I may have held my breath sidestage for the duration of the song, but all his changes were there and he was at no point helpless. Cues in and out faultlessly executed and a happy man whose first words upon leaving the stage were apparently "I want my own band!" How potent cheap music is. As for us, we chuntered on with the thing that we do, enjoyed a cigarette break on the balcony at half time, and rounded off the evening's fun with a surprise "I Predict a Riot" that we hadn't planned, and indeed hadn't played for a while. A nice crowd, a bit of dancing, and it's always good when someone comes in their Lara Croft fancy dress outfit (as it were). The gig was upstairs - up two flights of stairs in fact, and the difference between the previous night's venue and this became rapidly apparent as just as we finished the place really started filling up (either that or they'd all seen us before and were just waiting for us to announce the last number so they could get the beers in). This was the half eleven place round these parts. As leads were packed and guitars put back in their cases the space between us and the door began filling up with bodies - bodies that were generally disinclined to leave a convenient corridor for some fairly tired and inordinately sweaty musicians to get their gear to. As we moved through the throng they magically swept around behind us like an ocean tide, and being the well brought up boys that we are it seemed impolite to ram knees and shins with heavy speaker cabinets, tempting as it was, and besides, most of this lot of incomers were breezered up to the max and it didn't look like it was going to take an awful lot to kick them off. Each trudge to the door, down the stairs, back up, through the throng and over to pick up another cumbersome piece of equipment seemed to take longer and longer, and still they came. "Yeeeaaahhh Bwwooiiii!" shouted one, patting my guitar case in approval and asking if he could blow into the piece in my other hand. It was an extendable speaker stand, but it seemed churlish to turn him down, and he seemed to enjoy the experience. "I'll give you fifty quid to go back on" said another. I may have laughed a little too risibly. By the end we were wondering whether it would be possible to simply drop drum cases from the balcony to the pavement below and try to catch them (rather than kick them down the stairs, which Sweetpea, determined to not be defined by his nickname was already doing by this point) but since one girl had already had the same idea regarding disposal of her wine glass we thought it was probably a step too far in the circumstances to start lobbing the lighting rig into the street in case some of the partygoers thought it was a good idea and decided to join in. We left and drove away, and still they came.

There is a theory (proposed by my friend and part time philosopher Neil) that those who live beside the sea are different to the rest of us. The expanse of water both constrains and excites them. It is, paradoxically, both a barrier and a gateway - "Come to me" it says, "See what mysteries I hide" while murmuring with another breath "You shall not pass". Those who turn their backs to the sea face inland, face a journey, face finding another way for themselves - to travel, to explore, to get away, to lose themselves. Or, as we discovered, get wankered on a saturday night, lob glasses off balconies and shout "Gary, he's not worth it!". It takes all sorts.

Fear and loathing in Walton-on-the-Naze

The events of the last three weeks seem to have thrown Picturehouse much more together, in both a fraternal and a musical fashion. After the debacle of a farrago of the Walton show, where regular viewers will recall we played to an audience best described as widely spaced, and less than hysterical in their response, we have enjoyed the good times provided by subsequent more enthusiastic audiences exponentially more, and we are on the verge of cancelling a couple of shows at some of our more low-key residencies as a result. Admittedly we have genuine excuses for the diary clashes, but there is a definite feeling that if we’re not going to have fun while we’re out then we may as well stay at home and have fun instead, which seems a sensible enough approach to adopt, especially when we consider the roll call of past members who have quit the band in the past simply because they’d rather see their wives, girlfriends and/or children at the weekend than get home at one in the morning having spent a unfulfilling Friday night with some people whose opinion of the merits of our set list seem diametrically opposed to our own. It’s not exactly going up the river after Colonel Kurtz, but there are some weird experiences to be had out there, believe you me (not least that time we encountered the team who play darts, at Harkness). There are only so many times you can enjoy the mantra of what you didn’t play being intoned at you before the thrill palls, frankly, but it’s so much easier when you’ve had a good gig to begin with, hence the clear out. We have some new and interesting places to be going over the next couple of months, so we’ll see what these box- fresh delights have in store for us – as in any relationship, we have to keep moving forward, other wise we’re just going to end up with a dead shark on our hands.
Speaking of new and exciting things, we look forward this weekend to the live debut of our good friend and one time radio show producer (hence the name), Producer Simon. Some friends of ours in Her Majesty’s Press, charged with discovering if there was any truth in the proposition that someone could be taught to play guitar, from scratch, in a month, to a standard at which they would be able to play with a band happened to mention this to me. Of course, being in the pub at the time as we were, the obvious idea came that there was only one way to find out – ffiiiigggghhhtt! In the absence of that, all we had to do was find a suitable victim / volunteer and put it to them that the idea of potential humiliation and shame at the hands of a baying pub audience was exactly the sort of thing that would start off their weekend in a sprightly fashion. Producer Simon, being not only literate enough to record his experiences in written form for the paper but also a frustrated would-be guitarist of long standing seemed ideal for the job and after assuaging his doubts through the power of Kronenburg he signed up for the task. He was coming along nicely when he asked if he could have a sneaky advance run-through with us last week, although his combined bar counting, lip chewing and furrowed brow NLP learning technique did receive a bit of a set back when Kilbey quite rightly identified one small factor which may have affected his nascent guitar-flinging career in that he’d learned the single version of the song and we were doing the album version. There’s more to it than just sticking your fingers in the right place, splaying your legs and waiting for the adoration of the public you know (as the lap dancer said to the Bishop). More news, and hopefully Si’s update from the other side of the fear fence, as we have it.