Lazy People in Local Newspapers

I see from a report in Her Majesty’s Press that local landmark The Mulberry Tree is up for sale. Well, I say ‘report’ – what I mean is a non-subbed, non-parsed cut & paste from the selling agent’s website describing the assets of the building. This, I’m afraid, is what passes for journalism these days – this and an endless (re)cycle of former glories and nostalgic, misty mountain hop-flavoured memories of the way we were*. Still, you don’t need another reflection on the decline and fall of the local paper from me – there are many, many ex-journalists who are more than qualified to give you that, but if their modus operandi is simply to exploit the archive then surely one day they’re going to run out of history** - although I know of several bits that they won’t be able to lay their hands on, because at the end of his tenure as rock and pop correspondent (never a massive priority for the editor) Mr. Wendell*** lifted as many glossy 8x10 photographs with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was as he could cram into his briefcase. There are more mullets in there than in a Floridian haul seine net.

In a spirit of research though, here are a couple of things I found with their look up function – here’s Picturehouse letting local radio presenter Simon Talbot play guitar with us and here’s me and James looking forward to our shot at Hollywood glory. Because we’d written a song the photographer for the latter story asked us to pose holding pencils and a piece of paper, and my favourite quote from the eventual published piece is “…several other talented musicians make up the band, some of whom play occasionally”. You see – [CTRL] + C – I could do that job. We took that picture in The Dove, by the way. 

Sadly, The focus of the current 'story' is on the value of the property, and not on the vital part the venue and it’s custodians played in my rise and rise to rock stardom and notoriety during the pub’s time as the rebranded The Milestone in the latter part of the last century and the early stirrings of this. Having moved from The Olive Leaf just up the road, Karen and Ady brought along some of the house bands who had kept them entertained so royally during their tenure there and here it was also that a nascent Songs from The Blue House made our live debut, and where we then backed La Mulley at SSW as she first presented many of the songs which would go to make up our second album.

Here The Picturehouse Big Band hosted a series of themed gigs – the Football Kit Night was going well until I tried to play 2-4-6-8 Motorway in goalkeeping gloves (don’t listen to those who tell you it improved the whole experience), our Beach Party drew admiring reviews regarding the nature of then-bass player Andy’s shortie shorts (Kilbey sported a Beckham-esque sarong) and the inevitable school uniform night came with the consequence that the music respectfully stopped whenever Katinka went on a glass-collecting run. There was the night that Limehouse Lizzy cancelled up at The Railway and we threw in a couple of impromptu Thin Lizzy numbers (“It’s Em, D, C and G all the way through – I’ll do the solo…”) and Pete Radar Pawsey did a harmonica solo in Take It On The Run. The Star Club played after-park parties which pulled in almost as many folk as watched us at Ipswich Music Day, I DJ’d a vinyl-only night - hell, they even let gods kitchen play.

All this reduced to “The property comprises of a ground floor L shaped bar, 50 covers, a tap room for beers & ciders from the barrel, ladies, gent’s and disabled toilets, a walled garden with seating area for 16 covers, complete with a BBQ dining area and a beer garden to the front of the premises.” Sorry, I do beg your pardon – that’s from the Penn Commercial listing – this is from the Ipswich Star story – “The property comprises a 1,599 sq ft ground floor L-shaped bar with 50 covers, a taproom for beers and ciders from the barrel. Outside there is a 1,237 sq ft walled garden with seating for a further 16 covers, complete with a BBQ dining area.” [CTRL] + P.

And this is just from my experience – think how many stories they could spin out if someone was just prepared to get off their big fat keyboard, pick up a phone and ring a few people. What about the night David Coverdale bought a round for everyone in the pub, when Tony Hadley got turned away from a lock-in because no-one recognised him, Dave Greenfield turned up at songwriter’s night and played Golden Brown or The Levellers were in there after their encore at The Regent before the audience were?

“Upstairs is a three bedroom flat with study, and a living room, attractive fitted kitchen and separate toilet and bathroom with free standing bath. The flat has also been recently renovated and decorated to a good standard” my arse.

               

*Although not entirely unlike much of this blog, to be fair.

**We listened to an interview with an executive from Archant regarding the future of local papers on the wireless one day on our way to a festival, and if he said ‘monetise’ once, he said it twenty times, and it was only a ten minute feature. When the Ipswich Star do the inevitable self-aggrandizing history of their new offices, I hope they remember to include this.

***Following in a distinguished succession of feature writers (Rob Hadgraft, Simon Berrill, Julie Adams), Mr. Wendell employed Our Glorious Leader James and Myself as (unpaid) singles reviewers and once interviewed our band As Is for a feature which appeared under the headline “Too Lazy to Work, Too Scared to Steal”, which was a mantra we’d adopted from Green on Red’s Dan Stuart – his response to the question as to why he was a musician.