Jimmie
Nicol, Alan White, that kid who stepped in when Keith Moon fell off
his stool* at a The Who gig. The list of stand-in and dep drummers is
long, illustrious and – like the road to hell** – paved with good
intentions. To add this roll of honour we meet today to celebrate one Linda
Stix who, upon hearing that we in The Picturehouse Big Band were one
drummer short of quintet agreed to step up and learn our entire set,
which as regular readers will know has been laboriously compiled over
(literally) many decades of pop history and lovingly curated to the
point where we daren’t listen to the originals any more*** in case
we become distracted from our core mission of playing the songs in a form of which a pub audience would probably still recognise them, even
without the aid of the Shazam (TM)
app.
In
return, Johnny-out-of-Five Mile High said that he’d guest on a couple of
songs, and we learned a handful of theirs (FMH), which meant that for
at least half a dozen numbers I would, essentially, be the guitarist
in Five Mile High, for Linda is their drummer and The Other
Guitarist, in a Clark Kent-esque twist of happenstance, is also
their bass player. At one point, to emphasise the wile of the
situation he takes off his glasses. Turns out that’s just because
they fogged up when he came in from the car park, but you get the
gist.
By
about the Thursday before the gig I realise with mounting horror that
simply recognising the titles of songs doesn’t, technically, count
as knowing them****, especially when you have the added
responsibility of not being the one who fucks it up for everyone
else. (This is me having to (re)learn four songs, three of which I’ve
played before by the way. Now multiply that by seven to get some idea
of what Linda’s been going through). Hence there is an evening on
the sofa with YouTube, a search engine tuned to those guitar tab
sites you can get on the electric internet these days, and a Squier
Telecaster (with individual saddle bridges and the three way selector
switch rewired so that you can run the pick ups in series as well as
in parallel. But I digress). In the olden days, of course, you’d be
stuck in front of a turntable getting progressively worsening RSI
from all that moving the tone arm backwards and forwards on the record, but we have
crowdsourcing and the associated resources to cut and paste the same
basic errors on to multiple sites these days, which saves a lot of
time. And who doesn’t relish the idea of playing Judas Priest’s
Breaking the Law in a non-ironic fashion, which is something
that comes up less often than you’d like, but more often than you’d think.
Once
in The Heart of The Stow***** we are reassured by the ever-avuncular
presence of TOG, who assures us that he will be keeping a paternal
eye on things****** and providing prompts and cues as required. This
is a huge relief to the rest of us, who are frankly often never quite
sure where we are during any given middle eight, or what we came in
here for in the first place. Our default position in case of any navigation errors is to
turn around and glare at whoever is playing bass at the time, which
is a handy trope with which to engage. It also helps share the blame
around a bit, however as it turns out, no-one demands a Paddington
stare, and none of the audience need recourse to Shazam (TM)
at any time, such is the diligence that Linda has paid in both
listening to the original versions and also in taking note of our
quirks and extensions when it comes to arrangements. Admittedly there
was a point where I thought my kidneys were going to be dissolved
slowly until they filtered out of my body in a coagulant mess, but it
turned out that The Bass Player had just stepped on his octave
divider pedal by mistake, and I’m sure the foundations of the
building are sturdy enough to withstand a couple of verses of that.
There was also another passing moment of disbelief and uncertainty,
but that’s what being charged £3.20 for a pint of lime and soda
will do for you.
The
post-show playlist brings up Aerosmith’s Sweet Emotion –
one of The Drummer’s favourite tracks to play. I remember to send
him a text to the gig in which he is currently engaged or – more
likely, as we are – packing up in the rain after. “Happy
Birthday” I type, two-fingered. “You’re fired” {smiley face}.
Photo
credit by friend of the band Claire Woodbridge. Ironically, you can’t
see Linda or Johnny in this one.
*One
of The Other Guitarist’s favourite jokes goes “Can I help push
your stool back in?” “Well, you could buy me dinner first...”
kerrtisshhhh
**Presumably
that’s the one Chris Rea drives home for Christmas on.
***They
later became The New Originals. I know – one paragraph in and three
footnotes already. I’m on fire
today.
****A
handy aides-memoire for any potential audience members who fancy
offering to help us out by having a go anytime soon.
*****Coincidentally
also the title of an unreleased Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe demo
from the 1990 bootleg Yesoteric.
******I
know – there’s a whole complex uncle/parent thing going on there.
I’m not sure about it myself to be honest.
