In Spite of All The Stranger

 I had reason to rummage around in the big box of things under the bed the other day (no – not that one, the other one) and came across a veritable trove of treasures*. Ticket stubs from the Clapham Grand in 1982, a Cosmic Puffin laminate, several issues of Those Were the Days, and some hard copies of old photographs. One of these was signed – a couple of signatures that one might furrow a brow over, given that the picture itself was of three of the most famous men to have walked the planet, and a drummer.

To back track slightly, I used to play in a Beatles specialist band called The Star Club. It was instigated mainly as an excuse to go to the pub with our mates - a function that Picturehouse serves to this day - and somehow became quite the popular attraction. We didn’t really go for the later stuff, pretty much basing the set around anything up to Revolver and leaning heavily on the Hamburg days, but without the toilet seat and amphetamines. By the time we had replaced our front man** we were getting gigs further afield than our home town. Spalding, for example. And Clacton.

Clacton was a bit of a trek, but quite a lively night out. The venue*** was close to the sea front and so rather than idle away the hours between set up and showtime**** simply smoking, drinking and watching the clothes go by there was an opportunity to feed tuppences down the coin roller or try and win a cuddly toy in the grabber while smoking, drinking, and watching the clothes go by. There was a kebab shop on the way out of town which we used to call into for late night sustenance and soakage after the show where The Drummer would accompany the carving of the doner rotisserie with anguished howls of pain from the bench outside. It was on the way back from a show on the A133 that we heard that Diana had died.

We were in Clacton one evening enjoying a pleasant post-gig pack down when an elderly gentleman***** wandered over to have a word. I’m not usually a big fan of the post-show meet n’ greet as it usually involves someone who wants to tell you what you should have played, how you did it wrong or – on one notable occasion – a précis of how they negotiated Edinburgh city centre in a Volvo FH 460 only last week, but were happy to be at the show now. The Singer seemed to be deep in conversation, which left me free to coil some leads and Fast Fret****** my strings at least. He (The Singer) beckoned me over. “Tell him what you just told me” he said to the man. “I was just saying” the auld feller recounted “…that you boys are as close to what it was like in the early days as I’ve ever seen. It really takes me back. I’ll tell Pete next time I see him.”

I raised an enquiring eyebrow at our vocalist as if to say ”Pete? Who the in the name of George Martin is ‘Pete’ when he’s at home?” I was then formally introduced to our interlocutor. “This is Ken. Ken Brown.” “That name rings a bell…” I thought. Followed shortly by an internal “Oohhh…you mean Pete…” Sure enough, he did mention it next time he saw Pete and came to the next gig with autographed photos for all of us, which we insisted he also sign, even though he isn’t in it. So that was the night I met the man who met the man who played Twenty Flight Rock in The Quarrymen. I like to think that it was our version that swung it.

 

*Or, alternately, a big pile of useless crap which is going straight in the skip when you die. I’m paraphrasing, but barely.

**We did not subscribe to the Bootleg Beatles’ strict delineation of roles and occasionally added some harmonies where -in the opinion of our drummer – “…there should have been one”. Not really one for the purists, it must be said.

***I want to say Tom Pepper’s?

****Mach Schau! as it were.

*****I would say he was about the age that I am now.

******A proprietary brand of cleaner and lubricant.

Caveat Musicus

 Well now, firstly, let’s start with the rant I put on the Facebook…

That thing where an event puts out an APB for folk to play their (say, for example) food festival, so you round everyone up, ask the band to put their diary on hold for that day, forward the ‘organisers’ your expression of interest and a couple of links, send a follow up email, and they still can’t be bothered to reply to you, even to say “no, thank you”.

It’s always the musicians who are the afterthought, the disposable aspect, the #nomoneybutgoodexposure fall guys and girls. A pox on the event wranglers who are more interested in £ per stall frontage than common courtesy.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

As you might imagine, I was not in the best of humours at the time.

“You don’t say…”

It’s not the worst experience I’ve ever had with well-meaning civilians. That was probably the time The Star Club were contracted to play a charity gig on the basis of our well-acknowledged popularity, agreed a (much reduced) fee, played our (verbally) contracted two sets then had to do a runner after a disgruntled audience barged into the dressing room to berate us, physically hassled a couple of our camp followers and bad-mouthed us around town on the basis that there was no incidental music, raffle, and the house lights were on throughout. That the entire audience could fit into our allotted backstage space tells you something about the amount of promotion that the (so called) organisers had put into rounding up an audience. After a quick post gig conflab in a lay-by on the way home we deducted some petrol money and gave our fee back, chastened by the opprobrium generated by our willingness to lend a hand. I don’t think we ever donated our services to charity again.

Of course, worse than the willing volunteer, the well-meaning organiser, the out of their depth committee member are the people who have a hugely monetised organisation who, as an afterthought, reckon “D’you know what? We should have some music.” These people value nothing more than the free exchange of talent (or at least ability) for a parking space half a mile away from the stage and a guest pass to some event you weren’t going to go to anyway. They generally have no idea what constitutes a PA, a power supply, how big the footprint a five piece band requires is or what a gazebo behaves like in a high wind. At this point you may care to revisit the Blazing Saddles scene wherein Gene Wilder explains to Sheriff Bart who he is dealing with.*

Let’s lighten the mood. I have played an end of term Thank You gig for a bunch of teachers** where the Head made sure there was enough material allocated from the buffet to keep us so well fed that the second set had a mildly sluggish air***. We did a free show (at our instigation) where the landlord dipped into his own pocket to drop two hundred quid into the tip jar, and a corporate do where, although we had to fill in a risk assessment and take out public liability insurance, we had a free go at the burger stall and a sofa backstage. Even when we had to run a four way extension across the road to a nearby house for the village fete we got - get this - a vegan burger with vegan cheese.**** 

My advice, well, who knows? Check things. Is it lucrative? Will it be fun? Can you go home and, in the form of that anti-smoking ad from the seventies, sink into an armchair and mutter to yourself “‘as bin a good daayyy.”

In the immortal words of Jim Steinman and/or Meatloaf (delete as applicable according to personal preference) two out of three ain’t bad.

*I won’t lie to you, we had a residency in Spalding during which we were introduced to our minder, who we immediately nicknamed Mongo.

**One of them threw up into a Tesco carrier bag behind the sound desk and - heroically - carried on chugging Chardonnay like a Boss. I won’t have a word said against Primary School teachers. Apart from that one I fell out with after the ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ incident of 2006.

***He later joined the band, trivia buffs.

****No, you’re judging.