"Nobody Knows Anything..."

I spend a lot of time bumbling around on the internet, me - a touch of bloggery here, a little below the line action there and - of course - this occasional record of my glittering showbiz career, which I occasionally compile into book form. One of the places I tend to hang out online is at The Afterword, which grew out of the compost left over after the untimely demise of The Word Magazine. Colin Harper - journalist, biographer of Bert Jansch (and like me a one time musical employer of Judy Dyble) - is also on the AW blog and recently wrote that he really must get round to reading some of my efforts. I'd really enjoyed his John McLaughlin book and I thought it might be a nice gesture to share mine with him, so I sent him a copy. A short while later he posted this review on The Afterword, and I enjoyed reading it almost as much as I enjoy writing the blogs. In case you don't get over there as often as you might, I've taken the liberty of reproducing his kind words here; 

As of January 2006, Skirky had been playing guitar in bands, some of which had played original music, none of which ‘made it’. As he explains in the Introduction to this warm, witty, unpretentious and entertaining diary of a year-in-the-life of the bar covers band they had become, ‘we couldn’t just knock it all on the head and retire gracefully. Retire from what, for a start?’

As well as being written by a fellow clearly comfortable in his own skin, Skirky (who has, like Dr Watson did with Conan Doyle, employed someone to be his literary agent/name-on-the-cover, in this case one Shane Kirk) has produced a valuable anthropological document. It even helps that we never find out the name of the band (unless I wasn’t paying attention on that page) and only know the members by cunning soubriquets: The Drummer, The Other Guitarist, The Singer, et al. This is thus an ‘Everyband’ memoir – a snapshot of the life and trials of a bunch of music fans who have wound up exchanging the dream of Peel sessions and the right to say ‘Hello, Wembley!’ with feet on monitors for an evening at the Dog & Duck, a few pies and pints, and a regular cache of passing characters.

‘Scratch the surface of a contentedly strumming pub rocker and you’ll surely find the soul of a burned-out singer-songwriter still bitter that they came second in the 1989 ‘Battle of the bands’ competition, and as a result never got the acclaim they so clearly deserved then, and still deserve now.’

Along the way we learn that waterskiing trips can be cancelled because it’s ‘too wet’, that ‘the hog roast man’ is not always available, that ‘the healing power of REO Speedwagon is an underrated one’ that ‘only natural predator’ of the pub-rocker is ‘the Dixieland Jazz Combo’ and that, of Skirky & his mates, ‘folk in Stowmarket still talk in hushed tones of the version of ‘Rubber Bullets’ we attempted on the back of two quick run-throughs at which no more than 60% of the band were present at any one time’.

For the pub-rocker, when push comes to shove, ‘the show-off must go on. And you have to pay for the privilege.’ Then again, ‘the clarion cry of ‘Come on! Earn your money!’ never falls more easily than from the lips of someone who hasn’t paid to get in’.

This is a terrific book – great fun, an easy read, a glimpse into a loveably middle-English world of country pubs and creative dreams that aren’t so much broken as mended and making do, and a talent worn very lightly indeed. I wouldn’t bet against Skirky – whoever that mystery man may be – having a hit song in him. But even with the royalty millions rolling in, I have a feeling he’d still be down at the ‘Dog & Duck’ playing Kenny Rogers, Radiohead and everyone in between. And yes, he *does* do Wings – especially if they’re from KFC.

Length of Read:Medium

Might appeal to people who enjoyed…
Any light-hearted memoir, Rick Wakeman’s anecdotes, Brian Pern mockumentaries, pies, beer, Ipswich…

One thing you’ve learned
That Ipswich is called ‘Ippo’ by its denizens. Who knew?           

Tenor Lady.

And so to Arlington’s – former museum, dancehall, and now thriving brasserie (the breakfasts are a thing of wonder) and on this occasion venue for an open mic night hosted by one Charlie Law, a thoroughly good egg* who also runs a night in Woodbridge, and curated by the good people of Unity in Music who are recording and filming the event for posterity. TJS has secured us a mid-evening spot wherein we, The Chancers – on this occasion TJS, myself and Tiny Diva - will perform lovely new song Nashville State of Mind, and Run until We Drop off’ve the album.

The room is packed – admittedly it’s quite a small room – and there are a multiplicity of cameras, lights and expensive-looking microphones dotted around the place. There are also attractive young people of every stripe, many of whom bear horn-rimmed glasses, artfully-teased beards and inked arms. I feel like Michael Caine with the hordes bearing down on him. “Hipsters!” I mutter “Faarrrsands of ‘em…”. As with all of these occasions the quantity and quality of the performances vary. With our wizened old song writing heads on Shev and I subtly critique the material. Our consensus is that most people could probably afford to lose a verse and that Ed Sheeran’s got a lot to answer for. A few years ago it was all prom dresses, pianos and faux-cockney confessionals, this week it would appear that parlour guitars are in. They come, they go, but the art school dance goes on forever.

I have taken the bus into town and so am pleased to be offered a lift home by my employer** and so while composing ourselves in the lobby I am able to eavesdrop on a monologue being delivered by a gentleman who appears to have lived a life both well and full. Lemmy is mentioned, and Paul Kossoff. At one point he pauses for breath and I am able to intervene by requesting a picture of the young lady, who bears a striking resemblance in terms of style and bearing to one Judy Dyble in her pomp (see above).  “Who’s she?” enquires the rock Zelig. “Is she famous?”

Our exeunt sadly precludes watching Fern Teather, who I have recognised simply by dint of the red dress she was wearing at the last songwriter’s showcase I saw her at - which if nothing else proves the value of good branding. I apologise for having to leave but ask if she could assume that I’d watched her set, enjoyed it enormously and congratulated her afterward, since this is what had happened every other time I’d seen her. She said that she thought this was a good idea and would certainly save a lot of time in social interaction if we simply adopted it as a default position in future. “Did you play earlier?” she asked. I confirmed that I had, indeed already performed. “I’m sorry I missed it” she said. “You were great, by the way”.    

* "The X factor are coming down to take over one night soon, they asked me to mention it. Quite rudely actually. I won't be here..." he said at one point, and also "Does anyone know any jokes?", rather more frequently. 

**I am later relieved at the timing as a round of a (can of) Guinness, a Peroni and an orange juice and lemonade sets me back over a tenner, and I only brought twenty quid out with me.     

"Climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every byway..."

I think anyone who gets even part way into this crazy business we call 'show' is necessarily ambitious to some degree. It may be a minor thing – Wouldn’t it be good if I played someone my song and they applauded? say. Then that becomes Maybe I could play a whole set in front of people and they might applaud? and before you know it you’re on tour somewhere in the Midwest and complaining that they haven’t got your guacamole recipe quite right backstage.

I’ve been extraordinarily lucky with my ambitions. Quite early on I found a group of people who were willing to play my songs (rather than, for example, ‘A’ Bomb in Wardour Street, which once you’ve got the chords of E and A mastered is pretty much your common room-led path to glory and adulation) and a while later we won an award with one of them. We went into a recording studio. We had a cassette with our songs on with a printed inlay and we even had an official rejection letter on headed notepaper from WEA. A girl at one gig cried upon hearing us play one song which she said spoke to her. We played the local ABC Cinema, then we played at The Corn Exchange. The local paper actually asked us if they could take our picture. Some time later I got to play abroad, I was on a vinyl single, I signed a publishing deal, I went to the BBC studios in Maida Vale and recorded a session, I was on a CD, and then I was on a CD released by a proper record company, with a barcode and available in HMV and everything. Then I won another award!

Well, I say that I won another award. What happened was that The Fragrant and Charming Helen Mulley (pictured above) and I were collaborating on a number of things, mainly through the medium of me strumming chord progressions into a cassette recorder and then handing them over to her so that she could play them in the car on her way to work over and over until by a process of virtual osmosis she had absorbed the rhythms, patterns and tones and was then in a position to write some words, a lovely melody and we’d be laughing all the way to the folk club. One of these was a song which ended up being titled Waste of Angels – the original working title, Then There Was Sunshine, as scribbled on the tape inlay, was appropriated by Our Glorious Leader, who used a very similar compositional technique (and about a third of the chords). Both of these eventually appeared on Songs from The Blue House Too and by various ways and means Waste of Angels started appearing in the nominations list for that year’s Hancock Awards on the venerable acoustic music-based forum Talkawhile, eventually coming out top in a straight tie with John Tams’ Man of Constant Sorrow. Helen, you’ll be pleased to hear, had demurred at the thought of voting for a song she had had a hand in co-composing but was nontheless delighted upon the arrival of a shiny trophy, lovingly inscribed with the winner’s name. Singular. Hers.

This is the way of stuff and although it’s nice to receive plaudits and prizes, it’s sometimes good to be reminded that this is not what we strive for. Adventure, heh. Excitement, heh – a songwriter craves not these things - besides, it wouldn’t be too long before Boo Hewerdine was singing backing vocals on one of my songs, we were opening for Robert Plant and appearing on a film soundtrack, so it was easy to become caught up with the ride we were already on without fretting unnecessarily about who got to keep the resulting hardware.

After the success of album number two we moved on to number three, buoyed by the prospect of spending someone else’s money in the studio and with the promise that it would be available on iTunes (tick!) as well as in (at that point) conventional CD form (tick!). Since we weren’t sure if we’d ever get the chance to repeat this opportunity we resolved to record as many songs as possible - things we were playing live, bespoke numbers created especially for the new album and a few older tunes which we weren’t sure if we’d ever get the chance to commit to hard drive in a professional studio again. One of these was called Little No-One.

Little No-One was originally titled Everywhere and Nowhere In Between and had been sporadically performed by my band gods kitchen during what I like to refer to as our Richard and Linda phase, wherein I had persuaded the rest of the group that what we really needed was a female singer to counterpoint my manly tenor and to occasionally step out from the shadows in order to belt out a heart-rending power ballad to pull in the punters perhaps put off by our regular raw, smouldering manly sexuality*. At one living room get-together with guitarist Steve ‘Kilbey’ Mears I started playing a seventh fret guitar figure, he joined in with a counter-harmony and before too long we had a simple recurring pattern to which I was enjoined to write some lyrics. When it came to pulling together material for what was to become Tree (I think) Helen recalled “…that thing you used to play with Paula” and so we resolved to include it on the list of things to do, the only problem being that no-one could quite remember the words. I checked my big book of poetry, various cassettes were unearthed and scanned with no result until eventually we decided that it would just be quicker for La Mulley to write her own – she, after all, would be the one performing it in the studio.

In the midst of all this we were A & R'ing furiously and someone suggested that what we really needed for the appropriate delivery of the new lyrics was someone with perfect, cut-glass, top-note intonation & inflection and since Julie Andrews was in retirement at the time why didn’t we ask someone closer to the group? With one eye on the furthering of our personal dream team-related ambitions we resolved to enquire gently whether one Judith Aileen de a Bédoyère – Dame Judy from Talkawhile to us, Judy Dyble out of Fairport Convention, Giles, Giles & Fripp, Trader Horne and The Incredible String Band to you – might be entreated to sing on it for us. Turns out she was up for the experience, and so Our Glorious Leader was despatched to darkest Oxfordshire to collect her by car in time not only for her to rehearse and record the number, but to guest with us (or us with her, depending on your perspective) during a short set at the late and lamented High Barn’s acoustic night on the evening before we had the studio booked for the Saturday. Hence I found myself under the bright lights of an Essex venue essaying the guitar solo from Fairport Convention’s version of Joni Mitchell’s I Don’t Know Where I Stand with UFO Club and Middle Earth veteran Judy Dyble, who’d sung it on the album**. Tickety, tick, tick, tick!

Anyone who owns our Junior*** effort will doubtless be aware that such a track does not however exist on the album. It is not to be found on the sleeve, is not evident as a hidden track, a bonus, an extra. So what happened? Well, we spent many a long hour debating the relative merits of all of the songs we had backed up with an eye to bringing the number down to a whole which would flow and change organically over the course of the record. Something that we’d never even (or would ever) play live**** made the cut whilst another couple of new songs didn’t. A cover version got added, one tune with a festive-related in-joke had to go and, finally, Little No-One was quietly retired from active service. One reason was that having five different vocalists on the same dozen or so songs might have been confusing, maybe it didn’t fit the overall mood, but for whatever reason it seemed doomed to obscurity and occasional availability on download sites. Maybe if we ever got round to compiling a career-spanning boxed set overview of our oeuvre we’d find a home for it?

The compilation, the anthology, the career retrospective was one thing I’d not ticked off my big list of things to do, nor had I looked likely to. Admittedly the limited edition double CD Shane Kirk’s Forty, with its jewel case, remastered hits, live tracks and rarities and including full colour booklet had been a treat and a pleasure, but had also also been a one-off birthday present and so didn’t really count,  however word had begun to waft on the wind of a bringing together of material by one Judy Dyble... There’d been a false alarm a few years ago when Universal had started in on a similar project only to get cold feet (there had even been a catalogue number assigned) but it seemed as if having taken the project on herself this time it might go through to completion and after a few hints, a number of excited tweets and, finally some Facebook photographs of the completed artwork, the triple disc, forty eight song retrospective emerged, blinking and uncertain, into the world this week. This is where I get off this crazy ride, I thought to myself. There are no more peaks to ascend, no more milestones to pass, no more certificates to frame – to paraphrase the great Boo Hewerdine, there would be my name in the brackets. I scanned the track listing proudly and there it was – half way through CD two. Little No-One (H.Mulley).             

Judy Dyble's Gathering The Threads is out now.

*That didn’t really come off, to be honest, but we did end up performing as an acoustic duo called Cover Girl which she later fired me from. I still get the occasional apologetic email. 

**The performance ended up on YouTube, where one person commented rather unkindly that viewing the clip was akin to watching half a dozen brickies with a geography teacher (IIRC). Once OGL had checked the source and it turned out to be a guy who had videoed himself pissing off his apartment’s balcony and then uploaded it to the internet we kind of brushed over his finely-nuanced critical sequitur. 

***It’s the grade that follows ‘sophomore’.

****The principally Gibbon-composed Vanilla. It turned out to be one local radio DJ’s favourite song on the album.