It is a truth universally acknowledged…

...that any pub covers band in possession of a set list must be in want of someone to tell them what they’ve missed off it. In the past, apres show, I’ve had to explain why we’ve dropped one song from the set (two of the members of the band who knew had left the previous year and we’d not got round to replacing it), why we do one James number rather than another, and why, honestly, I’d rather not have anything to do with ‘Mustang Sally’ if that’s okay with everyone else. 

Well, I say ‘explain’ - mostly it involves nodding as if in rapt attention while being on the receiving end of a polemic on the subject of intra-group politics that really should be written down and addressed to some sort of discussion forum in order to fully realize its potential for putting the world’s affairs in order. To be fair though, they are probably right, they probably do know better than I what should be on the set list, how it should be played and what the encore should be. Furthermore, they’re generally not the sort of person who looks like they’d bilk a non-paying audience by finishing at two minutes to one in the morning after a Springsteen-esque three set session beforehand instead of on the dot of the hour, and certainly not the types to feel a twinge of ennui when faced with someone shouting “Come on - earn your fucking money!” during the now-traditional breather between the end of the second set and another half hour’s musical diversity to close the evening. Not like me. 

A couple of weeks ago Picturehouse played at a social club. The function room at this place is the merest thickness of a sliding room-partition away from the bar where we were, and so when we set up we were pleased to hear that the wedding reception disco next door was of the gentle, non-Granny frightening variety, which meant that we were free to turn on, tune up and rock out, as is our wont. Barry had brought his Flying V and I my semi-acoustic, just to add a little flavour of variety to events, and by the end of the night the gig was so rockin’ that even the bride from next door was cutting a rug on our side of the great divide declaring it to be a “great party”, while on the shoulders of a gently bouncing Dad a three year-old earnestly mimed along with the drummer with a look of such serious concentration that I missed the cues for several choruses in the last number through being too busy laughing at the joyous absurdity of the situation to play properly. Afterwards I was approached as I completed my post-gig ablutions. “Aw man!” said the guy, “I can’t believe you didn’t play ‘Sex on Fire’!” and then sang a bit of the chorus to me, which while you're in a gentlemen's lavatory with your whole world in your hands, is a mildly diverting experience, take it from me. 

While I'm still finding this sort of thing funny or absurd it's still all well and good, but before too long I can see that going to the pub with my mates is going to morph seamlessly into going to work with some people I know quite well. I was out from six o'clock in the evening until two in the morning last week, and although (don't get me wrong!) I enjoyed spending the wages of sing the next day at a festival, there was point at which the disco chick rave showcase which followed us (backing track, two songs, floor filled and out) started looking increasingly attractive as a career option. How many roadies must a man run down before you can call him a man who needs to lighten up about things?

So I'm backing away slowly, remarking casually in passing how warm the kitchen's gotten recently, before nipping out of the back door for a fag in the car park, and allowing Picturehouse to move on to the next phase of its metamorphosis - maybe into that three piece the guys were talking about a couple of years ago, or into a fifteen piece mariarchi marching band, or maybe they can finally start work on that Rock Opera of the life of Jack the Ripper? "Wow, guys!" I'll be saying to them at the glittering West End premiere, "I can't believe you didn't do 'Saucy Jack'!" In the meantime, so long Picturehouse, and thanks for all the stories about Mr. Fish.

In my line of work, it’s not all bouquets, awards ceremonies and eating sushi backstage off the bodies of naked supermodels.

Oh no – occasionally I like to give a little something in return, to put back into the business of show a little something to repay the debt I have for nearly a lifetime of brickbats, pay-to-play band competitions and eating Ginsters pasties at service stations at two in the morning. And so it was that I found myself calling in at bandmates’ houses early on a Sunday morning in order to round up various bits of P.A. equipment and stowing them carefully next to my handy stagehand’s survival kit – spare strings, leads, capo, marker pen, guitar strap, stand, and a tool for getting the pegs out of acoustic guitars so that you can swiftly restring them, with an additional attachment in case any passing horse should become unfit for purpose due to a stone finding ingress to its hoof. 

Also a spare shirt, trousers with plenty of convenient pockets, a waterproof jacket, sturdy boots, a bottle of water, a copy of The Sunday Times and a chocolate Boost bar for the soundman for I - keeping it real and giving back to the kids - was due my day in the sun as stage manager (or “My stage bitch” as James the Soundman rather unkindly put it) for a small one day festival upon the town recreation ground where no less a turn than Pink Floyd had previously strutted their stuff in the heady days of the sixties, just before they broke into the pop charts and very shortly before (I imagine) firing their booking agent. 

We were running the acoustic tent. It was going to be an acoustic stage, but then what with the weather being foul and forecast fouler we reasoned that being under cover for the duration might be a pretty good idea and so what had served merely as last year’s stage area was transformed into this year’s intimate and bijou acoustic marquee, the running order of which was to be kicked off with an hour showcasing young talent from the Amplitude project, a scheme whereby the keen and the curious can be mentored, encouraged, given opportunities to perform and such like. 

We could see them gathered under canvas by their dedicated stage a few hundred yards away, no-one seeming overly keen to brave the hair gel-sapping force of the drizzle for long enough to get to our place and perform until, stately as a galleon, a Goth in full trenchcoat, corset and long skirt regalia loomed over the horizon. Say what you like about Goth wear, but PVC is absolutely perfect for inclement weather. 

Upon enquiry as to the lack of music emanating from our stage James pointed out to the organiser that if the talent wasn’t prepared to walk eight hundred yards across a playing field to perform there really wasn’t a lot that he could do about it. Meanwhile we consoled ourselves regarding the lack of rising young talent keen on storming the barricades with complimentary cups of tea from the next attraction along – the Salvation Army ‘Rapid Response Vehicle’. In our excitement we almost missed the delivery of our own dedicated portaloo.

Chivvied along by the organisers, a few minutes later we had a respectable number of asymmetrically fringed youngsters milling around, and it was merely a matter of finding out who wanted to go on first.”What is this?” enquired one gamine young thing on behalf of her group “Is it some sort of practice?” We assured her that we were more than happy to provide a stage, a P.A. system, microphones and even guitar leads (one blue, one green so we can tell which channel they’re going into even from way back by the sound desk – a good fifteen yards in my estimation) but it was really rather incumbent on them to actually get up and play something.

 “Right” she considered “Because we haven’t really practiced”. We rather revised our requirement to ‘some people who not only wanted to play, but had learned some songs in advance’. A couple of young tyros stood up to the challenge and got on with their work. They had a bass, a guitar, a set list executed in exquisite calligraphy and a number of lengthy songs which went through a bewildering number of time changes, and stops, to the point where I couldn’t quite work out from my position at side stage whether we’d moved on from one number to the next or whether we were just in the middle of a complex instrumental section. Still, they gave it a bash, which is the important thing. 

Next up were a group who wondered if they could do two songs and then come back and do a couple more later when their other singer turned up. I reflected on the very first pub gig I managed to wangle, the course of getting which involved the landlord making us turn up and audition or, as it turned out, run through our set about four times, in his cellar until he found time to pop his head round the door, shake his head sadly and tell us that we were awful but could play anyway.

I’m still not sure whether he did this on the grounds that anyone who gave up after the first three hours didn’t deserve a gig or that as a jazz buff he really couldn’t bring himself to sit through more than twenty seconds of our version of ‘Heartache Tonight’ and having heard the first run through from his vantage point in the bar above, had taken the rest of the evening to steel himself with a few stiff ones to see if we got any better. What we certainly didn’t do was turn up and ask if we could, like, do a couple of numbers a bit later on when our singer turned up, as in the mean time she’d gone to the bakery. Well, you know how it is when it’s a choice between the once annual festival gig and a nice Chelsea bun. 

It may have been about this point that I started muttering something about “kids today” but fortunately I was distracted by the arrival of the first ‘proper’ act on the itinerary, or rather her mother’s dog, who was taking a crap in the middle of the tent. The dog was very much a feature of the next half hour or so, being tethered to the sound desk while Mum mixed the sound until she (the mother, not the dachsund) relinquished control of the desk back into the care of Soundman James for long enough to march onstage (taking the dog with her) to add a haunting wordless Gaelic keen to one instrumental number and then return to her post to oversee the end of the set, which came slightly earlier than expected as, having been given a thirty minute slot, the talent had only brought twenty minutes of material and so ended up looking hopefully over at the desk for further instructions. 

Onstage as she played the first song again James surreptitiously noted the excellent reverb setting her mother had worked out. You’re never too old to learn. Over at the Amplitude arena, the crowd swelled ominously in numbers, all black t-shirts, studded belts, and concealed blue WKD. It was like being caught at the county’s biggest bus stop. I nipped over to the burger stand to procure sustenance for the crew (“Do you want some money?”, “Don’t worry – I’ll get a receipt!”) as a four piece whose combined age wouldn’t have added up to any more than mine were running through an irony-free Teenage Kicks, and the crowd was going wild. I returned to the quiet sanctuary of our little house on the playing field. 

Here singer-songwriter-guitarist Kevin Pearce executed an amazing set full of open chords and octave-defying vocals – I actually bought his CD off the back of it (and so I’d be able to throw out the Lily Allen album I’d very stupidly put in the car to listen to on the way to the show), The Proposition were fun and good-timey in a rollicking folk-country-blues sort of way, and The White Gospel played a hypnotic set which managed to combine the vocal stylings of Radiohead with a flat back four to the floor soul beat and choppy licks, which is certainly a phrase I never thought I’d see myself (or anyone else) writing. As their set drew to a close they thanked us (“Hey – sound guy, some people we know, bloke in a cool t-shirt, man with a dog – you’ve been great!”) and the rain, again, came down. Yards away, some passing kids aimed kicks at our precious mobile toilet facility. "Oi", I shouted, "Don't fuck with my shitter!" 

In my line of work, it’s not all bouquets, awards ceremonies and eating sushi backstage off the bodies of naked supermodels.

“BAH! Bah bah bah, BAH!”

It is a scene which will be not entirely unfamiliar to any fans of Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen sketch* - a group of accountants are assembled in comfortable chairs, expensive drinks to hand and contentedly puffing away on vintage cigars as they top the others’ stories with tales of how little they’ve made from the music business in the last twelve months. This blog-perfect image is only very slightly skewed by a couple of inconvenient minor economies with the actualite in that the expensive tobacco is actually a Marlboro Light, a Golden Virginia rollie and some unmentionably budget corner-shop filth which Gibbon insists on smoking, the expensive drinks are actually a couple of gratis pints courtesy of our landlord host, and I’m not responsible for my company’s annual accounts. 

The rest of it is broadly true however, as the stripped-down, streamlined, go-faster-striped Songs from The Blue House line up reflect happily on our good fortune in being able to enjoy a balmy late spring evening in a pub garden, if not the material rewards from our craft to actually make a habit of it. We are gathered at The Peacock in Chelsworth, as Friend of The Blue House 'Big Paul', the landlord, has invited us to perform at his pub as he is both a fan of the group specifically and the whole acoustic folk-country-rock-based genre generally. Being the flexibly-manned autonomous collective-cum-benevolent dictatorship that we are, a glance round the table reveals that we are missing regulars Fiddly Richard and Tony ‘TT’ Turrell, and Nick ‘Sticky Wicket’ Zala also has a prior engagement, and thus we are missing quite a lot of melody banks, the shortage of which we have planned to counter in terms of our performance by installing occasional batterista Reado at the back and trusting that the driving primal rhythms he generates will be enough to beguile our adoring public so’s that they don’t notice we are a man or two down. 

Similar plans are being mooted for a future occasion, where a Pete Frame-like family tree of possibilities is being engendered to cover for Mr. Gibbon’s enforced absence on bass for a gig, depending on who can do what to whom at which stage in the proceedings and whether that’ll clash with their own plans for the day. When people ask what the line up of the band is, it is not unknown for flow charts to be employed to explain what could possibly happen. La Mulley has spiritedly entered into the spirit of things by changing into her scarlet silk dress and TMOTDAFM** strappy wedges, which counterpoint nicely the relative rough-hewn charm of the rest of the group, and we launch into our first, ordinarily fiddle-centric, number of the evening. 

This goes surprisingly well, all things considered – Turny Winn is initially caught out a little by the extended room for manoeuvre that the absence of the usual soloists affords, but covers with considerable aplomb, and stretches out into the spaces in the arrangements he is now afforded like a well-fed cat on a warm shed roof. It turns out that without the signature fiddling style but with a rhythm section we are a pretty tight country-rock group. Not in the way of the latter-day church of the Eagles dollar, but not so far away from the rough Laurel Canyon country bands that spawned them, which is something I’m more than happy to share a pigeonhole with. 

By half time we have relaxed comfortably into our personas, and also steadfastly into our bar tab, pre-allocated driving duties notwithstanding. The easy-going nature of the gig means that we have a pretty late start to the second set, but also that we don’t have to put up with any tortuous requests for songs we don’t know as it’s pretty clear that (to paraphrase William Golding) nobody knows anything anyway. La Mulley clings ever more dreamily to her mic stand stage right, part Dweller on the Threshold*** and part Explorer as we go momentarily off-roading with a ragged version of Fairport Convention’s Rosie to close the show – it’s our host’s favourite ever song, so it seems only fair to let him sing the second verse (it’s in “the wrong key”, natch) before the evening winds down with a first for us – a short performance of freeform beat poetry inspired, we are told, by our performance that very evening – the nature of our proto-punk do-what-we-want-and-damn-the-torpedoes approach has apparently re-stirred the anarchist spirit within one of our assembled audience and he is moved to verse.

It’s not really what we were expecting as the last time I played here the evening kicked off with an overbite**** of local youngsters streaming out of the side door of the pub with the very vocal lament that the bar had “No farking champagne!” (tonight Gibbon got in enough trouble for drinking a Guinness, so I don’t know how they though they were going to get away with that sort of attitude in a real ale pub for long) and it is a touching tribute. Spring is here, and with it the beer festival season is drawing itself up to its full height and waiting for the sun. I’m an urbanite by residence, and a power pop man by inclination, but when summer’s here you’re gonna find me, out in the country. 

*Actually originally written by Tim Brooke-Taylor, trivia buffs.

**The first six characters stand for “Take me out to dinner and…” – my acronym, she’s not that kind of girl. 

***http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dweller_on_the_Threshold_%28song%29 

****I may have been struggling to find the appropriate collective noun here. 

 That potential stadium-filling set list in full; Antibike / Beartown Road / Big Dipper / On The Contrary/ Ophelia / Song III / Breakin' These Rocks / Happy Day / Her / In My Arms / Kings and gods / Bless My Broken Heart / Don't Ever Let It Go / Not That Kind of Girl / Then There Was Sunshine / Song V / Special Kind of Love / Risk / Come On #2 / Rosie

https:/https://songsfromthebluehouse.bandcamp.com/track/rosie

How Do Those Roses Smell?

Too often, the average gig means turning up at an indistinguishable pub, loading all the gear in, turning it on, having a quick line check to make sure everything’s at least making some sort of humming sound, and then getting on with the business in hand of making some noise. It’s become a ritual - not yet a chore - but as Friend of The Blue House Mr. Kilbey Mears mentioned before last week’s As Is show - we used to get a drink in before starting a gig, now we go to the toilet. So a demand that we be an hour and a half away from home at teatime wasn’t necessarily the thing I was most looking forward to when summoned to a Songs from The Blue House show in darkest Saffron Walden. Luckily bass player Gibbon elected to drive and having rendezvoused with him at an attractive little pub near where he spends time at the day job, we spent a very pleasant journey across country dipping in and out of pretty little Suffolk and Essex villages, admiring the countryside and generally catching up on the little things in life that the approach described above rarely allows. Upon reaching the centre of Saffron Walden we stopped the car to ask for directions. “I wouldn’t drive” said our guide, phlegmatically.
We were first to The King’s Arms, a delightful old beamed alehouse, and so were in time to catch the sound check of our headliner for the evening, the extremely talented, very beautiful and astonishingly desirable Cara Winter, who promptly announced that she was off to have a shower as she was ‘minging’ and invited us to do our check under the kindly watchful eye of her father and guitarist Keith. Combining these two roles with that of sound engineer for the evening had rather left him with a few different hats to wear during the course of the evening and so I felt that it was with great restraint that he balanced Our Glorious Leader’s impromptu nonsense vocal on Beartown Road (“Nyyer nyeer nyer nah nah nyeerr nurr nanana…”) before turning to me to indicate I should try the levels on my mic. I approached the front of stage with all the due gravitas and seriousness that the situation demanded. “Nyyer nyeer nyer nah nah nyeerr nurr nanana…” I said. “I think we’re just about done here” he sighed. Come show time, of course, the monitors sang as sweetly as could be, which meant that we could all relax and play our parts without spending the set worrying whether it was too harsh out front (and so a grateful band extends their thanks). Fiddly nestled comfortably behind the drum kit as that meant he could both tuck himself away in a corner with his own personal monitoring system and sit down between numbers - "What are you doing back there?" someone asked. "Everyone's gotta be somewhere!" he replied chuckling happily. TT hauled the keyboard round to create some room for Turny Winn’s banjo backline, and Gibbon’s extravagantly upholstered borrowed vintage bass rig loomed imposingly at the back, looking like something that a member of East 17 might wear on a chilly night in Walthamstow.
All sound checked up, we were then free to explore, and Gib, TT, WAG Diane and myself grasped the opportunity to check out the local fish and chip shop while taking in the atmosphere of the town and admiring the new pedestrianised square (it should be done in about a fortnight, we reckon) - something we don’t always get the opportunity to do when hit & run tactics are employed. The chippy’s owner and counter staff were more than happy to chat while we waited for fresh fish, battered sausages and curry sauce, and while we squatted on a low shelf eating our tea they asked where we were from, why we were here, reminisced about the old Ipswich dog track and greeted regular customers by name. It was all terribly civilized and we thanked our hosts politely for putting up with us and our running commentary on their business. All fed up and replete, the foraging party thus returned to the venue and the principal business of the evening. Next to the venue was a Chinese restaurant. “The Jade Garden” said Gib drily. “So that’s where they’ve built it”.
We in SftBH are not what you might call a ‘rehearsing’ band. Some folk are wont to get together on a weekly basis, fine tuning their performance and honing their craft whereas we tend to email out a set list a couple of days before the gig and trust that everyone remembers the changes and manages to keep up, but for some reason we’d got together before this one and it may have been either that or some other mysterious X factor, but it remains the fact that everyone was at the top of their game that night. Having sound checked so magnificently, I moved away from the mic to let Gibbon take front line duties on BVs, incurring a raised Engineering eyebrow in the process, returning to make ‘tween song announcements and short(ish) links before stepping out of the way further so that the folks could see Fiddly sawing away at the back. A nicely paced set, a lot of gab and we found ourselves at the end of our allotted time all too early (as La Mulley pointed out though, a bit less musing on etymology between songs and we might have had time for the big closing number, but there you go), reflecting on the anomalous audience who let every last note fade away absolutely and completely before applauding vigorously. I understand it’s very much the same in Japan.
Cara and her band were stunning, of course. Piano, subtle percussion, sympathetic bass, gently swelling guitar, haunting vocals and a whispering violin – I was really quite taken with the whole experience, not least because the very lovely Kate on BVs, violin and tea dress/biker boots combo had been strategically placed in front of an extraordinarily strong stage lamp. I may have gushed my appreciation very slightly après show, but still being on a bit of a high from our own efforts I was in an uncommonly appreciative mood. Thank heaven for the half dozen pints of Bass keeping me sufficiently grounded, I say... So hypnotic was the performance that I completely missed the fight in the car park after someone had decided to solve the issue of the limited parking spaces by simply leaving their 4x4 foursquare (as it were) in the entrance, rather inconveniently blocking everyone else in, but still. Good friends, good conversation, pleasant company (Suzie from The Record Company and the man with the story about Nick Drake, the Scots gentleman whose sons were all musical and the lady who told the adrenalin pen story – all were a delight to connect with in corners and corridors), fine ales, stirring music, and a lift home afterwards. What’s not to like? As Tom Robinson once wrote, these will be the days that we’ll remember in days to come. Oh, it’s a lazy life but, y’know…

“Heavens above, this is Toytown…”

History, they say, is written by the winners, and so in the big book of British hit makers, you’re unlikely to find the name of As Is, and if you do, it’ll probably be the other one. Perhaps, if you delve far enough, you’ll find a reference to their NME review, written by one-time fanzine scribbler Steve Lamacq, or perhaps a series of unsurprisingly gushing features penned by Steve Constable in The Evening Star. For a while there back in the early nineties the As Is shadow loomed large over my life in that for a while I’d been one of the band’s guitar players and had laid my hat in a small alcove in the singer’s kitchen-diner, just beside the spare Marshall practice amp and near enough the foldaway dining table to kick away the legs if I stretched far enough in the middle of the night, but by now that is all long ago and far away. 

However you can’t get nostalgic about something too peremptorily and so when a safe twenty years had passed since the previous line up of the band had split, their original fracturing being the reason I’d ended up there in the first place, it seemed as good a time as any to call in a couple of favours and see if the we could get the old gang back together, just to double check. This wasn’t exactly the way I initially phrased it – I think the actual wording of the text message ran something along the lines of “Can you and those other three idiots get the band back together in time for my birthday?”, which injudicious phrasing provoked an almost immediate and positive response. All I had to do was find a venue, set a date, and hope everyone remembered what order the chords went in. 

There were a few other minor details to sort out – we wondered about putting on a support band of a similar vintage but my first chosen victims were busily engaged in the business of working for a living on the covers circuit (this being a service somewhat akin to singlehandedly being the flotation device keeping the Ipswich music scene from drowning in a sea of karaoke if you believe the mail out, this view and their newsletter both being something I subscribe to, with varying degrees of credulity) and the accepted view was that the Mk.III line up of As Is (of which I was part) would never be able to get it together due to the twin demands on the rhythm section of (variously) supplying the bottom end for a reformed skate punk pioneers The Stupids (several bonus points for keeping the dream alive there) and being both a human rights defence lawyer and father of two, which apparently leaves little room for manoeuvre when it comes to fitting in rehearsals. Them boys were going to have to go it alone. 

The venue itself was a godsend. The Blue Room at McGinty’s in Ipswich is set up with its own PA, sound engineer, downstairs lounge with audio and visuals piped in from upstairs and a twin CD deck for ‘twixt-set entertainment purposes, a selection of bars and (most importantly) happy and amenable owners who were only too willing to rent out the whole lot at a very reasonable rate, set out a table with ink stamp, cash float and counter-clicker, and then retire gracefully until there was a perceived need for a sweet-smelling orange, white and green after show cocktail which may well have added valuable minutes to the journey time home – I find that zig-zagging all the way ensures maximum ground coverage on a journey like that. They also gave us our own barman. It's the little touches which mean so much. 

The band had convened a couple of weekends earlier for a two day session of rehearsals and so were feeling pretty good about themselves – guitarists James and Paul (one tinkering, one blazing) having borrowed amplifiers, restrung ancient Ibanez guitars and resisted the temptation to set their compression pedals to Eighties levels, drummer Reado having bought a china crash cymbal for the occasion and then the rest of the kit to go with it, and still-gigging bass player Kilbey, remarkably not yet dead behind the eyes despite decades of cover-band hell, who had rounded up the eldest of his children (who missed the whole As Is experience first time round due to the unfortunate and unavoidable circumstance of not yet having been conceived – literally and figuratively) and a bunch of his mates.

Who else would turn up, we didn’t know. Perhaps a legion of ex-supporters, nostalgic for the days of the power pop hook and the big chorus; perhaps the band’s ex-manager, still smarting over that unfortunate incident involving the guitar player, perhaps no-one at all? As it turned out, we had a respectable assembly – a few interested onlookers who didn’t know the group from a hole in the wall but who had sussed that there was a band on upstairs, an ex-roadie and housemate from the flat downstairs at James’s, the ex-manager and, beautifully, the drummer from ‘my’ line up, who ghosted in during the second set and nodded approvingly throughout - and why not? After all - we were fans first. A few no-shows, and few promises not fulfilled, a few folks who desperately wanted to be there but couldn’t (and one who’d got tickets for Metallica at the O2 before he heard about it) but then after twenty years I guess some people have had time to make other arrangements, or forget them. 

And the band? The band were magnificent! Slightly thicker around the middles and more blurred at the edges, youthful mops of hair cropped into close buzz cuts or pulled back into a greying ponytail (with the exception of Kilbey on bass, who obviously has a picture of himself locked securely in an attic somewhere – as guitarist PT remarked, he is one of the few people whose children look older than he does) but still able to pull off a tight, fizzing two set show with nary a dropped lyric or chord (and, satisfyingly, no dropped keys either). The years suited the songs – what were once hectoring lectures now became sober reflections, the same songs, but drawn through the filter of time and re-presented as rueful asides. Pop history is, indeed, written by the winners but that, of course, depends on your definition of what it means to win. It turns out that As Is never lost the game because they never accepted that they were playing in the first place. To coin a phrase, they did it their way. 

Pop history may be written by the winners, but somewhere, sometime, wherever you go, there’ll be someone there who never gave up, there’s someone there who will always be around.

Helstock – The Cover Years

As is traditional at this time of the year, heralds were despatched, proclamations issued and gold-embossed invitations circulated for the annual Helstock Festival, a bijou assembly convened each March to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Songs from The Blue House chanteuse La Mulley. An occasion to gather, play songs, celebrate, and generally drink as much Brewers Gold as humanly possible while still being able to tell one end of an acoustic guitar from the other. 

Joining us this year were a stellar assembly of friends and relations who, to be fair, we usually refer to as ‘the usual suspects’ - my part-time combo Shagger, consisting of me and the wife, The Canyons, Helen’s brother and sister duo Giff and Moj (named in a moment of compering inspiration The Arctic Mulleys), wild card Paul Mosley, and raggle taggle bluegrass genii The Ragged String Band were assembled, given instructions on their duty to perform a prescribed cover version and handed over to the tender ministrations of perma-harassed sound man du jour James, who in another life is Our Glorious Leader.

We were denied the company of both Fiddly Richard and Turny Winn for various reasons and hence also denied the opportunity to air our well-rehearsed “Can you hear the banjo?” routine, but we did have the reassuring presence of Tony ‘TT’ Turrell which enabled us to include a couple of his recent co-writes in the brief set, and the mildly surprised percussionista Reado, who thought he’d just come out for a quiet drink, but who pursued his role with his characteristic taste and aplomb.

As with any bill that contains so many turns in a limited amount of time there was a fair bit of apologetic set trimming, the news being delivered by me in my de facto role as MC for the evening, but everyone took the cutting in good grace before delivering their sets in fine style.

The Canyons, especially, were on fine form during their nominated covers – a country honk reworking of Moses’ “But Anyway” rather nervously played out before it’s author and a frankly astonishing raga-inspired take on Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne” being early highlights of their performance before they mustered a selection of originals from their new (and free giveaway CD – you don’t even have to buy a Sunday newspaper) and quite, quite brilliant self-titled album. 

The necessarily truncated Arctic Mulleys were measured and touching – an inspired “May You Never” being a highlight before Paul Mosley delivered half a dozen superb numbers of his own from behind the electric piano he’d lugged all the way up from Walthamstow on the train, and the evening was closed with a rip-roaring rollicking performance from The Ragged String Band, all close harmonies around a single mic, stand up bass, dobro and twin banjos. 

The entranced look on our host landlady Val’s face was a treat and a treasure, as was the impressive speed with which she conjured up a birthday cake, a baked potato and a Tupperware box of chilli for those who hadn’t had time, or had forgotten, to eat during the course of the evening’s festivities. There are no real funny stories about this night, no great truths revealed, no alarming behaviour, no dramatic incidence of idiocy to relate. Just a few girls and guys with acoustic guitars, telling stories.

You Know That The Hypnotised Never Lie


An interesting diversion for The Picturehouse as we haul on board friend-of-the-band Mr. Tony 'TT' Turrell (no idea how he came by that nickname by the way, we must ask him one day...) on keyboards and head out for darkest Kelvedon to do two sets at the launch of Keith Farnish's "Time's Up", a book.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Times-Up-Uncivilized-Solution-Global/dp/product-description/190032248X
We were contracted to do two short sets - the first a 'negative' collection, which started out with The Clash's London Calling (if nothing else, they were wrong about one thing - the ice age, isn't coming - just see how quickly thinking on environmental matters has changed since 1979, but I digress) and the second a 'positive' set, the inclusion of TT allowing us to take on Don't Dream It's Over, which TT very creditably took over on lead vocals for. Before, between and after us there were a number of narrations from the text, however the potential incongruity of having loud rock music and quiet readings didn't really come into effect and a nice balance was maintained - a tribute no doubt to the meticulous planning which had gone into sorting out the running order beforehand - nothing to do with us, I must stress, wejust turned up and played the songs on the list we'd been supplied with. A splendid evening was had by all - there were nuts and cake, crisps and wine, beer and more beer, and Barry Trill stunned all of us (and not least himself, I imagine) with an astonishing take on Peter Gabriel's Here Comes The Flood accompanied only by our guest keyboard tickler. Having seen the bar raised such, Kilbey then manfully adopted the role of a full-tilt rock god for a rousing Won't Get Fooled Again during which Barry took over on bass, and there was much arch-backed mic swinging from our newly-liberated frontman. I contented myself with stomping around around in my big boots and turn ups channelling the spirit of seventies Pete Townsend. Windmilling may well have occurred at points during the performance. You just don't get this sort of thing with Guitar Hero.

Citizen Cam

Apparently there are now college courses in things like citizenship, responsible behaviour, being respectful to your elders and, very probably, not spitting on the pavement – all laudable aims and goals and all exactly the kind of thing that you never had to worry about when I was growing up, as these were the sorts of values that we had beaten into us with stout staves before having to fetch fuel from the outside coal bunker in the tin bath, shin up a few chimneys and taking a brief respite to marvel at the continued weekly riots involving Teds, Mods, Rockers, Parisian students and/or screaming girls, depending on whether it was a Bank Holiday weekend or if The Beatles had a new album out. Drawing a veil over the soft-focus hologram of my youth, however, and screwing my covers band hat back firmly on to my head, I find that Picturehouse are engaged to play a short set at a charity gig, the organization of which has been undertaken by some students from the Suffolk College as part of one of these courses. 

This is 'organised' as far as I understand it, as most of the shepherding bands on and off stage between sets seems to be being undertaken by bass player Kilbey and long-time friend of the band (and now ex-member) Wendell. That also looks remarkably like Frisky Pat’s drum kit, Kilbey’s bass amp and my guitar combo on stage. Fortunately for some of the young tyros who pop up during the course of the evening we also have guitar leads, plectrums, drum sticks and a spare distortion pedal to hand. Tcchhh – talk about spoon fed – at my first gig I had to manhandle my speaker cabinet onstage myself, behind a curtain while some girl sang a musical number in front of it – in a way very much a foretaste of the X-Factor v. Real Musicians conflicts of The Noughties to come. 

Playing an evening like this, as well as providing an audience who seem to know all the words to the songs (our set list is very much driven by the band members who have teenaged children), and who bounce enthusiastically up and down in front of us and who seem very much pleased to see us (all three are pretty much novelties for us at our stage of the game) gives us a chance to see what The Kids are up to in terms of what they actually do when they get together, and what it seems they do do is bay loudly upon demand, mosh politely, and pay particular attention to getting their hair almost perfectly asymmetrical before they go out. Whereas in the good old days ™ we’d have a few songs from the set that we knew worked and which we’d got a mate who owned a Tascam four track to bash down over a weekend, and then carefully copied using our elder sister’s dual-cassette deck music centre and packaged using the photocopier at the library, every band who popped up on the stage seemed to have come direct from recording that day and promised that the results would be “…up on our MySpace later”. 

One of the bands boasted that they’d “Already written two complete songs and are working on lyrics for a further three” - crikey, at that stage in our careers we were still about nine months and two replacement band members away from actually appearing in public! Most knew how to work a crowd, although the “Oh my God – it’s Gemma, hi!” at one point did rather crack the plaster in the third wall (or is it fourth?), and I’m not sure the singer’s mum turning up late and asking if she’s missed anything really added to the effortless cool and panache of the last band’s front girl. There was the sort of windmilling, bouncing off walls and headshaking that I used to enjoy tremendously myself before my hair started going and I started having that gyp with my knee, and all the bands seemed tremendously self confident, knew the moves, had great techniques, generally enough attitude to come across as cocksure rather than arrogant, and there were a couple of fabulous drummers, who I’m sure will one day make a pretty young indie girl with a taste for carting heavy cases around in her Mum’s Corsa very happy. 

As my rheumy old eye cast about the stage over the course of the evening I felt genuinely happy for the musicians thereupon – just starting out on the long journey of hope, achievement, disappointment, failure, ecstasy, disillusion, triumph and surprise that treading the boards can bring. At my first band gig I forgot to bring my fuzz pedal too.

Showtime for the indiscreet, and standing on the stage…

After two days of singing in the car on my way to and from work I am pretty happy that I’ve remembered all the words for my comeback solo performance (“For one night only, folks, roll up, roll up”) at The Kelvedon Institute in Essex, sandwiched between Cambridge-based master of lugubriosity David Stevenson and club circuit veteran Mike Silver. To appropriate a metaphor I heard recently, I am the sauce between the burger and the bun – not satisfying on its own, but something that will hopefully make the whole experience a little more piquant. At least this is the theory. 

Both David and Mike are acoustic guitarists of the dropped tuning variety, and so to spice up the constituency of middle-aged white males with jumbo guitars I have elected to delve back into my formative years and perform on an electric and through a Marshall combo, all the better to coax out the subtle nuances of the sound of the Telecaster, and to embrace the inevitable Billy Bragg comparisons. Also, I’m a thrasher, not a picker, and this is going to be much easier with the benefit of amplification. Back in the day I actually played a few pubs in Peterborough where the locals still recalled Mr. Bragg honing his craft, including one locale called New England. True say, brothers and sisters. 

Since I’ve borrowed the amp I’m not entirely sure what it’ll sound like but things are satisfyingly simplified by there being a channel which simply has three controls – one for volume, one for treble, and one for bass. This should be a reasonably easy line check. Worryingly, no sound emanates from the rig once I’m all plugged in and so I start switching leads, jiggling knobs, looking for a previously unnoticed ‘standby’ switch and then am relieved to spot that I have actually plugged into the footswitch socket on the front of the fascia. Satisfied that no-one's noticed this elementary faux pas, I stride confidently to the front of the stage to check the monitors. Still no sound. Bugger! Friendly sound engineer James points out that after all the cross referencing of cables for brokenness, I have omitted to plug the lead back in to the guitar. The carefully constructed façade of effortless cool has thus cracked somewhat. 

Still, guitar sound done, there remains a popping on the microphone which has been set up for someone who can actually sing properly and since I subscribe to the Tom Robinson up close and personal method of waiting until I can feel the wire gauze on my bristles before emoting (and I’ve shaved today) this is clearly going to prove problematic. Luckily a pop shield is sourced and I am able to both relax into my usual mannered vocal style and also put it on the end of my nose so that I look like a muppet, a beloved tradition of many years standing. Sounding like one is something I'm going to have to come to terms with. Second up on the bill, I am introduced on stage by club MC Tony Winn, who gets my name wrong and I launch into the first number, a rowdy thrash about shameless marital infidelity written in the form of a confessional from a fictional third person. Most of tonight’s are, in fact, as I have decided to eschew the songs James and I have been writing for Songs from The Blue House entirely and play some old. 

After the first couple I am relaxing into the set, and although conscious that this probably not what most of Mike Silver’s audience were hoping for, they are kind enough to applaud the good bits and pass discreetly over the unintentional jazz chord in one middle eight which I decide to hang on for another fifteen bars in the hope that they’ll think it’s part of the arrangement. I think I got away with it. Adrenalin has given me an extra couple of notes on the range, and I’m enjoying the freedom afforded by playing standing up to pace the stage, backing off the mic for loud bits and coming in close to emote sections of what I believe to be breathy intimacy, but what the attentive punters probably understand to be character-led diversions into the persona of a nuisance phone caller. We’ll see, when we review the recording afterwards. 

The last song comes around and I haven’t fluffed too many chords, have got most of the words in the right order, and have a satisfyingly lengthy round of applause ringing in my ears. I get my gear off and out of the way and bump into Mike who is warming up backstage and who very kindly observes that “I’ve never heard of you, but that was great!” There’s nothing like a bit of peer praise to give you a readybrek glow in a situation like that. Obviously, he’s about to go on, play an hour of wonderful songs, sing in a rich, warm voice and pick guitar parts which are almost baroque in their composition and execution (and get most of the crowd singing heartily along with the choruses) and so he can afford to be generous, but it’s still very kind of him to take the time to mention it. Turns out I’ve sold a CD as well. 

“That sounded great” says James “I’m not sure what the recording will be like though because when I checked the headphone mix I could hear James Hurley and I’d forgotten to turn my interval mix on the iPod off “ It’s probably for the best. Nothing extinguishes that space cadet glow like listening back to the recording and realising that, yes, that guitar was out of tune for the second half of the set and, no, nobody really did laugh at that joke you put in to the introduction to that other one. Still, I have my memories. Misty Brewers Gold-coloured memories, of the way I was.

Well, this is a surprise - I’d never have guessed...

My friend James runs a monthly showcase night in darkest Essex called ‘Live at The Institute’ – not, as it may appear to the casual observer, an entreaty to move in to some sort of charity dosshouse, but an attempt to give a stage and an audience to a few artists he and his co-host Tony like and admire, and of course vice-versa, in that they’re giving (well, ‘selling’ to be strictly accurate) the good people of Kelvedon some quality entertainment that the village wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity of experiencing. 

Of course things can go wrong, which is why I found myself trying to come up with one good reason why I should step in to help when one of their featured artistes cried off ill in the week leading up to this month’s extravaganza. And when I say “trying to come up with one good reason” I mean exactly that – I was trying to persuade James that I was the ideal replacement, stand-in, or what have you, and he’d asked me if I could come up with one good reason why he should book me. If nothing else, he is determined to avoid the hollow sucking sound of his principles disappearing into the slavering maw of nepotism when it comes to doling out appearances for his friends, I’ll give him that.

Once I’d managed to convince him that I was indeed probably able to not actually physically repel his audience for half an hour while not tripping over the furniture, I looked toward putting together a set list consisting of a dramatic retrospective wade through nearly thirty glorious years of tunesmithery and the sort of pithy, incisive lyrical flourishes that have rightly earned me the epithet “That bloke who rhymed ‘phospherescence’ with ‘adolesence’” in certain hushedly awed songwriting circles. You can have a circle with two people in it, right? What it came down to, of course, was coming up with half a dozen songs I could remember the words to all the way through and which when combined in the same program didn’t actually serve simply to remind people how few chords there actually really are in pop music. Oh, and they had to be performable on a single guitar.

I decided to go back to my roots and, eschewing the acoustic guitar as a foppish affectation, grabbed the Telecaster and prepared to channel the spirit of Billy Bragg once more, even given that dear Billy is actually still with us and probably doesn’t take to the idea of being channelled by anyone all that kindly. The last couple of solo appearances I’ve made have been short two or three song hops at Suffolk Songwriter’s Night in Ipswich, where the reassuring familiarity of the surroundings and the relaxing effects of Guinness have combined to both make the experience easier and have my name annotated in the official club records as “Put on early – likes a drink”, however ‘Live at The Institute’ involves playing to a paying audience who are expecting a certain level of competency, or at least to be distracted from their olives and hummous (it’s a bring-your-own refreshments gaff) at least once during a set. 

With this in mind I turn to my back pages, when I wrote sadly and shockedly about pain, depression, heartbreak, misery, and listening to my friend Geoff Lawrence’s band on cassette while sailing (hey, the nineties weren’t all bad!). I think it was Geoff pulling out of the gig that made me think of it – that and the oft-repeated claim that my miserable period produced my best work – I think that’s a mere coincidence, it just so happens I was miserable for a much longer period and so, proportionally, that was bound to produce more stuff. I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now. Once the set is decided on, after much thoughtful consideration, crossing out, underlining and scribbling under, I’m ready for a run-through. 

Headphones on, guitar plugged into effects rack to simulate the sound of a small theatre just off the A12 and I’m away. Whoops, a couple of missed chords there, a repeated verse, a fluffed change, best to get it all out of the way now though. Twenty seven minutes. That’s too long for a half hour set once you build in the applause (I’m nothing if not an optimist these days) and the ‘tween song banter. What’s to go though? I could probably lose that one, but then the flow’s uneven. And that one’s a bit long, but it has got the best chorus. I realise that I’ve been hearing all the past drum parts, harmonies and bass riffs that have ever been added to these thing in my head, that they won’t be there on the night, and also that I have been singing along in the kitchen with headphones on in a ghastly mid-nineties Walkman-like manner. Pity the neighbours. More trimming, editing, rearranging and moving, and another run through. That’s better – twenty four minutes even. Should I drop out the cover, or is that more likely to pep up a flat spot in the set? Can I still reach that bit in the chorus or should I just drop the whole thing down a semitone? All these things to consider and no-one to bounce ideas off. 

Now I remember why I formed a band in the first place.

“I shot a man in Chinos, just to watch him die”

All aboard The Steamboat, shipmates, for a gentle Sunday afternoon canter through the Songs from The Blue House back catalogue, a spot of light lunch and a couple of cheeky Vimtos before the idea of the whole horrid business of going back to the day job really rears it’s hooves and starts spoiling the view of 2009. The first task to be negotiated is lunch, or ‘breakfast’ as I like to refer to it, after the previous evening’s quiet social night out had lurched into a rather unfortunate impromptu case of “All back to ours” which is generally where the spirits start to come in homemade measures, and although every amount of self delusion can persuade your body that simply topping it up with a generous helping of orange juice makes vodka a health drink at the time, the morning’s tale will be a whole different story. Hence my contribution to the opening number’s “I am playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order…” form of presentation. To be fair, it’s difficult enough to remember what order they are supposed to come in after a fairly lengthy lay off anyway, without being encumbered by double vision, cold sweats, querulously shaking hands, and having to grip the guitar neck pretty hard in order not to fall off it half way through. Still, onwards and upwards – the show-off must go on, and so one generous helping of a complete roast chicken dinner is encased within a plate-sized Yorkshire pudding and dished up for the crew (which consists of whichever members of the band have turned up early enough to help assemble the mic stands and get in the way by putting their guitar on the stage before Our Glorious Leader has even managed to wire up and fire up the power amps). This is the sort of generous gesture that really defines the sort of musician’s pub which ensures that you’re (literally) suitably catered for and which will surely be a fond memory by the time the pub chains and their shareholders have finished wringing the last brass farthing out of the ‘industry’ as they see fit. They’re not even charging on the door.
Pre show chatter is a mélange of all the usual band natter and banter – OGL has a new set of PA speakers so box-fresh that they still have the manufacturer’s labels on them, I’m bringing folk up to speed on our sideways venture into the world of soundtracks, and Fiddly has a selection of cheeses which he hasn’t been able to finish over Christmas waiting at home for his tender ministrations and a nice selection of biscuits. Ah yes – the soundtrack! Toward the end of last year we were contacted by Our Beloved Record Company to see if we’d mind a film company in Los Angeles using one of our songs in a scene from their forthcoming movie ‘Coyote County Loser’ – oh, they mentioned, and there was a couple of hundred bucks in it for us too. Naturally we were delighted (at both instances) but since the world economy took a turn for the peaky we’ve been anxiously studying the IMDB for updates that say anything other than ‘in post production’. Lord knows we’re not going to be able to retire on the back of it - Banjoista Turny Winn can’t even do that with the benefit of someone else’s PRS cheques that keep being forwarded to him after an administrative error at The Discovery Channel (it’s alright, he always returns them) - but I’m really looking forward to that bit at the end of the film when the credits are rolling and seeing our name making it’s way slowly up the screen in letters almost too small to be legible.
“Welcome everybody, and thanks to anyone not related to us by birth or marriage for coming along” is my opening gambit. Today, we are seven – the usual suspects plus Reado on percussion, who has brought along a snare, hi-hat, a selection of brushes, split sticks and some heavy shoes with which to stamp on the stage and which he skillfully combines to make a series of surprisingly varied noises depending on what the song demands. “Whatever happens, I’m coming in after four bars” he replies to an enquiry as to how he’s going to play one number and “That’s actually all I’ve been doing so far!” half way through the first set when Our Glorious Leader suggests that the next song might benefit from a skiffle feel. He also, as is generally the privilege of anyone in the band who is sitting down to play, gets to do the solo in ‘Not That Kind of Girl’, which is an entirely creditable effort given the amount of kit available to him at the time and is also, I believe, the first time we’ve featured a drum solo during this segment of the song. Kilbey (“Author!”) steps up to play open tuned guitar on ‘Kings and Gods’ and one of the highlights of the set is the resultant duet on the solo betwixt himself and Our Glorious Leader. By the time the end of the second set is approaching “It’s necessarily short as Reado has to get home for his tea – anyone who’s disappointed can get a full refund at the door” the health-giving properties of vigorous inhalation (for the purposes of supplying backing vocals, natch) and the vibe-enhancing sweet, sweet sound of James’s new speakers have combined to enable me to launch with fair gusto and a considerably reduced possibility of either passing out or throwing up mid song – neither of which are generally recognized as experience-enhancing conditions by our sort of audience –into our closing medley of high energy fiddly-widdly (in ‘G’). “Congratulations” says occasional guest blogger, co-writer, additional guitarist and backing singer Wendell, about to unleash the highest of compliments – “It’s as close to Spirit of The West as you’ve got yet”.

The lore according to Wendell Gee (a guest blogger lends a hand);

Just lately I have been having strange feelings. Over the last couple of years I have suffered from a falling interest in music – nothing terminal you understand, but one of those fallow periods in which very little excites those sound nodules in your brain. Everyone has them. Some make it through the other side, some shrug and accept that maybe music simply doesn’t float their boat anymore. I’ve been waiting for the gates on the other side for a while now, and since seeing The Feeling and Billy Bragg in recent weeks, and now Songs From The Blue House with Kim Richey on Saturday night, there seems to be a light, just over there…We leave Ipswich at 5.30pm, amidst the football traffic and the early evening November rain, and hope that reports of an A12 hold-up are exaggerated. In the car is bass player Gibbon, fresh from carrot related domestic incidents, guitarist and emcee Skirky, and the nominal guitar roadie – me. We stop for dinner at a fast food joint famous for it’s unique blend of herbs and spices, and I insist on sitting ‘in’ to eat my fries and coleslaw – to ensure that, as a confirmed vegetarian for over 25 years, I get the full experience during this rare visit to the church of modern life.We arrive at the venue to find a barn full of Blue Housers, but only a couple of Kim Richey’s band, and it takes a long time to say hello and hug everyone before tea is brewed. With ten minutes to go before doors open the lost Londoners arrive in a flurry of equipment, leads and soundchecks, leaving Blue House the only option available – that of just making sure everything works. There is, however, a general feeling of optimism, The High Barn being one of the band’s favourite haunts, and the soundman being familiar with both the band and their songs means that, well, it’ll be fine.My role becomes a bit woolly after taking the guitar stand out of it’s bag, but I fill time with a bottle of Brewers Gold and a chat with Andrew ‘Toddler’ James, friend and former band-member of both Gibbon and Skirky, and as the barn fills up with the well-dressed and polite audience, the Blue House take the stage. The previous night they played a two-setter in North Norfolk, and the benefits associated with playing regularly are clear from the start. Tonight it’s a 40 minute support slot, the set is a selection of songs from ‘Too’ and ‘Tree’, they look and sound comfortable and confident, and it’s the best performance I’ve seen for a while.The vocals, especially Gibbon’s backing, are clear and bright, and Helen’s cold isn’t hindering but shifting the sound of her voice. The addition of Alone Me’s David Booth on drums is a big plus this evening. About half of Blue House’s songs benefit clearly from some percussion, and the other half sound good with it, and it’s a shame that they mostly do without. The crowd are quiet and respectful, with one shout for ‘Incredible’, and it’s over almost before it has begun.Kim Richey is, apparently, responsible for reviving James’ interest in music a while ago, and is also therefore partly responsible for the existence of Blue House. This is self evident while watching Parters watching Kim, but a quick scout around shows that most everyone is as entranced by the American’s songs and voice as the Blue Houser. This show is with her full UK band line-up who, with the exception of the drummer, all played on her new LP, Chinese Boxes. No surprises that the majority of the set is drawn from this LP, but Kim does a short solo spot in the middle of the set and almost instantly you feel drawn in to a much more intimate and cosy cocoon of her voice.Again the crowd seemed almost too polite, and Kim seemed less connected than she had a month or so back the last time she played with Songs from the Blue House, talking less and engaging with the audience less. No matter, her songs are beautiful, and they were played and sung beautifully by her band.More hugging means it takes nearly half an hour to actually leave the venue, and we are in the car just in time to hear Whispering Bob Harris play the new single by Thunder. All three of us are at a loss for words.However, and probably despite the new Thunder single, that light is a lot closer today than it was yesterday.

"It's just The Matrix rebooting...."

One of the most pressing concerns in a musician's life is not so much "What are we going to play?" or "What shall I wear?" (nice shoes Hel!) as "How am I going to get to the gig?" The prime concern here being not just the importance of being on time and fully relaxed and prepared so much as "How am I going to be able to drink an inordinate amout of the finest wines known to humanity and still get home in one piece?" If you are extraordinarily lucky, someone like Tony 'TT' Turrell will utter those most wonderful three little words that you can hope to hear in a musicianly, or any relationship - "Yes, I'll drive". Hence I am able to board the Songs from The Blue House tour bus (or more accurately Tony's Renault) tonight safe in the knowledge that whatever the outcome of our gig in far-off Norfolk, at least I'll have the comforting hand of ale to help guide me through the night's festivities. TT of course, as a proper musician, is used to someone else entirely driving the bus, but has manfully adapted down to his newly adopted circumstance like a true gentleman. As a passenger, of course, one has duties and responsibilities of one's own - to partake in polite conversation, not monopolise the CD player, and to at least stay awake for two thirds of the return journey which I, a far less succesful social animal, manage to accomplish only partly, immediately demanding that we listen to Radio Four for part of the journey there, and slipping into the sort of half delirium on the way back, which produces a succession of non-sequiturs that sudden wakefulness demands an explanation of. That I half dreamt the text message "S.OK?" and giggled at its absurdity demanded an explanation which I'm not entirely sure I was able to satisfy. that and a succession of phrases which, although containing actual words, never seemed to have them in an entirely coherent order at first, and which even I, as their progenitor, was never entirely certain that I could rearrange into even vaguely well known phrases or sayings.
In between the there and back, of course, there was also the 'there'. The Fox and ounds in Heacham was our destination and we played to a 'locals' pub. The locals themselves were generous to a fault, once they'd tested our mettle with a few good natured barbs along the lines that bass player Gibbon was a spit for Alan Davies (to be fair we're pretty much of the same opinion) and that La Mulley, a flute player in tights, was bound to be called Jethro (as in 'Tull'). We managed to mollify them partly through the power of our deeply moving and spiritually uplifting music, partly through the cheap tactic of handing out a party-sized bag of jelly babies mid gig, and partly through the unfortunate interface of Gib's shoes and some dog shit from the car park, which we noticed about three songs into the second set and which everyone except he found inordinately amusing, with the possible exception of Tony Winn, who was standing next to him. We suspect the provider to have been a slow, sad-muzzled old hound who seemed to be doing circuits of the pub, in that every third number or so she would waddle slowly past again, always left to right. It seemed unlikely that there should be several identical dogs about the place and so we ascertained that someone was letting her out one door and back in another, although we never worked out who. Deja pooch.
Post-show we chatted to some lovely folks, checcked out the forthcoming attractions - "Dickensian Fayre - bouncy castle" one read, and they're apparently thinking of reintroducing the white tailed eagle to the area according to another flyer. Thankfully Mrs Skirky wasn't at the show to comment. She can't stand The Eagles.

“Christ, I think he’s even combed his hair…”

"Are those new shoes?” I enquire of Our Glorious Leader. “No” he replies, “I’ve just polished them”. “He’s also had the car valeted” adds La Mulley helpfully. We are in the presence of greatness, you see, for thanks to a happy set of incidences we are due to play a couple of shows with Nashville-based singer/songwriter Kim Richey, the woman who OGL credits with bringing him back from the brink during his “My soul went dead to music” period (a process which ultimately led to our current incarnation as Songs from The Blue House, so all credit to Kim for any number of things).

To further replenish his well of human happiness Ms Richey will be staying chez Partridge at The Blue House itself, and so usual the post-gig process by which he retires to The Snug (it’s a glorified shed) with a couple of Brewers Golds and an endless supply of post-prandial roll ups to wind down and reflect while listening to (say) Kim Richey will be complicated somewhat by the actual presence of Kim Richey herself - the prospect of which, I think it’s safe to say, has Our Glorious Leader about as pleased as a dog with two tails. He loves that girl like a Mentee loves chocolate cake. 

When I meet Kim it is post a round of interviews, radio sessions and an extended lunch in the pub, all of which she has been chauffeured to by you-know-who, and she is charming, friendly and about as un-Nashville-starry as you could possibly imagine. This is a default mode that she will maintain throughout the course of the evening, subtly self deprecating as she tells a story onstage about volunteering for the five-to-seven session at her local store, working on voter registration. When she turns up to relieve the prior shift she is apparently informed that to her great good fortune she will be “….working with Kim Richey!” 

I think it’s fair to say that general household recognition has eluded her, despite the fact that she writes some great songs, is a capable guitar player (some of her finger picking stuff had a grown man in tears of happiness at the gig in Kelvedon) and has one of those clear, pure, keening voices that seem so effortless when you’re watching but an absolute bugger when you’re trying to do it yourself in the shower next day. 

She is also endearingly scatty. I’m moved to enthuse about a YouTube performance I’ve seen with her singing with one of my personal favourite songwriter/performers, Darden Smith. She clearly has absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, which makes it quite challenging to carry the compliment through. “I’m sorry” she graciously returns “I have the memory of a goldfish”. “Tell her it’s her turn to pay for lunch” I stage whisper to James. 

Our first date together is at The Kelvedon Institute, a non-profit project run by James and resident SftBH banjoista Turny Winn. It’s not, strictly speaking, supposed to be a non-profit organization, it simply seems to have developed that way, but the intimate atmosphere, subtle lighting and ‘listening’ audience have all been carefully cultivated by the pair, honed through a generous combined experience of what it’s like to play bad gigs, and so backstage is generously appointed, the sound man doesn’t wander off half way through your set for a fag, there is a lighting engineer who actually listens to the music and adjusts the lamps accordingly and the turns are of a consistently high standard. 

Unfortunately in order to avoid accusations of nepotism and unnecessary overkill, they won’t let us play there very often. Kim Richey goes down a storm, her solo set perfectly suited to the low lighting, the cabaret set up of the tables and the good-natured feedback from the audience. Oh, and we played, I rambled on for far too long between songs (as usual) and we had to drop a song from the set as the bug on the bouzouki was playing up. 

Unfortunately Turny was counting songs rather than listening to them and so when he timed his re-entry to the stage after a section of the set where he doesn’t play he didn’t realize that we’d skipped one on the list and consequently joined in half way through an extended “Not That Kind of Girl” intro. In the absence of anyone who sits down to play I stepped up to take the solo in my own all-too-imitable fashion. Half way through Our Glorious Leader sidled over to me. “Stop it!” he hissed. 

 

Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving.

Just like in the old days, it is a fresh Saturday morning and I am picked up from my front door by Our Glorious Leader to be transported to a place of magic, wonder and enchantment – no, not an Ipswich Town away game, but the one and a halfth Acorn Fayre, a long-mooted but hastily-organised get together for bulletin board members of Talkawhile, an interweb forum on all things folk rock (and beyond, as will be evidenced by later discussions I will overhear on my traverse around the mini-festival during which subjects such as the nature of infinity, the possibility of the co-existence of an irresistible force and an immovable object in the same universe, the decline and fall of the fast food industry and the amount of mud involved in extricating a camper van from the Beautiful Days Festival are earnestly and wittily under deconstruction.) I find it comforting that even in the digital age of long distance action and reaction there is still a primal need for people to get together over a couple of drinks and actually interact, in real time as it were, and it is an uncommonly pleasant experience to amble around in the warm sunshine, roast pork roll in hand, catching up on what folk are up to, how they’ve driven two hundred miles in order to avoid stripping wall paper and to be here, browsing the t-shirt stall in the marquee (I buy a rather fetching woven shopping bag with our logo on it) and enjoying the weft of music coming from the small but perfectly formed stage within. It’s mainly singer-songwriter time during the day, and each artist puts their own spin on the form, from the rambling to the sharply focused, the confessional to the oblique and, of course, the simply bleak. Once again our dear old friend David Stevenson brings his high and lonesome tenor to bear on a number of unbelievably moving vignettes, and hatches plots to collaborate with us on recording new songs, and later our new friend Hannah Scott picks up the baton and performs a lovely set, marred only by stifled good-natured groans as she reveals that she went on a songwriting seminar with Tom Robinson “Who had some hits in the eighties, I think, I don’t really know who he is…”. There is at least one “Kids today, eh!?” Actually, looking back, that might have been me.
Before that, outside, the autumnal sun lowers in the sky, the shadows lengthen across the lawn and the full moon rises like a ghost in the east. Silent, or at least out of earshot, vast V’s of geese in perfect formation traverse the sky, one flock after another in groups of various sizes with wings beating steadily and in perfect time as they start their long migratory journey. It is a sight to instill peace and calm in the heart, and wonder at the brilliance of nature to somehow get these things so perfectly right while we on the ground tend to struggle with anything less primal than a road map and a set of directions. I am reminded of some of the beautiful passages by T.H. White in The Once and Future King, and as the burnished sky glows red also that it is suddenly, unbelievably bloody cold.
Vikki Clayton appears on stage - a woman of a certain age, slim, blonde, wearing white trousers and a large, comfortable-looking but stylish example of quality knitwear – she looks in fact, in the low light, uncannily like my mother-in-law who, although I’m very fond of, I had never previously imagined performing a perfect version of Bob Dylan’s “Is Your Love in Vain” on stage in a marquee lit principally by (appropriately) hurricane lamps and glow sticks. It lends an air of surreality to the occasion, and when flashing fairy lights appear on the merch stall at the back of the tent she is not alone in wondering whether there is a chance that someone may have dropped something into her coffee. Meantime she warms her hands on the impromptu lighting rig between songs, and watches her breath in the air during them. She’s started her set with “Matty Groves” done a Sandy Denny number, and one by Ralph McTell. At a folk forum-based get together. La Mulley leans over and, apropos of our recent beer festival hoo-ha, mutters mischievously in my ear “Play something we know!”
Around the tent, people are dealing with the temperature in their own ways – on stage, Hannah Scott reaches for her ‘manky old’ jumper, Gibbon resorts to a number of extraordinarily souped up Irish coffees, Fiddly is swathed in overcoat, gloves and Indiana Jones-style hat, and although I’m usually very good with personal hygiene anyway I’m washing my hands every visit to the toilet mainly in order to enjoy the hot air hand dryer. The long sleeved t-shirts at the merch stall seem to be shifting slightly faster now.
OGL goes to help out with the sound for Circus Envy, who have had the audacity to trump our number three chart placing for “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” on The Big L with a number one placing for one of their original songs in their own local chart in Hull. They are both rootsy and poppy and have a singer who, according to TT, has “The best vocal mic technique I’ve ever seen” and that man has toured the world with proper musicians, so he’s someone to cock an ear to when he starts doling out compliments.
After a quick turnaround, line check and much stamping of feet and rubbing of hands we get the Songs from The Blue house show under way. By now resourceful Talkawhilers have jury-rigged stage lighting whose soft light through yonder scaffolding breaks, and with the grassy surface now bearing a raft of picnic benches liberated from the pub garden proper, provides a nicely bucolic feel to the performance. The gloom of the room is dispersed by many, many glow sticks which are being snapped into action and worn as necklaces, earrings, belts, bracelets, glasses and even garters depending on the audience’s preference and/or level of exhibitionism, it’s all terribly enchanting to play to, and quite, quite funny to watch an otherwise darkened space looking like one of those animations that The Old Grey Whistle Test used to put together (or dig out of the filing cabinet marked ‘Acid Trips’) when Frank Zappa and the like couldn’t make it over for a TV appearance. That at one point the combined and melodious sounds of a didgeridoo and a theremin float from the ether at the back of the tent merely adds to the other worldliness of it all. I think it’s fair to say we have another rollicking performance. OGL and I eye the distance between the lip of the stage and the top of the vocal monitor warily – it’s going to be a stretch, but we manage to make it for the crowd-sweeping guitar tomfoolery in “Not That Kind of Girl” without pulling anything untoward and we are happy to encore with a version of Fairport Convention’s “Rosie” which we always dedicate to absent friends as does (as it turns out) does one of our friends, who shares with us afterwards a private moment which is both moving and humbling but must also, alas, remain private. I suspect La Mulley’s rendition of the second verse is rather more responsible for any attendant eye-moistenedness, as Our Glorious Leader confesses that he can’t actually remember the first line and so I deputise in a key-strangling shriek which it strikes me is likely to move even the most hardened of bowels. Don’t mention the “WWoooaarrghhh!” I think I did once, but I think I got away with it. Rather more impressively, Gibbon is teaching TT the song as we go along, and they both put in a fault free performance between them. You can go off people, you know…
An angelic-looking blonde and blue-eyed child wanders up to the group as we congregate outside where we can smoke (and it seems somehow warmer than inside) ands regards me impassively. With the finality that only the young can bring to their pronouncements she informs me that I have “…a big nose”. This, frankly, is not news to me. She turns to Gibbon – “You two look like brothers”. It transpires that one of the things we have in common is that he, too “has a big nose”. At times like this we have only one course of action to possibly pursue – we turn and point to Our Glorious Leader and, as one, say “Now – he’s got a big nose” It is all getting very Pythonesque. His is not big apparently, but ‘wonky’. Ah well, the (little) devil’s in the detail. As the man who asked if he could video our performance passes, he hands us a bag of custom-inscribed stage towels. It’s an act of spontaneous kindness and the sort of thing that’s been going on all day. TT is providing transport home and Gib and I clamber aboard the people carrier. “TT”, I say “Have I got a big nose….?”

Train Kept A-Rollin’

A combination of some of our favourite things this week as we in Songs from The Blue House entertained not only delusions of our own grandeur, but the radio-friendly listening public of East Anglia and beyond, and a disused railway station full of ale drinkers. 

We were pleased this week to be guests of Cambridge’s Sue Marchant, doyenne of the eastern region’s evening BBC radio network, and a deeply charming woman who makes the plate-spinning chaos of live radio seem effortless - not an easy thing to do when you have a live phone-in, a traffic report and half a dozen-or-so musicians clamouring for your attention all at the same time. We did a couple of songs, chipped in with a few witty remarks and generally tried our best to be both entertaining and informative, which I understand is the BBC’s remit. 

Sue was very kind about our music, we got some good feedback from the great listening public and we had a very nice post-show chat over a couple of pints and a red wine in the pub round the corner afterwards. “How is the single doing?” she asked on air. “We have absolutely no idea” replied Our Glorious Leader truthfully. As befits the members of a close-knit country-folk-bluegrass-pop autonomous collective, TT, Gib and I listened to Genesis on the way to the studio and Jane’s Addiction on the way back.

Another night, another show and we lugged our collective metaphorical suitcases to another hall – this time the Chappel rail museum in posh north Essex, where bass player and reformed trainspotter Gibbon was happy to be setting up amidst a veritable cornucopia of rail-related ephemera in what looked like the old booking office, now filled with cask upon cask of foaming ale and several hundred thirsty beer drinkers. So moved was he that he made one of his rare forays to the vocal mic ‘tween songs. “When I go, I want to be run over by a steam train” he said solemnly. “I’d be chuffed to bits…” 

Chastened by our previous Searchers-related beer-fest brouhaha we were not overly happy to hear the familiar cry “play something we know!” half way through the first set. Our Glorious Leader seemed to have the measure of the situation, however. “No” he said, quite simply. Mostly though, we encountered light hearted banter, and it was pleasing to see a succession of folk helping themselves to flyers and leaflets, all the better to acquaint themselves with our artistic oeuvre from the comfort of their own home computers (one would hope) when they weren’t being distracted by the need for more beer and a frightening array of warning notices from the London and North Eastern Railway. At half time we even sold a couple of CDs to a nice chap who’d already made up his mind about our worth. 

The Fragrant and Charming La Mulley was sadly on the receiving end of a rather more serious “play something we know” diatribe in the break, which was what probably, when OGL introduced our rendition of ‘the hit’ by saying that we were going to play something that the crowd would have heard before, lead her to announce that we were going to play the whole of the first set again (and at that point someone cheered). 

The rousing closing section of set two was enlivened (as ever) by some post-ironic foot-on-the-monitor antics during which OGL and myself were joined by Turny Winn, on scintillating form and clearly having a good time, and also very patiently enjoying (sic) the by now-traditional “Can you hear the banjo? Yes, sorry about that” routine. 

For some reason I ended the show lying down. This may have been partially due to the sterling service provided by regular camp follower Miss Diane, whose remarkable capacity for spotting and replacing a dwindling pint of Brewer’s Gold (other award-winning golden ales are available) earned my gravest and most sincere thanks, and I expect also contributed toward the appearance of some Pete Townsend-style windmilling during ‘Flags’, a couple of scissor kicks, and a Vegas-style hand-held mic foray into the audience at one point during the second half, as well as an onstage discussion with La Mulley as to who was filthier – Barbara Good or Margot Leadbetter. And why not? There’s no business like the business of show.