Since arthritis stopped me playing guitar to an acceptable level I have fallen back on my percussion skills for my main musical outlet. In fact, to tell the truth, I am a better percussionist than ever I was a guitarist but I was always drawn to the guitar even though I have never been very dexterous. My sense of rhythm has always been good and my first musical efforts were in fact percussive. A guitar playing friend (Paul - see various references to his father's tape recorder in previous postings) also owned some bongo drums and I would often pick these up and bash along whilst he strummed the guitar and sang Leadbelly songs. Somewhere along the way we spent one afternoon with another young would-be musician who at that time was learning to play the guitar. As far as I know I may well have been the first drummer that Roger Glover ever worked with.
I had got to grips with the guitar, faffed around the folk scene and ended up co-founding the Jugular Vein with three other people, one of whom, The Rev. B. Sprules 'Muff' Murfet played the jug and the other two of whom - 'Fingers' Bartram and Fred Kettle (or Max Emmons, to give him his real name) were considerably better guitarists than me. We made it a golden rule never to have more than two guitars playing together on any given song and so, as the repertoire was developed and arrangements were worked out, I found myself learning to play other instruments, not the least of which was the washboard. As our career developed we frequently played jazz clubs as well as folk clubs, and I became a regular washboard 'sitter-inner', often playing with Mike Messenger's Jazz Band,sometimes with Steve Lane's Southern Stompers and a couple of times with the legendary Ken Colyer.
The next percussive influence was a big one. I have already talked about my discovery of Sivuca (see Accordion Crimes). One of the tracks featured the triangle being played in the Brazilian manner and the moment I heard it I was hooked. I had to learn how to do that so I bought a triangle and a beater and took to the woodshed (metaphorically speaking) for six months, practicing obsessively until I could play like that. (I searched long and hard on YouTube for a good example of triangle playing but unfortunately this example was the best I could find. Still, it gives you a rough idea of what it's about). I would play my triangle at every opportunity, and although there weren't many Brazilian-style bands around at that time, funk was beginning to edge its way on to the scene and Latin percussion worked well with it. Soon I was expanding my arsenal of 'toys' (as hand-percussion devices were somewhat disparagingly known), and began to take percussion kit with me on gigs.
In the meantime I was beginning to take notice of the percussion credits on albums. Paulinho da Costa was an early favourite. Next up was Airto Moreira, whose 1971 album 'Seeds on the Ground' was an absolute revelation to me when I first heard it. I immediately longed to add the berimbau to my percussion skills but it was to be 1994 before that happened (but that's another story). That album also introduced me to Hermeto Pascoal and was another link in my journey towards Brazilian music. By the time that I heard Naná Vasconcelos with Egberto Gismonti on the album 'Danca das Cabeças' I was totally hooked on both percussion and the music of Brazil.
Around about 1979 I was asked to join a band called Zarjazz as percussionist. Most of the members were from Wooburn Green, near High Wycombe, and the unit had been formed by a group of friends with an enthusiasm for jazz funk. They had recruited a keyboard player who was a friend of mine, by the name of Stewart Edmiston. Unfortunately the drummer in the band wasn't the greatest player in the world, and Stewart had suggested that I be brought in to reinforce the time keeping. I stayed with that band until it self-destructed a year later, although not before such luminaries as bassist John McCartney (see Accordion Crimes), drummer Hossam Ramzy and saxophonist Andy Sheppard had passed through its ranks. I'll tell more of the doings of Zarjazz in another posting, but for the moment I'll just add that this was where I really paid my dues as a percussionist, learning that you needed stamina as much as you needed rhythmic sense and musicality.
Since then I have travelled extensively in Brazil, playing whenever the opportunity arises, as well as playing with various bands in England, but these days mostly I just listen and write. Mind you, I do have a habit of typing in time with whatever music I'm listening to. Unfortunately the result is generally gibberish...but you knew that already.
Tuesday, 17 June 2008
Friday, 13 June 2008
The roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd...
Once again Radio Four sparks off an idea for a posting. I was listening to Bill Bailey on desert Island Discs this morning and he was talking about how he psyches himself up for a gig. It set me thinking about my own career (such as it was) in front of audiences and how I felt about it. When I first set foot in public I did not consider myself to be a musician (although music has always been part of what I do). I was (or was trying to be) first and foremost a performer and was totally without fear for the first few years of my on-stage life. I was bomb-proof. Nothing could throw me. In fact, I was case-hardened. Let me explain.
I had failed the eleven plus exams in spectacular fashion, having little or no interest in anything that school had to offer. I was reading fairly fluently by the age of four and a half and had not, therefore, been terribly engaged by the unspeakably tedious doings of Janet and John. As a consequence I assumed the same to be true of any school book, so plowed my own furrow by spending a great deal of my time in the local library which was conveniently located right next door to the school. I managed to keep my head above water sufficiently to always stay in the A or B streams throughout primary school but ended up at the local secondary modern school nonetheless.
My best friend, Muff had also ended up there a year earlier. He was by far the smartest and most interesting person that I knew, but a mixture of his own personal shyness and the inability of the education system to recognise exceptional ability if it was a tad nonconformist meant that he had stayed in the C stream during his time in primary school. Thus, secondary modern had been inevitable. (To illustrate just how wide of the mark the system could be - a few years after leaving school, Muff read Beowulf, the famous 11th Century epic poem. He was sufficiently intrigued by it to want to read it in the original language and so taught himself Anglo Saxon.)
So there we were, at a school that, at the time, was considered to be one of the roughest in England - so much so that 'Panorama' made a programme about it - and the arts were not high on its agenda. Also, unlike Alan Plater's 'San Quentin High' from the wonderful - and fully musically connected - 'Beiderbecke' series) there were no inspirational and eccentric teachers about the premises. When the time came for a school concert an announcement was pinned up on the noticeboard to the effect that auditions were soon to be held in the main hall and requesting that anybody who had a 'turn' to offer should attend these. There was also to be a school play - the title of which escapes me now - in which I had a small but noticeable part as I spoke the opening line. (I can still remember it: "Sir, Sir, is the lady of the 'ouse at 'ome?)
Muff and I, together with a lad from Muff's class called Philip Webb (who was also a bit of an outsider), decided to work up a sketch for the concert. I don't remember all the details but it was heavily influenced by The Goon Show and involved a banner on a stick (carried by a po-faced and silent Philip Webb) that read 'More Beer for the Workers', Muff and me carrying a bottle-filled sock each, which we 'played' with spoons, and the slurred singing of 'Nellie Dean', the archetypal pub song of the time. Given that we were thirteen and fourteen years old at this time (and I was still in short trousers) this must have been a somewhat bizarre spectacle, albeit a somewhat prophetic one as Muff and I were to develop quite a powerful relationship with beer and music during our time in the Jugular Vein.
I was very taken by this stage lark and was not content with the play and the group sketch, so I also worked up two solo pieces to present. One was a rip-off of a comic of the day whose name I can't remember, but whose act consisted of delivering bucolic observations on modern day life with a broad country accent, and whose 'get-off' line was -"Well, Oi must be orf. It's a long walk back to Dorset'. I constructed an act which involved a blackboard and chalk and some very dubious mathematical explanations, all delivered in a bad 'Mummerset' accent and concluding with the aforementioned catch phrase. I also had an idea for a mime act involving me pretending to play Leroy Anderson's 'Forgotten Dreams' on the school piano, starting with my hands but slowly progressing to the use of feet and finally my backside. This last item I hadn't actually rehearsed, being sure that I could wing it at the audition. I duly managed to borrow a copy (78 r.p.m. of course) of the record, which was quite popular at the time as the tune had been used as the theme music for a Francis Durbridge thriller on the TV.
We duly turned up on the day of the auditions. First up for scrutiny was the joint effort - the 'Nelly Dean' piece. This went by on the nod, with only a barely-raised eyebrow from the producer. Next up was my 'Mummerset' rubbish and this too was accepted, then it was the turn of 'Forgotten Dreams'. The record went on and I flailed about somewhat hopelessly as it quickly dawned upon me that the piece just wasn't going to work. I got to the last verse and mimed playing what were, literally, bum notes as the tune concluded, certain in the knowledge that this would - quite deservedly - receive the 'thumbs down'.
"Yes. Fine. Next" said the producer.
"Er...I don't think it will work sir" I said, "I don't think I want to do it".
"Nonsense boy. You'll do it and like it and that's the end of it!" said the producer.
I think that it was at this point that it began to dawn on me that there weren't actually many other people present and that the main criterion for passing the audition was that you actually turned up. They were obviously woefully short of material.
And so the day of the concert dawned. The school play had been withdrawn from the proceedings as it had been dreadfully under rehearsed and the English master in charge had decided to get out whilst the going was good. All depended on the individual acts. I don't remember much about our performance of 'Nelly Dean' other than the fact that it was quite well received. The 'Mummerset' sketch actually went reasonably and drew a few laughs. There were one or two other items, including a spoof 'This is Your Life' routine, the subject of which was our bald bricklaying instructor (played by a fourth-former in a pink swimming cap) and then it was time for the Leroy Anderson number.
The sketch was announced, the curtains parted and I made my way nervously to the piano and sat down. The record started and I went, reluctantly, into my abysmal routine. It was greeted at first by a kind of sullen silence, but by the middle of the second chorus the booing and catcalling were beginning. By the middle of the third chorus they were in full throat. I put my head down and struggled on, willing the whole thing to be over. Suddenly the headmaster strode angrily on to the stage gesturing imperiously at the wings and with smoke and flames practically issuing from his nostrils. The music ground to a halt and the audience went silent. The Headmaster stabbed his finger angrily, first at me -frozen with my back to the piano in the middle of a 'bum' note - and then at the audience. "This boy has gone to a lot of time and effort to try and entertain you...you...oafs!" he spluttered, "and all you can do is howl and catcall like a bunch of demented idiots..." (at least the second of these statements was more or less accurate) "so - he's going to do it again and this time..." I didn't actually hear the last part of the announcement as I had withdrawn very far inside myself and must have been damn near catatonic as I went through the ordeal again, because I can't remember anything about the rest of the day. But from then until I finally started to concentrate on being a musician rather than a performer, I was fearless on stage. Nothing could ever be as bad as that experience.
I had failed the eleven plus exams in spectacular fashion, having little or no interest in anything that school had to offer. I was reading fairly fluently by the age of four and a half and had not, therefore, been terribly engaged by the unspeakably tedious doings of Janet and John. As a consequence I assumed the same to be true of any school book, so plowed my own furrow by spending a great deal of my time in the local library which was conveniently located right next door to the school. I managed to keep my head above water sufficiently to always stay in the A or B streams throughout primary school but ended up at the local secondary modern school nonetheless.
My best friend, Muff had also ended up there a year earlier. He was by far the smartest and most interesting person that I knew, but a mixture of his own personal shyness and the inability of the education system to recognise exceptional ability if it was a tad nonconformist meant that he had stayed in the C stream during his time in primary school. Thus, secondary modern had been inevitable. (To illustrate just how wide of the mark the system could be - a few years after leaving school, Muff read Beowulf, the famous 11th Century epic poem. He was sufficiently intrigued by it to want to read it in the original language and so taught himself Anglo Saxon.)
So there we were, at a school that, at the time, was considered to be one of the roughest in England - so much so that 'Panorama' made a programme about it - and the arts were not high on its agenda. Also, unlike Alan Plater's 'San Quentin High' from the wonderful - and fully musically connected - 'Beiderbecke' series) there were no inspirational and eccentric teachers about the premises. When the time came for a school concert an announcement was pinned up on the noticeboard to the effect that auditions were soon to be held in the main hall and requesting that anybody who had a 'turn' to offer should attend these. There was also to be a school play - the title of which escapes me now - in which I had a small but noticeable part as I spoke the opening line. (I can still remember it: "Sir, Sir, is the lady of the 'ouse at 'ome?)
Muff and I, together with a lad from Muff's class called Philip Webb (who was also a bit of an outsider), decided to work up a sketch for the concert. I don't remember all the details but it was heavily influenced by The Goon Show and involved a banner on a stick (carried by a po-faced and silent Philip Webb) that read 'More Beer for the Workers', Muff and me carrying a bottle-filled sock each, which we 'played' with spoons, and the slurred singing of 'Nellie Dean', the archetypal pub song of the time. Given that we were thirteen and fourteen years old at this time (and I was still in short trousers) this must have been a somewhat bizarre spectacle, albeit a somewhat prophetic one as Muff and I were to develop quite a powerful relationship with beer and music during our time in the Jugular Vein.
I was very taken by this stage lark and was not content with the play and the group sketch, so I also worked up two solo pieces to present. One was a rip-off of a comic of the day whose name I can't remember, but whose act consisted of delivering bucolic observations on modern day life with a broad country accent, and whose 'get-off' line was -"Well, Oi must be orf. It's a long walk back to Dorset'. I constructed an act which involved a blackboard and chalk and some very dubious mathematical explanations, all delivered in a bad 'Mummerset' accent and concluding with the aforementioned catch phrase. I also had an idea for a mime act involving me pretending to play Leroy Anderson's 'Forgotten Dreams' on the school piano, starting with my hands but slowly progressing to the use of feet and finally my backside. This last item I hadn't actually rehearsed, being sure that I could wing it at the audition. I duly managed to borrow a copy (78 r.p.m. of course) of the record, which was quite popular at the time as the tune had been used as the theme music for a Francis Durbridge thriller on the TV.
We duly turned up on the day of the auditions. First up for scrutiny was the joint effort - the 'Nelly Dean' piece. This went by on the nod, with only a barely-raised eyebrow from the producer. Next up was my 'Mummerset' rubbish and this too was accepted, then it was the turn of 'Forgotten Dreams'. The record went on and I flailed about somewhat hopelessly as it quickly dawned upon me that the piece just wasn't going to work. I got to the last verse and mimed playing what were, literally, bum notes as the tune concluded, certain in the knowledge that this would - quite deservedly - receive the 'thumbs down'.
"Yes. Fine. Next" said the producer.
"Er...I don't think it will work sir" I said, "I don't think I want to do it".
"Nonsense boy. You'll do it and like it and that's the end of it!" said the producer.
I think that it was at this point that it began to dawn on me that there weren't actually many other people present and that the main criterion for passing the audition was that you actually turned up. They were obviously woefully short of material.
And so the day of the concert dawned. The school play had been withdrawn from the proceedings as it had been dreadfully under rehearsed and the English master in charge had decided to get out whilst the going was good. All depended on the individual acts. I don't remember much about our performance of 'Nelly Dean' other than the fact that it was quite well received. The 'Mummerset' sketch actually went reasonably and drew a few laughs. There were one or two other items, including a spoof 'This is Your Life' routine, the subject of which was our bald bricklaying instructor (played by a fourth-former in a pink swimming cap) and then it was time for the Leroy Anderson number.
The sketch was announced, the curtains parted and I made my way nervously to the piano and sat down. The record started and I went, reluctantly, into my abysmal routine. It was greeted at first by a kind of sullen silence, but by the middle of the second chorus the booing and catcalling were beginning. By the middle of the third chorus they were in full throat. I put my head down and struggled on, willing the whole thing to be over. Suddenly the headmaster strode angrily on to the stage gesturing imperiously at the wings and with smoke and flames practically issuing from his nostrils. The music ground to a halt and the audience went silent. The Headmaster stabbed his finger angrily, first at me -frozen with my back to the piano in the middle of a 'bum' note - and then at the audience. "This boy has gone to a lot of time and effort to try and entertain you...you...oafs!" he spluttered, "and all you can do is howl and catcall like a bunch of demented idiots..." (at least the second of these statements was more or less accurate) "so - he's going to do it again and this time..." I didn't actually hear the last part of the announcement as I had withdrawn very far inside myself and must have been damn near catatonic as I went through the ordeal again, because I can't remember anything about the rest of the day. But from then until I finally started to concentrate on being a musician rather than a performer, I was fearless on stage. Nothing could ever be as bad as that experience.
Thursday, 12 June 2008
Woke up this afternoon - PART TWO
I became a fan of the cartoonist's art fairly early on, principally through being introduced to the writings of James Thurber and finding that I enjoyed his captioned drawings almost as much as I did the text. In our local library his books were kept in the 'Literature', section for some reason, as were collections of Ronald Searle drawings, which I really admired and the works of one Gerard Hoffnung, whose line wasn't quite in the Searle class but whose subject matter was music. I soon became the owner of a number of his books and my particular favourite cartoon was of an organist observing in his mirror that he was about to be overtaken by a car.
Imagine my delight then when I discovered that the man made music as well as drawing it. His 'Interplanetary Music Festivals' were wonderfully funny and eccentric, as well as being extremely musical. He was able to persuade a great many serious musicians and composers to contribute to these affairs. Alas, I can find no footage of the original concerts on the web, but here is a more modern performance of 'Grand Grand Overture' by Malcolm Arnold, which may give you some idea. This was originally written for a Hoffnung concert. I heard some of these on the radio and others on that reel to reel recorder that had also introduced me to Tom Lehrer and Victor Borge (see yesterday's posting). Alas, Hoffnung lived a very short life and no sooner had I discovered his work than he was gone. He died of a cerebral haemorrhage in 1959, aged just 34.
A few years later, when I was working in record shop in Southall (see Indian Summer), I first came across P.D.Q.Bach. He has been described as "...the last of Johan Sebastien Bach's twenty-odd children, and certainly the oddest.") In fact this fictitious member of the Bach family is the creation of one Peter Schickele, whose name I first came across on a Joan Baez LP, for which he had provided some string arrangements. I've long since forgotten the Baez album but P.D.Q. Bach remains a firm favourite to this day. There is, I'm happy to say, a great deal of material out there on the net, and many of the albums are a available in CD form. Here is a sample - 'The Hindenburg Concerto'. I also recommend a visit to the Peter Schikele/P.D.Q. Bach website.
Around 1965 I became aware of an outfit called The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. I read of their doings and was much intrigued, but it wasn't until 1967 that their first album - 'Gorilla' - was released and I got a flavour of the inspired lunacy of this wonderful unit. I subsequently bought all their albums as they were released and was lucky enough to see them live on their farewell tour in, I think, 1970. Those last few gigs are generally considered to be amongst the best that they ever did. I can remember being almost helpless with laughter by the end of the evening, Profoundly happy that I had seen such a thing and profoundly sad that I would not see such a thing again, Needless to say, a small part of my mind stayed vigilant and made notes...some of their style was due to show up in the Jugular Vein stage act in the very near future. Here is a taste of their surreal splendor, a TV performance of 'Canyons of your Mind'.
Along the way their have been people who wrote and performed songs that made one laugh - such as Jeremy Taylor and Leon Rosselson, but they were not exclusively humourists, and the musical content in both cases was not in the same class as the lyrics. Never the less they produced some good stuff, frequently with a strong political edge and their respective web sites are well worth a visit.
Randy Newman is in a league of his own. He writes great tunes and superb lyrics. His arrangements are brilliant. He makes you laugh and he makes you cry, frequently at the same time. I have followed his career with enthusiasm since hearing his second album in 1970. I was so bowled over by his song writing that I felt that their was no point in me trying to write any more because he was doing everything that I had ever tried to do and unlike me, succeeding at it. I can't recommend him highly enough. Here's a clip of a live performance of 'Christmas in Capetown'. If you are familiar with the recorded original then you will realise that all the elements of the instrumental arrangements are there in his solo piano part. It's a very good example of him climbing into another mind and writing a song from that mind's perspective. He's not a prolific songwriter just eleven new albums of songs since 1968 but the quality rarely falters and the good news is that their is a new album, entitled 'Harps and Angels' is due for release in August. It includes a song called 'A Few Words in Defence of Our Country' which demonstrates that, if possible, he's sharper than ever. Roll on August!
Imagine my delight then when I discovered that the man made music as well as drawing it. His 'Interplanetary Music Festivals' were wonderfully funny and eccentric, as well as being extremely musical. He was able to persuade a great many serious musicians and composers to contribute to these affairs. Alas, I can find no footage of the original concerts on the web, but here is a more modern performance of 'Grand Grand Overture' by Malcolm Arnold, which may give you some idea. This was originally written for a Hoffnung concert. I heard some of these on the radio and others on that reel to reel recorder that had also introduced me to Tom Lehrer and Victor Borge (see yesterday's posting). Alas, Hoffnung lived a very short life and no sooner had I discovered his work than he was gone. He died of a cerebral haemorrhage in 1959, aged just 34.A few years later, when I was working in record shop in Southall (see Indian Summer), I first came across P.D.Q.Bach. He has been described as "...the last of Johan Sebastien Bach's twenty-odd children, and certainly the oddest.") In fact this fictitious member of the Bach family is the creation of one Peter Schickele, whose name I first came across on a Joan Baez LP, for which he had provided some string arrangements. I've long since forgotten the Baez album but P.D.Q. Bach remains a firm favourite to this day. There is, I'm happy to say, a great deal of material out there on the net, and many of the albums are a available in CD form. Here is a sample - 'The Hindenburg Concerto'. I also recommend a visit to the Peter Schikele/P.D.Q. Bach website.
Around 1965 I became aware of an outfit called The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. I read of their doings and was much intrigued, but it wasn't until 1967 that their first album - 'Gorilla' - was released and I got a flavour of the inspired lunacy of this wonderful unit. I subsequently bought all their albums as they were released and was lucky enough to see them live on their farewell tour in, I think, 1970. Those last few gigs are generally considered to be amongst the best that they ever did. I can remember being almost helpless with laughter by the end of the evening, Profoundly happy that I had seen such a thing and profoundly sad that I would not see such a thing again, Needless to say, a small part of my mind stayed vigilant and made notes...some of their style was due to show up in the Jugular Vein stage act in the very near future. Here is a taste of their surreal splendor, a TV performance of 'Canyons of your Mind'.
Along the way their have been people who wrote and performed songs that made one laugh - such as Jeremy Taylor and Leon Rosselson, but they were not exclusively humourists, and the musical content in both cases was not in the same class as the lyrics. Never the less they produced some good stuff, frequently with a strong political edge and their respective web sites are well worth a visit.
Randy Newman is in a league of his own. He writes great tunes and superb lyrics. His arrangements are brilliant. He makes you laugh and he makes you cry, frequently at the same time. I have followed his career with enthusiasm since hearing his second album in 1970. I was so bowled over by his song writing that I felt that their was no point in me trying to write any more because he was doing everything that I had ever tried to do and unlike me, succeeding at it. I can't recommend him highly enough. Here's a clip of a live performance of 'Christmas in Capetown'. If you are familiar with the recorded original then you will realise that all the elements of the instrumental arrangements are there in his solo piano part. It's a very good example of him climbing into another mind and writing a song from that mind's perspective. He's not a prolific songwriter just eleven new albums of songs since 1968 but the quality rarely falters and the good news is that their is a new album, entitled 'Harps and Angels' is due for release in August. It includes a song called 'A Few Words in Defence of Our Country' which demonstrates that, if possible, he's sharper than ever. Roll on August!
Wednesday, 11 June 2008
Woke up this afternoon...
No - this is not the second part of my 'blues' strand, but a quote from one of my favourite musical humorists, Martin Mull. His 'Middle Class Blues', from the 1973 album 'Martin Mull and his Fabulous Furniture Live in Your Living Room' contains the following verse:
Woke up this afternoon and both my cars were gone
Said I woke up this afternoon and both my cars were gone
Felt so low down deep inside, I threw my drink across the lawn.
This is accompanied on a ukulele played bottleneck style, using a baby's feed bottle as a slide. It contains all the elements of 'funny' music that I love. The playing is good in its own right, the genre is satirised from the inside, that is, by someone who obviously completely understands the music and -where applicable -the lyrics are extremely sharp. As far as I know Mr Mull hasn't recorded any new material since the early eighties, having concentrated mainly on painting and on his acting career. Only two of his albums are still available - the above mentioned 'Fabulous Furniture' and 'I'm Everyone I've Ever Loved', which spoofs every popular music genre from folk to the Philadelphia Sound, with contributions from Rob Reiner and Tom Waits and some of the best musicians around. Unfortunately all I could find in the way of clips is his folk spoof, 'Men' which is good, but doesn't really do him justice musically. The two albums available are well worth tracking down and can be found on a number of US web-based retail outlets.
I was first introduced to musical humour through the recordings of Michael Flanders and Donald Swan (see 'Wonderful round, black, shiny things'). I loved the cleverness of the lyrics and the way they fitted so naturally and seamlessly with the music. Most people probably associate Flanders and Swan with 'The Hippopotamus Song (Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud)', if they know of them at all, but their work could also embrace more adult topics, witness 'Have Some Madeira M'dear'. I used to love this song and could sing all the words, but I have to admit that, at the age of ten or thereabouts, I wasn't entirely aware of the significance of all they were singing about. Well, these were more innocent times...
It was a few years after this that I first heard Tom Lehrer on my friend Paul's father's reel to reel tape recorder. I must have been about fourteen when 'Poisoning Pigeons in the Park' first made me wet myself with laughter. I'm happy to report that there is a whole host of Lehrer performances available on the web which clearly illustrates that his facility to combine music and words with satirical intent (which easily stands comparison to Gilbert and Sullivan) still resonates today. I'm not quite so sure about 'The Merry Minuet', performed by the Kingston Trio, which I heard from the same source and was pretty taken with at the time. That same tape recorder also introduced me to Victor Borge, whose wonderful routines I happily plagiarised a few years later for The Jugular Vein (see Mutt and Jeff). His superb explanation of a Mozart Opera confirmed all the prejudices I was already developing about that particular branch of music (and I'll undoubtedly return to this subject), although in his case I think there was probably slightly more affection for that art form than I have.
Next up was probably an EP of The Firehouse Five plus Two, which was one of Muff's purchases. The band was the spare time project for a bunch of Disney animators who played humour-laden dixieland Jazz. This clip of 'Tiger Rag' from 1951 or thereabouts doesn't demonstrate this terribly well but this was definitely another link in the chain of influences that would lead to founding of the J.V. A little later, The Temperance Seven (see 'Pop and me') arrived upon the scene, with their elegant recreations of Twenties dance music, which were played 'straight' but presented in a highly amusing fashion. Despite the fact that you couldn't actually see them whilst listening to their records, they somehow managed to communicate the drollery of the live performances. Certainly the sleeve notes of their LP's contributed to this, as did all of their publicity material. I went to see them play many times. It was their habit to arrive at the venue by hearse and to ceremoniously carry a trombone case onto the stage in the 'coffin' position. As they all tended to dress like Victorian undertakers and never smiled, the juxtaposition of personal solemnity with the jauntiness of the music was their stock-in-trade and I loved it. They were, inevitably, another source of influence on the soon-to-be Jug Band. This clip of 'Everybody Loves My Baby' gives a good flavour of their stage presence.
The 'Temps' achieved the height of their fame during that brief, weird chapter in British Pop History, The Trad Boom which , as I have observed before, is worth a posting in its own right. It only lasted a couple of years but led straight into the start the 'Beat Boom' which in turn ultimately led to the birth of Rock. There's a strange intermingling of strands in the early sixties. Us teenagers were into a variety of different types of music, thrashing around in the worlds of Pop, Rock and Roll, Folk music, 'Trad', and Modern Jazz and looking for something new...and that too, is a theme to be developed. But tomorrow I'll conclude this segment about humour in music.
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
A bit of flag waving
I heard an item on the radio yesterday evening about a disastrous collapse in the British flag making industry. Now those of you with a passion for football - and at this point I must stand up and be counted as a football hater - will be aware that the England team has not made it into the final stages of some sort of tournament that's happening at the moment. As a consequence the flag makers have not sold a plethora of pennants bearing the Cross of St George. (Incidentally, the first time that the world around me suddenly erupted with St George's Cross flags was a couple of years ago, when Alcohol, Ganja the Dwarf and I were off on a quest together. Being all of us unversed in the ways of Football, we spent several days travelling discretely and by water, under the impression that the British National Party had somehow taken control of the country - I'll no doubt tell more about this in the fullness of time.)
Now - if I can just go of at an apparent tangent for a moment - I come from a fairly socialistic background and to say that we have no love in my family for Margaret Thatcher is about as much of an understatement as describing the surface of the sun as being 'a bit warm'. My father's dying words were actually 'Bastard...Thatcher', and the rest of us have never had to come near death to attest to that sentiment. My younger brother, Ganja the Dwarf (hereinafter known as 'G the D') has recently acquired a flagpole (can you see where this is going yet?) and expressed to me one day his intention of buying a red flag to fly when the news of Lady T's demise is announced. As one who can't wait for that happy day, I wanted to be ready and so soon located a flag manufacturer on the net that will happily provide you with any kind of flag - including a red one - for around about Eight quid, including postage. So I'm now the proud owner of a red flag - ready to fly it the moment the glad tidings are announced.
I'm pretty certain that there are a whole bunch of you out there that share these feelings (and if you have been following these pages but don't share them I guess this is probably the parting of the ways for us, in which case - Goodbye) so what I propose is this: start the Red Flag campaign now. I won't advertise the web site here but a quick search on 'Flag Sales UK' should do the trick. Be prepared for the day and tell all your friends and fellow sympathisers about the wheeze. Lets face it, when it happens we are going to be up to our arses in non-stop TV, Radio and Newspaper coverage for days on end, most of which will be telling us what a great leader she was and how much she did for this country. Ha! My red flag will be flying within seconds of the news. I shall also be breaking the habit of a lifetime and phoning the local radio station for a request. You might like to do the same. My choice is 'Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead'. All right - yes - I know I expressed a great dislike of 'The Wizard of Oz in an earlier posting (Wonderful round, black, shiny things), but in this case I'm willing to make an exception. Go on - do it! You know it makes sense.
Now - if I can just go of at an apparent tangent for a moment - I come from a fairly socialistic background and to say that we have no love in my family for Margaret Thatcher is about as much of an understatement as describing the surface of the sun as being 'a bit warm'. My father's dying words were actually 'Bastard...Thatcher', and the rest of us have never had to come near death to attest to that sentiment. My younger brother, Ganja the Dwarf (hereinafter known as 'G the D') has recently acquired a flagpole (can you see where this is going yet?) and expressed to me one day his intention of buying a red flag to fly when the news of Lady T's demise is announced. As one who can't wait for that happy day, I wanted to be ready and so soon located a flag manufacturer on the net that will happily provide you with any kind of flag - including a red one - for around about Eight quid, including postage. So I'm now the proud owner of a red flag - ready to fly it the moment the glad tidings are announced.
I'm pretty certain that there are a whole bunch of you out there that share these feelings (and if you have been following these pages but don't share them I guess this is probably the parting of the ways for us, in which case - Goodbye) so what I propose is this: start the Red Flag campaign now. I won't advertise the web site here but a quick search on 'Flag Sales UK' should do the trick. Be prepared for the day and tell all your friends and fellow sympathisers about the wheeze. Lets face it, when it happens we are going to be up to our arses in non-stop TV, Radio and Newspaper coverage for days on end, most of which will be telling us what a great leader she was and how much she did for this country. Ha! My red flag will be flying within seconds of the news. I shall also be breaking the habit of a lifetime and phoning the local radio station for a request. You might like to do the same. My choice is 'Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead'. All right - yes - I know I expressed a great dislike of 'The Wizard of Oz in an earlier posting (Wonderful round, black, shiny things), but in this case I'm willing to make an exception. Go on - do it! You know it makes sense.
Sunday, 8 June 2008
Woke up this morning...
Although I ran into a brick wall with Rock and Roll (see Pop and me), Blues was a very different kettle of fish altogether. My friend Barry (see Wonderful round, black, shiny things) is a year older than me, which meant that he got a job before I did and had some spending money of his own. Muff - as he was known - had equally catholic tastes to my own and figured that if we were to investigate the second-hand shops for 'sennyeights', we were bound to find some interesting stuff. Every weekend we would head into Uxbridge (our nearest town) and visit all the record shops, including Tommy Barnard's second hand books and records emporium in Uxbridge High Street (the others being Barnard and Warren, which sold new books and records and was located behind Uxbridge Underground Station, and Woolworth's, which sold the top twenty in four formats - original 45's and 78's of the hits of the day and Embassy label copies of same - also as 78's and 45's and a bit cheaper. I should point out that we didn't go to Woolworth's record department to look at the records because we were not really interested in anything they had for sale, but they did sell coffee in there and it was cheaper than the Aero Milk Bar).
Muff was particularly interested in anything old, and we came home from some of these jaunts with an extraordinary selection of stuff - some of which was to form the basis of our subsequent musical careers (Muff was later to metamorphose into The Reverend B. Sprules Murfet of the Jugular Vein - see Mutt and Jeff). 'Christmas in Kitchener's Camp' was not one of these, but 'Me and Jane in a Plane' by Harry Bidgood and the Broadcasters certainly was (Ironically this was itself a Woolworth's cover version of the original which, I think, was by one Debroy Summers. But the great find was a Bessie Smith recording of 'St Louis Blues'. We were familiar with the tune through a recording of the U.S. 7th Army band (or some such unit) performing a drill routine to it, but had never registered the true nature of blues at this point. The Bessie Smith version was a revelation. Unfortunately I have been unable to trace a version of the original version on the web, but this clip of Bessie in the 1929 film 'St Louis Blues' will give you some idea.
We still weren't quite sure what 'blues' was - apart from it being the music of black Americans - but our interest was aroused and Muff soon found an LP of black Southern convicts recorded on a prison farm. This was a real eye-opener (or should that be 'ear-opener'?). There was an authenticity to this stuff that was a million miles away from the pop that we were being bombarded with. Both of us being readers as well as listeners, the next move was to find a book about blues. A visit to the library unearthed 'Blues Fell This Morning: The meaning of the blues" by Paul Oliver. This had a companion LP on the Philips label and I somehow scrambled the money together to buy it. Suddenly the world of blues opened up for us: artists like Barbecue Bob, Peg Leg Howell and especially Memphis Minnie (whose 'When the Levee Breaks' we were later to record with The Jugular Vein) really caught our imagination. Soon we had tapped into the ragtime side of blues, with artists like Blind Blake and Blind Boy Fuller, and realised that the performances of Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey were closely related to jazz. We also heard the music of Leadbelly, Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee and Lonnie Johnson ( a find that was to lead us back to jazz again). But the greatest of our discoveries was the music of Robert Johnson, which was to have probably more influence on the world of Rock than that of almost any other artist except Muddy Waters - but the story of how we followed blues into the electric music world is one for another day.
Muff was particularly interested in anything old, and we came home from some of these jaunts with an extraordinary selection of stuff - some of which was to form the basis of our subsequent musical careers (Muff was later to metamorphose into The Reverend B. Sprules Murfet of the Jugular Vein - see Mutt and Jeff). 'Christmas in Kitchener's Camp' was not one of these, but 'Me and Jane in a Plane' by Harry Bidgood and the Broadcasters certainly was (Ironically this was itself a Woolworth's cover version of the original which, I think, was by one Debroy Summers. But the great find was a Bessie Smith recording of 'St Louis Blues'. We were familiar with the tune through a recording of the U.S. 7th Army band (or some such unit) performing a drill routine to it, but had never registered the true nature of blues at this point. The Bessie Smith version was a revelation. Unfortunately I have been unable to trace a version of the original version on the web, but this clip of Bessie in the 1929 film 'St Louis Blues' will give you some idea.
We still weren't quite sure what 'blues' was - apart from it being the music of black Americans - but our interest was aroused and Muff soon found an LP of black Southern convicts recorded on a prison farm. This was a real eye-opener (or should that be 'ear-opener'?). There was an authenticity to this stuff that was a million miles away from the pop that we were being bombarded with. Both of us being readers as well as listeners, the next move was to find a book about blues. A visit to the library unearthed 'Blues Fell This Morning: The meaning of the blues" by Paul Oliver. This had a companion LP on the Philips label and I somehow scrambled the money together to buy it. Suddenly the world of blues opened up for us: artists like Barbecue Bob, Peg Leg Howell and especially Memphis Minnie (whose 'When the Levee Breaks' we were later to record with The Jugular Vein) really caught our imagination. Soon we had tapped into the ragtime side of blues, with artists like Blind Blake and Blind Boy Fuller, and realised that the performances of Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey were closely related to jazz. We also heard the music of Leadbelly, Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee and Lonnie Johnson ( a find that was to lead us back to jazz again). But the greatest of our discoveries was the music of Robert Johnson, which was to have probably more influence on the world of Rock than that of almost any other artist except Muddy Waters - but the story of how we followed blues into the electric music world is one for another day.
Saturday, 7 June 2008
Local hero(ine)s
The other night I went to see a gig by a duo called Knight and Gayle, who were performing in a rather nice little restaurant in Hayle called The Foundry Bar. Kris Gayle is a singer who has been one of the south west's best kept secrets for many years and John Knight is a guitarist of considerable ability who ran his own recording studio for some time and is now involved in production and design. They first worked together in the early seventies in a band called 'Matrix', and have recently got together again to form this interesting unit.
Kris has a superb, pitch-perfect voice, a great sense of timing and phrasing and an ability to really inhabit a song. The pair performed an eclectic mix of material ranging from Van Morrison and Randy Crawford to Sting and Steely Dan but Kris managed to make each song her own without ever indulging in flamboyance or histrionics. John's accompaniments are most interesting. He uses a Roland guitar synthesiser, which allows him to generate bass lines, organ and string parts - all in real time: there are no backing tapes here! Despite the problems with latency that a guitar synth has (the synth voices respond a fraction of a second after the notes have been played), John manages to sustain a great groove. His chord voicings involve some pretty challenging stretches so as to accommodate the bass lines and he really has mastered the art of accompaniment. Oh, and his harmony backing vocals are spot on too! I really do recommend that you go and hear them if you get the chance.
Kris also works regularly with pianist Viv Rodd. Kris and Viv have landed a deal for their new CD '8.00 am' with Discovery Records and which was released nationally on June 2nd. Jazzwise gave it a great review in the May issue and Jack Massarik of the London Evening Standard made it his CD of the week, in the June 6th issue. Kris's web site is http://www.krisgayle.com/ and you can hear tracks from the new CD, which also happens to feature another ex band mate of mine, Marc Hadley. Go on.Check it out! It's well worth a listen.
Kris has a superb, pitch-perfect voice, a great sense of timing and phrasing and an ability to really inhabit a song. The pair performed an eclectic mix of material ranging from Van Morrison and Randy Crawford to Sting and Steely Dan but Kris managed to make each song her own without ever indulging in flamboyance or histrionics. John's accompaniments are most interesting. He uses a Roland guitar synthesiser, which allows him to generate bass lines, organ and string parts - all in real time: there are no backing tapes here! Despite the problems with latency that a guitar synth has (the synth voices respond a fraction of a second after the notes have been played), John manages to sustain a great groove. His chord voicings involve some pretty challenging stretches so as to accommodate the bass lines and he really has mastered the art of accompaniment. Oh, and his harmony backing vocals are spot on too! I really do recommend that you go and hear them if you get the chance.
Kris also works regularly with pianist Viv Rodd. Kris and Viv have landed a deal for their new CD '8.00 am' with Discovery Records and which was released nationally on June 2nd. Jazzwise gave it a great review in the May issue and Jack Massarik of the London Evening Standard made it his CD of the week, in the June 6th issue. Kris's web site is http://www.krisgayle.com/ and you can hear tracks from the new CD, which also happens to feature another ex band mate of mine, Marc Hadley. Go on.Check it out! It's well worth a listen.
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