dizzytiger

2009-08-12T20:26:00.004Z

Postscript to the original Dizzy Tiger blog.

The preceding Blog entries (all 68 or so of them) cover a period in my life in Hastings (October 2005 - Jun 2007) from a few months after splitting up with one long term on/off partner, to a few months before moving to Brighton with another.
It was a fairly difficult period, when writing a Blog (amongst other things) at least gave me some focus and sense of worth, even if, skim-reading it back, both the writing and my state of mind appear to be all over the place.
The earlier entries are all grouped fairly closely together in time, often several chapters a week, whereas by the end of it I was struggling to get online long enough to write a chapter more than once every month or two.
To bring the Hastings tale to it's conclusion (or, at least, up to the point at which I moved away from the town finally - not necessarily for ever though), I've got my Gig Log (some notes in the back of my address book) to hand. Without going too far into each event, the rest of the Summer of 2007 ran as follows...

20th June. Matt & Bonj gig at The Street. One of a series of acoustic Regular John gigs around that time.
22nd June. OMD at the Dome, Brighton, supported by an Australian boy-girl duo Lovers Electric. As you can see if you buy the live DVD from this tour (actually their London date), OMD did half a gig of the entirety of Architecture & Morality (not in tracklist order), followed by half a gig of their hits. Carolyn & I liked it more than Lee, Michael & Caroline, I think.
3rd July. Dean & Simon Shaw at Smugglers, Don't remember much about this night, but there's a photo on my Facebook.
4th August. The Flesh Happening at Brass Monkey (with The Consortium DJs, including Benn Akehurst, who was possibly still seeing my housemate Kirsty, while I was definitely still working with his Mum in Bexhill Gamleys). Photos of Oli's body-painted writhing turned up in East Magazine, along with a few words I'd sent into the music news section.
8th August. Del Vegas with Sophie Nadine (vocals) and Michael (keyboards, circuit-bent Speak & Spell), supported by Jamie Smart, at The Street. My review of this gig was printed in East Magazine, and appears on their website.
10th August. Regular John, Stake-Off The Witch and This Project at Smugglers. There's a photo of Stake-Off The Witch on my Facebook. Probably also one of This Project's final gigs.
16th August. The Logan Wilson Band at the FILO. First chance I'd had to see Logan play for ages, possibly years.
17th August. Ashtray Navigations, I'm Being Good, Deepkiss720, Charlie Uniform November Tango, at The Gildredge, Eastbourne. Fantastic line-up pulled together by Deepkiss720's Jason Williams, who I'd later get to know. The Ashtray Navigations set was issued as part of a very limited CD-R box set of live recordings. First time I'd seen Charlie Uniform... (who I'd encountered when helping with East Magazine's Top 25 Bands feature earlier that year). Adam from East made it along to the gig and handed me loads of back issues of the mag, and it was a bit of a reunion with Michael and Daniel making the gig too. Reuben kept getting chucked out by the Gildredge security - he wasn't under age, but he'd not brought any ID to help that fact.
21st August. Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell & Jimi Riddle at Smugglers. Another great Smugglers gig at the height of Hastings Old Town Carnival week Summer madness (or thereabouts), probably ending up, as many nights did that around that time, in mass skinny-dipping. It was a time of great nudity & alcoholism.
29th August. Matt & Bonj at The Street again. I'd finally managed to get the Dizzy Tiger Music Co compilation CD-R called Anti finished that week, and this was the night I handed loads and loads out.
31st August. Mumm-Ra & Youngplan at the Redstack Playhouse, Bexhill. I was meant to be packing my bags that evening, in preparation for moving to Brighton with Carolyn the next day, but a late chance to use a spare ticket and go to the gig with Lucy & Zoe Armfield (and family) was too good to pass up. This celebratory Rotherbeat gig (one of the last times that phrase was used) was widely reported on locally: I think there's photos and YouTube video clips knocking around, and certainly a review on the East site. In many senses this was the end of an era, not just for myself: the gig was arranged by Pulse Magazine (now defunct); the Redstack closed at the end of that year; Youngplan slowed to a halt not long after (they were a going concern at Christmas when we took part in an East podcast together, but 2008 was a complete non-starter for them); and Mumm-Ra were just starting to dip (this was around the time that Starlight - whose video had also been shot at Redstack - got canned as a single. The band split after a smattering of gigs the following Spring).

As I said, I moved to Brighton that weekend - living first in a house-share with Carolyn & a guy called Simeon in Westbourne Street, Hove, for six months, before Carolyn & I (and my cats, of course) moved here - York Road, Hove - in February 2008. I transferred my Gamleys work to the Brighton Churchill Centre branch, before eventually handing in my notice in September 2008 once I realised I wasn't going to get on very well with go-getting toy chain The Entertainer, who'd purchased the last of the Gamleys stores (Brighton and Maidstone) a month before.
Dizzy Tiger Music Co is still going, just about, at exactly the same low level (a Frontier Telegraph double CD-R came out in 2008, with a rushed compilation On The Town issued in 2009 in time for The Breeders' ATP in Minehead). A 2-track CD-R single by Spirit Of Gravity's Noteherder & McCloud is sitting in my boxes, awaiting a release as soon as I can afford it.
After quitting Gamleys/The Entertainer, I had to sign on in Brighton. All this time I'd been contributing occasional columns and reviews to East, and this actually stepped-up once I'd moved from Hastings to Brighton. East employed me on a very part-time basis late in 2008 as an Editorial Assistant, and in Spring 2009 I started some Sunday hours in another Brighton High Street shop chain. Things are slowly picking up on those scores...
Everything else can pretty much be gleaned from MySpace, Facebook and Twitter now. Funny how none of those social networking sites were really a big thing back in October '05 when I began this Blog. Their present ubiquity explains partly why I don't keep a Blog going nowadays anyway, there's just not really the need to communicate this was as well when so much information about everyone's lives is already out there, and growing.

Anyway... This Dizzy Tiger blog remains open, and at some point I may try picking up the story again from Sep '07. The Brighton Years. Maybe.

See you round and all that,
stu x

2007-06-20T09:31:00.000Z

As I get less & less access to any computers at the moment, this Blog has fallen further & further behind. I think I've got time this morning to try and bring it slightly more up to date, but there's gonna be some vagueness and omissions by now.
In recent years, Alfie has celebrated his birthday by arranging Neil Young Day at Smugglers, but this year he decided to put on a gig at Joogleberry in Brighton on 27th April (a Thursday). I travelled over after work, and met Carolyn at Brighton Station, and we wandered down to get slices of pizza each from outside the Churchill Square shops. We'd got advance tickets, at Alfie's insistence, for the Joogleberry gig, which left us time to get a pint beforehand in some rather posh pub in The Lanes. When we then got to Joogleberry, we found Rumiko Jr dotted about upstairs with various friends from Hastings and Brighton, including Lee, and Paul and his newish girlfriend. We sat and caught up with Lee, chatting about the usual stuff (OMD, 'Doctor Who', his comedy career, etc) until the downstairs part of the venue was open and filling up. This lower floor of Joogleberry is very cosy, all low ceilings and candles, and we grabbed drinks and stood near the back of the venue, as the many tables were all full. There was a band called Sweet Sweet Lies playing first, who had brought a big wodge of the audience with them I think, and who gave a rather mannered performance, in a jaunty way, all cravats and professionalism: this isn't meant to be negatively critical, I just don't remember much else. Alfie had handed Petra's advance ticket to me, so I did some texting and phone calls back and forth, and got her in when she made it down (I kept having to pop up the stairs to answer the phone and send texts to Reuben too, who was eventually unable to make it over, as I think he'd been up in London trying to arrange a University place that day). Alfie's band The Long Goodbye played next, already, by their own admission, a bit worse for wear on birthday drinks. Ben from Leicester was guesting on drums for this gig, and both Josie and Gail had come along from Hastings to add some vocals, so it became one of the typically ragged and open-ended sets that we'd normally see in places like Smugglers, which didn't seem genteel enough for some of the Joogleberry punters (though we grabbed a vacated table), but I really enjoyed it, and was pleased to recognise Jake's chiming guitar intro to 'Changin The Guard' when it came. I also must have been getting drunk, as I was equally as pleased that he resembled John Simm that evening, though this may only have been in my head, as it didn't make as much sense when I told Carolyn and Petra this. Marcus' sister had turned up unexpectedly, which was a good suprise for Rumiko, although Lee didn't get to see so much of their final appearance, as he had to leave and sort out more stuff for his work (the perils of being on call). Once Rumiko were on stage, Paul and his partner came down and joined the rest of us at the table we'd found, whilst Alfie and Robert and the rest of The Long Goodbye watched the band from the posher tables at the far end of the venue (first come, first served). Rumiko played loud and strong, even though one of our corner kept mentioning the phrase 'pub rock', albeit affectionately. We stuck around for drinks a little while longer, and at least Carolyn and Petra were still there when I eventually helped get Rumiko's gear out and into their van, and hitched a sleepy ride back to Hastings with them.
The following day, Rumiko Jr were playing again, this time back down Smugglers, for Jimmy's birthday. My recall for this night is pretty poor, partly 'cos so many people played, and I didn't know who half of them were (and they weren't all much cop). Hayley did a few songs first, with help from Danielle on additional vocals, which was good to hear, though I remember saying that there's an unfortunate gender-divide in the local musicians in our scene, which still seems to dictate that the women stick to acoustic-guitar and folksong, and the men are all amped-up with electric ones, as if it was still 1970 or something. I thought we should set aside a month where everyone is forced to swap instruments for a change just to shatter the cliches a bit (ridiculous and unfair, of course, but as I already said, a lot of the music that was being played this evening really wasn't very good). After some forgotten performances by people I don't know, Jimmy sat astride his drumbox for his other band Superdog, with that guy Adam who'd been doing bluesy stuff in the late days of The Heaters once. Rufus and Bonj also helped out with a few of the songs, but I'm still not much into it. Rumiko played last, and were probably very similar to how they were the previous night, and I'm sure I was very drunk.
Deano actually performed another gig the day after, at dDb Paul's birthday party outside of town, and to make it four-in-a-row, he'd also agreed to play at the inaugral night of open-mic live music at a newish bar in Robertson Street called Frenz Connection. I wandered along and popped my head in the door, and there was some guy playing Stevie Wonder songs on an electric piano there, which didn't seem right, so I went along to the Basement, where I found Deano, Rufus and Reuben just heading along to the bar. We went in and sat at the top of some stairs at the back or the bar, as the same pianist regaled a rapt and packed venue with some Oasis covers too. I think we all realised at once and simultaneously that this wasn't really the sort of gig any of us were gonna enjoy, a fact confirmed by seeing other musicians wandering up and down the stairs with their instruments in one hand, and songbooks in the other. A young and nervous lad tried his hand next with some self-written, emo-ish songs and an electric guitar, and got sarcastically heckled by some guy below us, until he left the stage, whereupon, by a staggering coincidence, the heckler's girlfriend was then up on stage with her band, playing Eva Cassidy songs, telling us about Eva Cassidy's tragic life, playing Cyndi Lauper songs and erroneously crediting them as being written by Eva Cassidy, and generally getting right on my nerves. The crowd (who would appear to have included a lot of relations) loved it, but fortunately Kim had arrived with Leowin, so we just took the piss from our vantage point of bitterness. Once another musician (was it Gendun?) had started playing some very downbeat songs, a handful of the audience drifted away, so we decided to wander down the stairs and sit at the opposite end of a large low table to a couple of women who, upon seeing us approach, glared at us and snatched their mobiles off the table and put them in their bags, so I gave them my most withering Paddington Bear-style Very Hard Stare. Fortunately, the stroppy idiots then fucked off, presumably to get plenty of sleep in readiness for another rewarding day of ripping off pensioners' insurance claims at Pittsville Direkt (this is the only other way I'm gonna shoehorn The Fall into this review, as despite the bar's name including the word 'Frenz' it was clear that this had been chosen as a phonetic reference to the American sitcom, rather than The Fall's song, and certainly the punters were under the illusion that they actually were in Central Perk) . I was really pleased to see the emo-boy have another stab at playing a few more songs, 'cos it was good that he hadn't let the dreadful people from earlier ruin his confidence, and he did seem to have a few ideas of his own in his songs, and then finally it was Deano's turn to rip through some of his songs, though even an acoustic Dean was too much for some of the late-stayers from the Eva Cassidy fanclub, who stood up, pulled a face, and exited the venue with their hands clasped theatrically over their ears. Fair play to the bar staff, who were unfailingly polite, enthusiastic and friendly to us throughout the evening, but I doubt I'll be rushing down there on a Sunday evening again in a hurry.
The next gig we got to was one that Carolyn organised at The Hope in Brighton on Friday 4th May, for her 30th birthday, and which was technically a private party, so by my own self-imposed conditions for this Blog, I won't dwell too long on it here, suffice to say that it was the first time I'd been back to the venue since it's days as The Lift (gigs by Trembling Blue Stars/Fosca; Life Without Buildings - without Sue Tompkins on that occasion/Aerogramme; and Ellen Cherry/The Downs aka Jeff Disastronaut), and it didn't seem to have changed at all. I DJ'd the majority of the evening, Lee did a few minutes of his stand-up routine, Rumiko Jr played another great gig, and Monster Bobby made it along to finish the Djing for the end of the evening. Loads of us stayed at Carolyn's, whilst Rumiko crashed at Petra's, but we met up again outside The Hope the next day to help the band pack their gear away in another hired white van, before coming back over to Hastings again, to prepare for Jack-In-The-Green weekend.
The only actual bit of live music we saw over that weekend was a very sloppy Pugwash appearance in the Pump House on the washout Bank Holiday Monday - although the pub was so busy that we couldn't actually see the group, and had to content ourselves with sitting up the back and round the corner with Oliva and his boyfriend, Caroline and Carolyn's Brighton friends, until we realised we'd be better off hitting The FILO instead. Despite the rain, the typically large amounts of alcohol ensured that our visitors had some pleasant Jack-In-The-Green memories anyway.
Dean had a Le Pattie Cafe session the next day, but the rain was continuing to come down heavily, so in the end there was just him, Matt, Michael & Caroline and myself in the bar. We kept the beer and crisps going steadily, and both Dean and Matt just sat at the end of our table and played whatever songs we or the bar staff asked for. Evenutally, we all just chatted, and talk turned to the current state of the local music scene, and we made some decisions to try and pull a few ideas together down the Basement the next day (which we did, which co-incided with a trip I took out to Eastbourne earlier that Wednesday afternoon, to discuss writing for East Magazine with Adam and his cousin Ruth-Ellen).
Trying to get various things pulled together for East took up a fair bit of my time over the next couple of weeks, so the next time I saw any live music was a random appearance by Colonel Mustard at The FILO on Thursday 24th May, the beginning of another Bank Holiday weekend, although I'd actually gone along 'cos it was Tim Hoyte's birthday, so we spent most of the evening in the beer garden instead. The following day, however, both Rumiko Jr and Regular John had a gig at The Carlisle, which co-incided with the publication of East's 'Top 25 Bands' issue, which I'd contributed to, as well as writing a column on the Hastings scene, so I was a bit nervous about how that would go down with the various musician friends of ours, who had either got into the magazine, or, worse, hadn't. The people who saw it at the gig that night, including Billy (who made the cut with both Gorilla and Cloudesley Shovell), the Ch3vy duo, Southernwood, Rumiko and the 'John, were nice enough about it, although there was some suprise that Regular John didn't make the Top 25, and once again their gig that evening proved that, in reality, they're actually up in the area's Top 2... The usual Carlisle punters generally hung back and let Rumiko and the 'John's mates take-over the main part of the downstairs bar, which was good as this was one of those occasional nights when just about everyone seemed to have come along for the gig. Both bands played strongly again, and we hung around for ages afterwards, before pulling together to lug all the gear back along the seafront to the Basement for more beer. Matt thought I'd been avoiding him all evening, which was a bit weird, unless I'd been unconciously ashamed that I'd not succeeded in getting them higher up in the East article after all. A few Myspace bulletins fired-off by Bonj over subsequent weeks certainly showed no love lost towards East on Regular John's part. Gah, you can't please everyone!
Later in the weekend, I went over to see Carolyn in Brighton, and on the Bank Holiday Monday we went into the city centre as Mumm-Ra's album came out that day, and they were launching it with an instore at Resident Records in North Laine. As in NORTH LAINE. Not 'The North Laines', you illiterate DFL's (I'm looking at you and your boyfriend, Julie Burchill). We popped into the jewellry shop and caught up with Laura for the first time in months, which was quite emotional, especially when I went to hug her goodbye, and the radio in the background, which I'd barely noticed, suddenly swelled up with the crescendo of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water', which was funny. Carolyn and I then checked with Resident what the deal with the instore was, and were told that although they'd given away all their reserve tickets, we should turn up just before the advertised time and they'd try and get everyone in if possible (again, it was still raining, as it did throughout May, so there was an expectation that not all the reservations would be taken up). We went a little further up Kensington Gardens and got some food in a pub, where we were joined by Alfie, Robert and Jake, and a couple of Carolyn's friends. After several drinks, the lot of us went back down the street and into Resident, where I decided I might as well pick up the album anyway, and got given a poster too. The staff were setting up mic-stands in front of the counter, and then came around checking people's tickets. As we didn't have any, and despite Alfie's assertion that he "knew the band" ('cos that always works!), we had to wait outside with a handful of other stragglers, including some European and Japanese students who'd got wind of it somehow, while they did a head-count. Fortunately, we all then got counted back in and out of the rain, and squashed ourselves up at the back of the shop, and Noo got up to do 'Light Up This Room' acoustically, then gradually was joined by other members of the band for a short, off-the-cuff set of songs from the new album, and one or two B-sides too. The members of Mumm-Ra who couldn't fit in front of the counter stood behind it instead, and possibly drummed their hands along on the worksurface or something. After half-a-dozen songs the band were ready to conclude, but there was encore shouts, so they said they'd take requests. I punted for 'Without You' (on the off-chance that Alfie would suddenly produce a harmonica from his pocket and play along, as he'd apparently done with them at the Black Horse Festival one year - an event we were currently missing by being in Brighton), but someone else got their shout for 'What Would Steve Do?' played instead, which was fair enough, before the band started a signing-session. Reuben had texted to see if I'd get him a copy of the album and get it signed, but I'm not really one for meet & greets, so I didn't bother, although Alfie went up and had a quick congratulatory chat. Instead, we all went up to the Prince Albert for a few more drinks, before it really was time for me to get back home to Hastings on the train, which left me just enough time to run full-pelt along to The FILO to join Michael & Caroline, Jamie and a mate of his, and Reuben and Muz (the latter also just back, from Manchester's 'Strummercamp' event) there.
The following weekend, Carolyn and I had booked tickets for one of Throbbing Gristle's 'The Desertshore Installation' at the ICA. These 'Public Recording Sessions' involved the group recording a full-length cover of Nico's album 'Desertshore' (which I've not heard) in front of an audience, at six two-hour sessions over the weekend of 1st-3rd June. Our tickets were for the final recording block, so we travelled up on the train on the Sunday, getting off early at London Bridge Station in order to take in some sightseeing before the ICA. It was a glorious sunny day, for a change, and we weaved amongst the crowds on the South Bank of the Thames, past many of the locations (whether real or faked) of the current series of 'Doctor Who', which I was pleased by, including Southwark Cathedral and The Globe theatre. We also discovered The Clink prison, the Golden Hinde moored in a dock, and the ruin of Winchester Abbey (was it?), not all of which were genuine, of course. Reaching Tate Modern for the first time, we popped inside and headed for the Turbine Hall, but this was between installations (in fact, Throbbing Gristle had played there the previous weekend to accompany some Derek Jarman Super-8 films, as part of the Tate's Long Weekend event: we'd also found out the previous evening, at my Uncle's suprise 60th birthday meal, that my sister-in-law Emma had been along to that event in order to catch part of a projection of Warhol's lengthy film 'Sleep') so there was nothing other than a big empty room full of wandering sightseers there. So we pressed onwards, past the Royal Festival Hall etc, then over the river beside the railway line into Charing Cross, and over The Strand into Trafalgar Square. Having indicated to Carolyn the location of Admiralty Arch, beyond which the ICA sat beside The Mall, we found an Irish pub in William IV Street that not only sold real ale, including Harveys, but knew how to keep and serve it too, which was unexpected (I've banged-on about this in a previous Blog entry, the last time we were in London for a TG-related event). After relaxing there, we headed-out to grab sandwiches from a nearby foodstore, and sat in St Martin's Place to eat them. Carolyn's roll had a bit of mould on the salad, but we threw that bit away and ate them anyway. Then we made our way through the brilliant sunshine into The Mall, and located the ICA easily enough, with the help of a printout Carolyn had made. We milled about in it's bookshop until our tickets were checked, then waited beside its cafe with the rest of the punters and, briefly, Peter Christopherson, until the Theatre part of the venue was opened. We sat halfway up on the seating that resembled a lecture theatre, whilst Throbbing Gristle prepared their equipment on the stage, upon which a temporary recording studio (vocal booth, table of snacks & a kettle, etc) had been built. With the aid of a radio-mic, Christopherson played master-of-ceremonies, explaining the group's intentions and working methods for the weekend, recapping what they'd achieved in the previous sessions, and indicating what remained for them to attempt in this final session. He and Cosey Fanni Tutti were seated behind tables to the left of the stage as we faced it, whilst Chris Carter crossed back & forth to a position on the right, and Genesis Breyer P-Orridge moved between the vocal booth at the rear, and a stool at the front, from where she could play additional instruments. The method generally involved playback of Nico's original vocals, which had been previously extracted from the Desertshore album, to which TG would work up a new musical background (largely electronic, though also with Cosey's cornet or guitar, or Genesis' bass or violin), whilst Genesis familiarised herself with the songs, until eventually Nico's disembodied lines would be mixed-down so that Genesis could perform the vocals in her place. Occasionally, the group would stop and listen to playbacks of other pieces they'd recorded over the weekend's sessions, or they would stop and discuss (amongst themselves, and also via Christopherson the audience) where to take the session next. After an hour there was a 'teabreak' and a chance to stretch one's legs with a trip to the cafe's bar, the toilets, or to have a browse at a merchandise table by the door, which is what I did. There followed a second hour of recordings and playbacks, as we sat there and relaxed in the warm darkness of the auditorium, listening to the music and occasionally watching the live-projection on an overhanging screen that one of two photographers was filming of the group at work onstage. Afterwards, the group came and sat stagefront, and invited the audience to come down and discuss the sessions with them, although Carolyn & I decided just to take our free posters and head out into the fresh air to get some food. In a Tesco Express (irony!) off Trafalgar Square, we bought snacks, and I recieved a phone call from a guy setting up a forum online for East Magazine, but as I couldn't hear him over the noise of the traffic (and what happened to the dreaded 'bendy' buses? All I saw were Routemasters still) I couldn't really have a coherent conversation at the time. We went back over the road and into Charing Cross Station, where we had a little while to wait for the train, so we grabbed heart-stoppingly unhealthy double cheese & bacon-burgers from the Burger King there, and ate them on the train before it pulled-out. Kim rang me to see if we were out in Hastings that evenin, and turned out to be on his way towards Charing Cross to get the train home himself, although ours left before he arrived. Back in Hastings, we went quickly via my house (getting my laundry in) to The FILO for the quiz, with loads of our friends including (he made it...) Kim. And we won! Kind-of.
Carolyn stuck around for a few days, and on the Tuesday we went along to Le Pattie Cafe again to see Dean play, and generally to begin celebrating my birthday. Michael and Caroline, Kim, Reuben, Jamie, Wookie, Ollie and Danielle (amongst others) were all out with us (half of whom had been at the quiz too), and for some reason almost everyone was taking photographs that evening, of Dean, us lot, or each other. Dean asked if I had a request, so I got him to play 'Wave Of Mutilation', as I'd seen Rumiko trying to rehearse it down the Basement a couple of months before. I drank a lot, and got Kim to do a couple of songs after Deano's two sets, which included a very brief birthday song he made up on the spot about me, which was probably not complimentary, as usual! So that was nice.
The next day was my actual birthday, and Carolyn & I went back over to Brighton, as there was a chance to catch up with some of my Brighton friends at a gig at a bar called Zuma in Seven Dials. That evening, we went and collected some of Carolyn's friends, and made our way up to the bar, where we met Lee, Chris (who was playing) and more of Carolyn's friends, who'd been swung into coming along 'cos Britch was playing too. First, though, was Bela Emerson doing her cello & loops things, which held my attention less than the previous time I'd seen her, mainly I think 'cos I was chatting about birthday stuff, but also 'cos Zuma didn't appear to be set-up for live music (in fact I got the impression they book live music there in much the same way as they hang artworks on the walls, or serve particular drinks, ie: as an upmarket feature, without bothering with the logistics of sight-lines and acoustics). I hadn't seen any of Stuart Flynn's incarnations as either Britch or The Dirty Cakes before, and despite all the recommendations from Carolyn's friends, Chris etc, I was rather underwhelmed, but again the venue didn't help, as Britch was performing on a stool along to pre-recorded musics, and I just couldn't hear him. Chris played last in his guise as Same Actor, looping and fragmenting his sitar and acoustic guitar, and from what I could hear he was playing interesting pieces, but by this point I was also just chatting with Geoff from Spirit Of Gravity, amongst other people, so my attention wasn't all there. Afterwards, we said goodbye to some people, then a few of us walked each other back to their various houses or onto the night bus, and Carolyn and I made drunken decisions to purchase kebabs to have with more drink back at her place, yum!
Back in Hastings later in the week, and it was Michael's turn to celebrate his birthday, this time with a Rumiko Jr gig at Smugglers on the Saturday. Although there were quite a lot of our friends there, the pub felt unusually unattended that night. Even though the band played two excellent sets, there was a weird atmosphere (I had similar reports the next day from people who'd gone to the Brass Monkey where Reuben was DJing after Smugglers), and I got drunk very quickly, so can't remember quite which conversations I had with whom, but someone did ask whether I was still gonna be writing this Blog, and I said I would try to whenever I got the time to catch up with it - and as I've had time today, here you are.

2007-04-16T17:55:00.000Z

Right, I've got loads to catch up on, so if some of the following is mis-typed, contains inaccuracies, or is lacking in essential details, please indulge me!
A few hours after writing that last Blog entry, Rufus sent a text around, saying that Dean and Marcus were playing at The Street that evening. I had been thinking of staying home, but I thought I might as well see if there was any other music to face after my online admission of CD-R stealing (nb: there wasn't). I wandered along the The Street, and sat down with Danielle, at a couple of tables shared with the local journalism gang (as I'm now thinking of them) ie Alice and Naomi, and some of their respective friends (who I was introduced to, but instantly forgot the names of). Rufus and Jimmy James were around too, as their Rumiko mates played a couple of sets semi-acoustically, in between the drinking. Reuben made it along with a camera he'd recently acquired, and started taking photos, though it struck me that the camera was lacking a flash, unless it's appearance was deceptive and it was actually digital, or cameras are more advanced than I'd kept up with. Whatever, he said they came out ok! I took a picture on my phone too, which was a bit dark. The Street was fairly busy and noisy, and some people like Ollie appeared to have been there for hours - they were that merry, but Dean & Marcus maintained people's attention, and eventually (after several old and brand new songs) started taking requests, within reason. I asked for Sebadoh, which cued Marcus to swap stools (possibly chairs...) with Dean, as this was his speciality. What with much drinking and chatting, the bar seemed to be swiftly closing, so I finished off and made my way home to the Old Town safely.
The following Saturday, Rumiko Jr had a full-band gig at Smugglers, for the first time in a while, so I dutifully went along, and took up my favoured position on the pool table, with Caroline and Michael to one side (him scribbling last-minute set-lists with Rufus on pages I'd torn from my notebook), and Lisa, Marcus and Helen to the other, at least until the boys had to join the band at the front. Aside from an unsuccessful, under-attended gig at Brass Monkey back on Shrove Tuesday, this was Rumiko's first proper gig with Jimmy on drums, and they'd clearly been putting in a lot of work rehearsing and working on new songs and developing new arrangements for some of the more familiar ones. In fact, rather than Dean opening up with an acoustic set, the whole band took positions for a semi-acoustic inital set, with Jimmy sitting astride what looked like an oblong tea-chest, but was evidently a fairly hi-tech rhythm box, which he beat with his palms and generated various different drum sounds from. It was also during this set that I realised that broad stripes are this season's fashion, or else half the group were dressing as smugglers themselves. Gradually, this first set became more electric, and once they'd built the sound up for a few songs, the group took a break. We drank and chatted noisily, then concentrated a bit more once Rumiko were back up the front for their second, much more full-on set, with heaps of new and dynamic songs (there seems to be two or three more every time they or Dean plays... No wonder he forgets so many). I remember having a drunken catch up with Helen about the state of our relationships (both good, it seems), but by the time Rumiko peaked and finished (no encore, I recall) my ability to talk to any of our late-arriving friends (Jonathan, I think, and Maya, and many more I've now forgotten) was a bit diminished, so I didn't stick around to the bitter end.
The following Tuesday, Dean was back with another session at Le Pattie Cafe, attended by such regulars as Reuben and his mates Jimmy and Tim; Kim and Jamie too, I think. Del had come along to play for a change, which was good news, and he tried out mainly new stuff he was working on, as well as nostalgic runs through 'The Weekend's Ashes', and, at Dean's request (he used to play on it), that very catchy Candys song I don't know the name of ('cos it never quite got released, unfortunately). Dean fitted his set in next, and managed a mix of old and brand new tunes again, completely solo this time. Rufus had a little time at the end for some of his own, which I think again included some newish ones, before he and Dean closed-off together with their cover of 'Get Up Jake'. I'd spent most of the evening chatting with Michael and Caroline (I think: this was a few weeks ago now, so correct me if I'm mixing my evening up), and messing around a bit with Reuben etc (this is definitely correct, as we took photos of each other, um, taking photos of each other!), before getting into lengthy drunken discussion with Dean, Rufus and Del about 'Raising Arizona', which included some very off-key yodelling of the soundtrack music. Eventually, I walked back home with Dean and Danielle, still very drunk, and yammering on about the music industry, as usual. Blah!
The next day, I got the train over to Brighton to catch up with Carolyn, 'cos she'd got a couple of tickets off someone she worked with to go and see The Fall on the Thursday, at the sold-out Hove Old Market gig (their first of two in Brighton that weekend). I picked up a cd copy of their new album 'Reformation Post TLC' in Resident before I met her (and, incidentally, an old vinyl copy of 'The Early Years' from Rounder), so we were able to get a couple of plays in before the gig, although it turned out that most of the new songs they ended up playing were ones I'd heard from various YouTube postings already. On the evening of the gig, we got a bus down to the Old Market, arriving not long after the doors had opened, so we went and had a drink in the bar area, and quietly sized-up the fans who had also made it down early. We headed into the main venue area, and checked out the merchandise stall (very well stocked with vinyl, cds, t-shirts, badges, lighters etc, evidently courtesy of Preston's legendary Action Records shop - and, for a time, record label of The Fall). Keeping ourselves topped up with cans from the little bar that had been set up inside, which was staffed by a very exiteable, but confused, barman, we stood and looked around until the first support, Pope Joan, came onstage. I'm not the first person to suggest that The Fall deliberately choose mediocre support bands (to reflect better on their own performance, the rumour would go), but I really didn't enjoy Pope Joan, partly 'cos they looked exactly like you'd imagine a basic four-piece band to look these days (big-haired bassist, floppy-fringed guitarist etc), and also 'cos not only did they plug their t-shirts, but they also plugged their mailing list (which I, hopefully politely, declined to sign up to when it was offered round later), their Myspace URL, etc. Their actual band-sound was ok though, even if it was a bit rock-school for me, but lyrically they were pretty cringeworthy. Fortunately, the between-bands DJ was playing loads of records we liked ('I Want More', 'Godstar', 'Outdoor Miner', 'Nag Nag Nag' etc), which helped pass the time too. There was another support, with the rather forgettable name Make Good Your Escape, which I tried very hard to remember only for the sake of this Blog, as again they weren't much cop: all dressed in black, and would be epic guitar histrionics, that only put me in mind of Geneva (who I'm sure they've never heard of, and no-one else remembers either). Though the gig was sold out, the hall didn't fill up uncomfortably, but it was too dark for me to identify if anyone else I knew had come to the gig (or, as I found out in the days afterwards, to notice either Marc Riley or Frank Skinner... I did see Alan Wise sitting out in the foyer, though that was only to be expected really). Once Make Good Your Escape (see? catchy, eh?) were over with, we'd both got pleasantly drunk, and were looking forward to The Fall, when, with ten minutes to go before their advertised start-time, the fire alarms went off, the lights came on, and we had to evacuate the building. As the entire crowd milled around outside the doors, Mark E Smith and another fellow arrived at the venue (probably very suprised by the crowd that had seemingly waited outside to greet them), and they were ushered inside in a parting-of-the-Red-Sea style, amongst much handshakes from the punters and sheepish grins from Smith. Fortunately, it had only been a false alarm (later, The Argus' journalist claimed it was his cigarette that had accidentally set the smoke detectors off, though this may be invention), so people were soon back inside in time for, oh yeah, Safi Sniper: The Fall's ever-present laptop image-manipulator, and unpopular warm-up merchant. With the clock ticking well into The Fall's advertised playing-time, there wasn't much enthusiasm from the crowd for his looping and stretching of musical celebrities (Elvis, Freddie Mercury, Barbara Streisand, et al), but this was ultimately a canny move in order to build up tension for release when The Fall finally started up. Aside from Smith and his wife Eleanor Poulou(on keyboards), this was a drums/guitar/2-basses line-up of The Fall, and (for a change, in the times I've seen them play) the sound was very loud and cleanly mixed, with even Smith's vocals coming through clearly. The set was largely made up of music from the current album ('Over! Over!', 'Fall Sound', 'My Door'), with one new song at the start (with the chanted line "Senior Twilight Stock Controller" - do that over and over and you can easily imagine how it goes, I'm sure), and the odd old single ('Wrong Place, Right Time', 'White Lightning', 'Theme From Sparta FC') or previous-album track ('Pacifying Joint', 'What About Us?') chucked in. This was The Fall on strong form, rolling and churning through bass-heavy, repetitive extensions, and Smith staying focussed at the front, without getting distracted by too much amp or mic abuse. After Poulou's central performance of 'The Wright Stuff', the band concluded with a mighty loud run at 'Blindness', pushing their set a good half hour beyond the credited stage-time. We did think that may be all they could fit in, but there was still time for an encore, and the lenghty and rapid 'Reformation' before the audience were thrown the mics, and the band took themselves offstage whilst a venue bouncer tried to get things sorted between the audience and the stage (there was othewise no barrier or security measures throughout the gig: good move!) Afterwards, Carolyn and I retired to a nearby pub (along with dozens more of the audience) for some happy post-mortem pints, which I don't remember much of at all! Ah, mighty mighty Fall.
I had to go straight back to work in Bexhill on the first train the following morning, so I was safely back in Hastings the day after that for Alfie's new band The Long Goodbye, once more at Smugglers. During that Saturday, Carolyn had followed on from Brighton, so that we could be up and attempting to buy Glastonbury tickets on the Sunday morning after (yes, we failed to get any) and had got to my place after I'd finished work, so we ate pizza and watched the opening episode of the new series of Doctor Who (yay!) before heading down to the Smugs. Once there, we said hello to Alfie and Robert, before again climbing up onto the, now rather wobbly, pool table to spend the evening watching the band play. Aside from Alfie, and his shit-hot guitarist Jake, the new band's rhythm section are two very young teenage lads, both of whom were energetic players. We were sitting with Caroline and various Rumiko's again, and I was really enjoying the sound The Long Goodbye have reached now: no longer the slower, country-influenced music I was familiar with from Alfie's music, but much more down the Crazy Horse route, occasionally landing on a classic mid-Eighties indiepop sound (I suppose you end up sounding like The Chesterf!elds more by accident than design these days), which was fine by me! I grabbed the occasional chat with people such as Richard Hart, Jonny Russell, and Reuben in between trips to the bar and the loos, but mostly nodded along and talked to my friends on the table. Alfie and Jake did a song or two without the younger guys, and then Josie duetted with Alfie on another tune (oh, my vague memory..); then, once it seemed the band had played as many of their own songs as they were going to, they coasted through some duelling guitar versions of some familar covers such as 'For What It's Worth' and 'Cortez The Killer', with Josie rejoining them at the mic occasionally to ad-lib her own lines or harmonies over them (unrehearsed, I think, and therefore with some contributions working better than others). They all encored with 'What Goes On' (and on, of course, but in a good way!) before hitting their final chord and getting stuck into the serious business of drinking with, um whoever else was around, whilst Carolyn and I made drunken farewells to everyone before weaving our way back to mine.
It was another week until the next gig came along, and once again it was Rumiko Jr, this time at a Festival Of Nu Blues at the Brass Monkey, promoted by the Not The Same Old Blues Crap mob. The evening started earlier than I was expecting, and after I'd watched Doctor Who and had a listen to my just-arrived copy of the new Throbbing Gristle album (really getting in the country-blues mood then!) I felt I had to run along to the Monkey if I was gonna catch Rumiko. I paid on the door, and was handed a couple of event programmes (one for this evening, and another for the month-long series of events that Not the Same Old Blues Crap are promoting at the Spitz), then got inside where fortunately The Jooks Of Kent were still onstage, playing very Crampsy blues-trash, which I really liked, but none of my friends seemed to! I was hoping to have a cheap evening, but soon I found myself helping to get people in, buying others' drinks, and generally getting very drunk myself. Marcus and Lisa were at the bar with Lisa's friend, and after the Jooks had finished I sat around the corner with Caroline, Kate & Oliva Speer, and Lou and James. We moved back around to the main stagefront area to watch when Rumiko started up, sounding a lot cleaner, and possibly a bit out of place amongst the other blues acts that evening. They played valiantly again, though, with those few new tunes standing out, though they may have been either too rock, or not blues enough, for some folk who took the opportunity to leave, um! We all took the vacated seats though, and were soon joined by Kim and Reuben; Shara - making a reciprocal visit after a bunch of the Hastings crew had crashed at hers for a recent Flesh Happening gig; a very drunk Del at the bar; and Helen and Sally, who'd been stargazing and studying Saturn through telescopes out at Norman's Bay. Initially, I thought headliner Scott H Biram had taken the stage next, but it turned out to be the frontman for the band Black Diamond Heavies, playing distorted dirty blues to his own overdriven organ accompaniment, plus one improvised head-to-head wth Mudlow's saxophonist. He remained onstage to guest during Mudlow's set proper, and they churned away awesomely in the filth. Despite the early start, the evening had been stretching on by this point, so that when Scott H Biram evenutally got onstage to headline, the guy was far gone on his booze. He started up hacking away at his electric guitar, growling distorted blues through two metallic, overdriven mics, taped together, and then proceeded to continue doing this for song after song after song. We stuck it out watching, as friends gradually grew tired from the music, the drink or the lateness of the hour and headed off. Things got hazy: we kept buying more pints, thinking that Biram would conclude his set eventually, whereas the man himself seemed determined to start another song as soon as he'd finish one, with no pauses for breath. Then we noticed vaguely that he was flashing his cock occasionally behind his guitar, and eventually we were turning to one another, asking "Did he just drop his trousers again?" and "How long has this guy been onstage now?" and such like. Finally, one of the Wilkes' gave the nod to Rufus and Bill in the sound booth just to stick a record on and have done with it, upon which Biram looked disgusted, threw his guitar down, and started hurling the mic-stands across the stage: which activity was quickly halted by some swift jabs to the head from a Wilkes. Kim, Reuben, Sally, Helen and I were agog, and I ran to the booth to see if it might be a better plan to hit the lights on and calm things down (this normally works at house parties...) but Rufus assured me that everything was under control, and sure enough Biram had calmed down onstage and was packing his gear up with Rufus' help shortly afterwards. I still felt that the evening had turned sour, so when Sally said she wanted to head off, I said my goodbyes and took her across the road, where she instantly found a vacant taxi, and I wandered back home (throwing the last of my change down for the guy in the underpass who sits with all the toys), texting the evening's events to Carolyn.
If Dean was back at Le Pattie Cafe the following Tuesday I missed it, because I was close to skint, and saving what money I could for Thursday's Mumm-Ra gig at The Crypt, kicking-off their new national tour. Fortunately, I'd picked up a ticket in advance, and after sending a few texts to try and get people to join me there, I went along to The Crypt, where (although it was an all-ages gig) unsuprisingly I wasn't ID'd. I headed downstairs and met Del's girlfriend Anna at the bar, and we chatted as we got drinks. She was taking some through for Del, who was doing the sound that evening, but I wasn't allowed to follow her into the main part of The Crypt, which was strictly soft drinks only, for the (over 14's) kids, some of whom were with a parent (including a guy called Ben who once did work experience in the shop I suffer in)... So I stood on my own drinking my pint as quick as I could, and when Youngplan started up onstage I downed it all, and went through to watch. Since we'd seen them (again supporting Mumm-Ra) in Brighton a few months ago, they'd added a new bassist to the band, freeing up the singer to, well, sing - though I reckoned this diminished their intensity a bit (though this may have just been the ambience of The Crypt, which was still filling up, as this was an early gig). The more rapid and angular Youngplan songs came across better than some of the midtempo ones, which veered a bit close to ska-punk on occasion, and it felt odd seeing a band from Hastings doing the whole "Thank you, Hastings!" thing between songs. I bought their 7" (launched that night, I think, and both sides played, naturally) anyway, along with the remaining Mumm-Ra coloured vinyl 7" I'd not so-far bought, from the merchandise stall that was jam-packed with all their vinyl, cd-singles and t-shirts. After Youngplan, I went back to the grown-ups bar, and grabbed another pint, where I met Sally and (I think) her brother-in-law, so I drank and chatted with them about local music etc, until very soon Mumm-Ra were onstage too, whereupon we all downed our drinks to go and watch. Mumm-Ra were also playing with a slightly-altered line-up to the Brighton gig, in that there was no guest guitar from Youngplan's Dale, but there was an additional keyboard player who I'd not noticed previously. They had a huge sound tonight, starting with 'Song B' and 'What Would Steve Do?', and getting the (now full) crowd bounding up and down straight away (aah, it could well have been so many of the kids' first gig!)... Reuben popped up, as did Mark Rodrigues, and then I saw Michael, Marcus and Rufus watching to the right of the stage, whilst Dean was somewhere to the left, so we had a full-deck of local pop contemporaries down there. Mumm-Ra threw in new songs, old songs ('Cute As'), tracks from next month's album ('She Got You High', 'These Things Come In Threes') and B-sides ('Song E', 'Clocks Tick Louder At The Dead Of Night'); they bigged up Youngplan some more ("You've just had the pleasure of watching the best unsigned band in Britain..." - dunno how that went down with Del, Mark ,Dean etc) and enthused to the crowd generally; Noo scaled the lighting rig; and cameras swept through the crowd (I guess it was the BBC, as the gig ended up on Newsroom South East, or whatever it's currently called, apparently); before the band peaked with 'Out Of The Question' and I decided that I do sometimes still really like that guitarpop sound! The Crypt had to empty out afterwards, so that all the kids were out before the rest of the night's actual clubbing could start, so we made our way up the stairs (saying goodbye to a hugely excited Ben on the way) and into The Street, for more drinks and chat with all our friends (as did the rest of the audience, and the various band members, past and present). As well as Youngplan and Mumm-Ra, we gassed about our friends bands, and other mainstream indiepop groups who find our favour (Mark and I were in agreement on the positive merits of Maximo Park's comeback single, and as he correctly identified Mumm-Ra's kinship with the early Blur, we swapped Blur stories too)... Although I'd declined one, Sally's brother-in-law came back from the bar with a half for me, so I hopefully-not-rudely had to pass on it, as by this point Reuben and I were on our way out of The Street, and pressing-on to fulfill Dean's invite to join Rumiko down The Basement for their rehearsal, which we did; and we drank their booze, and chatted, and watched and applauded and made positive comment where appropriate, and I didn't actually nick anything this time. End!

2007-03-21T14:18:00.000Z

I finally got a full week off work last week, but various social commitments kept me from catching too much live music. At the start of my holiday, I was in Bexhill on the Saturday night, for Sarah-Jane's thirtieth birthday party at The Harp pub. She'd booked a live band called Rumboogie to play, and I'm only mentioning this because at least one of the three guys in the band was at school with us, and had been playing in pub-blues-rock groups even then (it was Nik Le Saux - was he in Full Frontal Nudity? PJ Blue & The Players? I can't really remember who was who by now...), and fifteen years of playing blues-rock meant that at least his current group were very tight and very good at what they do (Ok, no-one except Hendrix is ever gonna be able to justice to Jimi Hendrix Experience songs, but they made an excellent stab at more-coverable songs like 'Baby Please Don't Go'). I congratulated Nik afterwards, but I don't think he recognised me by now, so that's about that! Because of this night, I missed Deano playing at the Eat@ cafe; and I subsequently missed his Le Pattie Cafe booking the following Tuesday by being in Brighton, where the closest I came to any relevant musical experiences was seeing Rachel Fisher's drag-king band Hotfrollicks get a full-page feature in that day's Argus newspaper (I'd imagine the photos are on or near her Myspace). I found out later in the week that the Pattie Cafe pulled Dean's gig quite late, and he'd ended up entertaining would-be punters (ie. our friends) with some songs in their Music Xchange shop instead - sounded fun, if awkward. I finally caught up properly with some live music again on the Sunday afternoon, at the end of my week's holiday, back in Hastings, when at the last minute I decided to go along to The Hastings Arms to catch a bit of a fundraiser for Giles' forthcoming sponsored run across the Sahara Desert. When I arrived, Dean was on his first song, and I got a pint off Katherine and sat a table next to the one seating Rufus, Danielle and, um, someone who's name I couldn't remember to be honest. Now, I had promised I'd try and take more notice of what songs Dean and Rufus are playing at the moment (and I only actually had one pint - I couldn't afford more), but aside from a handful of familiar covers ('We're Going To Be Friends', 'Get Up Jake', Blister In The Sun' in Dean's case; 'Higher And Higher' in Rufus', though he may have done others) almost the whole of Dean's current set, and around half of Rufus', is made up of unreleased songs that I don't know the titles to. What with not having a copy of the unreleased 2nd Rumiko album for reference (I taped Michael's copy and lent it to Gill at work, and I think she assumed I'd given her the tape - it's difficult to ask for things back in those situations), and the 3rd one still undergoing recording (see below) I'm lacking in titles to apply to the tunes. Rufus did play several from his, also, I think, unreleased, album, but my copy of that is at home, and I'm currently in the library typing this. Journalism, eh? Anyhow, when Rufus played, I joined Dean & Danielle at their table, and people like Billy and Reuben (and their friends who I'd not met) arrived and said Hi. Both Dean and Rufus went down brilliantly with the Hastings Arms' Sunday drinkers, though once Rufus had knocked it on the head they said they were off to rehearse down the Basement, if I wanted to join them. First, though, I popped back home and re-opened a bottle of white wine that Carolyn & I had started the night before, and I drank a bit of that and watched one of several Doctor Who videos I'd picked-up that week in Old & Gold in Bexhill. After that, I wandered along to the Basement with the remainder of the wine, and sat in the control room (is that what they term it?) while the full Rumiko line-up played through some new songs for the new album, and Rufus used his remote-control to point into the room occasionally to record live takes (I think this is how the 3rd album is being put together, more from live takes than built-up multitrack recordings). as well as losing my tape copy of their 2nd album, I recently lost my CD-R of their Myspace tracks from last Spring (that I'd received from them at ATP) during the process of Rufus' mastering of the (hey, unreleased!) new Dizzy Tiger compilation album. In my slightly drunked state I thought I'd spotted my lost CD-R under a desk in the corner of the room, and after scrutinising the scratchy disc, and umming and ahing for a while, I convinced myself that it had to be the lost disc, so I took it home (or, in another sense, stole it) afterwards, whereupon I put it in my cd-player, and, lo & behold, the display lit-up with it containing 3 tracks, the first of which was indeed 'Some Days', in the Myspace version. I was relieved that I'd picked up the right disc, but then it reached tracks 2 and 3, and rather than containing 'Carve My Way' and 'Mountain Song', it held a few seconds of glitch, followed by 'Keep It Going On', so I had to return to the shop at the earliest opportunity (this morning, in fact) and shamefacedly 'fess-up to Rufus that I'd secretly grabbed the wrong disc (which, to be vaguely fair, he'd lost in the first place). In conclusion, I'd suggest searching my pockets whenever I leave a recording studio, or maybe just not letting me in if I've been drinking... What an undignified end to the week. Apologies all, I'm usually much more honest.

2007-03-07T09:48:00.000Z

Last Tuesday evening I was getting ready to go to Le Pattie Cafe (well, not so much getting ready, more navigating through a dvd of 'The Invasion' that Lee had given me in Brighton at the weekend; looking for Easter Eggs, and finding none), when Reuben rang, and popped round, to pick up a complete set of Mumm-Ra 7"s that I'd picked up for him while I was in Brighton (yellow and orange vinyl 'What Would Steve Do?' singles from Virgin - where I'd also bought my own copies earlier, brown vinyl 'Out Of The Question' from Borderline, and possibly Brighton's last pink vinyl copy of the same from Rounder). We listened to a little bit of the cd single I had, and Reu agreed that their song 'Without You' could well be Rumiko Jr-inspired - he had already heard it on a solo CD-R Noo had given him once (incidentally, if anyone wants to lend me their old Mumm-Ra et al CD-R demos, I'd quite like to tape them, ta). So, we then went outside and picked up Jimmy in George Street, and went along to Le Pattie Cafe. I had a quick chat about pictures for Create/South with Alice, who was sitting in journalism-corner with Rufus and some of their friends, then sat to watch Dean and Jim do their first set, alongside Reuben, Wookie, Leowin, Jimmy and his girlfriend. Michael and Caroline arrived, as did Kim and Jamie. I gave Kim my 2nd (of 2) demo CD-R of the almost-ready Dizzy Tiger compilation, and passed the actual Rufus-mastered CD-R on to Alice to assist with her article. After Dean and Jim had run through some of their songs, they handed over to young Nathan, and I'm afraid to say that his subtle, low-voiced songs got rather drowned-out by our table doing that whole "Do you remember [Insert old children's TV programme here]?" conversation (kicked into life 'cos Danielle had got Dean to pass on to me a couple of Cartoon Network compilation DVDs - Johnny Bravo, Powerpuff Girls etc - which turned out to have been the background to Reuben's childhood, so I gave them to him instead). Rufus took a break from being interviewed (or whatever they were doing) to play some of his songs next, whilst we continued not really to pay attention, by chatting admiringly about Spider Webb from The Horrors' hair (as pictured in their NME album review that Reuben had brought along for Jimmy and his partner). As usual, Dean and Jim finished off the evening with another smart set of Rumiko Jr songs and covers, and the rest of us carried on downing Stella. I guess I got home safely afterwards, but I don't exactly recall. Hopefully next time I write about Le Pattie Cafe, I'll have remembered more about what music was actually played, and less about the peripheral details of cartoons, coloured vinyl and haircuts, but I can't promise.

2007-02-22T12:33:00.000Z

Just a very short entry: Blogger have shifted all their accounts over to Google-mail, which is hellishly slow on broadband, and nigh on impossible to access on dial-up, so again I may have to lay off the Blog soon. All I've been up to really in the meantime was go out last week to Le Pattie Cafe on Tuesday evening, to see Dean and Jim play another couple of sets of great new songs (I missed the following week's actual Rumiko Jr gig at Brass Monkey, where some of these new tunes were promised, partly 'cos of the entry fee, but mainly 'cos we'd gone along to see Kim and Liam's installation at Bar Blue instead - see below). Carolyn came over and went to Pattie Cafe with me, we met Michael and Caroline there, and Kim sat with us too. I had the impression all evening that Kim was on good form, but I gather he may have been a bit different towards some of our lot when I was out of earshot, naughty sod. Jamie, Wookie and Ollie were at one table; Lily, Christa, Alice and some othere were at the next (taking photos); one table down from us were Helen, Jo and Sally; and Danielle stayed down the front near Deano. Mainly we all just drank and chatted and ate bar snacks (I think we may have worked our way through the entire bar-snack menu, of nuts, nachos, and huge salty olives, during the course of the evening), and as I was facing away from Dean and Jim, not a lot of their performance sank in (in retrospect, I ought to have paid them some closer attention). I tried chatting to Christa briefly, but she was more interested in listening to the music, so I left-off there, and soon Paul had come and collected her anyway. It was nice that everyone in the venue knew each other though, and after some last-minute drinks (for those of us who reached the bar in time for last orders, at least: there was some confusion over this), everyone disappeared quite quick to get on with whatever it was they were planning on doing (preparing for Valentine's Day the next day, if they were lucky). I chatted quickly to Alice about her forthcoming Create/South article, ideas for accompanying pictures, etc, but that was about it.
The aforementioned installation at Bar Blue the following Tuesday was titled Escalate, and featured various items that belonged to Rockabilly Liam (toy cars, bits of musical instruments, junked cassettes etc), which he'd unsuccessfully offered for sale previously on Ebay, apparently, and that Kim had arranged in piles of orange-painted crates, with one corner made up of back-lit gutted wirelesses. Kim's biography from the Saachi website had been printed-off and displayed along one wall, and attendees were free to rummage through the boxes, play with different items, and possibly attempt to purchase them off Kim (Liam was absent for the evening). I'd gone along with Caroline, and when we arrived Wookie was Djing. Reuben came along, as he was DJing too that evening (as was Kim's friend Dave), and we were joined by the backroom installation by Xanten, Leofwin, Jamie, Helen and Ollie (at different times, and in different stages of sobriety). At one point, Kim stopped Dave's DJing in order to plug some Casio or Yamaha keyboard in, for an arpeggiated version of 'Chicken In A Box' (which Dave then tempo-matched on the decks with The Normal's 'TVOD', which may help you imagine Kim's performance). Good on Dave, he even played The Fall later on, and eschewed any obvious, vaguely crowd-pleasing tunes in favour of 'The NWRA'. Kim did the electro to Kraftwerk's 'Pocket Calculator', and I surreptitously filmed him doing so on my phone. Ollie had already had a spin round the bar in Liam's large plastic toy car, and I then did the same for Xanten, but I don't think even she was light enough not to give it some engine trouble. Jamie chatted about his recent discovery that the band Killing Moon, who he had been a member of a couple of years back at the University of Kent, had now become minor chart-contenders Battle, and shed some unofficial light on the coincidence of their name to our nearby Keane-spawning village. And, as you would be, he was only mildly put-out that he'd failed to stick with the band long enough to share in their Top 40 hits (I took his chart research on trust, 'cos I didn't bother to research exactly how high any of Battle's singles have charted over the last eighteen months or so). No-one who was down Bar Blue with us seemed too enthusiastic about heading into town afterwards to see Rumiko Jr playing, but only 'cos the tickets (for the whole afternoon & evening's Mardi Gras events in Frenchs and the Brass Monkey) were a prohibitive £7.50, so we all stuck to our St Leonards bar until time was called, before getting ourselves home again (where, I found out the next day, I fell asleep on the toilet, and had to be woken up by one unfortunate housemate). From the texts and posts I read the next day from various band members, it did look like Mardi Gras was a bit of a washout in the end (certainly the persistent rain and fog that cold Tuesday night can't have helped either). So, for a change, art won the day.

2007-02-07T14:56:00.000Z

Alfie had flagged-up on our Message Boards http://dizzytigerstu.proboards58.com that Mumm-Ra had a gig at The Gloucester in Brighton at the end of Januray, as one of three low-key warm-up gigs for the forthcoming NME tour (upon which they'd be opening a bill otherwise consisting of The Automatic, The Horrors and The View, hmm). When the day (Thursday 25th) came, Alfie couldn't make it in the end, but I'd arranged to go straight over to Brighton from work and catch up with some more of our friends anyway. There had been a tiny amount of snow around on the Wednesday morning, and some of this had remained into the Thursday, but the train journey from Bexhill to Brighton was in the drakness of the January evening, so I could see nothing out the carriage windows, and when I reached Brighton there was nothing on the ground. I rang Carolyn when I got off at Brighton Station, and walked down Queens Road, to catch up with her in Borders by the Churchill Shopping Centre. My energy had been flagging when we met, so I grabbed a thick rectangle of hot pizza from a nearby stall, and we made our way via North Laine to the Battle Of Trafalgar, for a pint and a chat. Reuben had been texting to arrange coming over from Hastings too, and Carolyn was fielding messages from Lee and Charlie too, who were the first to find us there. The four of us went along to The Brighton Gloucester, as it turned out to be called, and met Lucy and her cousin Charlotte outside, where we waited in the cold for longer than we wished, feeling a little elderly and out of place compared to the Brighton sixth-form (they probably don't even have sixth-forms nowadays...) students also awaiting entry. The Gloucester turned out to be a cheap and charming venue, rather like Hastings Crypt, but roomier, slightly plusher, and with more angles, walkways and levels, all deep red and curtainy. We found a table and some drinks near the back, and discovered that Mumm-Ra were to be supported by Youngplan, who we'd only recently read about in the Hastings Observer, and a group called Restlesslist. The latter struck-up very shortly afterwards on stage, so we moved all our stuff down towards the front to watch: they turned out to be a pair of scarved Brighton lads (at the University possibly?) playing short, fun, instrumentals on guitars, keyboards, samplers and the like, a post-Go!Team outfit. They gave off the impression of this being their first gig, though there were cheap photocopied flyers scattered about promising a forthcoming single, so maybe they were merely self-deprecatingly shambolic. Reuben and Muz arrived from Hastings, as, unexpectedly, did Del, who'd decided to make the trip on his own. It was only us Hastings residents who had seen Mumm-Ra play before: the last gig all of us had seen them play was an unannounced, post-signing spot one summer Sunday afternoon at Frenchs bar in Hastings, the occasion of Reuben's 18th birthday, I recall. We were all quite curious to see Youngplan too, 'cos they'd fallen on their feet locally with some good reviews, partly helped by the members past-form in a number of regularly-gigging young Hastings bands. I was aware, also, that the Hastings Observer due out at the end of the following week was due to feature an article on both Youngplan and Mumm-Ra, pegging them both as part of an emergent (but clearly made-up) scene called, variously, Rovverbeat or Rotherbeat: terms that I'd initially assumed were invented by the local paper's correspondent Richard Morris, as he'd used them first in his Youngplan review, and then again in an email to me, promising to fit a few words on the forthcoming Dizzy Tiger compilation album in the same edition. (When that copy of the paper came out, on Friday 2nd Feb, it transpired that Rich must've been at the same gig, 'cos a review of it, more accurate than I'm gonna manage here, formed a large part of the article - I was unaware of this at the time.) Anyway, turned out that the paper's comparison of Youngplan to Futureheads (had any of the groups been at Futureheads barnstorming Crypt gig a few years back, alongside Del and I?) wasn't far off the mark, though I detected Maximo Park as a stronger influence, though we were suprised to see three professional photographers appear to the front and right of the stage, snapping away throughout Youngplan's set. The lightbulb of realisation went on in my head then, that there was some kind of management/publicity framework already in place for Youngplan, and that the Rotherbeat creation was going to be part of an attempt at selling a local scene to the national media. (This supposition was given more weight when I studied the copy of Good Meaure Magazine - aka GM! - that I'd picked up at the gig, and saw Mumm-Ra, Youngplan, and even our old mucker Adam from East Magzine, modelling and being interviewed throughout.) The Gloucester had filled-up with kids by this point, many of whom were down front watching the bands, others I'm sure just taking advantage of the seriously cheap drinks, and waiting for a dancefloor snogging moment to come along. Mumm-Ra took to the stage bolstered by Youngplan's Dale (on guitar & vocals) and, now, four professional photographers. Noo cheerily admitted to having them only just having invented Rotherbeat, and I shouted up that people could pretty much Read All About It in next week's Hastings Observer, if anyone was listening. The band whooshed through their now largely-familiar set of singles ('What Would Steve Do?', 'Song B', 'Out Of The Question', that one that came free with the NME, etc) along with presently-unreleased songs like 'She Got You High;', which we all remembered from the Frenchs gig. What Mumm-Ra have lost in ramshackle, sitar-embellished, somewhat prog-seriousness (as in every gig we saw them play prior to Frenchs, eg at The Crypt, The Ypresstock festival, various Smugglers gigs) they've made up for in a technicolour conciseness and abundance of tunes (for a taster of the 'old' Mumm-Ra, I could point you in the direction of the Basement studio back in Hastings, which still appeared to have a few copies of the Tsunami Appeal cd album knocking about - proceeds to the Disasters Emergency Committee - that featured Mumm-Ra alongside Del's Burn Burn Burn, and several other Hastings artists). They went down superbly with the crowd, but it didn't seem too long before the lights were back up and the following Indie Club night was beginning, at which point we all headed outside and scattered onto various nightbuses Westwards, and Mumm-Ra (by their onstage admission) went back to Behill to mark the 6th anniversary of their debut gig, up in the cold night on Galley Hill in Bexhill. The next morning, on the train back to Bexhill, I was able now to see the vast tracts of snow that had clung onto the North side of the South Downs, between Lewes and Eastbourne. As an Old Man, I can only say that those Mumm-Ra boys must've caught their death of cold.
A couple of days later, and I was back down the aforementioned Smugglers, this time to help celebrate our friend Xanten's birthday. She'd arranged with Ewen for Cloudesley Shovell to play, and so Billy, Louis and John were all soundchecking when I arrived. Aside from Xanten and her housemate, we were also jined by Jamie, Reuben and Wookie, whilst Marcus turned up and sat with Matt and his partner. I think I very breifly saw Rufus appear with Alice and some others, but they must've headed off elsewhere, 'cos I couldn't find them later. Meanwhile, Christa was stationed up the back with Paul and some of their friends, collaring me for the odd kiss as I passed to and from the toilets. Cloudesely Shovell powered through their denim-rock, stomping all over the line between taking the actual music very seriously, but taking the piss out of themselves and their mates relentlessly. A special treat had been word-of-mouth advertised for the evening, namely the debut gig of that Dickensian waif, 'Little' Jimmy (where Cloudesley Shovell hark back sartorailly to the 1970's, Jimmy actually harks back to the 1870's...). Things looked a bit dicey when a guy wandered into the bar (and, yes, he did have a Borat moustache, and responded to shouts of Bohemian Rhapsody!" by muttering a few lines from 'I Wan To Break Free') and wouldn't walk away from the microphone, until Ewen intervened (there had been some suspicion that this guy was gonna be some comical birthday stripogram-style treat for Xanten, but he was actually just a bit random). Thereupon, Jimmy plugged in his electric, requested "A bit of volume" and, brilliantly, howled through a non-stop 20 minute set of Mary Chain feedback and yelping at top speed. There was a bunch of rather long faces at the bar, and some very stupid grins from the rest of us down the front: and Marcus' assertion that Jimmy just might be the "new Dean" only took a battering if you conveniently ignored the fact that, even before The Ital Jets, Dean was a total teenage metaller. I dunno whether we'll ever see Jimmy onstage at Smugglers again after that, but, Jesus, he needs to be pushed back onstage again at as many other venues in the town as we can find, as soon and as often as possible, the feisty little fucker. After that interlude, Cloudesley Shovell's second set of thrilling stoner-boogie ("And this song's called 'Robot Colossus'...") was as a fair balm to soothe the ears. We'd agreed (also on the Boards) to Indie Stu that we were gonna go round to the Brass Monkey, to catch Tim Hoyte supporting the excellent I Am Kloot, but (possibly 'cos Kloot was down from Manchester?) a few texts, and a trip round the corner by Marcus, established that the Monkey had opened earlier than usual, and we'd missed them, so we stayed getting trolleyed in Smugglers instead. Happy Birthday, Xanten! God bless us, every one!

2007-01-24T20:37:00.000Z

I'd only had a momentary breathing-space after the New Year's visitors and obligations, with the only live-music being accidentally catching the Sundog blues band at Smugglers between Marcus and Rufus' birthdays (Saturday 6th Jan, in fact), before Paula came up from the Isles Of Scilly for a weekend. I'd met her down the FILO on the following Thursday, after which she stayed at Michael & Caroline's, before heading off to rendezvous with Lee in Brighton the next day. We'd planned that I'd catch up with everyone over there later in the day too, so after work I ran and got an early train straight through to Brighton, where I hung about by WHSmiths on Brighton Station concourse until Carolyn arrived. I know I tend to always look like I'm trying to get picked-up when I'm waiting for someone, and sure enough a really sweet young guy came up and made a shy attempt at hitting on me by asking me where Queens Road was. At first I thought he was genuinely lost, and it wasn't until I saw the embarrassed disappointment on his face that I realised my helpful directions ("Um, isn't that the road right outside?") weren't the answer he was looking for. Shortly after, Carolyn arrived, and we grabbed baguettes from the Station shop, and walked down towards the Corn Exchage, where we'd be meeting Paula, along with Lee an Linda, at a ig. We bumped into a couple of Carolyn's friends, and went for a quick drink with them at the Mash Tun, which was a bit overwhelming intially 'cos we went and sat upstairs, right next to a bunch of football hooligans (they reckoned), who all appeared to be called Dave (as in "Who wanted Guinness?" "It was Dave" "No, not me, that Dave" "No, mate, DAVE!" etc). As I was clearly a bit stressed, we went back downstairs, which was still busy, but less threatening, and this is where Paula popped her head in and said Hello. Carolyn and I moved on into the Corn Exchange, and went straight inside to find Paula, Lee and Linda already seated. Last time I'd been to this venue was with Carrie to see Yo La Tengo, which was a standing gig, where we bumped into Miles and Richard too. The fact that we were seated now got my hackles up a bit, and it took a while for my resentment towards the gig to die down. We had gone along to the first date on the O Degrees Of Separation tour: promoted as a package-tour of Vetiver, Adem, Vashti Bunyan and Juana Molina, with an amount of collaboration promised. It turned out that the entire troupe of performers took to the stage from the off, performing one of the few Vetiver songs I'd actually heard. The dozen or so musicians all stayed onstage for a while, taking turns to perform their own or each other's songs, before beginning to splinter off into smaller combinations of groups, depending on the demands of each particular song. The first half of the set was a bit too soporific for me, and I had to concentrate on not just dozing off for the sake of it, pretty as Vetiver's and Vashti Bunyan's tunes were. The couple in front of me were quite busy kissing, while a man to their left was indeed stroking his beard. I only really took notice when, after a full-group crescendo through one of Juana Molina's songs, she performed some of her music solo, building up layers of voice, guitar and rhythm loops, and adding keyboard sounds straight off the second OMD album over the top. Her music (she took another near-solo turn later on) was the highlight of the evening for me, and I noted that her contributions to the ensemble performances weren't as seamlessly fitted-in as the other musicians, as if she'd not found a way to contribute to the overall sound, and was more comfortable with creating her noise alone. There was a lengthy intermission, enough time to get one beer down us, but not two (as I found when I got out of my seat and the bar was shut), before a second-half that was really more of the same, though with a handful more songs I recognised (I think I've possibly only every heard one or two songs each by any of the contributors before). Adem adapted the end of a children's story to the solo accompaniment of some rainbow-coloured handbells; while Vetiver picked-up the tempo somewhat with some dynamic full-band (there seems to be quite a few of them in the group anyway) numbers. The second-half really seemed to be geared towards Vashti Bunyan though, who was clearly having a lovely time up there, playing recently-written songs, as well as many from her initial period in the limelight, back (as you probably know) in the Sixties. The crowd optimistically stomped for an encore, and sure enough, the whole bunch made it back onstage one more time for a joyous run-through Bunyan's 1965 Jagger/Richards 7" (it's on Decca, I checked) 'Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind'. Paula, who's idea going to the gig had been, was made-up, and I'd ended-up enjoying myself more than I expected too, and after a few false starts (too crowded, too noisy, too cold...) we all found a quiet pub near the railway station for a drink and a catch-up, before Paula and I got the last train back to Hastings.
The following day, I left breakfast outside Paula's door upstairs before heading off to work, and at some point she went off to see her parents in Eastbourne for the weekend. That evening, I'd decided to go to Tom Waits Day (Simon Shaw's birthday) at Smugglers, as I'd done last year (see this Blog, um, about a year ago). Before I went there, I popped round Emma's to pick up some stuff I'd lent her, and she told me I'd see Sacha drumming down Smugglers later on, which I did, and very friendly and enthusiastic he was too. It was a real Hastings all-star line-up of musicians down Smugglers that night: the main band involving contributions from Simon (of course) alongside Lianne Carroll, Harvey Summers, Liam Genockey, Jem Turpin, Colin Gibson and John Ballard, all of whom (bar, I think, Liam Genockey and our Harvey) took turns on vocals for a few of the Tom Waits covers. Other friends of ourse performed, including Logan Wilson and Alfie, but generally the evening belonged to the people mentioned above, with a brief bit of singing, between shifts at the bar, for Donna Terenzi. I'd tell you who was there, but really, just about everyone was there! What a fuckin' beauty. Eventually, as the band started-up on 'Heart-Attack and Vine' (ie: only just beginning to play the few Tom Waits songs I know), I had to knock the evening on the head, having spent the whole time drinking and enthusing about what a great place we live in for music (I mean, you've got your BBC Jazz award-winners onstage - ie the top-end of a spit 'n' sawdust pub - with guys from back-in-the-day groups like Steeleye Span and Skip Bifferty, alongside surviving musicians from our old social-group at sixth-form college - your Tuxedo Sam's and your 4D Special Agent's, up with the Leicester/Rumiko Jr contingent, being watched by various Mumm-Ra's and beyond. Don't knock it!)
The following evening, Sunday by now, I'd had a farewell drink with Paula back in the FILO (in order to get out of more parental obligations, she'd told her family that my brother Michael and Caroline had invited her over for dinner, rather than admit she wanted a drink down the pub with me, which felt the teensiest bit wounding: last thing I heard, her parents did like me...), then set her off on the train at Hastings Station, before returning home for a couple of cans. I'd passed Reuben on the way, who pointed-out that Tim Hoyte was playing Smugglers that evening, and after some deliberation at home I decided to go down there. When I left, it was puring with rain, and I managed to walk straight into an abandoned pint-glass outside the Blue Dolphin chip shop, which shattered extremely loudly, much to the amusement of the couple at the cash-point. I shrugged, and hurried along to Smugglers, where I said Hi to Tim, and joined Reuben, with Wookie, Jamie and Xanten. The Smugglers was much quieter that night, to some relief on Ewen's part, I gathered (the night before's Tom Waits tribute had been rammed!), which was also beneficial to Tim's hushed set. He played some Roy Harper song I was unfamiliar with (I love Roy Harper: can we have a Roy Harper Day sometime soon, please?), during which I reiterated to myself just what a virtuoso guitarist Tim is (one of maybe two top-class guitarists of our generation in Hastings - more of the other one later...) Unfortunately, the build-up of alcohol amongst us meant that when Tim introduced an accompanying musician for the second half of his set, we didn't really pay much attention, preferring instead to yammer on amongst ourselves, slagging off this or that Top40 'Indie' band du jour. Before I went, I remember promising to go down Smugglers again for Xanten's birthday, but now I've forgotten when that was, and suspect I may have already missed it: sory if that's the case!
A couple of days later, Carolyn made it back over to Hastings for the first time since Christmas (when she stayed over for about a week, but somehow managed to pick the few days where there wasn't a fabulous local gig on). She came straight to my place to drop her stuff off, and we went off into town to La Pattie Cafe, for Dean's monthly session. Crystal, Kim and Wookie were already waiting at a table for us, proffering complimentary peanuts that tasted of varnish (I guess they'd been roasted in their own oil, but bygum they were tart). Caroline arrived, and sat nearby with Keith and Lily, while Dean and Jim set up for their first set. This was Jim's first gig for a while (he'd been travelling) and, of course, he is the other virtuoso Hastings guitarist I was referring to just now: at one point I got thoroughly mesmerised by the various sounds he coaxed out of his electric (during, I think, their cover of 'We Are Going To Be Friends', perhaps suprisingly). Somewhat hampered by the formal seating of La Pattie Cafe, I tried to divide my attention between my various friends, as Tim performed a similar, but shorter, set to his one down Smugglers over the weekend (including, again, his Roy Harper cover, and a Smiths one, and - missing the boat rather - a Tom Waits one). Michael had joined the throng by this point, though I lost track of time a bit during Dean and Jim's second set, and was susbsequently suprised to hear that he and Caroline left the venue late, but far earlier than th rest of us did. That's the peril of a bar that only serves Stella: things get a bit scrambled.
The same evening, Nick and Melinda (who'd been back at mine the Monday night between theabove-described gigs) had gone over to Brighton to see Lee perform a Rashamon gig at the Marlborough Theatre for Spirit Of Gravity, and later in the week, Lee made the return journey over to Hastings. He came round my place on the Saturday evening, and we went up the FILO for a couple of pints and a social catch-up, before heading back into town and Smugglers AGAIN for an evening celebrating Helen and Patrick's engagement. The pub was still decorated in honour of Eamonn Cahill, bless him, which helped add colour and joy to the night. I left Lee to do the rounds of our friends, and sat on the end of the pool-table, chatting to Linda King, as Hayley Savage played the first set of the evening. Helen and Patrick had pulled-together several of our lot to do a few songs apiece, and Hayley's pin-drop focussed songs were followed by a couple of covers by Marcus, making a rare solo appearance. He was back out of the focus subsequently, when he and Rufus backed Dean for some stripped-down Rumiko Jr tracks; and sometime before or afterwards Tim Hoyte went through a few of his own songs too (time begins to twist and bend...) Apart from occasionally checking Lee was enjoying himself, I spent most of the evening discussing this and that with Linda, so much so that when I went to talk to anyone else (eg Maya, Caroline, Alice) I don't think I came out with much more than the obvious "So, how are you?" kind-of stuff. An exception was made when Helen sat down with me to fill me in on how things had gone with her and Patrick, which was good to hear, and her happiness was clear to see as they danced together to Rufus' band's headlining slot. We stuck around quite late, but eventually it was time to knock it on the head, so Lee and I left. After briefly putting our heads round the door of the Basement (where Dean, Danielle and Alice were chatting) we wandered towards the Old Town. Dean and Danielle ran and caught up with us (they're now near-neighbours), and then we said goodnight, went to our respective rooms (Lee to the spare room, so frequently occupied by Paula, Nick and Melinda over the Christmas/New Year period) and me to the larger room in the house that I'd moved myself into earlier in the month.
The next morning (a Sunday), I was slow getting up, and missed Lee leaving to get back to Portslade, but that, at last, was the end of my Christmas guest-house socialising commitments...

2007-01-07T10:57:00.000Z

Just before Christmas, Anna moved out of our house, taking her handy broadband computer with her. I've now rescued my friend Paula's old computer from the top of the house, and am back on tortuously-slow dial-up again. But at least I can resume my Blog (log onto internet, sign into Blogger account, log off internet, write Blog, log onto internet again, post Blog, etc), though I won't be able to include the photos of the gigs that I've been taking over Christmas (an unexpectedly large mobile-phone bill, blameable on the frequency with which I was emailing photos from my phone to the computer, also puts pay to that plan for a while). 'Cos I was out such a lot over Christmas, I'm only gonna briefly re-cap the stuff we ended up going to, as my memory is even more unreliable after a few weeks of celebration.
Saturday 16th December: Step had organised a Christmas gig at Venue M in George Street (formerly De Niro's, formerly George Street Hall), and I went along with Caroline. We were too early, as the bands had been a bit disorganised, so went along to the Hastings Arms for a drink first. When we got back to Venue M a bit later, the DJ was playing that great Fog single, followed by a MBV/Chapterhouse shoegaze face-off, so the omens were good. Jonathan Martin and a couple of friends played first, and carried off the job of warming the place up well (the venue was still filling-up), and I caught up with the Rumiko lot. The Dawgs came on stage and played some of that zydeco, and we realised that tonight was the social choice for almost everyone we knew: Tim Hoyte; Alfie & Robert; Tara, Caragh and Jackie; Rebecca and Anna; Josie; Harvey and Logan Wilson; Emma and her partner Sacha (also Step's drummer, it transpired); and all the other friends and partners of the various groups. Patrick and Helen turned up very briefly too, and we all got confused when we couldn't see them anywhere (they could only have stayed for a few minutes, I guess). Reuben turned up, intending on DJing later, and we agreed that I'd pop home at some point to get a few bits of vinyl to help him along. The pace of the evening dropped a bit during a set from Zoe Konez, which was fine, but by this point I was getting hyperactive, so I ran back to my house and pulled-out the records Reuben needed. Ella appeared at her door offering Cava, so I dragged her down to Venue M too (though she didn't stay long either, once she'd caught up with a handful of her friends). Rufus had been manning the sound-desk all evening, but when he was due on stage, we roped Harvey in to perform the duties. Rumiko Jr played a vibrant set, culminating in a double guest spot from Alfie on harmonica, and Step on fiddle, for 'We Get Lost'. Step stayed up there for his headlining set, as Tymon Dogg & The Quickening (who I think were the aforementioned Sacha; Muz, once of The Heaters, on bass; and Simon Shaw - who'd played earlier with Jonathan - on guitar). By this point I was very merry, and either my hearing was going, or the sound had got a bit mushy. I ran around giving Christmas hugs and kisses to lots of people (and probably promised loads of thing I don't remember), before realising I was on the verge of passing-out, so I grabbed my records back from Reuben in the DJ booth, and got quickly back to bed.
Tuesday 19th December: I was down to my last few pounds, but wanted to pop to Revolver to see Dean play. I'd had a bath in the evening, so my hair was sticking up all over the place as it dried, and I'd been reduced to some very holey clothes while I did my laundry that evening, whcih meant I looked a bit of a state when I got down to the bar. I spent my money on the only pint I could afford, and sat with Jonathan and Rufus while Dean, accompanied by Simon Shaw this time, played his first set of the evening. I noticed Christa sitting at the top of the room, with a big flashing badge on, so I realised it was her birthday, and went over for a chat with her. She was out with one of her brothers and several of her friends (some of who'm I knew, such as Paul, and some that I didn't), and was having a great time, but I knew I wasn't going to be sticking around too long that evening, so I left their group with a promise to try and catch up at the Winter Solstice gig at The Carlisle a few days later (I didn't make it in the end, as my sister and her family flew in from Australia that evening). In ordinary circumstances, I may just have asked one of my friends if they could stand me a drink (though I'm always quite reluctant to do so, but I generally accept when they're offered, and hope I remember to buy that person one back in return soon after), however, I was aware that I looked even more of a pauper than I actually am, so I apologised to Rufus that I'd miss his set, and said my goodbyes to Jonathan, Dean & Danielle, Alice & Steph, and went home to do something else.
Wednesday 20th December. Rumiko Jr had a pre-Christmas gig at Smugglers for Ewen's birthday, and when I got there, Regular John were lining-up to play too. It turned out also to be Andy Warren's birthday, and he'd asked Zoe Konez to play, so it was quite a full night. However, I must confess that I can't remember very much about it at all (my memories will have been smudged-over by the New Year's Day gig at the same pub). I did say Hi to Helen and Patrick, which was a relief, 'cos I thought they were blanking me at Venue M the other day, which wasn't the case at all, it turned out; but mostly I just sat by the pool table with a mized bunch of folk, and watched the music. I know it was good to see the boys from the 'John, 'cos I'd not caught up with them for about a month; and I recall Michael was working and wasn't able to play with Rumiko; but the rest of the night is just flashes of dissecting the state of the local scene with Marcus, Deano & Rufus. Maybe my photos (which I'll try and upload into this Blog entry at some point) will illuminate things further.
Friday 22nd December: It'd been my day-off work, and I'd spent a while at home, before Carolyn Fouracre and Roschendah texted to get me to join them down at The Dragon in the evening, where they'd gone after the Council's Christmas event that afternoon at St Mary In The Castle. I joined them, and a schoolfriend of Carolyn's, with the intention of just staying for one drink, as I was going to catch Jonathan Martin at Smugglers, before heading to the Brass Monkey for yet another Rumiko gig (Dean later admitted he wore himself right out in this run-up to Christmas). But after one pint I'd changed my mind, and stayed with them for another couple, before Roshendah decided she ought to get back over to Bexhill, whilst me and Carolyn and her friends went along to the Royal Albion for a bit of karaoke. I'd had enough to drink to make me agree to sing 'Fairytale Of New York' with Carolyn, and by the time the song came-up I was able to pull-off a just-about passsable Shane MacGowan, whilst Carolyn's Kirsty MacColl performance mostly involved whispering "Stu, it's your line! Oh, shit, it's mine..." in place of actually singing. I looked up, and people were indeed leaving the pub: excellent! Afterwards, some drinkers told me how bad my singing was: yay! We all got a lot more drunk, and there was a bit of Christmas snogging, until it was decided that I'd accompany Carolyn to The Carlisle, where there was some kind of function going on upstairs. In order to appear more casual about us arriving together, she introduced me to a guy she wanted to hang out with as "My gay friend Stuart" (Having already been introduced to Carolyn's mate down The Dragon as "Our bisexual S&M pornstar friend Stuart" I was getting used to this). I'd totally missed my plan of seeing Jonathan do his Katjam thing at Smugglers, so I made my excuses and went straight from The Carlisle to Brass Monkey to see Rumiko. As with Step's gig the previous weekend, almost everyone I knew was out, but on this occasion I was already drunk when I arrived, so I'm not really able to report exactly who was there. I sat with Caroline before Rumiko played, and I danced a lot with Kim and others while the band played, and then I think I said some rather daft crush-style stuff to Alice and her friends (and, indeed, sisters, I suspect) before finally doing something sensible, and heading home. Although I did (for the first time in years) think it would be a good idea to get a kebab in George Street, and even noticing myself swaying unsteadily on my feet in the mirrors in the kebab shop didn't put me off. I ate most of a lamb doner, and put the rest of the meat down for the cats when I got in. Needless to say, they enjoyed their midnight feast (either they licked their dishes clean, or the garlic sauce dissolved the encrusted cat food), and therefore didn't wake me up for their breakfast the next morning, meaning I overslept for work (which is an annual habit for me at Christmas now).
Sunday 31st December: New Year's Eve, and almost everyone I knew was going to a party at Hayley & Marc's place, but I favoured going into town to see The A Team at Brass Monkey, expecting there to be more of my friends there than anywhere else. Before I went out, though, I finished off the task I'd set myself earlier that weekend, namely finally assembling Anti - the new Dizzy Tiger compilation album (this required much last-minute texting, phone calls, and trips to Smugglers and Michael & Caroline's flat to pick up CD-Rs with other tracks on. Mission accomplished, I went into town around 10pm, and walked straight into a near-empty Brass Monkey, which was a suprise. I sat on my own with a drink, and said Hi to Billy when he arrived, but had no-one to socialise with until Plum turned up with some Rye friends (and, shortly afterwards, Holly Palmer and her friends). When Rufus and Bonj had turned up, I was asked if I could stand in the monitor room while they played, just in case the mics started feeding back (in which case, I'd be ready to turn them down or off). I agreead, and Bonj said he'd collar me when they were ready. A bit later, I had a tap on the shoulder, and turned round to see a stranger in a cream safari suit and blonde wig. It was, of course, Bonj, in character as Hannibal Smith, so I went with him to the booth and he showed me what I might need to do. The rest of The A Team that night were Rufus as BA Baracus (but a green Mr T this time, which I thought was meant to be seasonal), Matt Jukes as Face, and Billy as Murdoch (Paul was absent in Wales, so at least it was a 4-man A-Team again). The venue had filled up a bit more by this point, so there was lots of dancing once the audience realised what the gig was all about. After only one or two songs, it was time for Rufus to shout 'Happy New Year' stuff, then it was on with the tunes. Pete Wilkes popped into the booth a few times, to check I knew what I was doing, and make some adjustments to the mics and lighting, but otherwise I mostly filled the role of unofficial cloakroom attendant for people such as Christa, and sounding-off man for some amiable, but very drunk, emo guy in a local rock band. A-Team highlights included the theme from Fame (with note-perfect Bonj solo) and Home And Away (with affectionate duetting by Rufus and Bonj, all high-notes hit, just about). I flicked the mics off afterwards, and Rufus shook my hand with his green one, and got me a drink. They went off to get changed again, and I wandered around, watching people dancing to garage records (where had this group of kids, for whom 'Stray Cat Strut' was the totemic tune, come from? And where were they when Billy Childish played a few months ago?), but was feeling a bit left out, and so rather than hang-on for the others to make it back downstairs, I just decided to walk home. However, Nichola called me over as I went past The Dragon, and persuaded me to come inside to catch up with Rebecca. It was another private-party, but Paddy was happy for me to come in, so I ended up getting an exciting New Year's Eve bit of socialising done at the last moment after all.
Monday 1st January: In the afternoon, I walked over to my parents, and got a text on the way from Nick and Melinda, who were heading to Hastings to catch up with us all for a couple of days. After some time with the family, a bunch of us drove over to Caroline & Michael's flat, which is where Nick and Melinda caught up with us. We all went back to my parents and watched The Sarah-Jane Adventures with the kids, then I got Nick and Melinda back to the Old Town to dump their stuff. We walkd back through the rain to Smugglers, where Southernwood were onstage. I'd never seen them play after all these years (in fact, I was several years behind the news when I found out Alena had joined them) so I was really pleased to see them at last, doing a wayward but endearing fragmented take on the US left-field. We'd arranged for my sister and her husband to come along while they were in the UK, and they brought my Mum along too, which was fine, although some drunk European student lads mistook her for the picture of the Queen on their £10 notes. I chatted to family and friends, and then Rumiko got up to play their first set. Unlike some occasions, when they may do a slow set first, with a faster one later, played two full-energy sets that evening, so my family did get to see them going off at full tilt. My folks went off home afterwards, and I got drunk catching up with Nick & Melinda while we waited for Regular John to set up (which took ages, for some reason). They played a blinder though, and lots of people took photos and films, and the Europeans danced like loons, and asked me where the 'sexy Queen' had gone... I said Hi to the likes of Christa, Reuben, Ollie, Danielle and Alice, and waved at Plum and her crew, who'd occupied the pool table. Rumiko were finally up for their second set, and it was great (oh, if only they and the 'John had got their albums out in 2006, as I was expecting...) and Nick formulated plans to make a proper film of next year's New Year's Day special (both he and Melinda work in film and photography over in Toronto). After the bands had finished, the bar stayed open for the revellers, but (as he always does) Ewen refused entry to any latecomers after 11pm. At one point, this included a large group of guys who happened to be black, which was misconstrued by a couple of the punters as being racist on Smugglers' part, and as some kind-of white-victory by some tosser of a barfly. Dean and Rufus made sure the guys understood why they weren't allowed in after 11 (everyone, unless they've been doing bar-work or a gig that evening, gets treated according to the same rule, so me, Paula, Reuben, Rufus and Dean, for example, have also been refused service by Ewen in similar circumstances), and generally smoothed things over, though a couple of people walked out in sympathy. That clouded that part of the evening only a little, and after reluctantly accepting a couple more drinks from my mates, I knocked it on the head for the night, and left Nick and Melinda with the spare keys so they could make their own way back home later.

2006-12-14T12:23:00.000Z

Tim Hoyte (above) and Dean Adams (below) at Le Pattie Cafe, yesterday.

On Wednesday night, I forgot all about watching Torchwood 'cos I'd been reading the Christmas NME and Radio Times (and listening to the cd that came with the latter), before heading out into town to Le Pattie Cafe. I'd not been there before, and after finding the Robertson Street entrance shut, I went back round into Cambridge Road, through a door and up some stairs to find everyone seated, slightly awkwardly, around table in a more upmarket eaterie than I'm used too. Fortunately, it was full of our friends drinking booze, so I grabbed a pint and sat in the corner with Michael and Caroline. We'd gone along 'cos Dean's recently started a regular slot there, monthly possibly (this was only his second appearance). I said Hello to Christa, Danielle, Leon, Alis, Tim and Helen too, and chatted briefly to Dean before he began playing. I'd missed Hayley's turn by being late out, but she sat back alongside Dean to join in on the opening Mountain Song. Thereafter it was a lot of songs he'd written recently (but, he admitted, hadn't found much time to practice), along with familiar requested Ben Kweller (On My Way) and Violent Femmes (Blister In The Sun) ones, and chatter. Dean plugged next weekend's Venue M gig with Step, which made me realise I should really have brought along the flyers for it that Jonathan had given me down Revolver last week. I also took one photo (above) in an initial attempt to start illustrating this Blog (though, soon, my housemate is moving-out, with her computer, so I dunno how much more Blog-writing I'm gonna get done over the next month or so). Kim, Reuben and their friends made it along in time for Tim's set, which started out with October Friend, took in guest harmonies from Dean on Heaven Is Far From Here, and ended up with lengthy, impressive tracks from Tim's new album (which I've still not yet heard or bought; and he only had one or two copies out with him, for other people). Again, I took just the one photo of Tim's performance. Afterwards, Dean was encouraging Michael down to the Basement for some work, but we still had time for Caroline to get us another drink before everyone started leaving. I took a picture of some Christmas lights, then went down past The Crypt to find Harry being shouted at by some drunk bloke who was accusing him of having nicked his drink down in the Bad Manners gig. Fortunately, Harry had the door-staff looking out for him, so him and his friends didn't need any extra help. Michael passed by on his way, presumably, to the Basement, and said Goodnight, and I headed back home to bed.

2006-12-08T14:44:00.000Z

I'd sorted out a couple of reservations for Carolyn & I to see a showing of the new Throbbing Gristle - Live At The Astoria film in London, a gig that we'd both attended a couple of years ago, with Carrie and Paul. So, last FridayI got the train up to London Bridge during the middle of the afternoon, checked the time of the last trains to Hastings, then made my way across the Underground to meet Carolyn at Victoria. If you ever make this journey, prepare yourself for the changeover between the Jubilee and the Central & District lines at Westminster station - it's like ascending throught the set of Metropolis, all echoing chasms of sprung steel walkways and escalators, really uncanny. Worth a visit in it's own right (I love the London Underground, it's like being in a gigantic adventure playground)! Anyhow, I got to Victoria and had a cheese salad baguette, then met Carolyn when she got off her train, and we got the Circle line all the way back round to Liverpool Street (fortunately Carolyn seems to be getting over her tube-phobia again now). Leaving the station under the shadows of the City, we settled quickly into the nearest pub full of bankers, and had a pint. I chose Greene King IPA, which tastes great back home in places like the Horse & Groom, but up here in London it's cold and antiseptic flavour made me remember that for some reason the majority of pubs and bars in London can't keep and serve a pint of bitter to save their lives. Slightly refreshed, we wove our way through the many Police patrolling the edge of the financial district (dozens of them on foot, on horseback, in cars and vans, hiding round corners and down cul de sacs) and turned down towards Christchurch in Spitalfields. I took a quick photo outside The Gun pub for our message boards' running advent calendar, then we ducked down Princelet Street so that I could show Carolyn some of the most unchanged streets in the area (which we'd first encountered with Lee & Chris Cook one night after one of the Placard Headphone festivals in State 51, off the top of Brick Lane). Once into Brick Lane itself, we decided to find the Brick Lane Gallery, where Kim would be taking part in a group exhibition later in the evening, so we headed up the street, past Truman's Brewery and a building where I'd once attended the book launch for 'K Foundation Burn A Million Quid' once, and discussed the bits of Banksy graffitti scattered around, 'til Carolyn spotted the gallery. We turned around and headed back in the other direction to find the Whictechapel Gallery, where we'd be going later for the Throbbing Gristle film, and bumped into Del, who happened to be up from Hastings, visiting a friend nearby. More co-incidentally, he'd spent the afternoon at the top of Tottenham Court Road, looking at a Banksy installation in some Oxford Street shop up there. Carolyn and I continued onwards, past a couple of guys pushing a supermarket trolley loaded up with the torsos of raw meat from the nearby market, and down into Whitechapel, where we bought a Big Issue and found the gallery easily. After a quick stop-off in the gallery bookshop, we went back the way we'd come to find another pub. I was hoping to visit the Seven Stars, where I'd also been before when I saw the film of 'K Foundation Burn A Million Quid' screened in the basement by their roadie Gimpo, and in fact had spent the hour before the screening upstairs in the pub in the same corner as the K Foundation themselves (there was photos of this moment, not including me, in an old issue of Muzik magazine at the time, though I never picked-up a copy). However, the place had closed down, so we went into The Archers opposite (which was more apt for Carolyn, as she listens to every episode of the Radio 4 soap without fail). The Archers was very cosy, and unpretentious, but I couldn't see any favourable bitters, so I remembered the Gherkin towering over us outside, and had a few pints of Fosters. Carolyn had rescued some bundles of old photographs from All Tomorrow's Parties, Shambolica, and her University days, and we looked at those and chatted until it was getting towards the time for Kim's private-view. Back up at the Brick Lane Gallery we struggled past the photographers, artists and students milling around outside, and pushed our way in. Grabbing a couple of complimentary beers from a bucket, we eased our way around the packed, tiny gallery spaces, trying to find Kim's work, or Kim, amongst the bodies and exhibits. The exhibition, entitled Peace Camp, featured anti-war artworks by dozens of artists (the most familiar name being Wolfgang Tillmans, though Kim had said to me on the phone a few days previously that Gavin Turk had also become involved since he'd emailed me about it), all of whom felt like they must have been squeezed in there with us. Neither the ground level, where we couldn't even crane our heads round to view Kim's painting straight-on, nor the basement, offered much repsite, and we couldn't spot Kim yet, so we decided to leave with our beers and grab a bite to eat. We both bought bagels over the road, filled with huge red slabs of salt-beef, and the hottest yellow mustard I'd ever tasted, and stood outside in the light rain chewing our way through them with helpful swigs from the beer. Rather than go back into the exhibition just yet, we found some kind of bar up on the top corner of Brick Lane, and sat down in there with more lager, and a platter of samosas, bhajis etc with a two-colour chilli dip. The decor of the dimly-lit venue was non-specific multicultural: tapestries celebrating the independence of various countries following the break-up of the USSR were hung alongside cinema hordings for Rocky, fightin for attention with all manner of throws, drapes and candles. We'd really eaten enough bagel already, so we didn't quite get through the platter we'd bought (which we'd ordered more out of politeness than actual hunger), and eventually we decided to head-out to to exhibition again. It was still packed, and we could see some guy performing a rather tuneless version of Auld Lang Syne at the back of the room, but we couldn't see Kim still (it turned out he was down the front at that time, though, and got up himself to perform 'Chicken In A Box' in the end), so we left and strode back down through the early hubbub of the evening to Whitechapel. It was still a little early to go to the film, so we found another busy pub and sat down with more lager and spirits in the large back room. This pub was one which was celebrating Jack The Ripper heritage in it's decor: various poorly-executed illustrations and script told us how "a suspect" and possible "contender for the identity of the Ripper" used to live in the pub, and was later found to have poisoned his wife, and how one of the Ripper's five victims was "believed to have had her last drink here" a few days before being murdered "near the rear of these premises", etc. None of this macabre and rather unconvincing detail seemed to be putting any of the young weekend drinkers off the start of their Friday night-out, but there was at least one bloke staring at us funny, so we were happy to drink-up and move back along to the Whitechapel Gallery. After a couple of minutes of hanging around the foyer, we were directed, along with a few dozen others, to a viewing room near the back of the gallery, which unfortunately smelt of raw sewage (apparently the recent rains had backed the drains up), where we settled ourselves down for the screening of the Throbbing Gristle film. Although I'd really enjoyed the gig itself, I had no clue as to how the subsequent, much-delayed film, would look, for instance it could have been swamped by graphics and cut-ups in post-production for all we knew. It was a pleasure, therefore, to discover that the director had assembled masses of close-up footage of both the performers and the audience from countless cameras, and had edited them tightly into one of the most involving live films either of us had see. It successfully pulled off the trick of making you feel you were there - even though, obviously, we had actually been there, as can be seen in the film by our presence in various cut-aways. It's gonna be a while 'til Mute get the dvd out (part of a 7-disc box-set for 2007), but part of the reason we'd gone this evening was to ascertain how urgently I'd be buying that release: as soon as it's on pre-order then! Afterwards, we both took trips to the loos there (though I didn't hear what Carolyn had done, namely a couple celebrating the end of the film by shagging in a cubicle), then rushed-off so we could get that last train. Aldgate East tube station had closed for the night, so we had to weave our way through the side-streets of Whitechapel in the general direction of Liverpool Street station; once we'd found the main entrance (the Underground entrances being gated by now) we ran for a Circle line train, did the Monument/Bank crossover on foot, then got the Northern line to reach London Bridge, in more than enough time to fit onto the crowded train back to Hastings.
A couple of days later, I finally had enough money, and was in the right place, to make it along to Revolver for one of Dean's gigs (I'd had to miss his last two there, and hadn't made it to many gigs during November at all, in fact). However, I'd been at home online and on the phone for quite a while before I left to go to Revolver, and during that time the odd glass of wine I'd been drinking from the half-bottle of red I'd had leftover from the weekend became the entire remaining contents of the bottle. I got a pint and sat down to chat with Rufus and Dean, before Dean played some songs, and then I had another pint and was talking to Jamie and Rob Dennis, and then I had another one and Rufus was playing and I bought some Christmas cards off Kim, and talked to him about his exhibition and the trip to London, then some other guy was playing and I chatted to Reuben, then I was talking to Jonathan Martin about upcoming gigs, and Rebecca and Nicola said hello, and Dean was playing again, and Kim plonked a large shot of vodka down in front of me, so I downed it, and I took a couple of photos on my camera, and they'd called time at the bar, and I hadn't taken very much in at all! Still, it was nice to be out...

2006-11-09T19:48:00.000Z

Kudos to Regular John for finally getting The Flesh Happening a return gig in Hastings, after a gap of a fair few years (during which time Oliva had sorted almost a whole new band). After downing half a bottle of red wine that I had left over, I went down to The Pig In Paradise to meet Michael and Caroline, and Helen turned up at the same time. As I got to the bar, Oliva, in a neat black suit, ran out from the back room and dragged us all back there to join him, with the rest of the group, and a few of their friends, including Shara (who'd once been out on the Hastings scene continuously for ages - I ended up at Glastonbury '97 once, with her and loads of others - then went away just as quickly). I caught up with her, and The Flesh Happening's guitarist Richard (who I'd met previously out in Brighton for Laura's 30th birthday earlier this year), but mainly gossipped with Helen, Caroline & Michael about various exes and misdemeanours. Oliva dragged us all out and along Robertson Street, singing the 'Happy Days' theme, but The Crypt wasn't open yet, so we had another drink in The Street. Helen regaled us with some left-field anecdotes, and we were met by Kim, Reuben, Lethwyn etc. When The Crypt opened, me, Caroline, Michael and Kim were first down, so we sat off to one side with our pints. Kim had brought a rubber ball with him, which he proceded to throw randomly at the walls of The Crypt, so that it bounced at unpredictable angles off the ceiling, arches and stage (unsuprisingly, he kept losing it, and I'd help scour the dark corners of the floor with him 'til it surfaced). Most of the people from The Street & The Pig made it downstairs to join us, as did Rufus, Marcus, Rebecca & Nicola, Christa, Dean & Danielle, and a whole bunch more. Regular John played first, determined to make a mark by playing sharp and concise: Oliva and Shara (seeing them play for the first time) got themselves very into it with much dancing and head-shaking. It was a shame they were time-constricted from really stretching out with some of their heavy epics too, though. I kept drinking steadily, and was doing quite a lot of flirting, then The Flesh Happening struck up onstage. Oliva was still looking dapper in his suit, with his hair styled in shades of black and red, while the rest of the group played solidly behind him: we stood and recognised loads of the songs from their demos (such as Kamikaze, Hitler & Jesus, Anal Joy - love those titles), and I barely noticed that Oliva was divesting himself gradually of his clothing, until towards the end of the set he was performing in a few strips of black leather or PVC, and fucking his arse with a handy beer-bottle. Possibly 'cos I've known him very well for quite a long time, this didn't strike me as being out of the ordinary behaviour: it was only the next day that I realised it was standard behaviour for him, but something more unusual for The Crypt (even taking into account Rockbitch, who I never went to see). Oliva was looking very sexy by the end of the gig, stripped and covered in sweat, beer and other fluids, but that was just part of the theme of the evening (was it 'cos of the full moon?) as by this point I was away snogging one of my friends, without paying any attention to what the rest of our lot must've been thinking. Eventually, people headed home or to the Brass Monkey: despite wanting to hang out more with the woman I'd been kissing, I knew nothing too much further was gonna happen that night, so I went home too, texted a pass at someone else, and passed-out. Classy.
The next day I had to be up and out early, to get over to Brighton to catch up with Petra and a bunch of our friends, which meant I didn't have time for a bath, so got over there still smelling of The Crypt (I thought of a new word to describe the state of being too old to go down the Crypt, and suffering the day after as a result: Decrypid). Most of the day in Brighton was spent at Petra's new(ish) flat with Mimi, Russell and, later, Carrie, before we headed out in the late afternoon, downhill through a stunning 360-degree surrounding sunset, and via the town centre and North Laine to The George for food. But they'd stopped serving, so we made-do in Grub's instead, before returning to The George for an evening of drinking, as more of our friends (including Michael & James, David, and several others) made it along to join us. We were going along to the Concorde 2 for an all-ages show by The Gossip, but none of the others were up for seeing the support bands (Panther, who no-one knew, and Comonechi, who hadn't impressed the others when they'd seen them sometime before), unfortunately, so we stuck around chatting away in the pub for hours. Eventually, it was getting towards time for The Gossip themselves, so we trailed along to the Marlborough Theatre, where we rendezvoused with Sock, Steph, Harry, Lucy and Rachel (plus more of their friends), who'd been drinking there for Rachel's birthday. The whole crowd of us snaked our way up towards Kemp Town, then down onto the seafront, with a big bright moon above, and countless firework displays (it was Guy Fawkes' Night) in the distance, below the arches, and towards the Concorde 2. I was near the back, and remembering how ghastly the loos in the venue had been last time I'd been there (a Stereolab gig, probably) I hung back and snuck off for a pee. Unsuprisingly, the Concorde 2, when we got in, was rather rammed (The Gossip currently riding a wave of press coverage, radio play, and tv appearances) so we got buffeted around the bar area as Comonechi climaxed their set onstage (I guess they sounded a bit Sonic Youth from that distance, which would've been fine with me). I knew I wouldn't get the chance later, so I said goodbye to Petra then, 'cos I had to get the last train home later (having spent all my money on train fares and drinks already I couldn't stick around and do the first train in on the Monday morning this time). Once I'd grabbed drinks from the bar and gone into the main hall, I'd already lost track of most of our friends, who'd made their way down to the front, so I hung back near the djs on the left of the venue keeping a 5-months pregnant Carrie company. Slightly unexpectedly, one of the Wilkes brothers pushed by with a load of empty glasses at one point - I hadn't realised they were working there as well as selling tickets for the venue's gigs through their Hastings bars - but it wasn't appropriate for Carrie or I to wave in that "We only vaguely know you" way. The Gossip were on after a while, straight into lots of their raw disco-soul songs, which I've been hearing loads of on the radio, tv and at people's flats this year, without actually committing the titles to memory). I'd seen them once at ATP this year, and this time took in more of the fact that, Beth Ditto's overpowering vocals aside, both the drummer woman and bass/guitar man (yes, I'm being lazy and not looking-up their names...) contribute huge blocks of sound and power to every one of The Gossip's songs: it's a real three-person construct. Rachel got her birthday mentioned, someone threw the group a back-scratcher, the venue djs (including, I recognised, Verity from Miss Pain) lit sparklers (which was sweet and apt, but a bit "Look at us!"), and then after about 20 minutes and 5 or 6 songs I had to leave and make my way back up to Brighton Station for that last train. Carolyn had also arranged (before I'd been asked by Petra) to go to the gig with her friends, but there hadn't been a chance of spotting them in the crowd, and my text once inside didn't get answered, so I missed them completely. On the way home I read the new issue of Plan B I'd hurriedly picked-up in North Laine, and I also gave some thought to Camilla, who couldn't be there. Then I remembered that vast panoramic sunset, the moon and the fireworks, and it felt ok in the end.

2006-11-03T20:14:00.000Z

Last Friday I was on my way to London, to see New Order play Wembley Arena. Last time I'd been up there was to see Depeche Mode on their Violator tour (supported by Electribe 101), which was obviously a very long time ago. On that occasion I went on my own, using a ticket that Paul had bought for the wrong night, when our friends from Bexhill College were going the day after (or was it the day before?) - I ended up missing the last train back to Hastings, and ending up in Eastbourne instead in the middle of the night, with £15 to pay a taxi to drive me as far home as it could (Ultimately depositing me at the bottom of Filsham Road in the pouring rain in the early hours...)
This time, Carolyn and Lee had arranged to go up to the gig, and I'd been bought an additional ticket much later on. I took the end of the week off work, and went over to Brighton the evening before the gig, so that I could travel up with Carolyn during the day, whilst Lee would get to Wembley as soon as he could make it after his work in Crawley (or somewhere) had finished. I'd seen New Order twice before, both times at the Reading Festival (in 1993, their final gig before their sabbatical, and in 1998 soon after their comeback, whilst Gillian Gilbert was still in the group). Lee had also been at the '98 gig, and had made it to one or two more of their gigs thereafter (including having backstage-passes to their Move gig at Manchester Cricket Ground, the lucky lad). So Carolyn was the only one of our party to have never seen them play (though she met Barney and Hooky when they DJ'd in Brighton on a recent New Year's Eve), so she was particularly excited, but was also going under the assumption (partly assisted by their Finsbury Park dvd) that their best days were disappearing behind them. On the train up to London that afternoon, she told me also of her phobia about travelling on the London Underground (the result of a panic attack she experienced there several years ago), so when we got to Victoria we were quite cautious about entering the Underground. It was clear she was quite anxious both on the Tube platform, and then on the train itself, but she made it two stops up to Oxford Circus, where we got off to visit the shops on Oxford Street. We went straight into Borders, and on the ground floor I had a flick through a book that's going on my (non-existant) Christmas list: Pet Shop Boys - Catalogue, which is along the same lines (and from the same publishers) as the Factory Records graphics book I got during the summer. [As an aside, the day after the New Order gig, Carolyn and I went (at her friend Sara's invitation) to the private view of an exhibition at Brighton's Phoenix Gallery. The main exhibitor was a guy called Jeff Keen, who evidently makes himself extremely busy with multimedia mash-ups of pulp graphics and imagery, shown in numerous paintings, sculptures, comics and films. However, there were supporting displays from a sculptor called Pete Slight, illustrations from a woman called Lady Lucy - whose work was so familiar I must've seen it in Plan B or somewhere, and a load of reproduced fanzine pages from Stephen Drennan and Jo Hodson. Would it help you place the style of their fanzines if I told you there's a song called 'Letter From Stephen Drennan' on my Avocado Baby lp that I got off Paula? Like I said, this was the private view, and the artists were mostly present (though we declined Sara's offers of introductions, but not the free wine), as were a bunch of zine-scene men and women with bobs, sideburns, hair-slides, blazers and stripey socks. The uniformity of image partly reminded me why I never really bought into the fanzine scene (I genuinely disliked The Yummy Fur!) - and it has to be said that my own zines were atrocious - but I think the main reason could've been that my standards were set at an early age by the high-pop of Pet Shop Boys' music, opinions, design and theatricality, so I was unable to discard the hours spent poring over the 7" sleeve of 'Rent' in favour of a load of felt-pen drawings of cats and breathless reviews of I'm Being Good albums that I'd never hear...] Anyhow, we went up the escalator to check out the Fiction section (where I pulled a rarely-found copy of Iain Sinclair & Dave McKean's 'Slow Chocolate Autopsy' collaboration from the shelf), then went up a further two stories to visit the music-book section on the top floor. This is where I found out that Carolyn's Underground phobia also extended to the use of escalators themselves. I also found some dissing of the Hastings music scene in a book about the Mescaleros (not by Step, or Joe Strummer, of course), and that the index to the recent Rough Trade book from Black Dog Publishing is somewhat lacking (unless a collective decision was made to hide the fact that, originally, Rough Trade continued to release records beyond Galxie 500's ones, even if they were by the likes of Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine and My Jealous God...) Meanwhile, Carolyn was overjoyed by the contents of the Best Of Smash Hits hardback - Stephen 'Tea-Towel' Duffy present and correct - which helped re-focus her on normality again. [Actually, it was almost three years to the day that I'd visited the same Borders, on a mission to pick-up as many stray Fall cds as I'd missed out on over the years, prompted by the recent publishing of Dave Thompsons' 'A User's guide To The Fall' - his follow-up New Order book was there too today. Borders came up trumps that day, both in Oxford Street, Tottenham Court Road, and back in Brighton, but it was outside the former that I encountered a very-harrassed Bobby Gillespie doing some, possible, Christmas shopping.] Back on Oxford Street, we went along to HMV, where I got hold of the brown-vinyl 7" of Mumm-Ra's 'Out Of The Question' single (Carolyn got the pink-vinyl one in Brighton's Western Road HMV the next day, but it still froze at #45 in the Charts that week). As we fought our way along the street we also started to feel very harrassed (though not as harrassed as I got the next day, when I got stuck in North Laine behind a dithering family, and actually pushed them out of my way: Carolyn sensibly then drew us off on a side-street detour before I got thumped or caused anyone else any distress). We made a break into a Subway outlet, and sat upstairs eating dry, meaty baguettes until we felt able to resume our journey. After a brief duck into Virgin, we descended into Tottenham Court Road Underground station, to find our way up to Wembley. A very crowded train took us to Bond Street, but luckily a weird old fellow stood next to us until the first stop, and blessed everyone in the carriage with a large crucifix before he got out in Oxford Circus (not being religious, we just took this as a sign of good-luck). From Bond Street, another train took us northwards, overground after Baker Street (to some relief from Carolyn) and on to Willesden Green. We disembarked to change, and in the distance a truncated arc of bright white light marked the bow of the new Wembley Stadium (the span of the supsended semi-circle was only lit to the midpoint). A following tube-train took us the next few stops to Wembley Park, from which I tried to take us directly to the Arena, but got mislaid by traffic-islands and overpasses (in my defence, the whole area has been regenerated and redesigned since the early 90's), so that we ended up back where we'd started from before we struck on the straight route towards the new Stadium, and the Arena to its right (which looked very different to the long-box of a building I remembered, or possibly mis-remembered). Having worked out where we'd be going to later, we went back down the road towards the Underground station in the early-evening rain, and stopped in a wine-bar/restaurant for a pint of lager as we let ourselves get excited about the next few hours. Once ready, we wandered back up the road to Wembley Arena. A couple of guys in reflective jackets swapped our tickets for wristbands (we were a bit wary at first), but we were then able to walk straight into the building and start exploring. Carolyn sent several texts to Lee, arranging successive rendezvous points as our progress into the building changed: first we visited the merchandise stall (one of them anyway), where we admired the faithfully reproduced artworks (eg. Ceremony, Movement, Blue Monday) on the shirts, without actually buying any. We grabbed warm pints of Carling, and some gruesome long, lukewarm, cigar-flavoured hotdogs (I was coping OK until I bit down onto a chunk of bone-fragment), then got let into the main-arena itself. Straight away, I noticed that the back wall of the arena had been curtained off, probably due to unsold tickets (this was the only date of New Order's short tour that hadn't, it seemed, sold out), though I knew we'd benefit from the sound not echoing back to us a split second later throughout the forthcoming gig. There was a huge red&white Maximo Park banner suspended across the stage, and a hidden DJ (or a recording of one) was playing a good selection of records that you'd probably expect to hear(including 'Trans Europe Express', Hashim's 'Al Naayfish', A Certain Ratio's 'Waterline' and 'Be What You Wanna Be', Simian vs Justice, 'Pacific State') and a fair few I'd never heard. Lee finally caught up with us and we had more pints from the mobile barrel-carriers (I was amazed when one punter actually complained that his Carling tasted off, seeing as it was being carted around on the back of low-paid worker all evening - I think if you visit a major London venue, and almost every worker is either of immigrant origin, you can reasonably assume that there's some wage-exploitation going on). He seemed in a good mood since leaving work that afternoon, and we all chatted and took some photos (though not on my new cameraphone - my first, from a much-needed upgrade - which was switched-off back in Carolyn's flat, awaiting number-transference) until Maximo Park came onstage. My one concession to dressing up that evening had been to make sure I had my black Paul Smith t-shirt (that I'd got from Rob) on: normally I pretend it's 'cos I like Blast First, but tonight I was wearing it in honour of Maximo Park's frontman, who in turn was wearing a full white suit (including hat) that was fitted very tight at the crotch ("I think it was the trousers. They were very tight. You could see everything. Nothing left to the imagination" etc). I'd so-far been fairly indifferent to Maximo Park (filing them under 'You know, Alright'), but tonight really made me re-evaluate them positively, seeing them as a jerky Wedding Present style group (with fans to match) with all the lovelorn humanity and honesty that implies. Comically overwhelmed at the venue (Smith allowed himself a knowing "Hello, Wembley!" early on, 'cos he could), they played all the 'hits', I think, with 'Graffiti' coming early on (Lee, listening out for it, missed it somehow), plus lots of album tracks (I assume) and (definately) new songs, saving a monumental 'Apply Some Pressure' until last. I know it's easy to dismiss Maximo Park as elderly, post-Futureheads bandwagon-jumpers, but there's an ache in their songs that (cf: Wedding Present, Pulp) is the real-deal. Converted! Afterwards, the three of us chatted some more as we surveyed the arena with some concern: we all had standing-tickets, but the floor-area was still quite spacious, and there were certainly blocks of seating all around above us that no tickets had been sold for. Even the getting-there-after-work excuse wasn't covering the fact that the gig was notably undersold: would this therefore turn out to be the last occasion New Order played at a venue this size?
The Maximo Park banner was taken-down, records were played, pints were drunk, and equipment was moved, and gradually the venue filled-out some more (though not anywhere near to capacity), and eventually the lights dimmed and New Order wandered on stage. No backdrops, screens, special lighting (beyond the Arena's own rig) or additional musicians: just the three remaining New Order men and (now full-time) ex-Marion guitarist Phil Cunningham. The gig had been promoted as a Singles concert (in support of last year's compilation album), so we'd not expected much different, but straight-away Barney greeted the crowd with the info that they were gonna be Joy Division for a while, and they were into 'She's Lost Control', 'Shadowplay' (at one time my favourite Joy Division song; an album track of course) and, totally unexpectedly, 'These Days'. Most of the audience were getting it, but things took right off when they followed up with 'Transmission' and 'Love Will Tear us Apart' (the Joy Division songs that even those who don't know Joy Division have heard), and then (to Carolyn's pleasure) 'Atmosphere'. That opening twenty-or-so minutes already made the whole trip worthwhile: New Order then did the honourable and right thing of stating their intention of getting back up-to-date, and playing loads of recent (non-single, undersold) songs from their most recent (admittedly below-par) album, starting with the best (and title) track 'Waiting For The Siren's Call'. Despite a chime through 'Ceremony', this part of the gig ('Hey Joe', 'Crystal') seemed to underwhelm Lee (who Carolyn & I had become a few people seperated from in all the dancing), and the next thing we knew she'd had a text from him saying that he wasn't enjoying New Order's set at all, and had gone back to Brighton. This was really disappointing, but then neither of us had been working that day (and Lee's boss had, wrongly, been texting him work-related requests out-of-hours), so I'm sure he just took the decision he felt most-comfortable with by heading home (or, rather, the home he's staying in whilst his own room is redecorated..) Personally, I was loving-it, and sang all the way through 'Regret' (I may have got some words wrong, but not as many as Barney did), and then they slowed down for 'Guilt Is A Useless Emotion' and we both needed a piss and another beer. Re-entering the arena, New Order had started-up on 'Bizarre Love Triangle', and this was when they finally honoured the script on the advertising and hit a seam of classic singles ('Temptation', 'The Perfect Kiss' segueing into 'Blue Monday'). What we were really enjoying was the sheer (after all this time) raggedness of New Order, as sequences from one song got badly-transposed over others, cues were missed, and tracks rattled-on until someone thought about pressing Pause. After 25 years of being New Order (and despite the longstanding use of backing-tapes, whether as rhythm/sequence tracks, or to carry the backing-vocals) there's no slickness involved in their performance, just a mass of verbal 'OK's?' to one another, nods and overlaps. A long call for an encore ensued after those songs (I was doubtful that we'd even get one, remembering their on/off reticence to the form of encoring), until eventually the group returned. Barney explained that they'd spent that time trying to work out what to play next, then (oh yes!) he picked-up a melodica (I like to think he only packed it for the following 16-bars) and (giving the game-away as he positioned his fingers to find the right notes) they went into a heroic 'Love Vigilantes' ("A pro-war song", according to Barney). 'Turn' (second-best song from their last album) followed ("I know it's a new song, but be more enthusiastic, it's a fucking good song" Barney exclaimed, rightfully), then, finally, the (very 90's/House) re-jigged 'True Faith'.
Bootleg T-shirt sellers, crowded tube-trains, end-of-day pasties and pizza-slices from Victoria, fast-trains back to Hove. Even seeing a drunk lad jump on top of the bonnet of a speeding taxi in an idiotic attempt to hail it (reassuringly, we also witnessed the inter-cab emergency procedure come successfully into effect, whereby a taxi in trouble bring all the cabs in the area zooming down to help-out), failed to shake our benevolence towards everything, post-gig. Though Lee hadn't ultimately enjoyed himself, Carolyn & I were both happy that (studio-recordings notwithstanding) New Order still had enough vital-spark left to make going to future gigs a promising prospect. However many years away that might be.

2006-10-26T10:34:00.000Z

It was frustrating having to work last Saturday, 'cos Rumiko Jr were playing a 'secret' afternoon gig in the town centre. I'd been left in charge of the shop where I work (in Bexhill) throughout the week, and was thinking that I might give myself a reward by closing it early on the Saturday afternoon and sodding off back to Hastings, but then the manager of the shop decided to cut short his signed-off period and come back to work after all, the swine. What I was missing out on was the opening of the new Source BMX shop in Queens Road (relocated from St Leonards Road in Bexhill), where Rumiko set up on the roof and played a fairly impromptu set to the Priory Meadow shoppers over the road. I spent the afternoon at work wondering if they'd been arrested, as the group's expectation was that they'd have the plugs pulled, but when I got off the train back in Hastings later in the afternoon Marcus drove past and was able to fill me in briefly on how succesful the gig had gone. As I passed through the shopping centre itself, I met Helen, Sally and Jo, who also told me what a good event it had been, as did Reuben when we caught up with him near his flat. It'd been a sunny afternoon, but in the distance over the cliffs I'd seen a mountainous cloud approaching out of the clear sky. I went home and cooked some foodas some flashes in the distance indicated a storm approaching. When it came, the storm hit hard, hurling lumps of ice out of the sky and onto the Old Town, sending the kids who'd been hanging out in the car parks and the chessboard scattering for safety, as booms of thunder physically shook the floors and walls of our old house. The storm circled round twice, but then subsided, and I settled in for the evening with some poor-tasting beer (Corona - possibly the same people who made them soft drinks in the 70's from the flavour of it: in fact it may just have been Corona Limeade that had been fermenting since 1978) and watched an old Doctor Who video that I'd got in the post (The Daleks - apparently 'Remastered', which again made me wonder how poor the condition of the tapes for the previous vhs release must've been) 'cos it was a few hours until the Brass Monkey was gonna be opening. Rob popped by with a friend who was interested in moving in to the house, so I was relieved to get that a bit sorted as our housemate situation been bothering me most of the week. When it got closer to 11pm I started heading-out, and bumped into Sally again outside the Dragon, who told me that the Monkey had been closed. I nipped back indoors and received a text from Caroline, saying that the place had been flooded in the storms earlier, but that they'd got it open again, so I went out and picked up Sally, Lethwyn, Reuben etc from the bar, and we went on into town. I said hello to the Regular John boys in the Monkey (it was Pete's birthday the next day, and Matt's a couple of days after) and stood up to watch Cloudesley Shovell (John, Louis and Bill) play a heavy and intricate set of intertwining early-prog riffs - I think this was the first time I'd seen them doing their own material, rather than the covers-based sets they'd started out doing at Smugglers etc. I found space to sit down next to Michael and Caroline, who advised me not to put my coat on the floor, as up until the doors had opened, the floor had been covered in raw sewage: in fact, the smell of scented-disenfectant was still heavy in the room. Kim sat with us for a bit, until Rumiko hit the stage for their second gig of the day, whereupon he went up to dance, and somehow seemed to generate a breakdance-influenced moshpit during their performance - the first moshpit I've seen at a Rumiko gig (as opposed to people just dancing), which did include a lot of the skaters & BMXers who'd have been watching them on the Source's roof earlier. For both the band and the audience, it seemed that the high of the afternoon's gig was carrying over into the night's set, so the band played energetically and the audience went for it in kind. I had a chat to Tim Hoyte, Jamie and various other people while we waited for Regular John's headline slot, but once again I found that by the time they were playing, I'd rendered myself incapable of much other than some dancing about to them: I think my head was just receiving the message "Yay! Noisy Rock Band!" without much else sinking in - not that this mattered much for a Saturday night. I must've picked up on them introducing a song as their last one though, 'cos I took that as a cue to slip off home, sparing myself the physical difficulty of having to make my mouth work to say goodbye to people.
After a quiet couple of days, I went down Revolver on the Tuesday evening to see Dean play. It was a more relaxed night than the last few sessions there: I sat with Dean and Marcus, who were still enthused about Saturday's rooftop gig, where we were joined by Steph and Alis, and then Rufus. Dean and Marcus played the first set, and Kim appeared from behind a wall to sit near us all. Sooner or later, I'm gonna have to get my notebook out at one of Dean's Revolver sessions, 'cos I was even more aware that evening of just how many new songs he's playing at the moment (it feels like there's at least a dozen more than are even on the unreleased current album). I hit a bit of a zone of being unable to communicate, as I went through a temporary alcohol-induced torpor, which may have looked a bit rude to people like Chuckie who came by to say hello. Fortunately, this began to lift while Rufus played a strong set (or maybe it was the goodness of the lingering aura of Jackie Wilson), and by the time Dean and Marcus struggled back onto their chairs for a second set (it was getting quite late by this point) I was cheery again. Reuben had been texting, as he was down the Gritti Palace at the last of Mr Twangy's open-mike nights (which are coming to a halt there because the Gritti is giving up and closing next Tuesday night on Hallowe'en), and Kim also asked if I was gonna go along there with him after, but I'd never been to any of the previous Twangy nights, so I didn't feel it necessary to mark it's passing. Besides, I was very tired by now, so I took myself off home, as usual.
Then last night (Wednesday) Alfie had come over to Hastings again for a gig at The Street, and as he'd felt a bit miffed that very few of us had made it over to his recent Brighton gig, I thought I might as well pop along and say Hi. Leicestere Ben and Simon Shaw were Alfie's accomplices for the vening, and Robert had come over with them. I got a drink from Richard at the bar, and sat down near the back with Dean and Danielle. We chatted briefly with Ben and Alfie before they started playing, and between songs I caught up on a bit more chat with Dean (who was recovering from last night by sticking to soft drinks) and Danielle. Alfie's songs were sounding stronger than I'd heard them before, and the balance between him, Ben and Simon was solid, so it was all going down well with the people who'd come along to see him (Ewen from the Smugs, musicians like Andy Warren and Colin Gibson, and some Brighton visitors). I texted a few friends, and during the band's break Reuben, Muz and Richard all turned up and joined us. We chatted about local music stuff (the new Mumm-ra single, pub-tussles with John Martyn in the 70's, forthcoming Indie Stu promotions, all that kind of thing), and Dean and Danielle chose an early night. Alfie's band played another energetic second set, with a lot of covers chucked in amongst Alfie's songs (some of which were so new he'd not played them publicly with Ben and Simon before, though they'd spent the past few days recording them successfully in a newly converted barn on the farm), and afterwards they all looked likely to be going down to Smugglers. I didn't have the money to do this (though I didn't, at least, have to work the next day, as I'd got a few days holiday from work), so I had a quick catch-up with Jonathan Martin, then strolled home again.

2006-10-20T20:30:00.000Z

This week's been quiet, but last week was Hastings Week, which meant there was stuff going on out & about whether we were expecting to find it or not.
The Tuesday visit to Revolver was planned, though, as it was Dean's usual session. This time he had Pablo on the pedal steel accompanying on all his songs, which made a special change. Carolyn had come over to visit everyone in Hastings, in the run up to Saturday's Bonfire Parade and fireworks, so she came along with Kirsty and me. Michael and Caroline were already there, along with Angie and her dad (Duncan made it too, eventually), but we were a little late, and Revolver was very busy, so we couldn't sit too near them. Hayley was playing too, which was another treat for the evening, and she was the only one of the night's performers to hush the whole room into full pin-drop attention. Both Rufus and Arthur repeated their appearances from the previous session there too, so there was a distinct spread of styles and voices within the singer-songwriter framework of the evening. Jamie was out, but didn't seem in any hurry to draw us into conversation about whether he was going to move into our house, so Kirsty got to work on trying to persuade Reuben instead. He looked tempted, but that may have been a combination of alcohol and glamour (Kirsty had spent the day off work dressing-up at home for her own entertainment, and was better turned out than even Reuben)! Kim sat down with us for a while, and was enjoying himself, but he eventually started throwing paper darts to grab our attention, so I had to do one of my ineffectual Paddington Bear 'hard stares' at him. I'd been concentrating a fair bit on watching how Paul operated the pedal steel as he added his chimes and glissandos to Dean's songs, but after a while the drink was taking over, and I just started gabbling on to my friends instead. Richard turned up too, and joined Kim, Jamie and Reuben on the nearby sofa, as they formed a posse to continue the evening down at Harpers. Me and my two companions decided to decline, and politely made our way home after the music had finished, where Kirsty ran off upstairs to catch up with Ben, and Carolyn and I went online to arrange her Myspace page, and one for the cats too. [nb: It's my hope that Luke & Leia's Myspace page will prove very popular - they've got more 'friends' than me already - and launch a new Pet-Myspace phenomenon. Animals take control!]
Wednesday, Carolyn came back over after visiting her family (and I'd been to see mine too), so we could both go down to Smugglers where Helen was starting to celebrate her birthday (she'd also have a party later in the week). We'd all assumed that there would be no live music that night, and that we could all get raucously drunk playing pool and putting nonsense on the jukebox, but it turned out that Tom Palmer had booked a gig for the night, one of his occasional visits back up from Cornwall, so we had to be a little more subdued than we'd intended (out of respect not only to the performer, but also to Ewen and some of the regulars who'd come down specially to see Tom play). His songs may be rather earnest, but his demeanour is anything but, so at least we were all being entertained by his boozed-up banter and anecdotes, and some of the covers he dropped in occasionally, such as 'Solid Air', hit the spot fine. Helen was out with Lisa and Christa, and of course Marcus, Caroline, Rufus, Dean et al were also along for some fun. We were trying to keep a bit of a lid on our behaviour, and for a moment were gonna head off to The Street to let rip, but then we did all get quite pissed after a time, and once Helen's birthday cake (a fabulous pink handbag-shaped slab of sponge and thick icing, with loads of specifically-flavoured icing lipsticks arranged around it) was brought out and consumed, any ideas about going on from Smugglers went out the window, and it all got a bit knockabout. Matt Jukes turned up later to hang out too, and the birthday lady was getting very kissy with everyone by then, so I think she had a good night overall. I don't really remember Carolyn and I leaving, but we got back safely to the Old Town nonetheless.
Thursday was supposed to be a bit more laid-back: Carolyn again spent a day with family and friends in Bexhill, and came to visit us in the evening, where we decided to go out to the FILO for a quick drink. I'd completely failed to pick-up on the fact that there was a party happening all down Courthouse Street that evening though, and it wasn't until we got past the High Street launderette and found a huge crowd of revellers, an Elvis impersonator, Sambalanco, and a bunch of disparate friends (including Billy and his mates, and Ludivine and hers) that we remembered it was Hastings Week now. I made a few excuses and headed on up to the FILO, where it turned out that there was gonna be live music, and it was the first day of their Beer Festival, so the place was rammed. Carolyn and I got beers from the back garden (we'd return again later in the week several times, including after the Saturday fireworks with Marcus) and stationed ourselves in the pub, near to the toilets, in order to hear whoever was going to be playing. We couldn't actually see over the crowd's heads to the makeshift stage area by the windows, and the occasional drum roll or flurry of trumpet indicated that either we were gonna have live jazz, or that the FILO had hired some avant-garde jazz improv which had already begun. In actual fact, the music that night turned out to be from Blair and his group (including Russel on drums, Jo on organ, and, I think, Sambalanco's Julian on hand-drums, plus other musicians I didn't recognise). Many other Sambalanco participants had flooded the pub, including Adrian Davies (one of many Hastings friends who'd joined us at University in Hertfordshire a decade ago, along with Nick Blewitt, who I'd also bumped into in the FILO a few days previously), and Leigh, who I'd not seen since I was actually at University, and therefore didn't recognise, even when Carolyn said "Isn't that Leigh?" Good to catch up with these people so randomly though. Step turned up looking for his mate, but the pub was so busy that Mike the landlord was having to close the doors, so as Step couldn't find who he was looking for he joined us lot to watch Blair and co hit their stride with some expertly played funk, soul, latin and even hip-hop grooves. Linda King could be seen up on a chair dancing away, with her paintings that hang on the FILO's walls in the background, which was a neat confluence. Billy and his mate could be seen hanging in through the front windows before they could get into the pub, heads bobbing away like some beatnik version of Statler and Waldorf. The single drink that Carolyn and I had come out for inevitably turned into many more pints as we chatted away about music and everything else with Step, Leigh and anyone, and it took a bit of an effort to finally break away from Blair's second set and get back to my place, where we then cracked onto the bottles of wine we'd stashed away for a quiet evening's drinking at home. Needless to say, the following day's hangovers were cracking. And we had Helen's party to go to! And fireworks the day after! Our poor addled brains.

2006-10-06T19:18:00.000Z

Dean's birthday bash down Smugglers last Friday could also be viewed as the last great night of Summer; such was the warmth of the night, and high turnout of friends. I got along to the pub about half-eight, said Hi to Dean & Danielle, got a drink, and jumped up over Jonathan Martin's table and onto the pool table, as Regular John started tuning up - loudly. Caroline and Marcus joined me up there, with Rufus and Joe sitting beneath us, as the John played. Their new songs are excellent: relentless monolithic riffs, somewhere between Black Sabbath (my guess) and Spacemen 3 (Marcus'). The power and lights blew during one of Bonj's songs. Ewen plugged everything back in down in the cellar, the band started up the song again, and everything blew in exactly the same place. Then a third time... it was suprising that Bonj didn't just smash the bar up, Beserker-style. Something got fixed then, and we finally got to hear the set played as intended: very awesomely. The power held for the duration of the night after that (at least, while I was around). The pub was really filling up, not just with the usual Smugglers-music crowd, but people like Nat & Bill from Flying Marrows, various former Toyskin bods, Alena, etc. Once Michael made it over from his works-do, Rumiko were able to play, letting Deano get his performance part of the evening over early - as planned, of course, as he was already on the slide. Lisa, Helen and Christa arrived outside (where there were dozens of our lot massing in the balmy evening), and though Lisa and Christa popped in to get to the bar, Helen stayed outside watching through the windows. I tried to tell this to Caroline, over the noise of a highly-amped Rumiko Jr rocker. "Helen's outside." "What?" "Helen's Outside!" "What?!" I decided to try sign language; pointed outside, then used the fingers of both hands to make the shapes H, E, L, E and N. Caroline nodded, but when the song finished asked me "What were you saying about an alien?" At some point, on one of a few trips to the loos, I waited 'til there was a free urinal, undid my trousers, but was immediately disturbed by the guy who'd just finished there pounding his fists against the wall behind me. "Oh, sorry to disturb you mate," he said "But I'm really ANGRY this evening, things are FUCKING PISSING ME OFF!" At the point Reuben came in and struck up conversation with me too, all of which put me off going for a piss, so I made an excuse and went into the (apparently broken) cubicle instead for some privacy. Reuben asked me very specifically to use a particular phrase about him in the context of this blog entry, but I forgot what it was almost straight after. I think it was something to do with his legs, though. Sorry Reu! Tara came by with Karen and some others, they were passing through on their way to George Street. Tara (now out of her leg-cast) asked me if I'd compere Other Words the following week, and being a bit drunk I said Yes, without really taking into account that I'd be bricking it when the evening came around. They'd lost track of Karen, so I was instructed to tell her when I saw her that they'd meet her in the Old Town. My evening got unravelled enough that when I did finally bump into Karen outside, and attempt to pass on Tara's message, I found that it was now several hours later, and Karen had in fact already gone into the Old Town, spent the evening with them, and the whole lot of them had just returned to Smugglers at that very moment. Ewen had given Dean a polystyrene crate that held six large foil-wrapped bottles, which I took to be champagne, but turned out to be large Kronenbergs - probably more of a result for Deano and the various people he passed them around to. A visiting group from Italy, The Small Jackets, were playing: all skinny, sweaty bare torsos, tattooes up their arms, hair and bandanas, the whole Motley Crue/GnR thing. They were very (Italian) metal, and the Regular John/Gorilla axis were loving it. Some of our less-metal friends weren't, though, and took the lateness of the hour as a cue to head off home. I carried on a while longer, as Leicester's Ambrose Tompkins had driven down, and arrived late in order to play too (reciprocating Rumiko's participation in their drummer Ben's birthday gig in Leicester over the summer). They sounded fun to me, but I'd reached a stage at which everything was fun (passing glasses to the bar - hey, that's fun!), so had switched any musical perception part of my brain off, never mind! I just vaguely recollect rushing from outside, to bar, to pool table, to toilets, to wherever, bumping into waves of friends (Wookie, Katherine, Del etc), and eventually making very lengthy goodbyes to the mass of people outside Smugglers, before zooming off home. I don't expect anyone else to be able to fill in the blanks here for me. Go, Deano.

2006-09-29T06:06:00.000Z

A quick post, before we reach Deano's birthday gig at Smugglers tonight. I saw him on Tuesday, down at Revolver for his regular fortnightly session, and he was in good form. As a result of him turning 30 this week, he's been thinking about what sort of stresses he can put his body through as he gets older, and is attempting to have at least some regularity to both his excercise and his drinking time. However this manifests itself over the forthcoming months, it meant that he was very focussed on the evening's gig. I didn't actually get down Revolver until well into the initial set that he and Marcus were playing, the latter keeping up admirably with Dean's on-the-spot decisions about which song to play next, despite pranging his top string with little effort. I sat with Kim, who was also particularly cheery that evening, and Dean and Marcus soon finished their tunes and joined us. Despite some current problems around (not within) the band, both were on chatty behaviour, debating the pros and cons of aspects of gigging, labels, the internet etc with us (or, rather, with me, as Kim seemed more concerned with interjecting random comments and compliments). A guy I'd not met before, who I think was called Arthur, then played some songs which were fine but downtempo and sonorous. He seemed to be having a fun evening out with the crowd he was with (various local photographer types etc), so it wasn't like the evening suddenly got all serious or anything, though. Marcus played a few tunes, including Lemonheads' 'It's A Shame About Ray' (the band had been a talking point this week, on occasion of their new album coming out); then Rufus turned up and fitted a few of his own songs in too. There was quite a few people around by this point, including (amongst their various friends) Lethwyn, Reuben, Ollie, Step, and Rob Dennis; all spaced out around the bar in different groups. Tim of Revolver was having a fine time, and so there was no hurry for Dean & Marcus to rush their second set, after so many others had performed already. Rufus sat with Kim and I, while we listened to the pair rattle through a whole bunch of new and newer songs of Dean's, with Marcus embellishing both the ones he's played on with Rumiko, and the ones he'd apparently not turned his hand to before, with flowing and circling lines on his guitar. I stuck around for a bit of a chat to everyone afterwards, but made my way off before the bar shut, and found Rebecca and some of her friends outside the Dragon (itself just closing up). We had a short, slightly rushed and drunk, chat about the Cinema, but her lot were keen to get to Revolver as I'd told them it was still open, so I said goodbye and continued my research into films I'd like to show there back online indoors, before sending my conclusion via text and turning in for the night.

2006-09-21T18:10:00.000Z

After being collected from work by Carolyn on Saturday afternoon, we went back to Hastings, and bumped into Kim and his wife Ann outside St Mary In The Castle, and they invited us to the private view of the new group show there (in the SOCA Gallery) that Kim is in. The two of us went back to mine for a dinner of chips, then went back out towards St Mary's again, 'cos I'd picked up tickets the day before for Billy Childish & the Chatham Singers there that evening. We met Maya on the way, and once inside managed to catch up with Reuben, Tim & Liam and their friends; Tim Hoyte; Richard Evans & Sally; and Sally & her friend. We got drinks (bottles of sweet cider, for a change: I don't know why) and sat at the back and chatted, whilst the venue filled-up (it was a strong turn-out), and the group and promoters (Don't Feed The Poets' John and Justin, on behalf of the Coastal Currents festival that was running all across the town) got things set-up. I'd not been sure what form The Chatham Singers would take (and half-expected them to have some sort of multiple-voiced choir thing going on), but onstage was just a small drum-kit, a couple of guitars and amps, and microphones by each. Childish, still very whiskered, came on and sat down on the stage front, and made his hellos. He was a lot more garralous and self-deprecating than I was expecting, and although the evening was nominally meant to have a poetry-half, followed by a musical-half, the whole evening's performance was a lot more mixed. Childish did concentrate mainly on poetry, and a few anecdotes, in the first set, but on several occasions (partly 'cos his speaking-voice began drying up and cracking) he launched into several acapella songs (mostly traditional ones) in order to stretch his throat again. Having read a handful of his poetry and prose books, I found that much of the material he was performing was quite warm (in poems dedicated to his wife, child etc, or about his artwork), whilst I was prepared for the subject matter of some of the harsher poems (that largely dealt with his own childhood). When he took a halftime break I found, from chatting to my friends, that thought they were all enjoying the evening to some extent, a few of them were finding it very depressing, which suprised me. Regardless, I advised them to stick around for the second half: correctly, as it turned out that The Chatham Singers were indeed another 3-piece group (in similar vein to all those other 3-piece groups of Billy Childish's), with him and his wife on electric guitars, and a guy on tiny-drumkit and percussion duties (with all three on vocals). The group's mics and guitars were all fed back into their vintage (or, rather, ancient) amps, without any further amplification, which meant that, from the back, we had to strain a bit to pick out what was occurring at some points vocally, but they were still able to generate a trebly storm of jagged electric blues. Unfortunately, the gear was so elderly, it began packing-up during the set, and eventually Childish's own amp expired, much to his chagrin. He extended the evening further by singing a few songs unaccompanied (including Leadbelly's 'In The Pines' aka 'Where Did You Sleep Last Night?', and, as a pleasant suprise, his own 'You Make Me Die'), and then piecing together various combinations of the group through the remaining amp for a few more songs (Leadbelly's 'Bourgeois Town' made an appearance here - which I knew from The Fall's version - not, I assume, in reference to Hastings, although the round tables and bottles of wine in St Mary's were rather more highbrow that Childish's bands' usual gig-surroundings). I had a whale of a time, as did most of Reuben's lot, who were eagerly buying up what records they could from the group during the evening, chatting to the band and getting them autographed; though Rockabilly Liam predictably had some criticism of the way they'd treated their gear! Afterwards, Carolyn and I headed down to Smugglers (Reuben and Liam; Linda King et al, followed on when they were done at St Mary's) for the night's Rumiko Jr gig. I'd been entertaining thoughts of dragging Childish etc along to the Smugs to see Rumiko, partly 'cos I thought they might enjoy them, and partly 'cos I'd love to see them play the pub themselves, but Rumiko were playing so raggedly when we arrived that I was actually pleased I didn't. The band were fairly unfocussed partly 'cos they were being forced to play with the unusual line-up of just Dean, Rufus (who didn't look like he'd slept for several days) and Marcus, plus fall-back teenage drummer Jimmy pounding along behind them. Soph, Steph and Harry had all turned up, which was great, and the John's Matt was at the bar with his girlfriend: we said Hi to them, and to Reuben's mum, and Tom, before plonking ourselves up on the pool table to watch. We'd timed it to arrive just before Rumiko's mid-set break, so got a chance to catch up with everyone then, and fill people in about the St Mary's performance (once again, I'd found myself wishing that it was a little easier to coax my friends out to some of the more unusual events that have gone on over this summer). Caroline, Lisa, Helen and Christa all turned up; as did Jonathan Martin; Step and his partner; Richard Hart; Simon Bush; Jonny Russell, and many others. Rumiko got it together during their second set, with the guitars finally ringing through loudly and in tune, and Jimmy really making a strenuous but successful effort to force himself through playing all Bill's rolls and fills, often on cue from Rufus (the stress was showing on the lad's face, but he didn't slip-up, well, only once, by finishing a song slightly too soon, but they picked it up again). Rumiko's final song was that (title not known) rock-out with the rapid angular riffs, and it was great to see Gary at the bar, Linda and her friends, Reuben and everyone else grinning and throwing air-guitar shapes with their hands and arms during it. The band had pulled the gig off fantastically well by the end, and everyone was all smiles, hugs, kisses and free Disastronaut T-shirts afterwards. A lot of them, having only been out since about 10pm, were heading down to Brass Monkey to catch Cloudesley Shovell (Bill, John and Louis' group) playing, but as Carolyn and I had been mixing our drinks since the early evening, we left them to it and reeled back to the Old Town instead.
Carolyn reciprocated the hosting on the Tuesday after, when I went over to Brighton after work for Spirit Of Gravity, as usual at the Marlborough Theatre. I found her in the downstairs bar, and we were soon joined by Lee (who was contributing some vocals to one of the acts that night). More members of the collective were gradually arriving, including Geoff, who popped his head round the door of the Theatre Bar to hand me a copy of his new Elmaes 7" as promised - ta! When it was performance time, the three of us went upstairs: Carolyn & I seating ourselves, and Lee organising when he was going to perform, when to take care of the door, etc. First act on was This Sound Bureaucracy: basically the Malevich duo of Nick and Tony, with guest spoken-word vocalists from the Spirit Of Gravity collective. They started their set with Nick reading aloud their Manifesto Of Audience Appreciation Of Live Music (handily also photocopied onto A4 and left on each table, along with a pair of dice, the latter for use with the Audience Participation Event instructions on the reverse of the Manifesto) to Tony's sound-generation. Following that, Nick strapped a couple of electronic-manipulation boxes (I didn't recognise their identity or purpose) to his torso, and the first of the four guests stepped up to read into the mic. I'm not sure of the identity of the first two vocalists (though one of them would have been Dan Powell, according to the thank-you's afterwards), the second of whom came across more clearly as he decided to fit his poem about Art Galleries in with the rhythm of the loops that were being generated. Lee came on third, in curly black wig (not quite an afro wig, thankfully) and dark glasses, in order to read his adaptation of a Britney Spears online poetry posting about her experience of motherhood, which Lee had altered by the frequent addition of the words "Emperor Penguin". Geoff was the final vocalist, with an "I am Brian Eno" poem, which may have been pre-planned, but may equally have been improvised after the arrival of a couple who'd excitedly misread the Evening Argus' billing for Leo Abrahams that evening ('Featuring Brian Eno and David Holmes collaborator Leo Abrahams, and guests') as indicating a gig by Eno himself. Inevitably, that couple left before the end of the evening, during the set of solo electric guitar pieces and songs by Fupper. A shame, as they would probably have enjoyed much of Leo Abrahams' concluding appearance: as his more ambient pieces (generated with chiming, fluid guitar playing, looped with pedals and laptop) were straight out of the Eno, and associated, canon. These pieces were superb, but very, very soporific, though preferable to Abrahams' more dynamic pieces, which edged closed to Robert Fripp or Mike Oldfield territories. I still enjoyed both his set, and Fupper's rawer one, and it was a nice suprise also when Chris Cook (heavily featured on the Elmaes 7", as it turned out) arrived unexpectedly, on a flying visit from London, but we were finding it too easy to nod-off during the heavy ambient moments of Leo Abrahams (incidentally, is there no ventilation upstairs in the Marlborough? It's oppressive, but so relaxing..), and popped back downstairs for one more drink (first in the main bar, then back into the Theatre Bar). Turns out we'd decided on that move within the last few minutes of Abrahams' set, 'cos we then witnessed him, and most of the collective, filing out of the buildig in fairly quick succession. Lee knew we'd gone for another drink, though, and so joined us, before we all got the night bus back into Hove.
Ok, so I've declined to open the bills that came from British Telecom and British Gas this week: but I've still managed, along with Carolyn, to scrape through a major poetry/blues gig, a rocking pub gig, an art exhibition private view (St Mary's with Kim and Ann, Sunday afternoon), a pub lunch (The Pig, Sunday, during which I fielded many phone calls and texts as I tried to help Jeffrey find door-staff for the Air Guitar championships that night over in Brighton at the Concorde 2), an evening's social drinking (The FILO with Caroline, Sunday) and a night of experimental music in Brighton, all on the most minumum of wages. It ain't the way you do it, it's what you do, etc.

2006-09-16T06:05:00.000Z

Paula was in town last weekend, so on Saturday evening I went along to the Gritti Palace to catch up with her and Caroline. Reuben and Rob were djing there: Reu had just returned from Brighton with the vinyl Nuggets reissue and the Mumm-Ra ep on 10" (the old and the new, but a huge amount of learning in between), and was leaning heavily on the former for the evening. The Gritti was quite busy though, and Caroline and Paula were sitting on an outdoor table on the East side, which was pretty cold really. After a quick pint and chat, we decided to go somewhere warm, and headed along to sit in the back room of The Pig. Bumped into Alena and (I think his name is) Adam at the bar, turned out she's playing in SouthernWood now, and has been for a few years (my genuinely suprised exclamation of "Are they still going?" could've been more tactful). After a couple more pints, we went around to the Brass Monkey, where Gorilla were windmilling and scissor-kicking their way through their power-rock onstage. Almost anyone and everyone had turned up at the Monkey for the evening, so much so that it wouldn't do me much good to try and remember exactly who I chatted to: but I can still recall speaking to Jamie, Christa, Alis & Lucy. I know there were dozens more friends about, but I reached overload of socialising and drinking at some point, and all my faculties began to leak away. Caroline and Paula only stayed for one drink during Gorilla, before they headed back to St Leonards, so the rest of my night gradually blurred as I carried on drinking, waiting for Regular John to come onstage. Which they eventually did some time far past 1am: and it had got to the point that I was standing watching them play a loud, heavy and thrilling set, with the knowledge in the back of my mind that I wasn't really taking anything in, and was struggling to remember where I was, who I was with, or that I was supposed to be awake. The John did do an amped-up Hyeshin, and many more tracks I know (and, if I'd been a bit more sober would've been able to put titles to the day after), as well as, apparently, dropping in the odd unplayed track from the newly recorded album. Somehow I managed to keep drinking beyond the point at which they'd finished their set, though I'm not sure how long for, and I eventually wound-up home abround 2:30, I think.
After she'd spent a couple of days fulfilling various family commitments, I got a text from Paula again, and caught up with her on Tuesday evening up at the FILO. She was a lot more upbeat than she had been on Saturday (blame the fatigue of travel), and we had a much fuller recap on our, and our friends, recent exploits. After a few drinks it was time to go down to Revolver, where Deano and Jim were setting up to play. Dean was cheery and chatty, as he seems to be focussed and on the up again, and we were soon joined by Kim, Michael and Caroline. Dean & Jim played their first, more countrified set, and the bar filled up with friends and fools. I had a quick chat with Matt, just prior to him and Dean collaborating on an excellent set of Regular John songs, which just worked really well (I didn't ask if they'd rehearsed or if it was unplanned, but they gelled). During Dean & Jim's more upbeat second set I was starting to get a bit more drunk, and slightly edgy about one or two punters around our table who I don't have much trust in, though I'd exclude Jonathan Martin, Richard Hart etc from that comment, of course. Caroline and Michael had organised a cab back to St Leonards, but Paula was thinking of going on to Harpers, so opted to stick around with the rest of us in Revolver for a bit longer. Not wishing to do Harpers myself, I impressed on her that she should ring my mobile if she got stuck for somewhere to crash later (not that I ever hear it during the night once I've got home and passed-out): then I did the rounds of saying my goodbyes, had a quick chat with Rebecca about films and the Electric Palace, and slipped away.

2006-08-31T19:29:00.000Z

Last weekend the Jour De Fete events happened at the De La Warr Pavilion, so partly to prepare for them I went into the De La Warr during my lunch hour on the Saturday. Took a wander around Jeremy Deller's exhibits in the first Gallery (without stopping to view the various filmworks included), then headed upstairs to observe Mark Anstee scribbling away on a large slope constructed in the upper Gallery. A trip up the next flight of stairs revealed a television screen inset into the wall, from which a camera positioned at the top of the slope transmitted a live feed of Anstee at work. From there, I went onto the roof of the Pavilion, for the first time, and took in the view: which included some of the Bexhill Bow-Wow event that was warming-up down below. A group called Johnny & The Wags, who specialised in dog-themed songs (at least for the afternoon), were on the bandstand performing I Wanna Be Your Dog in a slow-country style, and I rather liked them. Then I went down the far staircase back into the building, through the restaurant and bar, past Mark Anstee again, and down to the ground floor shop, where I browsed a couple of the books related to Deller's works, before heading out and back to work in a sudden downpour.
After I finished work in the afternoon I got the train back to Hastings, went home, ate, and changed my clothes, then got the train back to Bexhill. Re-entering the De La Warr I met Carolyn and a few friends she'd brought over from Brighton for the evening's Acid Brass performance. We were introduced, then bought some drinks and went out onto the lawns whilst the Fairey Band (who I'd been referring to on my boards by their longer, possibly earlier, name of the Williams-Fairey Band) wandered about, ate chip suppers, and prepared for the concert. It was a particularly fine evening, and we discussed various facts about Bexhill and the area (though I felt rather old for pointing out that I worked somewhere beyond a set of belisha-beacons, a term which none of the Brightonians had heard). When the Fairey Band took to their positions on the bandstand, our party went indoors and up to the bar to get drinks, then took places out on the first floor balcony as the band played Can U Dance? The concept (colliery brass band plays acid house tracks) had been formulated by Jeremy Deller, and I was familiar with the sound of the band as I'd seen them onstage at the KLF comeback gig, as 2K, at the Barbican in London, several years ago, but this was my first opportunity to catch them performing in their own right. Their conductor was enjoying the opportunity of introducing each piece before it was performed (though we sensed his speeched were rehearsed through routine, and that the band would've heard most of his asides before), which would certainly have been of use to many of the large, all-ages audience there (toddlers dancing down the front, very elderly pensioners nodding away on the deck chairs and balconies, the great and good of the local arts crowd, comic actor Sam Kelly, et al). Crystal turned up with her mother and joined us, and the band parped through tunes like Pacific State, Cubik and Let's Get Brutal. When the Fairey Band took a break, we got more drinks and chatted, and I popped up to the roof and found Gill & Jim watching from on high (an even larger work-reunion was stymied by Dave's forgetful double-booking of himself that evening). Back down on the balcony, Lee finally broke away from his family engagements at home, and joined our group. He was relieved to find the Fairey Band were about to perform a second set, which they shortly begun with What Time Is Love? As we'd all had a few drinks by now (Lee had been on wine with his family) there was a fair bit of limited dancing going on up on our balcony, and after Voodoo Ray I started to find it trickier to get my brain to identify the songs the band was performing (the tuned I knew, but the names escaped me). They, a little disappointingly, finished up replaying two or three tunes from earlier in the evening, culminating once again with What Time Is Love? but we were all quite pissed and so that was still enjoyable. The rest of the Brighton lot had gone off for a meal towards the close of the second set: I couldn't find Gill & Jim again (though they were still about), and Crystal's mum was heading home too, which left me, Crystal, Carolyn and Lee to continue the evening down at Traffers. We hadn't realised quite how drunk we all were, and Traffers turned out to be running a late bar, so the evening degenerated into very pissed joking around (Carolyn's camera phone displayed for us the next day how what we remembered as being sparkling wit looked a lot more like drunken shouting in the cold light of the following day). Darren was at the pub with a mate or two, but wisely opted not to join our table, as we ranted and gibbered at each other, before heading back to Carolyn's dad's house for partially-revitalising cups of tea. All of us took the sensible decision to crash out there, rising very late Sunday morning to face our various journeys home.
After a low-key evening in the FILO on the Sunday night with Caroline and Carolyn, Bank Holiday Monday beckoned. Carolyn had stuck around in the Old Town, and late in the afternoon we walked along the seafront to the Pig In Paradise to meet up with Caroline again. The three of us were meant to be going to The Carlisle, where Rumiko Jr were performing as part of a Johnny Cash Day, raising funds for the RNLI. Walking past The Carlisle on the way to the Pig earlier, I'd got cold feet about going (partly due to the crowds standing around the bucking bronco outside, and partly 'cos I'd not been out to a local gig for a few weeks now, and was starting to forget how to cope with being sociable in a crowd). I didn't commit to a decision until we reached The Carlisle, and I was encouraged to go in with Carolyn & Caroline. After I had a pint in my hand, I soon settled down, and was glad to have broken my (financially induced) unsociable streak. Though I'd been to a few gigs involving Regular John upstairs in The Carlisle's function room last summer, this was the first time I'd attended a gig down in the main pub, and certainly the first time I'd been there in daylight. This did afford me the opportunity of studying the adolescent rock decor (loads of Metal Hammer & Kerrang posters, pasted up over one another, and frequently defaced with black marker pen with speech bubbles, pictures of cocks, etc), and the demeanour of the clientele (mostly old soaks like in Smugglers, but with more leather). Dean and Marcus were at the end of the bar, Rufus turned up soon after (looking suitably dishevelled from his absinthe-snorting stunt after Rumiko's previous gig there the night before), followed eventually by Bill (Michael was working that afternoon and couldn't make it). Lisa, last-night's stand-in drummer Jimmy, and Patrick had all turned up too, and we stood in bemused awe as a bunch of pub regulars (some of whom may have been musicians etc, but may not have been) were called-up by the host, and performed an utterly appalling karaoke version of Bohemian Rhapsody (possibly to placate the non-Johnny Cash-loving crowd), which went down a storm, inevitably. Rumiko then had the chance to set their gear up, and we took it's place in the near corner seat. I chatted to Chuckie about his photography work, then Simon Bush turned up at the bar, so we said Hi, and Alfie popped in too, all tanned and excited from his recent Ibiza honeymoon with Robert. Rumiko had managed to cram in rehearsals for three Johnny Cash tunes to scatter through their own material, so begun with I Still Miss Someone, and Dean doing a very passable Cash approximation. It became rapidly clear that country music (even country rock, or Johnny Cash) wasn't massively popular with most of the crowd who'd cheered through Bohemian Rhapsody a few minutes earlier, but plenty of people stuck around, applauding and occasionally dancing to Rumiko's own songs. Mid-set, and The One On The Right Is On The Left cropped up, with both Dean and the group struggling to keep on top of the rhythms and phrasing that is so distinctively Cash style. Rumiko whipped through a few more of their own songs, hoping Hayley would appear in time for her scheduled duet-appearance on Jackson, but it wasn't to be, and Dean ended up taking the plunge and performing both Cash and June Carter's lines himself (though it would only be fair to admit that his falsetto needs some work: it was rather Monty Python). After this, the group seemed releived to have got through the gig without too many pitfalls, and begun clearing up their gear. But a word from the host persuaded them to stick around for a couple more songs after what turned out to be the most interminable raffle we'd ever witnessed (dozens of prizes to choose from, but dozens of ticketholders had evidently fucked off to the back bar, or elsewhere). Even the relentlessly cheery host was finding herself flaggin towards the end, grimacing and whispering apologies to those of us within earshot. But eventually Rumiko had a crack at two more of their tunes, and then we were off, for food, and the FILO once again.
By the Tuesday evening, all our visitors had departed, and I was one of the few people still willing to head down Revolver (in fact, when I got their a little after 9pm, there was only Deano & Jim and the bar staff in the place). A friendly, but progressively drunk, bloke, new to the town, joined our table, and made conversation and comment (some interesting, some irritating: to be fair, he was getting trolleyed) throughout the evening. Dean & Jim begun playing once a few more people (Jo, Simon, and their respective friends) turned up, making up for the delayed start by performing such a lengthy set of original material that I assumed they were gonna get through their entire gig without a break. Kim made it along, and Dean & Jim eventually paused for refreshment. Reuben then appeared, and Ollie made his was in to stand at the bar with friends. I chatted pleasantly with Kim and Reuben, Dean & Jim, before the latter made a final run through a shorter set, with a few covers this time, 'til it was getting towards time at the bar. As usual, I was quite tired by this point, so I said my goodbyes to my friends, and got a solid night's sleep at last.

2006-08-08T20:08:00.000Z

The weekend before last, Alfie got married to Robert, which involved a ceremony and reception on their farm out in West Sussex, with lots of our friends playing live in a marquee, followed by camping out in the fields, all accompanied by some heavy drinking! By the following Tuesday, most of us had sufficiently recovered to go down Revolver to see Dean play (in fairness, Dean had been the most wrecked of everyone, poor sod: fortunately he was a bit physically healthier a couple of days on). I sat with Michael and Caroline, with Rufus, Del, Alis etc on another sofa, and many passing visitors scattered about. Dean and Jim did their slower set first, and Dean was in particularly strong voice, which was suprising as the last time I'd ssen him (at Alfie & Robert's) speaking was still difficult for him. Two more of the wedding guests were able to play again that night too: Rufus did a short set of his own songs, whilst Marcus unexpectedly got up for three covers (one apparently by Sebadoh, another was Higher Than The Sun, and was the other September Girls again? Sorry to say I've forgotten already). Anna had emailed Rufus some of the photos she'd taken at Rocksalts, so we were able to view those on Revolver's computers, and there were many excellent ones. Dean and Jim came back on later for a second set, which was a real mix of very recent songs, but also some Dean hadn't played for years (so familiar, but unplaceable, were they by now, that it took Marcus to jog my memory of when I'd have heard them last: years ago down the Jenny Lind probably). It's always good to see Dean remeber songs he'd forgotten or dropped in the distant past coming back to light again. Kim joined our table towards the end of the night just as I was thinking of heading off, but he bought me a pint, so I stuck it out a while longer. It was just a nice evening of post-wedding catching-up really, with some very strong performances by our trouper pals.
As I was preparing to head down to Other Words at Bar Blue, Tara rang in a bit of a panic to see if I could help set the PA up: but as I know nothing about them, and I wasn't going to get there for a while, I wasn't able to offer my services. I passed Maya outside Revolver, and walked her into town, then took a No More Hiroshimas poster off her for Bar Blue. When I did get to the venue I found Tara and a couple of the poets struggling to get everything plugged-in and working. The only useful thing I could do was get her a drink: they got the gear working soon enough though, in time for Richard to arrive and start pulling the running-order together with Tara. It was an unusual Other Words, in that the first guy onstage was there to try out his stand-up comedy routine: unfortunately, it was very much in the Dennis Leary/'shock' style, and he completely misjudged the audience (cancer jokes at a Sara Lee Trust benefit...), meaning he got very, very few laughs, and fairly soon decided to cut his losses and get offstage, going off to play pool at the back with his friends instead. There was a bizarre musical collaboration between two of the regulars (Alvin and John are they?) preceded with a lengthy bit of Yamaha keyboard instrumentalism, which was peculiar, then things settled more into the usual run of comical poetry, political poetry, penny whistle folk tunes, rap-poetry, gritty poetry, Elvis impersonations, and the like. As the only other person who turned up that evening that I knew was Ollie (who was talking to Richard), I spent a lot of the evening sitting on the sofas or barstools, drinking to myself (though the venue was quite busy anyway). It was only towards the evening's winding-down that I got more time to chat with either Richard or Tara, and things wound down not too long before midnight. I helped pack up the PA anyway, and loaded bits of it into a car, then said my goodbyes and wandered home in my own world.

2006-07-28T19:52:00.000Z

Rocksalts - where to start? Maybe the night before, when we went down the (still open!) Gritti Palace to see Duncan dj, but thereby missed Regular John's last-minute warm-up gig at Smugglers (Reuben and Rufus informed us in time, though, via phone and text). Lee and Carolyn were already over from Brighton for the weekend; me, Caroline and Kim made-up the Hastings crew, but there was actually hundreds of people sitting outside the Gritti too (including Tara, and Maya) either soaking up the gorgeous evening sun, or grabbing possibly one of the last remaining days on the Pier, in case it stays shut soon. We all took it fairly easy though, because of the long day ahead in Rye.
That Saturday morning itself was a bit of a rush trying to get organised and ready: Reuben rang me again to see if I was going to compere (I didn't know) and if I wanted to help him with the djing (I did). Lee, Carolyn and I all got the same train from Hastings to Rye, bumping into Greg Mulhearn in the carriage (which was handy for him, as Mookie were scheduled to play later, and Greg didn't know where the festival site was). Once in Rye, we stopped off in Budgens, then walked around the outside clockwise to the Salts, and made our way across site to the stalls and the shade of the trees. I bumped into Paul, and he asked if I was still ok to compere: as I was, he and Plum gave me a quick site-tour, and filled me in on some of the info about the day: I also grabbed the programme and a copy of the compilation cd (mp3 files, on a cd-r, in a dvd case), which was selling at £7, so I gave a tenner to the funds. At the top end of the field, a tent marquee had been set up with a beer stall, and a small stage in one corner (Harry was running this stage). At the far end of the field was a much larger stage, complete with covering, pa system, lighting rig, etc: this was the main stage I was to compere from. Reuben was trying to set up Wookie's decks front of stage (not wholly succesfully: he had to borrow bits of equipment from the dj from Bristol's Lower Case, who was happy to lend them), and I got some more groundwork sorted with Spoon (who had the daunting task of running this main stage). Once I'd got the idea of what was going on, I sat back down under the trees at the side with Lee and Carolyn, where we were gradually joined by the Rumiko boys, Julian Wallinger (who was filming much of the event), Reuben's mate Fred, and other passing friends. Because of the late arrival of some crucial cable-cover matting, proceedings on the main stage were late starting, so the first music we heard was from The Red Shift, out of sight to us in the marquee. Last time I saw them play (a while ago at The Carlisle) I was really taken by their enthusiasm, although without the visuals their pop/ska jaunts were less attention-grabbing. Carrie and Tom then turned up with Barney, who was enjoying an early music festival, but not his first. Eventually, things on the main stage were ready, so I made my way around the barriers and up onto the stage to make the introductory announcements. Even though the field was thinly populated at the time, I still had that half-second's pause, where I suddenly wondered what the hell it was I was supposed to be doing up there, but then I just decided I'd have to say something, so I welcomed the public to the event, and shouted-out Drowning By Numbers' name as an intro (this became my pattern for the day: mumble a bit, shout band name, leave stage quick). Drowning By Numbers were a decent young rock band, though they were weaker when they tried some ice-breaking comedy covers (Sex Bomb etc) that may work well in a bar with your mates, but fell pretty flat in a large empty field on a sunny day. Some of the others also went to check out Gunmetal on the second stage, and had generally good things to report of them, but I decided it would be best mostly to stay as close to the main stage as possible during the day, in case I was needed in any kind of hurry. The next group to introduce was Noxious, who ground away at some tuneful metallic grunge-rock. Further up the field, I noticed many more of our friends (Lisa, Helen, Gillian, Alfie, Hayley, Josie etc) were turning up, and seating themselves on some of the circles of haybales that had been provided. Rather than do a great deal of socialising, though, I continued to alternate between watching the main stage acts, and popping behind the barriers to discuss bits and pieces with Reuben and Spoon. Wookie was around by now, taking the opportunity to get some more photography practise in on the day, both for all our benefit, and for his journalism training. Next I introduced Purple Bubble (having confirmed that they had no 'The' in their name, in a very confused conversation with their singer), who were a much quirkier guitar group, with a lot of self-deprecating chat (and, also, a few good-natured digs at everyone else) At Paul and Plum's request, I'd also welcomed Tony's Rolling Stones Ice Cream Van onto site (true: it's a working ice cream van covered in loads of the Stones' Lips logos), though I then had to balance things out by indicating the tricycle ice cream vendor who'd been there all day, on my next turn onstage. I'd been fielding the odd text and phone call from Petra during the afternoon, as she and her friends made their way over from Brighton to Rye, and I noticed that they'd at last made it onto site. I went up to the marquee stage and caught some of Hayley's solo set, which she performed to a very attentive crowd of our friends. I went out for a wander, chatted to people like Kim, and then it was time to introduce another band, The 5-40's. I'd been carrying half a quiche around all day, left over from the small picnic lunch I'd brought along: I'd had more than I wanted, so I decided to give it away and concentrate on a can of beer that Reuben had given me instead. After several declined offers, I eventually caught up with Petra and her friends, and they took the food off me. As to whether they actually ate it, I don't know, as The Crayons had begun on the marquee stage, so I went and sat down and watched the remainder of their set. They played some good new songs really well, and were as personally amiable as ever, though they were facing a near-empty tent (possibly 'cos it was teatime). On the main stage, there were few people watching The 5-40's either, though the band had a loyal crowd of friends larking about with a giant inflatable ball stage-front. With their primary-coloured fashion-sense, and reliance on one-finger Moog melodies, the group were the closest thing we'd seen for a long time to the sort of band we played in when we were their age (in fact, with me, Michael and Lee already there, and Dan on his way over from Eastbourne, we considered trying to get Paul all the way over from Brighton for an emergency Duplo reunion, but this was never likely to happen instantaneously). Caroline at last joined us, having had to take a squitty-kitty to the vets, and I had a quick chat with Sally and Helen too; whilst The 5-40's ended their set by jumping offstage and fighting with their fans, which was very endearing really. I hung about backstage with Matt & Bonj for a while (the rest of the 'John, along with their friends and partners, had turned up by now), and got introduced to another Matt, who'd designed the distinctively-psychedelic Rocksalts artwork (nice fella), while Fracture set up. The group decided to start their set straight after their soundcheck, which relieved me of compering duties for a little while. Fracture were a widescreen melodic rock group, with a full-throated lead singer giving it some moves, and so they at least made some success in reaching across the steadily-filling field. After their set, however, the rain that had been scatteringly threatening all afternoon finally came down in a storm, sending all the punters back to the marquee (much to the probable delight of Alfie, who was onstage at the time), whilst we tried to get all the bits of gear and cables covered up successfully. Lower Case were also due on the main stage next, which required some shifting around of the dj decks, so Reuben's skills weren't needed for a bit, leaving the hired sound crew to supply their own cd entertainment (much more MOR than Reuben's 60's/70's nuggets). Lower Case's two mc's and dj were going to be accompanied live by Si Ham & Matt Jukes (Ch3vy), Jim and Billy: I did a bit of a check to see if they needed to be introduced, but, as I had thought, their mc's were able to do a much better job of bigging themselves up, when the rain finally moved on, and the marquee tent disgorged it's punters. The Hastings backing group have all put plenty of time in over the years with various funk groups (Bubba, the Rufus Stone Band) and so fitted seamlessly with Lower Case's entertainingly bouncing rhythms and verses. The mc's were pretty damn funny too. I knew there was an impromptu set by The A Team starting as a suprise straight after Lower Case (as Bill and Matt were already playing onstage), so I took some of the food and drink tokens Michael had given me (he had spares from the handful he'd been given as an artists' courtesy) and joined the (very slow-moving) queue for a couple of burgers for Carolyn and I. The two skaters running the food stall were doing the best they could in the face of a lot of customer-demand, which at least meant I had plenty of time to chat to Reuben, Fred, Del and another skater called Sam while I was waiting. I hadn't realised I was wanted onstage at this time though, meaning Paul had to introduce The A Team after all (he wasn't joining them, for a change, so the group became Bill, Matt, Rufus and Bonj on this occasion). Just three short tv-themes later (oh, how the crowd love them!) and I had my burgers, but the band were moving offstage already. Carolyn had been offsite to pick up some bottles of wine for everyone too (except Lee, who wasn't drinking today), so it was definately tea-time. Dan and Pip, as well as Matt and Elliott, had made it over to the festival by now, so we had a chat, before I went backstage again to see if any more introductions were needed yet. This Project, on next, wanted to start themselves without an intro, so I went over and had a chat to Petra and her friend Gemma under the trees, mostly interrupted by Barney trying to impress them with his best junior-Tarzan moves. The women were on their way off to get some rest, having not warmed to many (if any) of the day's rock bands (and This Project's epic heavy-prog excursions weren't going to change their minds) so we said goodbye, and I carried on swinging from the trees with Barney 'til I got tired (long before he was ever going to). Back on the field, I swigged away at the wine, and could hear very promising psych sounds coming from The Higher State up there on the marquee stage, but my duties were now to be ready to introduce Regular John, which I haltingly did (those few hours without compering had already started bringing the nerves back, but after this point enough wine started kicking-in that it wouldn't be a problem again). Despite seemingly only having one set-list, in the possession of Pete (an improvement of sorts on Rumiko, who'd left their pre-planned lists back in the Basement or somewhere, necessitating a rather wasted Rufus to have to think of a new set and rewrite it out in pentaplate, or whatever the word would be), Regular John played a fierce set of favourites, that friends such as Alis managed to execute dance-moves to throughout. Meanwhile, Reuben and a couple of his mates fought like wild-things with the aid of some of those haybales (the first hit, taken by Reuben in his back, was magnificent: mainly 'cos he was watching the band, and was unaware that a wild woman was bearing down on him at top speed, wielding an enormous bale of hay: thwack!). At one point, it looked like the festival-wardens were going to step in and break things up, but fortunately the kids stopped in time: in fact, neither the ambulance, nor the occasional visiting police officers, had to be called upon all day. At Spoon's request, I did some more words after Regular John's set, partly to indicate that the bands had finished (a marker we should have thought about doing earlier really) and partly because soon the main stage entertainment would be over, and we needed to put the information in the crowd's heads that the focus of the festival would then shift to the marquee stage. As Reuben and I had already arranged, I joined in on the djing between Regular John and Rumiko Jr's final main stage slot: cocking up a bit with the faders, struggling when the power went down unexpectedly and slowly, but generally managing ok (we even got the Jesus & Mary Chain's version of The Pink Floyd's bootleg-only Vegetable Man on, in late-tribute to Syd Barrett, who The Crayons had unfortunatle missed from their earlier shout-out's to recently-deceased rock-stars). When Rumiko were ready, I ran back round from the decks and onto the stage to make the introductions, then grabbed Reuben and went out front to join everyone watching. And it really was everyone now: the attendees having noted that Rumiko were going to be their last chance at seeing a live band for the day. There was all sorts of unusual people enjoying Rumiko, from toddlers, to long-haired secondary-schoolkids, to the wardens, to middle-aged guys with peculiar dance-moves, plus just about everyone we knew there. Down at the barriers, Barney at last got to see all his friends in Rumiko play a gig together, whilst Caroline, Anna, Wookie, Julian etc took plenty of photos and footage of the onstage action. Dean did the right thing and invited Alfie up on stage with them: the lad leapt over the barriers and up to the mic with his harmonica in a leap and a bound (especially impressive as I got the feeling, when I collared him and Robert back in the audience afterwards, that he was pissed right-up). So we were treated to big-band, full-on Rumiko country-rocking, which was a great way to end the evening out there: a couple of encore numbers later (both covers, the main set having been wholly originals) and that was the main stage finished: Spoon doing a final onstage direction of the crowd towards Ch3vy's Funk Of Fury dj session back up in the marquee. I gathered up my records and belongings from front of stage, vaulting back over the barriers with them (apparently I tumbled over really, and made Reuben and Murray crack-up as a result), then joined my friends to consider heading home. After a bundle of goodbyes and congratulations, Lee, Carolyn and I wandered back towards Rye Station (Lee sober, Carolyn and I drunk). On the way, I tripped forwards and, with the weight of two record bags around my neck, inevitably fell sprawling into the road (fortunately vehicle-free at that moment), grazing my hands and arms. Lee helped carry the records after that! At the station we said Hi to Kim, then joined Carrie, Tom and Barney for the train journey. I tried to grab a paper on the train, but it was the inspector's, so I nodded-off a bit on the journey back instead. Disembarking at Hastings, we caught up with Kim again for the walk into town, then the rest of us got back to the Old Town and into the house, for a few cups of tea, and a winding-down chat before bed. Rocksalts: hats-off all round! They'll be back...

2006-07-19T19:19:00.000Z

I was amongst the very few people who made it along to Revolver last night for Dean's fortnightly session: with the heat, some people were staying home; Rufus and Bonj were putting in time at the Basement; and Jim was onstage in the house-band for Lenny Beige's Seaside Spectacular at White Rock that same night (an event which may also have accounted for the quietness of the Old Town during the evening). If I'd have had the £25 ticket-money, and had known for certain that anyone I knew would be there, I'd have favoured White Rock too; but I hadn't and I didn't, so Revolver it was. I wandered down a little after 9pm, and Dean was already inside, chatting to a couple we know. It was too hot for him to feel comfortable with a shirt on, so he elected to perform the whole gig shirtless, which was quite (country)rock. Amongst the dozen or so people in Revolver (with a few more sitting out the front) were Joe (with some friends) and Chuckie (with some others), the latter of who was able to supply Dean with some much-needed plectrums (I guess he normally keeps them in his shirt-pocket. Beginning with his take on We Are Going To Be Friends, Dean played a leisurely set of slower Rumiko songs, with a bit of Ben Kweller thrown in. The lack of familiar faces in the audience may have made Revolver's entertainment look a little bizarre to the passing punters and pedestrians (a handful of people listening intently to an undressed beardy troubador), but the atmosphere was good. After a while, Dean gave himself a break to chat to some friends and strangers alike, and soon Step chanced to come in with some other friends and a dog. Partly 'cos the evening was unusually under-attended, I started thinking that this evening was as good as any other at marking a shift-point between the Hastings arts-scene we've been experiencing for the last few years, and the forthcoming more widely-known scene (taking as internal evidence the media-friendly entertainment at White Rock, which I reckoned was introducing many new people to the town or the possibility of what can be carried-off successfully here; and the current push that Mumm-Ra are experiencing as a very Bexhill-centric band - an appearance on The Album Chart Show on Channel 4 over the weekend, the correctly-predicted single-review that would appear in the next day's music press, etc). These are both minor events, but ones which are reflected in the popular national media, so I decided that Tuesday 18th July 2006 was the last evening on which the Hastings arts-scene operated independently of the attentions of the country as a whole: fairly arbitarily, but there you go. Meanwhile, Dean had begun his second set, but part-way through his voice started cracking with the heat (Dean - "My voice is getting really low"; Step - "That's 'cos you're playing so-lo"), so Step moved across to give him a break by performing a couple of his own strum-heavy agit-folk songs, which made people grin. It was only when the two musicians swapped places again that Step revealed the extent of his inebriation, by commenting that he thought he'd been playing the gig shirtless, and was glad now to see that it was Dean who was undressed after all, and that he'd been wearing his own shirt all the time (it was confusing then, too). Reuben and Tim turned up, closely followed by Helen (who'd been at White Rock, but had evidently left very early on, and thereby missed anyone particularly well-known comically or musically): the two lads had been at Guilfest over the weekend, and Reuben had some great pictures on his 'phone, including one of him, their friend Emma, and the great Donovan, all mugging furiously (oh, if only Reuben had the technology and inclination to post it online for everyone: maybe keep and eye on his Myspace if you're one of his 'freinds'; there are lots of you). Dean was feeling sufficiently recovered to power through the faster songs that traditionally make-up the end of his solo/duo sets (with a bit of The Monkey Song and Blister In The Sun, upon request); bearing in mind people were sweating cobs (what does that mean?) he did us all proud. I drank-up my last pint, and said my goodbyes to everyone (including Kim, too late for the music this time), then marched home again.

2006-07-10T20:15:00.000Z

Last week, so much happened in so little time that I can only get the outlines of it down here: there was more socialising than my memory can handle.
It started on the Monday down Smugglers, where Rumiko Jr had a gig. I walked in about 9pm, but most of the soaks in the bar had been there at least all day. As I said to Rufus: "My God, this pub's full of alcoholics!" Dean started off with a warm-up set with Bonj, a few fairly new (and the occasional very old) songs, as the rest of his band, and more of the audience (ie those who were coming to see Rumiko, not just the Smugglers drinkers) turned up. There was a lot more gear on stage than usual: Michael had got another keyboard for his rack (an old organ, via Rufus), and I think there were more amps etc too. When the full Rumiko band started up, the boosted sound was evident from the off: they were loud! And really full-on, this being the first gig they'd done for a few weeks. Dean was able to casually introduce songs as being "Off our first album", confident that they had the second one in the bag, ready for mastering. And they were playing other songs destined for the third (or beyond), which included the debut airing of a rapid, riff-heavy song (Zep/Lizzy/AC DC) that flipped our wigs. 'Cos of the hot weather, half the boys were in shorts, turn-ups, sandals etc: and what with Dean's current hairstyle/beard making him the spit of Captian Jack Sparrow, there was an appropriately comic Pirates Of The Carribean look to the band that evening. The band played heavy and long, and you could see us lot in the audience(and if you were there you'll have to nominate yourself here, 'cos I mainly remember talking to Alis, Caroline and Reuben, I think, though I half-recall Richard Hart, Jonathan and Jamie being there at different points too) all glancing at one another and grinning, 'cos this was immediately evidently one of the best gigs we'd seen them play (and there's been many great gigs from them, especially in the Smugs). No songtitles given here: just imagine what you'd have wanted to hear, and pretend they played them all, really clearly and energetically, it was that sort of gig. Eamon was dancing to the whole of the set, and was absolutely made-up when he spotted the Rumiko Jr badges that Caroline had made and brought along. When they finished, the band admitted straight away that they'd known they were playing well too: all very promising in the run-up to the big (for us) summer gigs. More chat, then home.
Tuesday was Dean again, down in his Revolver slot. Tonight he was playing with Jim instead, who's guitaring was especially fluid tonight, the guy's ridiculously talented. It was a very chilled evening compared to the night before: the bar staff turned the lights right down, and put the candles on. I'd passed Harry & Steph Holmes on the way, outside the Dragon with their friends, and fortunately they were coming along too. Bill, Lee, Anna and their friends were sitting outside with some of the kids, taking in the fresh evening air: I sat inside with Rufus for the music. Kim, Reuben and that crew turned up for a while, then went along to the Stag for a bit. Dean and Jim played the gentler first half of their set, then handed over to Rufus for a stirringly solid soul selection (I'm always hindered by not knowing the names of any of Rufus' songs, but I can't specifically remember much of anyone else's this week either, so hopefully no-one looks put-down out of my ignorance). Reuben had invited some guy he'd just seen playing at Mr Twangy's Open Mike night at the Gritti along for a turn, but he arrived too late in the evening for Dean to fit him in. His and Jim's second set was typically the more rabid stuff, wherein Dean lets loose his guttural roar towards the end and frightens the Jack Johnson crowd. I chatted with Richard Dennett about his Wednesday sessions at The Street, and we were both amazed by yet another excellent "I wrote this one today, Jim's not heard it yet" -style song from the boys. I went outside afterwards and found Reuben, Kim, Ollie and Wookie sitting with some others, including Helen, who was celebrating her 40th (and may have been doing so for a while), trying to get people down the beach for a swim: I declined, and she got miffed (with everyone, I think, I'm not sure there'd been any takers for a drunken dip in the Channel). The bar was shut, so I left everyone to it.
Wednesday had Matt & Bonj billed along with Hayley at The Street, but she didn't make it along in the end. Rufus had been setting the gear up for the Regular John lot, so he stepped in admirably with another set of his own, somewhat different from the previous night's gig, if my addled memory is serving me well. Carrie & Tom had come along for the night out, having missed the two preceding night's gigs, and were well-rewarded with an inspired acoustic Regular John set, which included (and this bit is true) Matt & Bonj's version of Real Gone Kid by Deacon Blue... The other half of the 'John (Lee & Pete, with 'Lex) were in the house, I don't think I asked them what they thought of that cover (I was too busy defending the Raintown album to Carrie & Tom), but perhaps I should have. Again, I chatted to Richard Dennett (behind the bar), Wookie and Alis, and probably several more of my friends who I see every day, so often that life blurs. There were new songs from Matt & Bonj too, and a couple of encore-requests, in which I got in a superlative version of Hyeshin for my shouting-efforts. God bless 'em. When I left, I strode through town, just catching up with Pete, 'Lex and Alis as they were saying their goodbye's to each other on the seafront, so I said goodnight too, and got myself safely home.
Thursday brought Other Words at Bar Blue: the first time I'd made it along properly for a while. Fortunately, in my general-absence, the Other Words crew have been able to get a far-superior (ie professional) PA set-up for the evenings, and I'm now able to relax as a punter, albeit one who still offers as much encouragement and support to Tara and Richard Hart as I can. The majority of the evening was taken up with the familiar set of poets, with the occasional instrumental musician (eg a recorder player performing folk-tunes). Kim and Wookie were around (Wookie chatting to Tara about the Other Words website he's building for her, and taking photographs for it), as was Caragh, but it was really Tara I wanted to spend time with, having been too heat-struck to stick around on her birthday barbeque on the East Hill the preceding Sunday afternoon. Caragh sung beautifully, and Claire Hamill eventually made it along for a few late songs too, which was very fine. One late appearance was from a bloke called Andre, who did conjuring tricks with a pack of cards. He said he does entertainment on cruise ships, and so he had the comic patter (of the "Take my wife..." variety) to suit, but also, I think, as part of his misdirection during the magic tricks. After using a friend of Tara's as support/stooge, he recieved demands for more: the fall-guy decided to have a drink in the back bar instead, and I was the next-nearest audience member, so was offered-up onstage in the guy's place. Although I was quite drunk, I went for it, 'cos I was very interested to see what it's like being the straight-man to a magician. Like I say, it was tricks with a standard deck of cards: there were points at which I was aware there was cards being forced on me, or stuff that Andre had to think on his feet to make go right, or bits where I was being encouraged by his patter to agree to things slightly different to how I was sensing them (as in "This is where you told me to cut the deck, right?"), but because you want to see how the trick is gonna go, you're happy to go along with them. But, seriously, the majority of the time, his sleight-of-hand was so deft that I was caught-out time and time again: so that it genuinely felt as if cards were changing their suit in my hand, or moving up through the deck that I was holding. It's a finely honed skill: and well worth being up close for at least once in your life. After all that, and with the bar closing, I finally got more of a chance to hang out with Tara, Michael and some of the others, before I took myself back along the prom and home.
Friday was a busy evening at the Gritti Palace, where Duncan was djing (as Spunky Dunk Funk) again; and Lee had come over to join me, Michael & Caroline, Angie etc there. His djing was expertly selected and mixed (as usual); and we were all massively suprised (now that the rest of the Pier has had to be closed for safety reasons) by the verging-on-luxurious portacabin toilets that have been parked outside on the boards (flowers! paintings! actual toilet rolls!) It was so busy there (taking the staff by suprise) that we spent the first half of the evening squatting across in the juice bar, which we had to ourselves; before getting a space in the main part of the Gritti, with Angie and their friends. Bumped into Reuben, Frank, Murray etc outside The Carlisle on the way back, who'd just been watching Gorilla there, but I left them to their adventuring.
Finally Saturday, and after work and that final Doctor Who, I faffed-around a bit, then wandered over to catch the end of the first St Leonards Festival in Warrior Square Gardens. The Selecter were already well into their set, and I found Tara, Jackie and their friends, and (once I'd established that, for obvious reasons, there was no beer-tent, and had got myself a couple of cans of Red Stripe from the seafront off-licence) stood-around watching with them (who were, to be fair, already dancing). I spotted Nat & Bill from the 'Marrows further towards the front (easy to do, they're rather tall), and went forward for a chat and a dance with them. I dunno how many of the blokes in The Selecter are from the original line-up (several of them look like they could've been), but Pauline Black is unmistakable (and looks ridiculously better than you might expect: see her jump!) She was grinning a hell of a lot too, which seemed natural to me, though Bill said he'd never even seen her smile onstage (and they'd seen them often, unlike me, who'd happened to have missed them in Hastings each time). Having arrived in the middle of the set, I had to wait 'til a bit later for the songs I knew to turn up (including, of course, On My Radio, their version of Prince Buster's Madness, and Too Much Pressure in a medley with the Maytals' Pressure Drop - hey, I do know my reggae, this wasn't me taking notes from Nat or Bill you know) and when they did it was great: a view shared by the (very Two-Tone fan -based crowd). The evening's entertainment was concluded by the Heliosphere (in it's second performance of the day): an acrobat suspended beneath a large heluim balloon, itself tethered to two guys on the ground, keeping in contact with one another via radio-mikes. It was dark(ish), and the balloon was illuminated, but really the spectacle was more impressive to the (very excited) kids who were left, sitting up on the adults' shoulders, reaching upwards to what they could very likely have been believing was an actual angel. I rejoined Tar & Jackie's crowd, and watched the performance whilst chatting to Michael. Most people seemed to be going to see the live music at The Rooms (which was a very good plan), but I was heading into town instead, so I said goodbye to everyone, nodded to Linda King, missed Tim Hoyte (striding back and forth between groups of people he knew), and had a garbled conversation with Pete O'Mant, before I made it up over White Rock, and into the Brass Monkey. I sat down with Caroline, Lisa and Helen, and we chatted about the sadness of Doctor Who earlier. Kim turned up, and Rumiko Jr were up onstage already, hammering through a shorter, but no-less excellent, set than earlier in the week. Those new songs were still in there too: we were a bit drunk, we bopped. The venue was busy, and getting busier: Christa, Maya, Alis, Reuben and others kept popping up to say hello or dance about a bit. Dave Arnold was there too, and I really ought to have got round to saying Hi by now, but I was too drunk to think of an intelligent way to do so (even though he took the initiative to begin emailing me). With Katherine back in the UK, Del had seized the opportunity to (briefly) reform The Candys, who were up next: thrashing through the singles Queen Of Perfection and Monitor Rock, along with all those other pop-songs they had that never (yet) made it out to the world at large. Matt Jukes was djing, there were birthday-balloons everywhere, and finally a full Regular John gig onstage: no time for anything vaguely epic or prog, but heads-down rock-outs (not the 'Quo, that was last week!), gone in sixty-seconds (so it seemed, in my alcoholically-exaggerated sense of timing). Drink/noise/drink/noise and over and over and I was very happily drunk, and not making much sense to Caroline or Helen (I think), or that may have been 'cos I was being deafened by rock. I didn't want to leave during the bands to walk Maya part-way home this time when she enquired (which she was fine with); and then I got very bamboozled when Alis tried to suggest that I knew her older sister (the recall part of my brain wasn't in operation: everything became clear the following day - I'd not seen her sister, a friend once, for years). Eventually, I did that "I've drunk enough, I'm gonna go now" thing, and zoomed-off home, but it was a great night out.
Sunday I rested at home. With beer though!

2006-06-26T19:56:00.000Z

Got home from work on Saturday and stuck a pizza in the oven: Carolyn made it over in time to help me eat it, while we drank Stella and watched Doctor Who. Caroline got to the house after it'd finished, and we sat in my room listening to records and drinking Fosters. Then we headed up over the West Hill, and down to the PoorBoys cafe, where we met Kim, Reuben, Crystal, Helen Driver and Ollie. Richard Hart was playing a gig there, with the occasional friend helping out on hand-drums etc. We drank Starpramon, and Tim Hoyte joined us. Richard's progressed over the last year or two from playing cover-heavy gigs (generally Dylan, Velvets etc, as far as I recall), gradually introducing his own songs, to the point at which his gig this evening was (again, as best I can remember) entirely his own material. His guitar-playing has also grown in confidence: he really powered his acoustic through some of the tunes, which matched the intensity with which he sings some of his more personal songs. Nearer to 11pm, it was time to get to Brass Monkey: of our group, I went along with Kim, Crystal, Carolyn and Caroline. As I paid to get us in, the doorstaff dropped my change on the floor, and I couldn't find it, but we did all get given excellent sampler cds by Lowercase (Bristol hip-hop, forthcoming at the venue) so that kind of made up for it. The A Team were due to play eventually, with Ch3vy djing either side of their performance, but there was a long time to wait until the band started, and all the XXXX I was drinking there was sending me off to sleep now and again as I listened to Ch3vy's choice of funk/soul records. Kim got most into the djing, and had a bit of a dance, although he left before the band played. The rest of my friends were determined that I wasn't going to slope off home to bed before the band, though, and eventually the guys made it onstage, all dressed-up in character (though the addition of Bonj to the group meant there was an extra man in The A Team: I dunno whether they tried to get him dressed up as that reporter woman from the earlier series' that no-one remembers, but he seemed to have declined on that idea anyway). I think Billy was being Murdoch, Matt (Ch3vy) was Face, and Paul was Hannibal, but I may have got that a bit wrong: undoubtably Rufus was B.A. Baraccus though - there's no mistaking a ginger-bearded white guy disguised as Mr T. In the run-up to their previous gig at Brass Monkey (which I missed) I had tried to dissuade Rufus from going for the full make-up option, fearing unwelcome connotations with minstrelism on his behalf, but none of my friends (white and black) that evening seemed bothered, so I didn't mention it this time. What with it being so late, and everyone being so drunk (there was wedding-parties in the house) The A Team went down a storm, even if they were quite sloppy round the edges (Dean, not at the gig, defended this fact by pointing out that the TV/Film themes were generally so short, that they were playing a set of around 30 tunes, which is a lot to remember and rehearse for anyone: he seemed less-impressed by The A Team concept as such, as he's a passionate believer in original songwriting, but you can't deny they've found a quick and easy way to get paying gigs - they should be out capitalising on the University Summer Ball season pronto). Right now, off the top of my head, I can recall attempts at Thundercats, Ulysees 31, Cagney & Lacey, Minder, Monkey, The Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock, but there was loads more, and if anyone wants to post a few more titles up in response to this entry, feel free. We really laughed a lot and danced about badly, and just got generally more drunk, I think particularly Crystal 'cos she kept telling me how much she was loving it, in that really excitable way only drunk people can manage! We stuck around even later into the early hours after the band had finished: Caroline made it out the venue first, but soon the rest of us tumbled out and across Havelock Road, just about suceeding in hailing a taxi (well, jumping the queue in our drunken enthusiasm) to get the Bexhill lot home. I couldn't get up until 3pm the next day, and have been ill since, but whatever!