overlap

In 1998 I was working for probably the worst people-manager it's ever been my misfortune to encounter, and I count my subsequent blessings on a regular basis. Around this time I came across an album review on the teletext service of Channel4, that compared something to one of my favourite bands, and one I'd initially encountered in a review of their debut album in exactly the same place. Auspicious beginnings, and one of the few times I've been tempted to buy an album purely on reputation without ever hearing anything.

I picked up this album in my lunchtime of the monday it was released, stuck it in my bag and forgot about it, returning to work for one of those 9-5 days in the office that finished around 9.45 - yes, quite! When I finally did get home I was shattered and just wanted to sleep, but figured I'd stick the album on and probably drift off before the second track got going. But though it sounded little like what it had been compared to, one fantastic song that kept me awake followed another until I'd gone through the album twice.

The album sleeve only had the first names of the band and postage stamp-sized head and shoulders pictures, nothing in the way of history or background information, and much as I came to love the album and force copies of it on friends of mine as I built up a small stock of them at ridiculous prices from bargain bins, there was no sign of further material in the shops and no trace of the band members either.

Several years later, and with the internet gradually becoming a commonplace, I tracked down a reference to an EP that had followed the album, but again never saw a copy anywhere.

Fast forward to six months or so ago, and in the middle of some late night websurfing, I once again searched for the band on the offchance the EP might turn up on some secondhand music selling site or similar, or there might be some other reference to the band or any of its members out there. To say I was surprised to find the band now had its own website is an understatement – like the Spanish Inquisition, I really wasn't expecting that.

Half an hour later I'd downloaded a couple of tracks that were entirely new to me and a couple of demo versions of stuff I did know, and fired off an email to the band. A handful of emails went back and forth, with the news that that album was possibly going to be re-released, and that a compilation of other stuff was also in the works. Hallebloodylujah.

And so it was that a couple of weeks ago I took the afternoon off to go to London, take in most of Antony Gormley's Event Horizon from a certain distance, and watch the band do their first live performance in seven years. There are no further shows on the agenda at this point.

That sort of gig is always going to be easy to build up into something special that'll never live up to the pressure of high expectations, and two days prior to the gig spent going 'Wow, I'm finally going to get to see…' possibly didn't help. And even with half a dozen rehearsals, a band that hadn't played in anger in years was always going to be an interesting proposition rather than the slick, efficient machine of a regularly touring act in the middle of a sequence of gigs over consecutive nights. With a half and half mix of familiar songs and material new to me, it was great to finally get to see the songs given life outside my CD player.

I've been lucky enough to meet virtually all my musical heroes, and seen almost every band I could wish to see – and that's an awful lot of people – so I can take or leave chatting with people I don't really know, and I got over being starstruck many years ago. Given the way this had become the great mysterious lost act that I'd been searching for more info about for all these years, I had to say hello in person when I got the chance despite my half-plan to leave straight after their set and get on my way home. After all, as they were the support band, I stood a decent chance of getting home before the sun came up for once.

Enough post-gig practice at asking relevant questions (in order a) future plans, b) recent past and developments, c) anything else that comes to mind) meant that I got to find out a little about the band's origins, that the EP probably hadn't even made it into the shops, that this compilation is of material that largely predates the first album and some other stuff about how the songwriting process works in their case.

As a very wise person once said, if you've got the songs then you've got the songs and you can't argue with that. With a fresh copy of this 'new' CD of the lost material safe on my passenger seat as I made my way home, just for once I wished I had a CD player in the car, but I was equally aware how the moral of this story is that with enough patience and persistence, there's a lot of things that can happen if you don't give up hope, and stick with something! We got there in the end.

Just got in. There's a backlog of three gigs I'll get to tomorrow or the next day, but in the meantime... For a variety of reasons this evening turned out to be a memorable one. I've just got home from a comedy gig, which would be no news whatsoever except that it turned out just right there was a later repeat performance such that I had enough time since I came in from work to have showered, dehaired my legs, painted my toes and done a job on my make up that I was really very pleased with. Add that to my only really summery skirt, my pink strappy sandals and what is rapidly becoming my favourite ever handbag and you get a seasonal and presentable outfit that also comes under almost sensibly dressing my age. The joy of the second, later performance was that even at this late stage in the daylight hours cycle, I managed to feel comfortable with the whole avoiding the neighbours in broad daylight scenario, and by the time I got where I was going it was suitably close to on time that there wasn't too much hanging around furtively looking in my handbag before getting into the theatre. On the other hand, as I already knew, this performance was being filmed for a later DVD release and so the live action footage from a camera pointed right in my face wasn't exactly whatI had in mind. That said, and despite a pulse rate briefly going through the roof, I had a great time. I've been told in the past that I make too much of things, and the people who've told me that are usually entirely right. However, it remains indisputable fact that it would have taken me a much longer time to get to wherever here is without certain people, and even if some of those people are unlikely to read this here or cross my path these days, I'm raising a glass to them all the same. The fact that I ended up suitably pleased with my hair that I went with my own hair rather than the peroxide bob must say something about my increasing degrees of confidence, and while I'm not sure whether I would have preferred hiding behind my own lots of hair or being less recognisable with the chin+ length bob, in any case, I survived and life goes on happily. Of course now I'll have to buy the DVD, and see if I made the final cut, but I know I was happy with how I looked and that's all that really matters - cheers! * edited to correct typo and add this less than fantastic picture, which nonetheless gives the idea

Five gigs in eight nights, of which a couple went on very late, several hundred miles of driving and some decent exercise means that this is a quiet night in, with the restorative diet of champions that is gin and pizza. I'll try to get caught up with the last three gigs, all of which were excellent in a variety of different ways, and the other stuff that's been occupying me in the next couple of days. In the meantime though, you can fill in some of the gaps for yourself on flickr. There are a bunch of cycling and bad weather pictures there which are about a week old - these are the best of my brief experience accompanying someone riding all the way from the far SW of the country's mainland to it's very northernmost settlement. We both got utterly drenched, but at least I got to go home and go back to work the next day. After I left him and returned to my car to get home again, I correctly followed what I'd spotted on the map as the closest but less busy direct route. What I'd failed to appreciate was that I would be gaining the better part of 250m vertically over the first couple of miles. There's nothing like looking up the road and seeing a couple of hairpins to clarify that sort of hilliness! I wasn't looking forward to driving back in the rush hour traffic but it was lighter than it might have been. I'd had to make my journey back at the point I did because, perhaps inevitably, I had a gig to get to, and once again one where it was the first act I especially wanted to see. I made it with ten minutes to spare, so it's a good job I wasn't any slower on my bike. I saw The Hussy's (their apostrophe, not mine) a little while ago, and it was them being on the bill that had me convinced about going. Fili has a cracking voice, the whole band has a cracking bunch of tunes, and being more familiar with the songs they were even better than last time. It's a thing of great joy to see a band really having fun on stage, and this bunch certainly do. If you like uptempo rousing pop music with a little bit of bite, they have something for you. Satisfied with that, I was half planning to stay for just the start of the Levellers' set but ended up happily staying for the lot as they were on great form. And they did The Charlie Daniels Band's 'The Devil Went Down To Georgia' which is always great fun. One day down, though I've done nothing with my Hussy's pictures yet, two to go.

Labels: Levellers, The Hussy's

Three gigs in three nights earlier this week means I'm neither caught
up with my blog nor my sleep, but with another very late night ahead
tonight I do need to try and clear the decks.

I saw Evan Dando doing a set of Lemonheads songs solo acoustic at a
festival a few years ago, and he was fantastic, but I'd never seen any
incarnation of The Lemonheads as a band. Drummers seem to be
particularly attracting my attention at the moment, and that's without
ever mentioning the great simplicity and economy in Ian Paice's
drumming from a couple of weeks ago. In this case it's Devon Ashley
who speeds up and slows down in perfect timing with Evan several times
a song, and while nothing outstanding or extra special, this was a
perfectly good gig.

My expectation was that I might be almost on my own going to see Duke
Special, but either quality has a way of getting through to people, or
I'm even more out of touch with the musical zeitgeist than I thought.
Either way it was a pleasant surprise to find the place close to full.

Beth Rowley's support slot was remarkable, and for someone like me who
doesn't often get much closer to the blues than the blues-rock of Free
or Bad Company to be this impressed with someone doing what might
vaguely be described as vocal-led blues torch singing tends to suggest
it was a bit out of the ordinary. Stunning voice.

For my third Duke Special show in under a year, I mostly knew what to
expect. In the drummer category you have the very special Chip Bailey
who is undoubtedly capable of filling a stage all on his own. Looking
like a cross between Bill Bailey and Wurzel Gummidge is possibly not a
calculated move suitable for the manufactured boy bands of our time,
but all adds to the ramshackle, slightly unhinged charm in his case.

One of the things I particularly like is the way Pete Wilson's Belfast
accent creeps through in certain places in the songs - we have enough
identical sounding midlantic or eshtry voices as it is, and it's a
refreshing change to get something different. Rowley comes back out
for a couple of duet pieces towards the end of a great show, and
there's a sense that this is a band really hitting its stride now.
Worth catching while you can still see the whites of their eyes
anyway.

There are a couple of pictures of Evan and Devon, and half a dozen
shots from Duke Special now on flickr, and there's still an extra busy
day to catch up on between this lot and what awaits me tonight, of
which undoubtedly more in a day or two.

Labels: Beth Rowley, Chip Bailey, Duke Special, Evan Dando, Lemonheads, Peter Wilson

Just a quick entry to add the Alan Johnston button/link. I don't normally go in for this sort of campaigning type business, but in a world where all sorts of huge scale actions take place with or without the consent of the electorate that put people in a position to do them, those people who go out of their way to let the world know what's going on are doing us all a very big service. I hope he's safe and home soon.

I wanted to go back a couple of weeks, because I haven't mentioned seeing Styx, and I think it's important that I do. I first came across pint-sized singer/guitarist Tommy Shaw from the title track of his 1985 album Girls With Guns, and I suspect that when I first came across Dennis De Young's song Babe - the big Styx hit that if you know any of their songs, that'll be the one - I probably didn't even make the connection. The history of Styx and De Young is a long one, and not without complications, and he's long gone from the current touring line-up. I'm lucky enough to be just in front of the stage, so I get to see details like the sandbag weighting down TS' mike stand (so it doesn't over-balance due to just how far the top section of the stand leans over to be low enough for him to reach - see pictures), and the tape measure come out to get James Young's mike at exactly the right height. Given that when I saw them a couple of years ago I was some distance from the stage and suffering with heat-stroke, to be stood almost within touching distance makes for a nice change, and it's great to see how much fun they look like they are having too. It almost goes without saying that I spend much of the set taking pictures, and that sort of thing can get in the way of watching what's going on, but it really was a cracking show they put on. The reason I can't just omit this gig and move on is the appearance of Chuck Panozzo. As the band's original bass player since 1972, Panozzo is unable to take a fully active part of the band's activities these days but nevertheless remains an important figure to it. Diagnosed HIV+ in 1991, Chuck finally outed himself as a gay man in 2001, at the age of 53. I can't imagine what living in that sort of denial/secrecy/whatever for all that time must be like, and I do know a little about being less than fully open about certain things. Whether you like the music or not, it's an indisputable, bona fide, cast iron, 100% fact that in still touring with a band member who only plays half the songs, happily taking him along just because he belongs with the band and enjoying him doing whatever he can, Shaw, Young and the rest of the organisation are undoubtedly doing the right thing. Which is important, and not something that always happens. Pictures in order of appearance (more on flickr): James JY Young, Tommy Shaw, Chuck Panozzo & Ricky Phillips

Labels: Chuck Panozzo, James Young, Styx, TommyShaw

As per the story already told in full here, the postman brought me a present this morning. I love it when an unintentional plan comes together.

Labels: Mark Keen, The Grip, Willie Dowling