mommas reward

On occasion I have been fortunate to stay in a beautiful building, in beautiful surroundings and or with great people. Very occasionally I have been known to utter the words “ I could get used to this”. I have felt the same about recent FDPFAFDW events mostly because of the kindness and warmth shown to me by my hosts and their invited audiences.

Last Saturday I played for Tony and Helen in Sheffield and what a great night that turned out to be. I remarked to some of the assembling audience that normally I would arrive at a venue in the afternoon do a sound check with the band that could take hours depending on the sound guy and or his equipment. Some times delay would be down to us but only rarely. After sound checking the band and crew would then disassemble until the evening when we would re-appear at the venue and disappear back stage until show time. After the show we would meet the folk who came back stage to say hello. This is different. I meet every one before the show and it colours what I play and how I play. We know each other to some extent before I begin. I’m loving it.
Another difference is related to how hosts and guests want to structure things. At the first of these shows my audience was under manners ( oh yes! ) to be quiet and still until I was done. At the last show the guests took breaks to re-fill their glasses and have a mini chat during the show. It worked fine. It all works and I am delighted.

I have been recording these shows and the results are quite surprising. I am using a small digital stereo recorder that provides my PC with raw material that can be processed and mastered so that a memento of the event can be obtained by those attending.

My night in Sheffield has left me still buzzing and if I had to pick a high light it would be very difficult. There was little Sophie a vision with her face paint butterfly, glittery shoes and enough energy to power a Marshall amplifier stack. Gorgeous! A family bonded and united. Later Sophie's Mom sang The Moth for me. It was a childhood favourite of hers. There was a little lad who was wearing his own Edgar Broughton T-Shirt. His dad had it made for him and he looked great in it. Cool image eh? I am going to use one of the photos of him for a competition soon. While still counting high lights I mustn't omit the spot on bacon and egg sandwich I had for my breakfast nor any of the hospitality I received from my hosts.

After the show and when most folk had retired or gone home, I stayed up chatting with a couple of the very nice young people who, like me, were very happy to see the dawn creep up over the hills of Sheffield. I do like to chat with the young ones. Some times I get very tired of the undue criticism, aimed at our young people, by people who don't listen or expect that these bright young things could ever have much to offer. How wrong they are!

Every one was so friendly and although I was only there over night I felt a little sad to be heading south next day.
So thank you folks for a great night and I hope some of us meet up in the not too distant future.

.................................................................................................


Thirty Eight Degrees ( the petition people ) have a huge Save the NHS campaign going on right now. Check out their web site for details of how you can support this important fight to save services locally. Thirty Eight Degrees is the angle required to start an avalance and they were the group mostly responsible for the avalanche of protest that saved our forests from being sold off by the ConDems


http://www.38degrees.org.uk/

peace

a minstrel's tale

Yours truly in full cry - pic by Bev Edwards

I set off from London Euston on a fair morning aboard the Virgin version of the poor mans Japanese bullet train. It has some of the style of Concorde but only at the front end.
I was filled with thoughts about the coming days and a little buzz going on inside about the upcoming bijoux performance. The journey passed as I wrote emails and even a little poetry. The skies darkened a little before Warrington and magnificent forked lightning jumped from the green and grey sky down to the earth below. Spectacular forces playing across the heavens. The rain fell in sheets.
My hosts were waiting on the platform as the train pulled into Wigan. As we greeted each other I felt relaxed and it all felt right. At their home John and Val presented me with shirts and body warmers embroidered with the new EB livery and some clothing with the EBB 40 years logo. Karl, who I hadn't even met at this time, had mde me a beautiful silver EB logo brooch.
Later a special meal with friends of my hosts and then I was kept up half the night talking with John and Val (ha ha). Any one who knows me will know that is not true. Actually I think I contributed some what to the late hour. In fact they'll probably blame me for the nocturnal discussions that continued until dawn.
Next day I have a new friend in Inca a German Shepard and one of twins. He has a sister Aztec. I am usually not all that fond of dogs but I become strangely attached to this one and he to me. He follows me very where. When John and Val returned from taking me to the station to get my train home they found Inca had dragged an old luggage bag I had dumped, onto my bed, covered it with the duvet and he was lying next to it. Even John was baffled and if he doesn't know dogs who does? And..you know what? I miss that beast.

Later John takes me to see Clusky and Bev ( above). Clusky is a police dog handler. Clusky is a proper joker. He must collect jokes at every opportunity and they all reflect that dry northern perspective that we know so well. Clusky and Bev had promised to show me what the dog work was all about.
John and I walked through a field of foot high grasses. John dropped items along the path we walked which formed a box. The dog followed the scent we left and found all of the items. I knew he would but it was still amazing. Later John and I hid in a wood. The dog found us very quickly. Later the dog charged at John who was playing the escaping suspect. He was wearing a protective sleeve on the arm the dog went for. The dogs teeth must have gone through holes in the sleeve and John had a few bite marks which he just seemed to accept as part of the gig. I would have freaked had it have been my arm.  

Later he also demonstatrated how the dog would just bark at him if he gave up "the chase". The combo of this surreal demo and tales of dogs on the job was absolutely fascinating. Over the days we would exchange many tales about life on the road and life as a dog handler in the police. I can tell you now that if I ever thought my life has been dramatic this was a reminder of the important dramas and the men and women who put all on the line, to save us from our selves.

Later that evening John and his friend Barry took me to Liverpool to see The Drive By Truckers. Less said about that the better. Val got it right she stayed at home. For me to watch the house sound guy still struggling to get a decent mix during the last number was agonising and I wanted to get on the desk and give it a go. He disappeared to the front of the hall a couple of times and I was sorely tempted to get a mix up while he was gone. Probably quite sensible of me that I resisted the urge eh? I will say one thing though. The people of Liverpool are really very friendly. It's no myth. It was noticeable immediatley.

The set list pic by Bev Edwards

Me loafing around and playing and singing in the garden and then the living room. I decide the living room is the venue for it's acoustics. people arriving and chatting and meeting and greeting feeling warm and valued. Wanting to be good to do some thing special for this very nice group of folk. A seven year old lad says hello to me. It's his first live gig. Just before curtain up I am sitting on the floor, in the room where I sleep with my back up against the bed. I had a brandy, my guitar, a digital tuner and well... a few other totems of the pre performance. This was my dressing room moment. Soon my host introduced me and I walked out of my dressing room and began.

I was actually shocked by the wave of energy that came with the hearty applause at the end of my first offering. I ran through songs off the list with out much attention to running order. I changed tempos and stuck things together as I felt to do so. It worked for me and I am very glad to say it worked for my audience. I needed to get some thing very specific from this first show and it will colour what follows on the rest of the FDPFAFDW tour. This has to have been one of the warmest and generous audiences I have ever met. I am happy to say that I recorded this event and after a little processing, I like the resulting recording warts and all.

Playing Carlo's Italian Restaraunt in Llandudno

pics by Bev Edwards

Next day we drove west to Wales. We paused to drive up to the Great Orme which is a beautiful headland looking out towards Anglsey. It got it's name from the Viking term for Great worm, a serpent like sea monster. The Viking Sagas are filled with such references. The wind howled as we took in the beautiful vista and the golden evening sunlight flooded out across the bay. Out of the biting wind we descended back to sea level down a winding road that made me long to be on the Bianchi and trying not to touch the brakes much. Ah well! You can't have every thing. Another time perhaps.

Later we met up with some folk at Carlo's Restatraunt in Llandudno. The place had a lovely atmosphere and very high standard cuisine. After dinner a small group of us went upstairs to a private room where after a brandy or two I gave a mini performance based on the previous show.

So many good vibes from all. Great humour and warmth. I felt right at home for my entire visit. It is always good to go home but I knew I would miss these kind folk. Still, we will hook up again for more adventures. Of this I am sure. It were magic.

My hosts on The Great Orme

peace

edgar the police dog

     John and Val

People often speak of the North and South divide that dictates whether a person is warm and friendly or cold and distant. Traditionally it has always been the south that gets the stick and the north that gets the plaudits. I really have no idea to what extent this is fair to either group but I have just had a lovely time with some very warm and friendly northerners.

I have recently returned from the Wigan area in the North West where I played the first of the Fair Days Pay For A Fair Days Work gigs at the home of John and Val Bradshaw to an invited audience of twenty-seven.

This proved to be a very happy and satisfying experiment but I could have had no idea of just how magical the whole experience would prove to be as I left London to head north on Monday of last week.
I say a huge thank you to John and Val and the special little community, and my new friends, who made my stay one I will never forget. I just have to tell the story of this adventure so I will post it here with photos in a while.

Meanwhile here is John’s tale of Edgar the Police Dog as a preface.


Are you sitting comfortably? Then I will begin.
Once upon a time up in the cold wastes of the north of England there lived a Police Dog handler called John. Believe it or not John was also a huge fan of the Edgar Broughton Band. He had always wanted to meet the band and his
dream came true one night in Morcambe at a venue called the
Gardens. John found that Edgar was very kind and signed all John’s old
LPs. Edgar in turn could not believe that a policeman liked his music.
As the two parted, Edgar said to John, “Since you like us so much and I
have made your dream come true will you grant me a wish”? He made a
wish.

Fast forward to Sheffield in 2006. John and Edgar meet again at
the Boardwalk where the EBB had just played. John said to Edgar, “You
will not remember this but I made your wish come true. There was a
police dog called Edgar”. The boss of the police dogs did not want this to happen. He said it was a daft name. John explained to him that Edgar was to be named after J Edgar Hoover the founder of the F.B.I. and he reluctantly agreed. John eventually confessed to the real reason but by then the dog was responding to his name and it could not be changed, and Edgar caught many bad men.

John with Edgar (in training) and Luger (retiring)

John has now retired and is living happily near Wigan. Fast forward to May 2011 Edgar has just played his first FDPFAFDW gig for John, his wife Val and their friends and what a fantastic night was had by all. Edgar and John are now good mates. So you see Dreams can come true and fairy stories have a happy
ending. Make of this what you will but it is true and I just love it.


John Bradshaw

Please note: John and Val have given permission for me to publish the story and photos on this blog. Others might decline for reasons of privacy etc. I will only post material on this blog related to FDPFAFDW events that is agreed to by FDPFAFDW hosts.

Peace



on the road

"The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great, that I thought I was in a dream."
- Jack Kerouac, On the Road.


It’s almost time for me to be on the road again. I will be heading North West next week to begin the first of the Fair Days Pay For A Fair Days Work gigs. I am looking forward to playing for my patrons and meeting their people. I know they have gone to considerable lengths to make my stay a special occasion.
I have been rehearsing what I hope will be an interesting and entertaining collection of material which includes some parts of old songs and the usual suspects such as Hotel Room, Evening over rooftops, Poppy, Green lights, Side by side, Speak down wires and a medley of bits and pieces. I will also be performing new material some of which I will be performing for the first time. I will be improvising around the themes of the songs and joining sections together to make each FDPFAFDW show unique. I will be recording each show.

I have been rehearsing on a nylon strung classical guitar, a steel strung acoustic and my lovely Squire Stratocaster. Which one will I be using? The answer is that I am still not sure. I’ve been thinking I should probably use an electric guitar for my show with Luke at Glastonbury and we might be jamming with the house band. Having said that, different things happen on the acoustics. The nylon strung classical job seems to respond more dramatically to different rooms than my other instruments and well, I’ll have to make a decision soon.

Many years a go, during a warm summer Vic Unitt and myself headed west to Devon with not much more than a sleeping bag, some basic cooking utensils, clothing and a harmonica. We probably had about twenty or thirty pounds between us. We hitch hiked everywhere in those days before the fear came to kill off a great way to meet folk and get around. We didn’t mind the long waits too much though some times it was a very long wait for a driver who wasn’t put off by our garb and long hair. During these hold ups we would improvise on a blues theme. Vic would play his harmonica and I sang. I usually made up it all up as we went along though occasionally we would do a Sonny Boy Williamson plus one impersonation.

On a lovely summer evening we strolled into the Golden Fleece in Barnstaple after hours on the road. We were moving around the Barnstaple , Bideford, Westward Ho area and had discovered the Golden Fleece had a folk club. I borrowed a guitar and Vic and I performed a few improvised blues songs to a very warm and enthusiastic folk crowd. At the end of the evening a local headmaster invited us to stay with his family for the night. They looked after us very well and I think we stayed another night. Later that week we made friends with Noel Murphy the folk singer at the Lobster Pot in Appledore. He was performing there and we did a floor spot. It was great fun. Back then we would play any where and although we didn’t know it yet, the rock n roll days were just ahead.

Those were heady days and memories of our Kerouac-esque adventures are very special to me. This was the first experience I had of singing for my supper and a bed for the night. It was an exciting and valuable stage of our performing apprenticeship. I remember that we resolved to re-double our efforts to get out on the road on a full time basis.

Since those days I have pondered how I might get to re-capture some of the feelings of those early performances and I think my trip to the North West next week will be a step in the right direction. A minstrel I would be…….






peace

lifeboat

The ship is sinking. You have to decide who will be in your lifeboat. It is your lifeboat because you had the power to take it and that is exactly what you did, for better or worse. You saw the panic and anarchy among the crew and passengers. You decided to make your move and now you have 20 seats available for people whose future is in your hands. Who will you allow in and why? I am sure you will agree this is a situation you hope you will never face in reality. No pressure then. It’s only a game.

Make a list of ten friends and family that you would share your lifeboat with. Then add ten people who you don’t know personally but who fit your criteria for having a place in your lifeboat. You might favour the young or the old depending on your own bias or you might base your judgement mainly on people’s abilities to make a useful contribution for the good of the group. You might decide that a mix of people’s values and skills would be the deciding factors in your decision-making.

I have used this little exercise on many occasions, within the setting of small group work with young people. It is a useful tool for exploring why we value some folk and not others and how our behaviour, as perceived by others, can have a huge impact on what is on offer to us. It is one way for a group or a couple to find out some fairly important things about each other in a relatively short time.

So, there we are, your good self, your twenty chosen ones and me. Oh yes! I forgot to mention I was here first. It was my island until you lot came along. But don’t worry I will go with the flow, for now. After all, I'm looking forward to all of it. Still, I don't suppose any one is going to let me get by just singing for my supper. I think I will have to pull my weight in other ways and get my hands dirty along with every one else. If I catch lots of fish and do lots of night watches please may I sleep in late?

No big Marshall stacks or even 80 watt Peaveys to reinforce my music. No big sound behind me to make it right and to obliterate any nagging self doubt. Just me and my voice and ….please let my guitar have survived the landing.

Last night I was playing with my new phone which has an application for helping a person get to sleep. It is basically a set of sampled sounds including the gentle lapping of waves on a tropical shore, rain fall, air conditioning fan, a stream and a ticking clock. Aaaaargh! A clock ticking is guaranteed to keep me awake. I hear a rhythm and then a bass line and it just gets worse and worse but, the ticking clock sends most babies to sleep.

The ticking clock evoked thoughts about a very crazy in your face song from the EBB album Superchip. The song is called Not so funny farm. It bashes along at quite a pace so that the words spew out as though there was only just about enough time to fit them in and that is how I remember it.

I began singing and speaking those words to the ticking phone in my hand. The phone clock ticks away at 60 ticks/beats per minute ( you knew that). This is at least half the speed of the Superchip track so that was a big change. Though slow and radically different from the original I could see how it might work. I realised that if I ever performed the song like this it would probably be the first time any one heard all of the words. It got me thinking about other new ways of doing things differently as part of my new show. I think I might be onto some thing.

Pass me a piece of roasted yam. Put some wood on the fire while I clean the fish. By the way, has any one got a charger for my blackberry?

Ah! ………………….That won’t work, will it?



peace

p.s. I recently bought some fishing tackle from a Japanese supplier. He sent me an email with information regarding the shipping status of my purchase and added the quite poignant URL below at the end of his email to me. He is based in PLAT and is very anxious to assure me that my purchase will not be radio-active and that his part of the island is safe.

http://www.plat.co.jp/PLAT/FUKUSHIMA.html




some thing close to my mind

Hi Folks,

If you are in London on Saturday coming and looking for some thing different then check out the Madpride gig below .............

peace

Come and support our vital cause and help marginalised people have a voice against the media prejudice that brands all welfare benefit claimants as ‘scroungers’ and have a great night in the bargain. People concerned about the changes in the work capacity test are encouraged to contact the MENTAL HEALTH RESISTANCE NETWORK to get advice about how to deal with the tests and how people will be affected or to join the campaign and support our cause.



For more info on the event call 077 577 15035


CREATIVE ROUTES


Facebook - http;//tinyurl.com/6155qzb


www.myspace.com/themusescafe


For more info re the MENTAL HEALTH RESISTANCE NETWORK


Contact mentalhealthresistancenetwork@gmail.com


MAD PRIDE – 07542459321


www.madpride.org.uk