JOY AND PAIN IN UNEQUAL MEASURES PART TWO: PENCIL DIN

Haddy called at about six-thirty.

She’d arrived, changed and along with the rest of the family had gone straight off to catch the ferry.

Apparently a few of the guys are making the crossing with her and have got a van they can all fit

into ?

Well they got over the river ok and then the van decides to break down just before going through Senegalese customs.

That’s not good.

Apparently they were stuck there all night as the part they needed to fix it would not be there until morning.

They finally got it fixed just after daybreak and drove straight to her Uncle’s house in Dakar.

As you can imagine, it was a very sad occasion.

Apparently they are staying until Friday and then making the return trip back to The Gambia, so it’s quite likely that she’ll be ‘on the road’ when I head off to do the gig ?

So, it’s Friday night and I’m off to the Leisure Centre or The Gordon Craig Theatre or whatever you want to call it ?

At least it gives me something else to think about rather than just hoping that the wife and kids are ok, not that I could do anything stuck here, but if you’ve ever had to go through that sort of enforced separation then you’ll know approximately how I was feeling ?

When I arrived, the P.A. was already erected and ready for testing so all I now need do is get a vocal level on the two mic’s and drop slightly on the guitar, then plug in the cd player for Francesca June’s backing tracks.

Setting up. photo courtesy of Grant Meaby

As soon as somebody else turns up I can get them to test to the back of the room and we’re ready to go.

Thankfully, it’s Grant who’s the next to arrive so we’re all done and dusted in five minutes.

As soon as Nick arrives we can soundcheck his guitar and we’re ready to go with forty minutes spare.

Well we would be if he’d remembered his guitar lead…

I cannot believe he’s not put one in because he forgot at the last one as well ?

Oh well, he’ll just have to cope if nothing can be found.

I’ve brought along one of my minidisk recorders, none of which are actually working properly at present, which I’m going to test later by recording the second half of the gig.

None of the damn things are working properly at the moment and the one I’d brought with me I’d unscrewed and rescrewed a couple of nights earlier and apparently I’d got it recording again ?

The way things are set up it’ll be Grant’s introductory poem then Joy T. and then me.

I’m not prepared to keep switching it on and off because the truth is I just want a recording of my long piece so that I can edit and mess about with it afterwards.

I’ve cut it from fifteen verses to nine but it’s still going to be about four minutes of non-stop verbal and sometimes it’s fair to say that the audience has the attention span of a gnat…

Oh well, whatever ? 

Everybody is beginning to appear.

All the artists are here, Jackie, who most of us meet for the first time.

Seems ok ?

She’ll fit in to the madness without too much tweaking which can only be a good thing.

The Mayor, and his wife the Lady Mayoress.

He’s an old friend of Parnassus.

It was his late wife Margaret who founded us with Tom Hulley but that was a while before I bought my ticket.

The Lady Mayoress is named Margaret also…

I hope she enjoys it.

I also hope Jack (The Mayor) has warned her ?

It’s just one of those things.

We can sometimes be a bit…

Abrasive.

Oh well, whatever ?

We seem to have a small audience too.

Grant’s up for the opening poem and then he introduces Graeme.

Graeme’s set is ok.

Graeme Lloyd. Photo courtesy of Grant Meaby

I wish sometimes he’d vary the tempo and style a bit ?

Don’t get me wrong, he’s damn good at what he does but sometimes I wish he’d try a different style.

But it’s very ‘likeable’ and he’s a lot better with an audience now.

Francesca June is singing show tunes and standards’ tonight.

The backing cd she’s brought along has some reasonable backing on it.

A small group playing in a more jazz style rather than orchestrations, which can only be a good thing.

I have to say that she sounds good.

Francesca June. Photo courtesy of Grant Meaby

She’s definitely got a voice for this sort of stuff even if she does happen to be Grant’s daughter.

Besides which, she’s been coming along to Parnassus shows for nearly twenty years to support the old man so it’s about time she got her own spot again, and it’s a few years since she appeared for us.

Parnassus is definitely a family thing.

Ok, it’s more a mixture of The Munsters or The Addams Family or even the Corleones or The Sopranos at certain times, but it’s a family nevertheless.

Nice applause from the cheap seats.

Nick’s up next.

Well, I for one was disappointed.

It’s not that he can’t be good, he can.

Nick Brown. Photo courtesy of Grant Meaby

But his set was totally puerile and vulgar without any comedy.

Material that might just have made a twelve year old laugh or possibly a drunk or two and the sad thing was, we didn’t have too many of those in the audience.

And the tragedy is, he’s capable of so much more.

It's like he turned up but couldn't be arsed.

Bummer !

Ok, let’s take a break.

Without Murray, Sarah and Jon this year the sets have got longer.

We’ve all got our fifteen minutes of fame tonight.

Usually it’s a cram job for six to seven minutes but tonight we can actually stretch out a bit.

Oh, the Mayor and Lady Mayoress are leaving…

Shame, but that’s the way it goes.

I wonder how much that decision was influenced by Nick’s set ?

At least the rest of the audience seems to have elected to stay for part two.

Blimey ! Jon’s here, I never even saw him come in.

‘Hey mate, how are you ?’

We hadn’t heard from Jon Falconer in a few weeks because of his health problems so it was great to see him up and about.

He’s looking a bit tired but then so would you if you’d been in and out of hospital with infections.

It’s like two steps forward and one step back followed by one step forward and two steps back and it’s been going on for about a year, but he’s still Jon, the spark is still there and that’s the main thing.

Grant’s going up to start part two, so ‘scuse me while I switch a couple of things on.

First things first… Switch on the minidisk recorder. 

Grant does the intro’ and finally his ‘Old Folks Home for Rockers and Freaks’ gets another airing.

I like that poem.

It has just the right amount of reality and just the right amount of humour.

And then he introduces Joy T…

Joy T. Chance.  Photo courtesy of Grant Meaby

Whose set goes off like a rocket and there is welcome applause when she’s done.

Ok, she went ten minutes overtime but who cares about time when you’re having fun ?

An excellent set and I’m going to have to push it if I’m even going to come close to that one.

Get the corny introduction out of the way and I’m up…

Me.  Photo courtesy of Grant Meaby

Start with a little bit of hard and sarcastic humour, bring in a bit of observance of people, keep the humour but keep it hard and then hit politics where it hurts, preferably in the soft underbelly of hypocrisy and by Christ there’s a lot of that over here right now.

Shame our M.P. wasn’t here.

There were rumours that he would be but never mind…

There’s always a next time.

And end with Africa.

I actually managed to keep the long one going.

I finished with it and got fifteen seconds of applause at the end.

Wow !

They were actually listening.

And I feel drained…

Usually if it goes off reasonably then I’m on an adrenalin high, but not tonight.

Tonight I feel absolutely drained.

Another song from Francesca June...

But it’s not over yet, Jackie’s up next.

I don’t think any of us have seen Jackie perform yet so it’s going to be a first for most of us, but she’s been doing it in her own patch for a little while and she seems quite confident so here’s hoping ?

Jackie actually performs and is published as J. S. Watts so that’s the name on the posters.

If by chance you get a chance to buy any of her stuff or go to see her then I seriously advise you to do just that.

She’s good and she has the confidence to hold an audience.

Nice set.

I’m impressed.

Francesca June. Photo courtesy of Grant Meaby

Which leaves one more song from Francesca June and we’re done for another year.

We just about finished on time too.

Now I can go home and worry about my wife.

I know it’s this that’s dragging me down and I wish I was with her right now.

Jon’s off as soon as it ends.

He says he feels tired but it’s been a good night out for him and he’s glad he came along.

Say all the rest of the goodbyes and then pack up and offer Grant a lift.

I think we did alright over the whole event but I’m sure we’ll find out if we haven’t  ?
And the Rhythms of the World gig will be upon us before we know it.

Please note Photo Credits. All photos not credited are mine.

If anybody wants to compare notes, CIA, MI5 and all the rest, then you can always read Grant's take on the events here http://grantsmusings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/pencil-din-part-2-show.html

JOY AND PAIN IN UNEQUAL MEASURES. PART ONE

Work was coming on apace.

After eleven years of being a minion I’d finally managed to get myself on a management course which should have happened four years earlier but unfortunately I was in Africa when they held it.

Now with one of the two people who always rejected any application I made having left, I was finally on one.

Unfortunately, I was working for the other one at the time and he made it abundantly clear he didn’t want me on it.

So what do you do ?

You know that expression ‘When the going gets tough… ’

I didn’t get tough, I got downright hard.

Since it was being made impossible for me to actually do the damn course by not giving me a team to lead, the tutor had to intervene…

And somebody got TOLD that I was on it and was going to complete it.

My tutor actually asked me if, bearing in mind the problems I was having, I'd wanted to complete it ?

I said yes.

So he’d asked me why ?

‘Pure spite’.

‘That’s not the best reason, you know that don’t you ?’

‘Of course, but right now it’s as good as any other… I’m not walking away and I’m not backing down, I’m going to finish it despite anything or anyone standing in the way.  If I’m no good then that will come out, but if I am then any damn reason will do…’

‘Ok, you’re in…’

Of course the problems just became bigger, time was running out and I still hadn’t got a team to lead so I was asked if I’d ever led a team ?

‘Yeah, Rhythms of the World… It’s a music festival and I run one of the stages…’

‘Ok, write what you do and provide evidence and I’ll submit it…’

Christ !

You could have knocked me down with a feather…

THAT I can do.

So I did.

Apparently it was so good my tutor wanted to keep it as a ‘demonstration model', including the bits when I went off on one about not actually having a stage and when that arsehole Ross tried to shut us down which included the odd swear word or ten...

Gobsmacked !!!

I’d passed.

Stress, stress, stress… Who needs it ?

It’s actually called ‘Bullying in the workplace’ and it shouldn’t occur at all, but try telling that to management and they’ll shy away from you as if you’re poison.

Still, it was done and I’d passed.

The strange thing about it was that we’d got a new management structure and they were advocating a system which I’d managed to advocate ten years ago and still believed was the best way to go.

Maybe I was ten years too soon ?

Ok, because of needing to save money they had been sort of forced into it, but I was going to be one of the few who didn’t have a problem with it.

All those who had been building their own little 'fiefdoms' and doing as little as humanly possible were now going to have to work, and that was going to hurt them somewhat.

I couldn’t help laughing inside.

What goes around, comes around… 

Wow !!!
Within a week of Haddy finally getting her Biometric Passport she has had three companies ask her if she wants a full time job ?
Yes please, and thanks very much.
(About bloody time)
So she took the first two that came in because they don't clash with each other, time-wise.
It means that the school is going to have to pay the 'transfer fee' to the agency, but the other one is early evening and so the agency don't need to be told.
Finally... Something to celebrate.
It will make her feel a bit happier anyway.
At least now she can compete on level terms and not feel as if the powers that be are treating her as useless or second-class.

I had realised a few years ago that writing stuff for performing on stage was becoming more difficult.

If you’ve dissed one political party and it fits with another one then you can either keep the original if you’re happy with it, or write something else which usually turns out inferior to the original one anyway.

I’d shied away from doing any repeating and usually kept the originals unless I’d got a suitable ‘hook’ to hang it on.

Besides, I wanted to see what the kids made of what I was doing, so I’d concentrated on writing about how I felt and what I saw in Africa.

One country isn’t a continent and all the countries had their own problems it seemed ?

So I’d written a monster.

Sixteen verses long, and I knew it needed tidying and editing but there had been no real chance to test it in a live situation, mainly because I couldn’t be arsed what with all the rest of the shit that was going on in our lives.

Now I was going to have a chance to try it out.

Stevenage Arts Festival was rolling around again and I’m told the Mayor and Lady Mayoress are coming to our little show.

Oh bollocks !!!

Best behaviour again.

We’d entitled the show ‘Pencil Din’.

Clever eh ?

Actually we can’t take the credit for it as it came from one of the Arts Guild, who had sent us an

e-mail to say we had been ‘pencilled in’ for a particular date.

For some reason everybody at Parnassus had the same idea when they read the e-mail.

Ok, Grant’s doing the sorting out and I’m doing the back-up for him.

We’re probably going to be a little short this year as we’ve got three off sick.

Murray is failing fast and although she doesn’t want to appear she does want to be there.

Sarah is having problems so getting some of the schools involved has gone on the back-burner for this year and Jon is in and out of hospital.

Jackie has joined us and it’ll be her first one with us as a performer.

First try out for the publicity poster

Joy and Grant between them had just come up with an idea for the poster when we heard the news from Percy her husband, that Murray had died.

She’d managed to get to her eighties but her body had finally given up the fight.

She was the gamest out of all of us and I’m going to miss her.

Murray Weston in full flow back in the 1990's

She had a great imagination and when she ‘went for it’ you went with her, carried along inexorably on a roller coaster ride of words, passion and emotion.

I think it fair to say that we’re all going to miss that chirpy little spirit who managed to keep all of us on our toes.

It did put a damper on what we were doing, but her attitude would have been one of ‘get up and get on with it…’

So, a little bit saddened and a little bit chastened, we carried on with getting it together.

I suppose we all look upon Parnassus as a family of sorts and losing Murray really was like a death in the family.

  

While all this is going on, the ‘Rhythms’ team has been in touch…

We’re doing three nights at Club 85 over the traditional Rhythms weekend in July so do I want the Sunday night for an ‘Arcadeclectic’ bash ?

Is the Pope Catholic ?

Don’t be a pillock, YES I want the Sunday.

Friday or Saturday would have been better, but Sunday will do nicely if that’s what’s on offer ?

There will be other things going on in the town square, but only the three nights of what is traditionally ‘Festival fodder’, ie artists and bands.

So… What’s happening ?

I’d previously asked Blyth Power if they’d be up for returning to Rhythms if we had a site and they had assured me they would, but to get them there from all points North was going to cost us a bit.

It all depended on whether I could get a balanced bill of three because I reckoned that if I got my ‘dream ticket’ gig then we SHOULD be alright ?

Oh well, you can only ask…

Three yesses and we’re away.

So the bill for Sunday will be Scum of Toytown, Blyth Power and The Astronauts.

Something for everyone providing you don’t mind dancing, moshing and watching three of the best bands around.

Budget wise, we were on the limit.

Anybody wanting or needing any other expenses was going to come up short.

But… All three bands knew each other from times past AND they all respected what the others did so there shouldn’t be any ego problems.

Everything was going along quite happily until Steve, our program director, told me he’d quit.

Apparently his vision of where we were going wasn’t the same as the Rhythms trustees ?

For fuck’s sake !!!

This was going to end in tears…

Anything that starts with a vision and ends up ‘political’ always does.

But at least we could start advertising the events.

Oh… We can’t ?

Apparently we need a ‘Corporate flyer’ with all the information on ?

Ok, well get your arses in gear and get one sorted then.

One week before ‘Pencil Din’ Haddy’s Aunt Rose died.

I’ve now got a heartbroken wife who is making plans to get to Senegal for her funeral.

There’s no way I can go with her because we can’t afford two tickets, but at least Haddy can go.

She’ll be away for a week which will include the gig but honestly that doesn’t matter.

The twins hadn’t managed to get their Mum because she couldn’t have her phone on at work, but they had got hold of Fatou up in Glasgow.

So when Fatou rang and told me after not being able to get in touch with her Mum, I’d told work and said I needed to be with my wife when I told her.

Thankfully they’d understood and I was now on the way, but Haddy had about ten missed calls on her phone so I kept calling, hoping to get to her before she made a call.

I did, but it didn’t go well.

Thankfully the school staff looked after her until I’d got there.

It was not a good day.

Aunt Rose was one of the nicest people I’d ever met and also one of the best cooks.

We’d spent our honeymoon with her and her husband in Senegal and she’d pronounced my Chicken Jalfrezi that I’d made on charcoal at Sainabou’s wedding as ‘Tres Bon’ and that was good enough for me.

She’d been to the hospital a couple of days earlier with a splitting headache that wouldn’t go away, they’d got it under control and so she’d gone home.

The next day she’d rung Haddy to let her know and the following day she had gone.

To say my wife was upset was the understatement of the year.

If it had upset me the way it had then how do you think my wife felt ?

The following Tuesday I was seeing her off at Gatwick at six-thirty in the morning after staying up all night to get her there, three hours before check-in.

That really is one soul-destroying place at that time in the morning and it meant I hit all the work traffic when I drove home.

Knackered and totally wrung out.

All I could do now was await her call to say she’d arrived safely…

First Murray from our ‘poetry family’ and now Aunt Rose from our own family…

The omens were not exactly auspicious.

AWARDS, RHYTHMS FUNDRAISERS AND BIOMETRICS

I bet the last post got rid of a few readers ?
But then if Edward Snowden is correct, and I really think that there is no evidence whatsoever to doubt him, then I really don't give a damn.
If anybody wants political correctness then start treating my wife politically correctly otherwise go and shove it.
If it happens to you, then I bet you start feeling the same as I do.
Hey !  I never said everything was gonna be nice.
The problem with being involved in some of this shit is that it creates a lot of feelings inside you that you don't want but can't help feeling.
My wife being treated like shit at the expense of another nationality just because we're supposedly part of the European Union being one of them.

What a sad country we live in.

There are at least six homeless people living in the same town as me.

They have to come off the streets and live in a hostel for a time but only if there is a space vacant before they can be offered housing…

Every immigrant from Europe can be offered a house within three months and virtually immediately if they have children ?

My taxes support these people and yet I am being taxed… Oh, it’s a what ?  A visa ?  Yeah, that’s what I said… Taxed, to bring in my wife and any of our own children at the expense of theirs ?

Something is wrong.

Very wrong.

I am all in support of people moving to contribute but nowhere did it say in anybody’s election manifesto that we were going to be treated as second class citizens by my government.

Unfortunately that is currently the case AND I FUCKING WELL RESENT IT !!!
And what's more I don't give a flying fuck who knows it.

One day maybe we’ll get to live in a country where all of its residents are actually treated the same without any fear or favour ?

I can’t see it being the UK though.

Labour want to stay in Europe.

The Liberal Democrats want to stay in Europe.

Fifty per-cent of the Tories want to stay in Europe.

The other fifty per-cent want out of the Human Rights Act because they cannot expel anybody who poses a threat to democracy and its rules are set by Europe…

As for UKIP ?

If we vote for them then EVERYBODY will pay.

There will be no free ride.

So what can a poor boy do if sleepy London town has no place for a street fighting man ?

Most of the people want out of Europe because we are supporting a failed union where all we seem to support are bloated overpaid bureaucrats whose families (Neil Kinnock being a prime example) are all on the payroll.

There will be blood at the next election.

That is a prediction and you may take it how you will ?

A change is gonna come (cue Sam Cooke) but will things change for the better ?

I have my doubts.

Back to music because it’s depressing otherwise (just like life) and the Songlines Magazine awards…

If you haven’t come across Songlines then I can tell you it’s a magazine devoted to ‘World’ music.

If you want music from the USA or the UK then there are quite a few magazines you can buy, Mojo, Uncut, Q, even the New Musical Express limps on, but there is only the one that I know of that’s purely World music and that’s Songlines.

It’s not a bad read and sometimes I buy stuff that sounds as if I might like them from their reviews.

Fatoumata Diawara had been a small paragraph within which intrigued me until the album came out and was reviewed and I bought it because I thought I might like it ?

It was now the most played cd in the house with both Haddy and I raving about it to anybody who would listen.

Our Program Director, Steve, at Rhythms of The World had been offered tickets to the magazine’s first awards ceremony and Fatoumata was playing and he knew how much we’d raved over her so he had asked us if we wanted in ?

Yes please and ta very much, so it was up to the Barbican we went to see Fatoumata crowned as best newcomer, Anoushka Shankar crowned as best artist and Tinariwen as best band.

Tinariwen were playing a more muted set than their usual heavy desert blues otherwise they’d have creamed the opposition, so whilst walking away we discussed the event.

Who was best on the night ?

Fatoumata…

Fatoumata…

Fatoumata…

Because all the acts are totally different it’s a bit mean to compare them, but Fatoumata ‘went for it’ and the other two not so much.

Both she and Tinariwen come from Mali which is going through the problems of occupation by Islamic militants at present who are inflicting their warped version of Sharia law upon the land and that is not helping anybody, with musicians being threatened with amputation of hands if they play music.

It brings it home to you what a sick world it is when there are people in it who would happily maim somebody else just for bringing a little light into the world.

Music being one of the few things in this life that actually brings people together.

Especially since Mali has always had such a strong musical base with some really talented artists who grace ANY stage they play on.

Anyway, if you click here you will see a bit of the acts and a bit of the presentations:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_graI4NHwQ

And a good gig was had by all.

There would be no gigs at Christmas because we were having visitors…

Fatou, Vincent and Vincent Jnr would be arriving for the weekend and I’d promised Fatou, much to her disgust, that I was going to introduce Vincent Jnr to his first drum…

Providing I could get a word in that is ?

It was nice.

Haddy, Fatou & Vincent

Mother and child reunion and all that except that there’s no chicken and egg…

(If you know what the song’s about then you’ll get the inference ?)

Fatou, Vincent Jnr & Vincent

Vincent Jnr has grown somewhat and isn’t so ‘Shuggie’ looking any more.

He still can’t speak but he uses what he can of his voice to communicate.

As for the rest, he crawls around and tries to stand like all babies of that age and he screams loudly if he doesn’t get what he wants pretty instantly.

Ok, we 'posed' a bit, but a drummer has to start somewhere...

In other words he’s forming a personality.

We’re going to take them to visit my Mother as it’s quite likely that it might be the only chance she has to see her great step-grandchild.

Let’s see how she gets on with the little monster ?

Fine.

No problem.

Vincent Jnr actually managed to behave himself pretty well.

Unfortunately all too soon it was time for them to go and Haddy’s going to be sad again.

And… I have to go to work.

Not THAT work, real work…

Rhythms of the World.

We have no site this year.

We lost The Priory because after the festival it had looked a bit like one of Flanders Fields circa 1916 after a bombardment.

The rain and twenty odd thousand pairs of feet over two days had turned it into a quagmire of mud and unfortunately we have to put it back into the condition it originally was.

Let’s face it, that isn’t going to happen overnight is it ?

And The Priory use it weekly-ish as a wedding venue…

Shame.

Despite the problems we seemed to face we’d all grown accustomed to its contours.

Oh well, whatever ?

A phone call from Steve…

Do I want to check out a couple of other smaller venues in Hitchin ?

Yes, I’m up for that.

Unfortunately the cost was going to be a bit prohibitive, especially if we had anything like a ‘name’ artist.

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

And then, out of the blue…

Do I want to put on a fundraiser at Club 85 ?

Yeah… Why not ?

It’s not as if we’d ever been asked before but let’s give it a go…

Problem was, it was going to be on Haddy’s birthday.

‘Darling, would you mind awfully if you cooked some African food to give to the artists on your birthday ‘cause that’s the date I’ve been given for the ‘Rhythms’ fundraiser’ ?

Ouch !!!

She said yes, ok…

And we started making plans.

First, a headliner…

Edgar Broughton had wanted to play the festival again, so I wonder ?

Edgar’s in, now for the support…

Who deserves it ?

Ok, got them.

Hazel Turnock’s bunch of Finger Choppers, and POG are going to come up from Brighton.

All we have to do now is get bums on seats on the night…

Oh lookee, lookee, lookee, my wife has just been allowed to stay in the country providing she gets a ‘Biometric Passport…’

More bloody time off from work because you can’t just order one up.

You have to go to a specific post-office with a form that they have just supplied along with the letter they’ve just sent her.

Of course there is no guarantee that she’ll get seen, but that’s the luck of the draw.

We have to get to St Albans which is pretty easy if you have a car but Haddy doesn’t drive so here we go again…

But, we get up early and drive to St Albans where we find ourselves second in the queue for biometrics.

Forty five minutes later she’s being photographed and fingerprinted again and is then informed it will be sent to her after it’s been processed…

Well, we’d tried.

We flyer’d, we posted and we advertised the gig everywhere we possibly could, Haddy cooked the food which was all free to the artists and we sat through the soundchecks.

Then we started feeding the bands…

Bloody hell !  Did they go for it or what ?

You’d think they were starving the amount they ate ?

Second helpings for at least seven people.
And Deacon from POG managed to eat the chilli pepper.

He didn’t actually mean to, as Haddy had warned everybody that bitter tomatoes are green and chillis are red, but he forgot…
I've never seen a musician run that fast to the bar from the dressing room.

Deacon

Oooops…

Apart from that, EVERYBODY seemed to enjoy it.

Edgar’s driver, an enthusiastic vegan, was most complimentary on the rice and pureed beans.

Edgar’s Missus was enthusiastic about everything she tasted.

Fed, watered and ready to go...

And the Finger Choppers and POG turned into gannets before our very eyes…

Success.

We might just do food again sometime ?

It definitely needs thinking about anyway.

And then there was the gig…

Joy T. did the compereing

Joy T. introducing the first act

Claire and Haddy, the birthday twins...

The Finger Choppers were first on and they seriously went for it.

Hazel decided to do the whole gig in a bondage mask (strange girl sometimes) but at least she could still sing through it.

Great set, and even Edgar came out and filmed a bit of it.

Then there was POG.

How many bands do you know that sing happy bouncy songs about being miserable ?

There can’t be that many but this lot manage to get away with it most entertainingly.

And finally, Mr Edgar Broughton…

Who did what Edgar Broughton does so well.

He sings in that marvellously deep growl that he has and in the next moment he’ll up an octave and demonstrate that banshees are not the only things that howl.

His acoustic playing is exemplary and anybody who only ever caught him years ago with The Edgar Broughton Band is thoroughly recommended to check out his solo acoustic shows.

He’s like me, he hates people talking through his set, especially if he’s in the middle of a quiet number, and is quite ready to tell them to shut up or fuck off.

And he got a cheer from the audience for doing so.

Good for him.

An absolutely wonderful set.

Did we make any money ?

No.

We came in just under, but at least we tried.

Steve and Haddy

And we got some great feedback from some of the ‘Rhythms’ crew and committee who all thought that the gig had been an absolute cracker, and so it had.

Unfortunately there was another gig going on locally and we split the audience about equally.

Shame about that, but these things happen.

You book the gig in advance, you can’t publicise it until you have an idea of who’s playing it and if you do it the same time as another promoter then it’s just unfortunate, but no excuses needed because it was an excellent gig and I was told that the rival one was, also.

And I begrudge CC Smugglers nothing because they are also an excellent band…

Let’s see what happens…

We’ve only got three months until the ‘Rhythms’ dates.

Finally, the biometric passport turns up.

Too late for me to take any time off in that financial year so all the holidays that I’d been saving up are now useless but at least Haddy can now go in and out of the country without any problem.

Great.

Maybe one of her employers will now offer her a full time job instead of her having to work through an agency ?

Maybe she might feel included now instead of excluded but I doubt it ?

It’s a horrible thing to have to say, but this country, my country, really fuckin’ sucks sometimes.

It doesn’t give a shit for anybody who actually wants to be here and actually ‘works’ here, but is more interested in kissing the arse of those who don’t or won’t.

Cameron and Clegg now have as much to answer for as their predecessors.