Ugly Beautiful

I’ve been staying in Reading for a while. Anyone who knows Reading will probably sympathise. It’s not a pretty place. And some of it’s inhabitants’ habits are none too pretty either.

Walking through its town centre at night means running the gauntlet of screaming drunks and people either wandering about talking to themselves or threatening to talk to you.

But there is a quite beautiful church tower and wonderful old, gnarled trees in the centre that seem oblivious to the mayhem around them. And their presence changes almost everything.

After recently finding myself able to listen to the National Anthem (see previous post) and now this experience in Reading, am I discovering the fact that beauty can be found even in the ugliest places?

Royal Progress

Playing gigs across the UK tends to mean driving back through the night late. The more gigs we play, the more of a ritual it becomes. And the radio tends to be one's only companion on the road.

Whenever the National Anthem used to come on at 1am, I always used to switch it off. It was the last thing I wanted to hear, then — or at any other time. (Anthems don't really do it for me, unless it's Hendrix playing The Star Spangled Banner.)

But then a strange thing happened. I found myself leaving it on and allowing it to become part of that nocturnal post-gig ritual.

For the past two nights, after really wonderful gigs, I've let "God Save The Queen" mark another minor musical success. I've found something positive in it — rather than something negative.

And that's a pretty amazing turnaround.

Mind you, I still prefer the Sex Pistols...

Tales From The Sticks - Part One

I promised to write more about sticks. Those not interested in drumming should look away now...

Without sticks, you are generally in some difficulty. Yes, you can play with your hands. And even though John Bonham was known to do it, it doesn't really look so cool...

Drummers love sticks. Some of them spend a lifetime looking for the right ones.

To me, Vic Firth American Classic 7As are perfection. But the more you play, the more sticks you have to buy. Like everything else, they don't last forever...

I called in to a shop in London just to buy a couple of pairs, and inevitably got talking about drums. This is, of course, the main reason for visiting drum stores, to look at drums and to discuss them in fine detail.

I asked what the drummer who used to run the shop was doing now. "Spending more time with his wife," I was told bluntly. "Something he should have done 10 years ago."

The ensuing conversation focused on the links between drumming, divorce and self-destruction. The chap now running the store, previously a full-time professional drummer, had been through his divorce some time back. Gigging every night, even though it was to pay the bills, hadn't gone down well at home. "She knew I was a drummer when we married, but... "

I said I knew it was rare to find a partner who understood about drumming, gigging, being in a band.

He said: "If it's any consolation, just about every full-time musician playing in the West End is divorced."

The conversation turned to drink and drugs (the time-honoured ways of the musician to deal with stresses of all sorts), and in particular to Phil Seamen (the man from whom Ginger Baker got a lot of his Ginger Bakeriness). We had both seen him play.

Seamen dealt with the strains by using cigarettes, alcohol and heroin. He died at 46, having made a name for himself as a drumming genius... but a walking disaster area.

I took my two pairs of sticks, thanked the man in the shop. And we wished each other well in keeping on going...

Crisis Present

I got so sick of crappy Christmas singles that I decided to write one myself... but not a crappy one.

That was a few years ago and it's been looking for a home ever since.

It finally got one thanks to the sublime popsters Christmas Aguilera who performed it at their Jolly Santa Social Club fund-raiser in London last year.

And this year it is officially released as a track on their seasonal EP, again with proceeds going to Crisis, the charity for the homeless.

So if you want to buy a copy of "I Wanna Give You A Present", just click here... and sing along.

Flower Shop

You can now read a fair chunk of my novel "Like A Flower" at Amazon.

You can even buy it there too...

Heavy Metal

I've been away. I'm back.

Drums can be heavy.

I still haven't quite recovered from trying to lift John Marshall's Sonor bass drum [see previous post], a piece of German engineering that even Keith Moon would have found difficult to kick over or explode.

Drum hardware can be even heavier. That's all the stands, the pedals, the shiny bits and pieces...

Last night a young drummer and I were putting up an old Premier kit for a music workshop at an arts centre off London's Brick Lane and were searching for the... well, neither of us knew what to call it... apart from "the thing that goes into the bass drum to hold the tom-toms".

The "post" is what I decided to call it... but we still couldn't find it for some time. When we did, it was huge and had not only attachments for two toms but also a central extension for holding a cymbal... right in front of the drummer's face and in between the two drums. Something that would only appeal to a drummer who preferred not to be identified... and who didn't mind playing a roll across the toms with an obstacle that would be near-impossible to avoid.

We finally found all the kit bits in the arts centre's music cupboard and got everything up and playing.

But the most important item of equipment for the drummer? It hardly weighs a thing. And it has to be the sticks... of which more soon...

The BBC? Don't Knock It...

If you thought the BBC was just too outdated and too unwieldy for anyone to manage it, a few moments inside the labyrinth of its Maida Vale studios in London would confirm your opinion.

People could go into this ancient maze of characterless corridors and rooms and never be seen again.

I was there last night because I had the honour of acting as roadie for drummer John Marshall, one of the legendary jazz musicians (along with Roy Babbington and Art Themen) playing with the BBC Big Band in a memorial concert for the late and great Graham Collier.

And once you were guided through the tangle of passageways and were inside the studio with some of the finest players in jazz, then you appreciated the fact that there are certain things the BBC does better than anyone else ever will. (As if to accentuate the timeless quality of the place, a plaque by the stage informed us that this was the studio where Bing Crosby made his last recording.)

Collier's music — especially in the hands of these master players — was absolutely stunning, running from dirty blues to sophisticated jazz, via grooves that could be (and have been) sampled by contemporary DJs and hip-hop musicians.

If you want to hear how good a night it was, the concert will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 11pm on Sunday November 25 and will also be on iPlayer.

Countricide

My brother recently introduced me to the concept of countricide... the killing of the country.

Do we need more houses and roads? Or fewer people?

Do we need more industrialised monoculture? Or a diverse environment supporting the natural web of life?

Which of these choices makes more money for the rich? You got it. Countricide. 

But the downside (for humanity) of countricide is likely to be suicide.

My World Tour

Yesterday I had a quick meeting in Kenya before early-evening drinks in Australia. And prior to that I'd managed to tour the Greek islands and make brief stops in Florida and Chile.

Only the World Travel Market, in London, can allow you to tour the world this quickly... and to meet countless old friends and contacts along the way.

But as with so many gatherings these days, the main topic of conversation was how tough it is for all of us: those starting out as travel writers, those who have been writing for decades, the big travel operators, the small travel operators...

However, there was plenty of good humour and optimism too, so maybe we're not all cruising on the Titanic... even though it sometimes feels like it.

Who Are The Trolls?

JK Rowling says she stopped looking at stuff written about her a long time ago. After she realised that she didn't actually have to read all the unpleasant things in the media.

I'm not anywhere near her stellar league, but I already understand this. A piece in the Brighton Argus (as I said, I'm not in the Rowling universe) about the writing of my novel, Like A Flower, later went up on its website and within minutes was drawing negative comments.

People were pointing out that anyone could get published online now, and that I was just "self-publishing". The first bit is true (but is that a bad thing?) and the second bit isn't.

I'm not self-publishing. The book is being published by a reputable online publisher. I am not paying a penny to be published and (in 40 years of writing) I never have done.

My first reaction was to want to reply to the trolls, but I couldn't register on the site and in the end gave up. My second reaction was to ask for the comments to be taken down, since they seemed libellous.

My reaction now is the Rowling one. Just forget about it. But I am left wondering who on earth takes time to go onto the website of a local paper and make negative, unpleasant comments about someone they have never met whose only crime appears to be to try to do something creative, entertaining and, hopefully, a little profitable?

Owed To A Nightingale

Writing a magazine piece about Rome has reminded me of standing recently in the room where John Keats died. And at the same time Bob Dylan's "Duquesne Whistle" is blowing through my mind.

The great debate about whether Dylan was as good as Keats (or vice versa) was handled beautifully by Professor Christopher Ricks in his ambitious book "Dylan's Visions Of Sin", when he looked at Keats' "Ode To A Nightingale" and Dylan's "Not Dark Yet".

Was the way these two wove in and out of each other lyrically and philosophically a mere coincidence?

"Coincidences can be deep things," says Ricks, "and if two artists were to arrive independently at so many similar turns of phrase, figures of speech, felicities of rhyming, then my sense of humanity might go up a plane." [There is a strained pun here that will be appreciated — and groaned at — only by Dylanophiles.]

Ricks goes on more elegantly to say there was no coincidence. He believes Dylan had the "Ode" in mind "even if not consciously or deliberately" when he "created his own re-creation of so much of it".

I think he's right. Few poems or songs of mortality can touch "Not Dark Yet". And it was the song that came into my mind as I stood in Keats' room.

Keats was just 25 when he died – against his will. Dylan was 25 when he had his motorcycle accident – maybe not against his will?

Dylan is 71. It's not dark yet, but it's getting there...

Bread, Circuses And Patriotism

Is it me? Or is it slightly barking to be spending £50million on a "national commemoration" of the First World War?

Even if the UK could afford it, what exactly is the point? I suppose the old adage about patriotism being the last refuge of a scoundrel could provide some of the answer.

Do we need anything further to remind us that this war was a catastrophic waste of countless lives? Or that war (remember Iraq? remember that Afghanistan has been going on for 11 years?) solves nothing?

The main cause of the Second World War? The First World War.

And here is David Cameron: "This was the extraordinary sacrifice of a generation. It was a sacrifice they made for us, and it is right that we should remember them." 

Perhaps it is enough to remember that this generation was sacrificed by its own military and political leaders.

Perhaps it is also worth remembering that the First World War was 100 years ago. What about the Boer War, the Crimean War? Should we still be commemorating them? And their careless, cruel and incompetent "sacrifice" of more young lives?

If this is the best that the UK government can come up with to re-run the "bread and circuses" effect of the Olympics, it does feel a lot like that scoundrel's last refuge.

Prophet Of Loss

I guess you never forget the first paper you worked for... and it looks like that paper hasn't forgotten me entirely.

It was great to see a mention of "Like A Flower" on the website of the Northamptonshire Telegraph, the place where I started to learn my journalistic craft a few decades ago.

Of course, in those days (and up until recently) it was the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph. But now it appears only weekly.

I still remember my first day in the newsroom and being taken on a tour of the place by the chief reporter. He led me past the sub-editors' desk and then through the double doors to the typesetting machines.

"One day," he told me, over the noise of the machines, "they say all this will be done by computers. And when that happens, it will all be over."

As far as the romance of working on newspapers is concerned, I'm afraid he was right.

Modest Success?

Here's the more modest version of the cover for my novel "Like A Flower", due out as an eBook at the beginning of November. Well, if I can't plug it here, where can I?

My publisher, Magus Digital, has worked long and diligently on both text and cover, and I'm grateful for all their efforts.

For a slightly racier version of the cover, see my earlier post Life, Death, Love... And Gardening. And for surprises both visual and verbal... well, you'll have to buy the book.

Trouble In Store

I've just been standing in the queue at my local supermarket. And from where I stood, I could not see a shelf containing anything but alcohol, chocolate or tobacco.

Oh, plus a stack of pumpkins... being sold to be played with (for Halloween) rather than eaten.

So, basically no food in sight. And nothing that would really do you much good from a nutritional point of view.

In fact, even if you ventured into the foodier sections of the same establishment, you'd be hard-pressed to find any food that was either fresh or good for you.

As renegade medic Dr Vernon Coleman once pointed out in typically pithy style: "If you eat crap in packets, you'll feel like a packet of crap."

And crap in packets is so often all that surrounds us. It's depressing.

Vile Memories

Jimmy Savile. Well, there's a lot of people coming out of the woodwork, so I thought I should do too.

I confess I always thought the worst of him, based on nothing but his public persona, let alone what he got up to in private.

Throughout long years of my working on newspapers, when he was a ubiquitous celebrity, Savile was one of those names you had to know the correct spelling of. Was it Savile or Saville? I always remembered it by the fact that the last syllable of his name was "vile".

For some reason, that always worked for me.

Life, Death, Love... And Gardening

The publisher has already produced several versions of the cover for my novel "Like A Flower", which will be available online from early November 2012.

The one pictured above is the "middle way" cover... there was one that was a bit more (unintentionally) suggestive and there is one that is not quite so explicit.

There have also been countless versions of the text. But I think that we're nearly there now with all the last-minute tweaks and changes. 

"Like A Flower" (ISBN: 978-1-909047-07-5) will be on sale, pieced £4.99, on Amazon (for Kindle) and will also be available on Apple's iBookstore and WH Smith's eBooks, and other websites. More details in a couple of weeks.

Screen Test

I currently have the luck of a man who should already be in north London but is driving through Brixton at night in incessant rain when his driver's-side windscreen wiper detaches itself and starts making its way down the side of his car...

This is not some Blackadder-esque hyperbole.... This happened to me on the way to a gig in Dalston... I wound down my side window and caught the wiper as it went past, but while I was doing that, I almost drove head-on into a car coming the other way... and all this BEFORE I actually played the gig...

I can't describe how uncomfortable it is driving while sitting in the driver's seat and leaning over to the passenger side to see through the only clear patch of windscreen... I not only had to do this all the way through central London, but also (after the gig) all the way back out of London and down the M23.

So is it worth doing this? The owner of Dalston Jazz Bar seemed to think so. He said Russ Payne and the Shark Dentists were the best band he'd seen in the past 10 years... Oh well, I'd better get the wiper fixed for the next gig...

Giant Shadows

I've had the pleasure of interviewing Simon Nicol (Fairport Convention, Albion Band) a couple of times. The last time we spoke was when he was playing with the Dylan Project.

Master guitarist Nicol explained the reason he gave up trying to write his own songs was because he listened to Bob Dylan's and decided he could never write anything as good as those, so what would be the point?

I've just started reading Haruki Murakami's three-volume "1Q84" and I think I'm feeling similar... What would be the point of trying to write the great novel, when one could never match Murakami's genius?

(Mind you, I did once manage to find a "third way", by paying tribute to Murakami in music... with a song called Murakami's Blues.)

Safe As Full Houses

The new Bruce Willis movie is being advertised as this decade's version of The Matrix... which I suppose is better than advertising it as yet another Bruce Willis movie.

But why is this selling of something as something that you already know so necessary?

What, you might ask, is the point of making a movie of The Sweeney... when the original can't be improved on? Why make a movie of The Edge of Darkness?

Why re-make The War of the Worlds? Or Batman? Or Anna Karenina?

And why on earth would you want to make stage shows of movies that people have already seen? Or stage shows that reproduce dead musicians in performance?

The simple answer is money. And they say no one ever failed to make money by underestimating the public's intelligence.

People spending money and people making money generally don't want to take any chances. So they sell and buy things that they know have already done the business.

Whatever happened to danger?

When In Rome

I've been away. I'm back. I went to Rome to coincide with my close friend, an American naturopathic physician, who was touring Italy. He's not been well lately and neither of us is getting younger, so I had the feeling it might be the last time we would meet.

It was an emotional reunion, as expected. But what I didn't expect was for him to notice a small patch on my skin and volunteer a diagnosis of actinic keratosis — a pre-cancerous lesion.

My doctor has just confirmed my friend was right, and I will have it treated. It was a good job that I went to Rome... on more than one level.

It might have been my last meeting with a dear friend. But then again, it might not. We agreed that we could meet again in five years' time, in India. If we're both still here...

As BB King said: "There is always one more time..."

Dark Star

It has just been revealed that Michael Jackson was "an emotionally paralysed mess". It has also just been revealed that the Pope is most likely a Catholic, and bears have been known to... well, you get the idea.

Promoters, emails have shown, feared that Jacko was in such a terrible state that he wouldn't be able to carry off his string of comeback concerts. Which he didn't.

But hadn't we all suspected for some time that he was an EPM? He was, at his peak, one of the most phenomenal musicians, singers and dancers ever seen. And as is so often the case, the EPM was surely part of that formidable package; that splurge of genius had to come from somewhere pretty dark...

Good, Bad Or Ugly?

According to much media reporting, Clint Eastwood made a bit of a fool of himself with his "empty chair" routine for the Republicans.

But if you watch his act, you may find it was refreshingly direct and even rather amusing. The idea that it was ill received certainly does not seem to be borne out by the reactions of a deliriously supportive audience.

The knock-'em-down media got it wrong. Clint's performance wasn't bad, but his decision to put his considerable weight behind Mitt Romney does seem disappointing. And that, long-term, is what may make him look foolish.

First Write Your Book...

How many times do you have to write a book before it's finished? I've lost count now. Having done what I thought was the final draft, I am now doing the final final draft of Like A Flower, my novel about life, death, love and gardening.

It's going to be out this autumn and the publisher wants the copy (in perfect condition) this week. Initially, I dreaded the prospect of going through it one more time. But having got two-thirds of the way, I've found that I'm enjoying it. Good story, good characters and some intriguing twists... Can't quite believe that it's by me.

And meanwhile the new book, With Fervent Heat, is under way. Can't wait to read it... but I guess I'll have to write it first.

We Capture The Castle

I've been away. I'm back. Just had a great camping trip to West Wittering, which surely must have the most impressive beach in the UK.

The weather was amazing and we once more enjoyed those traditional family holiday things of doing nothing, eating beans by the light of a lantern, and playing cards into the night.

But best of all was making sandcastles. The one pictured above not only survived the incoming evening tide, but was still there at the end of the following day. A testament to the building skills of Charlie, Nevada and Victoria. And a reminder of a wonderful time.

Cheese And Onions

"I have always felt in the back of my mind, cheese and onions"... in struggling to find any music that I really wanted to listen to at the moment, I was grateful to be given a copy of The Rutles album...

Cheese and Onions (extrapolated, of course, from the Beatles A Day In The Life) provides one of rock lyricism's finest moments, when Neil Innes sings Lennon-style: "Do I have to spell it out? C, H, E, E, S, E, A, N, D, O, N, I, O, N, S, oh no..."

Sheer meaningless genius that really does put the whole thing in perspective... perhaps "too much ****ing perspective", as Spinal Tap would say.

A Medal For Morrissey

He may be a little crazy, but Morrissey provided a highlight of the Olympics with his declaration that "the spirit of 1939 Germany now pervades throughout media-brand Britain".

Isn't Morrissey's attack on mindless jingoism what you expect from rock stars? Well, it used to be. From Jim Morrison through to Johnny Rotten, it used to be part of the job description to attack and upset the establishment.

John Lennon did a pretty good stint in the job... only to be resurrected without his knowledge and appropriated for the Olympics (courtesy of Yoko Ono).

Paul McCartney... er, we know how that worked out. And even Pete Townshend, one-time angry young mod and subverter of the Union Jack, agreed to take part in the Olympics finale...

There was speculation about why Kate Bush didn't appear live (leaving one of her songs to be used completely out of context). Is it possible that she has too much artistic integrity?

Lennon alive (rather than Lennon dead) would surely not have allowed himself to be subsumed by the establishment. He might even have said something to leave Morrissey in the shade.

Honest Untruth

I don't have a lot of time for reading blogs. It's all I can do to find time to write one.

There are just a handful that I look at from time to time for inspiration, not least the Diary of a Desperate Exmoor Woman.

I thought I loved it because it was so honest. But as the author herself pointed out recently, blogs are no more truthful than anything else that we write or produce.

We're all writing what we think we should write... what we want to see... what we want others to see... so it's no more truthful than anything else we do.

But whether it's the truth or not, I strongly recommend the Exmoor Woman blog. Honestly.

Seconds Out

I have been away from my post/s. Now I'm back. The good news is that my novel Like A Flower seems to have found a publisher and should be available for downloading to your Kindle this autumn.

Having got one book done and almost dusted, it's tempting to get a second one under way. The problem is that I've had so many ideas that I'm not sure which to go with.

The front runners at the moment are With Fervent Heat, a story of the terrible ramifications of intense passion, and 'King Hell, a tale of addiction, love and friendship.

Hopefully, one will be underway soon.

Shirt Shrift

It seems that anyone wearing a Pepsi T-shirt to the Olympics might get the same treatment as someone mentioning Jimi Hendrix on The Real Blues Forum (see previous post).

Although the organisers now appear to have back-pedalled a bit on this.

However, the Olympics is a Coca-Cola event and you'd be wise to keep that in mind. And don't even suggest that the tie-up between Coca-Cola and fitness is kind of odd.

You think Coke might be bad for you? Coca-Cola reassures you that it's "safe for consumption as part of a balanced and varied diet". So that's all right, then.

Security Madness - Part 94

I had the pleasure of attending a party at the House of Lords last night. But at one point, I was beginning to wonder whether it was worth going through all the 'security' procedures.

After the police checking your papers, there was airport-style (i.e. slow and irritating) security where you had to queue up and put everything through a scanner, have your picture taken, have your bag searched...

And when they found I had a bottle of hemp oil in my bag, there was much tutting and deliberation before I was allowed through to the next stage.

There we all had to leave our bags behind, before going up three floors to the room where the party was being held.

Plus (and I'm not making this up) we were asked to remove our jackets and leave them behind IF we were planning to wear them into the party room and then take them off, i.e. if you kept your jacket on at this point, then you would have to keep it on throughout the party and would not be allowed to remove it.

Since the room was some distance above us and we had no idea of its, size, temperature or how many people would be in it, it was difficult to assess whether you would be keeping your jacket on or taking it off at some point.

I mentally spun a coin and kept mine on.

It was a good party, but the venue really does need to sort out its door policy.

Stuck Outside The Forum With The Hendrix Blues Again

Was Jimi Hendrix a blues musician? There are some who will think this question in the same league as 'Is the pope a Catholic?' etc...

But for others, it seems, the very idea of Hendrix being thought of as a blues musician is akin to heresy.

A Facebook group called The Real Blues Forum hosts intricate and erudite discussion on the blues, but someone (not me) recently had the temerity to put up some pictures of Hendrix for discussion, because Jimi was seen to be holding actual blues albums in the photos.

When the subsequent discussion (all right, I did play a part in this bit) turned to Jimi being a great blues player, the originator of the strand made it clear that if there was another mention of Jimi's music (rather than the blues albums in the photos), he would remove, i.e. censor, the whole discussion.

A forum is a 'meeting place for open discussion'... but not The Real Blues Forum, it seems.

When I posted a quote from BB King — 'Jimi to me was one of the great explorers of the so-called Delta blues' — toys were thrown out of the pram and the discussion was closed down.

What is so terrible about suggesting that Jimi was part of the great blues tradition? BB hit on something with his reference to the Delta blues... for surely Hendrix was little more than the Robert Johnson of his time.

If Johnson had lived into the electric blues era, there is no telling where he and his playing might have gone. His music might even have been banned from being discussed on The Real Blues Forum.

Security Risk

Only a few days to go to the Olympics, and it's good to know that the military are prepared to shoot down hijacked passenger planes over heavily populated areas of London.

Now we can all sleep easy in our beds.

David Starkey tends to be a little extreme in his pronouncements, but his tirade against the Olympics on the BBC's Any Questions? last night really did go over the top — in the very best way.

It's surprising that he wasn't taken out mid-flow by a strategically based missile.

Taking Five

"You've got a lot of gear there," said the dour-looking man who'd just stepped out of the pub to smoke a cigarette in the rain, watching me unload the car.

"That's the problem with being a drummer," I explained. "We're rehearsing here tonight."

"How many in the band, if you don't mind me asking?" he said.

"Five."

He thought for a moment.

"Dave Clark Five," he said, his face smiling broadly, almost laughing. "You probably don't remember them."

"Yes, I remember them," I said, also smiling.

"Bits and Pieces, eh?" he grinned, doing a passable imitation of Dave Clark's drumming style.

"Yes, Bits and Pieces," I nodded.

"Have a good one tonight!" he said.

And we did.

Like A Bestseller?

The final rewriting and tweaking of my novel Like A Flower is now done. It would have been done sooner but a lot of life got in the way.

Now it's just a question of agents and publishers fighting over the rights to it... Well, not quite. More a case of my doing everything I can to get one of them to see that it's worth all the work that has gone into it.

I'm already indebted to my friend, colleague and published author Matt Rudd who made some great suggestions about the book and how to sell it. And to a number of other journalists who have given me promising contacts.

And if you're an agent/publisher... Like A Flower is a page-turning thriller about life, death, love... and gardening...

Summer Affective Disorder

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is usually thought of in terms of the dreadful, dark days of winter.

It now seems just as applicable to the dreadful, dark and rain-sodden days of the British summer. In short, just about everyone who is stuck here is miserable.

SAD mainly brings people down because they don't get any sunlight. It was bad enough when Britain was sunless for four or five months between October and March. Now Britain seems to be becoming a permanently sun-free zone.

Festivals are cancelled, roads are closed, people aren't going out... And as a result, the economic gloom just gets gloomier...

Time for a sun dance?

Austral Whacks

Drummers are always on the lookout for new sounds. One of the world’s oldest types of drum enlivened the Henley Festival at the weekend — and was completely new to me. An ensemble of Torres Strait Islanders played their “warups” to accompany the dancing of the Purple Spider Dance Group (above).

The Purple people were not only dancing for the first time in the UK, but for the first time outside their homeland.

The Torres Strait Islands are between Australia and Papua New Guinea, and are part of Queensland; their people have a culture that is relatively untouched by outside influence.

And their drums, one of which I was honoured to have a go on, had a wonderful power. About four feet long and fashioned from a hollow log, the drums are topped off with an interesting head — made from iguana skin. Not something you can get down the Charing Cross Road. 

But the really eccentric and clever bit is the fact that blobs of beeswax are fixed to the centre of the head to give an extra resonance and vibration — a bit like an antipodean snare drum.

I did have misgivings about whacking a waxed iguana... but it’s a hell of a sound.

Young, Gifted And Jazzers...

Policeman have been looking younger for quite a while. But when you start finding jazz singers looking younger... 

A few days ago, I was playing in a band backing the amazing Ceri Wood (above) who looks so young but sounds so full of experience and deep emotion.

And three days later, at a Sound Connections networking event for musicians and music teachers, I met Vilija Leitanaite (below) whose youthful appearance belies her feel for the music.

So are jazz singers getting younger? Or am I getting older? Both, I fear...

A Particular Waste?

That's very good news about the Higgs Boson particle, isn't it? Even more exciting than the human genome project was perhaps. And what momentous changes do these remarkable achievements in unpicking the fabric of life bring to the daily activities of humanity?

Is it churlish to suggest none at all? As with so many human pursuits, aren't we in danger of exploring and escaping down the back alleys of knowledge, entertainment and ambition and missing the big picture of actuality?

Looking unwaveringly at our selfishness, greed and fear might change something. But it's easier to find a Higgs Boson...

On Tooting Broadway

Remember festivals? They were free and they used to be about music, peace and love, right? Well, only for about five minutes or so in the 1960s. After that they became businesses just like every other business. The ticket prices got higher. And so did the fences.

Tootstock is a (very small) festival which has just been staged in Tooting, south London, for the seventh time. There was free entry, free parking and free food. The only thing you had to pay for was your drinks. And there were nine bands, all playing for free.

I've been involved in this event from the beginning, and despite the fact that it can drain the last bit of energy from you, it can also give you the highest highs, especially when people of all ages from all walks of music get together and sincerely enjoy each other's playing and each other's company.

We had a capacity audience this year and a truly warm atmosphere that was definitely something to do with peace and love.

Tootstock doesn't make money. But it makes magic.

Pitch Fever

Football was never meant to get a look-in on this blog. But it has now wormed its way in, because so many musicians seem to want to watch it.

After a rehearsal with a jazz quartet in Brighton on Saturday, the keyboard player persuaded me to join him in the pub. He had to watch Spain v France, and I had to have a drink. In the end, I think I watched more of the match than he did, and I didn't need anyone to tell me that it was a fairly boring affair. We had more fun talking to a holidaying couple who explained how Germany would win the tournament. They were German.

Sunday's rehearsal, with assorted rock musicians, had to finish early so that they could all get to homes or pubs in time to watch England v Italy. And somehow affected or infected by the previous evening's experience, I found myself listening to the match on the car radio on the way home. Mind you, I switched off before the end, and was content to find out the result the following day, so I'm not totally hooked yet.

Then, today, I had to attend a music tech event (basically, trying to sell music teachers on the use of iPads) in Brighton. And where was it held? At the new Amex stadium. Just seeing the football pitch got me quite excited. Maybe something strange is happening to me...

A Pauline Conversion

Michael Gove comes up with some interesting stuff, doesn't he? In the House of Commons this week he paid an 80th birthday tribute to the Oxford Professor of Poetry, Professor Sir Geoffrey Hill, "our greatest living poet". 


Labour MP Stephen Pound swiftly responded with: "I do not wish to distract the House in celebration of today’s birthday of one of our greatest living poets — Sir Paul McCartney..."


So is Macca a poet? He doesn't seem to be up there with Shakespeare or Dylan, or even Lennon.  But maybe he has, on occasion, been more than just a brilliant melodist. And whether you like it or not, the words of the 2,000-plus cover versions of his song "Yesterday" may well have touched more people more deeply than the collected works of all of the above.

This Could Run And Run

It's kind of inevitable that if you attend an end-of-year fine art show at Kingston University, London, that you're going to be confronted with an almost naked man painted white (and covered in graffiti) doing odd things against a white backdrop (covered in graffiti).

But Michael Azkoul not only managed to keep his performance piece going for six hours, he also managed to make it so entertaining that he almost always had a rapt audience.

And in between his running, singing, slow-motion martial artistry, lying perfectly still etc, he pulled off — best of all — a great sequence of improvised beats, using walls, floor, hands and feet. Bearing in mind previous post Short And Sweet, this was a lesson in the acceptable face of the drum solo...

Time Is Money

I've just received a most generous offer from Amazon of a £15 discount if I buy a watch priced at £75 or more. The only problem is that I don't wear a watch, I don't need a watch and I'm not convinced that many people need one.

Perhaps a watch says something about the wearer. But if you need a watch to say something about you, maybe that's all there is to say...

I stopped wearing a watch about 30 years ago. I was on a journey through Israel with a journalist from the Yorkshire Post and noticed his wrists were watch-free. I asked him why and he explained that you were almost always near a clock or some other means of telling the time — there was no point. I thought about it for a few days and decided he was right. The watch went. And the sky didn't fall in.

Now, with the ever-presence of mobile phones, laptops, iPads etc, who really needs a watch? Don't just save £15. Save £75 or more. Watches are a waste of time.

God Bless The Eagles

I really like the Eagles. There, I've said it. I don't care who knows. I think they've played some of the greatest rock music, written some of the best crafted songs and sung some of the finest harmonies.

In a roundabout way, I was reminded of one of their best lines when an old friend and newspaper colleague posted the fact that he'd finally been made redundant after 40 years by a company whose bottom line is... the bottom line.

Good old boys down at the bar,
Peanuts and politics.
They think they know it all,
They don't know much of nothing.
Even if one of them was to read the newspaper
Cover to cover,
That ain't what's going on.
Journalism dead and gone.

And rock lyric writing with any real meaning seems pretty much dead and gone too.

The papers and magazines are generally full of confectionery... and so is the music.

The Eagles may be jaded old rockers, but at least they bothered to write about America's ignorance, arrogance and greed, about what presidents really mean when they talk about "freedom", and about the quagmire of Iraq.

Which hip young songwriters with that kind of mass audience did anything similar?

Short Is Sweet

It's almost too good to be true... a drum battle between Art Blakey, Max Roach and Elvin Jones captured on video. Three giants who were not only a huge influence on the development of jazz, but who indirectly also helped change the course of rock drumming, thanks to the awe in which they were rightly held by some of rock's finest players.

But the video has a salutary moment for all drummers. While all manner of percussive ingenuity is being unleashed on stage, the camera pans across the audience and there, centre screen, is the face of a woman... who looks bored witless.

Someone once told me that people usually applaud at the end of a jazz solo because they're so relieved it's over. And that may apply even more to drum solos — of any kind.

Perhaps the best advice for drummers is: Keep calm and don't carry on.

Peter The Great

It takes a lot to make me laugh. And one man who can make me laugh — a lot — is Peter Searles (above). I last saw one of his one-man shows many years ago. And the first time I saw him was when I was camping at an arts festival with my kids back in the 1990s. He was so funny that we still laugh when talking about it now...

By complete chance, I met Peter again, for the first time in a decade, when I was helping out with the music at an end-of-term show at Crisis (the charity for homeless people) in London... and he was helping out with the drama.

He's still on the road and I (and my kids... now grown-up) are buying tickets to see him again. I would advise you that if you have any sense of humour, you should do the same.

Day Tripper

I recently went to Australia to do some features. It was a quick, packed visit and I was there for only five days. Everybody said it was a long way to go for such a short time.

Yesterday I managed to take that concept further and went to America for the afternoon. I flew to Philadelphia from London at noon on Saturday and got back into London at 10am this morning (Sunday).

Now, that is a long way to go for such a short time. It wasn't supposed to be like that, I should add. And this momentous waste of time was achieved only thanks to the US immigration authorities and the Department of Homeland Security.

The full story will be published before long...

Jack And John

It's always great to see Jack Bruce. But to see him playing a pub gig? That's beyond the wildest of rock dreams... Except that it happened this week at The Half Moon, Putney, when the pre-eminent bassist guested with the awkwardly named Staxs soul big band to raise money for the charity Medicinema.

Bruce's voice and bass were on absolute top form for joyous versions of Born Under A Bad Sign, White Room and Sunshine Of Your Love.

But what made the night for me was that also there in the audience was the legendary John Marshall (drummer with the post-Cream Jack Bruce Band who played on part of Songs For A Tailor, and all of the tracks on Harmony Row, both among the greatest of rock albums).

Try as he did to keep a low profile, John was soon identified by Jack fans and spent a good deal of the evening chatting to gig-goers who couldn't believe their doubly good luck.

The Nag Wins

I've seen the inside of a few pubs. (The Shark Dentists didn't get where they are today without seeing the inside of a few pubs.) In the end, they all become much a of a muchness.

But last night I think I found the perfect pub. It's the Nag's Head, in Reading, which bills itself as a 365-days-a-year beer festival. With its wide range of eccentric ales, it's certainly that. But it's so much more.

It's beautifully done out. It's clean. It plays great classic pop and rock music at a volume that makes conversation a possibility rather than an ordeal. It serves great food. The bar staff are genuinely friendly and funny. And the regulars are softly spoken and polite.

The only down side is there is no live music to breach the peace— so no chance for the Sharks to put it on their gig list.  Maybe it's time to unplug...

Oz The Great And Powerful

I've been away. Now I'm back. From the land where beer does flow and men chunder...

I've been dodging kangaroos and snakes, climbing mountains, hiking rainforests, exploring caves and swimming in the Southern Ocean... all part of just one working week.

There was a time when I thought Australia was the last place on earth I wanted to visit. Now, having been there twice, I've totally fallen in love with it. Put very simply, here's why...

Good News, Very Bad News

Well, the laptop is back... thanks to help from the Apple Doctor in London and Mac Ambulance in Brighton.

But its revival coincided with the demise of the car. The starter motor has had it, and now it's a £900, 10-hour job, apparently, to replace it. Meanwhile, I have no idea when it will be useable or how I am going to get to Shark Dentists gigs this weekend.

What do you call a drummer without a car? Unemployed is the traditional answer.

A Tablet For Emergencies

I've been using an amazing tablet device. It has multiple wafer-thin "screens" stacked one on top of the other. You can write onto these with a hand-held device which gives you the possibility of producing both words and images with boundless flexibility.

And when you've finished your file, you can strip it off and hand it to anyone, and they can read it anywhere, anytime.

I experimented with this "notepad and pen", as it is known, when my laptop went into a coma and had to be taken for surgery. It was a remarkable process and the writing went well. But when the laptop comes back, I fear I will have to revert to old Apple Mac technology if I want to file the article.

Another Olympic Triumph

More great news about the Olympics, via the BBC:


"Residents at an estate in east London have received a leaflet saying soldiers could be placed there during the Games. The Ministry of Defence says it is evaluating sites for surface-to-air missiles for the Olympic Games, and could place them at residential flats. It says part of an air-defence system might be based at a water tower on the estate, where 700 people live."


This really does reassure you that the Olympics is a worthwhile event and that it is being managed sensitively and sensibly for the benefit of us all.


See also 'Go Figure'.

In Memory Of Syd

I know I had a good time last night because I have the bruises to prove it. All down my right leg. That's where I was banging the tambourine to help "conduct" a music workshop performance by the Homeless Oratorio.

These great people and musicians get together regularly at Crisis in east London, and I was lucky enough to be there as part of a course I'm doing in leading music workshops.

This particular workshop is led by the remarkable Clare Kenny, bass player to Sinead O'Connor, and (in her days with Hank Wangford) aka Cherry Red Footwear. Also helping out on percussion was local resident Dave Rowntree, drummer with Blur.

The piece for the night — rather surreally — was Pink Floyd's Astronomy Domine, which the 14-strong group performed with tremendous energy.

In just over a week, they will be on stage at the Royal Albert Hall with Brit Floyd (leading Floyd soundalikes) in a performance that has largely been brought about by the late Syd Barrett's sister's involvement in charity work. It looks like being an amazing night...

Go Figure

The Olympic Games.. There are arguments for and there are arguments against. The most eloquent argument against has been produced by the combined forces of the Mayor of London, National Rail, the Department for Transport, the Highways Agency and Transport for London.

It conveys in an instant — and visually — the argument against staging the Olympics in London. It is this brilliant map showing the impact of overloading an already overburdened public transport system.

The tube stations with orange rings around them will be "busier than usual" and the ones with red rings around them will be "exceptionally busy". I think the idea of this extremely helpful display is to show you which stations to avoid as you make your way around the tube network.

So just take a look at the map above... and everything should become clear....

The Death Of Levon Helm

Strange that I chose to write about the late, great drummer BJ Wilson just a few days ago. For BJ said long ago that his own favourite drummer was Levon Helm. And now Levon has finally passed away, after a long and successful career post-The Band and post-cancer.

Perhaps even more so than BJ Wilson, Levon was a truly musical drummer. And not only that, he could sing and play drums at the same time. That is, really sing and play drums at the same time. He didn't just do a bit of backing vocals, or sing a song while still keeping time. He sang lead vocals with heart and soul while playing full-on in the same fashion. If you need proof, check out his performances on Martin Scorsese's film The Last Waltz. Or see the news clip on Levon's website.

Like many of The Band's members, Levon Helm had his roots in a pre-rock era that stretched back to circus tents, medicine shows and vaudeville, when the power and the mystery of the song and the performance were everything. It's no wonder that Bob Dylan picked Levon's men to back him up through one of his most crazily fruitful and creative periods.

There cannot be another Levon Helm. But any drummer who has watched him play and sing is bound to take something of Levon into their own playing, even if it is subconsciously.

Sympathy For The Devil

A taxi driver explained to me yesterday that there were just three fundamental problems in Britain: one, the fact that we are run by Europe; two, mass immigration; three, the selling off of public utilities to foreign companies.

He reckoned that the "immigrants" would, because of their higher birth rate, take over the country at some point before too long.

And then he added something that shocked me.

He said, "You can see where that Anders Behring Breivik is coming from." The taxi driver did concede that killing 77 people was an extreme act, although he suggested that the media had given the impression that these people were killed at random when, in fact, there were clear political reasons why they had been targeted.

He — the taxi driver — seemed a really nice bloke, and I don't think for one minute that he was advocating violence. But he did — like many, many others, no doubt — feel there was a need for a strong political leader to stand up and tell the truth about the three big issues mentioned above, and for the British to stop moaning and do something.

Will there be a British Breivik?

The Literary Drummer

Question: What do you call someone who spends all their time hanging around with musicans? Answer: A drummer.

Not particularly funny jokes like this reinforce the idea that drummers are not proper musos. Trying to think of the most musical drummer in rock, I reckoned it had to be BJ Wilson.

You might know him for playing on Joe Cocker's With A Little Help From My Friends, or you might know him from the various stories about Jimmy Page asking him to join Led Zeppelin prior to his thinking about a bloke called John Bonham.

But you should know him for his epic work with the classic line-up of Procol Harum. Wilson's style has been described as "literary", so closely did the drama of his percussion follow the drama of Keith Reid's lyrics and Gary Brooker's music.

If you need any persuasion, listen to the drum fills on the song A Salty Dog — a piece for which Brooker said there was no drum part, but Wilson proved emphatically there was. This was totally original drumming, played completely for the song, using space and silence just as much as sound. And always surprises.

Scores of other tracks, such as the similarly cinematic Whaling Stories, illustrated Wilson's musicality. But check out his time-stopping barrage in the climaxes of Repent Walpurgis, from the very first Procol album, if you want to hear him in fullest flow.

Wilson died awfully and tragically young. And no one has ever quite matched him — as a rock drummer and musician.

From Tooting To Tokyo

The wonderful Das Fluff who climaxed last year's Tootstock fest have gone on to even greater things. Dawn Lintern and her hypnotic songs have been wowing audiences in Japan this week (see live video from Tokyo). Dawn and her Fluffers deserve to be big here as well as in Japan. Check out their website to find out why.

The equally talented Hero & Leander will be following in Das Fluff's gigsteps when they close this year's Tootstock on June 30. There is already interest in H&L in Germany.

Today Tooting. Tomorrow the world...

Dying For A Pie

The visual pun is better than the verbal one on this PETA poster. But either way, it seems to have upset a few people. Of course, being a vegetarian or a vegan is supposed to upset people.

I remember once being the only vegetarian at a dinner party and being seated alongside the owner of a meat-products company. "Do you realise that people like you could put me out of business?" he asked me, quite seriously. "Yes. That's why I'm doing it," I answered as politely as I could.

This latest PETA campaign is making the point that meat-eating isn't healthy. Which it isn't; vegetarians tend to live longer and healthier lives than meat-eaters. But if it were proved that vegetarians die earlier and more miserable deaths than carnivores, I wouldn't stop being vegetarian. Better health is a bonus from refusing to eat meat, but not the main reason for it. The main reason for my being vegetarian (and for admiring the principles of vegans) is because the meat industry is cruel, disgusting and unnecessary.

Playing Games

The Olympics. Isn't it a wonderful event? It's sole raison d'etre is the promotion and enjoyment of sport rather than moneymaking and exploitation on a grand scale.

Or did I get that the wrong way round? The Musicians' Union has just announced reports of musicians being asked to perform for no payment at Olympics and Jubilee events. As is so often the case, it seems it's assumed that musicians enjoy what they do so much that they will do it for free.

The MU says: "Our understanding is that all other sectors involved in putting on these events, eg security, staging, equipment hire etc are being paid their usual fees, but not musicians." It is urging its member to refuse to work for nothing, and to report any such offers.

This is nothing new in London. Pubs, clubs and bars there have long exploited bands' desire to play by offering them no-pay gigs, or gigs with convoluted contracts that basically ensure the band only gets paid if it brings in an impossible number of punters. The venues make money on the bar, and sometimes on the door too, and the bands tend to make nothing.

London is supposed to be the hub of the music scene, but it's generally only in the provinces that pubs and clubs pay bands a reasonable fee. That's why the gig list for Russ Payne and the Shark Dentists looks kind of provincial; the reason is that we refuse to play for nothing.

Of course, professional musicians enjoy what they do, but they enjoy it a whole lot more when what they do is recognised as having some value.

Fundamental Problem

Staying on the subject of compassion... or rather its absence. Comments from Joe Public about the deportation of Abu Hamza to the US read like something from Private Eye's From The Message Boards... but really you couldn't make them up: "only another 3.4 million to go" and joky comments about Hamza's suitability for waterboarding and death by firing squad...

Are people really so unaware of what they are saying? Is this real fundamentalism? Fundamental self-unawareness? What exactly is the difference between these fundamentalists of the right and the fundamentalists of the Taliban?

Or perhaps the question is: what is the obvious similarity?

Just Another Brick

I was looking at Samantha Brick's website, just to see where on earth this person was coming from. I found that it wasn't that dissimilar to my own... an attempt to say this is who I am and this is what I do... oh and if you like the look of me, why not give me some work... It's what we're all doing, isn't it?

Brick's "crime" seems to have been (a) to write for the Daily Mail (and a few of us have done that, too) and (b) to expose how she perceives herself and how she thinks the world perceives her.

The observer is the observed, as discussed in a previous post, and Brick seems to be tied up in a feedback loop or two when it comes to being aware of what's going on. But that, too, is not much different from the rest of us, is it?

So instead of pillorying her, maybe we should just see if there is something of us in her, and vice versa. And if there is, maybe some compassion would be in order.

The Juice On Johnson

Robert Johnson... He had to get in here sooner or later... If Sleepy John Estes was scary (see previous post), then Robert Johnson was downright terrifying. He became known to me through the composer's credits on Rambling On My Mind (which Eric Clapton slipped onto the Blues Breakers album) and Four Until Late (which Eric Clapton slipped onto the first Cream album, Fresh Cream).

From there it was a short step to hearing pretty much everything that Johnson had ever recorded in his brief but almost unbelievably brilliant blues career.

There's not much to add to all the thousands of words written about Johnson. It's enough to point out that without him, it's difficult to imagine any of the subsequent evolution of blues/rock. Oh, and can we please remember that it was Johnson, not Zeppelin, who coined the immortal line: "You can squeeze my lemon till the juice runs down my leg."

Men Of Mystery

Dylan, Tooting, doubling up, Like A Flower, Sabatini, Scaravelli... One thing leads to another in BlogWorld... And Vanda Scaravelli's yoga probably leads on to Jiddhu Krishnamurti. It was the great teacher Krishnamurti who introduced Scaravelli to Desikachar ... If you're interested in any of this, follow the links... But be warned, once you start going into the teachings of Krishnamurti, you may find (and even accept) that there is no way back out again.

While Dylan, or his songs, seem to come from the mind and heart of a shaman/poet/jokerman in tune with mystery and that semi-enlightenment that shines through the work of musical and poetic geniuses, Krishnamurti appears to be the full real deal, the mind and heart in full enlightenment and in complete touch with the nameless.

Why mention Dylan and Krishnamurti in the same sentence? I've seen them both on stage and can't think of any other humans of that stature that have moved me as they have. But while Dylan notoriously declared he saw himself as "a song and dance man" (which those who have seen him in recent times will probably appreciate), Krishnamurti always made it clear that "this is not an entertainment".

Krishnamurti, like Dylan, sees the positive in the negative. Only in rejecting everything that is "known" can one come to truth, or, more correctly, can the truth reveal itself. It's not clear whether Dylan has now rejected religion, although a telling line on his 2009 album Together Through Life suggested that the road that had led him from 1973's Knocking On Heaven's Door to 1997's Tryin' To Get To Heaven (Before They Close The Door) had finally brought him to the conclusion that "The door has closed for ever more, if indeed there ever was a door..." Is it just me, or is this one of the most powerfully haunting lines Dylan has ever sung?

Krishnamurti rejects religion, along with nationality, identity, politics, philosophy. You name it, he rejects it. And, like Dylan, he gives you no answers, just asks questions... and suggests you ask questions... for all the answers are inside you... and you are the world (literally, not theoretically). And that statement is a universe away from the dire charity song We Are The World (which, amazingly, managed to drag in Dylan for a fleeting contribution).

Krishnamurti always comes back to the fact that the observer is the observed, the thinker is the thought. The "I' is a false construct of thought, memory and psychological time... and psychological time does not exist, any more than the past or the present exist.

Heavy stuff. But if you want lighter stuff, you'll be content with preachers, gurus, entertainers and those song and dance men who have no connection to the power of mystery.

Krishnamurti died in 1986. He still seems to live in the minds and hearts of thousands of those who heard and saw him and tried to get to grips with his 65 years of teachings. He was 90. Dylan is still only 70 and has a few more gigs to play.

I can't think of anyone else but these two whom I would give almost anything to see... apart from maybe the Buddha... and Robert Johnson... uh oh, more blogs coming on...

Double Double Trouble

First, I manage to organise a music fest on the same day as Bob Dylan headlines a festival down the road (see yesterday's post). Then I find I've done it again.

I'm still finishing off the tweaks on my novel Like A Flower, when I find that a book called Like A Flower has just been published.

When I chose the title — and theme — of my book at the beginning of 2011, I checked everywhere to make sure nobody else had used it.

But Sandra Sabatini's Like A Flower has been published since then. I can hardly be too cross. Sabatini's book is subtitled My Years Of Yoga With Vanda Scaravelli. And it is absolutely beautiful to read and to look at.

Scaravelli was an amazing teacher who developed a "yoga with no name", concentrating on the awakening of the spine and working in harmony with gravity. I was fortunate enough to be able to study for a few years with one of her "disciples", Sophy Hoare, another remarkable yoga teacher, who still informs my own yoga practice.

Since Sabatini's Like A Flower is a non-fiction yoga book and my Like A Flower is a novel, I guess they can co-exist. I hope so because, without giving away too much, my title became the whole point of my book, so no other will really do.

Dylan Unlikely To Play Tootstock

Having organised the Tootstock festival for June 30, 2012, so that it didn't coincide with the Olympics, other gigs and everybody's holidays, I now find that Bob Dylan has announced his one and only UK date for the year is, yes, you guessed...

This is frustrating since I always go to see Dylan whenever possible. If you're alive at the same time as the greatest of all singer/songwriters, you have to make the most of it.

Mind you, Dylan has been known to add on extra dates around his "one-off" gigs. When he played the Feis last summer, it was supposed to be his only 2011 UK appearance, but he managed to sneak back into the country twice in the autumn for two more legs of his Never Ending Tour.

The only certainties are that I won't be going to see Dylan on June 30, and Dylan won't be playing Tootstock. But I'm willing to bet he'll announce more UK dates this summer...

Wrong Is Right

Thoughts of Sleepy John Estes and making a change led on to We're Going Wrong. It has to be a contender for the most perfect song. Okay, there's Like A Rolling Stone and A Day In The Life and Layla... and everyone can add their own contenders.

But We're Going Wrong, which first appeared on Cream's Disraeli Gears album in 1967, is perfect for its simplicity, for its emotion and, of course, for the musicianship.

Ginger Baker's wonderful tom-tom patterns on a 6/8 rhythm could probably hold the song together on their own. Jack Bruce's bass is largely restrained, but his pure voice is increasingly unrestrained as the song unfolds. And then we get Eric Clapton, at the height of his fuzzy-haired, woman-tone period, with sublime notes played in just the right places.

On stage in the Sixties, the song became a tour de force, and still possessed its power when Cream revived it — and themselves — in 2005.

Many listeners, particularly in 1967, took We're Going Wrong to be a political/philosophical/protest kind of a song. Look at the lyrics and you'll see why. But it is documented that Jack Bruce wrote it after a row with his wife, and that it is simply about a fractured relationship.

Whether it's about the failed relationship between two particular people or about all the failed relationships that make up the world we live in, the song works. And if the microcosm and the macrocosm are all one, then it's not even worth differentiating.

Either way Jack Bruce wrote a masterpiece. For him, it might have been personal. For us, it's a perfect and universal call for change.

First Time I Met The Blues

The first real blues record I ever heard was an album by Sleepy John Estes and it was actually quite terrifying. I had never heard anything remotely like it in my little schoolboy life.

Not only did it sound scarily grown up, but it opened a window into another, darker, more real world.

And it wasn't just that voice and that guitar. There was also the blues harmonica playing of Hammie Nixon. Altogether, this new (to me) sound was almost too much to take.

"Everybody ought to make a change some time," sang Sleepy John. And that's about all any of us needs to remember...

Block Horror

Impressed by my friend Angela's tweeting (and told by her to just get on and do it), I have at long last signed up to Twitter.

But it's been a whole day now and I still can't really think of anything worth tweeting about. Maybe I'm missing the point.

Or have I got tweeter's block? Perhaps I've got blogger's block. Since I'm now blogging about my inability to tweet...

Freak Show

Take some heavy, heavy riffing, mix in some psychedelic rock and then add some delicate funk.

That's what we got at the studios the other night... not in our room but in the chillout area. We being the Monkey Fingers rhythm section. We had nothing much to do, while we were waiting for the vocalists to finish recording their tracks, but hang out — and listen to the sounds blasting out of three other rooms.

From one: industrial bass, guitar and drums that sounded like the awakening of a monstrous beast. From another: far-out hippie guitar noodling and a crazed voice. From the third: cool keyboards and great grooves.

The strange thing is that although sometimes it was a cacophonous sound storm, for much of the time that we sat and listened it actually meshed together really well: a battle of the bands that ended with everyone playing on the same side. Chaos — and yet somehow a bizarre intelligence at work. It could have been a piece of vintage Frank Zappa.

Bearable Lightness

Last night I picked up a whole drum kit in one go, put it in the back of the car and went to a rehearsal. Then, all I had to do was carry it into the studio, put it down and, after attaching some cymbals, I was ready to go.

The Traps A400 portable kit is remarkable in several ways: it really is portable; most of its drums are shell-less; the snare and bass drums are only an inch or two deep; and the whole thing (including pedals and stands) costs just under £300.

Oh, and it sounds really good and it's far louder than you think it's going to be. The bass drum and snare enable you to produce a powerful groove, and while the shell-less tom toms may not resonate quite as much as you would like, they still produce satisfying, thwacky sounds.

It's perfect for rehearsals and may even work on small, quiet gigs. It has to be played to be believed. There is so much "innovation" in the drum world that has little point apart from selling new product that the arrival of the Traps portable kit has to be hailed as a genuine breakthrough.