Kettering Rocks

I've been away... I'm back. A lot of time was taken up arranging the KettStock festival, son of the eight-year-old Tootstock festival.

KettStock in Kettering recreated the spirit of south London's Tootstock – and then some. We had a bigger venue, an audience twice the size, and we raised four times the amount for charity.

So, a major success and a night packed with poignancy, emotion and good music.

And as with all good things... everyone wants to do it again.

Many thanks to Russ Payne and Unison Bends, the Shark Dentists, Bill Deacon, Pete Derbyshire, Mez, Mark Turner, Olli Turner, Dave Part and Nevada Summerley, the musicians who made KettStock happen.

Now, who wants to play at KettStock 2?

Happiness Is A Warm Rolls

Picture by LAWRENCE BOGLE

Yes... that's me with John Lennon's psychedelic Rolls-Royce. I had the unexpected pleasure of checking it out on its brief visit to London a few days ago when it was part of a display of famous Rollers at Bonhams in central London.

It normally resides at a museum in Canada, but it was here to help R-R promote a new model – along with cars belonging to Fred Astaire and the Queen.

Lennon took the car to the States in 1970, and ended up donating it to a New York museum to ease a tricky tax situation. It is now reckoned to be the most valuable automobile in the world

Even today, it is still a work of outrageous art. Chums such as Paul, George and Ringo, not to mention Brian Epstein, Bob Dylan and Keith Moon, all seemed to have had a jolly time in the back of the car – which was said to have an extensive supply of drugs and alcohol.

But the exterior was perhaps the trippiest thing of all – a collision of psychedelia with gypsy caravan-style art that defies you not to smile at the irreverence of it.

I thought of it again today when I was in rehearsal with my old band, the Shark Dentists, working on the infernally difficult-to-play Lennon song 'Happiness Is A Warm Gun'. With a little more work, it – and its combination of 4/4, 3/4, 6/4 and 2/4 – should be ready for performing at a little festival in the Midlands next month.

Complimentary Medicine

The last time I played drums on an album – 'In Love With Trouble' by the Shark Dentists – the reviewer in Blues Matters magazine complimented me... on my harmonica playing. That was, of course, welcome – although the drums are my first instrument, I do like to contribute a bit of blues harp on the side.

But it was good to find my drumming has finally been noted by Blues Matters, in its review of the new album 'Liquor And Iron' from Russ Payne and Unison Bends. (I did also play four bars of wistful harmonica to set the scene for the epic track 'Heading Out East' but, understandably, that didn't get a mention.)

Anyway, we're all grateful for the positive comments about our work. So here is the full review:

RUSS PAYNE AND THE UNISON BENDS

LIQUOR AND IRON

(Thousand Smiles Records)

The album opens brightly with the funky This Life (Gonna Be The Death Of Me), Russ Payne’s vocals and guitar riffs distinctive and engaging. Nigel Summerley’s infectious rhythmic drumming on Saskia’s Got A Gun provides the perfect backcloth to the conversational vocals and clipped guitar style. The pace slows with the balladic It Could Have Been Me; the textured vocal harmonies, Saal Seniveratne’s fluent keyboard skills and Payne’s soulful guitar interludes create mood-inducing crescendos. The clever tempo changes on All Talk add to the atmosphere of another good original song. The slower burning Waiting At The Gate, Certain Tears and the title track showcase the versatility of Russ and confirms his status as a very fine singer, songwriter and guitarist. Bassist Bill Keller and drummer Summerley maintain the high-energy grooves of Sometimes and Oughta Know By Now in the tradition of great, explosive power trios. Payne’s searing guitar solo and vocal harmonies with Jake Rousham stand out on the catchy, up tempo Good Luck. An impressive album, Liquor and Iron proves that the gap between relative unknown bands and those at the forefront of the current UK blues explosion is very narrow indeed.

3 Doors Closed

Watching Donald Trump become president of the United States might have left you feeling dismayed.

The fact that any musicians had anything to do with the inauguration was disturbing. 

Lots of them said no, of course. But not the band 3 Doors Down. And that left me feeling, at several removes, a little let down.

My old band the Shark Dentists used to play a good and thoughtful song by 3 Doors Down called "Be Like That". These were good guys, I thought. It goes to show you never can tell...

Trump is a huge 3 Doors Down fan apparently... Right or wrong, I've kind of gone off them...

Whole Lotta Love And Theft

It's not entirely surprising that it's being claimed someone who wrote the basis of the music for a Led Zeppelin song was not onboard the Zep.

It's alleged that a significant part of 'Stairway To Heaven' was lifted from a song by Spirit.

There are fine lines between inspiration, paying tribute and stealing. Bob Dylan knowingly entitled an album which seemed to borrow musically and lyrically from a variety of sources 'Love And Theft'.

But he didn't credit Muddy Waters for his own take on 'Rollin' and Tumblin'' – although on a later album he did feel obliged to credit Willie Dixon for the Chicago blues riffing of 'My Wife's Home Town'.

Led Zep have previously been found out for lifting chunks of their classic 'Whole Lotta Love' from elsewhere. And one of their best-known vehicles, 'The Lemon Song', with its single-entendre stuff about squeezing lemons, was obviously taken from Robert Johnson's 'Travelling Riverside Blues'.

But then, where did Johnson get it from?

A line in a Summerley/Derbyshire song by our old band Shark Dentists, called 'Murakami's Blues', included the line 'All the lonely people, where do they all come from?' If it had become a major hit (it hasn't yet), then Paul McCartney might have complained to us... although the words have a different melody to that of 'Eleanor Rigby' and were deliberately used in this tribute to author Haruki Murakami to reference the importance that he has always placed on music and lyrics (as well as cats, sheep, wells and bizarre sex).

I'm not a devotee of Led Zeppelin (although whenever Russ Payne and Unison Bends play our version of 'Since I've Been Loving You', it always seems to go down rather well) nor am I a fan of 'Stairway To Heaven'.

The best version I ever heard of it was when I saw Frank Zappa do an epic and apparently amiable version of it on stage... then topping off the climax with the da-da-da-diddy-da-da-daaaah line from'Teddy Bears' Picnic'...

That seemed to say everything there was to say about 'Stairway'... whoever wrote it.

In The Presence Of Greatness

Russ Payne broke up the Shark Dentists a while ago and formed a new band with a fluid line-up called the Unison Bends. That band has been gigging regularly through 2015 across the M4 delta, from London to Bristol, and is now taking a break until December.

But I've carried on drumming. There's a solo percussion project called Moving Target, which should be completed in November, recorded with the invaluable help of the great Dr Simon Scardanelli. And there's been a bit of sitting in...

I had the good fortune to play at a London street festival with some excellent jazz musicians, including Yosi Marshall on sax, Funky Johnny P on bass and Caroline Cooper on keys. And it was Caroline who said I should call in at a Monday-night jam session at the Halfway House in Barnes... a suggestion that led to the resumption of this blog.

The night I finally made it there, Caroline was on keys, alongside the house rhythm section and some horn players. An endless procession of singers took the stage for some great, old-fashioned swing and ballads.

In the break, the house drummer said I was welcome to sit in... and that there was another drummer in the place who would also play.

This proved to be something of an understatement. When the second half kicked off, there was a man sitting at the drums who had palpable style and panache – even before he touched the kit. And when he played, he played with tremendous skill, subtlety and passion. His brush work was sublime and made me feel like I shouldn't be there. On a ballad, in which one over-ambitious singer began to lose the musical plot, the drummer held everything together and rescued singer and band from disaster.

"Do you want to go on next?" the house drummer asked me. "Yes," I lied. How on earth did I follow this guy?

It's ok, I told myself, just stay within your limits... it'll be a ballad or swing... you're not a jazz drummer, but you can do those.

Then as I settled behind the kit, the singer helpfully told us: "The next one's a rumba."

Well, I improvised and survived, and got away with it. And the next one after that was a welcome uptempo swing number.

It was only later that I discovered the identity of the master drummer who had excited and scared me in equal measures.

Like a real gentleman, he came over to me after the second set, introduced himself and said he'd like to talk. He was Brian Walkley, a veteran from the 1960s, who has played with everyone from Long John Baldry, Elton John and Keith Emerson to Sonny Boy Williamson, T-Bone Walker and Stevie Wonder.

Like all good drummers, he had a fund of anecdotes – like the night he was driving Ginger Baker home... but Ginger couldn't actually remember where home was.

If you are anywhere near the Halfway House, go there on a Monday night. It's great entertainment. And if Brian is playing, it will also be a great education in the art of the drummer.

Christ, You Know It Ain’t Easy

The main band I play with – Russ Payne and the Shark Dentists - is fortunate. It’s been busy gigging regularly all this year and already has bookings scattered right through 2014. And yet we are still caught in the round of calling the people who book bands and begging them for work.

With a few exceptions, the people who book bands seem incapable of giving straight answers, incapable of calling back when they say they will, incapable of intelligible speech when they do call back, and often capable of double-booking you with someone else or forgetting to put dates in their diary.

When too many of these things happen at once, you begin to question why you are bothering. At these times, the lure of concentrating on recordings and videos rather than live performance becomes extremely attractive.

And we’re among the lucky ones. Goodness knows how many bands must have given up, beaten down by the seeming impossibility of getting a gig.

That Royalty Feeling

Well, I got my first royalty cheque for my novel Like A Flower this week. It's been a long time coming. And it isn't going to change my lifestyle significantly, but it really feels good to get even a little something back for a hell of a lot of work.

There's also been money starting to trickle in from Russ Payne and the Shark Dentists' new all-original album 'In Love With Trouble'. And the feeling is the same.

Words and music may look easy... but they take a lot of hours and a lot of energy. Why do we do it? ... is a good question... I suppose it's what we do and we don't have any choice but to keep on doing it...

Opportunity Begs

Some opportunities are just too good to turn down. And some are just too awful to accept.

My main band, Russ Payne and the Shark Dentists, like to play festivals – not that we don’t enjoy playing the usual circuit of pubs, clubs and parties.

Having just finished a string of festival gigs, we were offered another. All we had to do was fill in an online application and pay a $10 fee – and the application form made it clear that if we played the festival, there would be no cash payment for “this opportunity”.

It’s insulting enough to be paid nothing, but even worse to be asked to pay $10 to be paid nothing.

If you want to see a line-up of bands who are so desperate for a gig that they are willing to pay to play, this will be the festival for you.

Musicians are good at selling themselves short. And I was just reminded of that fact by Stevie Freeman at the excellent Union Music in Lewes, East Sussex, one of the independent record stores that is stocking the new Russ Payne and the Shark Dentists album, ‘In Love With Trouble’.

I said we were happy to sell the album for £7. Stevie said it should be £10: “You shouldn’t sell yourselves short.”

She’s right, of course. 

We can all do better...

Air On A G Harp

Strange things have been happening in the world of harmonicas...

I've been hard at work with Russ Payne and the Shark Dentists recording our second album – the first was more or less a 'live' album, but this one is the full all-original works, featuring guest musos, sort of 'Sgt Pepper's Rocking Blues Club Band'.

It's actually called 'In Love With Trouble' and should be up on iTunes, Amazon etc before too long... as well as appearing in traditional CD form.

Anyway, to start a long story that I may not be able to cut short... the final track was an acoustic number which seemed to be crying out for a violin solo. But as sessions went by and the violinist couldn't make any of the dates... it was decided that the song was actually asking for a blues harp solo.

I play occasional harmonica with the band, but of the six harps I had with me, not one of them was in the right key.

I just had the week between the penultimate session and the final one to buy (and play in) a Marine Band harmonica in the key of G.

Checking by phone to make sure I didn't have a wasted journey to a local music store, I found that they didn't have a G harp in Brighton, they didn't have a G harp in Eastbourne. Or Haywards Heath. Or Lewes. Oh well, it would have to be the Charing Cross Road in London.

I called Macari's, where I usually buy harps, and they didn't have one either. "There's a problem with Hohner sending over harmonicas in the key of G from Germany," I was told. "What kind of problem?" They didn't know.

Days were going by and I was getting desperate. I emailed Hohner in Germany to ask what had happened to the flow of G harps. More days went by and there was no word.

In the midst of this I had to attend my son's graduation ceremony at the Rose Theatre, Kingston. A quick googling revealed a music shop almost next door to the theatre: Hand's Music.

I phoned them, expecting the usual apology. But the man who answered said: "Yes, we've got three of them." "All in G?" "Yes."

Reader, I reserved a G harp and picked it up next day. And shortly after that I was in the studio, playing the last solo on the last track of the album, ready for the last mix. And it came out all right – probably because it had been such a long, hard road to get that damned harmonica there and in front of the microphone.

I still haven't heard from Hohner... But Hand's is my new favourite music shop.

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...

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...

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.

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.

To Drive Or Not To Drive

I've been thinking about Duster Bennett a lot. For two reasons. One is because Russ Payne and the Shark Dentists have been playing his great song Jumping At Shadows at recent gigs, and I've just about got the playing of harmonica (and drums) on it sorted. (Duster, of course, played harmonica, drums and guitar and sang — all at the same time, as he was the one-man band of the blues.)

The other reason is because he died in March 1976, aged 29, when he is thought to have fallen asleep at the wheel driving home from a gig. He's not the first or last musician to do that. It's an occupational hazard when you spend nights driving long distances, setting up, playing, taking down, and then driving off into the night, often along unfamiliar roads.

I almost nodded off a couple of times on my way back from a gig this week. I should have stayed over but had decided I needed to get back. Arriving home at just after 130am, I found the front door locked and ended up sleeping in the back of the car. The musician's life has more than one occupational hazard...

Rhythm Twins

Why do some rhythm sections endure? And which is the longest-serving rhythm section in the business? My first thought was of Robbie Shakespeare and Sly Dunbar (above), but they've been together a mere 37 years.

That's nowhere near as long as Mez and I (then-and-now pictures, below), rhythm section with Russ Payne and the Shark Dentists, who have been playing for 44 years — although we have had a few years off here and there.

Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker first played together in 1963 and for the last time in 2008, so that adds up to 45 years. But they've probably had more time apart than Mez and I have — and certainly more fights. I can't even find a picture of just the two of them together.

So I think the rhythm section outstanding achievement award has to go to John McVie and Mick Fleetwood (below) who have clocked up 45 years (and spent most of that time playing together amicably). Unless someone out there knows better...

Sweetheart Disagreement

An old video of the old Shark Dentists line-up on YouTube has just passed 1,500 viewings. It was our version of Bob Dylan's wonderful song Sweetheart Like You.

The strange thing is not that a lot of people have watched it, or even that only two of them have bothered to comment. It's the comments themselves. One says: "Nice performance, guys." The other says: "Truly appalling."

Since the constant factor here is the video, it does seem the perfect illustration of the difference being in the person watching — and the baggage that this observer brings to the observation.

In the end, the observer is the observed... And there is no right or wrong...

And what's a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this?

Satisfaction Not Guaranteed

There were some lovely people in the audience last night. And one not so lovely person too. A woman came up to Russ Payne mid-set, informed him that she didn't like the blues music we were playing and asked: "Can you do some Rolling Stones?"

Russ politely explained that we didn't do Rolling Stones numbers. And she then, not quite so politely, told him to "F*** off, then".

Fortunately, everyone else in the place seemed more than happy with the Shark Dentists' set list, and there was much dancing and encoring.

The incident with the Stones fan was hardly Altamont... but it always leaves a nasty taste when someone gets aggressive.

Man Talk

The only man apart from Robert Zimmerman (www.bobdylan.com) to instil such power into the phrase "rolling stone" was McKinley Morganfield, aka Muddy Waters: "I'm a man. I'm a full-grown-man. I'm a man. I'm a natural-born lover's man. I'm a man child. I'm a rolling stone. I'm a man child. I'm a hoochie coochie man..."

No apologies for reproducing the whole of the chorus of Mannish Boy. When Muddy sang this, his whole being seemed to quiver with passion. For a black man in 1950s America to point out that he was not a B - O - Y but an M - A - N was as much a revolutionary political statement as it was a sexual provocation. You don't call me "boy" and you don't kick me around any more... was the sub-text.

I saw Muddy in the 1960s and he was part of my own growing-up process. We weren't going to be kicked around any more, either.

In June this year Russ Payne and the Shark Dentists (www.sharkdentists.co.uk) will play support to Mud Morganfield (www.mudmorganfieldsite.com), eldest M - A - N child of Muddy Waters. The phrase "bringing it all back home" springs to mind...

Good Nights

Just back from a couple of days on the road... beginning to realise that it isn't just playing with the band and trying to be a better musician that matters. Playing (like many other things, no doubt) brings you into contact with so many great people...

Like the mum bringing along her 15-year-old guitar-playing prodigy (ex-Britain's Got Talent) to sit in with us... like the sax player whose conversation is impenetrably obscure and yet whose playing is soulful beyond all words... like the little boy wondering quite seriously why his blues-guitarist dad needs quite so many guitars... like the lone drinker in the audience who says there was one song we played that really "blew him away"...

The Shark Dentists have lots more gigs coming up... and lots more people to meet...