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.