Bob And Mavis

It's good to see that Bob Dylan and Mavis Staples will be hitting the road together on a tour of the States later this year.

They've known each other for more than 50 years – and Bob is said to have proposed to her early on, only to be turned down.

That never ended their mutual admiration – and there's a lovely duet by them which closes the excellent album "Gotta Serve Somebody - the Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan".

And Mavis's latterday blues/soul/gospel albums have sounded rather like Dylan without Dylan actually being present.

The two of them on the same stage is bound to be a powerful experience for those lucky enough to be there.

In the current era of formulaic, passionless and gutless songs and singing, Dylan and Staples are on another plane, almost another planet. When we lose them, the music really will be dead.

Free Spirit

A lot of rock stars kill themselves by accident. Only a few do it purposefully. Keith Emerson appears to have been one of the latter.

He is destined to be a remembered as a 'prog rock legend' – when perhaps he should simply be hailed as a great musician, and a great and free spirit.

Before the juggernaut of ELP took to the road, Emerson had long paid his dues on the club circuit and found fame as the keyboard player with The Nice.

He added a little spice to his solos by throwing knives into his keyboard and amps. And The Nice stirred things up in the States with their own (wildly superior) version of Bernstein's 'America', particularly when Emerson decided to burn the US flag on stage.

I recall seeing Emerson and his knives at a free concert in London's Hyde Park in an era when the music represented a counterculture – rather than being a willing and greedy part of the establishment.

Emerson was his own man – to the end. That's how he should be remembered.

Ride On

I spent some time yesterday playing ride cymbal… two ride cymbals to be precise. One the new Bosphorus Antique Series model (pictured above) and one my old faithful Istanbul model.

I'd been semi-seduced by the sight and sound of the Bosphorus on a visit to the excellent Drumshack in south London. It's a beautiful and clever piece of work and has a variety of lovely, dry sounds. In short, I quite fancied it.

I thought it might cut through the high volume of the Unison Bends band better than my Istanbul. So I took my own ride into the store, set them both up and tried them out against each other.

What this proved was that they were two different instruments, and what I could have with one, I couldn't have with the other. And in terms of volume, they were about the same.

My decision was to stick with what I have. And at the gig tonight, I will appreciate my old ride cymbal having found that it stood up so well to the new kid on the block.

Ginger

In answer to the previous post's question: what are we rehearsing for?

The response today is: because we are bloody lucky to be able to play.

The following terrible, if not unsurprising, news is on Ginger Baker's website: "Just seen doctor… big shock… no more gigs for this old drummer… everything is off… of all things I never thought it would be my heart…"

See my other previous post for how I feel about this curmudgeonly genius of the drums.

It's only through practice that we reach our real potential. Long ago Ginger used to do his seven hours a day or whatever, playing the rudiments until they were absorbed into his body. And that gave him the vocabulary to speak with a unique musical voice.

When you heard Ginger… you knew it was Ginger and no one else.

I don't know how he has lived this long… and played so brilliantly and been such an inspiration to so many.

If it's not too late, I wish him health… and peace.

Practise, Practise, Practise...

Bassist Bill Keller and I tried to book a studio in Brighton for a Unison Bends rhythm section rehearsal - and gave up after the third one we tried was fully booked. And this was early evening and midweek.

There are obviously a lot of bands in Brighton. But it's more or less the same story everywhere. Unless you book well in advance, you won't get a rehearsal space.

So where are all these bands playing – apart from in rehearsal rooms? Are they actually gigging or just rehearsing?

The number of venues booking bands seems to be shrinking – and the number of bands seems to be increasing. It's always been tough to get gigs, but now it's getting even tougher.

You could be forgiven for asking: what are we all rehearsing for?

Final Edition

The Independent is dead. Long live The Independent online?

The Independent was launched as a radical, politically independent newspaper in the UK in 1986. That it survived for 30 years – and through many years of its imminent demise being forecast – is quite an achievement.

The current proprietor has portrayed its demise as part of a pioneering leap forward into the new world of online publishing. Newspaper journalists, on the whole, see it as a deeply sad bereavement.

Dumbing down appears to be the way ahead online – a glance at the Daily Mail online, The Telegraph online, and even The Independent online or the BBC online should make that fairly clear.

Lists, trivia and a paucity of in-depth coverage seem to be what is required. And in the case of the Mail Online, prurient droolings over female 'celebrities' showing their tits and arses. This is the new journalism.

I am glad to say that I freelanced at The Independent for several years in the 1990s, and also again over the past three years. With grateful thanks to fate, I will be in its office on the night we put together its last edition, and say goodbye to a journalistic era that began with idealism and ended with pragmatism – and a sense of dread.

Death On Mars

Sometimes some space is a good thing… now the hoo-ha over David Bowie has died down a little, maybe it's possible to reflect a bit more clearly.
Neil McCormick from The Daily Telegraph may well have reflected quite a bit after his review of 'Blackstar' which drew the conclusion: "It suggests that, like a modern day Lazarus of pop, Bowie is well and truly back from beyond."
Kitty Empire, who got it similarly wrong, used the whole of a piece in The Observer this weekend to make her excuses in full.
'Blackstar', with the advantage of hindsight, is so obviously a grim farewell to mortality, but few people knew what was coming, so it's not entirely surprising that they got it so wrong.
My own feelings about – and memories of – Bowie are fairly straightforward. I loved 'Hunky Dory' and I loved the fact that you couldn't go into my local bar in the early 1970s without 'Life On Mars' blasting out of the jukebox – the perfect soundtrack for that time.
 I never liked the 'Ziggy Stardust' and 'Aladdin Sane' albums that much. 'Young Americans' was a wonderful return to form. And I'm afraid, for me, that's just about it.
I only saw him once on stage – with Queen – and he was truly remarkable. Bowie was a great musician, and a great performer with great presence – and  a great appetite for sex, drugs and rock 'n roll, and maybe he willingly paid the price for that. 
Now he's gone, 'Life On Mars' still says it all, I reckon.