Goodbye guitars
December 8, 2007
Back in late September when I had a bit of a life crisis and subsequent life laundry, I amazingly managed to convince myself that, after 16 years, I didn’t need two guitars and that perhaps the band wasn’t ever going to get back together.
I worked all the summer of ‘91 in a chip shop in Lyme Regis to buy that electric guitar and amp. Grunge was around at the time and everyone seemed to be forming bands, arguing about names and having musical differences, normally all in the same afternoon. I only ever played one gig in front of a paying audience. It was at Munroe’s, a shitty nightclub behind the market in Stockport and I think my mum actually dropped me off in her mini metro - ROCK! We were on a stage 6″ high, but when you’re ‘up there’ facing 30 or so faces it feels like you’re standing on the white cliffs of Dover. We were the support act to the support act, The main act was a band called MrMeaner, (you can read about the gig here). The guy who printed the flyers didn’t know what we were called, and so as he knew the drummer’s name he christened us ‘The Steve Chapman Experience’. Our set list consisted of L7’s Pretend We’re Dead I think, and some Nirvana covers.
Anyway, that was all a long time ago and it’s time to move on. So I took my two guitars to The Doghouse, which is a small guitar and skateboard shop attached to Antenna Studio’s here in Crystal Palace, where I said a very emotional goodbye. Johnny, a really nice guy who also makes custom Dickinson Amps offered a part exchange for a single new acoustic. It has a much better sound, but being brand new and made in China the fret board smelt of fish (the glue I think) for the first couple of weeks until, um, dirt, finger skin and sweat ’seasoned’ the board.
And so to today, like a divorced Dad with visiting rights, I went back to Antenna to check up on them. Johnny’s done a great job cleaning them up and restringing them. I’m hoping some 16 year old kid looking to buy his first guitar comes in to the shop clutching some hard earned savings and a dream of being in a band and buys it, or it could be yours for £150.
Google or Googe? Valentine’s Day and Love/Hate
February 14, 2007
It’s Valentine’s Day, and Google have done a custom logo..if you click it, you get a load of Valentine links. So far, so public holiday, except a very smart sub editor friend of mind saw a double message in this one.
The ‘L’ in this one is formed from the strawberry stalk one would assume. How ever, due to it’s small size, the word could also be ‘Googe’ …. typo? Poor design? Well Debbie Googe was the bass player in My Bloody Valentine
Ah-har! We’re on to you Google and your multi level word playery! Bet you’ve had that in the bag for months! also google.com redirects to google.co.uk
In other Valentine’s day news.. I’m liking the Love / Hate option on Chow.com. Ahhh Love/Hate were one of my fave bands of the 90s. I saw them at the International II in Manchester, which was a well rough venue.
For those about to rock… We will sue you.
September 4, 2006
Link: BBC NEWS | Magazine | Discord over guitar sites.
Sepia mode on: It’s 1991, and a 16 year old eyedropper has spent the summer working in a chip-shop in Lyme Regis. He’s returning up north with a ruck sack of dirty washing and a wodge of hard earned cash… cash that is to be spent on a guitar! Weaned on rock and metal during the dancey ‘E’ Madchester rave years he’s fired up as grunge takes the UK by storm! He spends £200 on a Tanglewood Les Paul copy and and a Marshall Valve-state amp! Plugs it in, runs a finger across all dails up to 10, and let’s loose a right racket. So how do you play this thing?
When I was learning guitar we didn’t have the internet.. so we’d either try to work it out by ear, get a book out of the library, or shoplift one - any of these options doesn’t really get the publisher any money. Nowadays budding axe boys and girls can learn they’re favourite songs in a jiffy… This move is perhaps the single most stupid thing I have heard yet. (Up there with shutting down Harry Potter fans sites.) Yeah kick fans in the nuts you money grabbing tossers. Anyone who’s ever used tab is reading that whilst listening to the song they already own.
So, on to bit-torrent with tabs then. And to see that Beautiful Day by U2 is one of the artists being deprived on anymore money is gauling, like they need the cash. If you’re in NYC on sept 26th you might like to meet a member of the lawfirm representing the NMPA, Moses Singer, at a talk Gideon Rothschild is giving entitled ‘2006 AICPA Briefing on Tax Planning for Wealthy Clients’. Says it all I reckon.
I wouldn’t mind if music publishers had a decent digital alternative, or put the tab/sheet music on the damn CD - bang problems solved - but, no, there’s none. And to only just come round to this when Olga’s been around for over a decade is shameful. Once again it’s us, the fan/consumer getting it in the bum. Google however, has 292,000 results for U2. btw If anybody cares it goes - A –> Bm –> D –> G –> D –> A. So keep on rocking in the free (tabs) world kids, or - and this is a better plan - sod them and make your own better music.
Furthermore, the BBC has massive music output, yet I don’t think we’ve ever done a ‘learn to play guitar’ style offering apart from this, which is soooo BBCy it would make any kid worth his plectrum vom.
not your everday excuse…
June 27, 2006
From an email to Rhodri.
How you doing. Fancy a beer some time soon?
Reply:
hey Andrew - I do, of course. We never manage to get around to it, do we. At the moment I’m up to my eyeballs because I appear to have joined Scritti Politti
When celebrity knocks, you gotta be in I guess.
Home to Roost and the O2 festival
June 22, 2006
So sometime in the past I must have said something to someone, or given my business card to someone, and the other day an unsolicited envelope turned up with a review copy of ‘Home’ by Rooster from Hudson PR (yeah, the state of the website speaks volumes). Since then I’ve had four different calls from different people at Hudson asking can they have some PR and what I thought of it. I said I’d pass it to someone in Radio1.
The song’s ok, in a middle of the road Virgin Radio white guitar rock 4/4 kind of a way. Too over produced for me and doesn’t exactly give a lot lyrically. Songs about ‘going home’ are always a bit iffy, there’s usually a roads reference, a ‘back to you’ line. What’s ‘home’ actually mean anyway? Like in films when they say ‘let’s blow this thing and go home’. Home’s a nice cup of tea and a sit down, maybe a biscuit or a snooze, that’s home. Remember that ‘Home..where my thoughts are racing. Home..blah blah” that went with the MSN advert? Or was it Windows 95? (I thought that was Start it Up by the Stones?) That always seems a very American view of home to me.
Anyway, my real issue’s with the whole Song BMG –> PR Co. –> Media review CD process I guess - are labels and PR agencies still doing that?. Compared to way say Hill & Knowlton went about promoting the Chocolate phone Hudson’s approach couldn’t have been more anachronistic if they’d faxed me the sheet music. The World and his wife knows these days that that’s not the way to reach the My Space generation.
In other music news, I went to the O2 wireless festival last night, and saw Belle and Sebastian, (who do sing about cups of tea) and The Strokes. I got on the guest list through a mate, so braved a gormet burger from the VIP area washed down with a £3 can or Carling…went straight through, didn’t touch the sides, at least the guest pen had decent loos. Nice to see a lot of beer throwing in the crowd during the Strokes set, not quite as bad and the bottle ‘n’ can fest I witnessed during the Metallica set at Monsters of Rock festival in 1991, now that was throwing beer around! Tsk! Kids today eh? (I did feel a bit old….gulp).
BBC - Later - May 26th 2006
May 24, 2006
You may remember the story in the news about BBC staff making up the audiences for popular BBC shows like Top Gear, Jonathon Ross and An evening with Paul O’Grady. Well one show that sort of went round via viral whisperings was Later…with Jools Holland, and it was to this that I went last night.
Bonkers lineup though. Crosby and Nash, Dave Gillmore, Paul Simon, Elvis Costello and…. The Streets. (Plus some crazy Brazilian drumming band) The Green room must have felt like a retirement home. What Mike Skinner was thinking as he nodded along to Simon’s ‘Graceland’ is anyone’s guess. Jool’s interview with Simon didn’t reveal much. Jools: Why’s it taken you 6 years to release a new album?” Simon: “Well 9/11 happened….” There was a tiny groan from people around me. But hey, he’s the envy of every Starwars fan.
Likewise his interview with Skinner, but then Jools isn’t about the probing NME style interview, he more of a ringmaster of aural blood sports. A guy I know is in Belle & Sebastian, and he says that doing Jools is liek stepping into the gladatorial arena. Didn’t really feel like that last night, more of a aural chess match, still had a great time and was glad of the opportunity to go. I think the public performing license has come through now, so they’ll be letting ‘normal people’ back in for next weeks show.
Blurry pics on Flickr.
New York siddy… it’s raining.
November 17, 2005
Crikey it’s been a while since the last post.. That’s because I’m in NYC, only it’s chucking it down outside and we’ve got 20 mins for we have to be somewhere else, so I’ve got time to put finger to key.
First off, just before I left to come here I went to the BJP’s Vision conference as a portfolio judge for the third year. The standard was very high this year bar a few stinkers, but most of the students seems very corporate focused. I guess that’s the way it is these days, none seemed to be doing photography for the love of making images… Mind you with college debts no topping 10,000+ the halcyon days of further education are long gone. Strangely enough there were one or two adult photographers this year, people with complete books, past commissions and proper equipment. The only thing they lacked was guidance… Which I felt silly offering in one case to a guy who’d been a photographer for over 15 years but who’s book seemed frozen in the early 90s…’erm, get some new work’ is had to pad out to 10 mins.
I had the following Friday off too, as I had a mate coming over to watch a certain trilogy… but before that I wandered up to the shops to get some supplies. 11am was fast approaching, and I’d left Morrisons so wasn’t sure quite where to observe the 2 min silence. As it happens the CP war memorial is just by the side of Morrisons and I saw a few veterans assembling there.. So I went over and stood with them, after we’d paid our respects I got chatting to one of them, a Mr Jack Russell, who’d lived in south London most of his life, and who saw action in the far east.. we were chatting away and I thought what the hell, so I said, let me buy you a drink.. the pub across the road had just opened so we went there… I then spent an hour listening to the most amazing stories of this old man.. He spoke of how they’d all come to the Crystal Palace for a treat as a boy, and the things he saw in the war. I think he was just happy that some one ‘young’ had come and remembered, and that he had someone to talk to. He’d also submitted his story to the BBC People’s war archive, with the help off his grand daughter. He was, in short, a truly nice old man.
Anyway, after I got home my mate Dan came round at noon and we watched all the Lord of the Ring’s films in one go.. my head was mush by the time we finished at 1am. That’s what they fought for…
NYC calls.. the rain’s stopping, big post to follow.
Link: Live 8 - Hyde Park - 2nd June 2005 - a photoset on Flickr.
Sunday… my arms are killing me from clapping above my head, my throat is sore from screaming and my feet and back hurt from standing up for 12 hours straight but none of that matters because my head’s full of memories from one amazing day.
We got to Victoria at around 12ish and walked up to Hyde Park corner and Park Lane with hundreds of other people.. and promptly ran into Gay Pride coming the other way…. fair play to the Old Bill though, they must have had their hand full yesterday what with Live 8, Gay Pride, Wimbledon, and a load of other stuff… the capital was buzzing.
We got in and thankfully we were in the gold circle section, which meant the luxury of booze! Quick can of Carling and a pasty and we were off celeb spotting on the way to the stage. First off, they showed clips form Live Aid ‘85 on the screen, including Freddie doing radio gaga.. ahhh, the closest I’ll every get to being there…
Anyway, then the show started proper… I’m not gonna do a act by act breakdown, there’s plenty of that about on the blog-o-spere.. For me, high points.. The Who, which was surprising as I’m not a massive fan… which made it all the more enjoyable. Robbie, fantastic, again for the same reasons.. got the whole place moving. REM, likewise. Also I finally got to see Slash live, even if it wasn’t with G’n'R. Good to see he hasn’t updated his wardrobe in 15 years.. he jumped down into the pit, sunburst Les Paul straining out a fantastic solo… Enjoyed the Sterophonics, Keene, Madonna, Scissor Sisters got us all clapping and jumping too. And Sir Bobness doing ‘don’t like Mondays’ was a rare treat. Travis’ version of staying alive was well timed and funny… Found myself shouting along to U2, who’s music really does sound better in stadiums. Ms Dynamite’s redemption song was well judged and well done. In fact there were some great cover versions, including Dido’s 7 seconds.
lukewarm but still good for me for me; Coldplay, ok, but not that fussed, Snoop Dogg, and missed UB40 as that was our only bog/ber break in 12 hours. Shit award goes to Mariah Carey.. who tried her diva antics on us. Where as almost every other act brought a bottle of water to the stage and opened it themselves, she shrieked like the fat neurotic pig she is.. “can I get a sip of water here..” and on rushed her personal masseuse holding tissues and a bottle of water with a straw in… this at a gig to highlight the plight of people in the third world who walk miles to get dirty diseased water. We all started booing… Then she screamed for a mic stand, and added, ‘even thought I said I didn’t want one’. Glad to see the roadies all made themselves busy elsewhere. When one did turn up 10 mins later.. it got more of a cheer than she did. I wanted to go Donnington monsters of rock stylee and bottle her off - but alas no. Macca came back on and got by with a little help from his friend, George Michael. Then everyone came back on for the hey Jude ending…
I’m not sure what the TV coverage was like, but I hope it showed some of the videos and other speech bits, as well as the music, as these were extremely poignant and were the real reason for it all. But back to the music, it was great seeing bands and acts I normally wouldn’t go to see live, yes, even Sting. In all one amazing experience that only a bout of Alzheimer’s will ever make me forget…
Sara Cox was on Radio 1 this afternoon talking about it… she summed it up as like the feeling you got after a wedding. All that build up, then while you were there there’s the hanging about, trying to buy a t-shirt (they’d ran out), stepping over plastic bottles and stuff. So at the moment, it doesn’t feel historic, it’s all to new and fresh in my head… right now it just feels brilliant.
Anyway HUGE flickr set here…
Invasion of the bland - Coldplay play Crystal Palace…
June 28, 2005
Link: BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Music | Coldplay confirm stadium concerts.
Oh my God I think I have some feeling of how residents of Pilton in Somerset must feel when they host Glasto… as fresh from glasto, Coldplay played Crystal Palace tonight .. consequently tranquil Crystopolis was invaded by people dressed like kids from H&M yet you knew took down £50k+. From my study window, as I type this, I can hear the schlepping of Birkenstocks down Gipsy Hill running for the train…. I should have set up a stall on my front garden selling hot focaccia, I’d have made a mint. God they were all so…. average.
So not only was every train out of Victoria rammed around 7, but later on around 10 a 15 min drive back from Nunhead to see a mate took an hour! Not that I’m complaining too much. It’s great to see the park put to a good use… But I just hope they’ll come back for The Bowl which features local bands for local people…
PS. You have to read Skips letter to Coldplay.
Fla-men-tallica!
March 4, 2005
Check this… Metallica played on a classical guitar and mixed into Take 5. Hear it here. Totally mixed up, but so beautifully played… Amazing covers in a flamenco style, but as Gabriela points out.. “We’re from Mexico, not Spain”, says Gabriela, “and we don’t play flamenco. Our music is more like a blender, with rock’n'roll and jazz. Do you want to hear some Metallica?”
Listen to Mr Chang too, it’s almost housey in rendition. Now I love a good cover version as much as the next man. A personal fave is the Gourds cover of Gin and Juice, which for me, ranks as one of the greatest ‘re-imagining’ of a song I’ve ever heard. Maybe that’s the thing with a cover version.. it’s not just about shifting it into a different style, that’s easy. Take Me First & the Gimmie Gimmies, who do punk covers of easy listening choons, it’s fun, but a gimmick. It’s a lot harder to try and distil the original sentiment into some new sprit.
I found Rodrigo y Gabriela through the increasingly excellent soundslikeradio.net. Andrew (a fellow beeber) is ramping up his weekly(ish) show and getting better and better.. well done to the fella, and if you’ve got any unsigned music, he’d love to hear it. mail andrew@soundslikeradio.net
