Drummers

Have you heard the one about the guy who kept hanging around musicians? He was a drummer... boom boom! Oh dear, there are stacks of bad drummer jokes, but there are stacks of jokes about banjos and accordions and their players too. But I didn't start this post to make bad jokes, I was just thinking the other day about the drummers we've played with. And what an interesting and varied bunch they are!

Let's start with the first drummer I played with, properly, in a band. This was a band we put together where I worked with various members of staff. My boss and I both had music in common and we formed the aptly named 'Mike Mucus and the Membranes' for a couple of fun gigs. Nothing too serious, a few cover songs and basically good fun. But we didn't have a drummer in the office cadre of musicians, so Mike brought in a friend of his called Follett. He was a good drummer, and although we rehearsed together, we never actually gigged with him for some reason. I remember one rehearsal where he dropped his joint behind the radiator. He spent the entire rehearsal trying to fish it out with a drumstick, and then dropped the drumstick down the radiator too. All very well, but we rehearsed in the office canteen! I hope the evidence of his shady habits were never found. Well, they must have been one day, for that building is now the headquarters of McDonald's in the UK.

Follett couldn't play for our one main gig - at a night club in London supporting some pop/punk band called Scarlet. So Mike brought in another friend of his, Bill. Now, we didn't need to rehearse with Bill because he was a 'professional'. He was amazing! He played that one night with us an we had an absolute blast. He was a quiet guy, very pleasant, amazingly talented and had longish hair and a moustache. That's about all I can remember about him - but if you want to know what he looked like when he was 'top of the pops', just look up Bill Legend - from TRex!


The next drummer we played with was Tony (pictured left) who was the drummer in our folk rock band, Aardvark and No Money. This was in the 80s and Tony had naturally curly hair whilst Bryan and I had perms! Oh yes - matching perms. Tony was a rock solid drummer - his timing was so spot on that when we recorded, whilst being mixed someone asked if he was a drum machine! He used to play in a vest top and I do remember one gig, at the Old Bull Arts Centre in Barnet, where I 'oiled him up' with glycerine to make him all shiny under the lights. Hey! It was the 80s, OK?

Tony was a great drummer, but for reasons I honestly can't remember, we parted ways and he was replaced by Kevin (pictured right), who even now still plays with Bryan in the dance band Swindlers & Gentry. Kevin came into Aardvark in, sadly, its declining years, but he stayed with us as we formed Shave the Monkey which played (and I have to say, didn't do too badly at all!) together for over 16 years.

At one time my son Alex played with us - he did a couple of barn dances when he was only 7 or 8, but he was easily good enough. He still plays now (aged 17) but exams and skateboarding and other distractions keep him away from his sticks these days.

Shave called it quits in the early part of the new millennium and it was time to seek pastures new. One gig I depped on bass for was in an ad hoc dance band in Kent. The drummer this time was a quiet chap but extremely talented, called Carlton. Turns out he was a professional too. Played with a quiet outfit called Bad Manners!

For a short while Bryan and rehearsed and recorded with a band called Fire Giants, but it never quite got going. We had an amazing drummer called Martin who was very different in style to the other guys - he had spent time in Cuba learning some incredibly complex rhythm stuff. He played all sorts of percussion too including weird African drums, shaky and wobbly things of all descriptions.

The next drummer that I played with (and still play with) was Baz - he was a friend of Penni's and we played at a few ad hoc gigs at Rougham together (more stories about some of the weirder gigs are on this blog).

As you can tell, quite a history of drummers. And all of them, without exception, excellent. I consider myself very lucky to have played with such great drummers. And, as a bass player, it's important the bass and drums 'click' to get a great rhythm section. Hopefully the drummers I've played with have enjoyed playing with me too (though I should think that Bill and Carlton probably wouldn't remember those one off gigs).

Now the other day, Kevin couldn't do one of the barn dance gigs. So Bryan called up a friend who he hadn't played with for years, but who had recently got back in touch. Full circle it seems, Bryan and his mates played a gig with Tony - but he doesn't exactly have curly hair any more, and Bryan doesn't have a perm either.

So, who do I play with now? Well, Shani, my music partner in our band Tu, is also a drummer! We can't exactly perform live with the drums though - because she plays bass, guitar and sings too. Talented as she is I think playing drums at the same time as bass or guitar is going to be a challenge... unless we change and go for a 'White Stripes' type act at some time!

What's the difference between a drummer and a drum machine? With a drum machine you only need to punch the information in once. And there's a really rude riposte to this about bass players too but, funnily, I can't remember it...

Relaaaaaxed

Ah - I did something today I've not actually done in ages. Nothing! Yes, nothing. I lay on the lawn in the warm sun and did nothing. I felt the tickle of small bugs as they crawled over me - a huge interference. I listened to the screech of the swallows diving across the clear blue sky.

I heard the snore of my cat who chose the discomfort of heat so that she could have companionship in the sun. I heard the chatter of neighours and smelled the smoke of early barbecue preparations. And the rustle of the frogs amongst the pond plants - a splash as they chased the sun from the edge of the pool.

I felt the prickle of the grass beneath my back and the hard, dry ground underneath me, unyeilding. I lay, content to do nothing except, occasionally, read a few pages of my book. But mostly I just felt that warm sun on my skin and the weight of a lovely lunch settling in my stomach.

What a peaceful afternoon.

Upstaged!

Last weekend Shani and I played at Rougham Air Field at the Suffolk Kite Festival. It was an incredibly windy weekend (good) but rainy too (not so good). There were kites like a crab, Tweetie Pie (pictured), an octopus, a giant teddy, as well as the fantastic stunt kites. But we didn't get to see much of them.

Shani and I were in the tea/bar tent, playing in the afternoon to the visitors to the show. We played both Saturday and Sunday for about three and a quarter hours over a four hour period - mostly because we were having such fun.

But - on Sunday - we were upstaged! Oh yes, upstaged by a guest performer. You see - I always ask the audience (when there is one - sometimes there weren't that many people in there, but we always had the bar staff!) what they'd like us to sing. 99% of the time of course we don't know what they want, but one young lady asked me for a song I knew!

"Horsey, horsey, don't you stop, just let your feet go clippety clop, your... mmmmm.... and your wheels go round, giddy up we're homeward bound". OK, I've probably not sung that since my own kids were about four, but I remembered all of it but one line. I asked the little girl if she knew the line and she did. I asked her if she'd like to sing it, and she said she would.

With a smile of consent from her mother, the cutie clambered onto the stage and I put the mike down to her level. With a loud and confident voice she sang the song with us accompanying, and 'tail goes swish' was the missing line. The audience of course applauded hugely. Her little eyes went round as saucers and I could see she loved it. Another soul lost to the lure of the stage! Even if it was in a tea tent in a field at a kite festival.

Two days of solid playing our fingers were sore but we had a grand time. John, the guy who runs all the events, was not happy with the layout of the event and there weren't really enough people there to make him completely happy, but even so he seemed happy with the music and it was, for us, a good time. They run some superb events at Rougham (and some of my earlier and more bizarre gigs have in fact occurred there too), so worth a visit: http://www.roughamairfield.org/

Muppets and Drag Acts

Here's something from my personal history - I dug it out of my old writings when I was talking about the Muppets with one of my colleagues.

With theatrical parents (in more ways that one), I was brought up in a very open atmosphere - where more 'artistic' views, exaggerated personalities and attitudes were acceptable. I met many fascinating people - I only regret that being so young, I did not fully appreciate how lucky I was to meet them.

Certain instances remain fairly clear in my memory, such as watching a production of the Muppet Show and seeing not only how it was done technically, but just how much the puppeteers 'lived' the characters. Even though from the studio floor you could see the operators, the characters of the puppets were such that you watched them and followed their dialogue, almost ignoring the puppeteers 'below'. The show was staged on two levels - the studio floor being where all the human muppets moved, and a secondary level from which the show was filmed, and from where the lives of the puppets themselves were all that could be seen.

The episode I watched being filmed featured Racquel Welch. I remember her laughing most of the time - you couldn't help it with the crew and the 'cast'. The pure fun of such television magic made the whole experience magical, even though the 'technical magic' was revealed.

(I found part of the show on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEuEx0qJyO8)

Perhaps being brought up in the theatre had disadvantages too - my mother tells me that when I went to see 'Peter Pan' on stage I loudly cried that I could 'see the wires'. Peter wasn't flying at all! The wires aren't so easy to see these days (on screen they can be edited out and cgi is a wonderful thing), but I know they are there. I wasn't much good at the suspension of disbelief I guess. Perhaps that's why I liked reading so much?

For one production my mother worked on, I can't remember which (probably something at the London Palladium), I was down in the dressing rooms with her whilst she fitted head dresses. Danny La Rue entered in full ball gown, wig and makeup. He was very funny, even just chatting to his companions, and he loved to say in a sudden, deep, butch aside "I'm a fella really". All the men I met were charming and tolerant of a young girl, and I think the strong affinity between theatrical people stems from comradeship and a history of tolerance that has been around longer in their profession than in perhaps any other (save the oldest, I imagine).

Muppet picture from Wikia Entertainment website, Danny La Rue from BBC website. Unknown origins, no copyright claimed, original owners' rights asserted.

In the garden

At last we are enjoying some pleasant spring weather that has lasted a whole weekend! It's been very intermittent, with rain and clouds and single sunny days - but yesterday and today it has been lovely.

Sally, my mother, does lots of work in the garden throughout the week, weeding and tidying. Last weekend I mowed both lawns and trimmed the hedge. Our hedge adjoins the neighbour's so we always do both hedges (both families). Thing is - my extension lead doesn't reach all the way to the end so their hedge is only 3/4 done. Oh well!

Would you like a quick tour of my back-garden? It won't take long - since we built two extensions on the house, it isn't such a big garden as when we first moved in.

At the back there is a patio that extends the width of the house. There is a conservatory too, but it's in the lee of the house, so isn't too hot. Warm in the mornings, cool in the afternoons. Only two sides are glass. It's rotting away - the wood wasn't treated the last two years and now it needs serious repair, or even removal and rebuilding.

The patio has two sets of steps down to the lawn, and the lawn is surrounded by border on three sides, with a shed at the bottom in the middle. We are repairing one of the sets of steps, and one of our cats decided that the rubble bag would make a great place to snuggle. Daft animal!

The strawberry border has taken over what was the leek and bean bed too, so hopefully with the consistent rain and the sun (pleeeeease!) we will have a great crop.

In front of the shed is a small border too, that is planted with potoatoes. Next to the shed is a broken pot - it's actually a toad house. When I moved last year's grow bag (not many tomatoes) there was a toad in residence, so I scooped him and his surrounding earth into a heap and put the pot over the top to keep the earth moist and keep him protected. There's nothing worse than mowing frogs and toads accidentlly when the grass is long!

At the bottom and to the left of the shed is a lilac tree and it fills the garden with its scent. When it has finished flowering, the mock orange blossoms, and that corner remains fragrant. To the right of the shed is my pear tree and this year it has so many small fruits on it, following an amazing blossoming, that I've already had to support one of the main branches. I'll have to reduce them and give it more support, I'm sure.

Down the side of the house where the conservatory is we have a wider part of patio with table and chairs and this is also where I'm doing more vegetable gardening. There is not enough border to plant more vegetables (there are lovely flowers and shrubs down the sides of the lawn) so I am growing a variety of goodies in pots. I have three tubs in the conservatory with khol rabi and broccoli, and outside I am growing more potatoes (in a bag), tomatoes, beetroot, squash, beans, peas (only two plants!) and carrots. I'm not sure how successful they'll be, but I do enjoy getting my hands dirty - the feel of the earth between my fingers (not so nice under the fingernails though).

Hopefully we will have some home grown veg to accompany our home grown pears, plums and strawberries. The wall along the patio has a border on the lawn side and this has jasmine and agapanthaus (I think!). It's a bit wild, but in the spring it's full of bulbs including narcissi, tulips and hyacynth. At the moment it is a soft green carpet of nigella - waiting to burst into flower as 'love in a mist' over the next few weeks.