So, a weekend away. So much to tell, so for the most part I am going to show you some pictures. A picture tells a thousand words, which will save me an appreciable amount of typing. Out of curiosity I copied my last proper entry into MS Word and it covered two pages of A4. I clearly do go on.
But yes, Friday. I had the day off to prepare for the big night, or Big Night if you'd prefer. I fooled about on MySpace a bit, posted to my Blogger page and then it was off to the station. It was a lovely day in town.
Richard III. Shakespeare really had it in for this one.
Town Hall Square. Derelict drunks just out of shot
On the train, and off I went. The station was full of beery fools in Rooney shirts carrying plastic pitchers of watery Carling. One of the new great pleasures of this type of wanker (and there are so many kinds these days) is to wait quietly for someone to walk past them and the shout "Hey!" as loud as they can. Hee-larious. Luckily I have nerves of steel and am immune, but they still need pushing under a train. It is a shame, really, that the FA didn't get more tickets for England fans. If they had, they'd all be in Germany and out of my way. Penalties in the second round, you mark my typing.
Anyway. It is hot and hayfeverish. I am really not in the best of frames of mind to take the train. this is not to say I dislike the train. I love travelling by train. It is my second most favourite means of locomotion after ferries. But somehow Midland Mainline connive to drain it of all possible pleasure. They make a big thing of their free tea and coffee but that's all smoke and mirrors. MML are painful to endure. If it isn't the tinny, feedback-laced and utterly incoherent ten minute long announcements about the buffet car and safety posters, the regular endless delays or the fact that a ten minute journey costs six quid, it's the sure and certain knowledge that as a passenger with a guitar on a journey to London on a Friday, someone with a "Don't Fuck With Me" look and eight cans of cider will be sat in my long-reserved seat and the luggae rack will be full of backpacks, suitcases on wheels and, inevitably, a surfboard.. I will not find this out, however, until I am utterly immobilised, halfway down the carriage with my guitar and backpack hitting everyone within ten feet and two queues of people on either side. In situations like this, death is the easiest solution for everyone.
In the event the train was half empty and I spent the trip chatting happily to an Australian woman who was pointedly wearing a jumper to show how handily she could handle the 32 degree heat. "It gets to forty in Melbourne," she said, and she was pretty enough for me to believe her.
The gig itself was in the Walrus pub, which is a pleasant place on Lower Marsh on the 59 bus not far from Waterloo station. It is a pub of some people's dreams, where the air is smoke free, the jukebox is muted but eclectic and Kronenbourg 1664 costs three pounds a pint. Two out of three ain't bad, but three quid for exactly the same stuff that costs two pounds twenty in Leicester is plainly insane. That gripe aside, it's a nice place. It has pleasant, and fairly recent, memories of Nick vomiting into a carrier bag at a bus stop on Kennington Road at 1am after our much-storied trip to Vinopolis and Masters Superfish. We all trooped upstairs, and the Sniffle Showcase began.
There were eight acts in all, a lot, but it was really more of a big party than a gig. We had a raffle, which I would eventually win. There were t-shirts for no more than 17 members of the cast, as that was how many Chris had been able to get for twenty quid at Stockwell's branch of Poundland. Despite this, Nick and I were quite nervous. We planned to do five short, poppy tunes, no more than fifteen minutes then hoss the fuck out of it. First on were Club Paranoia, who laid down a backing track of bleepy samples and other more scary noises as a middle aged drunken Scotsman intoned his terrible, terrible abstract beat poems in a silly voice. this broke the ice nicely.
We went on next and it actually went terribly well. We remembered all the words, were mostly in tune and finished at the same time on eighty percetn of the set. This is all you can ask in a live gig situation. People clapped and we went back tou our seats on a wave of adrenaline.
This bit coming up is a bit slushy, but I really don't care. These are my favourite people in the world. Only James Buckley was missing, though I know he dearly wanted to be there. James Whittle was sat at the front, singing and grinning widely. He remembered every word. Louise arrived just in time and waved at us from the crowd throughout. No-one cheered more loudly. It was like coming home. We all did a large part of our growing up together and now, in that room, we were together again, we were family again, singing the songs we had written together when we were younger, fitter and stupider. Back then we were going to be stars. It's been a long time. But on Friday night, for fifteen minutes, we were nineteen again.
And then the next act went on, and then the next. Some were very good, some less so. Mississippi MacDonald, or Olly to his friends, is one of the Tavistock Mafia, who now all live in South London. He is an excellent blues guitarist, and also a very nice chap.
He is, however, prone to saying things like, "I learned this song in San Antonio at the feet of Blind Grapefruit O'Jefferson" and not be making it up. This is a bit too pseudy, even for me. He recently broke his wrist, which is a terrible thing for a guitarist. But he broke it snowboarding, and that's just such a ridiculously prattish thing to be doing he immediately forefited any sympathy he might have got out of me. Besides, he was on top blues form that night so he'd healed successfully.
Then The Sniffle Brothers. They are in fact James Whittle and Chris Ancil, and Sniffle Records is their joke record label. It started as a joke, that is, but now it seems to be taking on a life of its own. It has a showcase night, for example, of which me and Nick (or Johnny Bastard and the Creamy Darlings, to use our stage names) were members. They played a couple of covers, including a version of Come On Eileen that would have Kevin Rowland turning in his grave. It's a song James loathes, and so he's quite happy about that. They do the bit where it speeds up, and it's quite satisfying, as a bit of a muso myslef, to get it right.
The Sniffle Brothers, quite likely playing something by The Cheeky Girls.
Another highlight was the set from Franco's Chariot. Franco (Luke)is another of the Tavistock set. They play nice short bluesly tunes that sound a bit like Gomez, but without the self-importance and endless widdling. Their site has some lovely mp3s, which I recommend. In fact, this was one of the main reasons the night was such a success. Everyone (except Club Paranoia's poetry wierdness) played a variation on either nice pop, blues or contry. Having played many gigs with precious, sharp suited and achingly fashionable bands over the years, it is nice to be in an environment where it is physically impossible to pose about. We all looked silly, fucked bits up and played jolly tunes. Indigo Moss, a blugrass band from New Cross (really) were professional and tight, but even that didn't matter. Franco's do one about famous alcoholic miserable Evenig Standard columnist Jeffey Barnard, whom they described as "that one-legged drunken hack what died of booze". It was an atmosphere you'd genuinely bottle and sell if you could.
This ethos reached its apotheosis (I think that's what that means) in the Sniffle Supergroup. Various members of Franco's Chariot, The Sniffle Brothers and Mississippi MacDonald assembled to perform famous dirty song Afternoon Delight, featuring a killer solo from Olly and some obscene miming from Chris, and then the theme tune to The Littlest Hobo. They ran out of songs and ended up playing half the set twice. How can that be cool? I loved every minute of it.
The Sniffle Supergroup, probably playing the theme to the Littlest Hobo for the second or even third time.
We were taken into the night by DJ Pamplemousse, or Dan Simmonds as it says on his passport. Dan is one of the nicest men in the universe and is loved by all, despite the massive handicap of being from Birmingham. He is also the worst DJ in the world.
DJ Pamplemousse on the Wheels Of Steel.
He played an 80's gay-a-rama set heavy on the Cher, Kylie and Donna Summer, punctuated throughout by the sound of him cueing up the next track through the PA instead of his cans, and which he would inevitably fade in halfway through a verse or before it had started. It wasn't his fault. We were all loving it so much that he kept coming out of the DJ booth to dance to his own set, and it was only when the dead air started that he remembered that he was supposed to be in charge, whereupon he would run back behind the bar and try to find something to put on. He looked so happy he wanted to cry.
So yes, an utterly excellent evening. And my prize?
The richest reward.
Fucking-A. Next time - I'm not doing any more today, this has taken nearly three hours to get all my errors out of the HTML - we will look at the rest of my weekend. Crazy times ahead, oh yes...
Good Night, And Good Luck
Dougal
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