31 July 2007
Victoria
I met her after the show and was hoping she’d have the scoop on some wikkid bar in town but she had no idea. I had to take her to the only place I knew, back up near the old Roman buildings near the hotel – it was a great place and she didn’t mind me paying for the cab or the drinks, but no alcohol for her? Okay, more for me then I’m feeling as though I’m needing it. But it’s all right cos the bar’s closing and suddenly her hands are at the edge of the table and we take a little walk down to the platz but it’s way too cold and there are homeless people amongst the columns so I just kiss her, there and then, in the open, on some street somewhere….
30 July 2007
Andechs
Ollie, bassplayer, our local guide, took us out on the S-Bahn today on our first full day off, toward the south-east and the Munich lakes district. ‘There are five,’ he told us, ‘the smallest lake is number one, the largest is number five…there is my local lake and some people walk around it clockwise and some anti-clockwise…you can only walk one way though, if you walk that way you just don’t walk the other way’…….mmm, sounds serious!
At the first lake we came across, Horace our tenor player surprised us all by stripping off, running past us on the jetty and diving straight in for a long swim. He said he was gonna do it, and did so straightaway. It wasn’t exactly the warmest of days either. One thing I do love about the Brits is their stoic attitude to the elements, making the absolute best of their time outdoors, whether it be by the ‘seaside’ (that is, where the land meets the sea, not necessarily the beach, which is most often the case) or out in the open fields, or indeed at any place at any time of year on that weather-tortured isle.
Herrschinge was the end of the line, yet another cute moneyed-up village, where it was an hour’s walk uphill through the forest (‘Stand By Me’ vibe) to a monastery at the top. A magnificent church with all the Baroque trappings, and via the tourist store, a beer garden with the local ale brewed by the monks (holy water perhaps?) accompanied by the best of Bavarian cuisine – pork knuckle, sauerkraut, potato salad, and the biggest steins imaginable. Back over the fence the magnificent views of a countryside so picture perfect I wondered if I hopped over the fence and walked ten metres that I might be touching it as a painting, a la end of ‘The Truman Show’.
And of course we’re late for one of the hourly trains back home, so there’s nothing for it but a short stroll down to one of the local gardens by a lake for some more steins and ample digital photography of an immaculate sunset...
At the first lake we came across, Horace our tenor player surprised us all by stripping off, running past us on the jetty and diving straight in for a long swim. He said he was gonna do it, and did so straightaway. It wasn’t exactly the warmest of days either. One thing I do love about the Brits is their stoic attitude to the elements, making the absolute best of their time outdoors, whether it be by the ‘seaside’ (that is, where the land meets the sea, not necessarily the beach, which is most often the case) or out in the open fields, or indeed at any place at any time of year on that weather-tortured isle.
Herrschinge was the end of the line, yet another cute moneyed-up village, where it was an hour’s walk uphill through the forest (‘Stand By Me’ vibe) to a monastery at the top. A magnificent church with all the Baroque trappings, and via the tourist store, a beer garden with the local ale brewed by the monks (holy water perhaps?) accompanied by the best of Bavarian cuisine – pork knuckle, sauerkraut, potato salad, and the biggest steins imaginable. Back over the fence the magnificent views of a countryside so picture perfect I wondered if I hopped over the fence and walked ten metres that I might be touching it as a painting, a la end of ‘The Truman Show’.
And of course we’re late for one of the hourly trains back home, so there’s nothing for it but a short stroll down to one of the local gardens by a lake for some more steins and ample digital photography of an immaculate sunset...
29 July 2007
Unterfahrt
Brian our trumpeter had spent some time in Munich over the past few years on various gigs and tonight it was time to check the local scene. On the south side of the river Isa, a short walk from Max Weber Platz takes one to Einsteinstrasse, a complex of buildings, and a long walk down a white tunnel leads one to Unterfahrt, one of Munich’s two clubs. It’s a jam session and there’s always a current of nerves on these things, especially in a new town, but after going to these things for years, it didn’t take long to realise that it was a pretty friendly one, and we were surrounded with fellow cast and band, all very supportive.
Tenor and Trumpet and I stormed the stage for a bout of ‘I Love You’, then a singer gets up for a number which we manage to make it through. It’s after the jam is over and between chatting with the local players the singer approaches me, and she’s friendly and there’s that look and uh maybe I should get her number and she’s going now and was my handshake a bit off-putting or something but it doesn’t matter and maybe the coming week was about to get a little more entertaining…
Tenor and Trumpet and I stormed the stage for a bout of ‘I Love You’, then a singer gets up for a number which we manage to make it through. It’s after the jam is over and between chatting with the local players the singer approaches me, and she’s friendly and there’s that look and uh maybe I should get her number and she’s going now and was my handshake a bit off-putting or something but it doesn’t matter and maybe the coming week was about to get a little more entertaining…
25 July 2007
'Oh Look, It's One Of Those Things'....
After an all day dress rehersal for the local press and opening night, the next day it was time to venture out and see a bit of this remarkable place, seeking whatever daytime adventures I could find. My first was a request from old mate J-Sax, to find a ‘wave’ artificially created on some canal somewhere that people surfed. I ended up finding something resembling, but as with any good adventure, I came across a whole bunch of other stuff in the process.
‘Oh look, it’s one of those things,’ was the phrase of the day. A tram ride took me to the Haus der Kunst, one of the many museums and galleries dotted through town. Walking south east along some major boulevard I hit the river, and across the bridge was a huge pedestal, atop of which stood (or floated) a gigantic gold-leaf angel. The river was lined with beautiful parkland and massive trees and I headed south-west, upstream, to the next major crossing of the river, where I found a massive palace, former residence of Bavarian kings. All these monuments and statutes to whoever, all that ancient Roman classic imagery, obviously very important to the people that built them, but who's original meaning is probably lost to tourists and Muncheners alike who are just content with preserving the beauty around them.
It quickly became apparent, as the following days ran into each other, of how gorgeous the place is. All the trappings of continental urban life in a chilled-out, rural setting. All those things that Londoners give up on, just to get by, are here in abundance – people are nice!…stuff works!…the weather changes gradually…people take pride in their environment…it’s easy to get around etc etc…
‘Oh look, it’s one of those things,’ was the phrase of the day. A tram ride took me to the Haus der Kunst, one of the many museums and galleries dotted through town. Walking south east along some major boulevard I hit the river, and across the bridge was a huge pedestal, atop of which stood (or floated) a gigantic gold-leaf angel. The river was lined with beautiful parkland and massive trees and I headed south-west, upstream, to the next major crossing of the river, where I found a massive palace, former residence of Bavarian kings. All these monuments and statutes to whoever, all that ancient Roman classic imagery, obviously very important to the people that built them, but who's original meaning is probably lost to tourists and Muncheners alike who are just content with preserving the beauty around them.
It quickly became apparent, as the following days ran into each other, of how gorgeous the place is. All the trappings of continental urban life in a chilled-out, rural setting. All those things that Londoners give up on, just to get by, are here in abundance – people are nice!…stuff works!…the weather changes gradually…people take pride in their environment…it’s easy to get around etc etc…
23 July 2007
Munchen
In total contrast from the Thriller tour, our four star hotel on Dachauerstrasse was conveniently situated less than a ten minute walk from the Deutsches Theater on Schwanthallestrasse, with Hauptbahnhof, the main train station, sitting between the two. It also appeared that we were smack band in the middle of the red light district, allegedly in a run-down part of town although it still looked nicer than certain parts of central London. General milling in the foyer turned into a quick migration to one of the major beer gardens in town, a couple of blocks away.
And so it began! The drinking festival that I knew would envelop most of our lives for the next three weeks, and what a gorgeous setting. Anyone knows what a beer garden is, but these people invented them, and they know how to do them. There must have been at least five hundred people at the Augustiner, all peacefully nestled together on long tables, sheltered under a canopy of dark pine-looking trees. As I looked around in amazement, we were all in agreenace that something like this just wouldn’t work in the UK; it’d be too edgy, people would starts fights or something….
A slab of pork and several steins later the tour was getting off to a fine start. It was a mix of familiar faces from Thriller; Damo, the swarthy red-headead guitarist (left-handed) from Mudgee, my original connection to this whole adventure; JM, our illustrious musical director from Manly; and Ollie, a Munich native, bass player, tall and thin, bespectacled, quietly eccentric in a way difficult to describe. His local knowledge would prove quite useful in our later forays into the countryside.
The night was steaming along in time-honoured fashion when all of a sudden, seemingly from nowhere, a strong breeze struck the tops of the trees, the lamps started swaying, and people started leaving, much to the amusement of our table of tourists. Clouds were brewing in the not too distance and we thought we were in for a downpour, but it passed without event. We later learnt that there was a word for it, a sudden type of localised storm that just appears, obviously related to the alps nearby.
Our later adventures took us back past the hotel and to the north about three blocks to this beautiful little cocktail bar off the main road on what I think was Nymphenburgstrasse, a major road running from a palace in the west to what appeared at the end of the street to be some massive Babylonian-looking temple. Behind the two massive square towers was a huge square bordered on northern and southern sides by massive Roman porticoes and steps, tonight holding hundreds of people there for late night open-air cinema.
Back to the cocktail bar and it was happy hour 11pm-1am. The Cuban theme with low lighting, black leather chairs and glass front open to the street was a gorgeous place to while away the small hours as sip half-price mojitos, as it started to bucket down on the street outside. Ahh, the continental vibe; it’s good to be back!
And so it began! The drinking festival that I knew would envelop most of our lives for the next three weeks, and what a gorgeous setting. Anyone knows what a beer garden is, but these people invented them, and they know how to do them. There must have been at least five hundred people at the Augustiner, all peacefully nestled together on long tables, sheltered under a canopy of dark pine-looking trees. As I looked around in amazement, we were all in agreenace that something like this just wouldn’t work in the UK; it’d be too edgy, people would starts fights or something….
A slab of pork and several steins later the tour was getting off to a fine start. It was a mix of familiar faces from Thriller; Damo, the swarthy red-headead guitarist (left-handed) from Mudgee, my original connection to this whole adventure; JM, our illustrious musical director from Manly; and Ollie, a Munich native, bass player, tall and thin, bespectacled, quietly eccentric in a way difficult to describe. His local knowledge would prove quite useful in our later forays into the countryside.
The night was steaming along in time-honoured fashion when all of a sudden, seemingly from nowhere, a strong breeze struck the tops of the trees, the lamps started swaying, and people started leaving, much to the amusement of our table of tourists. Clouds were brewing in the not too distance and we thought we were in for a downpour, but it passed without event. We later learnt that there was a word for it, a sudden type of localised storm that just appears, obviously related to the alps nearby.
Our later adventures took us back past the hotel and to the north about three blocks to this beautiful little cocktail bar off the main road on what I think was Nymphenburgstrasse, a major road running from a palace in the west to what appeared at the end of the street to be some massive Babylonian-looking temple. Behind the two massive square towers was a huge square bordered on northern and southern sides by massive Roman porticoes and steps, tonight holding hundreds of people there for late night open-air cinema.
Back to the cocktail bar and it was happy hour 11pm-1am. The Cuban theme with low lighting, black leather chairs and glass front open to the street was a gorgeous place to while away the small hours as sip half-price mojitos, as it started to bucket down on the street outside. Ahh, the continental vibe; it’s good to be back!
16 July 2007
The Call
It was like any other phone call for a gig. I’d done work for these people before, and I knew it was on the way, but I wasn’t going to lift a finger until I got the offer from the main guy. It was only after I got off the brief call that I realised how different this circumstance actually was. This wasn’t a one-off in the burbs somewhere, or a fill in Soho café gig. I’d just said yes basically to the next six months, possibly a year of work, From a two minute phone call.
The call came on the Monday, which was supposed to be first rehearsal day, and so it followed that across the next two intensive days, we only just covered the material. The show is basically a Motown review, about forty songs all-up, of maybe three or four minutes each, largely at similar tempos, with a variety of solo, three part, four part and all cast appearances vocally. In short, a truckload to learn in two days for a six month world tour, starting three weeks in Munich the following Monday.
But that wasn’t such a concern this time around, as it was quite a different situation from the work I’d done for them previously. The Thriller tour in May was a new show put through a month of one-nighters across the UK. It took a lot of extra hours from an already well-prepared, hard-working band to get it together – there were times when we were writing and arranging charts on the bus on the way to the next gig! In contrast, this show just finished a three year run in the West End, and half the band had been doing it for most of that time, meaning that us guys that made up the newer half were dealing with a more established situation.
So what did I do, between the Thursday after rehersing and the Monday fly-out? Got trolleyed every night with my house mates of course!, as well as playing about five or six gigs in the meantime. And so it was on the following Monday that we all left from dHeathrow, maybe a little under-prepared? for the opening run.
The call came on the Monday, which was supposed to be first rehearsal day, and so it followed that across the next two intensive days, we only just covered the material. The show is basically a Motown review, about forty songs all-up, of maybe three or four minutes each, largely at similar tempos, with a variety of solo, three part, four part and all cast appearances vocally. In short, a truckload to learn in two days for a six month world tour, starting three weeks in Munich the following Monday.
But that wasn’t such a concern this time around, as it was quite a different situation from the work I’d done for them previously. The Thriller tour in May was a new show put through a month of one-nighters across the UK. It took a lot of extra hours from an already well-prepared, hard-working band to get it together – there were times when we were writing and arranging charts on the bus on the way to the next gig! In contrast, this show just finished a three year run in the West End, and half the band had been doing it for most of that time, meaning that us guys that made up the newer half were dealing with a more established situation.
So what did I do, between the Thursday after rehersing and the Monday fly-out? Got trolleyed every night with my house mates of course!, as well as playing about five or six gigs in the meantime. And so it was on the following Monday that we all left from dHeathrow, maybe a little under-prepared? for the opening run.
15 July 2007
What A Month!...
Was it only four or five weeks ago that we all parted ways from the flat in Mornington Crescent, the guys that I lived with for a year and a half? What a great place – with one of those happy sounding names that makes you glad to live there, it’s basically south Camden Town, which gets a pretty bad rep from most of the rest of London thanks to all the supposed ‘crazies’ frequenting the high street, but once you get back a block or two from the high road, it’s inner city living, about half an hour tube to anywhere in town.
I loved my time there and the guys were great, although the same old drift apart happened with Mr P. After a couple of rows and him basically not talking to me for about four months, I finally knocked on his door to confront him about it and get it all out and try and sort it out, not just leave it to sit there and stew, and he brought up all the relevant events but just all misconstrued, viewing in them in a totally different way to how I saw them, and I knew that it would be futile to try and reconcile them. And then he basically tells me that I’m not his friend anymore. And tells me again! Wow, I didn’t know we hadn’t left primary school….
And so, with a weary sigh, I watched as another ‘friend’ of mine, after yet another living situation disagreement, drifts off into the ether. We went to New York for a week together; I thought that might count for something. But no, I’vebeen through it all enough now, it’s just variations on a theme, so boring and nerve-racking at the same time, but that’s just the way it seems to be I guess.
Thankfully, the ensuing house hunt was circumvented as I already had a place lined up in Whitechapel, in the East End, in a rather extraordinary circumstance. Son Veneno are an absolutely rocking Latin Hip-Hop Funk band from the Emerald City of our great southern homeland, who have all moved over, as a band, to make it big in the Ol Dart and maybe even the world.
The main idea here is a sense of community – a lot of the gigs that these guys do are community festivals, as well as it being a band that lives communally, sharing rooms, food and money. It’s close quarters living in a dodgy looking three-bedroom ex-council flat in the the heart of the East End, paying cash gigs in pubs and clubs, a difficult existence at the best of times, but one totally worth every effort, and don’t they love it!
What an awesome muso house – there’s always an album on, always someone to play or hang or drink with, always adventures afoot. Living there not as a band member works out reasonably well for me; as much as everyone’s in each other’s pockets, they all tend to do things together as a band, and so if they’re all on a gig then I get the place to myself, which works out just fine.
It’s a bit of a first for me, living with musicians, and it’s also a welcome return to the circumstance of having musical instruments actively and regularly played in the living area, a truly soul-enriching experience for anyone who’s been lucky enough to grow up with it, something definitely missed through the years of sharehousing. With acoustic music being now so removed from people’s daily lives, living with these guys is a privilege..
Alas, they’re back off home in September, and for the two or three weeks that I was around in the flat, I was just getting into the Son Veneno groove, whether it was laughing about Oz lingo over a 7AM beer with the great Loochador, piano player/composer, one of the most extraordinarly positive people I’ve ever come across, or talking career with Will, the fast-talking English recruit percussionist, or running off to the local Moroccan bar to smoke a shish with Marty, trumpet player/studio guy, and Cesar, the bassplayer, one of two brothers in the band. With grinning, cherubic face, his even temper and quietly spoken manner seem to preside over the never-ending carnival of activity.
But sadly my time as an East Ender with the Band from Oz will be somewhat limited in the coming weeks, as I am currently writing from a bagel bar in Munich, at the beginning of the second week of a six-month world tour with a West End musical theatre production by the name of ‘Dancing In The Streets’….
I loved my time there and the guys were great, although the same old drift apart happened with Mr P. After a couple of rows and him basically not talking to me for about four months, I finally knocked on his door to confront him about it and get it all out and try and sort it out, not just leave it to sit there and stew, and he brought up all the relevant events but just all misconstrued, viewing in them in a totally different way to how I saw them, and I knew that it would be futile to try and reconcile them. And then he basically tells me that I’m not his friend anymore. And tells me again! Wow, I didn’t know we hadn’t left primary school….
And so, with a weary sigh, I watched as another ‘friend’ of mine, after yet another living situation disagreement, drifts off into the ether. We went to New York for a week together; I thought that might count for something. But no, I’vebeen through it all enough now, it’s just variations on a theme, so boring and nerve-racking at the same time, but that’s just the way it seems to be I guess.
Thankfully, the ensuing house hunt was circumvented as I already had a place lined up in Whitechapel, in the East End, in a rather extraordinary circumstance. Son Veneno are an absolutely rocking Latin Hip-Hop Funk band from the Emerald City of our great southern homeland, who have all moved over, as a band, to make it big in the Ol Dart and maybe even the world.
The main idea here is a sense of community – a lot of the gigs that these guys do are community festivals, as well as it being a band that lives communally, sharing rooms, food and money. It’s close quarters living in a dodgy looking three-bedroom ex-council flat in the the heart of the East End, paying cash gigs in pubs and clubs, a difficult existence at the best of times, but one totally worth every effort, and don’t they love it!
What an awesome muso house – there’s always an album on, always someone to play or hang or drink with, always adventures afoot. Living there not as a band member works out reasonably well for me; as much as everyone’s in each other’s pockets, they all tend to do things together as a band, and so if they’re all on a gig then I get the place to myself, which works out just fine.
It’s a bit of a first for me, living with musicians, and it’s also a welcome return to the circumstance of having musical instruments actively and regularly played in the living area, a truly soul-enriching experience for anyone who’s been lucky enough to grow up with it, something definitely missed through the years of sharehousing. With acoustic music being now so removed from people’s daily lives, living with these guys is a privilege..
Alas, they’re back off home in September, and for the two or three weeks that I was around in the flat, I was just getting into the Son Veneno groove, whether it was laughing about Oz lingo over a 7AM beer with the great Loochador, piano player/composer, one of the most extraordinarly positive people I’ve ever come across, or talking career with Will, the fast-talking English recruit percussionist, or running off to the local Moroccan bar to smoke a shish with Marty, trumpet player/studio guy, and Cesar, the bassplayer, one of two brothers in the band. With grinning, cherubic face, his even temper and quietly spoken manner seem to preside over the never-ending carnival of activity.
But sadly my time as an East Ender with the Band from Oz will be somewhat limited in the coming weeks, as I am currently writing from a bagel bar in Munich, at the beginning of the second week of a six-month world tour with a West End musical theatre production by the name of ‘Dancing In The Streets’….
14 July 2007
Triple Play
...had another triple play yesterday, that is, three gigs in one day. It happened for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and again today as part of a glorious summer, of feeling wanted as a freelancer...
First cab off the rank was a 10am-3pm audition piano session at a church hall (underground) in Covent Garden for the next Thriller tour, due to set off in September. They're looking for new male leads, so some of them were on recall from a session the other day that I did. They also had to see, Daleele and Shaheen, the two younger kids that we toured, with which was a bit of a laugh.
"So, do you know any Michael Jackson songs?" joked JM, the MD, as Daleele came in.
"Yeah."
"Which ones?"
"All of em?"
When he said it, there was a look in this unassuming twelve-year-old's eye which I had seen many a time before, like looking at the horizon from the beach. It reminded me of a particular afternoon on the bus when a Temptations DVD came out and he knew every word. Here was someone who was about to make music his whole life, if it wasn't already, someone who had an inkling of it's true powers and the inspiration it held, for himself as well as others. That far off look in his eyes was one of the true believer.
Dashing off early to the next engagement in Dagenham East, I only just made it in time for a set with Omar Puente, Cuban violinist, a gig I got through Dorance, a friend of mine, today on bass. For all the musicians I've ever known, Latino and otherwise, Dorance's cool and collected manner and expert musical direction distinguishes him amongst so many lunatics. Someone who's chilled out, just wants to get the job done and do it well - why are there not more like him out there?
It's a bit of a thing now, here in England, playing Cuban music with really good Cuban musicians. I don't get to do Latin gigs half as much as I used to, so on my rare outings, it's my sincere hope that I'm doing the material justice for these guys. In all honesty they're probably more focused on their own thing, just as long as I'm holding my end together....there was Temo on congas, easily distinguished with dreads and skin so black as to have a bluish tinge - his English isn't great but you don't need it to get the vibe that he's a bit of a dude! We played one set to the locals who were more or less into it. Scamming a lift back to the tube with a friendly event guy in a van, he said that if they didn't like it they usually would have walked away - promising I suppose. He also told me about the BNP demonstration in the morning - Dagenham happens to be situated in a borough where a quarter of the councillors are BNP members. A reflection of the people's wishes, one can only gather...
I ended up tubing it straight to my next one in Waterloo, a late three sets at Cubana, the hippest Latin bar in town. Getting there with about three hours to spare, I took a stroll down to Southbank and decided to treat myself to a sit down meal, in a restaurant, an occurrence that is becoming less uncomfortable as I get older...
From uninspiring wine and pasta that I could have done better myself, my attention turned to a bit of people gazing, ideal from my position outside at the front of the restaurant. A young couple arrive, present themselves to the staff. The girl is voluptuous to his slender frame, she is perhaps a little older than him. They're all over each other, it seems like early in the piece, like they'd just gotten together, when all that body language between two people is just immaculate, and conversation is magically effortless.
She idly casts a hand down his shirt and into the small of his back and I think yeah, I remember that. I remember what that was like, from now years ago, when you're so into someone, like the rest of the world doesn't exist, or if it does then it exists just for you two, to present you with a park to frolic in, a movie to see....it's not the dry touch of someone you're trying to make like you, someone you're trying to force into some sort of relationship. It just happens, of its own accord, and there's nothing you want to do to stop it.
But do I miss it? If I did miss it that much then wouldn't I seriously do something about it?
Miguel and the bass player were late by an hour and a half. It was yet another scattered latin jammy bunch of songs, the usuals, massacred with called missed endings and rubbish sound. I've done this, I've done this scene so much before, years of it in Melbourne, but I'm such a gig slut. It can be a hard habit to break, staying home on the ones you shouldn't venture out do to any more. But the bar is cool and I meet new people, so it's not so bad. And the girls are so fine, to look at from afar anyway....
First cab off the rank was a 10am-3pm audition piano session at a church hall (underground) in Covent Garden for the next Thriller tour, due to set off in September. They're looking for new male leads, so some of them were on recall from a session the other day that I did. They also had to see, Daleele and Shaheen, the two younger kids that we toured, with which was a bit of a laugh.
"So, do you know any Michael Jackson songs?" joked JM, the MD, as Daleele came in.
"Yeah."
"Which ones?"
"All of em?"
When he said it, there was a look in this unassuming twelve-year-old's eye which I had seen many a time before, like looking at the horizon from the beach. It reminded me of a particular afternoon on the bus when a Temptations DVD came out and he knew every word. Here was someone who was about to make music his whole life, if it wasn't already, someone who had an inkling of it's true powers and the inspiration it held, for himself as well as others. That far off look in his eyes was one of the true believer.
Dashing off early to the next engagement in Dagenham East, I only just made it in time for a set with Omar Puente, Cuban violinist, a gig I got through Dorance, a friend of mine, today on bass. For all the musicians I've ever known, Latino and otherwise, Dorance's cool and collected manner and expert musical direction distinguishes him amongst so many lunatics. Someone who's chilled out, just wants to get the job done and do it well - why are there not more like him out there?
It's a bit of a thing now, here in England, playing Cuban music with really good Cuban musicians. I don't get to do Latin gigs half as much as I used to, so on my rare outings, it's my sincere hope that I'm doing the material justice for these guys. In all honesty they're probably more focused on their own thing, just as long as I'm holding my end together....there was Temo on congas, easily distinguished with dreads and skin so black as to have a bluish tinge - his English isn't great but you don't need it to get the vibe that he's a bit of a dude! We played one set to the locals who were more or less into it. Scamming a lift back to the tube with a friendly event guy in a van, he said that if they didn't like it they usually would have walked away - promising I suppose. He also told me about the BNP demonstration in the morning - Dagenham happens to be situated in a borough where a quarter of the councillors are BNP members. A reflection of the people's wishes, one can only gather...
I ended up tubing it straight to my next one in Waterloo, a late three sets at Cubana, the hippest Latin bar in town. Getting there with about three hours to spare, I took a stroll down to Southbank and decided to treat myself to a sit down meal, in a restaurant, an occurrence that is becoming less uncomfortable as I get older...
From uninspiring wine and pasta that I could have done better myself, my attention turned to a bit of people gazing, ideal from my position outside at the front of the restaurant. A young couple arrive, present themselves to the staff. The girl is voluptuous to his slender frame, she is perhaps a little older than him. They're all over each other, it seems like early in the piece, like they'd just gotten together, when all that body language between two people is just immaculate, and conversation is magically effortless.
She idly casts a hand down his shirt and into the small of his back and I think yeah, I remember that. I remember what that was like, from now years ago, when you're so into someone, like the rest of the world doesn't exist, or if it does then it exists just for you two, to present you with a park to frolic in, a movie to see....it's not the dry touch of someone you're trying to make like you, someone you're trying to force into some sort of relationship. It just happens, of its own accord, and there's nothing you want to do to stop it.
But do I miss it? If I did miss it that much then wouldn't I seriously do something about it?
Miguel and the bass player were late by an hour and a half. It was yet another scattered latin jammy bunch of songs, the usuals, massacred with called missed endings and rubbish sound. I've done this, I've done this scene so much before, years of it in Melbourne, but I'm such a gig slut. It can be a hard habit to break, staying home on the ones you shouldn't venture out do to any more. But the bar is cool and I meet new people, so it's not so bad. And the girls are so fine, to look at from afar anyway....
27 June 2007
An Extraordinary Night
(P.S. Bit o housekeeping has gone on - see right for new photos in Flickr, my 'Facebook' profile, and plenty more writing in the works...it's all about meeeee!)
Some people back in Oz have asked me on occasion whether I see any famous people around town, and for the last two and a bit years my answer has been mostly no. For some reason they just seem to elude me, maybe I don't hang out in the right parts of town or something, or with the right people.....
That is, until last Monday night....
It's a rainy blustery Saturday afternoon and I'm hanging out at this park gig funnily enough on the lawns of Alexandra Palace, the phone lights up and it's Paul, my occasional employer from Monday nights at the Black Gardenia. I stumble into an unfinished shed at the side....
"She mentioned 'Good Morning Heartache' the other day, so have a look at that one"
"Okay, no worries. Is she really gonna come down and do it?"
"I think so, yes."
"All right, I'll have a look at it. See you then."
Monday night, bout 10
"She wants to have a chat about it, figure out the key and stuff. Go have a chat with her."
"All right."
So I leave Paul for a second and sit down next to her and her husband Ian, her producer.
"I don't know keys and stuff."
"That's all right, sing me a bit."
So I get the first phrase out of her and it's all good. My chart's in C minor, but I know now I'll be going to E minor, a major third up, another uncommon transposition. Semitone fine, fourth down no worries, even a minor third. But a major third? I fetch the chart and take it back to Paul's table and do the maths in my head.
Paul and I get back up for the second set and wend our way through show tune fairy land for a couple of numbers and then he brings her on, unannounced. She brings a stool. I noodle through the first eight as an intro, my head buried the chart, just hoping I get all the voices and tensions right....
She starts off mellow but really takes it somewhere, fills up the whole room and I follow, maybe a bit too hotel, not bluesy enough, but it works, more or less...a mass of applause for perhaps an unknowing audience?
Paul waits to the end of the set to announce who she is....
"And please give a big hand for our special guest tonight, Lisa Stansfield!"
And the audience is knowing! And I can put it on my CV!....
Housemate X has joined the fray, and while Paul goes to get some smokes, we wend our way down to the Groucho Club where Lisa and Ian have signed us in. Next thing I know I'm sitting next to her, just 'hanging out' with this world famous soul diva and Ian's keeping the red wine flowing. Paul eventually joins us...X and I don't say much, we don't have to, it all seems to be unfolding in front of us....
There's a break and Paul leans over, "See that guy at the bar? My brother in law used to work for him when he was Tommy Scott and the Senators!"
I didn't really register this comment until Paul said it again, and then Lisa goes over to the bar and it's none other than Tom Jones, and then Jools Holland!* All just standing at the bar at closing time like it's no-one's business. Wild!
The night comes to a close and Paul says, "I've got a present for you." He pulls out Lisa's album 'Real Love' and a pen, to which she happily signs - he knew for sure that Lisa was coming to sit in tonight and so he goes out of his way to buy a copy of her album for me - what a nice guy! What a night!
*For non-Brit readers, Jools Holland is a celebrity music TV show host, A-list without a doubt
Some people back in Oz have asked me on occasion whether I see any famous people around town, and for the last two and a bit years my answer has been mostly no. For some reason they just seem to elude me, maybe I don't hang out in the right parts of town or something, or with the right people.....
That is, until last Monday night....
It's a rainy blustery Saturday afternoon and I'm hanging out at this park gig funnily enough on the lawns of Alexandra Palace, the phone lights up and it's Paul, my occasional employer from Monday nights at the Black Gardenia. I stumble into an unfinished shed at the side....
"She mentioned 'Good Morning Heartache' the other day, so have a look at that one"
"Okay, no worries. Is she really gonna come down and do it?"
"I think so, yes."
"All right, I'll have a look at it. See you then."
Monday night, bout 10
"She wants to have a chat about it, figure out the key and stuff. Go have a chat with her."
"All right."
So I leave Paul for a second and sit down next to her and her husband Ian, her producer.
"I don't know keys and stuff."
"That's all right, sing me a bit."
So I get the first phrase out of her and it's all good. My chart's in C minor, but I know now I'll be going to E minor, a major third up, another uncommon transposition. Semitone fine, fourth down no worries, even a minor third. But a major third? I fetch the chart and take it back to Paul's table and do the maths in my head.
Paul and I get back up for the second set and wend our way through show tune fairy land for a couple of numbers and then he brings her on, unannounced. She brings a stool. I noodle through the first eight as an intro, my head buried the chart, just hoping I get all the voices and tensions right....
She starts off mellow but really takes it somewhere, fills up the whole room and I follow, maybe a bit too hotel, not bluesy enough, but it works, more or less...a mass of applause for perhaps an unknowing audience?
Paul waits to the end of the set to announce who she is....
"And please give a big hand for our special guest tonight, Lisa Stansfield!"
And the audience is knowing! And I can put it on my CV!....
Housemate X has joined the fray, and while Paul goes to get some smokes, we wend our way down to the Groucho Club where Lisa and Ian have signed us in. Next thing I know I'm sitting next to her, just 'hanging out' with this world famous soul diva and Ian's keeping the red wine flowing. Paul eventually joins us...X and I don't say much, we don't have to, it all seems to be unfolding in front of us....
There's a break and Paul leans over, "See that guy at the bar? My brother in law used to work for him when he was Tommy Scott and the Senators!"
I didn't really register this comment until Paul said it again, and then Lisa goes over to the bar and it's none other than Tom Jones, and then Jools Holland!* All just standing at the bar at closing time like it's no-one's business. Wild!
The night comes to a close and Paul says, "I've got a present for you." He pulls out Lisa's album 'Real Love' and a pen, to which she happily signs - he knew for sure that Lisa was coming to sit in tonight and so he goes out of his way to buy a copy of her album for me - what a nice guy! What a night!
*For non-Brit readers, Jools Holland is a celebrity music TV show host, A-list without a doubt
24 May 2007
On Tour
...so here's the next instalment - no dates, can't remember em, don't matter anyway!....
MJ TOUR GIG 6 – Bournemouth
After the gig we cab it to the hotel which turns out to be a typical English seaside affair; carbon copy of Fawlty Towers, complete with Portuguese ‘Manuel’ who stayed on at the hotel bar well into the morning. The band were there first, watched everyone come in, and when everyone peeled off to sleep at an un-civil hour we were the last in classic muso form….
MJ TOUR GIG 7 – Plymouth
It’s a four hour drive and in what’s becoming a regular habit, the bus pulls up at the roadside services about half an hour from the venue and takes a forty-five minute break….huh!? We’re pulling in to town and the bus driver says, “There’s the hotel,” as we pass it on the way to the venue….and then when we get out of the bus at the venue we’re expected to go find it ourselves, a foreign suitcase-dragging tribe wandering an unknown town like we’ve just been dropped off some passing spaceship. On finding the hotel at 2pm we’re told there’s no check in until 3. The nearest food, a Chinese restaurant, serves lunch until 2….
Aaaarrrrgghhhh!
On checking in there somehow isn’t a room for your correspondent, as we’re known simply by the name ‘Musician’ followed by a letter which we only realised later on represented the instrument we played (I was somehow Musician K for Keyboard).
Post-show nightlife was a chav-tastic nightmare – a port town I suppose, what does one expect, but then – we pulled up in some horrible bar and all the human flotsam and jetsam on the street was enough to drive me back to the hotel room after not too long… Strong bouts of déjà vu are constant, nearly every day, and this morning I woke up and forgot where I was for a good couple of minutes. There were bagpipes off in the distance and I wondered whether I’d woken up in Glasgow already?…
MJ TOUR 11 – Southend
You know, I’ve completely forgotten the gig, but more importantly, our digs that night was a hacienda looking place at the foot of a runway of some local airport. I got back to my room and Matt rings me and says you know there’s a nightclub rand ere with half price drinks and a truckload of American air hostesses who today have all just pass their exams! Woohoo says the other single guy in the band, but of course the fantasy didn’t quite materialise.
I guess I was expecting the full stereotype; busty uniform, blue shirts, cascading blond locks – we found two Irish lasses fresh out of high school who couldn’t even remember the safety demonstration (‘Two exits at the front’ etc)…..remind me not to fly on your airline…
MJ TOUR 12 – Gateshead
I’d been looking forward to this one for a while, simply for the venue. Don’t know if anyone’s seen photos of The Sage but I have for a while – a silvery slug-shaped building by the river designed apparently on the visual of sound waves and divided into three, the middle section of which was the concert hall. The bus pulled up and it was gorgeous – venue to the right, Newcastle’s iconic through-truss arch bridge to the left and across the river, the city in between. Hmm, curved bridge over water and world-class music venue looking similar and very close to each other – sound familiar anyone?
Tonight’s Travelodge was out in the sticks but everyone was so keen to get into it that we all dropped our bags and cabbed back in. Matt and Mike had done Newcastle before and so recommended us the ‘Jazz Café’, your typical run-down room with local band, late night hang, wouldn’t normally go there unless you were already well plastered but it was that or doof doof nightclub, which we ended up at afterwards anyway.
After much prodding which I shouldn’t need I got to talking with the gorgeous blonde dancer (as opposed to the gorgeous Asian looking one, or the gorgeous Irish one)….and it was all right, I was way too drunk to be nervous but also way too drunk to think of anything interesting to say, and then she’s gone….
We all found the casino but after the usual entry interrogation but no bar, so it’s back to the hotel as the morning glow awoke behind us to the east at around 3.30 – bloody hell, how far north are we? And what day is it again?
MJ TOUR GIG 13 – Liverpool
We’re pulling into town and our eternally grumpy bus-driver is at the wheel ON THE PHONE taking directions, and then as we lug into the venue he pulls away with the boot still open.
But aside from the daily transport palava, there was something quite special about standing there on Hope Street. I wondered how many places in the world one could stand facing a world-class music venue and be equidistant from two cathedrals, one built in the last century, one before. After soundcheck Ollie took us a nice pasta bar round the corner, a little closer to the older cathedral. Less than a block down the road was the arts school John Lennon attended and the building over that was the music school that Paul McCartney attended (or maybe it was the other way around?). The street we ate on was immaculate, sometimes used for TV shows – for an industry town looking grim on the way in, it was a gorgeous area to spend a few hours in.
The venue was beautiful, bit of a Frank Lloyd Wright slash castle influence out front, great hall and the audience were wild, on their feet half way through the first set no less. Damo had secured us some wheat beers after the show which was a bit of a first, to hook into something straight after we come off stage as opposed to waiting around for the bus and then propping up some nondescript hotel bar somewhere, which is what ended up happening anyway….
MJ TOUR GIG 14 – Glasgow
The drives are getting longer, the drinking’s getting heavier and the sleep is getting shorter, but today’s foray was into the welcome unknown. Once we crossed the border, it became quickly obvious how sparse the population must be up in the far north. One’s gaze stretches with the rolling green of the bare stony hills…
You only have to pull up at a venue and see it from the outside to know it’s gonna be a good one, and the Royal Concert Hall didn’t fail to impress. The soundchecks are becoming noticeably shorter and so we managed to foray into the town a little – the architecture is markedly different here. Our tireless MD, after dealing with the multitude through the afternoon, still found the energy to get down to the Clyde river and see a little more than us spaced out bandies did.
It would be an 8AM start for an eight hour drive to Leicester in the morn but that didn’t stop anyone in the post-show expedition – after a couple of bottles of red in Mike’s room, he took us to a nice piano bar to meet a friend of his, and then it was on into the night where we ran into four real young girls on their way to the late night feed where you had to pay before being served. We were all gone – Mike had suddenly acquired a Scottish accent and I was desperately failing to copy him – all of a sudden they disappeared and we stumbled back…
MJ TOUR 15 – Leicester
Two hours sleep later and it’s the longest bus trip of the tour, from the middle of Scotland to the East Midlands (Melbourne to Canberra I guess), and the bus is starting to look quite lived in. Our first stopover must have been the most picturesque I’ve ever seen, the intense green of the hills and the brown glass lake below us.
Leicester didn’t seem much – on what has been the quickest soundcheck the whole tour, we had two hours to kill in one of the least interesting places yet. This East Midlands city however has a large Indian population, and once again Matt knew someone local who knew the best curry house on the high road. And so an idea rumoured amongst the band for a time finally came to fruition and we all got to have a nice sit down meal as a band, all tired and spaced out as hell but thoroughly enjoying the experience.
And so another semi-conscious motorway trip, down the M1 past midnight traffic and road closures and big lights on arcs in one’s peripheral vision and off back home to who knows where, for a day in the sun and washing clothes and tidying rooms before back into it for another week….
MJ TOUR GIG 6 – Bournemouth
After the gig we cab it to the hotel which turns out to be a typical English seaside affair; carbon copy of Fawlty Towers, complete with Portuguese ‘Manuel’ who stayed on at the hotel bar well into the morning. The band were there first, watched everyone come in, and when everyone peeled off to sleep at an un-civil hour we were the last in classic muso form….
MJ TOUR GIG 7 – Plymouth
It’s a four hour drive and in what’s becoming a regular habit, the bus pulls up at the roadside services about half an hour from the venue and takes a forty-five minute break….huh!? We’re pulling in to town and the bus driver says, “There’s the hotel,” as we pass it on the way to the venue….and then when we get out of the bus at the venue we’re expected to go find it ourselves, a foreign suitcase-dragging tribe wandering an unknown town like we’ve just been dropped off some passing spaceship. On finding the hotel at 2pm we’re told there’s no check in until 3. The nearest food, a Chinese restaurant, serves lunch until 2….
Aaaarrrrgghhhh!
On checking in there somehow isn’t a room for your correspondent, as we’re known simply by the name ‘Musician’ followed by a letter which we only realised later on represented the instrument we played (I was somehow Musician K for Keyboard).
Post-show nightlife was a chav-tastic nightmare – a port town I suppose, what does one expect, but then – we pulled up in some horrible bar and all the human flotsam and jetsam on the street was enough to drive me back to the hotel room after not too long… Strong bouts of déjà vu are constant, nearly every day, and this morning I woke up and forgot where I was for a good couple of minutes. There were bagpipes off in the distance and I wondered whether I’d woken up in Glasgow already?…
MJ TOUR 11 – Southend
You know, I’ve completely forgotten the gig, but more importantly, our digs that night was a hacienda looking place at the foot of a runway of some local airport. I got back to my room and Matt rings me and says you know there’s a nightclub rand ere with half price drinks and a truckload of American air hostesses who today have all just pass their exams! Woohoo says the other single guy in the band, but of course the fantasy didn’t quite materialise.
I guess I was expecting the full stereotype; busty uniform, blue shirts, cascading blond locks – we found two Irish lasses fresh out of high school who couldn’t even remember the safety demonstration (‘Two exits at the front’ etc)…..remind me not to fly on your airline…
MJ TOUR 12 – Gateshead
I’d been looking forward to this one for a while, simply for the venue. Don’t know if anyone’s seen photos of The Sage but I have for a while – a silvery slug-shaped building by the river designed apparently on the visual of sound waves and divided into three, the middle section of which was the concert hall. The bus pulled up and it was gorgeous – venue to the right, Newcastle’s iconic through-truss arch bridge to the left and across the river, the city in between. Hmm, curved bridge over water and world-class music venue looking similar and very close to each other – sound familiar anyone?
Tonight’s Travelodge was out in the sticks but everyone was so keen to get into it that we all dropped our bags and cabbed back in. Matt and Mike had done Newcastle before and so recommended us the ‘Jazz Café’, your typical run-down room with local band, late night hang, wouldn’t normally go there unless you were already well plastered but it was that or doof doof nightclub, which we ended up at afterwards anyway.
After much prodding which I shouldn’t need I got to talking with the gorgeous blonde dancer (as opposed to the gorgeous Asian looking one, or the gorgeous Irish one)….and it was all right, I was way too drunk to be nervous but also way too drunk to think of anything interesting to say, and then she’s gone….
We all found the casino but after the usual entry interrogation but no bar, so it’s back to the hotel as the morning glow awoke behind us to the east at around 3.30 – bloody hell, how far north are we? And what day is it again?
MJ TOUR GIG 13 – Liverpool
We’re pulling into town and our eternally grumpy bus-driver is at the wheel ON THE PHONE taking directions, and then as we lug into the venue he pulls away with the boot still open.
But aside from the daily transport palava, there was something quite special about standing there on Hope Street. I wondered how many places in the world one could stand facing a world-class music venue and be equidistant from two cathedrals, one built in the last century, one before. After soundcheck Ollie took us a nice pasta bar round the corner, a little closer to the older cathedral. Less than a block down the road was the arts school John Lennon attended and the building over that was the music school that Paul McCartney attended (or maybe it was the other way around?). The street we ate on was immaculate, sometimes used for TV shows – for an industry town looking grim on the way in, it was a gorgeous area to spend a few hours in.
The venue was beautiful, bit of a Frank Lloyd Wright slash castle influence out front, great hall and the audience were wild, on their feet half way through the first set no less. Damo had secured us some wheat beers after the show which was a bit of a first, to hook into something straight after we come off stage as opposed to waiting around for the bus and then propping up some nondescript hotel bar somewhere, which is what ended up happening anyway….
MJ TOUR GIG 14 – Glasgow
The drives are getting longer, the drinking’s getting heavier and the sleep is getting shorter, but today’s foray was into the welcome unknown. Once we crossed the border, it became quickly obvious how sparse the population must be up in the far north. One’s gaze stretches with the rolling green of the bare stony hills…
You only have to pull up at a venue and see it from the outside to know it’s gonna be a good one, and the Royal Concert Hall didn’t fail to impress. The soundchecks are becoming noticeably shorter and so we managed to foray into the town a little – the architecture is markedly different here. Our tireless MD, after dealing with the multitude through the afternoon, still found the energy to get down to the Clyde river and see a little more than us spaced out bandies did.
It would be an 8AM start for an eight hour drive to Leicester in the morn but that didn’t stop anyone in the post-show expedition – after a couple of bottles of red in Mike’s room, he took us to a nice piano bar to meet a friend of his, and then it was on into the night where we ran into four real young girls on their way to the late night feed where you had to pay before being served. We were all gone – Mike had suddenly acquired a Scottish accent and I was desperately failing to copy him – all of a sudden they disappeared and we stumbled back…
MJ TOUR 15 – Leicester
Two hours sleep later and it’s the longest bus trip of the tour, from the middle of Scotland to the East Midlands (Melbourne to Canberra I guess), and the bus is starting to look quite lived in. Our first stopover must have been the most picturesque I’ve ever seen, the intense green of the hills and the brown glass lake below us.
Leicester didn’t seem much – on what has been the quickest soundcheck the whole tour, we had two hours to kill in one of the least interesting places yet. This East Midlands city however has a large Indian population, and once again Matt knew someone local who knew the best curry house on the high road. And so an idea rumoured amongst the band for a time finally came to fruition and we all got to have a nice sit down meal as a band, all tired and spaced out as hell but thoroughly enjoying the experience.
And so another semi-conscious motorway trip, down the M1 past midnight traffic and road closures and big lights on arcs in one’s peripheral vision and off back home to who knows where, for a day in the sun and washing clothes and tidying rooms before back into it for another week….
17 May 2007
Snapshot - Black Gardenia
Monday, 3pm, a couple of weeks ago...
The black cab pulls up on Dean Street and it’s a white sky afternoon as I drag my gear to the doorstep marked 93. This evening’s engagement isn’t until about nine-ish or whenever the place starts to fill, but on employer’s request I’ve come in a little early today to run some tunes at the club beforehand.
A good knock raises no-one’s attention indoors and the Big Issue guy on the corner says, "You just missed them. A whole lot of ‘em headed off about ten minutes ago.”
Great, so I’m standing there with all my gear on the footpath in gigging gear, pinstripe and hat, all dressed up, seemingly nowhere to go…
Another character emerges from the melee to knock on the same door – ginger hair, earring on the left, shiny purple suit, another one of the characters in this little village. We’re obviously after the same people and I feel compelled to say something…
“Are you after Ronnie?”
“Yeah, you seen him?”
“I think they’re out for a bit. I can call him if you like?”
“No, it’s fine,” says the serious guy in the purple suit, “I’ll come back,” and paces off into the ether.
Perhaps I should ring someone for myself I thought…. And suddenly, before another moment has time to pass, totally out of nowhere this guy appears directly in front of me, no, somehow below me, crouching on the pavement…decked out in fedora, black glasses and grey trenchcoat, my own sartorial selection has somehow caught his eye.
“Excuse me,” he says in some sort of eastern European accent, “are you a jezzmen?”
(That’s why I still love those words, like ‘jazz’ and ‘groove’ and ‘swing’, because people from all over the world pronounce them differently, which maybe says something for the diversity of the music that they describe)
The freelancer emerges from within. “Well, for tonight I suppose I am, yes.”
“Can I take your photograph?”
“Er, yeah, sure….”
….and then swings out one of those old square cameras with the big circular bulb up and off to the side and FLASH, it’s done and he moves to leave…
“Hang on, can I get a copy?”
“Here’s my card.”
…and disappears! As quick as he emerged….
The black cab pulls up on Dean Street and it’s a white sky afternoon as I drag my gear to the doorstep marked 93. This evening’s engagement isn’t until about nine-ish or whenever the place starts to fill, but on employer’s request I’ve come in a little early today to run some tunes at the club beforehand.
A good knock raises no-one’s attention indoors and the Big Issue guy on the corner says, "You just missed them. A whole lot of ‘em headed off about ten minutes ago.”
Great, so I’m standing there with all my gear on the footpath in gigging gear, pinstripe and hat, all dressed up, seemingly nowhere to go…
Another character emerges from the melee to knock on the same door – ginger hair, earring on the left, shiny purple suit, another one of the characters in this little village. We’re obviously after the same people and I feel compelled to say something…
“Are you after Ronnie?”
“Yeah, you seen him?”
“I think they’re out for a bit. I can call him if you like?”
“No, it’s fine,” says the serious guy in the purple suit, “I’ll come back,” and paces off into the ether.
Perhaps I should ring someone for myself I thought…. And suddenly, before another moment has time to pass, totally out of nowhere this guy appears directly in front of me, no, somehow below me, crouching on the pavement…decked out in fedora, black glasses and grey trenchcoat, my own sartorial selection has somehow caught his eye.
“Excuse me,” he says in some sort of eastern European accent, “are you a jezzmen?”
(That’s why I still love those words, like ‘jazz’ and ‘groove’ and ‘swing’, because people from all over the world pronounce them differently, which maybe says something for the diversity of the music that they describe)
The freelancer emerges from within. “Well, for tonight I suppose I am, yes.”
“Can I take your photograph?”
“Er, yeah, sure….”
….and then swings out one of those old square cameras with the big circular bulb up and off to the side and FLASH, it’s done and he moves to leave…
“Hang on, can I get a copy?”
“Here’s my card.”
…and disappears! As quick as he emerged….
16 May 2007
MJ TOUR, GIG 9 15/5
Band is really starting to come together. Nottingham is orright, a lot nicer than the grimness of Plymouth…there’s a little tram and the restaurants are a bit vibe-ier. Hotel is once again a good walk away, and on check in, my designation, as dictated on the fax from the production company, had moved on from the other day as ‘Musician K’ to ‘Keys 1234567789’. Are our real names too hard to understand? ‘I am not an animal! I am a human being!’….
Same after show carnage at the nearby pub, joined by everyone this time. The presenter of the show is Jeffrey Daniels – ‘A Night To Remember’ was one of his hit singles as he used to be in a band called Shalimar that I don’t think anyone remembers funnily enough. Part of his nightly act is a little reminder of what he did where he sings and dances a little bit from it. So sure enough, we’re all sitting around in the pub with this little music show on in the background and up comes the film clip for it and we all flock to the TV for a laugh….
Same after show carnage at the nearby pub, joined by everyone this time. The presenter of the show is Jeffrey Daniels – ‘A Night To Remember’ was one of his hit singles as he used to be in a band called Shalimar that I don’t think anyone remembers funnily enough. Part of his nightly act is a little reminder of what he did where he sings and dances a little bit from it. So sure enough, we’re all sitting around in the pub with this little music show on in the background and up comes the film clip for it and we all flock to the TV for a laugh….
04 May 2007
Off The Wall
....so it's 10 to 1 on Saturday morning and I've just finished four days of non-stop rehearsal for a Michael Jackson tribute show set to tour the UK for a month starting Sunday (yeah, that's right, tomorrow night....). It's been twelve and sometimes fourteen hour days, today with no break for your correspondent, but well worth every hour - top fellow musicians, excellent musical director and great material, starting from Jackson 5 right up until all the syrupy ballad stuff (cos lets face it, when's the last big MJ hit you heard recently? Bout ten years ago maybe?).....
But let me tell ya it hasn't quite had that pop produced slickness and smoothness to it - all week we've had charts flying in from various parts of the world in various different keys and with parts missing - tonight was the 'dress rehearsal' that didn't even clear the second act and we sightread one of the songs, there and then. Across today's fourteen hours it seemed that every possible combination of random elements that could go awry did so and promptly, but true to form our band of otherwise freelancers marched on with aplomb. A recurring phrase amongst the guys was that we don't open till Sunday....
....the old muso joke of dodgy innuendo on the song titles is rife ('I Want You Back' becomes 'I Want A Smack', 'I Want Some Crack' et al- any entries in the comments are most welcome)....but not too loud, cos the show has been put together half by the production company I'm working for and half by a squad of MJ ultra-die-hard fans who have taken their local tribute show of twelve years running* to the the stage for the first time. If all goes well over the next month then talk has arisen of it touring Europe and maybe even settling into the West End somewhere? Who knows....
....loads of Aussies in the fray, including the two male leads, the guitarist who got me the gig and our unflappable MD who's worked on a ton of name shows we all know (anyone who wants comps for Dancing in The Streets when the tour wraps up, give us a shout) and kept such a cool head under enormous pressure and disorganisation.....
.....a mention of Jeff Harvey came up in the conversation (for those that don't know, bandleader on a famous Oz TV show), and as we were playing, that's exactly what it felt like, a TV show band with all the lights and stars out front....oh well, good reading, good experience.....a good honest job that's paying well** and that other stuff might come from, maybe.....
.....killer grooves, real nice guys in the band, ridiculously hot dancing girls.....it's all right for now I guess....
* apparently held every year on 'MJ Day'; anyone know when that is exactly?!
** The Old Zen Master turns to the window looking out to the backyard and sighs with relief, for a time at least!....
But let me tell ya it hasn't quite had that pop produced slickness and smoothness to it - all week we've had charts flying in from various parts of the world in various different keys and with parts missing - tonight was the 'dress rehearsal' that didn't even clear the second act and we sightread one of the songs, there and then. Across today's fourteen hours it seemed that every possible combination of random elements that could go awry did so and promptly, but true to form our band of otherwise freelancers marched on with aplomb. A recurring phrase amongst the guys was that we don't open till Sunday....
....the old muso joke of dodgy innuendo on the song titles is rife ('I Want You Back' becomes 'I Want A Smack', 'I Want Some Crack' et al- any entries in the comments are most welcome)....but not too loud, cos the show has been put together half by the production company I'm working for and half by a squad of MJ ultra-die-hard fans who have taken their local tribute show of twelve years running* to the the stage for the first time. If all goes well over the next month then talk has arisen of it touring Europe and maybe even settling into the West End somewhere? Who knows....
....loads of Aussies in the fray, including the two male leads, the guitarist who got me the gig and our unflappable MD who's worked on a ton of name shows we all know (anyone who wants comps for Dancing in The Streets when the tour wraps up, give us a shout) and kept such a cool head under enormous pressure and disorganisation.....
.....a mention of Jeff Harvey came up in the conversation (for those that don't know, bandleader on a famous Oz TV show), and as we were playing, that's exactly what it felt like, a TV show band with all the lights and stars out front....oh well, good reading, good experience.....a good honest job that's paying well** and that other stuff might come from, maybe.....
.....killer grooves, real nice guys in the band, ridiculously hot dancing girls.....it's all right for now I guess....
* apparently held every year on 'MJ Day'; anyone know when that is exactly?!
** The Old Zen Master turns to the window looking out to the backyard and sighs with relief, for a time at least!....
16 April 2007
Hidden London: The Black Gardenia
....on the homeward journey from faraway teaching, Instead of alighting at the usual Kings Cross I decided to take the Vic line one stop further to Euston and walk back up. My new little acquisition, the iPod, had me in a total vibe with the Kurt Rosenwinkel album Heartcore, and as I floated up the gentle slope and back into the purple dusk of the Crescent, I really felt like I was heading All The Way to Rajistan....
....a little later, standing in the curry section of the local Sainsburys, deciding how lazy I really was going to be on an evening at home, listening to albums, writing some tunes, the mobile rings and it's Zimon, owner of the Black Gardeina, a little place I've been playing at recently. It's 8pm, and I should have picked what was about to happen...
"Mike, it's Zimon."
"Orright mate."
"Orright....er, listen, Mike are you gigging tonight?"
A chuckle - I couldn't help it...
"No, what's up?"
"How would you like to do a gig with Jake, with Jake's band?"
"Yeah sure! What is it?"
"Well, it's weirdo soundtrack blues he'll explain it when you get here. Listen, just forget everything you've ever learnt about music and, well, take it from there really."
"Sure, no worries. What time?"
"Well, when you get here I guess..."
"Er, sure....see you later then."
"Cheers Mike, see you later on."
Wikkid! I get to try out my new organ module. The Nord Electro is really changing my life....after two years of doing hotel gigs on real pianos, I'm getting less enamoured with the idea of playing a piano sound on a keyboard. I'd rather play a really good electromechanical instrument synthesis, which is where this little magical red box comes in. Plug it into the MIDI slot on your keyboard and you're away, virtual organ synthesis, and it sounded like a gig where you could do whatever the hell you liked!
So I took a bolognese home and inhaled it and then jumped a black cab with all the gear (including tux and hat) and zoomed into town.
The Black Gardenia, at 93 Dean Street Soho, is not your average club. Staff are all in vintage 40s swing rockabilly gear, and there's always some Fats Waller record on in the background. The cab pulls up out front and I greet one of the waitresses on the footpath, tending to some sort of Chinese garden-looking ornament.
Zimon and Ronnie are there at the top of the stairs - Zimon, the owner of the place, is like a tall lanky Chet Baker, smooth talker, tangental...Ronnie's in fine form - pork pie hat, pencil mo, gold chains, black and yellow hawaiian shirt (?), tattooed arms and chest - and some of the nicest guys you've ever met.
I limp in with the gear and meet Jake - gelled quiff, refrigerator size, immaculate yellow zoot suit jacket, keychain made of dice, didn't say much in the lead up. Near to where the band sets up is a mirror wall and a 9mm projector playing "Sweet Sweet Back's Bad Ass Tale" onto an old LP inner taped to the mirror. Here we go!
I'm unravelling the various cords and leads and Jake comes over and says, "I'll just call out the feels, like blues or tango, yeah?" And at once I realised that was the entire sum of musical direction I was to get for the evening. "Yeah sure, no worries!"
Denna, the barmaid, is looking gorgeous as ever I must admit....big black hair, beauty spot, cherry red lipstick and all those curves in all the right places. And I just can't muster up that flirtatious talk that I see the bodgy slick haired older drummer doing later on, with her posing in all the right ways in front of him....
Bass and trumpet arrive a while later, dressed entirely vintage, for the part, nice guys, equally mystified as to what we're to play.....more time passes....'Fever' strikes out from the desk and one of the more gorgeous women floating around earlier starts the strip show for the evening.....it just gets better!
So finally it's time to play and yes it's as random as hell. I suddenly become the musical director - one of those things where as long as bass and organ agree on a chord then it's stay on the groove while Jake vibes over the top.....this is one of those gigs where there are absolutely no musical concerns whatsoever, so it's performance time! And I'm on ripping organ and loving it, churning out all those slides and trills and blues licks that everyone loves and the place is packed and people are dancing....
This is it! These are the gigs I've been craving, after two years of playing stale pianos for fat city boys and their trophy wives talking about their chateau in St Moritz while drinking 15 quid champagne cocktails....it's down and dirty and people are in funny costumes and there are girls gyrating and this is the place I should be, that I want to be....."with those of my kind / Libations, sensations, that stagger the mind..."
Speaking of which, I managed to scam about a bottles worth of house red out of the bar across the course of the evening, but there's no qualms over that - I've done some other last minute work for these people recently and I think they might respect that.
So it comes pay time finally and Jake hands me the notes and they look a little short. I'm pretty sure I got shonked last weekend and so the money nerve is still feeling a little raw and without catching myself I say, "Oh, I thought it was 50, it's always been 50," and Jake is like, "Oh, I'm only getting 30," and shows me his bills....
Ah shit, I missed it! I wasn't actually being shonked here, I had a cash employer who was actually honest and open....damn. And then later on he comes up to me with another tenner! That's how nice these people are....
I spend the rest of the evening propping up the bar with Paul, a partner in crime from recent excursions down there and the talk goes to standards and old films and the musos we love. The place closes and we decide to stagger on to Gerrys, the private club two blocks down the road through which I kinda ended up doing these gigs.
More on Gerrys later....closer to Shaftsbury Avenue, it's an old thespian hangout.....been down there with B, a sax playing friend of mine, and say hello to all the regulars, but it's thinning out there as well....eventually realising how incredibly drunk I was, I take my leave and find the last place open in Chinatown. I think it was that Szechuan Beef with all that hangover preventative chilli that saved me the next day, as I staggered back to Tottenham Court Road and caught the 29, the 'free' bus, up the old main drag and back to the flat, wading through the brown of a braindead dawn....
....a little later, standing in the curry section of the local Sainsburys, deciding how lazy I really was going to be on an evening at home, listening to albums, writing some tunes, the mobile rings and it's Zimon, owner of the Black Gardeina, a little place I've been playing at recently. It's 8pm, and I should have picked what was about to happen...
"Mike, it's Zimon."
"Orright mate."
"Orright....er, listen, Mike are you gigging tonight?"
A chuckle - I couldn't help it...
"No, what's up?"
"How would you like to do a gig with Jake, with Jake's band?"
"Yeah sure! What is it?"
"Well, it's weirdo soundtrack blues he'll explain it when you get here. Listen, just forget everything you've ever learnt about music and, well, take it from there really."
"Sure, no worries. What time?"
"Well, when you get here I guess..."
"Er, sure....see you later then."
"Cheers Mike, see you later on."
Wikkid! I get to try out my new organ module. The Nord Electro is really changing my life....after two years of doing hotel gigs on real pianos, I'm getting less enamoured with the idea of playing a piano sound on a keyboard. I'd rather play a really good electromechanical instrument synthesis, which is where this little magical red box comes in. Plug it into the MIDI slot on your keyboard and you're away, virtual organ synthesis, and it sounded like a gig where you could do whatever the hell you liked!
So I took a bolognese home and inhaled it and then jumped a black cab with all the gear (including tux and hat) and zoomed into town.
The Black Gardenia, at 93 Dean Street Soho, is not your average club. Staff are all in vintage 40s swing rockabilly gear, and there's always some Fats Waller record on in the background. The cab pulls up out front and I greet one of the waitresses on the footpath, tending to some sort of Chinese garden-looking ornament.
Zimon and Ronnie are there at the top of the stairs - Zimon, the owner of the place, is like a tall lanky Chet Baker, smooth talker, tangental...Ronnie's in fine form - pork pie hat, pencil mo, gold chains, black and yellow hawaiian shirt (?), tattooed arms and chest - and some of the nicest guys you've ever met.
I limp in with the gear and meet Jake - gelled quiff, refrigerator size, immaculate yellow zoot suit jacket, keychain made of dice, didn't say much in the lead up. Near to where the band sets up is a mirror wall and a 9mm projector playing "Sweet Sweet Back's Bad Ass Tale" onto an old LP inner taped to the mirror. Here we go!
I'm unravelling the various cords and leads and Jake comes over and says, "I'll just call out the feels, like blues or tango, yeah?" And at once I realised that was the entire sum of musical direction I was to get for the evening. "Yeah sure, no worries!"
Denna, the barmaid, is looking gorgeous as ever I must admit....big black hair, beauty spot, cherry red lipstick and all those curves in all the right places. And I just can't muster up that flirtatious talk that I see the bodgy slick haired older drummer doing later on, with her posing in all the right ways in front of him....
Bass and trumpet arrive a while later, dressed entirely vintage, for the part, nice guys, equally mystified as to what we're to play.....more time passes....'Fever' strikes out from the desk and one of the more gorgeous women floating around earlier starts the strip show for the evening.....it just gets better!
So finally it's time to play and yes it's as random as hell. I suddenly become the musical director - one of those things where as long as bass and organ agree on a chord then it's stay on the groove while Jake vibes over the top.....this is one of those gigs where there are absolutely no musical concerns whatsoever, so it's performance time! And I'm on ripping organ and loving it, churning out all those slides and trills and blues licks that everyone loves and the place is packed and people are dancing....
This is it! These are the gigs I've been craving, after two years of playing stale pianos for fat city boys and their trophy wives talking about their chateau in St Moritz while drinking 15 quid champagne cocktails....it's down and dirty and people are in funny costumes and there are girls gyrating and this is the place I should be, that I want to be....."with those of my kind / Libations, sensations, that stagger the mind..."
Speaking of which, I managed to scam about a bottles worth of house red out of the bar across the course of the evening, but there's no qualms over that - I've done some other last minute work for these people recently and I think they might respect that.
So it comes pay time finally and Jake hands me the notes and they look a little short. I'm pretty sure I got shonked last weekend and so the money nerve is still feeling a little raw and without catching myself I say, "Oh, I thought it was 50, it's always been 50," and Jake is like, "Oh, I'm only getting 30," and shows me his bills....
Ah shit, I missed it! I wasn't actually being shonked here, I had a cash employer who was actually honest and open....damn. And then later on he comes up to me with another tenner! That's how nice these people are....
I spend the rest of the evening propping up the bar with Paul, a partner in crime from recent excursions down there and the talk goes to standards and old films and the musos we love. The place closes and we decide to stagger on to Gerrys, the private club two blocks down the road through which I kinda ended up doing these gigs.
More on Gerrys later....closer to Shaftsbury Avenue, it's an old thespian hangout.....been down there with B, a sax playing friend of mine, and say hello to all the regulars, but it's thinning out there as well....eventually realising how incredibly drunk I was, I take my leave and find the last place open in Chinatown. I think it was that Szechuan Beef with all that hangover preventative chilli that saved me the next day, as I staggered back to Tottenham Court Road and caught the 29, the 'free' bus, up the old main drag and back to the flat, wading through the brown of a braindead dawn....
10 April 2007
Gemini
Wed arvo, bout 6ish....
Home, washing dishes....Housemate P comes home....hello how are you fine...."I think we should take it in turns to pay the rent. Can you take care of it tomorrow?"
Our landlord comes to pick up the one cheque from us every month, meaning one of us has to write a cheque to him and collect three cheques from the other housemates. For our entire time this has been Phil's job but for some reason he doesn't want to do it anymore, and it doesn't seem open to discussion for some inexplicable reason. For our entire time here I have taken care of three (i.e most) of the bills and J does a lot more cleaning than she should.
"Actually P I'd appreciate it if you took care of it."
"Yeah well I think we should take turns."
"Yeah but I take care of three bills..."
"Yeah but you don't have to do it very much."
There it is, at a volume a little louder than mine, very quickly, and a final statement, one that leaves no opening to discussion. And the response from your correspondent? Silence.
Why would I step up to the plate over something so trivial? And of course before I have time to respond, in that second of deliberation, P leaves, and that old feeling of frustration and tiredness arises.
Great, I'm about to have a row with my housemate. This is SO NERVERACKING AND BORING AT THE SAME TIME, a recurring theme in my sharehousing experience, and at the risk of self-righteousness, it's never been me. I've never given any reason for anyone to give me any grief in the sharehousing situation. But then, it's not about me. It's always been someone else - everything's putting along hunky dory and then someone decides to be lazy and self-centred and the rest of us have to put up with it.
And then things started to shift. Row with housemate will turn into awkwardness will turn into eventually moving house. Yeah, moving out of here, as much as I've loved living with these guys, but times will change, and soon, and the knowledge of that.....the weather here is finally turning, finally emerging from the miserable winter and the freakish multipolar nature of the last month and the warmth is settling in, solid, somehow reliable for a time, so I opened the window, let in a little of the Camden breeze, put on a couple of Bjork albums and started tidying my room.
And I mean, tidying...digging out an old box full of rubbish, holding stuff still from my last relationship, the whole catalyst for my coming over here....digging out these old things from the past, sorting, throwing away......I must have spent at least four hours in there and made some progress....
I come back from a gig later on in the night and a cheque is left for me by P and a note....."Sorry (ever the Brit), but I think we should take turns, like I said, next time it'll be my turn."
Well, am I going to sit here and let these people walk all over me like I've always done? You know what I could do? I could take this cheque and knock on his door right now and tear it up in front of his face and call him names, but in the interests of housemate co-operation, like I've always done, I'm going to acquiesce on this occasion. I'm just going to swallow it and do it and take the cheque and be done with it.
But this won't rest. Not this time. I've put up with friends and lovers letting them walk all over me because it's easier, because I'm trying to think of their best interests over my own. And even if it is simply a voicing of opinion over something so trivial, it's an important step.
Thursday night, park up from Charlie Wrights, Hoxton, about 5 am
It was a huge night at the local Thursday hang, at least two birthday parties I was aware of, wall to wall people.....the jam started, it was free, sax bass and drums, no chords, and there was a ring of about thirty people standing solidly around the band checking it out, and apparently someone was in the middle dancing. Damn I love this place!....
So later on a hard core few of us (about 20 I guess) spill up the road to the 24 hour off licence and the local park, and there I am, the sky lightening it's blue, propping up the garbage bin talking to this girl who I've been talking to all night. There's a sense of relaxation and also of desire in her dark eyes....
"So I'm flying to New York tomorrow for three weeks."
"Cool."
"Wanna come?"
A moment of drunken thought....
"Yeah, sure, why not."
I couldn't believe that I said it. An almost total absence of deliberation. Things changing all right.
A smile from her.
A smile from me.
And then, a kiss! A beautiful drunken sweet kiss, right there as I'm leaning next to the garbage bin. How romantic!....
Home, washing dishes....Housemate P comes home....hello how are you fine...."I think we should take it in turns to pay the rent. Can you take care of it tomorrow?"
Our landlord comes to pick up the one cheque from us every month, meaning one of us has to write a cheque to him and collect three cheques from the other housemates. For our entire time this has been Phil's job but for some reason he doesn't want to do it anymore, and it doesn't seem open to discussion for some inexplicable reason. For our entire time here I have taken care of three (i.e most) of the bills and J does a lot more cleaning than she should.
"Actually P I'd appreciate it if you took care of it."
"Yeah well I think we should take turns."
"Yeah but I take care of three bills..."
"Yeah but you don't have to do it very much."
There it is, at a volume a little louder than mine, very quickly, and a final statement, one that leaves no opening to discussion. And the response from your correspondent? Silence.
Why would I step up to the plate over something so trivial? And of course before I have time to respond, in that second of deliberation, P leaves, and that old feeling of frustration and tiredness arises.
Great, I'm about to have a row with my housemate. This is SO NERVERACKING AND BORING AT THE SAME TIME, a recurring theme in my sharehousing experience, and at the risk of self-righteousness, it's never been me. I've never given any reason for anyone to give me any grief in the sharehousing situation. But then, it's not about me. It's always been someone else - everything's putting along hunky dory and then someone decides to be lazy and self-centred and the rest of us have to put up with it.
And then things started to shift. Row with housemate will turn into awkwardness will turn into eventually moving house. Yeah, moving out of here, as much as I've loved living with these guys, but times will change, and soon, and the knowledge of that.....the weather here is finally turning, finally emerging from the miserable winter and the freakish multipolar nature of the last month and the warmth is settling in, solid, somehow reliable for a time, so I opened the window, let in a little of the Camden breeze, put on a couple of Bjork albums and started tidying my room.
And I mean, tidying...digging out an old box full of rubbish, holding stuff still from my last relationship, the whole catalyst for my coming over here....digging out these old things from the past, sorting, throwing away......I must have spent at least four hours in there and made some progress....
I come back from a gig later on in the night and a cheque is left for me by P and a note....."Sorry (ever the Brit), but I think we should take turns, like I said, next time it'll be my turn."
Well, am I going to sit here and let these people walk all over me like I've always done? You know what I could do? I could take this cheque and knock on his door right now and tear it up in front of his face and call him names, but in the interests of housemate co-operation, like I've always done, I'm going to acquiesce on this occasion. I'm just going to swallow it and do it and take the cheque and be done with it.
But this won't rest. Not this time. I've put up with friends and lovers letting them walk all over me because it's easier, because I'm trying to think of their best interests over my own. And even if it is simply a voicing of opinion over something so trivial, it's an important step.
Thursday night, park up from Charlie Wrights, Hoxton, about 5 am
It was a huge night at the local Thursday hang, at least two birthday parties I was aware of, wall to wall people.....the jam started, it was free, sax bass and drums, no chords, and there was a ring of about thirty people standing solidly around the band checking it out, and apparently someone was in the middle dancing. Damn I love this place!....
So later on a hard core few of us (about 20 I guess) spill up the road to the 24 hour off licence and the local park, and there I am, the sky lightening it's blue, propping up the garbage bin talking to this girl who I've been talking to all night. There's a sense of relaxation and also of desire in her dark eyes....
"So I'm flying to New York tomorrow for three weeks."
"Cool."
"Wanna come?"
A moment of drunken thought....
"Yeah, sure, why not."
I couldn't believe that I said it. An almost total absence of deliberation. Things changing all right.
A smile from her.
A smile from me.
And then, a kiss! A beautiful drunken sweet kiss, right there as I'm leaning next to the garbage bin. How romantic!....
03 April 2007
Job Description
Thought some of you might get a laugh out of this....the twelve year old son of a family friend has an assignment due in a couple of days, a profile of a profession that he may want to pursue in the future, which at the moment happens to be 'musician' (crazy little feller!). I thought it might be entertaining to blog my emailed responses....I was surprised at how long it took me, as I really wanted to get it right for him. I also started wondering what I would have made of this if someone had told me all this stuff when I was twelve. I probably wouldn't have understood it really...
Questions for Michael:
Michael, as part of an assignment for school I have to look at a career that interests me. I have chosen a musician as I like music. Part of the assignment is asking some questions of someone who works in the area.
My Mum suggested that I ask you!
Did you have to go to TAFE or Uni. If so, for how long?
Yes. I studied at Australian National University in Canberra for four years, and completed a Bachelor of Music (Jazz Studies) with 1st class Honours in 2000
What age did you start playing at?
I started playing piano when I was seven years old.
Do you play in a band?
I have played in many bands over the years, but as I am a freelance musician, currently I am not a regular member of any band. At the moment though I am in the process of getting together a couple of small ensembles.
As a professional musician, is this enough to support you? (my mum suggested this one!)
Unfortunately no, although it possibly could in the future sometime (I hope!).
Have you always played the one instrument?
No. Through high school I played the tenor saxophone in a concert band, rock band and jazz ensemble and later studied it as an elective for two years at university.
What do you have to do in your job? What does your job consist of?
Being a freelance musician consists of many different facets, usually depending on what type of performances or ‘gigs’ you want to do and the style of music that you want to play. Types of gigs can vary wildly. They can be regular or one-off, and can range from a blues band in a club in a nearby city to a solo piano gig in a hotel just around the corner.
Meeting lots of people and making contacts among fellow musicians is very important as these people will hopefully hire you for their gigs and you will hire them for yours.
Freelance gigs usually fall into two groups; either you are hired by somebody or you are the bandleader and hire other people to perform with you.
When hired by somebody else to do a gig, you might be called by the bandleader, or you might be filling in for somebody else in an established band, which is usually called ‘depping’. Many different aspects of the gig need to be considered, including things like the style of music to be played, whether there will be a rehearsal, the time and location of the gig, what kind of band is playing the gig, what kind of musical equipment needs to be taken, appropriate dress, whether food and drink will be supplied, and of course the amount to be paid and method of payment, whether it is cash on the night or cheque.
The nature of many of the freelance Jazz gigs that I do is that sometimes the bandleader running the gig may not have a regular band or may require a different combination of musicians than what they’re used to playing with, which is why a long list of musical contacts is very useful. Often, because many freelance Jazz musicians know a generally similar repertoire, bands can be formed specifically for a particular gig, often with no prior rehersal. This can sometimes be a challenging situation, but also very exciting!
If YOU are the bandleader, then of course it is up to you to organize your band, keep a track of all those things involved with the gig and stay in contact with the people you have chosen for your band as well as the venue and the person who is paying you. Being a bandleader requires a lot of organization and phone calls but can often be rewarding.
Did you start playing at a young age? If so, did any of your friends play as well?
I started playing when I was in year 4, late primary school, and have been playing ever since, so yes, I suppose that was an early time to start! From what I can remember, none of my friends played piano at the time.
Do you have any tips for me?
If you stick with the music you love and work hard at playing it well, then you can’t go wrong!…
What is the best thing about playing music for a job?
Working long and hard on something that you love doing and being able to make money from it. Also, experiencing those moments where everything comes together, when you’re playing with a great band (or sometimes just by yourself) and the music sounds amazing, you’re able to make people in the audience feel something emotionally, and most importantly that you’re having fun with it.
What is the worst?
Sometimes as a freelance musician, if you are attempting to make a living solely off performing, then often you have to do gigs that you may not prefer to do, playing styles of music that you may not. But then sometimes that’s all part of the adventure…
Thanks Michael. Hope I can listen to you play one day. Luke PJ Smith
Questions for Michael:
Michael, as part of an assignment for school I have to look at a career that interests me. I have chosen a musician as I like music. Part of the assignment is asking some questions of someone who works in the area.
My Mum suggested that I ask you!
Did you have to go to TAFE or Uni. If so, for how long?
Yes. I studied at Australian National University in Canberra for four years, and completed a Bachelor of Music (Jazz Studies) with 1st class Honours in 2000
What age did you start playing at?
I started playing piano when I was seven years old.
Do you play in a band?
I have played in many bands over the years, but as I am a freelance musician, currently I am not a regular member of any band. At the moment though I am in the process of getting together a couple of small ensembles.
As a professional musician, is this enough to support you? (my mum suggested this one!)
Unfortunately no, although it possibly could in the future sometime (I hope!).
Have you always played the one instrument?
No. Through high school I played the tenor saxophone in a concert band, rock band and jazz ensemble and later studied it as an elective for two years at university.
What do you have to do in your job? What does your job consist of?
Being a freelance musician consists of many different facets, usually depending on what type of performances or ‘gigs’ you want to do and the style of music that you want to play. Types of gigs can vary wildly. They can be regular or one-off, and can range from a blues band in a club in a nearby city to a solo piano gig in a hotel just around the corner.
Meeting lots of people and making contacts among fellow musicians is very important as these people will hopefully hire you for their gigs and you will hire them for yours.
Freelance gigs usually fall into two groups; either you are hired by somebody or you are the bandleader and hire other people to perform with you.
When hired by somebody else to do a gig, you might be called by the bandleader, or you might be filling in for somebody else in an established band, which is usually called ‘depping’. Many different aspects of the gig need to be considered, including things like the style of music to be played, whether there will be a rehearsal, the time and location of the gig, what kind of band is playing the gig, what kind of musical equipment needs to be taken, appropriate dress, whether food and drink will be supplied, and of course the amount to be paid and method of payment, whether it is cash on the night or cheque.
The nature of many of the freelance Jazz gigs that I do is that sometimes the bandleader running the gig may not have a regular band or may require a different combination of musicians than what they’re used to playing with, which is why a long list of musical contacts is very useful. Often, because many freelance Jazz musicians know a generally similar repertoire, bands can be formed specifically for a particular gig, often with no prior rehersal. This can sometimes be a challenging situation, but also very exciting!
If YOU are the bandleader, then of course it is up to you to organize your band, keep a track of all those things involved with the gig and stay in contact with the people you have chosen for your band as well as the venue and the person who is paying you. Being a bandleader requires a lot of organization and phone calls but can often be rewarding.
Did you start playing at a young age? If so, did any of your friends play as well?
I started playing when I was in year 4, late primary school, and have been playing ever since, so yes, I suppose that was an early time to start! From what I can remember, none of my friends played piano at the time.
Do you have any tips for me?
If you stick with the music you love and work hard at playing it well, then you can’t go wrong!…
What is the best thing about playing music for a job?
Working long and hard on something that you love doing and being able to make money from it. Also, experiencing those moments where everything comes together, when you’re playing with a great band (or sometimes just by yourself) and the music sounds amazing, you’re able to make people in the audience feel something emotionally, and most importantly that you’re having fun with it.
What is the worst?
Sometimes as a freelance musician, if you are attempting to make a living solely off performing, then often you have to do gigs that you may not prefer to do, playing styles of music that you may not. But then sometimes that’s all part of the adventure…
Thanks Michael. Hope I can listen to you play one day. Luke PJ Smith
30 March 2007
Nice Little Life...
.....it's a nice life at the mo, this current 'transitional' phase I'm going through....not much to do during the daytimes....get up bout mid-morning, make myself a cawfee, never quite reach the amount of practice I always intended to do before running off to evening teaching in far flung fields and then a suprising gig or two or partying....it's a funny little window which is at times amazing and depressing at constantly bi-polar extremes....one day I'm totally sold on being a musician, next day I wanna give up, and back again and I'm already repeating myself from previous entries.....but then I wonder if that's what it's supposed to be like, those extremes, maybe only by embracing them fully, right now for the first time, can I get some sense of where it's all going.....
....my piano playing is changing rapidly for the better in so many amazing ways....things are just happening, stuff is coming out of its own accord, stuff I never thought I'd be able to do....for the first time ever, after eight years private lessons and a music degree and one two three four five six years out of uni, I feel as though I'm able (or at least have finally discovered the skills necessary) to actually play the piano, be at one with it, the material, the sound, the keys, everything. How could I possibly consider throwing it in?....
....but this nice little life at the mo has it's limits, and they're encroaching it's borders with quickening pace....decisions must be made soon...house, employment, location et al.....but the most important thing to remember is that it's all moving, and when things are moving, in a state of flux, that's when some of the greatest learning takes place....and as long as I'm committed to getting out of my nice cosy solitary bed in the mornings and embracing the day and everything it has to offer, then I know I'll be okay.....
....well, that's enough self-centred navel gazing waffle for this entry - here's the current media watch....
BOOK: Inner Game of Tennis - just finished Cloudstreet and all it's beautiful Oz imagery, so onto the next self help - since I opened it yesterday I can't put it down....offering alternate takes (as it were) on material I've already sifted through with 'Effortless Mastery', 'Everyday Zen' and 'Free Play'....looks like I'll knock it off in another cuppla tube rides as well.....
MUSIC: Monty Alexander - with Ernest Ranglin and Solo - mentioned that before, but also a little Aphex Twin and some organ stuff, Jimmy Smith, getting the basics together....
until soon friends,.....
....my piano playing is changing rapidly for the better in so many amazing ways....things are just happening, stuff is coming out of its own accord, stuff I never thought I'd be able to do....for the first time ever, after eight years private lessons and a music degree and one two three four five six years out of uni, I feel as though I'm able (or at least have finally discovered the skills necessary) to actually play the piano, be at one with it, the material, the sound, the keys, everything. How could I possibly consider throwing it in?....
....but this nice little life at the mo has it's limits, and they're encroaching it's borders with quickening pace....decisions must be made soon...house, employment, location et al.....but the most important thing to remember is that it's all moving, and when things are moving, in a state of flux, that's when some of the greatest learning takes place....and as long as I'm committed to getting out of my nice cosy solitary bed in the mornings and embracing the day and everything it has to offer, then I know I'll be okay.....
....well, that's enough self-centred navel gazing waffle for this entry - here's the current media watch....
BOOK: Inner Game of Tennis - just finished Cloudstreet and all it's beautiful Oz imagery, so onto the next self help - since I opened it yesterday I can't put it down....offering alternate takes (as it were) on material I've already sifted through with 'Effortless Mastery', 'Everyday Zen' and 'Free Play'....looks like I'll knock it off in another cuppla tube rides as well.....
MUSIC: Monty Alexander - with Ernest Ranglin and Solo - mentioned that before, but also a little Aphex Twin and some organ stuff, Jimmy Smith, getting the basics together....
until soon friends,.....
23 March 2007
Jay And Silent Bob (of Camden Town)
....bidding farewell to D-Funk at Lock 17, J-Sax and I wended our way briefly by the side of the canal, across the bridge and down the unusually quiet high road. I was propositioned with skunk only the once last night, bit disappointing really, expected a bit more from the boys, and was quite displeased at the fact that not once last night was I called Charlie. What's the place coming to, I mean really....
All drink and no food makes Mike a moody boy, so we cross the bridge and head for the first dodgy pizza place we come to on the corner....
And the vibe is strong! Glowy christmas lights adorn the awning and 'Don't Stop Till You Get Enough' is blasting from somewhere inside. Eerily enough for Camden Town, the street is pretty quiet, no-one else is around.
And seemingly no-one is behind the counter. But there's a tall lanky guy drifting around next to us - trucker hat, aviators, stubble - who may or may not be working here. J-Sax and I are in the thick of muso talk but something is already seeming a little curious.
A moment goes by and no-one emerges....
"Don mine him man he's jes doin his fing yo no" says 'Jay'.
.....(all right, and who might that be?).....
All of a sudden, 'Silent Bob' backs out from no-where, moonwalking without a doubt, does the turn to face us - brown hat, collared white shirt, red jumper - speechless.
He's looking at us - another moment goes by....
"Orright mate, I'll have one of those thanks," I spurt out tentatively....
Bob dances off somewhere. Jay is back behind the counter, sometimes. J-Sax and I are still in the thick of it....
"This is a wikkid song!"
"Damn straight. The bridge bit with the fat brass....."
"This was with Quincy Jones, right?"
"I think so"
"It's not happening for Mike these days though is it...."
".....Yeah, it all went downhill after Quincy left...."
Bob dances back in front with a 'What would you like?' look on his face, still speechless. I pointed to a tasty selection and he whisks it off to the microwave. Jay starts talking to us....
"Man, this is the place to be on the High Road!" I tell him, and he's into it, I think. J-Sax agrees....
"Could I get some vine leaves too thanks mate?" I request from Bob, looking at the four for a pound sign. He whisks over and gives us each a free one. Nice! No four though, that seems a bit too much at this point.
'Don't Stop Till You Get Enough' is still blaring....
"Hey, did you hear that story about 'Billie Jean'?"
"No?"
"They're in the studio and Mike's done heaps of takes and just isn't getting it, and Q is drunk apparently, so he gets the irits, goes into the studio and beats him up!"
"No!"
"Yeah! and so Mike makes one more take and that's it! That's the one we hear!"
"Wow....talk about chill studio vibe..."
'Don't Stop Till You Get Enough' fades off.....and starts again? Bob must be really working on his fing.....
(.....This wikkid little Fellini-esque vignette playing before us is up there with that time I took a girl to 'Booty Wine' round the corner after hours, where the guy behind the till mutters another language through the half-shut roller door and suddenly a hand comes out from underneath with a six quid special in a brown paper bag....one asks no questions in a city of such mystery...)
....Bob whisks over from the microwave, gives me the pizza slice, goes back over to open the till and THEN comes back over for the money....and not a word, the whole time....
"Thanks boys, have a good one." Phew!
Camden Town, that kinda place....
All drink and no food makes Mike a moody boy, so we cross the bridge and head for the first dodgy pizza place we come to on the corner....
And the vibe is strong! Glowy christmas lights adorn the awning and 'Don't Stop Till You Get Enough' is blasting from somewhere inside. Eerily enough for Camden Town, the street is pretty quiet, no-one else is around.
And seemingly no-one is behind the counter. But there's a tall lanky guy drifting around next to us - trucker hat, aviators, stubble - who may or may not be working here. J-Sax and I are in the thick of muso talk but something is already seeming a little curious.
A moment goes by and no-one emerges....
"Don mine him man he's jes doin his fing yo no" says 'Jay'.
.....(all right, and who might that be?).....
All of a sudden, 'Silent Bob' backs out from no-where, moonwalking without a doubt, does the turn to face us - brown hat, collared white shirt, red jumper - speechless.
He's looking at us - another moment goes by....
"Orright mate, I'll have one of those thanks," I spurt out tentatively....
Bob dances off somewhere. Jay is back behind the counter, sometimes. J-Sax and I are still in the thick of it....
"This is a wikkid song!"
"Damn straight. The bridge bit with the fat brass....."
"This was with Quincy Jones, right?"
"I think so"
"It's not happening for Mike these days though is it...."
".....Yeah, it all went downhill after Quincy left...."
Bob dances back in front with a 'What would you like?' look on his face, still speechless. I pointed to a tasty selection and he whisks it off to the microwave. Jay starts talking to us....
"Man, this is the place to be on the High Road!" I tell him, and he's into it, I think. J-Sax agrees....
"Could I get some vine leaves too thanks mate?" I request from Bob, looking at the four for a pound sign. He whisks over and gives us each a free one. Nice! No four though, that seems a bit too much at this point.
'Don't Stop Till You Get Enough' is still blaring....
"Hey, did you hear that story about 'Billie Jean'?"
"No?"
"They're in the studio and Mike's done heaps of takes and just isn't getting it, and Q is drunk apparently, so he gets the irits, goes into the studio and beats him up!"
"No!"
"Yeah! and so Mike makes one more take and that's it! That's the one we hear!"
"Wow....talk about chill studio vibe..."
'Don't Stop Till You Get Enough' fades off.....and starts again? Bob must be really working on his fing.....
(.....This wikkid little Fellini-esque vignette playing before us is up there with that time I took a girl to 'Booty Wine' round the corner after hours, where the guy behind the till mutters another language through the half-shut roller door and suddenly a hand comes out from underneath with a six quid special in a brown paper bag....one asks no questions in a city of such mystery...)
....Bob whisks over from the microwave, gives me the pizza slice, goes back over to open the till and THEN comes back over for the money....and not a word, the whole time....
"Thanks boys, have a good one." Phew!
Camden Town, that kinda place....
22 March 2007
well...
...so I'm recording this demo on Tuesday, thinking that I've got all day Wednesday blocked out for teaching - I've been doing some through some music shops in the north and they've rigged me up a day at a 'school of religious character' - and I get this call from the teaching guy saying that the people at the school want to meet me before I start and can I come in this afternoon. They have to interview me before I start, meaning that if I don't come in this afternoon I can't start tomorrow. And even if I did, the pay isn't gonna get to me for another month anyway.....
....and there's that sigh, that weariness at the backwards inefficiency of this whole place, worn briefly from this new Londoner and shrugged off in an instant, but what of those who've lived here their whole lives?....
....yeah fine, I make the call and arrange an interview the next morning, speaking to Gerry who keeps going on about 'timewasting' students and how we have to get rid of them. Haven't even bloody met them yet!
So it's an early morning tube off to Totteridge and Whetstone, one of the quainter named stations and the second last stop on the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line. The place is easy enough to find, a couple of brown wood buildings near a field on a private road. The electronic gate shuts in my face.
In this bitter cold we've suddenly had this week (after a balmy precursor to summer), I had to laugh. All part of the continuing adventure I suppose....
So I meet Gerry and Graham, seeming patriarchal moral overseers of the place with their Ultra conservative uniforms and haircuts and they talk me through the guidelines of the Brethren, the particular variance of Christianity that this school falls under.
No recorded music at home: radio fine, but none of that ghastly modern popular music. Beatles and Bob Dylan is fine, but then Gerry's lately had some reservations about them too, so maybe not. So I can show them something from a recording, but I can't give them one to take home or ask them if they're into anything at home - they won't be because they don't have any.....
So Mike, what's your background? And I go into this pre-fab rave blah blah honours music degree did you catch the honours bit blah blah taught in schools for over a decade variety of students blah blah but it's not my main thing of course (all the while screaming in my head SHOW ME THE ROOM, SHOW ME THE PIANO, SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!!)
They attempt some banter at the usual junctures and I'm so not up for it.
They hand me the guidelines of the school which I flip through on the tube home. Here are some highlights:
"...a way of life which is governed at all times in every detail by the Holy Bible"
"....The Theory of Evolution is regardes as a falsehood..."
"The Trustees regard occupation with, and the study of, computers damaging to the proper development of children's minds, and only serve to reduce and limit their thinking capacity to be conformed to programmes and the manipulation of a keyboard and screen. it is regarded that computers in many fields represent a misuse of physical and natural phenomena created by God."
"Brethren children have not gone on to study at Universities since the 1960s, but have suffered no loss through this...'
I'm still interested to see how this all turns out. Apparently music creation is very strong in homes among family members, and the previous teacher has left me a list of the students and where they're at and from a teaching perspective it sounds promising. Maybe the last minute interview request and week's delay set me off about it all. I'm taking the gig because financially, it'll pluck me from a potential pickle...
.....and don't get me wrong here, I have the utmost respect for anyone who chooses a religious path for their life.
It's just the social rules, the conventions, that get me, all those little restrictions and forbiddances, the details that people feel they have to impose on themselves and their families.
An essential part of my experience as a travelling freelance musician has been the observation of human experience. Branford Marsalis has been quoted a couple of times as saying that musicians are basically social commentators, and from my own limited experiences I've seen that the human experience is vast, so much more expansive than setting oneself and one's family to sets of rules derived from a book written long ago and far away.
It's the 21st century, it's suburban London. We shall see.....
....and there's that sigh, that weariness at the backwards inefficiency of this whole place, worn briefly from this new Londoner and shrugged off in an instant, but what of those who've lived here their whole lives?....
....yeah fine, I make the call and arrange an interview the next morning, speaking to Gerry who keeps going on about 'timewasting' students and how we have to get rid of them. Haven't even bloody met them yet!
So it's an early morning tube off to Totteridge and Whetstone, one of the quainter named stations and the second last stop on the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line. The place is easy enough to find, a couple of brown wood buildings near a field on a private road. The electronic gate shuts in my face.
In this bitter cold we've suddenly had this week (after a balmy precursor to summer), I had to laugh. All part of the continuing adventure I suppose....
So I meet Gerry and Graham, seeming patriarchal moral overseers of the place with their Ultra conservative uniforms and haircuts and they talk me through the guidelines of the Brethren, the particular variance of Christianity that this school falls under.
No recorded music at home: radio fine, but none of that ghastly modern popular music. Beatles and Bob Dylan is fine, but then Gerry's lately had some reservations about them too, so maybe not. So I can show them something from a recording, but I can't give them one to take home or ask them if they're into anything at home - they won't be because they don't have any.....
So Mike, what's your background? And I go into this pre-fab rave blah blah honours music degree did you catch the honours bit blah blah taught in schools for over a decade variety of students blah blah but it's not my main thing of course (all the while screaming in my head SHOW ME THE ROOM, SHOW ME THE PIANO, SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!!)
They attempt some banter at the usual junctures and I'm so not up for it.
They hand me the guidelines of the school which I flip through on the tube home. Here are some highlights:
"...a way of life which is governed at all times in every detail by the Holy Bible"
"....The Theory of Evolution is regardes as a falsehood..."
"The Trustees regard occupation with, and the study of, computers damaging to the proper development of children's minds, and only serve to reduce and limit their thinking capacity to be conformed to programmes and the manipulation of a keyboard and screen. it is regarded that computers in many fields represent a misuse of physical and natural phenomena created by God."
"Brethren children have not gone on to study at Universities since the 1960s, but have suffered no loss through this...'
I'm still interested to see how this all turns out. Apparently music creation is very strong in homes among family members, and the previous teacher has left me a list of the students and where they're at and from a teaching perspective it sounds promising. Maybe the last minute interview request and week's delay set me off about it all. I'm taking the gig because financially, it'll pluck me from a potential pickle...
.....and don't get me wrong here, I have the utmost respect for anyone who chooses a religious path for their life.
It's just the social rules, the conventions, that get me, all those little restrictions and forbiddances, the details that people feel they have to impose on themselves and their families.
An essential part of my experience as a travelling freelance musician has been the observation of human experience. Branford Marsalis has been quoted a couple of times as saying that musicians are basically social commentators, and from my own limited experiences I've seen that the human experience is vast, so much more expansive than setting oneself and one's family to sets of rules derived from a book written long ago and far away.
It's the 21st century, it's suburban London. We shall see.....
19 March 2007
Requiem For A Dream
....I had this bizarro dream last night.....I don't seem to remember my dreams anymore and I don't usually tell anyone else my dreams, mainly because they turn out to be open-ended stories that go nowhere and the person you tell can never fully associate, but this is a bit of an exception.....
First of all, real life - Did the Belvedere last night again - it's a four hour gig, and as I said before, no soft pedal, it's a loud piano, and the diners are really close. The management came up twice in the first set to ask me to play softer - it takes me enough concentration to just play solo piano with a working time feel and good tone and interesting harmonic movement without someone bugging you from the side. Of course the more people that came the louder I was able to play. Oh yeah, and they interrupted my meal for me to play Happy Birthday which I have to say was pretty annoying.
So came home, stayed up a bit, some wine and Google Video, went to bed - and then I was in this sort of psychedelic Victorian era version of London, doing a gig in what looked like some department store, and I'd go to play a song and there was this woman in one of those massive curly Baroque wigs who was barking at me, really having a go at me about how wrong it was or how loud I was playing or it was the wrong song, so I would stop and try something else and she wouldn't let up.
So after about five attempts at songs, I blew my top, stood up and yelled at this lady, something about leaving (this version of) London and never working for her again. "You can't do that," she said, "you need to work here! This town's too small, you can't just walk away." "Watch me," I said, or words to that effect. And then she said the line, the kicker....
"You'll be doing these gigs for years!".......
That's what got me - imagine a Simpsons-esque echo of that line to end the dream and me suddenly awake sitting bolt upright in the bed.....
....damn, I gotta write and perform me some original music!.....
First of all, real life - Did the Belvedere last night again - it's a four hour gig, and as I said before, no soft pedal, it's a loud piano, and the diners are really close. The management came up twice in the first set to ask me to play softer - it takes me enough concentration to just play solo piano with a working time feel and good tone and interesting harmonic movement without someone bugging you from the side. Of course the more people that came the louder I was able to play. Oh yeah, and they interrupted my meal for me to play Happy Birthday which I have to say was pretty annoying.
So came home, stayed up a bit, some wine and Google Video, went to bed - and then I was in this sort of psychedelic Victorian era version of London, doing a gig in what looked like some department store, and I'd go to play a song and there was this woman in one of those massive curly Baroque wigs who was barking at me, really having a go at me about how wrong it was or how loud I was playing or it was the wrong song, so I would stop and try something else and she wouldn't let up.
So after about five attempts at songs, I blew my top, stood up and yelled at this lady, something about leaving (this version of) London and never working for her again. "You can't do that," she said, "you need to work here! This town's too small, you can't just walk away." "Watch me," I said, or words to that effect. And then she said the line, the kicker....
"You'll be doing these gigs for years!".......
That's what got me - imagine a Simpsons-esque echo of that line to end the dream and me suddenly awake sitting bolt upright in the bed.....
....damn, I gotta write and perform me some original music!.....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)