Friday, 21 December 2012
You know when everything you think you know is wrong?
When I was about 14 my Mum & Dad bought an upright piano. Not for me, you understand, but for one of my younger brothers, Phil. His music teacher said he had a real talent and an ear for music. Phil went for proper Grade lessons but hated it. You see, he didn't need the formality of it. He just wanted to play. And, boy, could he play. New Elton John song? Two listens. Nailed. He is just an wonderfully talented musician. Great guitarist, piano player, makes you sick! Anyway, this story isn't about him. By the time I was 16 and doing O Levels, we'd had said piano a couple of years. I got to going home if I didn't have a lesson on the odd afternoon, a two mile walk. One day, I turned into the drive and heard the piano. I remember stopping. Phil is 2 years younger than me, so he was still at school. Martin, 2 years younger still, was also a talented player (became a pro-songwriter) but he was also at school. I let myself into the house, quietly. The door to the room where the piano lived was slightly ajar. I listened as this beautiful piece of music drifted out of the room and filled the house. I knew the piece. Dad had it on an album and played the record frequently. I leaned close to the door and peeked a look. Mum was in a trance, eyed closed, as she delicately played the gorgeous music. She had no sheet music and wasn't even looking at the keys. I stood in the hallway for a minute and then quietly let myself back out of the house. I didn't tell her for 30 years. You see, she'd never let on that she could play. Not once. When Dad died and she moved to a smaller, chocolate-box cottage, she took the piano, "so that the boys can play when they come to visit." It was then, quietly, when we were alone, that I told her. She smiled. "Our secret, eh?"
Yesterday, someone I follow on This Is My Jam and Twitter, AndyMack, posted the piece of music that Mum was playing as his Jam for the week. It caught me unawares. Actually, that's not true. It has never failed to catch me unawares, ever since that day. I weep everytime I hear it. Mum died nearly six years ago, but that's not why I weep. The music is beautiful and the fact that she kept her talent from us is so typical of a woman who gave up being a nurse to raise 6 kids and be a mother until her beloved husband died at 55. After that, once we were all grown, she travelled, had her own radio show, went hot air ballooning in Oz, sand belly-boarding and, near the end, took herself off to the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley 'to see all the places in The John Wayne films.'
So, thanks to Andy, and I'm raising a big fat glass of red to Betty Brannigan, my Mum.
The music she was playing? Debussy's Au Clair De La Lune.
Sunday, 9 December 2012
I love The Famous Five.
I love great singers. I love singers who have pain and loss and soul in their voice. I have a Famous Five of great, British voices. Paul Rodgers of Free & Bad Company heads the list which is, of course, indisputable. The other 4, in time-honoured no particular order, are Frankie Miller, James Dewar, Jess Roden and Peter Cox. If you don't know them, go look them up. The first four are rooted in the 70's. Peter Cox is from the 80's but is still touring and making new music. I have loved his voice since Go West's 'We Close Our Eyes.' I own everything he has ever done. We go and see Go West at every opportunity. Peter has made a new solo album, Riding The Blinds, via Pledge Music. This where the audience pay for the album to be made by buying various gifts and experiences. I bought 2 VIP passes to the sound check at a gig on the tour. It was last night and it was one of the most wonderful experiences of our lives. He was just the nicest bloke you could want to meet. We got to spend 90 minutes with him and his band. After the gig he signed a copy of the set-list for us. As we were leaving I was gripped by the urge to tell him what he meant to me. So, I told him about The Famous Five. He nodded when I said that Paul Rodgers was number one but said he was amazed to be linked with Jimmy Dewar. We nattered about those early Robin Trower albums and then we left. This morning he tweeted me, thanking me for my comment, for putting him in a list with four of his heroes, and hashtagged the tweak #humbled. As I said, you couldn't wish to meet a nicer bloke.
Friday, 30 November 2012
I bloody hate Camden.
I went to a gig at Dingwalls, Camden in that there London, last night. I was on my own, to see my current favourite band, Dawes. Train after work to Paddington, quick bowl of pasta then the Tube to Camden Town. A walk up a very cold Camden High Street, a pint and on to the gig. Don't get me wrong, nothing made me deviate from that plan, but....
Look,I'm 56. I don't do, student-chic. I don't do dog-on-a-string. I don't do macrobiotic lentils with poached cabbage. I went into 2 pubs and felt not so much 'ancient' as from another aeon! Even the bar staff were 12 years old. The place screams out "This is not for you. You are an old bastard and you don't belong." Luckily, Dingwalls was full of my kind. People with grey hair, trimmed beards and women drinking white wine. The gig was one of the best I've been to in 41 years of gigs. I went home to my wife, my warm, middle-class house in Berkshire and vowed never to go to Camden again. Unless there's a decent gig, obviously.
Dawes and "A Little Bit Of Everything."
Saturday, 17 November 2012
One of my favourite days of the year.
I am married to an Event Organiser. Janet books conferences and company incentives, worldwide. She organises for a living. So it's no surprise that she is totally organised herself. Take Christmas. She buys next year's paper, tags and cards on Boxing Day. Wherever we are (and we travel a lot)she is always thinking of gifts for friends & family that then get stored in the wardrobe until today. Today is wrapping day. Today is a huge glass of wine, a 77 song playlist of Christmas songs on her iPod, rolls of Sellotape, rolls of paper and the kitchen table surrounded by bags and boxes. When everything is wrapped it will all get split into nice gift bags (bought last Boxing Day) for each person. In two weeks time she'll drive up to Mum & Dad's near Walsall and drop off presents there, at her sister's and her best friends. She absolutely loves the whole process and is extremely good at it, too. So, today is one of my favourite days of the year. Because it makes my gorgeous wife so happy.
Nat king Cole. The Christmas Song.
Tuesday, 30 October 2012
Most things I worry 'bout never happen anyway.
We have friends in Lancaster, Philadelphia. When I say friends, we've met once. Dublin, May this year. We were on a travel package to see Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. So were Bill & Liz. They had combined it with a European trip. We were sat together at a fantastic gig and then stayed up in the hotel bar, for hours. You know when you just click with people? That was it. They flew back to the States, we flew back to London. I found Bill on LinkedIn (the only use I've ever found for it) and e-mailed him. Since then we've kept in touch quite a bit. Last night, watching the devastation of hurricane Sandy on the news, I suddenly had a horrible feeling of impending doom. I e-mailed Bill and got a scary reply. The town was being evacuated but they were staying put. They'd boarded up, sand-bagged, all the things we would do. They have a beach house on the Jersey shore which was being hit at that moment. I sent him our best and went to bed. Which just looks crap when you read it like that. I e-mailed again this morning and several more times today. Slowly, his replies got more hopeful until, this afternoon, he explained that, incredibly, they and their house, were fine. Even the Jersey house looks to have survived, although the water in the town is 12 feet deep in places. I joked back, told him how pleased we were, and signed off with a line that I have tried to live my life by, in the past few years. I used to worry about everything. I mean really worry. Then, 18 years ago, something happened which changed my world. By the time I got through it, my outlook had changed. We met Bill & Liz for 9 hours but I couldn't be happier that they and their family are safe. I don't know what that means but I shall raise a glass tonight.
The sign-off line is the title of this blog entry. It's from this Tom Petty song, Crawling Back To You. Stay safe everyone.
Sunday, 14 October 2012
I used to be in the Beatles, you know.
My wife and I went to see the musical Let It Be last week. It's actually a live gig by The Beatles. No, really. Four lookalikes and brilliant soundalikes rock their way through just about every Beatles song you could want. It's a proper loud, live gig. I got caught up in the atmosphere and the whole feeling of being that close (third row) to people singing these great songs that I have loved almost all of my life. At one point Paul, George and John sit for Blackbird, Two of Us and then In My Life. I wept, quietly. Beautifully staged, crystal clear sound, the four actor/musicians play brilliantly. George's solo in While My Guitar Gently Weeps was wonderful. I had a really, really good time. My Dad used to work for the electronics and defence side of EMI. This meant that, through something called Staff Sales, he got early access to Beatles records the week before they came out. He would bring them home on a Friday night and for the whole weekend, my brothers Kevin and Phil and me would be The Beatles. Tennis rackets for guitars, (I was Paul so I had a left-handed tennis racket) and singing the new songs so much that, by the time we went to school on Monday, we could sing the new Beatles record before anyone else in the playground had even heard it.
Let It Be was very, very good. For some of it I was 10 years old.
Sunday, 7 October 2012
A week is a long time in.....
Back from a wonderful trip to Ireland, heavier but happier. My birthday was on the Sunday, a week ago, the 2nd day of the trip. We got back late on Wednesday, spent Thursday feeding the washing machine and slobbing before a couple of great days in London. My wonderful wife had tipped off the hotel that it was my birthday and they made a fuss, which she loved. We had lunch at The Wolseley and she had primed them, as well. The point is that she loves to make my birthday last a week, if she gets the chance. Birthdays never used to mean much before I met her. In the fifteen years of my previous marriage they were never a big deal. So, to find someone who just wants to make them as special as possible is fantastic. My life has changed so much in the last 18 years. When JB and I met I was a wreck, not looking forward to the next day, let alone looking for a new relationship. We'll have been together 17 years soon, 12 of them married. So, a week is a long time in birthdays. Long may it last.
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