Tools: Gretsch Jim Dandy / Vocals
Materials: raw spleen: hopeful narrative: various forgotten styles, songs of the people
Intent: redemptive soul through abject failings, a staged adventure of sorts, a scrapbook of cultural calamities
Saturday 14th October – Prince Albert – Brighton…
A beautiful bill to be part of on a Saturday afternoon in the upstairs room of the Albert in
SET LIST
PIGEON GATHERINGS
TO LEAVE OR REMAIN
OUR RAINCOATS
IT’S KIND OF FUNNY
REFUGEES
PUNK BADGES
The core of these songs make up an album that is coming out on CD on the Tiny Global label in February. They are probably not deemed good enough to warrant a vinyl release but i love them and I am proud of them, there is a bin man punk skiffle thing about them, noisy assemblage and again the beginning of a journey, noise and beauty, let’s see how far we can go. With the band we always try to explore spiritual and political matters of the day, the big mysteries but these solo records will just be every day weird occurrences and sub cultural style matters, outsider and other themes, the lost the forgotten the happily retrieved… anyway, the set…
I started off so badly, fingers in a totally wrong place and not finding a rhythm, but the audience were full of good will, there were faces I knew in the audience and i grew into it. I stopped mid song a few times but kept on singing and loved the space it afforded. Our Raincoats a hymn to those old northern post punk souls and it’s natural follow on, a cover of Josef K’s It’s Kind Of Funny put me in a good space. I was kind of conscious I hadn’t properly tuned the guitar but fuck it, it’s the intensity and the delivery i am after. Don’t think anyone noticed anyway. Though Lee Macfayden pointed out i was playing a wrong chord in the chorus of It’s Kind Of Funny. I should have been playing a G apparently and not the Am. Lee the Am stays. My pal Clare had pointed me to an old Holy Joy song that I had completely forgotten about called Refugee, I played it, more for her than anything, cos she is going through a rough time at the moment. It had an absolute impact, and Punk Badges after was a total release and relief to lightheartedly grind out afterwards. Dedicated to Lee. Onwards…