Read Til You Drop: February 2010 (just)

It is February, isn't it? I haven't missed altogether, I hope.

This month's Read Til You Drop is late due to the following pile-up of pathetic excuses: leaves on the track; the sheer depressing awfulness of the political landscape; an unexpected item in the bagging area; and the compendious charms of the book under review, Garth Cartwright's More Miles than Money: Journeys through American music.

This is the record of the latest of the author's many musical journeys; he wrote a book about "journeys with gypsy musicians" called Princes Amongst Men, and he's a Kiwi based in South London. Reading More Miles than Money, you fairly quickly find out that he used to live in San Francisco.

He likes travelling, it seems, and doesn't like what's happened (too late), happening (the horror, the horror) and will happen (the writing is on the wall) to the American music "scene" (that's "scene" on a national scale, I guess). As he sees it, this is much about the destruction of political as musical freedoms.

This means taking in a great range of idiosyncratic destinations: Chicago and San Francisco, but also Tucson, Arizona (home of Howe Gelb, of Giant Sand fame), the Grand Canyon, New Orleans and Los Angeles, Austin, Texas, Nashville and Memphis. In all of these places, Cartwright is "listening out for good music and trying to take freedom's pulse", two things that he reckons are intimately connected, if not virtually the same thing.

Leaving the thesis to one side, however, I'd also call this a book about good company – Cartwright's old friends, new friends (he doesn't get very far with Gelb) and travelling companions. Some of the black-and-white photos show musicians having a good time, in the studio or on stage, in their heydays . . . . It's a nostalgia trip as well as a social commentary.

Admittedly, this isn't a book to win any prizes for its fine prose – too many overheated rhapsodies about the state of the States, and invitations to "Think about it". But there are some extraordinary passages, too. There is the vivid, terrible scene to greet Cartwright when he arrives at the LA Greyhound station at 2am, with the homeless and hopeless wandering around the LA streets. There is the view of Route 66, as once celebrated by Chuck Berry et al, now "a ruin, a highway to hell", etc. Hitch-hiking has been outlawed: "American freedoms just keep getting squeezed".

The overall picture isn't entirely one of Doom and its notorious rhyming friend, Gloom. Against the encroaching corporations and the endemic poverty, there's still hope. Look – Howe Gelb's still around, making music. Did I mention that? That's a good thing, isn't it?

Melvis Remembers: Glastonbury 1971

My Dad gave me a lift to Basingstoke. We left the house at 7.00am - painfully early for a teenage student hippie. From Basingstoke I hitchhiked. My first lift got me as far as the Amesbury roundabout on the A 303. I took off my Tuf T boots, lay down in the cropped grass ten yards from the side of the road and promptly fell asleep.

I was awoken by rainfall. My boots were full of water. I spent the next hour or two squelching on foot across Salisbury Plain. I squelched past Stonehenge thumbing in vain; nothing was stopping for me. I was wet and miserable. My thumb ached. In desperation, I stuffed my shoulder-length, freshly shampooed hair into a flat corduroy cap.

Eventually a lorry stopped and picked me up. The driver was a West Country redneck who hated hippies. It was a fairly tense journey, stuffing wayward wisps of long hair back under the rim of my cap. Fearful of blowing my cover I pretended to agree with his outrageous right-wing monologue. I was very wet and had blisters on both feet. I wasn’t going to speak up, get out and walk.

I was one tired hippie when I finally got to Worthy Farm. My pal Tristram had arrived the day before and set up a large blue and yellow PVC geodesic dome with a framework of tubular aluminium. It was about thirty feet in diameter. He’d erected it on the hilltop overlooking the Pyramid Stage. I was very relieved to stash my rucksack in there and remove my damp clothing and unsuitable footwear. The festival was due to kick off the following evening. There was free brown rice and veg and a very relaxed atmosphere. Most people hadn’t arrived yet. After food and a few jazz woodbines we settled down for the night.

There were about six of us in the dome, well spread out. I was lying on my back listening to the wind get up; luxuriating in the sensation of my sleeping bag finally drying out. The dome comprised a patchwork of isoceles triangles and I was grooving on that mandala-like quality and that extra snugness you feel when the weather outside is turning wild. Suddenly… Whoompf . I was staring at high-speed clouds scudding across the night sky. The dome had vanished.

Six half asleep hippies blundered around scrabbling for their kit and bumping into each other. We located the dome about thirty yards away. Tristram hadn’t thought of tent pegs. The wind had picked it up and hurled it halfway down the hill it was all bent and scrunched up; we were mildly traumatised and half asleep. We crawled into the wreckage as best we could and crashed out till daybreak.

In the morning we discovered that it had landed upside down on the deep twin ruts of a cart track. Almost half the aluminium struts had been bent, twisted and crushed beyond repair. ‘I think the ley lines on top of the hill were too much for it, man,’ muttered Tristram. For an Old Harrovian with a Keith Richards haircut and a penchant for mandrax, Tristram proved surprisingly adept at resurrecting the wreckage of his dome. It still had the same diameter but, with only half the struts, it was now too low to stand up in and pitched on a slope. It filled up over the next couple of days as more and more people arrived. We all crashed out in a circle every night but slid down the PVC ground sheet in our sleep and woke up in a sweaty heap each morning.

The weather after that first wild night was fantastic: hot and sunny. We basked. It was a very small scale free festival with no separate camping areas. People just pitched up wherever they wanted. We soon had a small encampment of Guildford-based hippies around us in tents and smaller scale domes. To be honest, particularly after the mega-star bills of the previous summer’s Bath and Isle of Wight, the music here was more a sideshow, a background to the whole mystic myth of Glastonbury. And the drugs.

I had with me a tab of ‘window-pane’ acid. It was a small triangle of clear gelatine and came highly recommended. I wanted to be tripping for the solstice. That seemed vital. There was a feeling that by doing the right drug in the right place at the right time you could connect to some powerful, cosmic spiritual interface that would either infuse you with maximum Zen sagacity or put you onboard a Starship bound for the next level of consciousness. Hey, we were hippies. We were young, dumb and full of dope. The bubble had yet to burst. ‘We were starlight we were golden.’ [copyright Joni Mitchell]. However the cosmos had other ideas.

I awoke the morning of my planned trip feeling decidedly queasy. As the morning progressed this feeling intensified until I began vomiting. It was not good. I heaved, I hurled, I chundered, I even cried Ruth. One of those epic sessions where long after you’ve emptied yourself, your body still feels the need to retch again and again and again. Thankfully I had good friends and was well looked after. When I finally finished puking I was completely flat out for 24 hours. I missed the actual solstice both sunrise and sunset.

The following evening I enjoyed Traffic: they did a superb version of Dear Mr. Fantasy. Then, perched on a scaffolding pole, I watched the Hendrix Film ‘Rainbow Bridge’ projected onto a large white sheet.

The next day I felt fit enough for the psychedelic experience. I let the gelatine dissolve on my tongue and with my friend Abe went down to watch Arthur Brown.

At the front of the stage there were three full crucifixion size crosses. Arthur was tied to the central one. One of his band, dressed as a clown offered him a giant cardboard cut-out hamburger on a stick. Arthur said, ‘No thanks. I’m a vegetarian,’ at which point the two crosses either side of him burst into flame and they kicked off their wild and wacky set.

After a couple of hours I was still awaiting the onset of the LSD. Abe and I concluded that it may have gone off in the heat so he gave me another one. As soon as the gelatine dissolved on my tongue, the first one kicked in. Uh oh. Please fasten your seat belt. Here comes a double trip. Although out of synch with most of our chums Abe was up there with me and we whooshed through the night, lying on our backs walking on clouds, that kind of caper. Just before dawn we made each other laugh so much that we woke everybody up in our little camp. We took the hint and drifted off for a stroll.

By now the sun was rising and we could see someone yelling on the pyramid stage so we walked nearer. He seemed to be asking for donations. I thought it might be for contributions towards the free food. I didn’t bear a grudge about the food poisoning and was feeling so damn good I told Abe I’d give the guy a quid.

We walked around the Pyramid and found steps at the back which we ascended. On stage a guy was shouting out that he was thirsty and a few minutes later somebody came up with a flagon of scrumpy. The shouty guy then shouted that he wanted a smoke, and while he waited for that to appear, he sat down on a carved wooden throne and told us his tale. He was, apparently, a reincarnation of not just King Arthur, but also Ramases the Second of Egypt. Moreover Glastonbury Tor was in the wrong place and this Pyramid had been specifically built to right that geographic wrong. The throne was on the specific spot to maximise the power of the rising sun.

He let me sit in his throne for a couple of minutes and, probably through the power of suggestion, my declining trip started climbing back up considerably whilst I sat there. He passed me the flagon. I took a gulp. Two or three glugs seemed to be stuck together. I had to actually bite the scrumpy and swallow all three glugs at once. By this time ‘a smoke’ had arrived. The guy who brought it told us it was Abyssinian. There was a small footstool beside the throne. The smoke guy sat down on the stage and began to skin up on the footstool. King Arthur suddenly lashed out, kicked the Footstool away and roared, ‘I didn’t give you permission to roll a joint.’ Uh oh. Obviously we hung around for the eventual spliff. How often do you get to smoke Abyssinian?

The sun had by now just cleared the horizon. We could see the whole festival site waking up. It was a fabulous view: Glastonbury festival from the front of the Pyramid Stage and another beautiful day just beginning. However by now Rameses/Arthur had removed all his clothing and was shouting, ‘Get off my spaceship,’ like he really meant it. He wasn’t a pretty sight and quite frankly we weren’t prepared to argue. We sauntered off and left him to it.

Back at Camp Guildford my friend White Rabbit was packing up ready to drive back to Godalming in his white Morris Minor Estate. It felt like a good time to go so I blagged a space in the car and began packing my rucksack.

We both wanted to climb the Tor before departure. To leave Glastonbury without smoking a spliff on top of the Tor just seemed so wrong, so from Worthy Farm we drove to the bottom of the Tor then walked up and skinned up. It didn’t occur to me till later that since my marathon puking session, my stomach muscles were so weak that I hadn’t managed a bowel movement for over three days. Two hefty tokes on the joint and the laxative qualities of black Pakistani hash kicked in. No you do not have time to get down the hill it is coming NOW. There was nothing else for it. I went into the tower on top of the Tor, persuaded White Rabbit to guard the portal and dropped my trousers. May God forgive me. It was practically pure muesli. I covered it with grass and leaves as best I could, muttered prayers of forgiveness and walked down the hill, chastened and not quite as full of shit as once I was.

Melvis © 2010

Dirk goes to jail

The Mutley Plain Planet Munchers did three more gigs before I moved up to London and the obligatory Camden Squat. Musically I met a transatlantic chap with a leather cowboy hat. Inevitably he was called The Dude. He looked like a young moustacheless Burt Reynolds. He’d been brought up in both London and California which gave him the unfortunate pseudo-sounding accent of a late-night hospital radio DJ. We jammed. He liked the cut of my jib and I appreciated that he was pushier than me. He took me to meet a Theatre Company called Stiritup. They performed in prisons. It was a surprise audition. The Dude persuaded me to sing Dylan’s ‘As I went Out One Morning’ and the Grateful Dead’s ‘Friend of The Devil.’ He played second rhythm guitar and did the backup vocals. Stiritup gave us the green light.

Nervous doesn’t even begin to describe it. I was to make my world debut as a vocalist in Brixton Prison. I was nervous enough auditioning for theatre company in their enormous squat at 121 Camden Road. But come the morning of the gig I awoke with what I can only describe as psychedelic flu. Throbbing head, high fever, simultaneously too hot and too cold and all my senses heightened in a most unpleasant way. However, I had no one to write me a sick note, so I staggered out and bought a quarter bottle of cheap scotch.

The Dude called for me. He was well up for it and seemingly nerveless. It was a quiet late Sunday morning as we tubed it down to Brixton. The few puffs of the Dude’s spliff before we left Camden had heightened my paranoia. I’d been arrested and strip searched in a police station, but never been anywhere near a prison before.

Brixton is massive. The main gate has a door inside it and then it was door after gate after door. I lost count of them. Each one was unlocked and then locked behind us by a screw with an enormous jangling endanglement of keys. This totally amplified my stage-fright. It was now physically impossible for me to run away. A huge paranoid part of my brain kept demanding, ‘What if they won’t let you out afterwards?’

We were performing in the psychiatric wing. We were given a cell as a dressing room. There were three double bunks in it. It was tiny. I gulped the last of my scotch. The Dude produced his Rizlas. ‘What are you doing?’ I hissed hysterically. He was skinning up and grinning his Burt Reynolds grin, ‘Aw, come on, man, we’re smoking a joint in prison. It’s got to be done.’ He skinned up. I took a token toke. The Dude then pushed the remains of his stash into a little crevice in the wall beside one of the bunks,

‘Someone’s bound to find it,’ he said, ‘they’re in here all day.’ Well fair play to the guy. I’ve always been a fan of random acts of human kindness, but I would never have thought of that. Then it was Showtime.

I shuffled out, bringing up the rear, my sphincter tightened to the max. The venue was just like the movies: an enormous cell block with four or five tiers of catwalks. The ceiling must have been at least a hundred feet above the floor. Over a hundred inmates in navy blue boiler suits sat facing us on collapsible wooden chairs. Another fifty or so leant over the railings of the various catwalks. Stiritup did their schtick: a mixture of knockabout, slapstick and left-wing sketches and then we were introduced. No mike, no amp, no PA.

I’ve no idea how I got through it, but I did. I felt particularly fraudulent singing the line ‘I’ll spend my life in jail,’ but nobody booed or threw anything. I guess The Dude had enough confidence for the both of us. It certainly helped not being solo. We did the two songs and then one of the inmates got up from the front row and approached me.

Mercifully he didn’t stab me with a shiv. He asked to borrow my guitar. I would probably have lent him my underpants if he’d asked me. Guitar? No problem. He strapped it on and sang an impassioned version of Jailhouse Rock. Good choice, I thought. It went down a storm. There were smiles and handshakes as I retrieved my Echo RangerVIn. The guy had totally upstaged us, but no way could you begrudge it. We went back through the countless triple locked gates and doorways until, with an unbelievably overwhelming sense of relief, my paranoia confounded, we were finally released and strolling down Brixton Hill to the tube station.

Dirk Thrust © 2010

Read til you drop: January 2010

Last month, I reviewed a 172-page book about a single album that is – according to Amazon – a mere 16 x 11.9 x 1.3 cm. Compare that with Route 19 Revisited: The Clash and "London Calling", 532 pages and, since you ask, 23.6 x 15.2 x 4.8cm. The author, Marcus Gray, has already written over 500 pages about The Clash in The Last Gang in Town, then revised them for a second edition. Apparently, he has quite a lot to say about The Clash. He likes The Clash. At least – let's hope he likes The Clash.

For those who don't like The Clash – those who, presumably, aren't like Marcus Gray in this respect – it is still advisable to go into a bookshop, find a copy of Route 19 Revisited, turn to the introduction, and read it. The introduction is only eight-and-a-bit pages long, and it's where Gray – and I know this will surprise you – explains what his book's about and where his title comes from. In doing so, however, he also deftly summarizes a great deal about the differences between British and American pop music from Chuck Berry onwards, which have something to do with buses, trains and cars. (Think of the first of those modes of transport, and you have a clue to the reason for the book's title.) Opening a book about a specific, crystallizing moment in the career of a single band turns into a trip into music (and social) history. Which isn't as dull as I've made it sound.

It's not that this is an unknown story, but Gray tells it concisely and dramatically, thereby offering a necessary reassurance that the rest of the book isn't going to be a waste of time. In fact, what follows is an absorbing account of the origins, the making and the aftermath of that really quite good album London Calling (come on, it is quite good, isn't it? What do you mean, you prefer No Jacket Required?), in sometimes galling, sometimes enthralling detail.

Here are the names of people who tried out for Mick Jones's band before The Clash, London SS. Here is a description of Highbury New Park ("a long, diagonal residential street . . ."), where Chrysalis Records set up their recording studios in 1975. Here is an analysis of the lyrics to "Jimmy Jazz", traced back to the outlaw ballads and forward again to Staggerlee, Johnny Cash and the racial politics of rock 'n' roll. When was Topper Headon sacked "for his drug use and unreliability"? May 21, 1982, of course. And how did the band make the "clang, clang" noises at the end of their version of "I Fought the Law"? By "banging on the pipes in the Wessex toilets".

This is as much as to admit, perhaps, that this book is one for the fans (see above). But in another way, it should have a wider readership, since Gray covers the ground so thoroughly. There is an index, naturally, for those who only wish to read about noise reduction and/or Joe Strummer's weapons of choice (which included that 1966 Telecaster and a Music Man combo amp and cabinet).

In any case, Route 19 Revisited is a substantial achievement, and it is no surprise to learn from the end "Creditz" that it took six years to write, including interruptions. There's even more material on the author's very fine-looking website.

R-T-Y-D Q&A: Tony & Jim at Bugbear Promotions

Tony Gleed and Jim Mattison run Bugbear Promotions which promotes gigs every night of the week at the ROCK-TIL-YOU-DROP-AWARD-winning, legendary Camden venue, The Dublin Castle, as well as at the punkfamous (to coin a term) Hope & Anchor in Islington.

They kindly took some time out to tell us about the highs and lows of the promoting game in this Q&A for R-T-Y-D.

When was Bugbear Promotions established?
1996 was the Annus Horribilis, the Rockus Maximus

How and why did you start promoting gigs?
I was involved in some alternative therapy merchandising that could only end in tears. Luckily it brought me into contact with a hippy bloke who put bands on at The Bull and Gate who was suitably impressed by my ability to name every member of The Fall between 1977 and 1993 that he gave me one of his nights- it all followed from there like some sick Kafkaesque nightmare. Jim meanwhile had been drumming for hard hitting Pixies shaped indie hopefuls The Hinnies so long he’d forgotten how to use brushes - I witnessed him struggling with that at The Underworld playing for the self same hippy bloke who’d so selflessly jettisoned his money losing Wednesday night for me to promote at The Bull and Grate. We swapped inanities over a jaribou of lager and some small pieces of card with Bart Simpson’s face on them and agreed there and then to be the Greatest Independent Toilet Venue Promoters Of All Time.
Oh, and to support new young talent.

What was the first gig that you put on:
A groovy psych pop band from Brighton called Arthur supported by a band called Baby who I’d just been sacked from. The singer of Arthur tried to hit me.

Jim: Shockheaded Peters , legendary noise psych nutjobs.

What’s the best thing about running a gig promotion company?
It’s working for yerself, you’re immersed in music, and the slimy tentacles of capitalism can be [just about] kept at bay [though you do need weaponry]

What’s the worst thing about running a gig promotion company?
Bands treating you like an idiot. AKA We can’t play tonite coz our drummer's been kidnapped by aliens.

Bands think promoters should do more, and vice-versa. What’s that all about?
Bands are right to think that within reason. With a bunch of upcoming bands no-one’s heard of it’s completely pointless flyering/postering/paying for ads in publications etc. With well known acts it’s a fair call. Some bands are on it with their self-promotion, others prefer to use their gig as a free rehearsal.

What don’t bands appreciate about promoters?
That we actually work very hard. Really.

What in 2010 for Bugbear?
Trying to stick our heads above the parapet a bit more. The Dublin Castle and Hope and Anchor are proper, proper really good venues but we’re getting swamped by crappy pub venues who’ve faced up to the recession and the fallout of the smoking ban by slinging a shite PA and a stage in the corner of the boozer and getting some bands in. We’re gonna court the agents a bit and [despite what I said above!] invest in some flyering via street teams. We hope to get a new venture with an extra alluring element going too, but that’s very much conjecture at present.

What was your happiest moment so far as a promoter?
Selling out the 333 Club in 1997 when it was still a happening place.

What is your saddest moment so far as a promoter?
Having the PA at The Bull and Gate blow up when I had The Soft Boys reformation gig on. They did an acoustic set in the bar but I was egg on face with one of my all time fave acts and that was very painful. Oh - and being threatened with a tarring and feathering onstage at The Dublin Castle when we over ran one night. Just got away in time!

What is your proudest moment as a promoter?
Amy Winehouse selecting us as her venue of choice at the peak of her career four years ago.

What was the biggest gig that you ever promoted?
5 nights of Madness…

Has your job affected your attitude to or enjoyment of music?
A bit. I yearn jazz, dub, RnB after a day of hearing Muse/Libertines/Klaxons soundalikes. But there’s always a really good band that comes along at some point in the week to warm yer indie cockles.

Dirk Thrust's second gig

I enjoyed my first four months in Plymouth. I’d finally left home. I was at Art School. In those days they gave you free money for being a student. My first grant cheque catapulted me straight down to Wants, a second–hand shop, where, for £30 I became the proud owner of a Burns La Vista short-scale jazz guitar. I’d left Guildford with a Gibson Discoverer Tremolo 20 watt amp and speaker combo, not to mention my Marshall Fuzz Face and Vox Wah Wah pedal. My flat-mate, fellow student, Bez, played violin and piano. We would smoke and Jam on occasion. We shared an enthusiasm for Jimmy Clitheroe and the Velvet Underground. Our classmate Jeff from Manchester’s Urmston [just behind the Holland Pie factory] played bass.

I met a non-student guitar player called Malcolm. Our occasional jams occasionally synchronised. He introduced me to Tim, another aspiring guitarist, whose girlfriend was one of three mates with proximate birthdays. They’d clubbed together and hired a waterfront nightclub for a party. A live band was required and thus opportunity knocked.

We would be The Mutley Plain Planet Munchers. Mutley Plain was a street on the way out of Plymouth. It was a good name…in Plymouth. Word spread, friends of friends were keen. By the night of the gig we had: - drums, bass, three guitars, keyboards, violin and flute. Our lack of material was not considered a problem. We were by and large an Art School Band. This was the fag end of 1972 and we were going to improvise.

One other significant factor was that at least fifty per cent of the band ingested a little opium a couple of hours before the performance. This was my one and only acquaintance with the drug. We all muttered about Thomas de Quincey, though I doubt any of us had got beyond the front cover of The Confessions of An Opium Eater.

‘Ronnie’s’ was an upstairs nightclub in Plymouth’s Barbican - a waterfront area where the fishing fleet moored. The place was heaving as we all set up, some of us meeting up there for the very first time. After an interminable delay we were introduced. And off we went.

There was a huge locomotive roar, within which could be detected drumbeats and cymbals, bass rumbles, a tweeting flute, arpeggiating keyboard, piercing psycho violin, guitar chords and discords and twiddly fuzzed wahs but strictly no vocals. The overall effect was probably more industrial than psychedelic, less wall of sound more housing estate of noise.

I have no idea how long we played for. Time stood still. We were far too out of it and too far into it. We were an eight-piece paradox. It can’t have been easy to listen to. It was impossible to dance to.

Eventually after what probably felt like a month for the audience. A long-haired blond John Lennon look-a-bit-alike singled me out as the ringleader. He came slowly, gently and inexorably up to my non-fretboard side, pushed his pointy nose into my right ear and yelled in that soft Plymouth accent the unforgettable words, ‘I THINK PEOPLE WOULD QUITE LIKE IT IF YOU STOPPED NOW.’ Easier said than done. Eight out-of-it aspiring rock stars on full volume fulfilling their fantasies. We were like a Runaway Train going downhill. It took forever. I stopped but nobody else did so I started again. Then I managed to get half of us to stop, but seeing the other half was still going. Sod it we started up again. This happened three or four times until eventually, all brake shoes burnt to a cinder, we ground to a halt like a shot up Lancaster running out of runway after a heavy night over Hamburg. Next time we would have a song.

© Dirk Thrust 2010