Hobbit forming

Yesterday we travelled to the wilds of Shropshire to christen a "Hobbit Hut". Now until yesterday I thought that might be an industry standard term, but it turns out that it is a name given to a BBQ Hut by C who, with S, have bought and installed (if S is to be believed, entirely under his own steam) in their back garden.

And quite magnificent it is too

It was, or at least felt like, the hottest day of the year, so the all-weatherness of the hut were a bit redundant. In fact it was 36 degrees inside where S was preparing the meaty meatiness. There were lots of jokes about plunge pools, and nakedness, and birch twigs. I'd like to go back in the autumn or winter and give it a proper go.

Other than that it was a right good afternoon of good food and good company.

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On the way back we came under the airport tunnels just as a monster Emirates plane trundled over the top. What a treat.

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On the way I saw a sign warning "Factory Turning" and when we got there it was a Bread Factory... No matter how big it is, I think it should always be called a bakery. Surely bread must always come from a bakery, no matter it's size..

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We were richly entertained by BBC R4 Desert Island Discs on the way yesterday. The castaway was Tom Hanks. What a nice man. What an interesting man. Find it on iPlayer if you haven't heard it.

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Irrelevant picture of a cat on a chair:

The First Cut is the Deepest

It has got to that time of the year when one has to stop appreciating the daffs, the blossom, the new leaves, and mow the lawn for the first time.

It's a dangerous balance. Do it too early and it's wet and horrible, leave it too late and it's dry but too long.

Before

After

It's not huge, and it isn't very level. When I bought the house there was an old tree stump about where the clothes dryer is.

I don't have a lawnmower of my own, and this is mostly because my dad lives on the next street and has the most wonderful petrol mower. When it's time for a mow, I wander round and steal it from his garage, push it along the street and into my garden.

Yesterday I decided to do it even though I was struggling mightily. I have a longstanding shoulder injury but over the last couple of weeks managed to pick up problems with my back, hips, neck and ribs. At least that's what I thought until I saw the first line of possible side effects from my new drug (Enzalutamide) were: "Back pain, joint aches, musculoskeletal pain".

So I do have pain, but probably not from over exercise or physical activity. This was a little comforting as I was beginning to think that I would never be able to do anything physical again for fear of injury.

Anyway, I was moving a little tentatively. Walking is possible, just not at any speed, so I ambled round to my Dads, nicked the mower and brought it home. Tried to fire it up. No go. No petrol in the tank. Bugger.

Found a petrol can in my shed and walked up to the local petrol station, filled it, came back and filled the mower. Started the beast up and did my first few cuts, stopping when the grass bin was full.

As I started to empty the contents into the composter, I felt something hard and plasticky. I had checked the lawn for debris and "cat presents" before I started, and found none, but I must have mowed something into the grass bin. As I cleared the grass away I was disappointed to uncover another petrol can, with petrol, that had been stored (I think by me) in the grass bin. Those slow walks to and from the petrol station had been for nought.

Never mind. My dad now has a can of petrol and so do I. If the bomb drops we can carry on mowing our lawns for quite a bit. Assuming the grass survives.

T'Footie

Well, well, well. Things have been very exciting over the last week or so . Man U managed to hold the mighty Leicester City to a draw at Old Trafford on Sunday, but after a, ahem, robust game at Stamford Bridge the Foxes were confirmed as Champions of England for the first time in their history.

Cue a whole slew of articles about whether or not this was the biggest surprise win of all time. Buster Douglas beating Mike Tyson? Nottm Forest winning the league and then two European Cups on the bounce. The Boston Red Sox going from worst in 2012, to first to win the 2013 World Series.

Whether it is or not is faintly irrelevant. It is a fairytale come true. It has made me very happy.

This came on the back of United getting to the Cup Final (Monday of this week marked the 40th anniversary of my first visit to Wembley to see United cheated out of the trophy by Southampton's clearly offside goal). A cracking game of two halves against Everton who must have felt hard done to losing to a goal in injury time. Good goal though.

Then last night it was pleasing to see city get knocked out of the semi final of the champions league. Not that I did see it as I was out with a few work colleagues for a curry. Everything will be complete if Villareal advance to the final of the Europa League at the expense of Liverpool tonight.

The Leicester story is quite nice as it is a story of another team doing well pleasing me, rather than other teams failing. It's an odd way to be. We have a friend in Germany who supports Nurnburg (currently 3rd in the German 2nd division) but then supports any German side against any team from any other country. Is this an English was of thinking? Or is it just me that hopes for rivals to fail, even if it is against dirty foreigners?

Hello

Rip Rig and Panic
Sandii and the Sunsetz
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions
Skids
The Everly Brothers

How could I forget the Everly Brothers?

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I have a biscuit tin in which I store a few "magical and wonderful" things. I showed the contents to me mother, John and Gel last week. One of the things in the tin are a few concert tickets. Many of which are nothing more than a torn off cloakroom ticket.

One of the tickets is from an Elvis Costello gig at Lancaster Uni. A friend of mine was going up and offered a lift, an offer which I was happy to take up.

I took my camera - an Olympus OM10 - with a couple of lenses and a couple of rolls of Ilford ISO400 film. In our party we had someone with a walkman that could record in stereo and, more surprising, another had a video recorder. Bearing in mind this was 1982 so the recorder was enormous. There was a large camera attached to a briefcase sized unit containing the tape recording element, and a battery.

It being 1984 we all had long "Echo and the Bunnymen" coats, and as we approached the venue the security was there, alert as ever. "Got any cameras there lads?" "No" "Ok in you go"

My pics turned out not bad. No great, but ok. I'm not sure I ever heard the tape recording, but I saw the pitiful video. The person taping it had to hold it above his head among the standing punters and vaguely point it towards the stage. The device had no LCD screen like you do now. The primitive autofocus and the fact that the cameraman was moving in the crowd and by the very fact of having to hold the camera aloft, made for a pretty ropey quality. The battery only lasted for about 45 minutes.

There was some grand plan to edit the (stereo) sound and vision together, but I'm pretty that never happened.

After the gig we wandered aimlessly around, not wanting to simply shoot off back down the motorway. We were watching the roadies load up the kit into the tour lorries when someone shouted, "Oy, over here". I thought were in trouble for something, but was we approached the person shouting it was clear we weren't. He'd just mistaken us for someone else, "Down the corridor, second right".

So we followed the instructions and found ourselves in a room with a mirror along one wall below which was some food and drink, and in the room was Elvis, Pete, Bruce and Steve. We hung around and chatted for a while, and that's where I got one of my greatest single things in my box of "magical and wonderful" things:

L-R: Elvis Costello, Bruce Thomas (bass), Pete Thomas (drums), Steve Nieve (keyboards)

With great power comes great responsibility

In my last blog, I slightly dissed Prince. The following day, he woke up and found himself dead. I realise now that I need to be very careful on what, or who, I write about.


That last blog talked about rather unfortunate gigs, in a feeble attempt to avoid answering the "What was the best of those gigs?" question.

What is that makes a gig so great?

The artist(s), because in some cases the gig might be great because of the line up (Live Aid anyone?) not just because of the headliners.

Quality of performance. It probably isn't possible to qualify as a 'best gig' if the main act stinks up the joint.

Level of expectancy. One of the gigs I'm going to talk about wasn't my idea to go to.

Context and history. What was happening at the time, and what's happened since.

I've picked out six acts, but will only talk about 5 gigs. I've seen Elvis Costello quite a few times now. Double figures probably. He's been my go-to guy ever since I first saw him in Birmingham at his Xmas show in 1980 (Elvis, Rockpile, UB40, Squeeze, Madness, Selector and hosted by John Cooper Clarke). I went up to see him at Lancaster Uni in 1984 (?), photographed the gig and somehow we ended up in the dressing room talking with him and the Attractions. The autographed ticket I have from that event is one of my treasured musical possessions.

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Last time I described a gig at an empty Manchester Poly Students Union. This one was not empty. In fact we carried on queueing outside even after the bouncers told us it was full. The same night Echo and the Bunnymen were on at the Uni SU and that's who I wanted to see, but was outvoted.

We stayed outside in the cold night air pleading with the bouncers who, after the queue had dwindled enough, relented and let us in. As you might guess the place was rammed, and we were all there to see The Dead Kennedys. They were a tight US punk band - ours tended to to be musical troglodytes with plenty of piss and vinegar, the US versions tended to be a bit more musically accomplished but less arsey - and had had some notoriety when the family of John F and Robert Kennedy tried to get them to change the bands name. Of their fast and furious singles my clear favourite is California Uber Alles, their other notable singles included Kill The Poor and Holiday in Cambodia. The band was very tight guitar/bass/drums with maniacal Jello Biafra taking up the crooning duties. I remember he wore jeans, no shirt and was quite happy to smear himself in the gob projected up by the Mancunian music lovers. Great, tight, loud band, excitable crowd crammed in like Tokyo commuters, expctation not high having wanted to see Echo. Very good.

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The second on this list was a fairly new band from Ireland called U2. It was October 1981 and they were promoting their first LP, October (ironic, eh?). This was another case of being encouraged to go and see them rather than having picked to see them myself. The venue was Maxwell Hall, at Salford Uni and was organised by the Students Union. The support acts (that I remember very little of) were the UKs very own Comsat Angels, and from the US, Wall of Voodoo. The singer in Wall of Voodoo was a guy named Stan Ridgeway who had a minor hit with a song called Camouflage a few years later (which I somewhat dig). After the entree came the main course, and by crikey did they kick ass. The Maxwell Hall had a basement so the floor wasn't solid, and all night you could feel it bounce as Bono and the lads took us through their repertoire. It was exciting, Bono engaged with the audience exhorting us to jump and bounce. The venue was small (capacity of 1200) and we were packed in.

I have this weird psychological thing about bands that I like them when they're small, and can turn my back on them when they hit the big time. I kind of like the Barenaked Ladies because they're great but never seem to have hit the Arena-time audiences that, say, U2 have. I turned against U2 in the late 80's and get rather sniffy about them playing to huge audiences around the world. I wouldn't pay to see them in an arena, but would if they played the Maxwell hall again. Setting my subsequent (slightly weird) dislike of them, this was a belting gig.

Not Salford.

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I've talked about the Young Marble Giants gig in a previous blog. A quiet, unassuming trio from South Wales playing at Rafters. Capacity 700 with a low ceiling, this was an ideal venue. We sat enthralled while they played their album, and then while they played some of it over as they had no encore.

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In the late 1970's we moved from Manchester to the commuter town of Wilmslow. The family next door had four (?) children, and I became friends with one son who was about my age. Much to my delight, it turned out that his older sister was working behind the bar at the Apollo.

The Ardwick Apollo was opened in 1938 by Margaret Lockwood as a multi-purpose cinema and variety theatre. It stopped showing films on the 1970s and was probably the largest venue in Manchester at the time (places like MEN Arena and G-Mex hadn't opened) and still has concerts on today. During a short period she managed to get us access to The Two Tone Tour, Buzzcocks (supported by Joy Division), Concert 3 (I can't remember offhand who that was), and The Jam.

The Jam was another concert that I hadn't sought out and bought tickets for, but was very very pleased when we scooted on the bus to see it. The concert was in support of their Setting Sons album so would have been late 79, early 80. Although he'd (Paul Weller) never do it, I would pay good money to see the Jam play live again. It's hard to imagine how three blokes (guitar/bass/drums) could play so loud. Because we didn't have proper tickets, once in the Apollo we had to stick to the circle. I can attest to the engineering that must have gone into the construction of the Ardwick Apollo circle as the entire upstairs audience bounced and jumped and shouted. Rammed to the gunwales, a really tight, top musical band at the top of their game.

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The Factory. Pic by Kevin Cummins

The final on my list was at the Factory in Hulme. This was the venue opened and run by Tony Wilson in the late 70's. The building already had a name - The Russell Club - and Wilson and his mates used the venue to host various 'new wave' acts. It was in an area which to softy middle class boys like me, was very scary, although to be fair I never saw anything that supported that theory. Sure, you'd be accosted by scrotes asking to lend 10p, but nothing wildly violent. Then again, I didn't go that much. It was a small venue with a capacity of about 800.

In a previous blog I talked about going to a record shop in Stockport to buy a Nick Lowe LP. Well that same shop was where I bought "B-52s" by the B-52s (including a free single) in 1979.

It was well different to the sort of thing I'd bought before. Guitar/drums and three singers (Cindy, Fred and Kate) who various filled in on keyboards, bass, cowbells and toy telephone. They were from Athens, GA, and had a kitchy aesthetic. Very danceable. Silly.

On 28th July 1979, the B-52's played the Factory and I was there. The place was heaving, the band played their music, we danced, we sang, we cheered, and I have a very strong memory of moisture running down the walls. It was epic. At the end of the gig, and as the audience cleared, I asked one of the roadies if I might have a drumstick as a souvenir. That's how I have one of Keith Stickland's drumsticks in my office at home.

There is something quite nerdy about being able to say your saw a big band when they were still wee. If that's the case then the U2 one would win hands down, but actually I favour this B-52s gig and, if pushed, would plump for it as my best all time. Early performance by a band still doing it 37 years later, great performance, full and fully engaged audience, legendary venue.

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Some other memories of gigs.

Walking through lakes of urine in the mens toilets at the Mayflower Club in Manchester while at the same time being scared, as the band - Mo-Dettes - were rumoured to have a skinhead following.

Getting backstage at the OMD gig and being given a badge by one of the band and discussing the sleeve design of Electricity, their first single.

The fuse blowing during the Selector set at the Two Tone tour and them trying to perform accapella versions of their songs while they waited for a fix

The Stranglers gig at the Apollo, where they had strippers come on and dance when they performed Nice and Sleazy, and the gig ending early when some audience members climbed on the PA stack and it fell over.

The Cure gig, at which there were no bands to support the main act, but instead a couple of animated films, only one I still remember, called Ubu Roi. Nice and arty.

Slim Gaillard, a jazz musician who I saw at the Band on the Wall. I ended up standing next to him in the gents having a wee, and lurked outside to get a pic when he came out. I took my camera to this gig, with a flash, and when I took the first shot, he stopped playing (aaaaaaaagh), came over to where we were sitting and posed. Later on during the gig he kept asking, "Where's my friend the photographer?".

Julian Cope was the lead singer and bass player with Teardrop Explodes and was famous for being a little eccentric. The band came out, and I noticed a tall wooden stool on the stage. On the stool was a bowl, and in the bowl were some wet leaves of lettuce. During the gig, Cope would take a leaf of lettuce, shake the water off it and toss it gently into the crowd.

Do you remember Gordon the Moron (from Jilted John)? There was a bloke called Gordon the Moron and he bummed a cigarette from me in exchange for him showing me the naked lady painted on the lining of his tie.

Ind Coope underpants

I went to secondary school in the autumn of 1973, and left after A-levels in 1980. During that time I managed to find a place in a musical tribe.

In that early part of my secondary career, the music was glam, Sweet, Mud, Showaddywaddy, Gary Glitter, but as I grew older it felt that my musical tastes ought to ripen. In that mid 70's period many of my friends at school had moved from that glam 'kids' music, and were listening to Deep Purple, Led Zep, Genesis, Black Sabbath etc. If I wanted to fit into their tribe, and I did, that's what I'd be listening to. The problem was, I didn't really like it. I tried, but I didn't like it.

I didn't tell anyone, but I had actually bought the first Abba album. I borrowed "Paranoid" by Black Sabbath, but try as I might it didn't work. Around 1976 there were stirrings of a new musical movement called 'Punk' but for some reason I didn't try and explore it. It was not until 1977 that I heard that grungy opening bassline.

DUM-DUM-DUM
DUMDUM DUMDUM DUM
DUM-DUM-DUM
DUMDUM DUMDUM DUM

from the Fender Precision Bass of Jean-Jaques Burnel of the Stranglers "Peaches".

I realised I had found my tribe. I wasn't A punk, but I liked punk music and spent the next few years buying records and, as you will have seen from the blog a few days ago, going to gigs.

Kids these days, as I have found with my own daughter, are a little less dogmatic about music, and allow themselves to listen to a broad church. Pheebs the other day asked me if I'd ever listened to Cat Stevens. Her play list includes Francoise Hardy, David Bowie, Culture Club, Booker T and the MGs, as well as Tame Impala, Django Django, and the Arctic Monkeys.

For a while, I would not countenance anything other than punk, or new wave. Nothing made before 1976 had any relevance. It was a great time, but I made myself blind to the possibility that other good music existed, and that was rather silly.

This blog has come out of a question from one of my regular correspondents, a Mr Barry C from RoI who asked which of the gigs listed was my favourite. What a question. Answerable? I'm not sure, but I can tell you about some of them which may help me come to a decision. Start with some which weren't great.

You know what it's like when you wake up sometimes, you can be quite disorientated? A sound, however innocuous can confuse the hell out of you. Well how does that work when you have a pounding hangover?

In July of 1982, I woke up in a tent in a field somewhere in North Yorkshire. I had been woken by the need to pee and also the rumbling, mechanical, sound of a train passing by. I lay there for a while hoping that when the train passed, I could subsume the desire for a pee and get a few more minutes sleep. The trouble was it seemed to be the longest train in the world. I was lying there thinking it must be one of those Australian or US trains with eleventy thirty wagons.

It carried on, and I realised sleep was no longer an option so put on a t-shirt, and, in my 'pub signs' underpants went to see what was occurring. I headed towards the source of the 'train' noise at the side of the field and looked over the dry stone wall to find a quarry, with a conveyor belt carrying stones.

It wasn't a train after all, and no matter how long I waited it wasn't going to pass. The fact we'd pitched a tent next to a quarry had been missed the night before, perhaps because we were all drunk as skunks.

What's this to do with gigs? Well the reason we were in Yorkshire was to go and see the Rolling Stones at Roundhay Park, Leeds. Someone in our group at my local pub thought it would be fun to make a weekend of it, so we camped Friday and Saturday night (Saturday night was when I returned to my tent to find it occupied buy the entire midge population of N Yorks), before seeing the Stones on the Sunday. The weekend in Yorks certainly was fun, what small bits I remember, but I didn't really like the Stones. I was still a little in thrall of my "nothing existed before 1976" mantra. Actually, I'm nowhere near as dogmatic about this now, but I still can't find it in my heart to like the Stones.

The other acts on that day were J Geils Band (ugh), Joe Jackson (yay), and George Thorogood and the Destroyers (ugh). So a mixed bag of a gig, in that the weekend was fun, but I wasn't that mithered about most of the acts we saw. Does the fun of the weekend as a whole balance against what wasn't a 'bad' gig per se, but I just didn't like who was on.....and I did know that before I went

One band I didn't add to the gig list was The Beautiful South. We actually went to the gig because of the support band, The Barenaked Ladies, who rocked the place. They were funny, they engaged with the punters, the music was ace. The the BS came on and seemed rather bored to be there. Like they were doing us a favour, so after about half a dozen songs we split. Another slightly odd one to highlight as bad. Perhaps a 'curates egg' is the best way to describe it....."Good, in parts"

The Manchester Poly Students Union was house in a large Victorian hall with cast iron balustrades and a huge mural of Dennis the Menace and Gnasher. I saw a few bands there (ooh, Teardrop Explodes weren't on my original list, I knew I'd forgotten a few) and usually it was pretty full. This evening, and I have no recollection what prompted us to go, there were more people in the band and behind the bar than there was in the audience. The support band were an all-female heavy metal band from Blackpool with a big hairy bloke on drums.....the female drummer was unavailable. It was odd the turnout was so low as the band clearly had a lot of support from EMI, their record label. Photos, badges were handed out, but the band sank without trace. Heard of Little Bo Bitch? No, didn't think so.

I have absolutely no idea what there music was like, but I remember it being a bad gig simply due to the lack of punters. I'm sure there have been a few gigs which have been raised by the presence of a large, enthusiastic, audience.

Two more duffers before I sign out for today. In 2014 (?) the Sex Pistols reformed and did a stadium tour. I was offered a free ticket so it would have been churlish to refuse. My recollection of gigs in the late 70's is that the music played before the bands came on was typically reggae. Nice and slow. As a consequence when the band came on the music seemed frenetically fast. The Pistols show this time around was prefaced by fast tempo electronic dance music, so when they came on, they seemed dull and leaden. The snarl and anger of the young men shown in 1976/7 just seemed pantomimic when reproduced by the middle aged men who performed for us. The gig was in the cavernous MEN Arena, which also didn't suit this style of music. Way too big.

We went to see the Damned at Manchester Uni Student Union (now called The Academy) and they were just rubbish. That's it, just rubbish.

The Damned

I also had free tickets to see Bob Dylan at the Manchester Apollo (ooh, I've see Van Morrison, that's another one I forgot from the original list) and he is infamous for croaking and groaning through his set. When you have a venue which isn't blessed with great sound, having an act croaking and groaning through a selection of 30 years, it's a waste. I can claim to having seen him though, so it wasn't a complete waste.

I also rather inadvisably went to see Prince at Maine Road when I hadn't listened to a single Prince records. It all passed me by, I'm afraid.

next time I'll describe some of the better gigs. Will I be able to nominate one as "the best"? Watch this space....

Marcus Rashford and a bad back (mine, not his)

Last weekend was a very exciting one as Caitlin and Andy moved into their newly renovated house. The main events took place on Friday and Saturday and there were loads of people to help.

We were there all day Friday, and then they came back and stayed with us for the night as neither their house or flat was really fit to stay in. We went over on Saturday morning with a tray of bacon butties and helped until just after lunch at which point we headed off for the tram to Old Trafford.

A neighbour of ours had come over and asked if we wanted to borrow their season tickets that they were unable to use. Gel hadn't been to a game for years, so we thought we'd take up their kind offer to see United play the mighty (ahem) Aston Villa.

And it was quite fun, even if the game itself was dreadful, enlivened by a nicely taken goal from wunderkind Marcus Rashford.

After the game we headed back to Sale, avoiding the one or two rather grumpy (and drunk) Villa fans, where we finished off the move, failing miserably to shift a sofa from one room to another. Rather unfortunately there was no way we could get it into its proper place in the living room. We did manage to make a mess of some walls and the sofa itself.  :0(

After a meal with Caitlin and Andy, Andy's parents, his brother and his girlfriend, we started to say our goodbyes, at which point I reached down to lift something and a muscle in by back went TWANG. It was like I'd been shot. So I'm now hobbling round with a very sore back dosing myself up with paracetemol and ibuprofen waiting for it to heal, which it seems to be doing albeit a little slowly.

While I'm a bit narked, at least it happened when the bulk of the moving had been completed, rather than at the start.