Many of us on the local folk scene were upset to hear about Linda Dickson’s serious illness. As it happens, I know Linda well, both as a family friend and an ex-colleague. My band, Black Parrot Seaside, have had more than enough personal tragedy over the last 12 months, and we were given a new cross to bear only last week. Our hearts go out to those in Ninepenny Marl and Pennyroyal therefore. Sometimes the cruel hand of random unfathomable forces defies any attempt to rationalise it. You call it what you like-I can’t see a pattern or a logic in any of this sustained cruelty and unhappiness, where good people go under, and others who don’t deserve it seem to be given chance after chance.
Of those of you who have been fortunate enough to be together in a band for any long period of time, some of you will also have been blessed with that special kind of cameraderie and communal joy which only such a relationship brings. You’ll understand what I’m about to say. Bands’ performances and music are often associated with conflicting egoes: with internal bickering: with division and dissent. It isn’t like that with us. It never has been. We’ve had personnel changes over the years, but the current line up as featured on our new CD and performing across the Midlands since 2006, is the same as it was 30 years ago, when we cut our first album on vinyl.
Such unity means that the good times are great. But it also means that the sad times are that much sadder. This is because when one of us hurts, the rest of us also suffer. When one of us grieves or mourns a loss, the rest of us share it. One of us had awful news last week, in a seven day period where the bad news just kept on coming. It meant that only three of us performed at a Family function on Saturday when all four of us should have been there. If it had been a gig, without doubt we would have cancelled it. But because our families and partners were there, and many of our friends, we carried on, after explaining to an audience why we were depleted, and why the set would only be very brief.
It’s a difficult thing to do, that is, to put a shadow over an otherwise very happy celebration, which you have personally contributed to and organised, and then have to give a performance when your heart is aching. But most of the people there knew the people involved: absent as they were and wrapped up in their own personal tragedy miles away. Guests had come from as far away as Yorkshire, The Isle of Wight and Devon. But as we finished, the wave of communal sympathy and warmth was not just for us. It would have travelled up the road to The University Hospital at Walsgrave with a strength that could have been picked up on the radar at Coventry Airport.
Black Parrot Seaside may not always be the most accomplished outfit locally, nor always the most sober. But we do have that kind of almost instinctive affinity which creates a bond. It is almost like having a second family. This doesn’t always work with bands, but with us it always has. We are a unit on and off stage. We share holidays, family functions such as weddings births and funerals, we see each other at Christmas and other celebrations. Even if we don’t perform or rehearse for weeks-months-years-when we get back together it’s always good, creatively, socially, musically.
So the Parrot is wounded. A wing is broken. ( You know when you’re driving and you think you’ve clipped a bird? You look in the mirror to check if it’s ok. Sometimes you just see a silhouette fluttering about in the road. Sometimes you see it staggering away. Sometimes it flies unsteadily clear and you hope it’s safe. That's how it is with us). We’re down at the moment, and we are suffering. I suspect we’ll be back again. But there’s some healing to be done in between. Bear with us.
