I'm Seldom Sober

      Which of course is not a personal statement, but a lyric from "I'm A Rover. " A reference in fact, to one of the many rousing songs knocked out by Sly Old Dogs and Friends last night during their monthly bash at The Bell in Leafy Warwickshire. Yes, it was a tough call (not!) to miss those Leicester poseurs Kasabian on t.v.  live at Glastonbury, and to drive instead, over the North Warwickshire Corniche from Wolvey to Monks Kirby. I met only a couple of rabbits grazing during that brief journey through idyllic countryside. Amidst views which ASC renewables will despoil for ever, should they not be sufficiently opposed. Seven 131m tall wind turbines at Cloudesley crossroads  will certainly put a blot on this landscape:

 

http://www.aswar.org.uk/content/wolvey-wolf

   

   Contemplating thus, I was in a pensive mood as I parked up. There were some other oddly poignant moments last night. The "Gaffer", Paco, rushed excitedly in from bar duty during the second half with his spoons. Intending to join in, as he often does. But the running order afforded him no opportunity to clack the cutlery together enthusiastically, in that inimitable Anglo-Spanish rhythm he often adds to songs like " Gypsie Laddie O." At the end of the night those spoons lay alone, forlornly and abandoned on a white table cloth. Still, he seemed not to take it personally. He still brought salvers of roast potatoes out for supper, later on.

   Bob Brooker, was wearing shorts in the McBrooker tartan that would make Piglet have to go and have a lie down. Bob also initially seemed a little subdued. Following his adventures at Alcester Festival last week, where he ended up hospitalised, that's unsurprising. But he soon livened up, especially when someone told him that Colin Squires was selling his own CD's.

    Sue Sanders ran through some solo jigs and reels and fiddled away merrily (or sadly, where appropriate), as accompaniment to lots of other songs. Borrowing Colin Squires's guitar, she also bravely sang one of Mr. Fox's darker works-"Elvira."

   Carol Gillespie obviously enjoyed last month's session, as she was back for more. She sang some lovely songs including an Eric Bogle one which was a tribute to The Fallen. George Holmes did a couple-not that regular a guest, so it was good to see and hear him. Gerry Bailey turned up, expecting to be joined later by his mate Nigel. But Nige never arrived, and Gezza was forced to improvise. He was persuaded to do one solo and then sat in with Bob and Martin Bushnell on a very nice instrumental. Cheryl played and sang a couple of songs,one of which was an interesting arrangement of "Need Your Love So Bad. " Colin Squire, Martin Bushnell, Pete, Bob and Richard Ryder all had a punt at doing songs individually. Banjo Dave Evans, when called upon, dashed away on some lightning banjo work, and the Resident Orchestra strove gamely to keep up with him. John McIntosh told some jokes which had us guffawing for ooh, two or three seconds.

 

     I kicked off with "All Over Now," as Bobby Womack, its author, had passed away on the previous day. The audience had a good go at singing the choruses, and the House Band tackled it with gusto,too. Especially Tool, who put down a very tasty electric bass line. In the second half I did our own song " Down Our Street." It had gone well here previously-and the choruses were again, well sung. In the third half (always sounds funny saying that) I wheeled out a BPS rarity-"The 30 foot Trailer. " We used to do this occasionally, long ago. I've always liked this Ewan McColl song, and again, it was accompanied by musicians and singers enthusiastically.  

    Next month's Sunday session will be brought forward to the 20th July, to accommodate the thousands of Folk Cognescenti who on the following Sunday (27th) will be going to that annual celebration of regional musical Apartheid, Warwick Folk Festival. For the zillionth time, Black Parrot Seaside will not be joining them, for reasons only Dick Dixon knows. (ask him?)  However, we remain distinctly unbothered about the latest in a long line of snubs, as that same day, we will be hosting an afternoon of Folk and Acoustic Music just over the border at Market Bosworth RailAle Fest. 

 

So there.

" And I'll drink a Health.." *

Nuneaton Beer Festival

  ( *.."to me Creole Girl "- from  The Lakes of Ponchartrain.)

    If you'll excuse the pun, Beer and Cider Festivals are an acquired taste. Not everyone enjoys playing them, and not everyone can get the balance of their set(s) right. Touch wood, we tend to do all right at them. (Can't think why!) The CAMRA boys from Nunny obviously knew what we were about when they invited us on the strength of a turn we did at Church End Brewery last month. We ripped it up, last night, as the young folks say.

    After an enjoyable but truncated appearance elsewhere in Nuneaton last month, it was good to be back on "home turf" and to be able to complete two full sets, in front of a large, appreciative and (for the most part)  only mildly drunk audience. It was many  decades ago when we last appeared in the Town Centre, at The notorious Granby Head. We'd also played the Arts Centre and Nuneaton Town Football Stadium previously. And at King Edward Grammar School we once played support to East of Eden in a set many still recall um.....fondly. But last night we were in sight and sound of Rope Walk Shopping Mall and The Ringway. Doesn't get any more central than that.

      Things were running a little late when I arrived and so I was able to have a chat with Green Man Steve Bentley, who was  looking even more elegant and suave than he does in his various stage personas. And I chatted to a few Boro' fans who had noticed I was wearing last season's Away top. We were able also to enjoy some of the previous set by Treebeard. They did some nice folky, country and contemporary stuff. We didn't actually take to the stage (and boy what a stage!...-lights-an apron-a proscenium-steps-what a hidden gem!) -until about 6.20pm. So apologies to anyone who came earlier and missed us. 

   We had the full five piece "Big Band" format, as advertised previously-me, Malc, Arnie, Mick and Dave. We used Malc's incredible "stick" P.A. which looks like a bunkhouse stove but really pumps out some power. Driven rather well by guest Parrot Sound engineer Gill Gilsenan. Here's the full set list:

FIRST HALF:
All Over Now: The Whistler: The Gravy Train: Black Jack David: If I had Possession: The Odeon: Bring it on Home: Lakes of Ponchartrain :Albert Balls.

SECOND HALF:  
Requiem for Steam :Vigilante Man: On Bedduff Bank : Over The Hills and Far Away: Need Your Love So Bad: Peggy Gordon: Down Our Street :Folking Liberty      
   Some Encores are stage managed, some are engineered by bands, but we had genuinely finished at this point, and so were staggered by the reception we got, after saying our goodbyes. We had taken a few liberties with the audience and they'd responded appropriately, so we thought, having lost Gars so recently,  we'd do" Vacuum Cleaner,"as our final reprise. 
   Wow! Good call! The audience, many liberally soaked in beers from Oakham, St Albans and our three Nuneaton Breweries, responded vigorously. On the last evening of a two day festival, heading towards the Amnesia Hour, perhaps those words don't seem quite so surreal. Only one table didn't join in but they were so mashed they were focussed on winning every remaining raffle prize on the CAMRA stall.   Must have spent a fortune.                          

     Ray Buckler and Co. really looked after us well. We had our own individually labelled beer glasses-do Foo Fighters on Tour even get that? At one stage we could see the entire bar staff dancing to " The Odeon!" Our thanks to Security, stewards, Parrotteers and helpers who turned out, to make it a very enjoyable evening. On to Market Bosworth AleFest next month?  Hic!

 

 

What's In a Name?

If You Think "Black Parrot Seaside" is stupid

    Don't read any further! The previous Blog post aroused some interest. (Collector's item!).  The lyric in " Sleep Town" mentions "Asthma Sunrise," who by dint of getting a song credit, became an alter ego and part of the BPS folk lore. "The Exploding Sheep" actually got a credit in 1978. Our vinyl album " Roll It Up And Eat It," claims to "feature" them! But they existed only in our minds!

    I think it might have been  Garsi who coined the actual name "Black Parrot Seaside"-but I'm not sure. We were mucking about with "good names for Bands" one day-way before we actually had a real one-and it was in a long shortlist. When we were youngsters we used to design imaginary Posters for these mythical bands and artistes. When we finally came to form a group-and whenever we felt perhaps the BPS brand needed revisiting-out would come the list. So we could have been any of these:

Asthma Sunrise                    The Sad Tree                                 
 Steel Sam                            Rabbit Basil          
The Evening                         Rosebud Gravy                               
The Rose Tower                   The Magic Dog        
Roneo Cheats                      Argohorse                           
Electric Friend                      Dry Riser Inlet                                
Big Wickerwork Penny        The Thirsty Toy Dragon   
The McClean Piece              Kleefy's Metal Tent 
Duckbuster                           Captain Reindeers Blues Band        
Mustang                                Sponchy's Yellow Refrigerator       
Brass Cottage                       Ernie Tree's Plastic Ranch  
Mob Rule                              Lizardry
Helligan Ferry                      The Giraffe's Green Watch              
Nightfighter                           Skybone                                          
Ron Computer                      Bill Swarfega & The Zeniths 
We Applaud Smoke             The Wag of Shop 14      
 White Mathematics             Brutus            
The Lupin Who Became a Policeman  

   Mercifully, we weren't ever called any of those, although we were called a lot worse at one or two gigs!  History shows however, that " The Wag of Shop 14" and "Brutus" eventually became  songs on our set list. Orville Cosmo, Ted Explosion and Morce McCame also got some album credits. 

   Arnold was in Satin Pig and Milestones  before he  joined The Parrot. We have also actually appeared at various  venues as "Buzzard's Luck" and "The Grit Tray."  The Blog of course refers to another BPS Song-"The Bold Pirate," and if we ever had a Tour it might be "Mac Awe on Tour." 

     A few years back, along with a friend,  we got very close to launching a new monthly Folk and Acoustic venue in Coventry. We had the room booked,in a big complex on a major bus route. We had a shortlist of artistes to be featured. The Residency and M.C. duties were sorted. Our own P.A.  Great room, with its own separate bar, dispensing Real Ale. Lovely furnishings, Dance floor. We'd  even done Sound checks.  Excellent (free) parking. The venue were very excited about it-they still talk rather wistfully about how close it all got to actually happening. Trouble was...we couldn't agree on a name, and the whole project went Base Over Apex. ....Hang on...let me just   write that down somewhere....  

Welcome to Sleep Town

"Dream carefully"

Tomorrow, some of us will be saying our last  goodbyes to our second ex-Parrot. One of our ex-drummers, Jeff Powles began pining for the Fjords a few years ago now. And tomorrow we bid farewell to a founder member. Graham Caldicott, one of the original band which made their debut in Wolvey Village Hall in 1975.  
 

   "Garsi" as many knew him, was a creative influence, a lyricist, a vocalist and a showman. When we extended into a six piece and began doing rock venues, "Sleep Town/Acid Rock" became a highlight of a very noisy set. Garsi and I co-wrote it. It was intended to be a parody of Prog. Rock. The first part, which he wrote, conjured up images from a thousand surreal Album covers. Spinal Tap would have loved it.
 

    " Sleep Town Disco " as a brand goes back to 1967. It was how Garsi and I labelled our shared record collection.  To prevent our vinyl 45's  being stolen at parties and well...discos. "Sleep Town" was our own invention-the half awake half asleep place where you dream. It was a location in  Galunia-the mythical land we also created together. We began inventing characters populating Sleep Town, basing it in a crazy Wild West setting, with the "cast" all animals.  This was well before the Star Wars Saloon scene and 46 years before  someone would make a film in a similar vein and call it "Rango."
 

      " Sleep Town" was a magnum opus.  It was really two songs linked by a brief commentary. Underneath a moody bass/drum/keyboard riff, Garsi would begin to eerily sing his own words. Even today, without the music, they give you some idea of his imagination. And note the first anthropomorphic reference to a Vacuum cleaner!

 

A plastic Luger and a rubber hand grenade:

 a Duty-Free bottle of Galunian lemonade-

Welcome to Sleep Town-dream carefully!

Climb upon the coach to the Slumber Saloon

where the Honky Tonk Squirrel will play your favourite tune

A buzzard in drag takes your ticket by the door

Twenty pink flamingos dance across the floor

Welcome to Sleep Town-dream carefully!

 

The Turkey's in the toilet selling Blueland grass

A cow dressed in a leotard fills your foaming glass

a cobra in a top hat introduces the striptease:

" It's Sally The Giraffe-put your hands together please!"

Welcome to Sleep Town-dream carefully!

 

There's a humanoid vacuum cleaner laughing  like a drain

He drinks a toast to Errol Flynn and walks out in the rain

Owls doing the Can Can-flick up leather skirts

Their bony legs are birdlike and you cry until it hurts

I said "Welcome to Sleep Town-dream carefully!"

 

Those images established, and after a bit of white noise from the Parrot , Garsi would put on a "Head's" voice and intone an imaginary conversation between two members of the audience:

" hey man! I'm getting pretty bored with this now-let's move on to The Rotting Priest Club. They got a band on there...let's hear it for....Asthma Sunrise!"

 

More psychedelic power chords, as The Parrot morphed into one of its several other alter egos. ( Asthma Sunrise was one of the other names we considered before going with B.P.S.)  I would then take over the vocals and the lyrics, with a lament on lost Rock Gods pretentious psychedelia and the advent of "Glam," and lost mojos:

Sad days. Sad times. Lonely music. Empty lines
Starships adrift in eternal space
Trying to fit an image to an unknown face
And where is the point in obscurity?
They've Ziggied our Stardust: they've Hawked our Wind
They've Heaped our Uriahs in a Black Sabbath bin
They've Transformered our Reed they've invented our Mothers
We're grateful for The Dead...But where are all the others?
And they're cashing in on mediocrity.

They found them on motorways, they found them in pools
they found them taking drugs in the company of fools
They have a hundred roadies to ferry all their noise
which disguises the fact that they think like little boys
They take all our money from their albums and their gigs
And invest it in bullshit which they think the public digs
Cosmic sandwiches and astral pies
Are pouring from their fingertips and dripping from their thighs
They've lost their heads, they've played out a last scene
And where it's now at is where it never should have been

And The Parrot ......go on playing........ till they're bored.

Which we did. Garsi and I would take a rest as Vance (drums), Mandrago (bass) Mick (keyboards) and Arnold (lead guitar) would jam till they ran out of ideas or stamina. A long, improvised instrumental mash-up. I have one very ropey recording of it-and it lasts around 17 minutes.


Welcome to Sleep Town, Gars.  Dream Carefully.

 

Wuffing It

    Who would have thought that, on a Sunday Night, you could have 17 different musicians, playing a diverse range of acoustic music to a large audience in the depths of leafy Warwickshire?  Yep. 17. Count them : Colin Squire, Pete Willow, Bob Brooker, Nigel Ward, Richard Ryder, Banjo Dave Patterson, Carol Wilkinson, a fine guitar player called Eddie, Syl Cullen, Boo Cullen, DragonHead, (two of them), Sue Sanders, Jan Richardson and Mahendra Patel,  and little old me. Oh!...did I miss one out? Ah yes...the redoubtable Mr.Sean Cannon.  When you consider that regular Dogs Paul Kenny, John "Tool" McKintosh  and Martin Bushnell were missing-it was a remarkable turnout.

 

    I try to weave the word "eclectic" into all my Blog entries, but really, last Sunday night's "Sly Old Dogs and Friends" session at The Bell, Monks Kirby was exactly that.     Instrumentation included guitars, (at least!) three banjo players, mandolins, a melodeon, two percussionists, tin whistles and two fiddle players.  Mr. Cannon was prised (non too reluctantly) away from his fish supper to give us a few tunes. In fact, he gave us several.

 

   We had songs from Ireland and Scotland. We had Cajun, Country and Blues. We had self-penned, trad. arr. and handed down. We had instrumentals, jigs, reels, and laments. We had a capella and we had the massed choirs of Monks Kirby. Sometimes the nights here get so busy that Paco, the Gaffer, doesn't even get time to play his spoons. But he did duet rather movingly with Sean on a song they sang entirely in Spanish. It was that kind of night

 

    I first of all sang two folk songs written by Black Parrot Seaside's recently deceased founder member, Graham Caldicott-"Blueland Boy" and "Dirty Gertie." The latter one we still often do. In the second half, accompanied by honorary Parrot Sue Sanders, I tackled for the first time in public, a song called "All The Good Times." We'd both previously expressed and admiration for this song. It features on the album "The Gypsy" by that excellent electric Folk Band Mr. Fox.  In the third half, with the emphasis towards Ireland unmistakeable, I took another opportunity to warble the lovely (until I got hold of it) "On Raglan Road."